The Laird (Captive Hearts) (25 page)

Brenna ran a finger down a page of her ledger, as if answers lay in these neat columns and tidy figures. “The Brodie lands lost money. That would be in Angus’s ledgers. Angus has certainly not let me forget that we’d have much more coin were it not for my carelessness.”

“Bad enough that criminals are forever blaming their victims,” Milly said. “Worse yet when the family who should protect you takes the same position.”

Her ladyship took another nip from the pretty little flask.

“I like you, Baroness St. Clair, and I am very glad you’ve come to visit. Let’s get you up to your chambers, and I’ll fetch Mairead Dolan if I have to drag her here by the hair.”

“I feel better,” Milly said, surprised to find it was the truth. “Perhaps all I need is rest.” And to talk with her husband.

“Then rest you shall have,” Brenna said, rising. “Travel is fatiguing under the best of circumstances, just ask wee Maeve.”

They chatted their way up to Milly’s rooms, about the small child who’d recently come to visit from Ireland, about the difficulties of getting acquainted with a husband who’d left not twenty-four hours after his wedding.

As Milly parted from her hostess at the bedroom door, she considered that Sebastian had arranged this journey north on the strength of a mere hunch, a conviction clothed as a whim, that Michael Brodie needed an ally.

Sebastian hadn’t been wrong. Michael Brodie needed an ally badly, as did Michael Brodie’s baroness.

***

“We’ll take them shopping,” Michael announced, snagging St. Clair by the arm. “What fellow doesn’t gain his lady’s approval when he takes her shopping?”

St. Clair came peaceably, which was fortunate, because Michael knew not what else he could propose in the face of St. Clair’s worries.

“Milly might not have the energy for shopping,” St. Clair said. “She spent much of yesterday abed, and my baroness is not a woman to idle about.”

My
baroness
—how casually St. Clair referred to his relatively new wife.

Michael led his friend across the cobbled bailey, finding St. Clair’s anxiety both endearing and irritating—for it matched his own.

“
My
baroness
says travel is fatiguing, as does my wee sister. Your lady needed a day to recover, and now a frippery or two will put her in charity with you, or allow her a bit of revenge for being dragged the length of the Great North Road and beyond. You never fretted like this over your garrison in France.”

St. Clair wrestled free of Michael’s hold, and abruptly, a pretty Scottish summer morning became fraught.

“I fretted. I fretted nigh incessantly over the damned men, their damned families, the damned supplies and lack thereof, the damned prisoners,
you
—”

St. Clair’s role in France had been difficult and complicated, while Michael’s had been difficult and simple: Michael’s job had been to watch over St. Clair.

He’d been damned relieved to turn that responsibility over to Millicent St. Clair.

“And you’re fretting over me still?” Michael hazarded. What else could explain this impromptu journey of hundreds of miles, without an invitation, and the lady in an interesting condition?

The clip-clop of heavy, iron-shod hooves ricocheted off the walls of the bailey like so many pistol shots.

“That is an enormous horse,” St. Clair remarked as Bannockburn was led out of the stables.

“Named for an enormous battle—or for breakfast,” Michael replied. “You need not fret over me, St. Clair. My Brenna has taken over the post and does a better job than you ever could. Come along, and you can buy me a frippery to restore my good graces.”

St. Clair belted him on the arm—a goodly smack but not too hard. “You never once said you were married.”

And thus they reached the foundation of St. Clair’s worries. Michael resumed walking rather than air more linen where any boot boy or lady’s maid might come by.

“I never said I wasn’t married. What color hair ribbon shall I buy for my Brenna?”

St. Clair laughed, which was the object of such a ridiculous question between former soldiers. A hint of that humor lingered in the baron’s eyes when Michael announced to the ladies that a sortie would be made to the village after lunch.

“To the village?” Rather than offer him an approving smile, Brenna’s question was careful. The way she patted her lips with her serviette was careful too.

“We’ll stop at the tavern and enjoy some of the finest summer ale in the Highlands,” Michael said with a wink—while the ladies exchanged a glance that was also careful.

Reinforcements arrived a heartbeat too late from St. Clair. “I’ve a notion to stretch my legs, and a ramble to the village would suit—if my lady is up to the exertion?”

Brenna rose so quickly Michael barely stopped her chair from toppling. “We’ll take the carriage.”

For a ramble down the hill?

St. Clair’s lady was on her feet as well. “I’ll need to change my shoes. Sebastian, Michael, if you’ll excuse us?”

The ladies departed, though neither had finished her meal.

“What was that about?” St. Clair asked, helping himself to a chicken leg from his wife’s uneaten portion.

Michael scraped the last bite of mashed potatoes from Brenna’s plate. She had Cook flavor them with butter, cheese, and chives, an improvement over the army’s version of the same offering.

“Probably consulting each other on the preferred color of hair ribbon.” Though all Brenna’s ribbons were green, and Michael had never noticed what color Baroness St. Clair preferred.

When the ladies assembled on the front steps, Brenna pulled Michael over to the climbing trellis of pink roses. “This will be a short outing, Husband.”

“You are not pleased with the prospect of spending some coin on yourself?”

She gave him the sort of look that in an instant conveyed both incredulity and expletives.

“The baroness is in a
delicate
condition, ye daft mon. She canna be haring all over the shire at her fellow’s whim.”

Milly St. Clair had been dragged the length of the
realm
at her husband’s whim, suggesting Brenna’s anxiety was ill-placed.

“I want to spoil you a bit,” Michael said, plucking her a rose and getting stuck in the thumb with a thorn for his troubles. “I want to show you off and assure the world we’re in charity with each other.” Because they were—in charity with each other.

He was almost sure of it.

And he wanted to buy her a hair ribbon that wasn’t green, but he passed her the rose and kept that silliness to himself.

