Read The Laird (Captive Hearts) for Free Online Page A

added. “Not the Brenna I used to pray for each night, bivouacking beside my horse on the alarm grounds, waiting for death to snatch us from sleep.”
    Then, as now, the steady chomp, chomp, chomp of a nearby mount was reassurance that all was well, and no raiding parties were stealing through the countryside intent on wreaking havoc on Wellington’s army.
    “I don’t miss France, God knows. Don’t miss London either.”
    Devil shifted a few feet away, having a nose for clover like no other horse Michael had known. Michael shifted too, trying to find a smooth patch of pasture from which to watch the stars come out.
    “I do miss something.” Missing something had become a habit, a bad habit. Rather like the whisky in his flask could become a bad habit. “I should not have tarried so long in London, but St. Clair needed me.”
    Michael’s wife had implied she had needed him too, though Michael was at a loss to say how. Brenna appeared as self-sufficient as a woman could be, with a ready ability to state her wishes, needs, and wants.
    Also her dislikes, among which, her marriage—or her husband—apparently numbered.
    Equine lips wiggled over Michael’s hair. He scratched the horse’s ear, as the beast had trained him to do.
    “I failed to do adequate reconnaissance, horse. Wellington never went into battle without conferring with his intelligence officers if he could help it, and St. Clair seemed to know things the very birds of the air were in ignorance of.”
    Michael did not miss his former commanding officer either, much. The damned man was wallowing in wedded bliss, for one thing.
    “Angus said Brenna can be difficult.” This daunting thought required another pull on the flask. “I surmise my uncle and my wife are not in charity with each other, but then, Uncle was against the marriage.”
    His father had told him that, which at the time had only increased Michael’s determination to see the wedding take place.
    “I used to be protective of our Brenna. She was such a quiet, wee thing.” And pretty—she was still pretty, but no longer wee, and her quiet had become the brooding of a discontented female.
    Lights winked out in the castle windows, while overhead, the night sky filled with stars.
    “Uncle says Brenna will need a firm hand, and that she’s standoffish and given to strange fancies.” Though Angus had shared this reluctantly, Michael had wanted to plant the older man a facer for speaking ill of a woman who had put up with much.
    He tipped the flask up rather than think of all Brenna had endured without her husband at her side.
    “Bloody hot in Spain. We slept in our clothes, though.” Did Brenna sleep fully clothed, even in summer? Was she prepared for a sneak attack in the dead of night?
    “I’m a bit half-seas over, you understand.” Another light went out, this one in the laird’s chamber. “’Tisn’t helping.”
    Michael lay in the cool, fragrant grass and tried to recall exactly when the discussion between him and his wife had gone astray. Dinner had been delicious, abundant, and pleasant enough. Then in the clearing, Brenna had announced that he wasn’t welcome to exercise a husband’s privileges in her bed, and matters had gone abruptly to Hades.
    “What did I expect?” he asked, scratching behind the horse’s chin. “Brenna had the right of it. I did not mean to compare her to a whore, but I compared coupling with her to what passes between a prostitute and her customers. A woman is entitled to expect a great deal more from her husband, or why marry the bugger?”
    Something in the conversation had cheered him, nonetheless. Something about…
    “She has not strayed, horse. My Brenna Maureen has not strayed even once.”
    Though Angus had said she was overly partial to her widowed cousin, and cousins often married.
    “Do you think she’d believe me, if I told her I hadn’t strayed either?”
    The horse moved off in search of more clover, while Michael got to his feet,