“It doesnae have to be that way,” Brodie reminded her.
“Brodie, I want to trust ye. I do. But I’m scared to. I’m scared because it would hurt so much more than it did when I left Balnagown or when ma father cut me off.”
“Cut ye off?”
Laurel didn’t have a chance to answer before a forceful rap sounded at her door.
Ten
“Laurel?” Monty’s voice floated through from the other side. Laurel’s eyes widened as she looked at Brodie. The most notorious gossips among her peers had already caught them, but even that was less scandalous than anyone finding Brodie in her chamber.
“A moment, Monty,” Laurel called back. She turned horrified eyes to Brodie, who didn’t look perturbed in the lease.
“Are we in agreement to wed?” Brodie whispered.
“I—I think so. But that doesnae mean I wish for it to be entirely in shame,” Laurel hissed. Brodie sighed but dropped a peck on her nose. He pointed toward her armoire, and Laurel gave a doubtful nod. She watched as the giant forced himself into what looked like a pea. Her gowns peaked out the door that didn’t shut all the way. She hurried to the door and opened it to find Monty alone in the passageway. “I’m sorry, I had to make myself presentable.”
Monty narrowed his eyes at her before they swept her chamber, coming to rest on the armoire. “Get out, Campbell. My sister’s chin looks like you tried to swallow her alive. Next time, shave first.”
Laurel’s hands flew to her face before her shoulders slumped when she realized she confirmed Monty’s suspicions. The wardrobe door swung open, and Brodie climbed out, narrowly missing his head on the frame.
“Hiding? I cannot believe you’re such a coward,” Monty said in disgust.
“Get out,” Laurel said.
“We must talk,” Monty argued.
“No. Not if you’re going to insult Brodie.” Laurel narrowed her eyes as she leaned forward and lowered her voice. “We all have secrets we wish to keep and will go to quite long lengths to protect.”
Monty’s gaze hardened as he looked from his sister to Brodie, who came to stand behind Laurel with his arms crossed. “It wasn’t enough that you compromised my sister in a passageway where half the ladies-in-waiting saw you. Everyone is abuzz aboot it. Now, I find you in Laurel’s chamber. Bluidy hell, Brodie. I wished for you to take her off my hands, not destroy our family’s reputation. You may like a challenge, but it wasn’t to bed her. It was to make her love you enough to marry.”
Laurel froze. She feared if she moved, even twitched a muscle, she would vomit down the front of her brother. Everything she and Brodie shared that morning felt like a sham with Monty’s careless words.
He didna mean what he said. He already committed to marrying me. He just wanted me to go along without a fuss. But why? He doesnae need to strengthen an alliance with us. And ma dowry isnae worth even looking at. Likes a challenge? Was this just aboot his pride?
Brodie spun Laurel around and pulled her against himself, but she didn’t move. She didn’t pull away, but neither did she return the embrace. Despite the numbness that spread to each pore, Laurel needed the solidity of Brodie’s body and arms to keep her on her feet and, ridiculous as she found it, his presence offered her comfort.
“You are an arse, Montgomery,” Brodie seethed. “You may have said it where no one but us can hear, but you’ve humiliated your sister.”
Brodie made as if to pull away, but Laurel’s hands shot up and tugged on his leine, urging him not to let go. He pressed Laurel’s head to his chest, shooting Monty a thunderous glare. “Wheest, thistle,” Brodie whispered. “I will tell you everything I remember of that night. But it had naught to do with today. Today happened because it was meant to. We’re two peas in a pod, and everything I said today was the truth. All of it, Laurie.”
Laurel still couldn’t move. She closed her eyes as tears seeped from beneath her lids. Brodie held her as he ran his hand over her back. Never had she appreciated her height until that moment when Brodie cooed in her ear endearments and promises that Monty couldn’t hear. He promised to take her away from court, to take her riding every day that he could once they were at Kilchurn, to take her to the sea or to the mountains, or to do whatever she wanted once they married. Eventually, Laurel nodded and released him. She turned to look at Monty, her eyes still burning from her tears. Brodie’s arm around her middle kept her from lunging at Monty and tearing at his face, but it also made her feel protected unlike she ever had before.
