One
“That’s thievery, my lady!” The irate merchant glared at Lady Laurel Ross as she turned her nose up at a bolt of wool.
“It’s thievery to pretend this is your finest Highland wool,” Laurel mocked. They stood in the market just outside Stirling Castle. Laurel had experienced the same negotiations countless times over her decade-long tenure as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth de Burgh. A daughter of the laird of Clan Ross, Laurel had never been anyone’s fool, and she didn’t intend to become one now. “You will not convince me that Clan Ross produced such quality, mercer.”
“But I swear to you it is,” the portly middle-aged man asserted. “Have I not sold you other lengths of the finest-quality fabric?” Laurel watched as beads of sweat dotted the merchant’s forehead. She’d haggled with him a few months prior, and she knew he wasn’t speaking a falsehood that he’d sold her well-made material in the past. However, what lay before her most certainly hadn’t been produced by any spinner on her father’s lands.
“So why now do you try to pass this off to me? I paid you well the last time. Yet you still insist this is fine Highland wool. It is not. And you think me a fool to boot,” Laurel argued. “I shall take my business elsewhere, and I shall warn all hither and thither that you are a schemer and a knave, mercer.” Laurel narrowed her eyes at the man, irritated that he insisted on an exorbitant price. She wasn’t opposed to buying the wool, but she would do so at the price she named. “The price of my silence is five shillings per yard and not a penny more.”
“But—but—that’s thievery, my lady,” the perspiring merchant repeated, stammering.
“So you’ve said. Make your choice now, or I—” A voice that in equal parts relieved her and made her wary interrupted Laurel.
“What trouble are you causing the mon, sister?” Montgomery Ross asked as he wrapped his arm around his younger sister’s shoulders.
“My lord,” came the response. The merchant’s eyes widened to unbelievable proportions as he took in the Ross plaid wrapped around Monty’s waist and pinned over his shoulder.
“Aye. You have the right of it now,” Laurel said as she shifted the attention back to her negotiations. She wished to be through with her purchase, so she could speak to her newly arrived brother in private. “What shall it be? Five shillings a yard, or my crowing from the rooftops?”
“How many yards did you say you wanted at five shillings apiece, my lady?” the rotund merchant conceded.
“Eight, if you please,” Laurel sniffed. She would make certain the man understood she wouldn’t have the wool pulled over her eyes, literally or figuratively.
“As you wish.” The wool merchant set about cutting the length Laurel requested while she turned to look at her brother. The man’s aggrieved sigh made Laurel’s lips twitch. Monty’s coppery hair matched her reddish-blonde tresses, but while she considered her features unremarkable, Monty’s visage was a work of art. While he had the build and power of any trained warrior, his face was almost too pretty for a man. She supposed it suited his character.
“How did you know it wasn’t any of ours? You haven’t been home in years,” Monty whispered.
Laurel ran her finger along the edge of the freshly sheared wool and turned over a corner. Threads poked through that would soon unravel. While it wasn’t well spun, it would serve her purposes. “Shona and her daughters would never make such errors and send this to market.”
“That is true, and Mother would have an apoplexy if she knew someone was trying to pass this off as ours. What made the mon think you wouldn’t ken?”
“Did you not see his reaction when you walked up? He didn’t know I was a Ross. I never wear our colors while I’m at court. The last time I wore one of our plaids was the last time I visited Balnagown three years ago.”
“Visited?” Monty cocked an eyebrow.
“You know it hasn’t been home since Myrna convinced Mother and Father to send me here.” Laurel swallowed a lump in her throat she was certain was easily the size of her fist. She’d arrived in Stirling nearly eleven years earlier as an unwilling lady-in-waiting. Her younger sister had strategically suggested that becoming an attendant at Robert the Bruce’s royal court would improve Laurel’s chances for finding a husband. The strategy had been to remove Laurel as potential competition to marry Padraig Munro, since both families wished for an alliance. Myrna fancied herself the next Lady Munro and had gone to extreme lengths to enact her plan, making their parents banish Laurel to the depraved wilds of court and attempting to ruin the marriage the king decreed between Padraig and Cairren Kennedy, a former lady-in-waiting.
