“I begged you to take me with you.” She wrenched the door open, but stepped back, that Michael might precede her into the castle.
She had pleaded and cried for half their wedding night, sounding not so much like a distressed bride as an inconsolable child, and because he’d been only five years her senior, he’d stolen away in the morning while she’d slept, tears still streaking her pale cheeks.
He searched for honest words that would not wound her further.
“I prayed for your well-being every night. The idea that you were here, safe and sound, comforted me.”
She plucked a thorny pink rose from a trellis beside the door and passed the bloom to him.
“Who or what was supposed to comfort me, Michael Brodie? When I was told you’d gone over to the enemy? When I was told you were dead? When I imagined you captured by the French, or worse?”
They stood on the castle steps, their every word available to any in the great hall or lurking at nearby windows. Rather than fret over the possibility that his wife had been unfaithful to him—her questions were offered in rhetorical tones—Michael stepped closer.
“Your husband has come home, and it will be his pleasure to make your comfort his greatest concern.”
He even tried a smile, letting her see that man and wife might have some patching up to do, but man and woman could deal together well and very soon.
She looked baffled—or peevish. He could not read his own wife accurately enough to distinguish between the two.
“Have you baggage, Husband?”
Yes, he did. He gestured for her to go ahead of him into the hall. “Last I heard, the coach was following, but I haven’t much in the way of worldly goods.”
“I’ll have your things put in the blue bedroom.”
When she would have gone swishing off into the bowels of the castle, Michael grabbed her wrist and kept her at his side. She remained facing half-away from him, an ambiguous pose, not resisting, and not exactly drinking in the sight of her long-lost husband, either.
“What’s different?” He studied the great hall he’d stopped seeing in any detail by his third birthday. “Something is different. This place used to be…dark. Like a great ice cave.”
And full of mice and cobwebs.
She twisted her hand free of his.
“Nothing much is different. I had the men enlarge the windows, whitewash the walls, polish the floors. The room wanted light, we had a bit of coin at the time, and the fellows needed something to do.”
“You put a balcony over the fireplace.” She’d also had the place scrubbed from the black-and-white marble floor to the blackened crossbeams, freeing it of literally centuries of dirt.
“The ceilings are so high we lose all the warmth. When we keep the fires going, the reading balcony is warmer than the hall below it.”
She’d taken a medieval hall and domesticated it without ruining its essential nature, made it…comfortable. Or comforting? Bouquets of pink roses graced four of the deep windowsills, and every chair and sofa sported a Brodie plaid folded over the back. Not the darker, more complicated hunting plaid Brenna wore, but the cheerful red, black, and yellow used every day.
“I like it very much, Brenna. The hall is welcoming.” Even if the lady was not.
She studied the great beams twenty feet overhead—or perhaps entreated the heavens for aid—while Michael caught a hint of a smile at his compliment.
That he’d made his wife smile must be considered progress, however miniscule.
Then her smile died. “Angus, good day.”
Michael followed her line of sight to a sturdy kilted fellow standing in the doorway of the shadowed corridor that led to the kitchens. Even in the obscure light, Michael recognized an uncle who had been part older brother and part father, the sight of whom now was every part dear.
“Never say the village gossip was for once true! Our Michael has come home at last.” Angus hustled across the great hall, his kilt flapping against his knees. “Welcome, lad! Welcome at long last, and God be thanked you’re hale and in one grand piece, aren’t you now?”
A hug complete with resounding thumps on the back followed, and in his uncle’s greeting, Michael found the enthusiasm he’d hoped for from his wife.
From anybody.
“Surely the occasion calls for a wee dram,” Angus said. His hair was now completely white, though he was less than twenty years Michael’s senior. He wasn’t as tall as Michael, but his build was muscular, and he looked in great good health.
“The man needs to eat before you’re getting him drunk,” Brenna interjected. She stood a few feet off, directly under crossed claymores that gleamed with the same shine as the rest of the hall.
“We can take a tray in the library, woman,” Angus replied. “When a man hasn’t seen his nephew for nigh ten years, the moment calls for whiskey and none of your fussy little crumpets, aye?”
Brenna twitched the tail of her plaid over her shoulder, a gesture about as casual as a French dragoon swinging into the saddle.
“I will feed my husband a proper meal at a proper table, Angus Brodie, and your wee dram will wait its turn.”
Angus widened his stance, fists going to his hips, suggesting not all battlefields were found on the Continent.
“Uncle, Brenna has the right of it. I haven’t eaten since this morning. One glass of good spirits, and I’d be disgracing my heritage. Food first, and then we’ll find some sipping whiskey.”
Brenna moved off to stick her finger in a white crockery bowl of roses, while Angus treated Michael to a look of good-humored disgruntlement.
“She runs a fine kitchen, does our Brenna. Do it justice, and find me in the office when you’ve eaten your fill. I’m that glad you’re back, lad.”
He strode off, the tassels on his sporran bouncing against his thick thighs, while Brenna shook droplets of water off the end of her finger.
“Does my uncle often cross swords with you?”
She wiped her finger on her plaid. “He does not, not now. He leaves the castle to me. I’m sure your arrival is the only thing that tempted him past the door. What are you hungry for?”
He was hungry for her smiles. A soldier home from war had a right to be hungry for his wife’s smiles.
“Anything will do, though I’ve a longing for a decent scone. The English can’t get them right, you know, and they skimp with the butter and must dab everything with their infernal jams, when what’s wanted is some heather honey.”
Compared to the little curve of her lips he’d seen earlier, this smile was…riveting. Brenna had grown into a lovely woman, but when she aimed that smile at Michael, he had the first inkling she might be a lovable woman, too. Her smile held warmth and welcome, maybe even a touch of approval.
“A batch of scones has just come out of the oven, Michael Brodie. If we hurry, you can get your share before the cousins come raiding.”
He followed her into the depths of the house, watching her skirts twitch, and entertaining naughty, husbandly thoughts.
Until he recalled that the blue bedroom where Brenna was sending his baggage was a guest chamber, across a cold, drafty hallway and several doors down from the laird’s apartments.
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The Traitor
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About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Grace Burrowes hit the bestseller lists with her debut, The Heir, followed by The Soldier, Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal, and Lady Eve’s Indiscretion. The Heir was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010, The Soldier was a Publishers Weekly Best Spring Romance of 2011, Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish won Best Historic
al Romance of the Year in 2011 from RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards, Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight was a Library Journal Best Book of 2012, and The Bridegroom Wore Plaid, the first in her trilogy of Scotland-set Victorian romances, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2012. All of her Regency and Victorian romances have received extensive praise, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Darius, the first in her groundbreaking Regency series The Lonely Lords, was named one of iBookstores Best Romances of 2013.
Grace is a practicing family law attorney and lives in rural Maryland. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached through her website at graceburrowes .com.
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