They exchanged an odd look of surprise, suddenly alone together, strangers, then the young woman burst out laughing. “Oh, what a dear you are!”
She had the most lovely colored red-gold hair, not Lyall’s gold, but redder, like the rare, pinkish-gold hammered wristbands from Byzantine Glenna had seen in a seller’s stall once and could not bear to steal. But those strands of that hair fell all about her face and shoulders, not unlike her own wind-tumbled mop.
Where was the velvet gown? Where were the jewels? Where was the smug look Glenna had expected? Except for her clear skin and soft, noble features, Lyall’s sister looked like a chorewife at the end of a long, hard day. Glenna was shocked silent.
Still laughing, Mairi said, “I have wanted to hit my brother with more than a wet towel!”
“Aye. I can imagine. Truly.” Glenna looked at the door, then shook her head. “You poor thing. I have been stuck with him for mere days, yet I cannot imagine the trial you must have had growing up with him.”
“Oh!” Mairi gasped, then in a laugh she snorted like a pig and put her hands to her face, which was bright red. Her giggles and embarrassment were infectious, and Glenna laughed, too, completely taken aback. Mairi’s open and blunt manner was a surprise. No coy noblewoman here.
The young woman closed the distance between them and gave a curtsey—an odd and uncomfortable gesture for Glenna to receive--holding her stained, dark leather apron and rough, worn, woolen gray gown with the torn sleeve and spotted with bits of hardened wax and splatters of oil. “Lady Glenna,” she said, “I am Mairi Grey, Lyall’s sister and widow of my dear lord Robert Grey, and mother to those rascal lads who were bothering you.”
“They did not bother me, Lady Mairi.”
Mairi shook her head. “Listen to us. We are not at court.” Mairi grabbed her hands and to her surprise and relief, Glenna felt as many calluses as she had on her own palms. “We are to be friends, I think, Glenna.”
“Moreso. Sisters,” Glenna admitted quietly.
“Sisters?” Mairi frowned, then her eyes grew large. “Lyall and you?”
Glenna nodded.
“Oh, Mother Mary and Joseph!”
Glenna winced a little, suddenly having second thoughts about spilling the truth—the lie?--so soon.
“You cannot be wed.”
“Aye.” The more people who knew, Glenna decided, the more she told, the more tight the knot would be around them and harder for Lyall to back away from her, and perhaps, the more difficult ‘twould be for her father or his councilors to dissolve the marriage. She had no choice but to fight for Lyall, though she was not pleased with him at that moment and he still was not convinced how badly he needed her. Hardheaded, beautiful, stubborn man.
“But you are royalty.”
“So they tell me.” Glenna frowned and looked down at her pitiful clothing, then shrugged. “I look nothing like royalty.”
“Oh, you need not worry,” Mairi waved a hand casually in the air and if the news were nothing. “I have gowns for you, bolts of fabric, and more.”
Gowns?Glenna’s heart caught slightly.Gowns?
“My mother and I, along with some of the other women, have been stitching our days and nights away, but later with all that.”
“What kind of gowns?” Glenna whispered, almost afraid to believe the words she’d heard, afraid to ask, and thinking of her precious green velvet, far too big and that hung from her shoulders down to its ragged, knife-chopped hem, rolled up tightly in her satchel with her too-large red leather shoes. Could she have two gowns, maybe three? What if one of them were silk? She could barely breathe at the thought.
Mairi must not have heard her because she continued pacing on the thick carpet in the center of the room, then she stopped and said, “How can you be wed? Any marriage you make must be made with the king’s approval and witnessed.”
“We spoke vows to each other.”
“You handfasted? Lyall should be flogged with more than a towel. It matters not. You needn’t worry. A handfast cannot be binding. You are not a crofter or freeman. You are a Canmore. Any declaration of man and wife surely must be witnessed for legitimacy.”
Glenna started to tell her there was a witnessed document, but bit her tongue. She had best keep the proof to herself for now.
Mairi faced her, frowning. “I cannot believe Lyall is caught up in another complicated union.”
At first Glenna was deeply hurt, then she said, “Another?”
“Aye. He did not tell you about Isobel?”
Glenna shook her head. “He did say to me once that his wife was dead.”
