Chapter Forty-One
Alan never remembered moving. Mother was screaming from the bed, “Evan. Evan!” In the hallway, the men exclaimed. Alan took his wife in his arms. A thin line of red marked her throat, and blood trickled down the pale skin there.
He stared at his brother, who had crumpled to the floor, arms outflung, the knife still protruding from his chest.
Dead? Was he dead?
The physician came rushing into the chamber, nudged Alan aside, and crouched down. Mother had ceased her wailing and everyone else there had gone dead silent. Waiting.
The physician tore open the front of Evan’s filthy shirt and performed a swift examination. When he rose, his face looked tight and still.
“He is dead. The blade went clean between two ribs and, no doubt, found his heart.”
Mother did not wail. No one else spoke. Annista had begun to tremble violently in Alan’s arms.
“All right,” Alan said. Whether to her or the physician, or the rest of them he did not know. “’Tis all over now.”
Annista turned in his arms. Her gaze found his, wide and shocked and—still angry? “He killed my sister. Ye heard him.”
“We all did, Mistress,” said Billy from the doorway. “And he would ha’ killed ye, that I do believe.”
Alan believed it also. Very carefully, he laid the sword aside. Annista had spared him the pain and guilt of killing his own brother.
“Master Robertson,” Mother gasped. “My husband—”
They all watched as the physician examined Father.
“He yet lives. Verra low does his heart beat.”
Alan puffed out a breath of relief. Had Father been conscious and able to speak, would he have given Evan the promise he sought, despite his wayward heedlessness? Aye, Alan believed so. Evan always had been his favorite.
“Come,” he murmured to Annista. “Sit down.”
“No’ here.”
“Nay.”
He more than half carried her from the chamber. Not till they reached the hallway did he see Bonnie was there, huddled down next to Seumas who lay still on the floor.
“Does he live?” he asked the little maid, with a nod at the footman.
And she nodded also, tears streaming down her face.
****
The dawn came inevitably, as it tended always to do. Everyone in the house had been scarred by the night just passed. But there came relief also, with the passing of the dark. A sense of reaching for normalcy where none existed.
They met all in the great hall, master, mistresses, and servants alike. Someone built a great, roaring fire in the hearth. The maids from the kitchen dispensed hot drinks, speaking in whispers.
For lack of a better place, Seumas had been carried to Annista’s chamber, just down the corridor from where he’d fallen. Bonnie sat with him there, and the physician had been in, tending the wound in the brave footman’s chest.
Evan had missed the heart, just as with Alan, but Annista had not missed her aim.
She contemplated that as she sat beside Alan at the big table, the others moving around them. Her blade had found its mark and true.
Now she must live with it.
Evan’s body had—again for lack of a better place—been wrapped in linen and carried to the chapel. A good enough spot to lie, perhaps better than he deserved—with Robena’s grave right outside.
Did Robena find any peace now that her tormentor was dead? Annista hoped so, for she herself felt little.
That surprised her. So intent had she been on serving Evan MacKallan as he deserved, since she’d arrived here, since she’d given her mother that promise, she’d spared no thought for after. However, she inhabited the after just as she inhabited the morning, and must carry on.
She was not the girl she had been when she’d arrived at Kallan—rash and angry and headstrong.
She had not loved Alan MacKallan then. She turned her gaze on the man who sat so close beside her and saw him—really saw him.
His dark hair was mussed and his eyes looked bleary with fatigue—fatigue and grief.
There would be grief, aye, for whatever else, Evan had been his brother.
She had slain the brother of the man she loved. He had watched her do it. Could there be a return from that? Or had she killed, also, what had only just been born between them?
She stirred sluggishly and stared at the steaming cup the kitchen maid had set in front of her.
“Ye need to see the physician,” she told Alan. “Your wound—” The front of his white shirt bloomed with red, a fact that he seemed inclined to ignore.
“The physician is occupied wi’ Seumas. Wi’ my father.” A small silence fell then. Would Master MacKallan survive? It did not seem likely.
“Still and all,” she insisted.
“I will recover,” Alan said. “I canna do otherwise.”
Aye, and he had no choice, did he? Not if he loved this place—as she knew full well he did.
With his brother gone—thank all the gods—and his father’s life dangling by a thread, he was Kallan.
Responsible for every stone and timber, and for navigating the estate through the sea of the present scandal and intrigue.
Would he want her here with him? Or, given the circumstances, would he ask her to return to her father?
