The Laird

by Grace Burrowes

  “I’m listening now, and I hope you’re listening to me. Keep hold of Angus’s hand, and don’t try to stand up. I want you to scoot down the roof, slowly, slowly. By inches. Angus will hold your hand as long as he can, and if you slip, I’ll catch you.”

  Though on that small, slick conical roof, she might well fall in the wrong direction.

  “I’ll be c-careful.”

  “You’ll be warm and stuffing yourself with cream cakes in no time,” Angus said. “Down you go, slowly, slowly, like your brother said.”

  Maeve heeded Angus when she might not have paid any attention to Michael’s cautions. She clutched at Angus’s hand, crouched, and inched down the roof, one foot, then another, then the first foot again. Michael positioned himself below her, his heart hammering, his arms upstretched.

  “Well done, wee Maeve,” Angus said as she hit the limit of his reach. “Only a few more feet, and Michael will catch you. That’s my brave girl.”

  Her fingers slid free of Angus’s grasp, and she paused, halfway down the roof. “I’m scared.”

  They were all bloody terrified.

  “You’re nearly down, Maeve,” Michael said as a stiff gust set the rope to whipping against the pole. “Another three feet, and you can dangle your feet over the edge. I’ll have you then.”

  “Will you scold me?”

  Please God, allow the child to live so she might endure many scoldings.

  “I will not scold you for wanting to see home, but we will talk. You and I and Brenna will talk about how we can make the castle more of a home to you.” Just as soon as Michael put a stout, locked gate across the door to the roof terrace, and hid the damned key from all save Brenna. His arms began to burn, even in the frigid wind. “Now get you down, please, so we can all get out of this breeze.”

  The rest was easy. Maeve scooted to the edge of the roof, dangled one little boot, then the other over the edge, and tipped herself the last few feet into Michael’s embrace.

  “You’re safe,” he said, clutching the girl to his chest as a cheer went up from below. “Thank the Almighty, you’re safe.”

  She was also chilled to the bone. Michael let Brenna wrap the blanket around the girl but did not put her down. “Have some hot chocolate, at least, Maeve, and then Brenna will tuck you in lest you develop a lung fever. A tot of whisky might be in order. Lachlan will want to see you too.”

  “I can tell him I saw Ireland.”

  While in Michael’s worst nightmares, he’d see his wee sister, crumpled and unmoving on the cobbles below.

  “You tell him you did indeed see home, and I’ll be by to say good night too.”

  He kissed the top of her head and set her on her feet, his own balance as unreliable as if he were standing on a slick roof in a high wind.

  “Get Angus down,” Brenna said, taking Maeve’s hand. “And thank him.”

  She kissed Michael on the cheek and disappeared down the steps, Maeve’s hand in hers, the tartan eclipsing all but the top of the child’s head.

  Leaving Michael to again face the bitter wind.

  “Brenna said to thank you,” he called up to his uncle.

  Angus remained kneeling at the foot of the flagpole, his gaze fixed on the far peak Maeve had dubbed a bit of home.

  “You cannot fathom that, can you, laddie? That Brenna could thank me for anything.” He rose, a bit stiffly, his age showing. “Neither can I. It’s beautiful up here. Captivatingly so.”

  Captivating was the word of an artist, not the vocabulary of a scheming, perverted old man, not even the word of an uncle.

  “Angus, get the hell down. Now.” The way his uncle gazed out over the hills and peaks as the sun dipped closer to the horizon made Michael uneasy.

  “So you can haul me off to the gaol?” Angus asked, taking a cautious step away from the flagpole. “Do you suppose I’ll fare well at the hands of justice, such a one as I?”

  “Better than you would at the hands of a half-drunken, righteous mob.”

  Another cautious step. “D’ye think so? Felonies are serious business. I’ve had occasion to look up the penalties for several of them. The law does not deal in pleasant fates.” Angus slipped, caught his balance, and resumed gazing out over the loch.

  While Michael wrestled back the urge to point out that Brenna’s fate, thanks to Angus, had not been pleasant, and she’d done nothing to deserve the misery he’d visited on her.

