Seventeen #4
“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. “You 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.”