“I told you to get out already, Montgomery. Go away,” Laurel commanded.
“So you can finish your romp?” Monty stomped to the bed and ripped back the covers.
“There’s naught to find, Monty, because naught happened,” Laurel stated. “We talked. Aye, there were kisses, but I am in the same condition as I was when I entered my chamber.”
“And what, pray, is that? You allowed him to maul you where anyone could see. Word is he was humping you right there.”
“Montgomery,” Brodie’s voice was enough to make Monty snap his mouth shut. “Cease, or there will be no heir to Clan Ross. Whether you made up the last part or that is the gossip, it isn’t true. I kissed your sister. More than once, in fact. But only that. And I trust that Lady Laurel is a maiden, but even if she weren’t, I still wish to marry her.”
“Wish to?” Monty snorted. “You haven’t a choice.”
“That is neither here nor there when it comes to whether I run you through. Montgomery, I shall relish the day I take Laurel from here, and I swear to her—” Brodie turned Laurel to look at him. He tipped her chin up. “—I will never force her to lay eyes on you or any member of your family if she doesn’t wish to.” Laurel shivered at the certainty in Brodie’s voice and eyes. She nodded, tipping her head back further. She cared little that Monty watched. Brodie brushed his lips against hers, ignoring Monty clearing his throat.
“You goad me,” Monty accused. “You stand here compromising my sister right before me and think I will do naught.”
Brodie opened his mouth, but Laurel spoke first. She didn’t peer back at Monty, fusing her gaze with Brodie instead. “You are but an earl’s son. He is Laird Campbell.” Laurel spoke with such surety that she may as well have been proclaiming Brodie king.
“Perhaps it would be best if you continued kissing her. Then her viperous tongue would be better occupied,” Monty snarled.
“I warned you once, now I warn you a second time. There will be no third. Don’t speak to your sister like that,” Brodie ordered.
“Or what? You wouldn’t run me through any more than you would marry my sister if you weren’t caught with your hand up her skirts. Your bravado is for show. You know it’s what a groom is expected to do, but I doubt you’re as eager as you would have others believe. But a challenge is what you wanted, and a challenge is what you shall have. She’ll likely drive you to an early grave, so it shouldn’t last too long.”
“Why are you being so cruel, Monty?” Laurel whispered. She and her brother had exchanged various tart and belittling comments, but none had ever been to this degree.
“Because it was one thing when everyone thought you a bitch. Now you’re a bitch and a whore.”
Brodie lunged past Laurel, who whimpered, then shrieked as Monty’s words pierced her heart, and Brodie terrified her. He wrapped his hand around Monty’s throat and squeezed. But the men were close in size and equal in strength. Monty swung, but Brodie lifted his arm to shield his face. However, Monty slammed his other fist into Brodie’s jaw. Brodie couldn’t block that blow since his hand was still strangling Monty.
“Stop!” Laurel screamed, unsure of who would be the victor. She may not have wanted to see Monty again, but she didn’t wish her brother dead. But her word fell on deaf ears as the men tumbled to the ground. Brodie lost his grip on Monty’s throat as they landed with a bang. They rolled around, one gaining an advantage only to lose it the next moment. Laurel looked around her chamber for anything
she could use to break them apart. She glanced at the ewer of water on her washstand, but there wasn’t nearly enough to even faze them. She searched for something that might make a loud noise, but she could think of nothing. She looked back and spied her sewing basket. With a glance at the brawling men, she dashed to the basket and fished out two long pins. Daring to draw close to the flailing arms and legs, she stabbed one into Monty’s waist, just below his ribs. She pressed the other equally hard into Brodie’s backside. She was quick to withdraw them as the men roared and broke apart. Both men lithely came to their feet, ready to attack whoever interrupted. Laurel stood wide-eyed with a sewing pin in each hand.
“You wouldn’t stop,” Laurel said lamely.