  Neither had Neil MacLogan. Neither had Jack Deardorff and God knew how many others, at brothels in Aberdeen, or on the Brodie holdings.

  “I’m weary, Michael,” Angus said, sliding his foot another six inches down the incline. “I’m tired of my own wickedness, and yet, I can find no reprieve from it. Before I found that damned establishment in Aberdeen, before I stole that money to keep the diabolical Fournier creature silent, I had hoped someday…” He managed another two steps, bringing him halfway to the lip of the roof. “I had hoped someday to be free of what I am, but there is no freedom to be had. None.”

  “We can stay up all night arguing over your worst transgression,” Michael said, “but get the hell off this roof. Maeve will worry about you.” As Michael was, despite all odds to the contrary, worried about him.

  As even Brenna might be.

  Michael’s words gave Angus pause. “Maeve might fret for me at that. She doesn’t like lemon drops. Did you hear her say that?”

  “I did.” Whatever the hell lemon drops had to do with anything.

  “You will tell the child I slipped.”

  Angus had worked his way down the roof to where the parapets met the wall. At his left lay the roof terrace. To the right… Michael hiked himself onto the parapets and did not look down.

  “Angus, you’re not going to slip. Stop jabbering and get moving.”

  “You may tell Brenna I slipped as well. I was never fond of heights. She’ll believe you.”

  “Another three feet, and you’ll be able to climb down along the wall. Stop being dramatic.” Though Angus sounded contemplative rather than dramatic.

  “Brenna saved more than my life tonight,” Angus said. “She saved this castle and all who call it home—I understand that—but there’s no saving me.”

  The expression on Angus’s face was hopeless, also…peaceful, and yet, Michael pleaded with his uncle anyway. “Let me get the damned rope. Please, Uncle.”

  Angus shook his head and edged closer to the lip. “Laddie, it’s not your fault. None of it is your fault. Maybe it’s not even entirely mine.”

  On that soft observation, Angus spread his arms and tipped forward. Michael dived forward fast enough to snatch hold of his uncle by the forearm as Angus hung suspended over the bailey.

  “Take my other hand,” Michael bit out. “For God’s sake let me pull you up.”

  Angus tipped his head back, the sheer weight of him straining every muscle and sinew Michael possessed.

  “I cannot, Michael. I am sorry—so sorry—but I simply cannot.”

  He let go of Michael and fell, while in the bailey, all was silence.

  ***

  “I heard every word.” Brenna whipped off her shawl—the beautiful Brodie tartan shawl she wore only on special occasions—and wrapped it around her husband’s shoulders.

  Michael slid down the stone wall to sit at its base, out of the worst of the wind, his back supported by the parapets. “Maeve?” he whispered. In all his clan finery, he was as white as a winding sheet.

  “I gave her to Elspeth and Hugh, and they’ll make sure she’s kept out of the bailey. Come away from this cold place, Michael.”

  He focused on her, blinking as if trying to put a name with her face. “You love it up here.”

  “We’ll talk about that.” Brenna took his hand and tugged, which was rather like tugging on Wee Bannock when the beast was in the mood to tarry at his grass. “Michael, I don’t want to stay up here another minute.”

  “We’ll put up an iron gate,” he said, making no move to rise. “Y
ou heard every word?”

  She’d said as much. “Angus wasn’t right, in his head and in other ways. That wasn’t news.”

  Michael rested his forehead against Brenna’s thigh, his posture bewildered and defeated. “He was my uncle.”

  She ran a hand over Michael’s hair, which had grown damp in the evening air. “And he risked his life to save Maeve.”

  Please let that be an end to it, for nothing Angus had said quite revealed the nature of his worst transgression where Brenna was concerned. Given everything else to fall on Michael’s shoulders, Brenna would spare her husband that, at least for now.

  Michael lifted his head to gaze up at Brenna. “Angus abused you terribly.”

  Night was stealing across the sky, clouds making the sunset early and beautiful. “Michael, he stole from us all and abused our trust, but we’ll lay him to rest in the family plot.”

  Michael shook his head in weary denial, and all the upset Brenna had endured in the past twenty-four hours rose up in one sudden, enormous urge to run.

