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ONE
Stanley Steel never forgot the moment he fell in love. He only glimpsed her for a moment – silver blonde hair flying in the breeze as she stuck her head out of the carriage window, her joyful face turned heavenward to drink in the rare rays of Scottish sun.
The next moment, his face was on fire, bleeding from a blow delivered by the riding crop coming down to strike him again. Stan flung up his arms, blocking the second blow with the handle of his shovel.
"That's right, boy, keep your eyes on the ground, where they belong. If you ever raise your eyes to my sister Carline again..." The rider clenched his hand around his riding crop and shook it.
So that was the angel's name. Carline. Stanley liked the taste of it on his tongue. A beautiful name for a lovely lass.
Love made him bold. "It is a public road, sir, and 'tis no crime to look at those who travel upon it. Why, if we do not pay heed to every speeding carriage that comes past, a man's likely to get run over!"
The other men, his cousins all, began to laugh.
The fine gentleman drew himself up, tugging hard on his horse's reins as he did so, making the poor beast dance in a circle. "I am William Steel, and one day all these lands will be mine. And you will work in the muck, from dawn until dusk, until the day you die."
"Steel is it? Well met, then, Mr Steel, for that is my name, too!" Stan said.
The other men chorused their agreement, for they were all Steels, though younger sons or sons of younger sons, so they'd grown up as farmers, while William Steel, evidently named for the knight who'd built the manor house that ruled over these lands, was a first-born son's first-born.
William Steel snarled, "You may bear my great-grandfather's name, but you are scum compared to my sister and I. Our blood is as blue as the King's own, for we are descended from his first wife, English lady that she was, whereas all of you are descended from the scullery maids the old man bedded and wedded in his grief for his lost lady. Your blood is as murky as the mud you shovel, and not worthy to be mixed with mine or my sister's. If you so much as look at her again, I will have you flogged. And should you even attempt to speak to her...it will be the last thing you ever do."
He kicked his horse, hard, and the poor beast leaped forward, having more sense than its master as it avoided Stan and headed for the road that the carriage had taken.
Something touched Stan's shoulder. He whipped around to find Wystan standing behind him.
"You should not anger that man, Stan. He's a hard one, they say, and his father sent him to school in England, learning to grind all Scotsmen beneath his boots. If the rents go up much more, none of us will be able to afford them, and we'll have to go work in some factory, or worse, the coal mines. Better to tempt the devil himself than the Steel who'll rule the manor."
Stan didn't care about William, for he could only think of Carline. "Ah, but it's his sister I want to tempt, Wys. Did you see her? A lovely lass who looked like an angel..."
Grant laughed. "You heard him, coz. We're not worthy of angels, or even lasses who look like them."
That's when Stanley Steel vowed he would prove the man wrong. He was worthy of Carline Steel, and he would make her and her brother see it. One day.
