Chapter Nine
Alan felt better with the cold wind in his ears and Chieftain beneath him. Well, marginally better. They left the house in the gray light of pre-dawn and the morning grew around them, a glow of gold that should bode a beautiful day.
Unfortunate that he did not believe in it.
The place he inhabited was a wild one, primitive and ancient, and he loved it to his bones. The blood of his ancestors ran deep here, since back when the Scots lived close to the earth and had not so much as played at being civilized.
He did not suppose he was truly civilized even now. A different man resided just below the surface he displayed to the world, one far more atavistic.
As for his brother—
Nay, Evan could be called naught but a savage, and always had been.
Alan had grown up with the powder keg that was his brother, and knew his nature. He merely did not know why Evan was the way he was, though over the years he’d often pondered it.
Something in the bloodline? That ancient savagery surging out?
God knew, despite his predilection for the drink, Father was sane and steady as they came.
Far more levelheaded than either of his sons.
There were tales of daring ancestors, men who had fought hard for this land and done what they must to retain hold of it.
Violent men, at times. But no stories at all of cruelty or the madness he sometimes glimpsed in Evan’s eyes.
Perhaps it was somewhat on Mother’s side.
He urged Chieftain to a gallop, and the strong north wind engulfed them, driving all thought away. For those few moments there was only the stony land underfoot, the sound of the horse’s hooves pounding the turf, the limitless sky above, and the growing golden light.
Despite everything, Alan’s heart rose. This was when he was happiest. If only he could go on riding away from his responsibilities. Especially the newest ones.
Ahead of him the land rose in a broad rugged sweep, far too steep for a gallop, and he reined the horse in. The hills here were old and felt as if they’d never been tamed. Like the men they bred?
If he rode to the summit and gazed northward, he’d be able to glimpse the sea. Beyond that, naught.
Naught but eternity.
Ah, God, how often, growing up, when he’d fled some real or imagined slight, some cruelty on Evan’s part, had he come out here and lamented that all this could not be his?
Well, it was, in the most basic and perhaps meaningful way.
His by blood and heart. But it would all fall to Evan, once Father was gone.
After that, to Evan’s heir, if he had one. Failing that, to Alan’s own son.
If he had one.
As for him—he’d always be a kind of hanger-on, performing his duty for this land and the estate, but little more.
He drew Chieftain to a halt and dismounted, breathing in the clean, cold air. The light grew ever stronger, and he could just glimpse the manor house, if he looked back, set in its clearing among the woodland. It did not look like a jewel—more like a box made of stone. Cold. Dark. Uncompromising.
It was not so. He knew every nook and hidden place and loved that house almost as much as the land.
The central portion that contained the hall, the gallery, and the solar was very old and had been a fortified house once, and then a keep.
The two wings, built at different times by various ancestors, held their own quirks and irregularities.
He wondered what Annista MacRowan thought of it. Nay, Annista MacKallan now.
His new wife.
He grimaced, standing there pretending at being lord of all he surveyed. He should go back.
He did not want to.
“What d’ye say, Chieftain? A few miles more?”
The horse tossed his head. An answer?
But the thought of Annista crept into his head again. What if Evan decided to give her grief while Alan was out here? Nay—Evan would not be astir so soon.
Still and all, was it not Alan’s duty now to try and protect the wretched woman?
With a bitter curse, he called to the horse, mounted, and went home.
****
“Where is my wife?”
Father looked up sharply when Alan asked the question. Alan had found no one in the solar or the hall when he arrived home, and had come upon his father in his study with his man of business, Master Jameson.
Both men glanced at Alan when he spoke. His father rose, looking alarmed.
“Is she no’ in the solar wi’ your mother?”
“No one is in the solar.” Alarm raised its ugly head inside Alan, even though he tried to tamp it down. He did not need another person about whom he must worry. He had enough trouble worrying about himself.
But it seemed he would worry despite that. He hated this.
“Well, your mother was showing Annista the house, I believe, and I expect they will return to the solar when they are done.”
“Where is Evan?”
Master Jameson shot Alan a look before turning his gaze strictly away. Alan probably should not speak of Evan before the man, but everyone associated with the household knew what Evan was.
