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

him. Boy never did fancy haggis though.”
    “No haggis, please. He specifically asked we spare him the haggis.”
    “Yes, he did,” a masculine voice called from the direction of the pantries. Michael emerged from the corridor, his kilt swinging about his knees. “When Cook makes so many other wonderful dishes, a man need not aggravate his belly with haggis.”
    He plucked a bite of bread off the tray.
    “This looks good. Mrs. MacCray sends her thanks for the basket and says Davey’s on the mend. Davey says he’s sure to be dead by Sunday if somebody doesn’t get him some decent whisky.” Michael took the place beside Brenna, which trapped her against the wall. “What mischief are you two getting up to?”
    “No mischief a’tall,” Cook said. “I’ll just be fetching that hamper.”
    She bustled away, moving with surprising speed for such a large—and generally dauntless—woman.
    “I believe I’ll finish this loaf,” Michael said, buttering himself another slice. “Spoils of war, and all that. Would you like some?”
    “No, thank you. What hamper is Cook talking about?”
    He dipped his damned bread in Brenna’s tea.
    “We’re picnicking, you and I. Rambling down to the riverbank, spreading a blanket, and wasting some time. I’ve missed the sound of the river when the water’s low.”
    Brenna moved her mug closer to him, for she was certainly no longer inclined to drink out of it herself. She’d promised herself not to berate him, and had managed well enough earlier, but that was before he’d pilfered her tea and threatened her afternoon. “Did you enjoy riding my horse?”
    He paused with a bite of bread poised over her tea. “I’m apologizing. That’s why we’re having a picnic, because you’re entitled to be put out with me for taking your horse without asking.”
    “You are pleased, I take it, to be able to put matters right with a bit of ‘wasted’ time?”
    The canny lad had become a canny man, just not canny enough. He set the rest of his bread down.
    “I would like to relax and be private with my wife, to enjoy a pretty day and a pretty patch of ground while we share a meal. I am sorry I didn’t ask before I rode your horse, but I wanted to assure myself he was a safe mount.”
    They were sitting side by side on the same hard bench, and yet Brenna felt as if she and her husband could not possibly be the same species.
    “The time to have investigated the beast’s sanity was five years ago, Michael, when your da came to grief. I would not have taken Boru as my mount were he not steady and sound.”
    Frustration seemed to fill the kitchen, even as Cook disappeared into the butler’s pantry, humming a tune in a minor key.
    “Did you forget we were to ride out, Michael?”
    Following on her question, an astonishing thought tried to elbow its way past her indignation: Was he as ashamed of having forgotten they were to ride as Brenna was ashamed on those rare occasions when she failed to execute a task entrusted to her?
    “I didn’t recognize most of the staff this morning, and that unsettled me.” He picked a walnut out of the bread and put it on the plate. “Where did they all go?” he asked softly.
    The question was rhetorical, and yet the bewilderment was genuine and not that different from what Brenna felt when she considered she did not even know what to feed her husband.
    “We’ll picnic,” Brenna said, “though as apologies go, a simple ‘I’m sorry’ will win you more forgiveness than will wreaking havoc with my schedule.”
    She maneuvered herself off the bench, leaving her husband among his spoils of war.
    “If we’re to share a picnic, where are you off to?”
    “I’m fetching my shawl. The sun’s out now, but we’re in the Highlands, and you know the fair weather cannot last.”
    ***
     
    Michael put aside the sweet bread he’d been eating and resisted the urge to follow his wife so they could finish whatever argument they’d just not had.
    “You