Chapter Eight
For the third night in a row, Annista slept but poorly and woke feeling as if she’d been dragged backward through a keyhole. It was barely light when she fought her way up out of bed, clawed the tumbled hair from her face, and went to the window.
She opened the casement and shivered as cold air poured through. Winter yet hung on to the edges of spring here so far in the north. But she would not back away, for the window offered her a glimpse of freedom.
Just as she would not back away from what she’d come here to do.
She’d slept with Mother’s dirk beneath her pillow. She wasn’t sure why, or what she’d expected to happen during the night. That Evan would somehow break in through the door to attack her, perhaps.
She should welcome that. An opportunity to accomplish her intention.
No one had disturbed her—naught but her own thoughts. She’d relived her wedding and the ugly scene that followed a score of times. Dread lay in her stomach like a ball of lead.
But leaning out into the cold air, she had to admit the world was beautiful.
As was this place—Kallan. Despite the fact that her room overlooked the front of the house, being located in one wing with the drive and the wood beyond, it retained an air of wildness to which her heart could not help but respond.
She would not be happy here, could not be. But she might well come to appreciate the place itself.
The wind caught her hair and tugged at her nightcap, so she drew it from her head. Cold fingers blew her hair out in streamers.
A movement below caught her eye. Around the side of the house came a man leading a horse—someone up and about as early as she. He went bareheaded, and even in the uncertain, predawn light his hair shone black.
Alan.
Her husband.
She should withdraw, step back into the chamber, yet something kept her hanging there. The way he moved, perhaps, long, free strides with a quiet vigor that screamed of masculinity.
An attractive enough man, was her husband. A pity that no woman—none who would appreciate him—would ever have him. Because he’d wed her.
He was off for a ride, and suddenly Annista wished with all her being she could go with him, off and away into that early morning freedom.
He and the horse headed for the drive. He paused and looked up at the house.
Saw her there.
How must she appear, hanging from the window like a hoyden, her hair blowing in the wind! Yet he did not seem startled to see her.
Instead, he raised his fingers to his bared head, saluting her the way a servant might. It was him, wasn’t it? Not one of the grooms?
It was him.
She should withdraw.
Instead she watched with startled pleasure as he vaulted onto the back of his horse and with a beautiful burst of combined energy, beast and man, they took off down the drive.
Barely a whisper of sound once they veered onto the turf—looking gray in this light—and away.
As wild as the landscape, he was. He fitted it most perfectly.
And she envied him the opportunity for escape while she languished here in her night rail with naught better to look forward to than a morning spent in needlework in the solar with his mother.
She pulled herself back into the room, shut the window and tiptoed to the door that connected her room to Alan’s. Would his bed linen still lie tumbled? Warm from his body?
She lifted the latch and the door refused to open. Locked, just as he’d promised.
A man who kept his promises?
A woman who kept her threats.
When Bonnie arrived a short time later, she started at seeing Annista already out of bed.
“Let me light yer fire, Mistress. And bring yer breakfast.”
“Aye, bring it here, please.” She did not want to eat with Father and her in-laws. She did not even want to see her in-laws. But, having taken little to eat yesterday, she had to admit she felt hungry this morning.
Yesterday had seemed uncommonly long. She had passed the time following the dreadful wedding breakfast settling into her chamber and then making limping conversation with Mistress MacKallan. She had seen her husband at dinner, but no more.
She’d had no further glimpse of Evan.
Yet she would swear she could feel his malevolent energy somewhere close by.
Today, so she determined as she waited for Bonnie to bring her breakfast, she wanted to visit Robena’s grave. And find something to do. She would go mad here with naught to occupy her but sewing and plotting Evan MacKallan’s death.
She sat beneath Bonnie’s hands as the maid dressed her and arranged her hair, consuming her breakfast ravenously as she did. The little maid’s fingers trembled, which gave Annista pause.
“Were ye comfortable in your quarters last night, Bonnie?”
Bonnie did not look up from her task to meet Annista’s gaze. A decided flush climbed to her cheek.
“Och aye, Mistress. ’Tis a fine wee room they ha’ given me, all quiet, and I do no’ ha’ to share wi’ anyone.” Back home, the maids shared rooms in the garret, two or three to a chamber.
Yet something in Bonnie’s manner failed to convince.
Bonnie, daughter of the stablemaster back home, was barely seventeen. Her father, with whom Annista was on good terms, had confided to her that though Bonnie had a place in the kitchen, which included working in the garden, what she truly longed to do was be a ladies’ maid.
Since Annista—like Robena before her—shared her mother’s aged tire woman, Morag, she had sued for Bonnie to train.
