****
Bonnie must have picked up on Annista’s anxiety, for her hands shook as she helped her dress. Perhaps she was merely worried about making sure her mistress looked fine enough for her wedding.
Annista could have told her it did not matter how she looked. She had a new gown in her favorite hue of amber-yellow, but she could scarce bring herself to look at it. Nor could she do more than glance at the breakfast that was brought in for her.
Bonnie had her laced into the gown and was busy arranging her hair when Father arrived. He came in, glanced around the room as if assessing its worthiness of his prized offering, and turned to her.
“Almost ready, Daughter?”
He too wore his best cotte of brandy-wine red with the ruffled fichu at his neck. Folk here in the north did not dress with the fastidiousness of the royalty in the south, but Father did like his trappings when the occasion called for them.
Annista lifted her eyes to his face. Ye be sacrificing me, she thought. Is it not enough? Need ye keep pushing?
He swept his gaze over her much as he had the chamber and must have judged her sufficiently well got up, for he made no comment.
“Before this wedding takes place,” Annista told him, “I want to visit Robena’s grave.”
That captured all his attention and brought his gaze back to her face. Emotions flickered in his eyes—unhappiness, dismissal, guilt? Did he feel any guilt over sending his elder daughter away to her death?
“Nay time for that now,” he said shortly. “Mayhap later.”
“Where is she buried, d’ye ken?” In Annista’s opinion, Robena should have been brought home for burial at Rowan. That had not happened.
She’d been in the ground before they knew she was dead.
“Near the chapel, I would warrant. There is a chapel on the grounds here. ’Tis where ye will wed.”
“I wish to visit her first.” To keep Annista’s goal in view, so she might remember, as she went to her fate, just why she did so.
“Out o’ the question. This is a day o’ celebration and should no’ be muddied wi’ such a maudlin occupation.”
“Celebration?” Annista escaped Bonnie’s fingers and got to her feet. “Father, d’ye mean what ye say? Ye are handing me over into the same hands that killed my sister. Wha’ is there to celebrate?”
“No’ the same hands. Different ones.” Father’s nostrils flared and he shot a look at Bonnie. “This should no’ be discussed in front o’ a servant.”
“The same household. The—the same lack o’ regard, o’ protection!”
“I ha’ Earl MacKallan’s solemn word ’twill no’ end in sorrow again.”
Och, what value lay in the word of the man who’d let Robena die?
“Anyway, ye are no’ yer sister.”
Annista stepped up to her father and gazed at him with defiance. “A good thing, is it no’? For ye ha’ bartered awa’ my welfare even as ye did hers. And may ye live wi’ the weight o’ it.”
For an instant he looked like he wanted to strike her. He had, a few times in the past when she proved what he calledstroppy. But he always looked sorry after, when he’d left a welt on her skin.
He could not afford to do so now, when he had to present the perfect bride.
“Do yer duty,” he ordered her from between his teeth, “and do it well, for once in yer life.”
Chapter Six
The interior of the chapel felt cold, with a stark, deadly chill that struck to the bone, and Annista found herself hoping Robena was not buried here in some vault beneath the stone floor. Better, without question, out in the sunlight of the kirk yard, if she had to lie here at all.
For the sun had come out to grace her wedding day, breaking through the shield of gray cloud that lay above the stark mountains surrounding this place.
It might almost have been a pretty spring day.
