Twelve #2
“I’m glad you did not. They’re idle gossips and hold me accountable for you being gone so long.” And for their cousins emigrating, and for the wool harvest being thin some years, and the winter early. Angus was nothing if not tireless.
Michael kissed her temple and brought a hand up to massage Brenna’s nape. “You’ve put up with such gossip for years now, and it’s my fault.”
Though afternoon sun poured through the window, fatigue hit Brenna like a wet plaid. Fatigue of the body and of the spirit.
“That feels lovely.” She kissed his cheek for good measure.
“I will get to the bottom of this, Brenna.”
He probably would, and then this happy little mutual wooing of a marriage would be reduced to ashes. “Must you get to the bottom of it this minute? It’s idle gossip, nothing more.”
Idle gossip, veiled looks, subtle delays in service, and so much more that Michael, with his soldier’s instincts, would not miss. Desperation seeped through Brenna’s fatigue, and she cuddled closer to her husband.
“Why did the baker give you the smallest twelve muffins he could find?” Michael asked.
And no extra muffin or biscuit to curry goodwill—Michael would have noticed that too.
“Because the castle is well provisioned,” Brenna said. “Other households need the biggest muffins far more than we do. Are you inclined to nap with me, Husband, or will you natter on about a bunch of pinch-penny Highlanders?”
He wouldn’t natter on, he’d interrogate his wife until years of unfortunate history came tumbling out and Brenna was forced to defend herself and make explanations that could lead nowhere—or worse than nowhere. Angus would see to that.
Michael’s nose pressed gently against Brenna’s ear, and his vetiver scent wafted into her awareness. “Do you want to nap with me, Brenna? In the broad light of day?”
The sunshine was soft, the bed beneath them was soft, and Michael’s tone was softer still. His questions now were not bent on uncovering old miserable truths, but rather, on inviting Brenna to share a future with him, to trust him as a wife trusts her husband on their wedding night.
Sorrow and love tangled up inside her. Love for the soldier who’d come home to her when he might have wandered endlessly, love for the man who’d announced his regard for her without any promise of reciprocity, love for the husband who’d ruin everything with his protectiveness and tenacity.
“I want to love you,” Brenna said, skirting an outright declaration like the coward she was. “It’s a beautiful afternoon, and I want to make love with my husband.”
Even as a slow wicked smile lit Michael’s features, Brenna knew she was borrowing joy against the day when truth intruded like a blight on a marriage that should have taken root years ago, and blossomed by now with many children and many shared memories.
“I want that too, Brenna Maureen,” Michael said, tugging at the laces of his boots. “I’ve wanted that forever.”
Based on Michael’s expression, the trouble in the village, the guests down the hall, the entire universe had left his awareness, save for his focus on Brenna and what would happen in their bed in the next hour.
Someday, he might look back on this hour and conclude Brenna had consummated their vows to distract him from the answers he wanted, and that was a pity, for it wasn’t the entire truth—but it wasn’t untrue, either.
Brenna would look back on this day and conclude her husband had manipulated her, but Michael could not bring himself to change course.
She hated confrontations, suffered her way through each one, and Michael could gain permission to make love with his wife on this difficult afternoon because she dreaded explaining the situation in the village more than she dreaded his attentions.
Hang the bloody villagers, hang the nip-farthing crofters, hang everything—Michael would make such glorious, tender, ravenous love to his wife that she’d have no choice but to trust him with her secrets.
St. Clair, a former professional interrogator, might scoff at Michael’s tactics. The Baroness St. Clair would likely applaud, though.
Desiring Brenna was simply a gift; wooing her a delectable challenge. Getting the woman out of her clothes might be impossible.
When Michael was free of boots and stockings, he rose, which put the front of his kilt at about Brenna’s eye—and mouth—level.
“Shall you undress me, Wife?”
She set her footwear tidily beside the bed and scooted back against the pillows.
“I think not. A grown man can undress himself if he’s properly motivated.”
Michael considered her suggestion as he arranged his boots beside hers. Brenna wasn’t being entirely shy, though she was being entirely Brenna.
Making him work for his pleasures, which he was more than happy to do.
“Watch, then, and plan our afternoon while you do,” he said, unbuttoning his waistcoat. The better to entertain his wife—and the better to stop himself from falling upon her like a beast—he moved away from the bed, making a proscenium of the hearth rug.
