A Hellion at the Highland Court (The Highland Ladies #9) - Celeste Barclay Page 0,133

like this?”

Aggie leaned forward, then jerked away as her lips puckered. “Nay, ma lady. That’s foul.”

“How old are they?”

“Last year’s fruit. Even if the batch went off, they shouldnae smell that horrendous so soon.”

“The ale seems fine. Do the brewer and vintner work together?”

Aggie chuckled and shook her head. She glanced at the man who stood at the door. Laurel looked back and found the guard struggled not to laugh. She raised her eyebrows in question. Aggie laughed again. “Too competitive, they are.”

“So they don’t get along?”

“Worse than that,” Aggie chuckled. “They’re brothers!” Aggie and the guard both gave up trying not to laugh.

“Ye’ll see, ma lady,” the guard chimed in. “Bernard—the brewer, ma lady—willna let his brother live this down. Cal will be stuck listening to Bernard crowing for sennights.”

“But the other wine isn’t spoiled. It seems quite fine, even if I didn’t care for it. If Cal makes decent wine, then what happened to this newest batch?” Laurel lifted another cask from the shelf and sniffed. It was putrid too. However, when she pulled three casks from the shelf below, they smelled delicious. Laurel handed Aggie a rotten cask, and she picked up another two. When they entered the corridor, the guards tried to take the casks from Laurel, but she refused. She insisted that their laird didn’t assign them to her as her servants. He assigned them to swing a sword if need be. They couldn’t do that if they were carrying things for her. She noted their displeasure and carried on without relenting.

Laurel led them to a patch of grass outside the undercroft. She and Aggie set the wine down on the ground. Laurel stared at it as she wracked her memory for what she’d learned while her mother trained her. She’d spent time with the Ross brewer and vintner to learn the process and to distinguish quality. She pulled the stopper out of one offending container and poured out the contents. The color looked as it should, but the smell nearly overpowered all five of them. Laurel shook the empty container, certain something remained in the bottom, even though she couldn’t see anything.

“Smash it, please,” Laurel asked her largest guard. The man stomped on the small wooden barrel, and the wood splinted apart. Laurel lifted the bottom of the barrel and pulled apart a few slats of wood. She’d been right. There was something stuck to the bottom of the barrel.

“What is that?” a guard asked.

“Tar,” Laurel and Aggie answered together.

Laurel looked at Aggie, certain she already knew the answer. “Would Cal do this?”

“Never, ma lady,” Aggie said while shaking her head. She looked distraught.

“I’m not going to do aught to Cal. Someone else is involved.” If only Laurel knew who. But she still struggled to put names with faces. Now she needed to determine who intended to poison the laird’s family and senior warriors. The wine was only intended for those who sat at the dais. She looked back at the evidence before speaking to the guards. “I need your help after all. I want to put these on the top shelves in the grain storeroom. Well above most people’s reach. I don’t want anyone accidentally or intentionally serving this wine. Will you help me, please?”

The guards were still unaccustomed to Laurel’s requests. They all knew they were rhetorical, but the courtesy she included was foreign. She supposed she hadn’t been very polite until the last few years. She was making the most of a fresh start and trying to set the tone for her life at Kilchurn as one with courtesy—most of the time. A guard took both remaining casks that had been rather cumbersome for Laurel and Aggie but were dwarfed by the imposing arms that carried them. Laurel opened the storeroom and pointed to where she wished the man to place them. He didn’t need to stretch to place them above his head on the top shelf. She thanked all her guards, then dismissed Aggie before going in search of Brodie.

Thirty-Eight

Laurel hurried up the stairs to her solar, assuming Brodie was already there since she hadn’t found him anywhere else. She turned on the landing and ran into Colina.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Laurel smiled, but it fizzled at Colina’s look of disgust. It raised Laurel’s hackles.

“You should be,” Colina snapped. Laurel narrowed her eyes.

“I should be what? Which part?”

“Both, I suppose.” Colina sniffed. Laurel was accustomed to the habit now, and she knew it had nothing