They had been forced into marriage with one another, neither of them given a chance to choose. Aye, something had begun to grow between them. That did not mean he would not prefer a chance to choose, in the end.
“Drink your tisane,” he said.
“I fear if I do, I will just bring it up again.” She glanced around the gloomy chamber. Light did stream in through the high windows to the east and through the open doorway. “Do ye think we could go outside? I need the air. Besides—I want to see Tempest. Find out if he’s all right.”
Alan nodded. But he flinched a bit when he rose, and guilt hit her again.
“Perhaps, Alan, ye should no’ move about till ye’ve seen the physician. I can go outside on my own.” The danger was now past.
He shook his head. “I too need the air.”
They left the hall and exited out the back into the yard, where the morning flowed over them like a blessing. Annista closed her eyes for an instant and breathed deep.
The air smelled so sweet. Was there healing in it?
“Come.” Alan tucked her hand through his arm, close against his side, and they walked across the yard to the stables.
Old Billy was there, as Annista knew he would be, and met them at the door of Tempest’s stall. The horse had been taken inside and, as Annista guessed, provided all due care.
“How fares he?” she asked the old man.
He shook his head. “Master Evan—” He hesitated over the name. He too had watched Evan die. “Master Evan used him hard. But he’s a stubborn bugger o’ a horse and I don’t doubt he’ll heal, given time.”
“Then we will give him time.” And care. And love.
Annista moved past Billy into the loosebox. Tempest was on his feet, head hanging like one robbed of all spirit. But he fixed Annista with a dark eye when she approached him, and his nostrils flared.
Slowly and very gently she raised a hand to his neck. He trembled beneath her touch.
“Sorry. I am so sorry,” she said.
She spoke not only to the horse but to the man behind her, for wounds inflicted, at least one of them by her hand. Would love be enough to heal those wounds? Could it be received by those who in the past had received so little of it?
Tempest melted into her hand. The big horse, once so fierce, at that moment gave her his heart.
“Ah, well,” said Billy. “He’s yours now, Mistress, I reckon.” And the old groom went off, leaving them alone.
“He’s right,” Alan said after a moment. “Ye needed a mount o’ your own. It seems ye ha’ one.”
“He will ne’er know another moment’s cruelty.” Annista blessed the stallion’s nose with a kiss before turning away to face the man. “Alan—husband.”
He looked at her, truly looked at her.
“I ken fine ye never wanted to be my husband. Ye were given nay choice in it.”
“Neither were ye.”
“And now—now I ha’ had a hand in the death o’ your kin, which I fear can only mak’ it the worse. Can ye forgive me? Or—or is all ruined between us? If ye would rather I return to my father—”
She broke off, unable to say anything more.
For the space of many heartbeats, he did not speak either. His gaze, though, held hers and she saw the thoughts moving there.
“Is that wha’ ye want to do, Annista? Shake this place fro’ yer feet and go home?”
Was it? Nay, not in a thousand years.
“Nay,” she said it aloud. “For ye be here.”
A spark appeared in his eyes.
“But I believe,” she stumbled on the words, “I believe ye should ha’ a right to choose.”
“As should ye.”
“I ha’ killed yer brother—”
“As he has killed your sister. The wounds, aye, run deep. I do no’ ken whether my father will live. If he does no’, all his affairs, including his allegiances to the Protestant earls, will land in my hands. The country is in an uproar.”
“So it is. It seems,” she took a step toward him, “it seems ye could use a wife at yer side. If ye want her.”
He drew a deep breath, readying himself to speak. When he did, his words would either bless Annista’s life or condemn her to a bleak existence.
His gaze held hers, unwavering. “I want ye at my side, Annista—none other. If that is where ye need to be.”
Joy blossomed within her, so strong it very nearly chased the darkness. “’Tis the only place I want to be—all my life long.”
“Well, then.” He seized her hands and drew her forth from the stall. “’Tis only fitting that I tell ye how I love ye. More than I ever imagined I could.”
Tempest snorted, and they both laughed.
She leaned into Alan. “And I love ye,” she agreed, ignoring the horse’s indignation. “More than I ever imagined. Mayhap—mayhap we owe each other new promises. Those made freely by the heart.”
“Annista.” He drew her in close, and then closer. “I promise to tak’ ye for my wife with each new dawn, and to be grateful every day for it.”
“And I promise to love ye all my life long.”
They sealed those promises with a kiss, and none but the horse for witness.