“And I believe I’d still be kissing you senseless if we hadn’t been interrupted.”
“While that’s quite likely,” Laurel huffed. “We aren’t kissing now, so go.”
“There’s an easy remedy to that.” Brodie cocked an eyebrow.
“Perhaps you should bed me while you’re here. Make my fall from grace a fait accompli.”
“Are you offering, Laurie? Because I won’t turn you down.” Brodie snapped his mouth shut, not having intended to admit such.
“I suppose you assume every woman who kisses you intends upon falling into bed with you. Arrogant mon.” Laurel reached for her sewing and sat down once more. Brodie remained glowering at her. “You may remain there until you become part of the furniture if you wish, but it won’t change aught.”
“If I am but a piece of furniture, then perhaps you should sit on me,” Brodie taunted, his smirk and cocked eyebrow confirmed the innuendo.
“I can think of more comfortable places upon which to rest my arse,” Laurel didn’t shift her attention from her embroidery. “And you hardly look up to the task.”
“I assure you I am vera much up to the task.”
“So you say. Furniture is meant to carry weight, so must you.”
“Women are meant to carry, so must you.”
Laurel’s laugh was hollow. “Not by you, if that’s what you mean.”
“Since I will be your husband, there is no one else I could mean.” Brodie crossed his bulging arms over his expansive chest, continuing to glower at Laurel. If he’d thought his expression would change her mind, he’d foolishly underestimated her mettle. But he didn’t miss the lust that returned to her eyes when she glanced up and noticed his taut muscles bunching beneath his leine. He reached out a gentle hand to her, his fingers resting on her pulse point and his thumb settling into the hollow at the base of her neck. When Laurel’s eyes met his and she set aside her embroidery, he pulled lightly with his fingers. She rose and stepped toward him. “I tire of arguing with you, Laurie. I never wanted to in the first place. I enjoy the banter, but not when we are at odds with one another.”
“You’ve known me a sennight. Why does it matter? Why do you bother if not for the bet or your pride?”
“I took your memory to be better than that,” Brodie softened his tone. “Can you have already forgotten what I said in the stairwell?”
“But why do you think you understand me?”
“Because I do.” There was no arrogance in his tone. It was merely matter of fact.
“Then how do you understand me?” Laurel pressed.
“Because in each situation, you say just what I would have. Why do you think our rapport is so easy? How it came to us so smoothly?”
“We are rather alike. I can usually anticipate how others will respond because they are predictable. You are hardly that. However, our minds run along the same path, and I’m unaccustomed to it. It’s a wee disconcerting.” Laurel grinned. The light-hearted expression lit up her face, and Brodie found himself dazzled. She lifted her chin, and he accepted the offer, pressing a soft kiss to her pliant lips. Unlike the previous two, there was no frenzy in this one. Passion, yes, but affection too.
The episode was brief—and over before Laurel wanted—but church bells chiming interrupted the moment. Laurel bit her bottom lip as she gazed up at Brodie, unsure of what would come next. She hadn’t lied when she said she appreciated her freedom, and she hadn’t lied when she said she intended to find a cottage where she could make a life on her own. Her budding interest in Brodie warred with her ever-long wish to escape. She wondered if Brodie was her means of escape. But she feared she would only place herself in another cage, one where she was locked with someone else. She didn’t know if there was any that could accommodate them both.
“Laurie, you’re still thinking aboot striking out on your own,” Brodie whispered. “I see the doubt and the contemplation in your eyes. You have to know that would never be possible, if for no other reason than you’re a laird’s daughter.”
“Soon to be disowned,” Laurel corrected.
“Soon to wed,” Brodie challenged.
“I doubt you are as certain aboot marrying me as I am aboot my freedom. You have not spent years wishing for me as I have spent wishing to be on my own.”
“Would that our world worked that way, one where a woman can determine her future for herself. But that is not where we are.” Brodie shook his head. “Hear me out, please. I don’t doubt that you could keep hearth and home within a cottage or that you would work to earn your keep. But you would never to be safe.”