The girl, with her only since last summer, had been all thumbs at first. Since Annista was not by and large overly concerned with primping, it had not mattered. She liked Bonnie’s company and the girl had a certain talent, as it eventually emerged, for arranging hair and caring for clothing.
It occurred to Annista now that the poor lass had likely not bargained for this. As isolated as Annista, she likely missed her family.
Annista slewed around on the stool where she sat and persistently engaged Bonnie’s eyes.
“I am sorry ye ha’ been dragged into all this wi’ me.” Robena, when she’d come, had not brought a maid with her, having none of her own.
“I regret, Mistress, that ye ha’ been brought into it.” Bonnie flushed again. She had fair hair and skin that betrayed every emotion.
“Still and all, ye must be missing home.”
Bonnie scowled furiously. “Aye, indeed, last night I did, something fierce. But a ladies’ maid goes wi’ her mistress, aye?”
“Aye,” Annista said softly. “And I am that glad to have ye here. Have ye had your own breakfast this morning?”
“No’ yet, Mistress.”
“Then, pray, share mine.”
The two of them picked at the tray Bonnie had brought up while the maid finished making Annista what she called presentable.
There’d been no time, when Father decided she should trail off to wed a MacKallan, to prepare anything approaching a trousseau.
Annista had her good gown from before and the amber one that had been almost prepared, destined to become her wedding dress.
This morning she wore an older gown of dark blue with a fresh white ruff and a blue-and-gold head covering over most her hair. The familiar clothing made her feel a titch more comfortable, yet her stomach tightened when she thought about leaving the privacy of her chamber.
“Show me your sleeping place,” she told Bonnie when the girl ceased fussing. She wanted to make certain it was adequate. If there was no one here to look after her, she must be sure to look out for her maid.
The chamber turned out to be little more than a closet off the side of Annista’s chamber, barely large enough for the two of them to step into, with but a narrow bed and the boxes that contained Bonnie’s own possessions.
“Och,” Annista echoed in dismay, “this will nay do.”
“’Tis fine, mistress. Truly.”
“There’s scarce room to breathe.”
“But as I say, I ha’ it all to mysel’ and ’tis close to ye, no’ upstairs where I canna hear ye if ye call.” Their eyes met again. “Should ye need me.”
Oh.
Understanding touched Annista, leaving her profoundly moved. What did this slip of a lass think she could do to help, if worse came to worst? Still and all… When they’d left home, they’d both believed Annista was to wed Evan MacKallan, the man who had destroyed Robena.
“Thank ye,” Annista said, her eyes pricking with tears. She seldom wept, though she had—a storm of sobs, all pain and anger—when the news of Robena’s death arrived. “But ye deserve better than this pocket o’ a place.”
“I prefer it, mistress. Near to ye. Once Master Robert leaves—”
Ah, yes. Once Father left, it would be just the two of them here, among strangers.
She longed to ask if Bonnie felt the same dark and heavy foreboding she did, as if something waited to pounce upon her, but she did not feel she could phrase the question.
Aye, but judging from the look in Bonnie’s eyes, she did feel that foreboding.
Annista clasped the maid’s hand. “I am that grateful for ye. Promise ye will come to me at once if ye need aught or are treated unkindly below stairs. Or if—”
She did not complete that thought, had no need to. Bonnie nodded vigorously. “I will.”
They were in this together, Annista thought as she left the chamber. Thank God she was not alone.
She encountered Mistress MacKallan in the gallery which overlooked the entry hall, the woman lurking like a spirit amid the dark bannisters and wainscoting. Had she been waiting for her? Surely not.
Mistress MacKallan stepped forward and slid a perceptive look over Annista as if—surely she did not imagine Annista and her son had shared a wedding night?
“My dear, how are ye this morning?”
“I am well enough, Mistress MacKallan.
“And your chamber—do ye find it adequate?”
“I do.”
“That is well.” Mistress MacKallan gave an unconvincing smile. “If ye are looking for Alan, I am afraid he is no’ in the house. He went out early—”
“He went riding.”
Now Mistress MacKallan looked surprised, wondering perhaps how Annista knew that.
In truth, Annista was far more worried about the location of Mistress MacKallan’s other son. She needed to know Evan’s whereabouts—both for self-defense and so she might plan how best to give him what he deserved.
Softly and carefully, she advised herself. You have time. And you may get only one chance at this.
“Will ye come and await Alan’s return wi’ me in the solar?”
And do what there? Merely languish over Alan’s potential arrival? Did Mistress MacKallan imagine Annista was so eager to lay eyes on her husband?
“If ye do no’ mind, Mistress MacKallan, I think I would prefer to explore the house. Learn the lay of the chambers and hallways.”
“Ah, then,” Mistress MacKallan sighed. “I will show ye the place mysel’.”