The Laird (Captive Hearts) (14 page)

She climbed onto the bed and hitched up against the pillows, pulling the covers to her chin as Michael moved around the room, blowing out candles.

He came to the last lit candle, the one on his side of the bed, and made a decision.

“Will you sleep in your kilt tonight?” Brenna asked, smoothing a hand down the quilt.

Michael turned his back to his wife, unpinned the wool, and let the kilt fall to the floor. “No, I will not.”

He faced her, held still long enough to let her have a good look, then blew out the candle.

***

“Is a display of manly attributes your daft notion of enticing me into your arms?” How casual her voice sounded, when Brenna’s heart was thumping like a trapped hare’s. She shifted to organize her pillows, and her foot brushed up against a hairy male shin.

“In Spain, we slept in our clothes, night after night, for two reasons. We had to be ready to fight, of course, because sneak attacks by the French or the peasants were a possibility at any point.” His recitation took no apparent notice of Brenna’s accidental contact with his shin. “Then too, an officer caught out of uniform was subject to torture, as if war wasn’t torture enough.”

She’d gone still like a trapped hare, too, because not only was Michael naked—gloriously, fascinatingly naked—but he’d also strayed closer to Brenna’s side of the bed.

“I see.” She saw nothing, for the moon wasn’t up yet, and clouds had made for an early sunset, though she caught the scent of heather, vetiver, and lavender from her husband’s person.

“What did you do with your busy self today, Brenna Maureen? I catch the occasional glimpse of you, but you’re always barreling around some corner, like the King’s post making its last mile of the day.”

“Summer is a busy season.” A toe nudged up the length of Brenna’s calf. Just that, a glancing nudge. If he could ignore these little mishaps, so could she. “Getting Maeve unpacked took some time, because the child has her own ideas about how her things should be put away.”

Based on the amount of luggage the girl had brought, Bridget had indeed sent Maeve away permanently.

“You left Elspeth to humor the girl, and then what?”

“I oversee the laundry, as much to catch up on the gossip as to make sure the clothes are clean.”

The mattress bounced as Michael swatted at his pillows. When he’d subdued them, he was closer still.

“Fraternizing with your troops. Every good officer learns the knack of fraternizing without being familiar. I love the scent of these sheets.”

The compliment pleased her for its very casualness, despite Michael’s proximity.

“We hang them in the sun when we can, or spread them over the lavender bushes. Michael, is there a reason why you must neglect your own side of the bed?”

“Yes, there is. What was the gossip?” He abandoned any pretense of stealth, slipped an arm under Brenna’s neck, and drew her against his side.

“Goodie MacCray’s youngest thinks Neil MacLogan is handsome, which, the ladies agree, he is, though his conversation is lacking.”

“Perhaps he expresses himself more clearly through deeds.”

Such subtlety. “Michael, what are you about?”

“I’m giving you a hint.” He gave her temple a kiss too. “In case you were puzzled about exactly how I want to be wooed.”

Brenna was not puzzled. She was tired, she was worried about the addition of Maeve to the household, she fretted over Michael’s remarks earlier about rents being unpaid, and she…liked the scent of her husband’s shoulder.

He and his wooing would drive her to Bedlam. “I don’t suppose my husband would care for another piece of shortbread?”

His chest bounced, as if he chuckled. “I know better than to risk getting crumbs on our newly washed sheets.”

Michael’s fingers traced the hair back from Brenna’s brow, the caress beguilingly tender.

Though not the least bit threatening. “You want
affection
from me, Husband?”

Michael didn’t immediately answer, and as the silence drew out, Brenna felt uncertainty shading toward despair. She was twenty-five years old and had no instincts, no internal compass, when it came to the most basic marital matters.

Worse, she likely never would. This lack was a particularly miserable way to be broken, invisible and yet intimately obvious. She braced herself to roll away, but Michael’s arm gently dissuaded her.

“I do want affection from you.” Michael’s tone said this conclusion surprised him. “I want it desperately.”