  To run not from Michael, but from the knowledge in his eyes.

  “I’ll bury him wherever you please, Brenna, but that’s more than he deserved. I saw the sketches, and I know what he did.”

  “No.”

  Michael held her hand in an implacable grip while Brenna’s heartbeat skittered with the need to flee this confrontation. She wasn’t ready, and Michael was in no condition himself to hear what she might disclose.

  “I know of Angus’s transgressions, Brenna,” he said, his head tipping back to rest against the wall. “What I do not know is how I can ever be a husband to you, when I had a clear indication of Angus’s problems before I even left here.”

  Michael’s hand was warm. All of Brenna was cold—she could not feel the cold, but she knew it to be enveloping her—while Michael’s grip on her was secure and warm.

  “I do not understand what you’re saying, Michael Brodie, and I am not sure I want to.”

  Eighteen

  A boot scraped on the step behind Brenna, the sound making Michael’s lawfully wedded—and bedded—wife jump as a pistol shot would have.

  Sebastian St. Clair emerged from the stairway, the wind snatching at his hair and at his Stuart plaid kilt.

  “Hugh is dealing with the details, below. The musicians had first go at the food, and Elspeth is sending the rest home with various families or to the kirk. The barrel and the desserts went to the inn.”

  He went on, barking out information in his precise, aristocratic English, and at some point, Michael rose from the stones, his hand still grasping Brenna’s. He’d never seen his former commanding officer rattled—not ever—and yet, shutting St. Clair up was imperative.

  Angus was dead, and the musicians had first go at the buffet?

  “Maeve and Lachlan?” Michael asked.

  “Saw nothing,” St. Clair replied, the first useful piece of information he’d shared. “Thank God for that mercy. When word spread Maeve was trapped up here, the children were all hustled away. Maeve and Lachlan are drinking chocolate in the solar, and they’ll not be allowed to stir from there until they’re put to bed.”

  “My thanks for the report.” Michael could somehow form words—a relic from soldiering days—while Brenna remained a silent wraith whose hand he would never let go. She should leave him, of course, and not for a paltry nine years. “St. Clair, if you would continue to manage things, my wife and I…”

  He trailed off and took the shawl from around his shoulders, using it to envelope Brenna and bring her against his body.

  “This view, these damned stones, they remind me of France,” St. Clair muttered. “Of that bloody Château. Come down, you two, before you catch your—before you catch a lung fever. I’ll send Milly up here next if you don’t come with me now.”

  “We’re coming,” Michael said. “Give us a moment.”

  St. Clair disappeared down the steps, his muttering, if Michael weren’t mistaken, including a deal of French cursing. St. Clair had faced more hardened officers on the field of honor than any other five men of Michael’s acquaintance, and yet, the baron had been near tears.

  Why had Michael disclosed his knowledge of that damned sketchbook to Brenna, and why now?

  Because his common sense was another of the bloody heaps on the cobbles below. God help him, his marriage was probably down there, bleeding its last as well.

  “You’re shivering,” Michael said. “I should be shivering. Come along.”

  She resisted as he moved toward the steps. “Michael Brodie, where are you taking me?”

  ***

  Michael had been like this on their wedding night. Soft-spoken, considerate, distracted, and utterly fixed on some purpose Brenna could not divine—until she’d woken to his note, explaining that he’d gone to join his regiment early.

  He’d been planning his escape from their marriage then, and perhaps he was planning it anew.

  “I’m taking you out of this wind, Brenna Maureen. You’ll want Elspeth, and a wee dram, and—” He stopped in the doorway to the stairs, shadows and granite behind him, night coming on over the castle roof. “You can’t possibly want me for a husband. I don’t see how you could want any husband.”

  They held hands, and yet Michael leaned not against his wife, but against the cold, hard stones of the castle.

  “How could you have me, Brenna? How could you bear to be intimate with me, after what you’d suffered as a child? I can understand why Angus chose death, I can understand—” Michael’s breath gave an odd hitch, and he shook loose of Brenna’s grasp. “You’ll want to check on Maeve.”