Particularly the housemaids.
Alan’s stomach churned again. Because he’d had no breakfast, he told himself.
Father’s concern deepened but he said, “Still in his room, I will warrant. Does he ever rise before ten o’ the morn?”
Alan stepped up to his father’s desk and, out of deference to Jameson’s presence, spoke in a low tone. “Ye ha’ better make sure from now on. I am responsible for the wench. And I will no’ allow what befell her sister to happen again.”
Father’s brows rose. “I understand ye were no’ in favor o’ this marriage. Ha’ yer feelings changed?”
“Nay. But I would no’ leave a stray cat where Evan could torment it.”
“Your wife is no’ a stray cat, though perhaps fierce as one.”
Alan saw again Annista throwing herself at Evan in the chapel yesterday. She had claws like a cat, aye.
“I suspect,” Father continued weightily, “she can tak’ care o’ hersel’.”
Perhaps. But should she have to?
Father inclined his head and said in a whisper, “She is no’ her sister, that one.”
She was not. Whether or not she was Evan’s match proved still to be answered.
“I will locate her,” Alan said and left the room.
There weren’t that many places she could be. The manor was large, aye, the center oldest portion compact but the wings spreading. All empty of Annista and his mother.
With some misgiving, he climbed to the gallery and thence to Evan’s room.
He pulled the door open onto deep gloom. The chamber stank like a combination of stale ale and a piss pot. Alan half felt his way inside and saw that someone—a servant no doubt—had left a tray on a table inside the door but had not opened the drapes across the window.
Evan lay sprawled in the bed, his raked cheek uppermost. Except for the drool, he looked dead.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Alan swore under his breath.
To his surprise, Evan half opened his eyes. “Jus’ leave it.”
“What?”
“The tray.”
Evan thought he was the servant. Alan could try to set him straight, to get him up. Clean him up. But to what purpose?
He backed out of the chamber. Evan was not beleaguering his wife.
Back in the gallery, he met a maid. “Where is your mistress?”
“She was in the kitchens, Master Alan.”
The kitchens?
Aye, Mother was in the habit of showing her face there, being the sort of mistress who liked to keep a steady hand on the tiller. Harder to imagine Annista taking an interest.
But he found them there being given an account of its running by Marjorie, the cook.
Marjorie, who must by now be in her fifties, was a thin wisp of a woman, gray-eyed as a fairy and highly energetic.
She’d been a widow when she came to them, back when Alan had been six or so and Evan perhaps eight.
She produced good Scottish fare with very few delicacies or fancies. No one complained.
When Alan entered the big stone chamber, she was explaining how she and her girls produced ten loaves of bread and three of barm brack every other day. By “her girls” she meant the two women and one boy she had working for her, all of whom at the very kindest could only be considered plain.
It had been discovered that having bonnie maids did not work to anyone’s advantage. Even then—
Alan looked at his wife. She appeared bored.
She wore a plain gown of dusty blue and had her hair caught up under her cap so he could see very little of it. Her back—broad and strong for a woman’s—looked stiff, and what he could see of her face from the side was frozen into a parody of politeness.
Aye, bored.
“Mother?” Alan said.
All the occupants of the room swung toward him.
Mother appeared pleased by his arrival. The servants disinterested. Annista—
His wife.
A gleam appeared in her wide eyes. She swept him with a full-body glance, all the way to his boots and up again.
He wondered what that signified.
“Master Alan,” Marjorie said.
“Marjorie.” He found a smile for this woman who had often provided a bit of kindness for him when kindness was scarce. A piece of warm bannock. A place to hide out a while if Evan was on the hunt for him.
“Is all well?” he asked stupidly. He could see that it was.
“Aye, so. Annista asked to see the house. She has also asked to see the stables. Mayhap ye could show her that, and the gardens.”
Mayhap he could.
“Would ye like to go see the stables now?” he asked Annista.
“Aye, I would.”
He began to offer her his elbow and thought better of it. “Then let us go.”
She abandoned Mother and the kitchens with alacrity. They were not out the door before she broke her own rule and took his arm.
Only casually, he assured himself. Just in passing. Nay meaning at all in it.