And yet, he lay there, his arm around her, his desperation apparently checked.

Or perhaps he was uncertain too?

His fingers swept slowly across her brow; his chest rose and fell.

“When you were in the army, there was no affection, was there? You fought, you marched, you besieged, you tortured, and there was no one to take your hand or lie down with you on a chilly summer night. No one to know you favor lavender in your shortbread.”

The nights had been cold, he’d said. Brenna would learn to listen to her husband more carefully. She tucked a knee across his thighs, wondering what was so delightful about war that men endured it for a day, much less for a decade.

“I had the memory of your smiles,” he said. “I had the old songs. I had hope.”

Hope was not a cuddly bedfellow. Hope was a nightingale, perched on the windowsill in the dead of winter, tempted to seek death rather than endure another moment of uncertain captivity.

Brenna reached up in the darkness and cupped her husband’s jaw, bristly with a day’s growth of beard. “I’ll give you a hint too, Michael.”

He caught her hand and ran his nose over her wrist, then held her fingers in his. No kissing, no clutching, nothing but a joining of hands. “I’m listening.”

“When you tell your uncle”—Brenna wasn’t going to say his name in this bed, not ever—“when you tell him that our marriage is none of his business, and never will be, you’re doing a fine job of wooing your wife.”

They fell asleep entwined, the cool breezes wafting in through the open window, while under the covers, husband and wife were snug and warm.

***

Scotland was cold and bumpy. Ireland was wet and bumpy. One had shortbread, the other soda bread, but other than that, Maeve could not find significant differences.

For in neither country had she anybody to play with.

“I’m like a princess in a tower,” she informed the fat orange pantry mouser, which was batting at daisies blooming in the shelter of the garden wall.

Bridget had had a walled garden in Ireland, all neat and trim, the walls low. Here, the walls were high and thick, serious about keeping out both bitter wind and prying eyes. The flowers were the stubborn varieties, nothing delicate about them.

“Does your brother know you’re hiding in here?”

The man stood in the only door to the garden, the breeze catching his kilt.

“You’re Uncle Angus. Bridget said I’m to stay away from you because you have a wicked temper.”

White brows shot up. “I’ve a temper? As I recall, our dear Bridget was easily vexed herself, and over mud, dogs in the house, and other infractions which the sovereign has disgracefully neglected to make hanging felonies.” He wasn’t smiling, but his blue eyes said he was teasing.

“You know Bridget?”

“I’m her uncle too, child. Were you aware there’s a tiger in your garden?”

More teasing, and Maeve liked it. “That’s Preacher. Michael says he brings the mice their eternal reward.”

“Aye, and he brings the lady cats something else entirely.” Uncle crossed his arms and got comfortable against the worn jamb of the garden door. “How is Scotland suiting you so far?”

He was the first person to ask her this question, and the way he watched her suggested he would listen to her answer, not be off about some grown-up errand even as Maeve considered her reply.

“I don’t know yet. The shortbread is nice. Brenna makes it with lavender, and Michael said it’s his favorite.”

“It’s not your favorite, is it, princess?”

Had he overheard her? The notion was both unsettling and pleasing. “Lavender is for soap.”

“And lemon drops are for little girls.” From his coat pocket, he withdrew a sack, one Maeve recognized might contain sweets. He shook it, the sound tantalizing. “Come sweeten your day, little Maeve. You’ve certainly sweetened mine.”

More teasing. Maeve rose from the grass and advanced on him. He wore the same plaid as everybody else around the castle except Brenna, and he was tall, though not quite as tall as Michael. She had to reach up to get at the sweets, which meant Uncle was still teasing her.

“Thank you.” She popped the little candy in her mouth, and it did taste of lemon and sugar—also of bitter smoke. She did not spit it out, because that would be rude, and Uncle Angus seemed nice.

“I used to come here to sketch on a pretty day, but you’re bored, aren’t you, child?”

