The Laird

by Grace Burrowes

  Yes, he did. The same rumbling burr that drew the listener in, despite all sense to the contrary.

  Brenna poured warmed water into a green porcelain basin and set it on the windowsill. “Do you shave every morning?”

  “Mostly. Beards itch.” And yet, he’d threatened to grow one—for her?

  “I thought they were warm.”

  “A decent wool scarf is warmer. Will you weave one for me, Brenna, my love?”

  He was flirting. She would get used to it, though flirting back was probably a hopeless cause. “Mind you don’t cut yourself.”

  Now what was she to do? Get dressed with her husband in the same room? He had no difficulty strutting around in nothing but his cotton underlinen.

  “Will you wear the Brodie plaid today?” he asked as he dabbed lather onto his throat and cheeks. “I’ll kit myself out in the laird’s regalia, unless you think that’s overdoing the clan pride.”

  “It is not possible for a mortal Scotsman to overdo clan pride,” Brenna said as he drew the razor along his jaw in a movement that ought not to have fascinated her. “I’ll wear the plaid, and so will everybody else who owns a scrap of the tartan. At least it isn’t raining.”

  “Or sleeting.”

  To see a man shave was intimate. To see him moving around in only one old, worn, comfortable item of apparel, and to start the day with him held the same odd closeness.

  “You don’t snore either, Husband.”

  He smiled at her in the little mirror and went on scraping lather and whiskers off his face.

  While Brenna blethered on. “You don’t kick, you don’t move about much, you don’t talk in your sleep. You do, however, give off a lot of heat.”

  “Which ought to recommend me to your continued keeping September through June. Should you be getting dressed, my lady?”

  She was a baroness. Did other baronesses watch their husbands make odd faces at a shaving mirror each morning?

  “Soon. I dress quickly.”

  But she ought to be doing something, so Brenna sat on the foot of the bed, pulled the ribbon off the end of her braid, and unraveled the single plait she usually slept in. She didn’t bother retrieving the brush from the vanity, because the vanity sat near the window.

  Michael set the razor aside, wiped off his face, and began reassembling his kit. “You’ve pretty hair, Brenna Brodie. You always did.”

  She had red hair, and lots of it. “You missed a spot.”

  He looked disgruntled, as if she’d said the wrong thing, but he’d look mighty silly Trooping the Colour with that bit of lather on his chin. Brenna rose from the bed, took the towel off her husband’s shoulder, and dabbed at the spot near where the dimple in his chin appeared when he smiled.

  “There. Your fizzog at least is presentable.”

  Michael Brodie was what the old women would call a braw fellow, tall and muscular, but lithe. Dancing in his kilt over crossed swords, he’d be—

  “I’m tempted to kiss my wife.” His voice had gone thoughtful, and Brenna couldn’t mistake the heat in his eyes. Nor could she quite understand it.

  “Because I’ve wiped soap off your chin?”

  His smile was unnerving, all male, all happy to be male.

  “Because you bear the scent of flowers, because your unbound hair makes my hands itch, and because it’s early morning on a beautiful day. I don’t have to kill anybody today, and I don’t have to prevent anybody from being killed.”

  Such was a soldier’s definition of a beautiful day.

  Brenna closed her eyes rather than look upon his smile. “Kiss me then.”

  A wife expected to endure her husband’s kisses—at least—and he couldn’t tarry at it too long, because he was soon to be out in the bailey, greeting his staff.

  “Such bravery,” Michael said, and Brenna heard a smile in his voice. His arms came around her, slowly, not a pillaging embrace but more of a stealthy reconnaissance. She did not—could not—relax.

  “You might offer your husband a hug of a morning.”

  He was still smiling, but a feeling other than patient resignation stole up from nowhere and wrapped Brenna more tightly than her husband’s arms. She had seen plenty of flirtation and carrying on in the great hall and in the tavern in the village. When Lachlan’s mother had been alive, she’d been in her husband’s arms frequently, holding his hand, touching his hair or his sleeve. Even Davey MacCray’s wife sat in his lap, kissed his cheek, and carried on with him when he wasn’t too drunk.

