I shifted my weight from foot to foot, my feet growing tired from standing on the dressmaker's hard platform. I had been standing here, being measured for new gowns for what felt like an eternity. I rolled my neck before settling down and trying to hold myself as stiff as possible. Staring out the window, I tried to distract myself with the scenery, but the weather was sopping and grey — a perfect reflection of my attitude.
The air was heavy. Sticky against my clammy skin. Rain fell limpid and lazy from low, angry clouds. Mist beaded on the windows and ran in rivulets down the glass. Now and then a bright bolt of lightning would split through the sky, the answering thunderclap following after a few heartbeats. Tendrils of my hair stuck to my face and no matter how frequently I pushed them back, they sprang forward again. They coiled in the moist air, unruly and disobedient.
The Standing. My Standing. I hated the idea of it. A fury I couldn't douse burned in my belly. My temper had been on a hair-trigger over the last month as I mulled over the eventuality that my parents would auction me off like a breed mare. Now, staring at its approach only a fortnight away, every minute made me sicker than the last.
I had liberated Ellesmure from this barbaric custom and now I was to be punished with it.
Mother stood a few feet away on her platform, a flurry of maids pinning and measuring her form. Every other minute she looked at me and squinted at my hair, tutting as it slipped further and further into disarray.
Holding her stare, I pulled a luckless hairpin from my head and flicked it across the room at her. It bounced off her skirts and fell to the ground with a dull ping. "I can't do anything about the curls, I'm afraid," I said. My voice was flat and insolent.
Mother huffed and arched her brows. "I do not know about which you speak, Eilean. But, at the very least, you could stand up straight. The seams down your back are going to be all wrong. No one wants a slovenly wife. You'll hardly get bids if you look unkempt."
My laugh was bitter. "Good."
Tutting, she turned herself so that she faced the wall, no longer tortured by my presence.
The Dressmaker had mistakenly assumed that being fitted together for our wardrobe for the Gathering would be a jovial mother and daughter affair. Looking at me apologetically, the Dressmaker doubled her efforts on tacking together a bodice.
"Not much longer now, ladies!" She said a touch too cheerfully.
The maids and the Dressmaker's staff grimaced at each other, tiptoeing around the room and trying to finish their tasks as quickly as possible. A tailor walked in the room carrying a diaphanous mass of white satin and trimmed with enough lace and bows to make even Innis jealous. I knew what it was and looked away from it.
If there was a god, the tailor would trip and cast the hideous thing into the fire.
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat, choking on the sourness of my disgust. Gritting my teeth, I pushed my hair back — again — with a beleaguered sigh. I scrubbed my face with my hands, once again tallying up the cost and stress of the upcoming events. It wasn't enough to be tortured by the prospect of my upcoming shackling, but to know the cost of it, too... My accounts were in utter disarray.
Considering the festivities thrown in his honor, Father seemed altogether unaware of the flurry of activity around the castle. It concerned me that the excitement and demand of hundreds of guests would do very little to ease his increasingly fragile state. His outbursts had become less frequent, but in exchange for their frenzy, he had become withdrawn and reclusive. Often, I found him sitting in a dark room with the curtains drawn, no candle or fire to illuminate his ruminations. He sat immobile and mute, staring into a void of his own creation. Very little could be done to pull his focus back from whatever terror held his mind in sway. It was heartbreaking to watch. His decreased capacity created a paranoid lens through which I judged my mother's actions.
All Mother seemed interested in was running up the estate's bills. Content to burn through the credit I had spent years building. Every room needed new furnishings, her entire wardrobe would have to be replaced, delicacies needed to be imported from the Mainland to keep the courtier's wives happy. Starved of female companionship during the war, she frittered away her days with gossip, card games, and putting cases of glass goblets on credit.
I began to suspect that my father's debt had not been entirely his fault. I might have forgiven my mother's indulgences if she made any effort around the castle, or showed any evidence of caring for the people under her rule. Mother only wanted to take, take, take; giving nothing and thinking little in return.
