Six #3
He faced her, held still long enough to let her have a good look, then blew out the candle.
“Is a display of manly attributes your daft notion of enticing me into your arms?” How casual her voice sounded, when Brenna’s heart was thumping like a trapped hare’s. She shifted to organize her pillows, and her foot brushed up against a hairy male shin.
“In Spain, we slept in our clothes, night after night, for two reasons. We had to be ready to fight, of course, because sneak attacks by the French or the peasants were a possibility at any point.” His recitation took no apparent notice of Brenna’s accidental contact with his shin.
“Then too, an officer caught out of uniform was subject to torture, as if war wasn’t torture enough. ”
She’d gone still like a trapped hare, too, because not only was Michael naked—gloriously, fascinatingly naked—but he’d also strayed closer to Brenna’s side of the bed.
“I see.” She saw nothing, for the moon wasn’t up yet, and clouds had made for an early sunset, though she caught the scent of heather, vetiver, and lavender from her husband’s person.
“What did you do with your busy self today, Brenna Maureen? I catch the occasional glimpse of you, but you’re always barreling around some corner, like the King’s post making its last mile of the day.”
“Summer is a busy season.” A toe nudged up the length of Brenna’s calf. Just that, a glancing nudge. If he could ignore these little mishaps, so could she. “Getting Maeve unpacked took some time, because the child has her own ideas about how her things should be put away.”
Based on the amount of luggage the girl had brought, Bridget had indeed sent Maeve away permanently.
“You left Elspeth to humor the girl, and then what?”
“I oversee the laundry, as much to catch up on the gossip as to make sure the clothes are clean.”
The mattress bounced as Michael swatted at his pillows. When he’d subdued them, he was closer still.
“Fraternizing with your troops. Every good officer learns the knack of fraternizing without being familiar. I love the scent of these sheets.”
The compliment pleased her for its very casualness, despite Michael’s proximity.
“We hang them in the sun when we can, or spread them over the lavender bushes. Michael, is there a reason why you must neglect your own side of the bed?”
“Yes, there is. What was the gossip?” He abandoned any pretense of stealth, slipped an arm under Brenna’s neck, and drew her against his side.
“Goodie MacCray’s youngest thinks Neil MacLogan is handsome, which, the ladies agree, he is, though his conversation is lacking.”
“Perhaps he expresses himself more clearly through deeds.”
Such subtlety. “Michael, what are you about?”
“I’m giving you a hint.” He gave her temple a kiss too. “In case you were puzzled about exactly how I want to be wooed.”
Brenna was not puzzled. She was tired, she was worried about the addition of Maeve to the household, she fretted over Michael’s remarks earlier about rents being unpaid, and she…liked the scent of her husband’s shoulder.
He and his wooing would drive her to Bedlam. “I don’t suppose my husband would care for another piece of shortbread?”
His chest bounced, as if he chuckled. “I know better than to risk getting crumbs on our newly washed sheets.”
Michael’s fingers traced the hair back from Brenna’s brow, the caress beguilingly tender.
Though not the least bit threatening. “You want affection from me, Husband?”
Michael didn’t immediately answer, and as the silence drew out, Brenna felt uncertainty shading toward despair. She was twenty-five years old and had no instincts, no internal compass, when it came to the most basic marital matters.
Worse, she likely never would. This lack was a particularly miserable way to be broken, invisible and yet intimately obvious. She braced herself to roll away, but Michael’s arm gently dissuaded her.
“I do want affection from you.” Michael’s tone said this conclusion surprised him. “I want it desperately.”
And yet, he lay there, his arm around her, his desperation apparently checked.
Or perhaps he was uncertain too?
His fingers swept slowly across her brow; his chest rose and fell.
“When you were in the army, there was no affection, was there? You fought, you marched, you besieged, you tortured, and there was no one to take your hand or lie down with you on a chilly summer night. No one to know you favor lavender in your shortbread.”
The nights had been cold, he’d said. Brenna would learn to listen to her husband more carefully. She tucked a knee across his thighs, wondering what was so delightful about war that men endured it for a day, much less for a decade.
“I had the memory of your smiles,” he said. “I had the old songs. I had hope.”
Hope was not a cuddly bedfellow. Hope was a nightingale, perched on the windowsill in the dead of winter, tempted to seek death rather than endure another moment of uncertain captivity.
Brenna reached up in the darkness and cupped her husband’s jaw, bristly with a day’s growth of beard. “I’ll give you a hint too, Michael.”
He caught her hand and ran his nose over her wrist, then held her fingers in his. No kissing, no clutching, nothing but a joining of hands. “I’m listening.”
“When you tell your uncle”—Brenna wasn’t going to say his name in this bed, not ever—“when you tell him that our marriage is none of his business, and never will be, you’re doing a fine job of wooing your wife.”
They fell asleep entwined, the cool breezes wafting in through the open window, while under the covers, husband and wife were snug and warm.
Scotland was cold and bumpy. Ireland was wet and bumpy. One had shortbread, the other soda bread, but other than that, Maeve could not find significant differences.
For in neither country had she anybody to play with.
“I’m like a princess in a tower,” she informed the fat orange pantry mouser, which was batting at daisies blooming in the shelter of the garden wall.