  While Brenna understood none of it.

  “You put your arms around me,” Michael whispered. “You lean on me, and you know I rejoice to take your weight against me, because the feel of you in my arms alone gives me pleasure.”

  He was instructing her in the basics of marital affection, and Brenna was grateful for his guidance. Pathetically grateful. She looped her arms around his trim waist and swallowed past a lump in her throat.

  “Lean, Brenna Maureen. Lean on your husband.”

  His arms were around her loosely. She could whirl away and grab her hairbrush; she could scold him for keeping her from her appointed tasks. He wanted more from her than a simple hug. He wanted trust, courage, good faith, and hope.

  Michael’s hand stroked over Brenna’s unbound hair, a patient, soothing caress that landed like the blow of a claymore on her heart.

  “Michael, I don’t know—”

  His hand caressed her again, smoothing down her hair, gently, slowly. Then again.

  She leaned.

  ***

  Something was amiss with the Baroness Strathdee.

  Michael had come to this conclusion as he, Angus, and the baroness had worked their way down the line of maids, footmen, laundresses, gardeners, and other retainers standing at attention in the morning sunshine.

  Brenna knew each of the thirty-some souls by name, but had limited her participation in the ritual to the occasional terse comment.

  “Jeannie Fraser, make your curtsy. Thomas Brodie, son of Ella and Daniel Brodie, make your bow to your laird.”

  And when the inspection was complete, Brenna had excused herself with unceremonious speed.

  “I am puzzled by something,” Michael said as Angus ambled with him toward the stables a short while later.

  “Life is a puzzling proposition most of the time. Whisky helps. Ale is seldom a bad idea. A good night’s rest can have a fine effect on a man’s outlook.”

  He peered over at Michael, as if inspecting him for evidence of that last.

  “Why do we have so many working at the castle, if Brenna lives there alone?”

  “It’s a big place, the castle, and your mother was the one who trained Brenna how to run it. The ladies have their standards, and a prudent man doesn’t interfere if he can help it.”

  “I’m not a prudent man, I’m the laird. You tell me we’re barely scraping by, and my wife has nigh three dozen people to do her bidding.” And yet, Michael would not on his least charitable day have accused Brenna of idleness.

  Neither, apparently, would Angus.

  “You ride a fine beast,” Angus remarked as they walked into the long stone barn. “Is he English?”

  “German,” Michael said, pausing outside Devil’s stall. “Found him at Tattersall’s, though he was said to be too crazy to ride.”

  “He doesn’t look crazy, but then, the worst of ’em seldom do. Like old Davey MacCray. Sweet as the day is long until he gets to brooding.”

  “I’ll take Boru out,” Michael said to a groom. “It’s Patrick, isn’t it?”

  “Pat will do, Laird.”

  The boy had the lanky grace of the born horseman, and the red hair common to plenty of Brodies. He soon brought out a rangy gray wearing Michael’s saddle, and a glossy black gelding as well.

  “Who’s this?” Michael asked, letting the black sniff his glove.

  “Campbell,” Angus said. “So when I put the crop and spurs to him, I’m striking a blow for the clans.”

/>   Boru was not as elegant as Campbell, but several inches taller, and more heavily boned. “This was my father’s favorite mount?”

  “Aye.” Angus swung up. “Bastard will jump anything he’s faced with, including things he shouldn’t. Where are we off to?”

  “Let’s ride the banks of the Dee.”

  “You don’t want to start on your tenant calls? They’ll be expecting you.”

  Michael climbed aboard the gray and gathered up his reins. He should call on his tenants, all three dozen of them. He really should.

  “Give the women a day to sweep their hearths and bathe the children. After nearly ten years, another day won’t matter much.”

  Angus looked like he wanted to argue, but instead delivered a stout whack to Campbell’s quarters and cantered out of the stable yard.

