Chapter Twenty-Seven
That day proved a strange one, but then, contemplating it, Annista had to admit each and every day since her arrival at Kallan had been so. She felt like a woman juggling balls—or perhaps sharp knives—and trying to keep them all in the air.
Too much occurred, too swiftly, and there did not seem enough hands to go around.
She needed to be in the stable, and with Bonnie, and helping search, and standing guard. A part of her—a strong, insistent part—wanted to be with Alan, to keep him in her sight as a means of reassurance.
A need she did not completely understand.
How had he become so important to her, this man she’d been forced against her will to wed? Ah, sweet Jesu, she did not understand it. Could a few kisses change her feelings so fundamentally?
Granted, she’d always thrown herself into things headlong. Into her ideas, into her beliefs in right and wrong, and justice. Into protecting those she loved—if she could but admit it.
Was that all she felt for Alan now? Because he was hurt, and she had not been able to protect Robena, so she somehow transferred those feelings to him?
Nay.
Alan was a man full grown, strong and vital. He did not need her seeking to protect him.
Yet the impulse remained.
When she left his chamber—fled it, in all fairness—she went to his mother and put in a request for the physician. Mistress MacKallan had given her a long, quizzical look as if wondering at the sudden show of concern.
But she agreed to send one of the footmen back for the physician, adding, “We are all at sixes and sevens, so I shall have to find someone. Our men are either out searching or on guard, and today—” She hesitated and drew a breath. “Today my husband has important guests arriving.”
“Send the earl’s man to help Alan dress, if ye can.” Annista bade her, and hurried back to Alan’s chamber, only to find the room empty, the connecting door to her own chamber shut and Alan’s clothing gone.
A bit breathless, she hurried to her own chamber.
“Bonnie, ha’ ye seen Master Alan?”
“Nay.” Bonnie shook her head. She must be aware that Annista had spent considerable time with Alan and had to be curious. But, being a well-trained servant, she did not ask.
Instead, with fearful eyes, she inquired, “Has Master Evan been found?”
“No’ yet. But I canna help but think he will keep awa’ from the house today. The earl is expecting guests.”
Unless Evan decided he wanted to create a true furor. Embarrass his father deeply. To be sure, how could Evan know that important guests were expected? He could well return with violence in mind.
“I wish ye to stay close today, remain here in this chamber, if ye will.”
“But Mistress Annista, I am fine.” Bonnie tipped up her chin. “As there is so much to be done—”
“Help me change into something fit to be seen by guests, then, and we shall see.”
As Alan’s wife, would she be required to meet any guests? His wife.
A flash of memory—wholly unexpected—invaded her mind. Once again, she lay atop Alan in the bed, kissing him. Feeling all of him.
By God, what was she to do with such relentless memories?
When she appeared in the kitchen, she found it woefully short-staffed, occupied by no more than the cook and a single maid. The others, so it seemed, were busy elsewhere, preparing for the guests.
She requested a tray for herself, saying she would carry it up with her own hands when prepared, and then went to the great hall.
Maids cleaned and set up tables. On one smaller table, the household breakfasted. There she found her husband.
He looked pasty under his tan and new lines bracketed his mouth. Lines of pain? He was hastily and not too completely dressed, and she longed to go to him, straighten the collar of his cotte. Smooth his hair.
But she had promised, had she not?
Earl and Lady MacKallan both sat at the table. No one seemed overly interested in breakfast.
Marching up, Annista glared at her husband. “Ye were meant to wait for me.”
Startled, he returned, “Did we agree to that?”
“Agree or no’, ye needed help in dressing.”
“I managed,” Alan said.
Earl MacKallan cleared his throat. “Pray sit, Annista, and break your fast wi’ us,” he invited.
“I planned to take a tray up to my chamber.” Annista switched her gaze to the earl. “Wha’ are the plans for the day? I can go out searching, if ye will gi’ me the lend o’ a horse.”
He grimaced and pushed the balance of his food from him.
“’Tis pouring rain out there still, as I am sure ye can hear.
Most o’ those I had searching ha’ returned.
I am awaiting guests—if they are no’ delayed because o’ the weather.
” He drew a breath and concluded, “We will suspend the search for the day.”
Annista stared at him. “Nay ye canna. He is dangerous.”
“Hush, Daughter.”
It was the first time he had called her that. To be sure, something in their relationship had altered. Still, the term did nothing to calm her.
Before she could speak, he went on in a fierce, low tone. “The men I expect today are very important. Vital to events that concern our country most deeply. They canna be allowed to know our affairs here are in disarray, or that—” He paused abruptly.
“That your heir—and the heir to your estates—is a madman?” Annista finished for him.
Lady MacKallan gasped. The footman standing by to serve pretended he could not hear.
Earl MacKallan fixed his gaze upon Annista. “I will tak’ care o’ what business I must before I resume the search for Evan.”
“And should he return here during your grand visit?”
“I shall trust the household to care for him.”
“Care for?”
“My son is troubled. We shall deal wi’ his state o’ mind.”
“Troubled?” Annista repeated the word incredulously. “He thrashed his good horse. Attacked my maid. Drew a weapon and used it on his brother—”
Earl MacKallan rose to his feet. “I said, we shall deal wi’ him when this other matter is settled. Alan!” He switched his gaze to his son. “Curb your wife!”
