OWNED

Ailene sat down on the ground and fanned herself. She was still wearing cold weather clothes, her woolen shift, the heavy brocade stays, the woolen skirt. Unfortunately, the weather was warmer than usual for this time of year. It was a beautiful sunny day; she had left with the sunrise to collect herbs for medicines. The area outside the Keep had ample amounts of Betony, Blacberry, Lesser Burdock, Bog Myrtle, Wild Garlic, Meadowsweet, Wild Marjoram, Tormentil and Valerian. The winter months had seriously depleted the Keep's supplies, and she wanted to replenish their stores.

Some needed to be dried to be effective, which took time. She was going against the explicit wishes of the Laird, Thorburn, and her husband, Stuart, by leaving Cameron Keep without guards, but it was ridiculous that she take several guards for the day, especially when everything needed was within a half mile of the Keep.

She pondered the strange relationships between the brothers. Thorburn was Stuart's eldest brother, and nominally the leader of the Cameron family, but he let Stuart run the clan business since he'd been doing it for the last five years as their father's health deteriorated.

Thorburn was the eldest son of Jamison Cameron and the former Viking shield maiden, Brynhildr. Jamison had met her at one of the Viking trading settlements that sprang up on the coast. Their courtship was unusual; he'd had to defeat the Vikings best warrior before she would look at him. But after he'd proven himself a doughty warrior, she did. Thorburn was the result of their union. He was 32, blue-eyed, reddish-blonde hair, tall; easily 6 feet 4 inches, and 225 pounds. He was massive, easily confirming the name his mother had given him before bleeding out in childbirth - Thor's Bear. He'd gone raiding with his mother's people after reaching 18 summers. He'd lived an adventurous life since, selling his services as a mercenary in various armies, and exploring parts of Greenland. He'd returned home with his uncle, Brynhildr,s brother, Bjarke, after the death of his father to take over as the Laird. He had no interest in the details of managing clan matters, which is why Stuart continued running things. He took over the training of the Men-at-Arms.

Frang, the middle child, was 28, 5 feet, 9 inches tall and 180 pounds. He had his mothers eyes and hair, brown and black respectively. He was the result of the marriage of Jamison and a French woman, Amandine. Frang meant French in Gaelic. Jamison met Amandine a couple years after the death of his first wife, Brynhildr. They met while Jamison visited the French court, trying to arrange the trade of Scottish woolens and fish with the French. While unnecessary to directly involve the crown in his trading, receiving the proper letters of introduction from the French crown made his job easier. Amandine was one of the Queens handmaidens and while the Queen was not fond of giving up her favorite maid to the gruff Scotsman, the King insisted. Anyone who hated the English as he did should be aided at all costs. Unfortunately, that marriage was nearly as brief as his first and the lovely Amandine died of the fever when Frang was two.

Frang was a gambler, a womanizer and a lover of horses. He left his father's household at 18 as well, going to France and successfully keeping himself in clothes, food and women by gambling without resorting to the money his father provided him when he left. Cards, dice, horse racing, it didn't matter what he gambled on, it was all the same to him. Because the women with whom he associated weren't always unattached, Frang was forced into a few duels against slighted husbands. He was quite adept at that too. After the death of his father, he also returned home.

That left Stuart, her husband. Stuart was 24, nearly a head taller than her, with green eyes and brown hair, and 195 pounds. His mother was an English woman, Beatrix, whose ship had wrecked in a storm off the rocky coast near their home. All survivors were brought to Dervaig where Jamison met her on a market day. Her family had all died in the wreck and she was still young at 28, nearly half the age of Jamison when they met. He believed that his two young sons needed a mother, so he courted and eventually married her. Stuart was the only progeny of that marriage and she had been a wonderful mother to all three boys until her death when thrown from a horse. Her death was the last thing holding Thorburn at home and he left soon after. Jamison had not married again. He felt unluckily fated in love. All his wives dying quite young and fairly soon after he'd married, Beatrix lasting the longest at eleven years.

Ailene had married Stuart just under eight months ago. They had married after the harvest season, three months before Jamison died. It was an arranged marriage, Jamison wanting to find a proper wife for his son before he was gone. Jamison had slowly deteriorated for several years and Stuart was forced into much of the running of the Keep and lands of the Laird. Stuart was a good catch for her, even if he was the third son, because at the time, no one knew if or when his older brothers would ever return.

The amazing thing was, she couldn't love Stuart more than if she'd picked him herself. She was the lady of the house until his brothers married. When they married, she would have to surrender her position, but until then, she governed the household. The two older brothers had missed the wedding, no one knowing for certain where they were. It wasn't until after Jamison's death that letters had found them and they'd returned home.

Stuart was kind, handsome, strong and lusty. That he was attracted to her, she knew well, because he was always after her. Not a day went by without him sneaking up behind her and running his hands over her breasts or bum, or lifting her skirts and taking her when there wasn't a servant present. It didn't matter if it was the bedroom, the kitchen, the pantry or the barn, he enjoyed pleasuring his wife and she enjoyed being pleasured. It wasn't unusual for her to be brushing hay or flour off her skirts, adjusting them, straightening her hair, while slapping his hands away if a servant happened by, a blush in her cheeks at being caught thus disheveled. She knew the servants commented on it.

The oddity of the brother's relationships was their unnatural closeness to one another. Maybe it was because they'd spent so much time together when young, especially between mother's. Maybe it was that they'd been so long apart, but whatever it was, it bordered on abnormal. It seemed that they should be competing against one another all the time; that was the way of it in most homes. But not with Thorburn, Frang and Stuart.