Eight #3
A cheer went up, and Michael lifted his mug in acknowledgment. A few pints of ale was a small price to pay for confirmation that Brenna was not merely reticent with him; she was secretive.
Michael turned to greet MacLogan’s brothers, the smile freezing to his lips. Dantry was still growing into his muscles, though he had his brother’s height and red hair. Neil, however, was big, had dark auburn hair, and was by no means a stranger to Michael.
Even though Michael had seen Neil MacLogan in his nightmares for nearly ten years, he stuck out a hand in greeting anyway. Neil was Brenna’s family, and thus Michael’s family too.
Brenna floated through her day, occasionally touching her fingers to her lips and wondering how married people got anything done. A few kisses—a few wonderful, lingering, marvelous kisses wrapped in her husband’s strong arms—and Brenna had gone daft.
This was how Hugh had felt about his Ann, how—once upon a time, long ago—Goodie MacCray had felt about Donal.
A feeling more blessed than sunbeams, even more blessed than the fresh breeze whipping off the loch and setting the Brodie pennant to flapping against the flagpole above one corner of the parapet.
The feeling had grown even better, when Michael had framed her face with his hands and touched his mouth to hers, slowly, deliberately. She’d peeked and found him watching her, his concentration ferocious and tender all at once.
That kiss—her pleasure in it, Michael’s lips curving against hers when she’d grabbed him by the hair and kissed him back—proved so much was possible for them that Brenna would never have dreamed they could have.
A kiss like that was a foundation, upon which hope and joy and—
Brenna’s mental effusions evaporated, between one feathery, lovely thought and the next, for out behind the stables, Angus Brodie walked in from the paddocks, carrying a child on his back.
A girl child.
Since Michael’s return, Brenna had lapsed in her vigilance. She hurried down through the castle and across the bailey, too sick with dread to castigate herself for that now, and too angry.
She forced herself to emerge from the stables at a dignified pace. “Maeve Brodie, you are old enough to walk.”
Angus sauntered along, making no move to put the girl down. His hands were laced under the child’s bottom, while Maeve’s arms were around his neck.
“It’s a long way in from the yearling paddocks, Brenna. You’ll not begrudge a wee child a piggyback ride, now will you?”
Damn him. He manipulated and implied and finagled until his actions were above reproach, kindly even, and Brenna was cast in the role of villain or incompetent.
Sometimes both, if Angus was in a particularly nasty mood.
“Put the child down, Angus. She told no one where she was going, and she knows better. I’m frequently on the parapets, and can see disobedience and foolishness when it goes skipping across my bailey of an afternoon.”
The girl wriggled down and stood beside Angus with her hand in his. The sight nearly caused a reappearance of Brenna’s noon meal.
Maeve hung her head and scuffed her boot heel in the dirt. “I’m sorry, Brenna. I wanted to visit with Wee Bannock, and—”
Because Brenna had once been a small, lonely girl in Castle Brodie, she could finish the sentence: and Uncle Angus promised me some treat, some special outing, that my young conscience could not withstand.
Brenna saw that the outing had not taken untoward turns, either, which was a relief so vast it would fill the loch.
Brenna saw as well when Angus gently squeezed the girl’s hand, a signal to Maeve not to implicate Angus in her first failed attempt at truancy.
“I know better,” Maeve said, dropping Angus’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
She would know better still before the day was over.
“To the castle with you, Maeve, and wait for me in the solar. You are not to go in through the kitchens, either.”
Where Cook would fuss and cluck, Lachlan would sympathize, and Michael might interfere, if his business in the village were concluded.
Angus at least waited until Maeve scampered off before he marched up to Brenna and stood breathing pipe smoke and lemon drop at her.
“You have no say where that child is concerned, Brenna.”
“She cannot be wandering off. She’s new here. She could get lost, hurt, or worse.”
He gave her a strange look, part humor, part convincingly honest regret, and part glee, because he no doubt knew what proximity to him did to Brenna’s insides.
“You honestly believe I’m the worst thing that could happen to a wee lass who’s wandered to the foals’ pasture of a summer’s day, Brenna?
You wound me, and all over a few silly moments years ago, which your female imagination has inflated past all reality.
Allow me to remind you of some relevant facts: my father and brother were laird here, your husband depends on me for guidance when it comes to the estate, and if I take a notion our best bottom land cannot be wasted on cow pastures, then your cousins—the last of your clan to stand with you in this shire—will be on the next boat out of Aberdeen. ”
For Brenna to counter with scathing indignation would only please him. To kick him where she should have kicked him fifteen years ago would enrage him.
“Am I supposed to choose my cousins over that innocent child, Angus? For I will not.” She had contemplated killing him on many occasions now that she’d grown older. The notion comforted far more than it appalled. With Angus gone, Maeve would be safe, and Brenna’s cousins could raise their cows.
Though Michael would not understand, and the justice of the peace might have something to say about it.