  When Michael returned two hours later, he’d satisfied himself that Brenna was riding a safe, sane, and even trustworthy mount, and he’d satisfied himself as well that the River Dee still sounded beautiful on a summer morning, and still reflected sunlight more brightly than any jewel.

  “How many tenants did my father have?” Michael asked as he and Angus handed their horses off to young Patrick.

  “Too many,” Angus said, slapping his crop against his boot. “When snow is a possibility any month of the year, the land isn’t intended to support huge tribes of people. The English have grasped this concept more clearly than we do ourselves. The hardier breeds of sheep are the answer, though some still debate it.”

  Memories abruptly punctuated the soft morning air, of Michael’s father roaring at Angus on this same topic.

  “We seem to have plenty of sheep.”

  If the sheep, one of God’s least intelligent creatures, could eke out a living in the Highlands, then a stout Scotsman with his wife and family would be even better suited to the challenge—or so the old laird had bellowed.

  “We could have more,” Angus said as they crossed the bailey. “But that discussion can keep for another day. I delighted to see you in proper attire this morning, lad. The neighbors would probably find it a fine sight too.”

  Two years in London refined certain instincts that all the battlefields in the world could not.

  “Are you suggesting we hold a ceilidh in honor of my arrival?”

  Angus turned a guileless smile on his nephew. “A party, ye say? A celebration? With fine food and drink, and dancing into the night? Everybody sporting about in their plaids? The children hiding under the tables, and the pipers drinking like lords? Now why would I go and suggest such a lot of bother as that?”

  He tromped off, swinging his crop as if he were conducting an orchestra, whistling some tune designed to get a man’s toes tapping.

  Even the army had understood the need for an occasional celebration, though Michael wasn’t sure what Brenna would make of the notion. He found her in the solar, a room his mother had tacitly declared the province of the ladies.

  “Greetings, Wife. What mischief are you up to on this bonny day?”

  “Ledgers,” she said, not rising. She’d changed out of her finery and was once again in a high-waisted smock, the hunting-plaid shawl around her shoulders. “Have you any idea when the rest of your baggage will arrive?”

  “Any day.” Michael advanced into the room, which he’d neglected on his ramblings yesterday. In an otherwise dark, solid edifice, this room was light and airy, its ceiling a good ten feet, its windows plentiful.

  The air bore the scent of lavender and roses, and the walls held framed memories. “We were handsome children.”

  He studied a painting done of him with Brenna and two of his sisters, Bridget and wee Erin. “I’d forgotten how hard it was to sit still for this. You girls made it look easy.”

  Brenna set aside her quill pen.

  “I loved to hear your mother reading. She could have read sermons to us instead of those old fairy tales, and I would have held still by the hour. Your da once told me he’d fallen in love with her brogue.”

  Because Brenna sat at an escritoire, Michael could not appropriate a place beside her, so he peered over her shoulder.

  “You’ve a tidy hand. What are all these figures?”

  “Expenses.”

  Something in her manner suggested the topic was sensitive, and yet, a man needed to understand the finances of his own household.

  “Can you explain them to me?”

  “Of course.”

  “I meant now. We could take this ledger and a picnic, find a shady spot by the river, and catch a nap.” The plan struck him as a brilliant combination of work, play—and wooing.

  “Or you could pull up a chair. When I’m done with the ledgers, Cook wants menus from me, because plain fare will not do now that his lordship is home. I’d like to take your measurements too, and cut out some kilts for you, though the ladies from the village are happy to help stitch them up. I should also write to your sister Bridget and let her know that you’ve arrived safely, because I doubt you’ll think to do it, and somebody needs to take a basket to Goodie MacCray, because this time, I don’t think old Davey’s bellyache is a simple matter of too much drink.”

  She might as well have laid into him with Angus’s riding crop, so acutely did guilt assail him—also resentment.

  “You have to do all that today?”

  “I was planning on doing it before luncheon.”

  “Show me,” he said, taking her wrist in one hand and her infernal ledger in the other. “Show me your ledgers, and then I’ll take old Davey his basket while you do your menus, but I swear to you, Brenna Brodie, if you expect me to eat haggis, I’ll trot right back to London.”

