Chapter Six
The interior of the chapel felt cold, with a stark, deadly chill that struck to the bone, and Annista found herself hoping Robena was not buried here in some vault beneath the stone floor. Better, without question, out in the sunlight of the kirk yard, if she had to lie here at all.
For the sun had come out to grace her wedding day, breaking through the shield of gray cloud that lay above the stark mountains surrounding this place.
It might almost have been a pretty spring day.
Alan, his father, and the minister were all waiting when Annista and her father went in. Two other men followed them, to neither of whom had Annista been introduced. MacKallan’s man of business, she supposed, and perhaps a lawyer.
This terrible travesty of a marriage would have to be witnessed.
Of Evan MacKallan, there was still no sign.
Annista’s stomach rebelled when she saw the men waiting. A good thing she had taken no breakfast, else surely she would have disgraced herself.
Alan MacKallan—her bridegroom—looked, well, very much the way she felt. Angry, for aye, if anything sustained her through this it would be her anger. With her father, with the whole MacKallan clan. With life itself.
Perhaps a bit sick. Rebellious. Controlled. He no more meant to let his feelings show than she did herself. It might be the one thing they had in common, that they hated what was taking place.
A fine thing upon which to base a marriage, hate.
Father grasped Annista’s arm as they approached the pulpit, as if he feared she might flee. The chapel was not large, a private place with the pulpit to the left in front of the chancel, behind a carved wooden screen, and only four benches, two on either side.
They stopped in front of the chancel with the minister facing them. An aged man he was, with white hair and hands that shook as if with palsy as he raised his prayer book, already open. Would he truly need to read the words, which must be so familiar to him?
“Go, son.”
MacKallan nudged Alan into place, and with a grimace he stepped up beside Annista. His arm bumped hers lightly even as Father took her hand and put it into her bridegroom’s before stepping away.
Was this truly taking place? It seemed so, for here they stood—this stranger, this enemy and herself—holding hands like any willing couple.
Blood rushed in Annista’s ears, so loud she barely heard the minister when he began to speak—because his old voice quivered like his hands, and her thoughts were all for escape.
What would happen if she tore her hand from Alan MacKallan’s and ran? Would her father haul her back again by force? Hold her here till the words were said?
What if she refused to speak them, to make the promise? Would it be a wedding, then?
And what kind of unholy wedding might it be anyway, when both participants were unwilling?
Alan stood stiff at her side. Unmoving, his fingers as cold as the air of the chapel. When asked the questions by the aged, earnest preacher, he hesitated and Annista’s heart bounded.
Mayhap he would refuse.
But then she heard him make the response. The promise.
I will.
His voice was low and gruff but he said it. He said it.
The old man’s pale blue eyes moved to Annista. He began to speak. Ah, she was going to faint here and now onto the flagstone floor.
She knew it, for all the blood that had rushed to her ears in anger now fled her, leaving her dizzy.
The old man stopped speaking and waited expectantly. Everyone waited expectantly. She was required to say something.
It should be Evan here at her side. Because she needed to keep her promise to her mother—to herself—and kill him. The best place to do that would have been the marriage bed.
Just thinking of Robena would have given her the necessary strength.
But this stranger stood beside her instead, his fingers cold and tense.
The minister cleared his throat and began to recite the rite all over again, as if she had not heard the first time.
Annista interrupted him and said the required words. I will.
If she stayed, she would have the opportunity to deal out what Evan MacKallan deserved. Eventually.
The minister, looking confused and a bit flustered, pronounced them man and wife. Annista swayed on her feet.
Och, what had she done? Sworn away her future, her life. For the sake of revenge.
A strong arm came around her waist. She could feel Alan MacKallan looking down at her. She tried to draw away, moving by instinct, and he said, “Steady. I thought ye were goin’ to fall.”
He spoke low so only she could hear the words. Startled, she looked into his eyes. Dark they were but nay, not brown. The color of rain clouds on an autumn day.
“Ye may kiss if ye choose,” said Neilan MacKallan, trying hard to sound jovial and failing miserably. “Ye be husband and wife, after all.”
Annista pulled away from her husband. He’d already broken his promise not to touch her, at least in her eyes. Of course, if he supposed she was about to swoon—
His supposition may have been right.
Before Annista could think farther, a disturbance occurred at the door of the chapel. The heavy door creaked open, admitting a flood of the pretty daylight that was immediately obscured by a large shadow.
Annista had forgotten how big Evan MacKallan was. He had his brother’s height and breadth of shoulders but would make two of Alan in bulk, with a neck like a bull—a red Highland bull, if such could be said of a man.