Nice, and he paid attention. Maeve watched the cat disappear among the daisies. “Brenna said I might take this garden in hand, but it’s a wreck.”

“A pretty wreck,” Uncle Angus said. “Like our Brenna.”

Maeve didn’t know what to say about that. “Preacher likes it here.”

“Come winter, Preacher will like it much better under your covers. Have you met Lachlan?”

The daisies rustled, but no desperate little squeak suggested Preacher had put an end to a hapless rodent.

“I haven’t met anybody except Michael and Brenna. Prebish is resting, and Elspeth is busy.”

Uncle snapped off a daisy and held it out to her. This was clever of him, a grown-up trick, because daisy stems were tough. “Do you know where the stables are, child?”

Maeve nodded, twirling her flower and watching the now-still daisies. “I saw them from the parapet. You can see everything from up there.”

“Take yourself to the stables, and you’ll find a boy named Lachlan who’s about your age. By Highland standards, he’s a cousin-in-law of sorts to you, and he’s horse mad. Ye ken?”

Bridget’s husband had been horse mad. Kevin’s house was full of pictures of horses, he wore riding clothes until teatime, and in spring, he stayed in the barn all night if a mare was close to foaling. When he talked about his horses, he sounded like he was reading poetry.

“Lachlan’s my cousin?”

“Not quite, but he’s Brenna’s cousin, which counts nearly the same in these parts. He’s a good lad, and I’m sure he’ll introduce you to the horses and the stable cats if you ask him.”

“I like horses and cats, but I wasn’t allowed to have a pony in Ireland. Ponies are expensive.”

Bloody damned expensive, according to certain grown-ups whom Maeve had been allowed to overhear more than once—purposely, she suspected.

“Find Lachlan, but don’t tell him I told you where he was. He’s truant from the kitchen, and I wouldn’t want to get the lad in trouble.”

He winked at her and strode off, his kilt swinging the same way Michael’s did. A flash of orange caught Maeve’s eye, and there, eight feet above the daisies, the cat sat on the top of the wall.

“I’m going to the stables to find my cousin.” Though in Ireland, she’d had a sister, and Bridget had seldom been good company. Maeve had a brother here…somewhere.

The cat sat atop the wall, its expression as dour as a preacher’s. When the beast started washing its paws, Maeve felt well and truly ignored—and free to find her cousin.

It occurred to her, as she tried unsuccessfully to snap off a lovely white daisy, that if Uncle had remained rooted in the doorway, her only escape from the garden would have been over the walls. She spat out the lemon drop, brandished the daisy before her like a sword, and charged off toward the stables.

Seven

The gardens at the back of Brenna’s castle were like her: tidy, contained, and modest, also more appealing the longer Michael studied them. Pansies did well here, and Brenna used their vivid colors for contrasting borders. She’d found a variety with the same blue as Maeve’s eyes, and used it to edge a bed of something white and frothy.

As white as the sun-bleached sheets on Michael’s bed. He mentally pitched that analogy aside, but a heavy tread on the other side of the hedge stopped him from rising from his bench and getting on with his day.

“Shouldn’t you be up on your parapets, Brenna MacLogan?” Angus’s voice held a note of cajolery, but also a touch of something unpleasant.

And the lady’s name was Brenna Brodie, and had been for nearly a decade.

“Stand aside, old man. Where I go is no concern of yours.” Michael hadn’t heard Brenna’s approach, but he
heard
her lifting her chin.

“This was my home long before you appeared, young lady, and it will be my home until the day I die. You’d best watch your tongue.”

While Michael debated intervening, a silence stretched. An orange cat—a tom from the dimensions of his head—came strutting along past the roses.

“You had best watch yours, Angus Brodie. I heard you tell Lachlan nobody would miss him if he wanted to enjoy a few minutes of a pretty day.” Brenna’s accusation might have been of murder most foul, for all the venom in her tone.

“He’s a boy, Brenna MacLogan, a species you will never understand, else you’d not have allowed Michael to waste ten years of his life soldiering on the bloody Continent.”