Lord Fool to the Rescue by L. L. Muir Page B

walked to the head of the crowd. “Let’s begin, shall we?”
    Jilly had been thrilled to have Quinn Ross, the token Scottish Laird, giving the tour. He was single, she’d heard one of the other tourists say, a widower. Jilly had listened long enough to learn the self-proclaimed ruler of those ancestral stones supposedly turned to the history of this remarkable building to distract himself from his broken heart.
    Before she’d lagged behind, she’d followed the enticing swing of Laird Ross’s kilt through the crumbling maze of his playground. It hadn’t been difficult to catch the purring in the man’s voice as he’d pointed out how incredibly advanced the castle had been for the renovations made in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. For example, he’d explained, the system engineered for cleaning the garderobes was eerily similar to modern day toilet flushing.
    Lordy, how the man loved his castle. They were lucky he allowed tourists through it.
    In his mid-thirties, Quinn Ross was easily the most glorious creature Jilly’d met on her first trip out of the United States, excepting the literally chiseled Montgomery. Women of all ages blushed around him the duration of the tour; she wondered if it was sorrow or simple humility that made him oblivious to it.
    It was just Jilly’s luck to be more attracted to the stone version of him. Though silent as the rock that held him prisoner, Montgomery stole her breath, while she sensed something missing from Quinn. Shouldn’t it be Montgomery who was lacking a certain something? Like flesh and blood? The ability to detach himself from his home, for instance?
    Maybe she’d just heard the tale one too many times and the medieval man was becoming real to her.
    Reminded of her storyteller companions, Jilly looked about the Hall and saw the two standing just inside the doorway with their heads bent together. When they noticed her, their faces lit up.
    The Muir sisters, sweet identical ladies far too old to be traveling abroad, filled their immediate area with a blue glow. There was nothing magical about it; their thick knit sweaters were periwinkle, their hair was a respectable bluish-gray, and they each wore their swollen blue veins like a set of jewelry along their necks and hands.
    The only thing not identical about them was the pattern of those veins. Lorraine had a large one running down the middle of her left hand; Loretta had one on her right. Through their weeks of planning and traveling together, Jilly needed only to glance at their hands to keep their names straight.
    It had been the most natural thing in the world for her to gravitate to these two. They had a joy about them that was just the opposite of the cantankerous woman who’d raised her, and anything contrary to Jilly’s former dull life was welcome. Grandma had been flannel and overalls; these two were perfume and polyester.
    Perfect.
    She walked to meet them as the tour resumed. One sister slipped a veiny hand around Jilly’s elbow and held on. Right hand. Loretta. She couldn’t tell which of them was shaking harder; Loretta from age, or herself from excitement.
    Along one wall the hearth stretched wide enough to accommodate a dozen men in its dark but clean maw. Along the opposite wall stood an ornate series of cabinets in which all manner of weapons and armor winked from behind glass doors, tempting even adults to ignore the signs requesting they not be touched.
    A maze of red velvet cordons led the guests to the far end of the fifty-foot hall where a large pedestal graced the center of a thick stone dais. When the group neared the display, the tone of the presentation turned somber. No doubt the Curse of Clan Ross was about to be revealed.
    Holy crap. This is it.
    The sisters, one on each side, squeezed her upper arms as if they were thinking just that.
    Quinn Ross began the tale with a combination of respect for the superstition and the disenchantment of a modern man.
    “The curse of the Rosses