The Last Rose

Aon

CASTLE LÀIDIR, 1720

The sun had long started to sink, but the heat remained. I rubbed my sweaty forehead with the back of my hand and sighed. No matter how many tricks I tried the onions still made my eyes water.

I chopped them quickly with the semi blunt knife, skilfully keeping my fingers out of its way. Within a minute the onions were sliced and tipped into the huge pot of broth simmering over hot coals.

'More onions, Peigi,' Seonag commanded. Her thinning grey hair looked like it was being pulled out of her head, tied tight in a severe knot that peaked out the back of my bonnet. She didn't give her subordinates any less slack. 'Did you do twenty like I told you?'

I pulled more onions from the sack that lay on the floor against the table in front of her. 'Yes,' I replied, and began chopping.

Seonag was pestering another kitchen maid within seconds. 'Maili! This sauce is like water!'

Her voice was soon drowned out by clamouring and scraping and chit chat. Wherever Seonag wasn't here there was chatter. She ruled with an iron fist, I knew that first hand, but her hands were too small to rule everyone in the kitchen at once.

My eyes stung more than they had mere seconds ago. I cursed Seonag silently.

The steam off the broth made my stomach growl. All I'd had to eat were bits and pieces of leftovers that lay on the edges of tables and chopping boards. Supper couldn't come quickly enough.

I finished chopping just as two sets of heavy feet bounded down the stairs. Alastair MacIver and his cousin Calum appeared in the kitchen, cream shirts splattered with dirt but kilts looking almost pristine, hung low on their hips.

Immediately they dived into jokes and flirting with the girls, most giving it right back to them. Any other wouldn't get away with it; but those boys, with their charming smiles and good nature, could get away with murder. Alastair was the taller of the two if only by a hair. He was the oldest too, though it was hard to notice. Both had dark, shaggy hair; Alastair's fell almost into his eyes while Calum's nearly his shoulders; and both had dirt brown eyes that seemed to look through souls.

Short on time, I tied the sack of onions and humped them into my arms. In an instant Alasdair was by my side offering help.

'Let me get this for you,' he said, reaching his hands out to take the heavy sack from my arms.

'I'll manage, thanks,' I replied and heaved it up with as much effort as I could muster. Sometimes I almost forgot we use to be best friends, when we were children of course. It was different now that we were older, and we needed to act like it. Those two even being down there with servants so far below them in rank was bad enough; pretending the girls has a chance was worse.

Alasdair stepped to the side and let me pass but that didn't stop my arm brushing his chest. I hated that my breath caught in my throat from the tiny pressure. I quickly walked the rest of the way into the pantry and dumped the sack in the corner.

Finally I was done for the day. In here at least.

The boys were flashing smiles and staring deep into girls' eyes as I walked back through the kitchen. I avoided them as best I could, weaving through tables and stools and pots of water to Maili.

'I'm off to get changed,' I told my friend. Maili glanced at my and nodded then got straight back to peeling potatoes. She'd already been scolded by Seonag for slacking today; she wasn't going to be told off a second time.

I took one look at my table to make sure there was nothing left out that Seonag could grumble at me about. Alastair's gaze caught my attention. It was fixed on me. I nodded minutely, turned on my heel and left before I could gauge his reaction.