Looking out of the corner of my eyes, I watched as maids draped Mother in luxurious silks of deep red and bright yellow. I tried not to tally the cost of the fabric, trimmings, hats, shoes, gloves, stockings and failed. Each new item added to our wardrobes felt ludicrous and pointless after years of wearing and reworking clothes built for utility only.
Say what you will about a woman in breeches, but it is cost-effective.
Three maids pinned and measured me, giggling as they whispered among themselves. I smiled at them, enjoying their jokes and barbs at each other's expense. They had been around ten years old at the start of the war and I had watched them grow into fetching young women.
"You think I look silly, don't you?" I asked one of them as she pulled a swath of emerald velvet from my shoulder. Emily was her name.
"Not at all, mistress," she said with a bright smile. Her laughter betrayed her.
"We've never seen you dressed up, is all," another, Margaret, answered, shooting her friend a disapproving glare.
"Who do you think will stand for ye, lady?" The third, Lily, asked matching swatches of lace to an expanse of brocade pinned to my chest.
"I don't know!" I said, pretending to care. "No one, hopefully." I winked at her and she laughed.
"'Spose it doesn't matter. Everyone says they'll have to duel Lord Leslie for you anyway," Emily laughed again, covering her mouth to soften the sound.
I snorted at that, trying to imagine Alex in a duel. "Do you think Alex would challenge someone?"
The girls tittered and shook their heads.
"He is too sweet," Lily decided.
"I've seen him practicing at swords and shooting. He could do it." Margaret insisted, blushing fiercely.
"I thought you two were married already," Emily said through a mouthful of pins. She was now crouched low to the ground, making sure her markings for the hem were even.
"I've ever seen a Standing in my life." Lily sighed, her eyes misty. "I heard about it from me Ma, of course. As a kid, I thought it sounded so romantic."
I raised my eyebrows at that but said nothing.
"Now I'm not so sure," she concluded.
Mother looked over her shoulder and frowned, but said nothing.
"If Laird Eilean... Lady Eilean, I mean, and Lord Leslie can't get married, I might as well become a nun," Emily moaned. "There'd be no hope for any of us!"
I laughed at their dramatic sighs, but their chatter did little to quell my increasing panic. If I couldn't save myself from a coerced marriage, how could I protect them?
In the weeks since Mother's proclamation of my upcoming sale, Alex had been in a flurry of activity. He sent and received dozens of letters a day, each one shorter than the last. When I asked him what he was up to, he looked at me, frazzled.
"There are a million things to prepare!" was his unhelpful answer. When he looked up from his desk, his eyes were bright with excitement.
"Prepare what?" I asked, sitting on the arm of his chair.
He ran his hands through his hair, the curls standing on end. "Money, paperwork, deeds, titles... everything. I will spare no expense to ensure you are mine. I will bankrupt The Fist if I must."
I spluttered, my mind working swiftly. A coldness skittered up my spine, and I shivered. "I don't want to be bought. You understand that, right?"
Alex smiled and kissed me on the nose, "We are beholden to the rules of the game we play, Eilean. I abhor The Standing as much as you do, but if this is what it takes, so be it."
I didn't have an answer to that, trapped as I was by the truth and hot intensity of his gaze. "Well, whatever you do, don't sell everything. We'll need somewhere to live."
"Would you be content in a boathouse?" He teased. "I can keep a boathouse on my family's summer estate."
"How you spoil me," I said.
Alex stood and leaned over me, "I bet this makes you regret not marrying me years ago."
"Just a bit," I conceded, smiling. I let out a breath, laughing as a long-ago memory surfaced. "The timing and method are unimportant, I suppose. But I knew, Alexander Leslie, that I would make you mine before I ever set eyes on you."
He pressed in close, eyebrows high, "Did you now?"
"I told Robert you would make me your queen," I snickered, shaking my head.
"Oh, I intend to do just that," he said, his voice low.
"Does the boathouse have dungeons?"