“I would if people thought I was a widow,” Laurel countered. “And you’ve met me. No mon but you has braved my temper.”
“And many men wouldn’t care what your temper is while they’ve got you pinned on you back or over a table.”
Laurel’s eyes narrowed at Brodie’s warning. She would never admit out loud that what he said was her singular fear about striking out on her own. “I will note your concern and ensure I am tucked away in my cottage before nightfall.”
Brodie’s chin jerked forward before he glanced at the bed and then out Laurel’s window. “You think a mon would only force you when it’s dark? Laurel, it’s not even mid-morn, and I was ready to have you against the wall or toss you on that bed. Daylight or dark, morn or eve. People couple at all hours of the day and night. It would take but one mon dragging you behind a building or into a copse of trees.”
“Why do you care? I wouldn’t be a noose around your neck.”
“Because it would break you, Laurie. You might survive an attack. You might go on living your life. But it would break your spirit. You wish for control over your life, and that is the one thing they would take from you,” Brodie explained.
“You underestimate me,” Laurel hissed, her arms crossed. But Brodie saw what the movement was. She hugged herself as if to ward away the threat he described.
“No, I don’t by a long shot. But I would hate to think of the fire dimming from your eyes. That someone took that from you,” Brodie said as he brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek. He saw how her blink lasted a moment too long, knew that she savored his touch. He eased his other hand to her waist but did nothing else.
“I might have a completely content life with no harm coming to me,” Laurel whispered.
“You might. But you’re not a fool, Laurie. You know the risk outweighs that possibility.”
“Then what am I to do? Marry you and become your property?”
“When have I given you the impression that I would treat you as such?” Brodie tensed.
“How can I know you won’t?” Laurel countered.
“Because every time your temper flares, I want you more,” Brodie admitted.
“Aye. The challenge of taming the shrewish Laurel Ross must be tempting indeed.”
“You assume the worst of yourself, and in turn, you assume the worst of me. I will not set out to break your spirit.”
“Why does that matter so much to you? Why are you so bent on what happens to me or my spirit?”
“You remind me of my mother. She—” Brodie frowned as Laurel pushed him away.
“What woman wants to marry the mon who claims she reminds him of his mother?” Laurel curled her nose and lip in disgust.
“I didn’t say everything aboot you reminds me of her. I can say plenty of things I’d like to do with and to you that have never crossed my mind aboot her,” Brodie finished with a grin. His hands came to rest on her waist again. “What I was going to say was, she had a tenacity and willfulness that made her a force to be reckoned with when I was a child. But year by year, my father chipped away at it. He forced her to become someone she wasn’t. By the time my father died, she was nearly a shell of herself. She kept to herself when she could, and she rarely spoke to my father for fear of angering him. When he passed, she came back to us. She found her freedom. She passed a few years ago from the ague. But until she fell ill
, she rode across hill and dale every day. She challenged me to become a better laird. She returned to the woman I remembered. But for more years than not, my ambitious and unrelenting father browbeat her.”
“And you think the same would happen to me if I lived on my own?” Laurel’s tone held an edge, but she kept her voice low. As much as she disliked the comparison to a man’s mother, she had to admit that the woman sounded like her. It surprised her that Brodie would share something so intimate with her. She found it warmed her heart that he trusted her and understood her.
“You know, despite how you argue against it, that you won’t have that life. What you are likely to have is a marriage to a mon like my father. Laurie, don’t you see?”
Laurel shook her head, tears filling her eyes. She didn’t understand, but she knew there was something she should grasp before the opportunity was gone.
“I want to give you the very freedom you crave.”
“But I would be your wife. You would control me.”
Brodie dropped his hands and turned away, his patience fraying. He turned back around. “No. I have no interest in controlling you. I believe you are precisely the woman my clan needs. We are large and influential throughout Scotland. It means that many people envy us and wish to see us fall. There is a never-ending array of plots against us by those who wish to have our land and our standing. I need—want—a wife who will stand beside me. Whose council I can trust. One who will fight to keep our home and our clan safe. A woman who few would think to cross, and fewer who would survive if they did. Eliza never would have done that.”