“So you stabbed me?” Brodie said incredulously.
“Och, it didn’t go in very far. It was like pushing a pin into stone,” Laurel scowled.
“Where did she get you?” Monty asked as he pulled up his already untucked leine and found the prick where a dot of blood bubbled.
“In the arse. At least she got you in a respectable place like your side,” Brodie grumbled.
“It was what I could reach,” Laurel snapped. “If you want to duel, take it to the lists. Not in my chamber, where you’re likely to tear it apart. Monty, you should leave. I won’t say it again, and I don’t believe Brodie wishes to hear it again.”
“Naught is resolved,” Monty argued. “You still disgraced yourself, and he compromised you.”
“So you’ve said,” Laurel said as she cast Monty a withering stare. “Sort out the contracts and inform Father that whatever pittance he calls my dowry needs to be delivered to the Campbells. For all my faults and sins, I just allied the Rosses with the most powerful clan in Scotland. If the next words out of your mouth, Monty, aren’t thank you, I’ll run you through myself.”
Monty shifted his gaze to the resolute expression on Brodie’s face, and his defensive posture near Laurel. He shook his head but smiled. “I sense you deserve one another. If you are so quick to defend my sister, I believe you carry genuine sentiment toward her. And I suspect she ended our fight out of pity and fear for my life more than worry for your safety. Laurel, I will send a missive to Father to inform him of these good tidings. And despite the words—and blows—exchanged here, I will stand beside you no matter what anyone says. And I do not doubt Father and our clan council will be, dare I say, jubilant to learn that you’re marrying into the Campbells.
“I shall sleep well kenning I’ve made Father and the clan council happy,” Laurel said snidely. “And you’re welcome, Monty.”
“Och, thank you, Laurel,” Monty stepped forward to kiss his sister on the cheek, but her pinched look and her eye that twitched made him pull back. “We should see the king as soon as we can gain an audience.”
Eleven
Laurel was sandwiched in a chair between Brodie on her left and Monty on her right. The trio sat across from an aggrieved King Robert. They hadn’t been made to wait when they requested an audience. The sneer the chamberlain cast her said more than his haughty greeting. Word had clearly spread to nearly every echelon within the court, and she could only imagine what awaited her on the other side of the portal to the Privy Council chamber. What she discovered was a very irritated monarch.
“Your Majesty,” Brodie said. “Lady Laurel consented to be my wife.”
“Before or after you nearly sucked her face from her head?” King Robert snapped.
Brodie ignored the Bruce’s comment. “I did not intend to remain at court overly long, but I wish to remain and properly court Lady Laurel.”
“You seem confused, Campbell. The courtship occurs before the marriage proposal and generally before you compromise the chit,” King Robert grumbled.
“Be that as it may, Lady Laurel and I seem well suited to one another, but I will not have her forced. I wish for Lady Laurel to have time for us to come to know one another, and then decide if she still wishes to proceed.”
“That is not how things work, Campbell. And well you know it. You both made the decision that you knew one another well enough when you trysted on the landing of the ladies’ floor. Unless you forced her,” King Robert glowered. “And now you wish to excuse yourself.”
“Laird Campbell did not force me,” Laurel said evenly, her head held high, and her spine rigid. “I was an equal participant.”
“Your honesty and courage are commendable, but your common sense is deplorable,” King Robert stated. “You have caused a scandal of proportions I cannot last recall. At least your peers usually cause their scandals far away from court. And how am I to believe that you or Laird Campbell came willingly to this agreement, when the men who sit beside your sport cuts and bruises?”
“That was my fault, Your Majesty,” Monty spoke up. “I had unkind words and less-than-brotherly comments for Lady Laurel. I justly received my comeuppance.”
“And Laird Campbell’s swollen nose and split lip?” King Robert pointed out.
“Proof that I defend Lady Laurel by choice, not merely out of duty.” Brodie didn’t look at Laurel, but he reached for her hand. She jumped, unprepared for the contact, but quickly splayed her fingers for Brodie to intertwine with his.
