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

came up. “The staff takes its direction from the lady.”
    Michael buttered a flaky, warm scone, set it on a plate, and passed it to her.
    “I was once assigned the job of keeping track of an enemy patrol in the mountains.” An English patrol, which detail he did not share. “Those fellows were part mountain goat. They went up this track and down that defile, and I was supposed to follow without letting on I was in the area.”
    Brenna paused with the scone two inches from her mouth. “Because they would have captured you?”
    They would have shoved him off the bloody mountainside and told him to give their regards to Old Scratch.
    “Something like that.” He possessed himself of her hand, helped himself to a bite of her scone, and resumed his tale rather than laugh at the consternation on her face.
    “I eventually figured out that the way to execute my assignment was to get above them. You shouldn’t waste good food, Brenna.”
    He saw the temptation to smile flirt with the corners of her mouth, and saw her battle it aside as she took a bite of scone.
    “So when darkness fell, I began to climb. Gets cold in the mountains at night. Colder.”
    Brenna paused in her chewing. “Would you like some tea?”
    “Please. So there I was, clinging to the side of some damned French mountain, or possibly Spanish—there being little distinction when a fellow’s teeth are chattering and he has to piss—darkness falling, and me waiting for the moon to rise. Then the clouds came in. Sound can travel in odd ways in terrain like that, so I could hear the patrol below me, hear them laughing about the idiot thundering along behind them, smell the meat cooking over their campfire.”
    Brenna stirred cream and honey into his tea and passed him the mug.
    “It was a long night?”
    “It was an interminable night, and that was before it began to sleet.”
    He took a sip of pure heaven, the kind of heaven that had both tormented and comforted his memory on that mountainside.
    “Is that how you feel now, Michael? As if you’re clinging to a mountainside in hostile territory, bitter weather coming in, night coming on, and the enemy laughing at you from behind their loaded guns?”
    He passed her the mug of tea and took the last bite of her scone.
    “I meant no disrespect to you when I complimented the kitchen staff, Brenna.”
    She did not give his mug back, but cradled it in her hands.
    “I anticipate criticism. It’s freely handed about here, for decisions made, not made, made too late, made too soon. I did not know what you’d want for breakfast, where you’d want breakfast, and a wife should know these things. I forgot to ask, and then you were asleep.”
    Cold, dark mountainsides were apparently in ample supply in the Scottish Highlands, and Michael dared not belittle her concerns. An angry cook or a vindictive laundress could cause much suffering among the objects of her ire, regardless of pesky male nonsense like a war to be waged.
    “For breakfast, I would like my wife’s company. I care little about what’s served, provided she shares it with me, but hot tea and fresh scones will never go amiss with me.”
    Brenna took a sip from the mug and held it out to him, then busied herself slicing, buttering, and drizzling honey on a second scone. She put half on her plate, half on his, and passed it to him.
    The day gained a measure of hope.
    Michael had found a ledge on their marital mountainside. A small, narrow ledge, but one they could share.
    ***
     
    Brenna fetched her husband’s boots rather than linger over the last cup of morning tea in hopes he’d tell her another story.
    “You have your da’s way with a tale,” she said, passing him the mug of tea and taking the tray to the corridor. “I could listen to that man spin a yarn time after time, the same story, the same ending, and yet, I hung on his every word. Winters grew longer when he passed away.”
    Michael unrolled his shaving kit on the windowsill and set