The waistcoat he tossed in the direction of the privacy screen.
“Michael Brodie, for shame.”
Brenna wasn’t teasing, though she was watching, so Michael hung the blasted waistcoat on the back of the rocker and got busy with his neckcloth. The knot had become Gordian at some point in the day’s rambles, but he managed to wrench it open without strangling himself.
When he would have whipped the damned thing out the window, Brenna arched one fine, eloquent eyebrow.
That eyebrow promised that husbands who were cavalier with their clothing would suffer retribution at the hands of their wives. Michael folded his neckcloth and laid it tidily over the back of the rocker as well.
“Am I to be the only one sporting about unclad?” Michael asked as he took a seat on the hearth and started on his cuffs.
“The breeze is fresh. When you’re done dawdling, I’ll consider your question. One doesn’t want to suffer an avoidable chill.”
Because his head was bent toward his wrist, Michael permitted himself a smile.
“I am available to assist my wife,” he said, which was, at last, the blessed, damned truth. He pulled his shirt over his head, draped it neatly over the waistcoat, then rose, clad only in his kilt.
Brenna remained on the bed, crossed-legged and barefoot, but otherwise fully clothed. She gave nothing of her mood away, not in her expression, not in her posture, not in her silence.
“Brenna, have you changed your mind?” Asking the question nigh killed Michael, but never, never, even by persuasion or innuendo would he prevail on his wife for favors she was reluctant to grant.
She regarded his chest, her brows knitting at a particularly bewildered angle, and that’s when insight struck: Brenna wanted to be in charge of this situation, but had no idea how to go on. She needed to be in charge, in fact, but had never traveled the path they would follow.
Whoever had betrayed her youthful trust, whoever had trespassed against her person, had left scars where a woman’s natural sense of her own urges and pleasures should lie.
Michael would deal with the rage such a conclusion provoked—later. For now, he had a wife to bed. Wearing his kilt and what he hoped was a reassuring smile, he climbed onto the bed and took her hand.
“Brenna, I love you. I want very much to please you, and right now, I’m a bit nervous of my prospects.” More than a bit, though determined, nonetheless. “Can you meet me halfway?”
Even his cock was rethinking those prospects, which was probably divine providence, because Brenna’s hand suffered a minute tremor.
“Meet you halfway?”
“I am your willing slave in all that might transpire in this bed, but a slave needs instructions, hints, the occasional command. A husband needs them even more.” A husband needed them desperately, because so much that was wondrous, sweet, and nourishing to the soul might be lost if Michael misread his wife in the moments that followed.
Those delicate, lovely brows rose on the word husband.
“You are not my slave, Michael Brodie, and I will never be yours. Not your slave, your plaything, your wee pleasure, your little secret—”
She closed her eyes, as if willing herself to put aside the ire gathering in her words.
“I am your husband,” Michael said, kissing her knuckles. “I would like to become your lover, and I would adore having you for mine.” He would like to be so much more to her too—her friend, champion, partner, confidant, most loyal opposition, lady’s maid, companion, and favorite pest, for starters.
Brenna took the hem of his kilt between her fingers and thumb and rubbed the wool slowly back and forth. “I know nothing of being a lover. I know something of the swiving part.”
She spoke with regret and rubbed the wool the way a child grasps a favorite blanket for reassurance.
Perhaps Michael should have waited for the dark of night, not to spare Brenna’s sensibilities, but to spare himself the sight of her bewilderment. He spun a half-truth as delicate as the dust motes wafting about on the afternoon sunbeams.
“This part of being married is not complicated, Brenna Maureen. We touch, we kiss, we pleasure each other, we join our bodies and pleasure each other yet more. If God is generous, we conceive a child, the first of many, and then we sigh and hold each other and wonder at all the loveliness we’ve shared. ”
And Michael would wonder, too, at all the years they’d missed. For as surely as desire hummed softly through his veins, so too did regret. He’d made decisions any soldier would be proud of, and served in a difficult position loyally and well.
Those same decisions were something any husband—any lover—would regret for all his days and nights.
“So kiss me,” Brenna said. “We’ve kissed before, and I think I have the knack of that much.”
Her posture was wary, her eyes downcast, and yet she still stroked her fingers over the hem of Michael’s kilt. Michael kissed her palm, and without giving up her hand, stretched out on his back.