Arriving alone had terrified Laurel, her father having sent a contingent of warriors with her but no family. She’d felt abandoned, and even though she’d made a home for herself at court, she still felt the same as she had when she was five-and-ten years old. Monty grimaced, then offered Laurel a sheepish frown before lifting the newly cut and rolled wool from the merchant’s stall. Laurel paid the man with a self-satisfied smile and a cocked eyebrow. She narrowed her eyes at the smaller man as she leaned forward and whispered, “You’d do well to remember that while I may be a lady, I barter like a Lombard, you crooked-nosed knave.”
The merchant could do little more than stand and blink rapidly as Laurel straightened. He wasn’t wont to argue with the noblewoman any more than he had, but he chafed at the insult. She might have been right that his claims were ridiculous, and hewasclassless, but the comment smarted. However, he was used to Laurel’s ruthless business acumen and viperous tongue. He chided himself for his foolishness, and Laurel cast a smug gaze over the vendor before turning to walk alongside Monty.
“How have you fared since last I was here, Laurel?” Monty asked.
“The same as always,” Laurel demurred.
“Miserable,” Monty responded.
“Not miserable so much as fed up. But I may as well pick out my burial plot since I shall be here till the end.”
“Still prone to exaggeration. The Highlands haven’t left you.”
“But I’ve left them far behind,” Laurel muttered. She’d had the same internal battle countless times. She longed for the wide open, rugged land where she’d grown up, but she didn’t wish to return to a family that rarely thought of her. Her brother was the only member of her clan who she saw with any regularity besides the guards assigned to her detail for years on end and her loyal maid. She sympathized with the men trapped at Stirling Castle, but her arguments that she didn’t need her clansmen fell on deaf ears with her father. It was the only condition he set for her while she resided at court. Besides ensuring she was protected when she left the castle, her parents cared not what happened. They’d abandoned their hope of her making a suitable match, just as they’d abandoned her.
“Then why not snag yourself a Highlander at court and return,” Monty suggested with a shrug.
“Would that it be so easy to escape Sodom and Gomorrah,” Laurel snapped. “Who wants the penniless lady-in-waiting?”
“You are hardly a pauper, Laurel,” Monty disagreed.
“Have you brought the chests of coin and silver for my dowry then?” Laurel countered. Her initial excitement at her brother’s arrival had rapidly turned into wariness. She turned a withering glare on Monty. “Och, dinna mind me and ma Highland exaggeration, brother. There’s nae chests of aught for me.” Laurel adopted an accent she’d rarely used in her time at court. She’d lost her brogue within a day of arriving when she realized she faced little but condemnation from the Queen’s other ladies, who mostly hailed from the Lowlands.
“That’s not true, Laurel,” Monty hedged, but Laurel’s intensifying glare made him stop. They’d reached the gates of Stirling Castle, so Laurel reached for the fabric Monty still carried. But he refused to relinquish it before he made amends. “Will you dine with me this eve? Will the queen allow it?”
“Aye. I can dine with you,” Laurel agreed with a jerky nod. She always longed for the familiarity and comfort of Monty’s visits, but it was more a longing for what she wished could be, rather than what existed. She knew she wouldn’t be through the first course before she wished to escape. Monty only served as a reminder that she was only a Ross in name since she had so little knowledge of what happened day-to-day at Balnagown. She drew the fabric from Monty’s arms and strained to kiss his cheek. “Is Donnan with you?”
Monty recoiled before narrowing his eyes at Laurel. “You know that he is. I never travel without my second.”
Laurel shook her head with a resigned frown. “You know I consider him as much my brother as I do you. When will you believe I don’t care?” Laurel didn’t wait for her brother’s response, instead turning toward the keep’s entrance and disappearing.