Robert cocked an eyebrow at the gesture and scowled. “That is still not how courtship works. And it certainly isn’t how a scandal works. There is no taking one’s time to become better acquainted—though the nature of the scandal is that you are already too well acquainted. I have already decreed that there will be no weddings until after Lady Laurel’s.” Robert turned his attention toward Monty. “I’ve also read your father’s missive. I reasonably suspect you aren’t aware of its contents.”
“I am not,” Monty admitted. “My father directed me to deliver it to you with haste, but I wasn’t made aware of its subject.”
“You won’t be sitting so comfortably when you are,” Robert mumbled. He looked at the couple, then Monty. “Lady Laurel, I received a missive recently from your father, which prompted me to order you to find a groom with haste. Your father offered me a choice, one which I was not pleased to receive. His last missive stated that either you wed before the new year and keep your dowry, or you remain here as an attendant to my wife with your dowry to pay for your upkeep.”
Laurel swallowed. She’d known the day would eventually come, so the king’s words hardly surprised her. She was a spinster, and her father had given up hope five years earlier. But she couldn’t imagine what the newest missive could contain if her father had already provided an ultimatum. King Robert sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I’d rather be crawling on my belly in a bog facing the English right now.” King Robert scowled. “Your father decided on another alternative, retracting part of his previous offer. You are to wed and receive your dowry, or you may remain here either at the queen’s behest and expense, or you may find a protector to pay for your upkeep.”
Laurel gasped. The protector her father intended wasn’t a man willing to defend her honor like Brodie. Just the opposite. Her father intended her to become a man’s mistress, so she might have a roof over her head and food in her belly. As she saw it, her father intended to make her little more than an expensive prostitute.
“Then I am fortunate that it was God’s will to bring me to court,” Brodie responded. “And His will that I should meet Lady Laurel.”
Laurel cast a dumbstruck look at Brodie as though she heard his voice but didn’t understand his words. She shifted to look at the king, but she refused to look at her brother. She believed he didn’t know what the missive held, but she couldn’t bear to look at him since he bore a striking resemblance to their father. She feared she would lash out with wishful thinking that it was Laird Ross rather than Monty.
“Ross and I will sign the contracts this afternoon, and Lady Laurel will remain here as she has, but as my betrothed. I accept responsibility for aught that my lady needs or wants,” Brodie announced.
“Are you amenable to that,
Montgomery?” King Robert asked quietly, unprepared for the turn of events.
“Quite,” Monty said tightly. He leaned toward Laurel, but her gaze made him pull back. He looked at a shell of the woman he’d known and knew her expression would haunt him for the rest of his life. He was certain their father had finally struck the blow that broke his sister. “Laurel?” he whispered.
But Laurel looked at him as though she saw nothing. It was unnerving to Monty, who shot a panicked look at Brodie. Easing Laurel from her seat as he rose from his, Brodie guided her around the table before he swept her into his arms. He didn’t wait for the king to dismiss them, nor did he ask permission to go. He carried Laurel to her chamber in silence because she fell asleep before they reached her floor. He laid her on her bed and covered her with a blanket after removing her satin slippers. He noticed for the first time how they were threadbare around the sides. He pulled a chair to the head of the bed and sank into it, his body as weary as his mind. But he refused to leave Laurel to wake alone. She was already isolated enough in her own mind without feeling abandoned by Brodie.
Laurel was in the Highlands, but she didn’t recognize the hills surrounding her. But the swaying wildflowers, bright cerulean skies, and crisp air told her that she was home. Her horse, Teine, nickered beneath her as she galloped across the meadow, and the breeze lifted her hair from her shoulders. It streamed out behind like a shimmering golden banner as she and her steed charged ahead. She knew not where she was going, only that she was free. Laughter burbled from her lips as she tilted her face to the sun before drawing her attention back to her mount. She heard nothing but birdsong and the tall grass rippling beneath Teine’s pounding hooves.
A Hellion at the Highland Court: A Rags to Riches Highlander Romance (The Highland Ladies Book 9) Page 10