  His offer of help did not appear to please her. “I don’t know what you like to eat. I was hoping Cook might recall.”

  “I will eat anything, up to and including boiled shoe leather, but not the damned haggis, neeps, and tatties. I suppose haggis is your favorite dish?”

  “I’ll eat it. You really don’t like potatoes? Even with salt and butter?”

  “I have no grudge against them, and I will eat turnips, but I got sick once, eating haggis as a boy, and cannot abide—are you laughing at me?”

  “Some Scot you are. Next you’ll be sticking out your pinkie finger and wearing satin breeches.”

  She was smiling, though she tried to bury her smile in the ledger in her lap. Because he treasured her smiles, Michael dredged up more complaints.

  “I’ve worn satin breeches, I’ll have you know. A fellow hardly dares show up at Carlton House in anything less. My shoe buckles would have blinded you, and my stockings were of clocked silk.”

  “You poor dear. If you’re done whining, I can explain my figures to you.”

  She nattered on about dry goods, larders, cellars, and such other topics as would make a quartermaster’s head spin, and yet Michael did manage—over the teasing of her rosy scent and the pleasure of admiring her cleavage—to pick up on a few details.

  Such as the fact that nobody worked at the castle full time, but rather, a position was usually shared by at least two people, the better to spread the coin.

  Angus had failed to elucidate this scheme, suggesting he did not himself grasp it. “You set back something each month for every employee?”

  “I do. In coin.”

  “Does Angus know of this?”

  She closed the ledger and cradled it against her chest.

  “I don’t ask Angus about the crops and livestock, he doesn’t ask me about the household accounts. He is not the laird here, but I am the lady.”

  And wasn’t that a fine way to run an estate, with the left and right hand in ignorance of each other?

  Though she had a point.

  “Angus believes we’re teetering on the edge of ruin. He won’t come right out and blame it on my absence, but I gather certain decisions should have been made in the last five years by the laird, and I was…away, so they didn’t get made.”

  Brenna set the ledger aside and folded her
hands in her lap.

  “What aren’t you saying, Brenna?”

  “Angus thinks Scotland should be overrun with sheep.”

  “Scotland is overrun with sheep, so is England, and I suspect Ireland and Wales aren’t faring much better, but I’ll tell you this: wool had much to do with why Wellington’s armies were successful.”

  “You didn’t fire wool bullets, Michael.”

  He got up to pace, abruptly impatient with her, her ledgers, and the way she could keep some part of herself in silence even in the midst of a conversation.

  “Wool is light in weight, it keeps a body warm even when it’s wet. Even the finest wool is hardy as hell, and it doesn’t stiffen up and hold the wet like leather. On the Peninsula, officers were quartered in the old convents and town halls, the churches and what have you, but the men bivouacked on any patch of dry ground they could find, often without even tents to protect them.”

  Brenna rose too, and Michael was reminded that his dear, sweet little wife had acquired height in his absence.

  “Wool is a fine product,” she said. “Every croft in the shire has a loom, and we weave and knit as much to sell as we do to wear, but Brodie land can support more than a bunch of bleating sheep. You’ve bottom land, pastures, decent fields marled for year upon year that can grow a good crop of oats. How many more of the clan do you want to see replaced by sheep?”

  In one corner of his mind, Michael marveled that he was arguing with his wife, and delighted that she trusted him enough to disagree with him. Another part of him admired the way her bosom heaved when she was in a taking and had forgotten to wrap herself in her damned shawl.

  “I don’t want to see any of the clan replaced by sheep. How many tenants did my father have?”

  “Forty-six families when he died, and that was down from fifty-eight when he married your mother.”

  Why hadn’t Angus given him those numbers?

  “You haven’t told me why you’re withholding wages from the people who work here at the castle.”

  She turned away from him, picked up her ledger, and set it atop a stack on the escritoire.

  “I save a bit back for each one, so when the damned sheep have eaten every last holding and garden on Brodie land down to the roots, my people will have a little something to build a future on.”