What a Lady Needs for Christmas (42 page)

And yet, Michael stood there, a muscular arm winged at her, while the scent of slippery cobbles, blooming roses, and a whiff of vetiver filled the air.

“Brenna Maureen, every arrow slit and window of that castle is occupied by a servant or relation watching our reunion. I would like to walk into my home arm in arm with my wife. Will you permit me that courtesy?”

He’d been among the English, the
military
English, which might explain this fussing over appearances, but he hadn’t lost his Scottish common sense.

Michael had
asked
her to accommodate him. Brenna wrapped one hand around his thick forearm and allowed him to escort her to the castle.

***

He could bed his wife. The relief Michael Brodie felt at that sentiment eclipsed the relief of hearing again the languages of his childhood, Gaelic and Scots, both increasingly common as he’d traveled farther north.

To know he could feel desire for his wedded wife surpassed his relief at seeing the castle in good repair, and even eclipsed his relief that the woman didn’t indulge in strong hysterics at the sight of him.

For the wife he’d left behind had been more child than woman, the antithesis of this red-haired Celtic goddess wrapped in the clan’s hunting tartan and so much wounded dignity.

They reached the steps leading up to the great wooden door at the castle entrance. “I wrote to you.”

Brenna did not turn her head. “Perhaps your letters went astray.”

Such gracious indifference. He was capable of bedding his wife—any young man with red blood in his veins would desire the woman at Michael’s side—but clearly, ability did not guarantee he’d have the opportunity.

“I meant, I wrote from Edinburgh to let you know I was coming home.”

“Edinburgh is lovely in summer.”

All of Scotland was lovely in summer, and to a man who’d scorched his back raw under the Andalusian sun, lovely in deepest winter too. “I was in France, Brenna. The King’s post did not frequent Toulouse.”

Outside the door, she paused and studied the scrolled iron plate around the ancient lock.

“We heard you’d deserted, then we heard you’d died. Some of the fellows from your regiment paid calls here, and intimated army gossip is not to be trusted. Then some officer came trotting up the lane a month after the victory, expecting to pay a call on you.”

Standing outside that impenetrable, ancient door, Michael accepted that his decision to serve King and Country had left wounded at home as well as on the Continent.

“I
begged
you to take me with you.” She wrenched the door open, but stepped back, that Michael might precede her into the castle.

She had pleaded and cried for half their wedding night, sounding not so much like a distressed bride as an inconsolable child, and because he’d been only five years her senior, he’d stolen away in the morning while she’d slept, tears still streaking her pale cheeks.

He searched for honest words that would not wound her further.

“I prayed for your well-being every night. The idea that you were here, safe and sound, comforted me.”

She plucked a thorny pink rose from a trellis beside the door and passed the bloom to him.

“Who or what was supposed to comfort me, Michael Brodie? When I was told you’d gone over to the enemy? When I was told you were dead? When I imagined you captured by the French, or worse?”

They stood on the castle steps, their every word available to any in the great hall or lurking at nearby windows. Rather than fret over the possibility that his wife had been unfaithful to him—her questions were offered in rhetorical tones—Michael stepped closer.

“Your husband has come home, and it will be his pleasure to make your comfort his greatest concern.”

She looked baffled—or peevish. He could not read his own wife accurately enough to distinguish between the two.

“Have you baggage, Husband?”

Yes, he did. He gestured for her to go ahead of him into the hall. “Last I heard, the coach was following, but I haven’t much in the way of worldly goods.”

“I’ll have your things put in the blue bedroom.”

When she would have gone swishing off into the bowels of the castle, Michael grabbed her wrist and kept her at his side. She remained facing half-away from him, an ambiguous pose, not resisting, and not exactly drinking in the sight of her long-lost husband, either.

“What’s different?” He studied the great hall he’d stopped seeing in any detail by his third birthday. “Something is different. This place used to be…dark. Like a great ice cave.”

She twisted her hand free of his.

“Nothing much is different. I had the men enlarge the windows, whitewash the walls, polish the floors. The room wanted light, we had a bit of coin at the time, and the fellows needed something to do.”