When he kissed me, desire overtook rage, and I felt a momentary peace.
The memory of that encounter helped me endure the rest of the gown fitting.
~
Summer faded into autumn and guests from across Ellesmure swarmed the castle. As they pitched their tents on the grounds and drank to excess in the great hall, I braced myself for my fate. I would have been very near a breaking point without the support of Alex, my brothers, Calum, and the others I had unknowingly knitted into a family.
Improving slowly, my brothers became my protectors, keeping Mother and Father or would-be suitors out of my way so I could continue to see to the day-to-day running of Stormway. They were a bulwark against any encroachment on my routine. Until the day they exiled me from Ellesmure, I intended to do what I could to run it correctly. Surprisingly, my brothers became excellent ambassadors for my cause. It was not unusual to see them huddled with courtiers, farmers, or tenants whispering in low voices about the realities of my father's illness.
As the Gathering grew nearer, Stormway grew more populated, and the schism in the court grew wider. Tensions were high, and it was clear a dividing line between loyalty to my father and hope at my advancement had split the attendees. Every day, more and more people approached me, eager to meet me, bow to me, beg for my help. At the very least, the Gathering would prove entertaining. Who would be the victor remained the only question to be answered.
On a misty morning, a few days before the Gathering was to begin officially, I walked, yawning, into the office. Hair unbound and vest unbuttoned to reveal my rumpled, oversize shirt, I shuffled into the room carrying a cup of coffee, my boots, and with creases from my pillow still on my cheek. I was less than pulled together. The state of my toilet would not have been a problem, except one hundred men were waiting for me in the study.
Swallowing a mouthful of coffee, I stared at them, wondering how they had infiltrated my space. I always kept the door locked. Then I spied Calum, who had a key, grinning like a fool and sitting with his leg slung over the large leather chair behind my desk.
"Good morning, Eilean. You are a vision. Everything I hoped you would be when I imagined this moment," he said, hands interlaced behind his head. "This lot was very unhappy to hear you kept such early hours, but I told them if we wanted to catch you, we had to get to you first thing."
"Who are these people?" I asked.
They did not dress like those traveling for the Gathering. None of them wore McLeod yellow and black, or Ellesmure's blue and green. Dressed in a variety of styles and colors, they were a bright mismatch of fashions.
"Consider this a wedding present." Calum winked.
"That's not an answer," I pointed out. "And I think I'll be fine with just one husband."
Calum pretended to be scandalized. "No room for one more? Not even me?"
Sighing, I rolled my eyes. "Calum."
He laughed and swung his leg down from the armrest. "Oh, come on. Can't you guess?"
"War buddies?"
Calum shook his head. "So unimaginative. No head for spectacle. It is your one failing, darling." He addressed the hoard, like a mother refusing any display of disobedience, his voice sharp. "Her only, failing, I'll add."
I endured their pointed stares. Walking to the desk, doing what I could to stare back, I placed my mug on the table and pulled on my boots. As I buttoned up my vest, I was thrilled to notice my stays had been visible. I begged Calum to reveal his secrets.
My friend smiled and held my stare for a moment or two too long. He threw out a lackadaisical hand and gestured to the group. "Eilean, meet the Delegation. Delegation, meet Laird MacLeod."
I blinked at him and looked at the men before me. "What, all of them?"
Calum shrugged and stood up. "I couldn't endure your annoyance at... what was it? 'A lifetime of intermediaries'? So I called in a few favors and brought my work here. It's time we move on from all the blame and work together. And, quite frankly, I'm getting old and all the travel was wearing me out."
I looked back over the group of men, a slow smile blooming on my face. "These aren't the circumstances under which I would have preferred to meet any of you, but now that you're here... welcome to Stormway." I checked the clock on the mantle. "And we're running late on today's schedule already, so we best get to work. What do we need to discuss?'
"I told you she was relentless," Calum said to the Delegation, cackling. "Take a seat, gents. Laird MacLeod has the floor."