Chapter Eighteen
The night passed slowly. For the most part, time seemed to stand still for Annista since she’d taken up her post in Tempest’s stall. With the deepening of the dark silence, it seemed to creep like a creature with broken limbs.
Alan did not attempt to make conversation, for which she was immensely grateful, being in no fit mood for idle talk. He merely sat with his back against the wall and his long legs drawn up out of the way.
A curious man, her husband.
Her husband.
Once he fell asleep, his dark head nodding forward onto his chest, she had ample opportunity to look at him. To study him, gaze her fill, even as she listened to the horse’s labored breaths.
Indeed, she looked her fill.
He slept quietly without snoring. His hands—fine, long-fingered hands—rested in his lap. His black hair fell over his forehead, and in the golden lantern light his eyelashes looked absurdly long.
Sometime past midnight, when Annista had fought back some of her hunger and tried to stretch her cramped limbs, she still had not wearied of studying her husband.
Had she been at leave to create the perfect male—scoop one up and form him out of clay perhaps, even as the Lord Almighty had done—could she have made anyone more attractive than Alan MacKallan?
She thought not. A pleasure he was, from head to foot, so broad in the shoulders and slim at the hips, so long of limb with the canny bones of his face that formed a visage perfect of proportion. Nothing soft in it, yet somehow—
Beautiful.
Those dark, level brows, the strong nose and proud jaw. The eyes themselves of smoke gray, now safely closed.
She stroked the horse’s neck and counted his breaths while watching the man.
How had she never guessed a mere male could be so appealing? There was the blacksmith back home, aye, but half his appeal lay in his muscle.
Alan did not lack that, either.
The thought—or rather the fact that she had noticed—shocked her. Exhaustion must be getting the better of her. And yet—
She would not complain about seeing her husband without his shirt. It occurred to her—as his wife—she had that right.
She should put her head down on Tempest’s shoulder and sleep. But nay, one of them must remain awake in case the monster came.
She had Mother’s knife safely in her pocket, if he did.
She fully intended to keep the promise she’d made Mother—now more than ever.
If only she could stay awake.
She must have dozed, for she came awake abruptly to find nothing had changed. The lantern still burned, shedding soft light. Alan MacKallan still slept. Silence blanketed the stable.
Silence.
Tempest’s labored breaths had stopped. That was what had wakened her.
Nay, och, nay.
The horse’s shoulder was still warm beneath her fingers and his eye open when she reached for him.
“Nay,” she cried again. “Do no’ dare give up.”
Alan jerked awake when she spoke and was on his feet before she was, staring over the door of the box into the stable.
“What?”
“Get him up. We maun get him up.”
Alan blinked at her in consternation and then looked at Tempest, tumbling to it. She already had the horse by the mane, pulling even as the stallion took a single, deep, wavering breath.
“Annista—” Alan’s voice came harsh. “I do no’ think—”
“Help me. Help me!”
“We tried before—”
“We will try again!”
Heedless of him, she urged the horse up. Tempest raised his head and, even as Alan edged around to his other side, made an effort to get to his feet. One try, and he was too weak for it. Two—
Alan had his shoulder against that of the horse. Annista applied her own on the other side, half sobbing all the while. Please. Please.
Tempest rose. It felt like a mountain moving against Annista’s cheek which she kept against his hide. He heaved breaths now, and she threw her arms around his neck, holding on as if her slight strength could augment his own.
The stallion, who in the past could have thrown her off like a feather, stood and accepted the fervent embrace. Annista felt bonds forming between them even though—
He was not her horse.
He was Evan’s horse.
The monster.
Tempest trembled, and so did Annista. But the horse stood firm.
“Wha’s this, then?” Billy bobbed up outside the door of the stall as if he’d materialized there. His eyes widened as he saw the horse on its hooves.
“Ye got him up? By God, I thought he’d be gone the morning.”
“Ye were wrong then,” Annista told him. She’d not been about to let the horse perish, and almost felt like she’d got him up by sheer will.
She and her husband had.
She looked at Alan over Tempest’s back. He looked as profoundly shaken as she felt.
“Now that he’s up,” she said to the aged groom, “we canna let him go down again.”
“Aye, so. I’ll ha’ Angus bring him some feed and stay wi’ him.” Billy eyed Annista up and down. “Mistress, why d’ye no’ go and get somewhat to eat? ’Tis near mornin’.”
Annista took stock of herself. Covered head to foot with straw, her hair half tumbled down and wild. She must appear a mess to Alan.
Did she care?
She said, “Someone must stand guard.”
“Aye, so. The lads will be down any moment. We will be here.”
“Come along, Annista.” Alan, still not entirely trusting of Tempest, edged from the box and held out his hand. “Billy will call for us if we are needed.”
Annista did not take his hand, but she followed him out into the daylight, which showed weak and gray. Even as they emerged from the stable, raindrops began to fall, big splashes that dotted the ground.
“Come.”
Alan headed her in through the back door of the house where Cook and the kitchen maids were already astir and on duty. Down the corridor to the front hall, which lay silent and steeped in gloom.
“I will go wash,” she said. “Change my clothing.”
“Aye, me as well.”
She ran up the stairs ahead of him, feeling the weariness weigh upon her. Her chamber lay dark and silent.
Almost silent.
She froze when she entered, her weary senses rising to alert.
What was that?
The tiniest of sounds only. A mewling as from a very small kitten. A whisper.
She followed it across the floor of her chamber, past the shrouded bed, and to the door of Bonnie’s tiny room, alarm leaping as she determined what it must be. She flung open the door.
The scene within impressed itself upon her in one horrifying image. A single candle burned low on a small saucer. Bonnie had flung herself face down on her narrow cot but turned—in apparent terror—as Annista came in.
Blood on her face and her hair half fallen—Bonnie, who was always so neat. Her night dress torn. Blood there also, when she turned. Terror in her eyes.
“Bonnie! My dear!”
Bonnie mewled again. She’d been weeping, her face stained with tears.
“What—”
But Annista thought she knew. And a surge of pure, black rage filled her, mingling with the dawning terror.
“Where is he? Where is he?”
She hollered the words, stepping back out into her chamber as if she thought to catch the monster lingering there, a leer still on his face. Her fingers went to the knife in her pocket, murder in her heart.
The connecting door to Alan’s chamber opened and he stood there. At any other moment, Annista might have acknowledged she’d been given the answer to her earlier wish, for Alan stood clad in only his trousers, even those unfastened, his broad chest bare and displaying a dusting of black hair.
As it was, she scarcely noticed.
“What is it?” he asked. “Is it—”
“He was here.”
His hair tumbled as he looked around.
“Is he still here?”
“Nay. Gone. But no’ before he attacked my maid.”