She’d taken a medieval hall and domesticated it without ruining its essential nature, made it comfortable. Or comforting? Bouquets of pink roses graced four of the deep windowsills, and every chair and sofa sported a Brodie plaid folded over the back. Not the darker, more complicated hunting plaid Brenna wore, but the cheerful red, black, and yellow used every day.

“I like it very much, Brenna. The hall is welcoming.” Even if the lady was not.

She studied the great beams twenty feet overhead—or perhaps entreated the heavens for aid—while Michael caught a hint of a smile at his compliment.

That he’d made his wife smile must be considered progress, however miniscule.

Then her smile died. “Angus, good day.”

Michael followed her line of sight to a sturdy kilted fellow standing in the doorway of the shadowed corridor that led to the kitchens. Even in the obscure light, Michael recognized an uncle who had been part older brother and part father, the sight of whom now was every part dear.

“Never say the village gossip was for once true! Our Michael has come home at last.” Angus hustled across the great hall, his kilt flapping against his knees.

A hug complete with resounding thumps on the back followed, and in his uncle’s greeting, Michael found the enthusiasm he’d hoped for from his wife.

“Surely the occasion calls for a wee dram,” Angus said. His hair was now completely white, though he was less than twenty years Michael’s senior. He wasn’t as tall as Michael, but his build was muscular, and he looked in great good health.

“The man needs to eat before you’re getting him drunk,” Brenna interjected. She stood a few feet off, directly under crossed claymores that gleamed with the same shine as the rest of the hall.

“We can take a tray in the library, woman,” Angus replied. “When a man hasn’t seen his nephew for nigh ten years, the moment calls for whisky and none of your fussy little crumpets, aye?”

Brenna twitched the tail of her plaid over her shoulder, a gesture about as casual as a French dragoon swinging into the saddle.

“I will feed my husband a proper meal at a proper table, Angus Brodie, and your wee dram will wait its turn.”

Angus widened his stance, fists going to his hips, suggesting not all battlefields were found on the Continent.

“Uncle, Brenna has the right of it. I haven’t eaten since this morning. One glass of good spirits, and I’d be disgracing my heritage. Food first, and then we’ll find some sipping whisky.”

Brenna moved off to stick her finger in a white crockery bowl of roses, while Angus treated Michael to a look of good-humored disgruntlement.

“She runs a fine kitchen, does our Brenna. Do it justice, and find me in the office when you’ve eaten your fill. I’m that glad you’re back, lad.”

He strode off, the tassels on his sporran bouncing against his thick thighs, while Brenna shook droplets of water off the end of her finger.

“Does my uncle often cross swords with you?”

She wiped her finger on her plaid. “He does not, not now. He leaves the castle to me. I’m sure your arrival is the only thing that tempted him past the door. What are you hungry for?”

He was hungry for her smiles. A soldier home from war had a right to be hungry for his wife’s smiles.

About the Author

New
York
Times
and
USA
Today
bestselling author Grace Burrowes hit the bestseller lists with her debut,
The
Heir
, followed by
The
Soldier
,
Lady
Maggie’s Secret Scandal
, and
Lady
Eve’s Indiscretion.
Her Regency and Victorian romances have received extensive praise, including several starred reviews from
Publishers
Weekly
and
Booklist
.
The
Heir
was a
Publishers
Weekly
Best Book of 2010,
Lady
Sophie’s Christmas Wish
won Best Historical Romance of the Year in 2011 from RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards.
Lady
Louisa’s Christmas Knight
was a
Library
Journal
Best Book of 2012,
The
Bridegroom
Wore
Plaid
, the first in her trilogy of Scotland-set Victorian romances, was a
Publishers
Weekly
Best Book of 2012, while the second tale,
Once
Upon
a
Tartan
, was an RT Reviewers’ Choice award winner for 2013.
Darius
, the first in her groundbreaking Regency series The Lonely Lords, was named one of the iBooks Store’s Best Romances of 2013.

Grace is a practicing family law attorney and lives in rural Maryland. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached through her website at
graceburrowes.com
.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

MacGregor-Flynn-MacDaniels Family Tree

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

An excerpt from The Laird

About the Author

Back Cover