Indeed, he bulled his way into the chapel, the clothing he wore dirty and rough, his hair disheveled, boots clattering with offensive haste on the holy stones. Everyone turned to stare at him.
He paused half way down the aisle, his shadow preceding him, and wagged his wild head. “What is all this, then? And why was I no’ invited?”
“Evan,” said Earl MacKallan.
The man who had cost Robena her life.
****
Alan’s first instinct when his brother came blundering down the aisle was to push Mistress Annista behind him. Protect her from whatever violence Evan might bring. He could see at once that Evan was drunk. Capable of most anything.
But the woman at his side did not want his protection, did not welcome his touch. He’d felt her stiffen when he caught her up from, as he thought, swooning.
So he edged away from her and, as so often before, sought a way to draw his brother’s attention.
Like a lightning rod, he was, and had been in the past. Father could take care of himself, aye, but he’d often deflected Evan’s anger from Mother if he could. From the house maids. Even from the stableboys with whom Evan was so impatient.
He’d taken many a blow as a consequence. His brother was older than he was, stronger, and did not hold back. In recent years, Evan attacked him less frequently, being able to do less damage.
He should have protected Robena. That delicate, gentle girl with the meek spirit.
But how could he? Evan was her husband, and any interference Alan attempted on Robena’s part just made Evan more furious and violent with her.
A fool could see the best thing Alan could do was back off and keep out of it.
Or so he’d thought at the time. Who would have supposed Robena would end up dead?
But she had been a perfect target for bullying, had Robena. And when the two of them were alone in their chambers…
He shoved that thought from his mind and fixed his gaze on his brother. An unholy grin spread across Evan’s face.
“Wha’ is this, then? A wedding?”
“Evan,” Father repeated, “tak’ yoursel’ away out o’ here. Do no’ disgrace us.”
“Nay, Father, no’ such haste. I wish to tak’ a look at the bride. Robena’s sister, aye? Though one would ne’er think it.”
He shambled forward, his feet too large for the rest of him, and stepped with deliberation around Alan to eye Annista.
Alan’s wife.
Och, he did not want her to be his wife, to be sure. She did not want it either. Yet if Evan thought he could discomfit or threaten her—
He took a decided step forward. “Back ye off,” he told Evan.
Evan did not so much as glance at him. His gaze was all over Annista.
They’d met before, to be sure. The girl had come to visit her sister once—he doubted Evan remembered much of that.
Now she’d caught Evan’s attention—like a wee mouse unfortunate enough to encounter the tom cat. A mangy, vicious, ginger tom.
“Nay, ye’d ne’er think this was sister to my wife—that milk sop who wept at her own shadow.” Evan turned to his father. “I thought I was to wed wi’ her. No’ this.” He gestured derisively at Alan. “I am the heir, am I no’?”
Father stepped toward Evan with both hands raised, warding him off. The preacher had retreated a few steps, clearly sensing danger. Father’s land agent and Master Naylor had moved in.
As if either of them could stand in Evan’s way, if he went on a tear.
“Evan,” Father said for a third time.
Evan turned on him, releasing Annista from his stare. “Am I no’ still yer heir—old man?” He tossed out his arms. “Will no’ all o’ this one day be mine?”
“Aye,” Father said. “When it came to continuing the alliance between MacRowan’s house and mine, we thought it better—”
“If I am the heir, should I no’ beget the next heir?” The smile on Evan’s face became lascivious and offensive. “’Tis my right o’ place.”
“Evan, we do no’ want any difficulty. We ha’ married the lass to yer brother to maintain the alliance. Your brother is yer heir as o’ now, and so ’tis wise —”
Evan snorted. “I am the best this clan has to offer, better than this poor excuse for a man that’s my brother, by any road. Why do we no’ ask the lass hersel’?”
Again he turned his gaze on Annista. “Well, lass? How about it? There still be time, as he has no’ yet taken ye to the marriage bed. Would ye no’ rather ha’ a man between yer legs?”
“Evan, ye are drunk!” Father cried. But Alan’s attention was not on him and all upon Annista.
He expected her to shrink back, as might any woman confronted with the specter that was Evan. To take refuge behind him after all, so he might impose his body between her and harm.
Instead she stepped forward to face Evan. The light flooding in the door hit her full in the eyes, showing them full of tawny light—and what looked like rage.
“Ye?” she said. “Ye be the beast that killed my sister!”
Evan blinked. He did it like the grizzled tom cat suddenly confronted by a spitting kitten. Measuring the threat.
Deciding it was laughable.
“Yer sister,” he scoffed. “Yer sister was too foolish to live.”