The Laird (Captive Hearts) by Grace Burrowes Read Free Book Online

Brenna about as if she were a small craft on a stormy loch. She felt Michael come near, felt the shocking warmth of his bare chest against her arm, and then his lips brushing against her forehead.
    Before she could flinch or bat him away, he subsided.
    “Good night, then, Wife. Though I’m warning you, a man learns a deal of patience in the army.”
    He rolled over, giving her his back. She’d seen his bare back earlier in the day, when he bathed, and she knew the skin over his shoulder blades would be smooth, the muscles along his spine lean and graceful.
    Brenna rolled over too, so they were back to back, and any stray temptation to touch him less likely to overtake her good sense. “Good night, Husband.”
    Why had he kissed her, and why hadn’t she panicked? “Michael?”
    “Hmm?”
    “I feel safer with you here.”
    He said nothing, did not ask if she meant safer with him back home, safer with him in the castle, or safer with him in the same bed.
    He also did not ask what or who she felt safer from .
    Three
     
    Army life, whether in a French garrison or among British troops in Spain and Portugal, was intimate. Michael had seen a woman giving birth in the snow along the road to Corunna, and rejoiced with his entire unit when he’d learned mother, child—and father—had safely made it aboard the evacuation ships.
    He’d also seen a couple lying in the snow, arms about each other, both dead of the exhaustion and exposure that had claimed many on that hellish retreat.
    Combat held worse intimacies yet, as when a French officer whom one chanced upon foraging with his men along a riverbank—and shared a bit of gossip and commiseration with—showed up the next day at the business end of a bayonet charge.
    The garrison in France had been no different, with domestic squabbles, short rations, and news of the occasional victory or defeat equally shared by all. Thus, it should not have bothered Michael to spend the night in the same bed with his wife, to hear her sighs and murmurs, and feel her stirring in the dark.
    “You sleep like a recruit after his first forced march,” Michael said, untangling himself from the sheets. “Though you don’t snore, and you smell a good deal better.”
    Like roses, and like home.
    “This time of year, nights are short, days are long.” Brenna sat on the bed with her back to him, wrapping herself into a wool dressing gown. She wouldn’t even cross the room without donning as much armor as the situation might afford her.
    “Why do you wear the hunting plaid?” The darker hues flattered her vivid coloring more than the red everyday plaid would, but it was still an odd choice.
    “This pattern doesn’t show the dirt as easily, and the colors suit me better.” Still, she sat with her back to him, as if the knot of her sash required all of her attention.
    “Brenna, I’m decently covered.”
    She peeked over her shoulder. “So you are.”
    And yet, she blushed to find him wearing pajama trousers, though they were held up by a properly knotted drawstring rather than a morning salute from his cock.
    “Do you break your fast here, or go down to the kitchen?” He could not imagine her putting the staff to the effort of serving her a solitary breakfast in a dining parlor.
    “I take a tray, something light, though I’ll talk to Cook about preparing more substantial fare now that you’re back. I’m sure the tray will be sitting outside the door, along with your boots.”
    Still, she did not move. She was, instead, watching him the way the French had watched Michael for months after he’d shown up at their gates, professing a mostly sincere disgust of all things English.
    Michael fetched the tray—his boots could wait—and brought it to the bed, setting it down beside Brenna, and taking a place at the foot of the bed. Butter, honey, a basket of scones wrapped in snowy linen, and a pot of tea were arranged just so.
    “The staff knows how to welcome the laird home.”
    Her chin