“What am I to do with you?” Brenna said, sniffing at the rose.

“Does that mean you love me too?”

She smacked him across the cheek with the little rose, but smiled as she did, and then climbed into the waiting coach without allowing him to assist her.

***

The ladies bought hair ribbons, they bought muffins, and they each dropped a coin in the poor box when Michael suggested they sit for a moment in the churchyard to take advantage of the shade.

The day was the sort of summer day Michael enjoyed most—warm in the sun but almost cold in the shade—and yet, the outing was not going according to plan.

The baker had not added that free, thirteenth muffin intended to curry a customer’s favor. The apothecary’s thumb had hovered a quarter-inch above the scale when he’d weighed out the ladies’ peppermint tea. Michael’s raised eyebrow had kept that thumb from adding a larcenous bit of weight to the scale.

“Let’s have that ale,” St. Clair said, rising from his bench and offering his hand to the baroness.

The doting looked good on a man who was a caretaker at heart. When Michael offered Brenna his escort, she put her hand on his arm gingerly, like a debutante at her first ball.

Perhaps they needed more practice with the business of procuring fripperies, because the visit to the village felt
off
.

“Why do you buy only green ribbons for your hair?” Michael asked as they ambled toward the tavern. “The truth, Brenna, or I will kiss you right here in the churchyard.”

His threat provoked a snort. “That churchyard has seen more souls made than saved, according to Goodie MacCray. I’m your wife, perhaps I’ll kiss you.”

He kissed her cheek without breaking stride, and the outing became cheerier.

“I thought you liked green ribbons in my hair,” Brenna said quietly, as if St. Clair, who was nigh plastered to the baroness’s side, might have been eavesdropping on this great confidence.

For it was a great confidence.

“I like your hair in a green ribbon. I also like it unbound. I especially like it in complete disarray and spilling down your back while I love you.”

“Hush.” She bussed his cheek before he could kiss her again, and that would have put Michael in charity with the entire world, except the tavern went quiet as he ushered his lady and their guests to the snug.

“Let’s try this summer ale you’ve boasted about,” St. Clair said, assisting his wife to the bench along the wall. St. Clair scooted in beside the baroness, and for all the bonhomie in his words, his eyes were hard.

Whatever was amiss, St. Clair had picked up on it too.

“I’ll place our order at the bar,” Michael said. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me?”

As Michael wended his way between tables, he assured himself that an English peer was not likely to meet with a warm welcome in the wilds of Aberdeenshire. The ’45 was as close in memory as Davey MacCray’s most recent ballad, and in Michael’s childhood, he’d known old men who’d claimed to recall the battle in all its tragic, gory detail.

While every family in Scotland could recall the hardships and butchery following Culloden.

“Two pints of summer ale, and two ladies’ pints,” Michael told the barkeeper.

No polite banter followed, no small talk about the weather. When Michael left coins on the polished oak surface of the bar, the barkeeper hesitated a moment before scooping them into a pocket.

“My thanks,” Michael said, and because he took a moment to thread his fingers through the handles of four mugs, Michael overheard Dora Hennessey’s muttered aside to one of the Landon sisters.

“Had to bring her fancy coach down the hill, didn’t she? Had to throw her coin around on frivolities and go strutting about with her English friends.”

He tarried, as if his hands were too clumsy to manage four mugs, but it was his mind that felt clumsy.

The parsimony of the baker and the apothecary, the odd looks at the lending library, the absence of greetings from anybody passing by the churchyard—this rudeness was not a function of prejudice against the English in general, but rather, was animosity directed solely against Brenna.

His dear and beloved Brenna, whom he’d left behind when he went off to war.

Michael marched over to the biddies hunched over their tea along the far wall, like a pair of broody hens unwilling to leave their nesting boxes.

“Ladies, Brenna thought you might enjoy a summer ale. She’s ever so considerate, is our Brenna. For example, she insisted the coach be brought out for Lady St. Clair’s use, knowing how limited a woman’s energy can be when she’s traveled far in a certain condition.”

He thunked the two smaller mugs down on the table, when he’d rather have upended them and smashed the crockery.

“Th-thank you, Laird,” the Landon besom managed.

“Thank my wife.”

Michael stomped off, growled an order for two more lady’s pints to the barkeeper, and rejoined his party in the snug.

When he saw the ladies across the room were sending him wary looks, he kissed his wife’s cheek and saluted with his mug.

Twelve

“They went to the village without me.” Maeve’s lips quivered as she made this announcement. She stomped over to the bread basket, mostly because that would keep her back to Cook.

“Aye, and you’re supposed to be working on your penmanship with Miss Elspeth,” Cook said. She was beheading carrots, which as far as Maeve was concerned, was a fine fate for carrots—except then they’d likely show up in a stew pot or on Maeve’s plate.

“Elspeth went to the village too, and told me to read myself a story, as if it’s bedtime.”

Cook’s cleaver paused. “You’ve no one to read you a story of a night?”

Bridget used to, sometimes, but then Kevin would come by, his hair neatly combed back, his fingernails spotless, and declare it was time to blow out the candles. Bridget never argued with him, not for one more page, not for one more paragraph.

“I can read to myself.”

Sure enough, Cook scooped up all but two of the carrots and tossed them into a huge stew pot. Next she’d deal with the turnips and potatoes, because neeps and tatties went with everything here in Scotland.

“Would you care for a piece of shortbread, wee Maeve?”

“No thank you.” Shortbread would not make Maeve’s brother like her, much less love her, much less pay attention to her. “I’m off to find Preacher.”

“You can look in the stables, I’m thinking.” Cook held out the two carrots, and damn—damn was a very bad word, but Elspeth said using it in your mind wasn’t wicked—damn if that didn’t make Maeve feel like crying too.