The Laird (Captive Hearts) Read Online Free PDF Page B

braw fellow who’d gone off to war years ago. He was both more and less than that young man, and the changes had been wrought through privation, violence, and misery.
    “Was it awful, in France?”
    He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
    “Yes, it was awful, for many reasons. In some regards, the wars were hardest on the French people. They gave untold thousands of their best and boldest young men to the Corsican’s bloodlust, and eventually, few were left at home to tend the crops or raise the children. One couldn’t help but admire the French, just as they grudgingly admired the bravery and tenacity of their foes.”
    “All this gallantry only made for more widows and orphans.” And wounded, starving soldiers.
    “Just so.”
    Brenna searched for anything she could give him that might be of comfort. “Your father was always a bit tipsy toward the end, but no more so than any other aging laird. The gout plagued him, and drink was his consolation. He was on his favorite horse, and they simply took a bad step before a jump.”
    More quiet passed, such as the woods at dusk were quiet. Squirrels chattered and leaped about, and birds fluttered in the canopy above.
    “Even on the battlefield, it can happen like that,” Michael said softly. “We lost many a soldier to disease and exposure, rather than to bullets. Too many.”
    She could not tell if his use of “we” referred to the French or the British. Probably both.
    “Your father also told me to give his love to your mother and sisters. I wrote to your mother to let her know this.” He’d been proud of his son, but his wife and daughters had had his love—too late, of course, but they had.
    Another absent kiss to her knuckles. “Thank you.”
    His expression was so bleak, Brenna’s heart ached. “I ride his gelding, you know. Boru is a fine mount, though Angus wanted to shoot him.”
    “We’ll ride out tomorrow, then, you and I.”
    “If the weather’s fine.” Except first they had a night to get through. “Shall we be on our way? Soon it will be too dark to read the headstones.”
    “You were taking me down to the cemetery?”
    “Aye.” And still, he kept her hand in his. He’d been like this as a young man too, affectionate, full of casual touches and easy smiles. She had loved him for that, loved him desperately. “Michael, I realize we will share a bed tonight, but if you expect…”
    He sat beside her, her hand in his, his expression unreadable in the forest shadows. “If I expect—?”
    She rose and walked across the clearing, twigs snapping under her boots. Maybe this was a discussion best held outside the castle walls, or at least begun there.
    “I cannot join with a stranger.”
    “I would be alarmed if you could, but I’m not a stranger. I’m your husband.”
    He’d followed her across the clearing, and she hadn’t heard a sound. The heat coming off of him, the scent of vetiver, and his voice told Brenna her husband stood immediately behind her.
    “Why didn’t you come home, Michael? The armistice was more than two years ago, and you didn’t serve for the Hundred Days. You’ve been on British soil for more than two years, and I’ve received exactly one note from you in all that time.”
    “You’re angry,” he said, his hands settling on her shoulders. “I can under—”
    Brenna wrenched out from under his grasp and faced him.
    “I am not angry, and you can not understand, any more than I can understand why you’d remain behind enemy lines in France, year after year, bound by some duty you haven’t taken the time to explain to your own wife.”
    “One doesn’t generally advertise one’s location behind enemy lines, Brenna.”
    “One doesn’t generally spend years behind those lines, then wait two more years to come home, Michael.” The light was waning, and this topic wasn’t the point of their errand beyond the castle walls.
    “I had yet to discharge my duties to my satisfaction or to my