  A shudder went through him, and Brenna knew, by the sick sinking in her bones, she knew, Michael was just then piecing together the threat Angus had posed to Maeve.

  “I’ll not lose you too, Michael Brodie.” She marched past him, snatched his wrist into her grasp, and dragged him into the stairwell. “Much was taken from me by that awful man, but I will not lose you too. If I must explain the whole of it to you, I shall, but there will be no more running off, keeping our well-meant silences, and allowing pains that should bring us together to separate us.”

  For she wanted to run off, wanted to tear off across the hills and never look back. Angus had doomed her to looking back, but she could at least look back with Michael’s company to fortify her.

  “You don’t have to tell me, Brenna,” he said, following her down the winding steps. “I can move my things. You’ll have peace, at least. You won’t have to see me strutting about, so proud of my—”

  He stopped, back to the wall, eyes closed, and Brenna had the sense her husband was in the grip of an illness, one that might overtake him if she allowed it.

  “Stop this,” she said, slipping her arms around him. “You are entitled to your self-loathing, if that’s what this is. You are entitled to loathe me, but you are not entitled to leave me again, Michael Brodie. That didn’t work very well, if you’ll recall, and we’re stronger people now. I forbid you to abandon me again.”

  She prayed they were stronger people, though the notion she could forbid her husband anything was a desperate fiction.

  “Brenna, he saw you naked. As a child. Many…many times. He touched you, I’m sure of it, and if he—” Michael fell silent. By the flickering light of the sconce below them, tears glistened on his cheeks.

  And that…that was the worst of the legacy Angus had left behind. Not that he’d betrayed Brenna’s innocence, preyed upon her loneliness and ignorance, and exploited a child’s trust, but that he’d continued to take from her the normal, prosaic gifts of a happily married woman.

  Brenna kissed her husband.

  “Angus didn’t—he never…I was a virgin when I first made love with my husband. I have my husband to thank for that. I’d love him to my dying day for that alone, but in fact, I love him for many reasons.”

  She’d avoided the word “love” for years. Tender sentiment was a source of weakness and bewilderme
nt, and it flooded her now, rendering her strong in a way that astonished her.

  “Brenna, hush.” Michael stayed propped against the wall, head back, eyes closed as if she’d just admitted to hanging felonies. “I don’t deserve your sentimental declarations.”

  “I’d slap you with my sentimental declarations if I could. I hoarded them up, storing them where even I couldn’t see the truth of them. We’re leaving this castle, and we shall talk.”

  She would talk, and he would listen.

  He opened his eyes. His left hand came up, and with one finger he traced her hair back from her brow.

  “I owe you that. I didn’t listen to you on our wedding night. I’ll listen now.”

  A small portion of Brenna’s anxiety slinked back under her heart, where she’d learned to manage it. The rest flapped about inside her, like the castle pennant in a punishing wind.

  “Come with me, then, and we’ll find some quiet, where you can listen to me properly.” Where she could listen to him too.

  Cook abetted them, shoving a hamper at Michael and a bundle of blankets at Brenna. Her face was lined with fatigue and grief, but she managed a wan smile when Brenna explained that she and Michael might be gone some time.

  They left through the deserted ballroom, walked past all the magnificent flowers, the empty tables and chairs, the crossed swords given pride of place on walls now sporting slashes of moonlight. Without dozens of overheated human bodies and groaning tables of food, the entire space bore the fragrance of heather and roses.

  “We were to have had a celebration tonight,” Michael said, as if he’d not been in charge of repairing the banister railing just two days past. “A welcome home to the long-lost laird who’d come safely through the wars.”

  Whoever that fellow was.

  “We’ll have a celebration,” Brenna said, pushing through the doors to the back gardens. “Though first, we’ll have a wee natter.”

  ***

  In the moonshadows of the empty ballroom, Michael was incongruously reminded of Brenna as he’d first seen her. He’d been thirteen, she’d been eight, and he’d been fascinated with her.

  “She’ll be yours someday,” his father had said. “If all goes well, and ye don’t muck it up. She’ll be your lady wife, and she’ll be yours.”