“Eliza?” Laurel’s heart pounded in her chest at the mention of a faceless woman, a woman that perhaps Brodie loved.
“Aye. The woman I married,” Brodie replied with a frown. At Laurel’s astonished expression, Brodie realized how his words sounded. He ran a hand over his face before he took the seat she’d originally offered on the window embrasure. He held out his hand to her and prayed Laurel would take it. She hesitated, then slid her hand into his. He drew her to sit next to him. The tight fit meant Brodie’s shoulder rested against the back of hers when he twisted to make room.
“How can you marry me if you’re already married? Or rather, are you widowed?” Laurel whispered.
“Of a sort.” Brodie’s smile was regretful as he gazed into hazel eyes that held nothing but doubt and questions. “I wedded Eliza MacMillan a fortnight or so ago. It was purely for the alliance it would bring my clan. She was barely four-and-ten. I loathe saying that since I could be the lass’s father.”
“How auld are you?” Laurel interrupted.
“Eight-and-thirty.”
Laurel mulled over Brodie’s response. She supposed his age brought maturity and perhaps an understanding of human nature that a younger man might not possess. She wondered if it was also why he had such patience with her. But then an idea that made her queasy flashed through her mind.
“Are you so patient with me because you see me as a wayward wean who needs minding?” Laurel blurted.
Brodie chuckled. “Lass, there is naught aboot you—your sharp tongue or the delicious mouth in which it lies—that makes me think of you as a wean. And what I wish for us is decidedly not what I would do with a girl.”
Laurel nodded, but her brow furrowed. “Why would you marry someone so young? Do you wish for a young bride?”
“Hardly. What I needed was a chatelaine since my mother passed. What my clan needs is the access to the waterways the MacMillans would have given us.”
“You say was. Did your wife pass?”
Brodie sighed. “I struggle to think of her as such. I couldn’t imagine consummating the marriage, let alone bringing myself to do it. I intended to wait at least two years. Saying our vows in a kirk was the only thing that made it a marriage rather than a betrothal. We were on our way to Kilchurn when our party was attacked, and they murdered Eliza.”
“Oh! Brodie, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Laurel said as she squeezed his hand. Perhaps he hadn’t married the girl out of love, but he’d intended to spend his life with her. When she caught his pained expression, she wrapped her arm as best she could around his shoulders. Brodie inhaled Laurel’s lavender scent and nearly licked her neck. His hand rested on her ribs as he turned his head for a kiss, but she reeled back.
“You tell me your wife died a fortnight ago, you clearly still grieve her, and yet you would kiss me again. Ugh,” Laurel tried to pull away, and Brodie let her. She stood and moved beyond his reach. She watched as Brodie closed his eyes, and she assumed he didn’t wish for her to see his guilty eyes.
“I don’t grieve her, Laurel. Not even the moment it happened. And it makes me a wretched, heartless bastard.”
“What?”
Laurel didn’t realize she drifted forward until she cupped his jaw in her hands. She caught the relief in his expression. When he opened his legs, she stepped between them. The gentleness of her touch was a balm to Brodie’s troubled mind. Neither moved for a long moment before Laurel reached out her hand and caressed Brodie’s chestnut-brown hair. She kept the movement light, but she felt as much as heard his shuddering sigh. Laurel realized it was a moment when she could offer him comfort, just as he had done for her earlier. She draped her other arm over his shoulders, and with a tiny nudge, Brodie laid his head against her middle. He wrapped his arms around her, and they merely held one another.
With a long sigh, Brodie resumed his story. “I know I should, but I didn’t know the lass. She barely spoke enough to say her vows. I’m certain I terrified her despite me reassuring her several times before the wedding and during the journey that I would leave her untouched for years. I wish she wasn’t dead. But that’s only because she was innocent, not because I long for her to still be my wife. I just can’t muster any grief over her death. The guilt I feel is for not feeling enough aboot her. I ken I should, but I don’t.”
