Five
From the warmth of the big bed, Michael watched as his wife began her day. Brenna was inherently considerate, making little noise as she brushed out her hair and laid out her clothes. She was also inherently decent, too decent to admit she regretted marrying him.
Because what, after all, could they do about it now?
He struggled up against the pillows. “I’ve been thinking.” And thinking, and thinking.
Brenna’s hands did not pause as she organized her hair into a thick braid.
“Good morning. What have you been thinking about?” She remained facing the mirror, which of course meant she could keep surveillance on Michael in the mirror’s reflection.
“I never wooed you. We never wooed each other.”
She whipped a green ribbon around the bottom of her braid, tied a knot, and yanked the ends tight.
“My da wanted a place to stash me. Your da needed a bit of coin. Wooing wasn’t necessary. I was eight years old when the betrothal contract was signed, for pity’s sake.”
The way she batted the brush at the end of her braid suggested the topic—like many topics—annoyed her.
Michael rose, retrieved their tray from the corridor, and placed it on the hearth. While Brenna tidied up the bed, he poured a mug of tea, added cream and honey, and brought it to her.
“Wooing,” he said, extending the mug to her. The cup was the same one she used every morning—blue with pink roses. He wanted to tell her to leave the damned bed for the maids, except Brenna was a woman who needed to move about.
And he’d yet to see a maid in this wing of the house.
“Explain yourself,” Brenna said, accepting the cup but not taking a sip.
“We are stuck with each other, why not make the best of it?”
He caught bewilderment in her expression before she took to studying her tea. “Did you put honey in this?”
“I did.”
She took a drink, then set the mug back on the tray and resumed making the bed. “We could get an annulment.”
Must she sound so hopeful?
“Not likely. We’ve spent three nights in the same bed, we’ve had years and years to repudiate our vows, and I, at least, was an adult when we went through a ceremony the import of which I well understood.
Under Scottish law, you were of age as well.
” Though under English law, she’d been too young by years.
“Based on the betrothal contracts, the union also had your father’s blessing while he was alive. ”
Brenna lifted her tartan shawl from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“I suppose an annulment would cost money.” She sat on the bed, as if the weight of this realization took the wind from her domestic sails.
Michael had money. Ten years of officer’s wages carefully invested, a knack for lucky wagers, and a parting gift from Sebastian St. Clair had left Michael quite comfortable. The Strathdee barony also came with an income, though now wasn’t the time to share that news with his reluctant wife.
Wearing only his linen drawers, Michael took a place beside her on the bed they’d yet to put to its happiest use.
“I realized something when I was dreaming of your kisses.”
“Bother your dreams,” she muttered, though she also smiled, as if him dreaming of her kisses was not entirely a bother.
“I realized that I love you.”
She was off the mattress and headed for the door before he could snatch her hand and bring it to his lips.
“Michael Brodie, that is not amusing, and if you think I’ll fall for sweet words from a man who would rather make war than be married to me—”
An interesting and appallingly female way to view service to King and Country. “Listen to me, Brenna, before you go flouncing off in a cloud of righteous fury.”
“I’ve never in my life flounced,” she shot back, turning to face him.
She looked coldly affronted—she was good at looking coldly affronted—and yet, Michael’s every instinct told him she was hurt, perhaps even scared.
And had been for some time.
“I recall the day you came to live at Castle Brodie. You had no doll. I thought girls were born clutching dolls, because even the poorest crofter’s daughters seemed to have something with yarn for hair that they called a doll. You had a storybook.”
She settled on the hearth, looking brittle and cold in her nightgown and shawl. “When you’re an only daughter with four older brothers and no memories of your mother, a good story can be a comfort.”
Was that why she taught young Lachlan to read?
“I worked harder on my lessons after you came to live with us. I understood that you were to be my wife one day, and I could not have you more learned than I was. You were reading French by the time you were ten years old.”
“French isn’t difficult.”
“Not for you perhaps.” Michael rose, moved the tray, and took a place beside her. Under his linen-clad backside, the stones were hard and cold, but at least Brenna hadn’t bounced to her feet. “For me, it was gibberish, but command of that gibberish saved my life on many occasions.”
“Was that why you ended up in France? You spoke the language well?”
“Most of Wellington’s officers were fluent in French, which was fortunate when French deserters came our way.”