The order fair stole Annista’s breath. No man should curb her, not even one with whom she’d shared sweet kisses. And by any road, she did not consider herself in need of curbing.
She was the one in the right, here. Evan represented a danger. Had they all gone mad?
Alan rose also, even as Lady MacKallan directed a look of deep distress at Annista.
“Please, my dear,” she said. “The meeting today is o’ great importance to our family—and your own.”
“Aye, so.” Annista sputtered. “Matters o’ state, I understand.”
“Just so.”
“More important than your family?”
“Planning for and preserving this estate is caring for my family. Ye would no’ understand this, but as the country changes, so do our means of survival.”
They are plotting against the Queen. The thought appeared clear in Annista’s mind. And against Catholics. Like her.
“Come, wife,” Earl MacKallan said shortly, and drew Lady MacKallan up from her seat, leaving Annista and Alan alone.
Annista caught the footman—Jock—looking at them from the corner of his eye.
“Sit down,” Alan bade her. “Ye had better eat.”
“I do no’ want—”
He leaned toward her, his gaze searing hers, almost as fierce as his father’s had been. In a voice too low for Jock to catch, he said, “Tak’ your breakfast. Ye will need the fortification when we go out searching.”
****
“Is it no’ terrible unwise for ye to be out in the rain?” Annista asked in a tone of voice that argued to Alan she very much wanted him to say no. She wanted to be doing exactly what they were—riding out on the back of Chieftain despite the downpour.
He grunted. He was no longer sure about wise or unwise but had concluded that if he did not distract her, his wayward wife might well take it into her head to spoil Father’s meeting.
So out they were on the roads, though even Chieftain seemed reluctant. Annista sat behind him on the big horse’s back, her arms wrapped around his waist so tightly he could feel the whole of her pressing against him.
Indeed, her grip pulled at his wound, but he found he did not mind. Ever since they’d shared those kisses back in his bed, he could think of little save doing it all again.
Madness. But then, his world seemed entirely beset by madness.
She leaned up to speak in his ear. “D’ye think Bonnie will be all right wi’ us gone?”
The touch of Annista’s breath made Alan shiver. “She is wi’ Morag, is she no’? In the solar. Morag vowed to remain wi’ her all day.”
“Aye. But Bonnie is my responsibility, and I do worry.”
“I suspect Seumas will keep an eye on her.” Alan had not been able to miss how the young footman regarded the equally young maid.
Annista stiffened at his back before relaxing again. “He is a good lad, eh?”
“He is, that.”
“Aye, so. But he will be busy wi’ the earl’s guests.”
“He will.” And should Evan show up at the manor, what could Seumas do to subdue him? The footman might have the brawn, but he lacked the authority to move against his lord.
They rode on through the downpour, Alan’s thoughts continuing to stray where they should not.
Where would Evan be in such weather? Surely he must go to ground somewhere. That conviction had been part of what allowed him to let Annista persuade him out.
Indeed, there were structures set round about the estate, most of which had been searched already. That did not mean Evan would not circle back and take refuge in one of them again.
He might be most anywhere.
That thought both alarmed Alan and gave him an odd surge of satisfaction. Tired of this cat-and-mouse game, he was eager to find his brother.
Accordingly, he directed Chieftain down a path leading through the woodland. Isolated structures lay here—abandoned huts that had belonged to a former forester and charcoal burners. An old hunting lodge, now shut up tight.
As he guided the horse to the latter, he asked himself what he would do if he entered the place and found Evan there, eager for a fight. He was wounded and had his wife to protect.
That last fact would make him ten times stronger.
But when they reached the lodge, beaten by rain, gray and grim, it proved deserted. Not a large place, it had been meant as a stop for men to take a drink before continuing on and had not been used at all in a dog’s age.
Alan settled Chieftain out back in the shelter of a makeshift stable set up for the purpose.
The door of the lodge creaked when he pulled it open, entering ahead of Annista in case Evan did lurk there—likely with a flask. Inside, the air felt colder than outdoors, but at least the stout roof kept the rain off.
Annista peered around him before pushing her way in. “No one here.”
“Nay, but it appears he was.” Alan’s eyes, adjusting to the gloom, saw the signs of it—scuffs through the dust on the floor, a bench pulled near the hearth. Aye, and his nose caught the scent of a recently kindled fire.
“Is it but this one room?”
“And a mud room out back. Stay here.” Alan walked past her swiftly to check out the narrow back room that lay derelict and dim.
“Should we stay?” Annista asked as he returned to the main chamber. “Will your father no’ want ye at the meeting?”
The question stung. Why should he? “I am no’ his heir. The men wi’ whom Father meets will want Evan there, aye—the future earl.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and took a step toward him. “No one kens what Evan is.”
“Nay.” Alan sighed. “Father has done a fine job o’ hiding it these many years.”
“And have ye no’ ambition?” she asked, gazing into his eyes. “For yoursel’?”
Slowly, he shook his head. “That was driven fro’ me long ago. Come, let me get a fire started.” A pile of kindling and some larger logs lay beside the hearth. “We will shelter here till the rain eases.”
Or his brother arrived.