Chapter Thirty-One
Father’s unexpected—and in Alan’s opinion unwelcome—guests insisted on departing before dark, even though Father offered them lodging for the night. They had other stops to make, so they confided.
No one was completely satisfied with the answer Alan had finally given them, not even Alan himself. He felt it a sham, him making a promise not truly his to give. As if, once again, he spoke only in his brother’s place.
By God, he did not like giving empty promises.
And the men to whom he spoke had been able to tell. Though he’d spoken the words they wanted to hear, and those Father hoped he would, Eskine and Cunningham had not been wholly convinced.
No more than Alan himself. Aye, a promise was a promise. But could he hold to one made in his brother’s stead? He was not heir to Kallan and had no reason to believe he ever would be. Father, as so often lately, merely used him.
Indeed, he sensed Father wanted to speak to him about the matter—rather than discuss it with him, for when had Father ever done that?
Even his marriage to Annista had been thrust upon him.
But as soon as the two men left, Mother came rushing into the hall, just as if she’d been awaiting the opportunity.
What she told them turned Alan’s stomach.
Father’s face, as he listened, paled to ashen.
“By God!” he exclaimed when Mother finished pouring out all the farmer, Duncan had related. “Where is this to end? No great harm was done?”
“There is the injury to Duncan’s son—”
“Aye, but thanks be to heaven the lad was no’ killed.” Father sounded like a man searching for grains amid the chaff. “And the hay byre—”
“Did no’ burn down.”
For once, Alan thought, the unstinting rain proved a benefit.
“And no one saw where Evan went?” Father asked in disbelief.
Mother shook her head miserably. “I told Duncan we would pay for the physician—”
“To be sure. And compensate him for any other losses. He is a fine tenant.” Father’s face wrinkled in distress. “I regret this has happened to him.”
Aye, they all regretted it. What good did that do?
Alan grunted and Father looked at him. “What to do now? Evan could be anywhere. Granted, we ha’ searched, but there are hundreds of places he can hide, and he might well circle back to where we ha’ already searched.”
“True.” Father’s gaze flicked over Alan. “And ye need rest, being injured and all. I will mysel’ go back out wi’ a number o’ the servants. Alan, ye stay here to keep watch o’er the household while I am gone.”
Mother immediately began to fret. “But, husband, ’tis raining and growing dark. Wha’ do ye expect to find?”
“Wife, I canna reconcile my conscience if I fail to search and our son commits some further act o’ harm.”
“Aye, so,” she conceded. “But ye maun sup first. Ye ha’ taken almost naught today.”
“I will tak’ a mug and a bite before I ride out. Ha’ the lass prepare somewhat. And son—” he turned his gaze on Alan, “I am relying on ye.”
He did not mean just in staying back to guard the manor. The sickness in Alan’s gut stirred.
He left the hall while Mother still fussed over Father, wondering where his wife might be. Yet lingering in the solar? He climbed the stairs, catching sight of two figures standing very close together, farther down the gallery outside Annista’s chamber.
A man and a woman they were, and his heart thumped hard. The man had his head bent toward the woman attentively, almost tenderly. Abruptly, Alan recognized them. Seumas, it was—and Annista’s little maid, Bonnie.
Well!
Before he could assimilate that, the door to the solar inched open and Annista hissed at him.
“Sss—here!”
A curious enough way for her to behave, and it became more so, for when he approached the door she reached out, seized the front of his doublet, and hauled him in.
Her eyes fixed immediately on his, glowing.
“Wha’ is going on? Tell me.”
Alan might have stepped away and freed himself from her grasp, but he found he did not wish to. He liked the feel of her hands on him.
“Father is going out again searching for Evan, with some of the servants. Our neighbor, Duncan—”
“I heard that part. I was here wi’ your mother when the man arrived.”
“So ye ken fine that Evan got awa’.”
“Aye.”
“Father has ordered me to stay here in case he does return to the manor.”
“Wha’ of the visitors? Who were they? Wha’ did they want?”
Alan hesitated. How many secrets did he want to keep from his wife?
“Come,” he told her. “Sit down.”
They sat together on the bench that faced the fire, she with her gaze fast on his face while he spoke.
He told her all of it—plainly, honestly. Her expression changed as she listened, and not till he finished did she bite her lip and say, “So ye gave the promise?”
“I did.”
“Even though ye are convinced your father is but…using ye?”
“Och, aye, indeed.”
“As he did when he enlisted ye to wed wi’ me in Evan’s place.”
Emotions swamped Alan, some highly unexpected. He fought them down. “Aye, but, Annista, listen to me. I do no’ regret that. I do no’ regret wedding wi’ ye.”
Something flickered in her eyes. “Ye dunno’?”
“Nay.”
“But—before, ye did.”
“I rebelled at being forced as in the past to clean up Evan’s messes, and aye, I objected. I did no’ ken ye then.”
“And now—your mind has changed?”
Not so much his mind, he supposed, as his heart. Annista MacRowan was the last sort of woman he had ever imagined might captivate him. Outspoken, wayward, far from biddable. Who could explain it?
“My feelings ha’ changed,” he told her. “They ha’ gone and changed o’ their own accord.”
“I see.”
And would she admit how she felt for him? How did she feel for him? Was there aught more than a physical attraction on her part? For that she could not hide.
Her lashes swept down and up again. She asked, “This promise ye ha’ given the earls, was it at your father’s bidding or—or mayhap for my sake?”
“For your sake. We live in perilous times. If I can protect ye— But see here, Annista, the promise I gave might be an empty one. I am no’ the heir. Should Evan return and resume his place…”
“He will no’.”
“He might well. Should Father get him back, lock him up and dry him out so he is no’ longer subject to these rages—”
“He does no’ deserve the place.”
“Mayhap not. But he is the heir. I ha’ seen this before. Father growing sore angry wi’ him, threatening to throw him off, and then showing him grace.”
“Evan is mad entirely. It canna all be laid down to the drink.”
She was right. There had been that bent to Evan even from childhood, the lean toward cruelty.
“No matter,” Annista decided. “Ye ha’ made a promise for my sake. And me, I believe in your promises.”
“Like that I made, no’ to touch ye?”
“No’ to touch me—wi’out invitation.” She slid closer on the bench. Lifted her arms and wound them about his neck. Pressed her lips to his.
Fire—a great up-flaring of it. Alan could describe the sensation no other way. Bright, immediate. Scorching.
He heard a groan and realized it came from his own throat. He drew her in, regardless of his injury.
With a corresponding moan, she opened her lips to him, and he dove in.
Need this was, pure and simple, even more than desire. A request of the heart and the flesh. He needed to touch this woman, be with her, meld to her in spirit. If that meant being inside her—
It did. Och, aye, it did.
“Alan,” she gasped into his mouth and he captured the word, swallowed it. They shared one breath, one heartbeat, and very nearly one being.
When that lengthy and utterly incredible kiss ended, they both trembled.
“So,” he gusted into her ear even as she clutched at him. “Ye no longer forbid my touch, my lady?”
“I do no’. In fact—I find that I crave it.”
“Is that so?”
“Aye.” She backed off just far enough to gaze into his eyes. “Wha’ happened at the lodge—”
She wanted more of that, did she? As did he. More than what had happened there, for he was hard as iron.
“If,” she said, “ye are ordered to stay here the night…”
“And guard the manor.”
“I do no’ see why I—as your wife—should no’ guard it along wi’ ye. Nor why that cannot be accomplished…from your bed.”
She whispered the last three words, accompanying each of them with an equally soft kiss upon his lips.
He thought her presence in his bed would prove a powerful distraction. But he certainly was not about to say so.