“Och, Brodie. If she were but a stranger to you, then how can you blame yourself? You didn’t know her well enough to have aught to miss or regret losing. You can grieve that they killed an innocent woman, but you can’t grieve for something—or someone—you never had. You are not a bad mon for this. That you feel remorse at all tells me more than you or anyone else could put into words. And before you fash, it tells me what I already kenned. You are not a bad mon.” She repeated her final words, praying the emphasis would get through Brodie’s guilt.
“What aboot how I am drawn to you in an inexplicable way, and I have no wish to stop? Not even knowing that I should be in mourning. What aboot how I haven’t thought of Eliza since I last spoke to the king? That was before we even met.”
“Brodie, she wasn’t part of your life. She didn’t have time to be. I have family who I rarely think aboot. I think aboot Balnagown and the Highlands. But I don’t miss my family, and I’ve kenned them my entire life. They’re not part of the life I have now, so there is naught for me to miss. I confess I cannot let go of my anger, but I don’t miss them.”
“But did you grieve their loss when you moved here?”
Laurel paused as she thought back to when she arrived at Stirling eleven years earlier. She’d cried countless times, but it was never for her family specifically. It was for her clan and her life among them. Bitterness and anger filled the hole she supposed should have been gaping from leaving them behind. “No. Mayhap I wouldn’t still be so angry if I had. Mayhap if I’d admitted to myself just how much it hurt me, rather than hiding behind my anger, I would have let it all go.”
“Laurie, I was already forced upon one bride. I don’t wish to do that to another woman. I don’t ken that we can avoid marrying. But if you don’t wish to, and we can avoid it, I will take you to Campbell territory, to Kilchurn, and make sure you have the cottage you want. I can ensure your safety there, and you can have your freedom,” Brodie offered.
Laurel looked down at the head that rested against her belly. She closed her eyes as she imagined what life would be. Her heart wa
s filled with pain rather than hope. Living among the Campbells, right outside Brodie’s gate, would mean watching him marry another. As his cheek pressed against her, she realized the life she thought she wished for meant never having a family of her own. She’d sworn to herself countless times that she would never abandon her children. But she wouldn’t have children without a husband. However, in Campbell territory she would be forced to watch Brodie’s children with his future wife grow up. She couldn’t conjure a reasonable explanation for her visceral reaction against that, but she knew she couldn’t do that.
“Laurie?”
“Aye, Brodie. I was just thinking aboot what you offered. I can’t do it,” Laurel whispered the last four words.
“But I could protect you. You could be a seamstress as you said. Mayhap one day you might fall in love and wish to marry.” Brodie didn’t know how he voiced the last idea without choking on the words. He didn’t want to see Laurel marry someone else, find happiness with someone else. While he thought he could endure the agony of her living within reach but not having her, the notion that someone else would share her life, tore at him.
“Mayhap this is but a passing infatuation between us. But I can’t—” Laurel drew her lips in, unable to admit her feelings, unable to leave herself that vulnerable. Brodie looked up at her before he stood. They fell against one another, their mouths fusing as need clawed at them both. Brody lifted Laurel, and she bent her knees as he moved her over the window seat. Kneeling on it, they were at eye level, making the kiss easier. When they drew apart, both gasping for air, they leaned their foreheads together. Brodie kept his arms wrapped around her narrow waist, while Laurel cupped his jaw and nape.
“I dinna want ye to fall in love with someone else, Laurie,” Brodie murmured. “I will do aught I can to help ye, but I confess I dinna want to spend ma life watching ye with someone else.”
“Neither do I. That’s why I canna.” They both fell back into their brogues, and Laurel realized how much she missed the lilting tones. “I dinna want to wish any mon I married was someone else, and I dinna want to watch ye with bairns that arenae mine. Mayhap this is naught more than lust, but it pains me to think aboot that. I would rather be across the world from ye than to spend the rest of ma days seeing that.”
A Hellion at the Highland Court: A Rags to Riches Highlander Romance (The Highland Ladies Book 9) Page 9