She hugged her knees. “Were you a deserter, then?”
“I was not, not to the people who counted, and part of the reason I did not come home to you immediately is that I made enemies on both sides of the war. I did not want to risk them following me here.”
Brenna turned her head, so her cheek rested on her knees.
“That’s all you can say? For two years, the entire shire whispers about why Michael Brodie turned his back on his wife, his clan and his holdings, when he might have come home to a hero’s welcome, and that’s your explanation?”
He wanted to give her more, because the entire shire hadn’t merely whispered. They’d muttered, speculated, gossiped, and insinuated too. In nine years—in nine hundred years—that aspect of human nature would not have changed.
He also wanted to kiss her. Huddled in her shawl, her toes tucked under her hems, Brenna looked young and unhappy.
“I made the acquaintance of torturers, Brenna. Men who excelled at inflicting suffering, men who could cherish a grudge like a Papist would cherish a piece of the true cross. The barony is at least in part an effort to provide me with safety by recognition.”
She studied him, and he bore it, though her pensive expression made clear she was not thinking about kissing.
“Tell me about this love you think you have for me.”
He silently thanked her for the change in topic, though in its way, love was no more easily discussed than torture.
“I knew from the day I first beheld you that we were to be wed. Even a boy of thirteen understands what that involves.”
“A girl of eight does not. I knew you had a nice smile, and when you teased me, it wasn’t mean.”
“You were mine to protect, not mine to annoy.”
She jostled his shoulder. “Such a wee knight, you were.”
Any affection from Brenna was precious, and Michael basked in her approval, even if it was for a boy long grown—a boy who’d had decent instincts and a loving heart.
“You liked me,” he said. “You were quiet about it, but you liked me.”
Elsewhere in the castle, people were stirring. A door banged, sheep bleated in the outer bailey, and somebody upended a bucket of water onto the stone steps below the bedroom window.
“You were partial to shortbread,” Brenna said. “Scottish girls are born knowing how to mix up a batch of shortbread, whether they can lay claim to a doll or not.”
“I’m still partial to shortbread, and I’m still partial to you.”
The analogy was simple. Brenna appeared to consider it.
And then reject it. “You hardly know me. I hardly know you.”
He slipped his hand into hers, lest she hare off to domesticate in some safe, distant corner of the castle.
“That’s not true, Brenna Maureen MacLogan Brodie.
I know you’re fluent in French and you dance beautifully, and this is fortunate, because your singing voice is atrocious.
You mutter in your sleep, cannot stand the sight of a weed in your flower beds, and think Sir Walter’s novels are ridiculously sentimental. ”
“How can you know that?”
“Because for eight years, we lived under the same roof, day in day out. I watched you read, knit, and embroider your way through Highland winters. You watched me try to grow a beard when I was seventeen.”
Her smile said she’d forgotten about that. “You’d grown so tall, but your voice still cracked when you were excited.”
He wanted to kiss her while she was thinking of that gangly, awkward boy. “We are not strangers, and I do love you and have for years. I’m thinking I’ll kiss you now.”
She didn’t pull away when he bussed her cheek, and he didn’t press his attentions on her any further than that one chaste peck.
She did, however, clutch her infernal shawl more tightly.
“I suppose you think this settles matters between us, because you’ve rediscovered a boyhood affection for the woman you’re now married to?”
So huffy—while she studied the toes peeking out from under her hem.
“A few shared memories settles nothing, because if our marriage is to amount to anything, you must rediscover an affection for me. That’s where the wooing comes in.”
“I’m to endure wooing now in addition to kisses?”
“You’re a quick study, Brenna Maureen, and yes, you must resign yourself to being wooed. I’ve participated in many a siege, and I’m confident my skills are up to the challenge of wooing you. I still favor your shortbread above all others.”
He winked at her, and one instant too late realized that likening his wife to a walled city in enemy territory was perhaps not the wisest analogy.
“You’re confident,” Brenna said, rising from their perch on the hearth. “Have your years on the Continent prepared you for the task before you? Will you bring a rifle to bed with us, Michael?”
He opened his mouth—then shut it. Wooing Brenna would involve something other than vulgar innuendo, though he wasn’t sure exactly what.
“No, I will not bring my rifle to bed.” He would stop wearing his underlinen to bed too. “I am puzzled about one thing, though.”