Naught but eternity.
Ah, God, how often, growing up, when he’d fled some real or imagined slight, some cruelty on Evan’s part, had he come out here and lamented that all this could not be his? Well, it was, in the most basic and perhaps meaningful way. His by blood and heart. But it would all fall to Evan, once Father was gone.
After that, to Evan’s heir, if he had one. Failing that, to Alan’s own son.
If he had one.
As for him—he’d always be a kind of hanger-on, performing his duty for this land and the estate, but little more.
He drew Chieftain to a halt and dismounted, breathing in the clean, cold air. The light grew ever stronger, and he could just glimpse the manor house, if he looked back, set in its clearing among the woodland. It did not look like a jewel—more like a box made of stone. Cold. Dark. Uncompromising.
It was not so. He knew every nook and hidden place and loved that house almost as much as the land. The central portion that contained the hall, the gallery, and the solar was very old and had been a fortified house once, and then a keep. The two wings, built at different times by various ancestors, held their own quirks and irregularities.
He wondered what Annista MacRowan thought of it. Nay, Annista MacKallan now.
His new wife.
He grimaced, standing there pretending at being lord of all he surveyed. He should go back.
He did not want to.
“What d’ye say, Chieftain? A few miles more?”
The horse tossed his head. An answer?
But the thought of Annista crept into his head again. What if Evan decided to give her grief while Alan was out here? Nay—Evan would not be astir so soon.
Still and all, was it not Alan’s duty now to try and protect the wretched woman?
With a bitter curse, he called to the horse, mounted, and went home.
****
“Where is my wife?”
Father looked up sharply when Alan asked the question. Alan had found no one in the solar or the hall when he arrived home, and had come upon his father in his study with his man of business, Master Jameson.
Both men glanced at Alan when he spoke. His father rose, looking alarmed.
“Is she no’ in the solar wi’ your mother?”
“No one is in the solar.” Alarm raised its ugly head inside Alan, even though he tried to tamp it down. He did not need another person about whom he must worry. He had enough trouble worrying about himself.
But it seemed he would worry despite that.He hated this.
“Well, your mother was showing Annista the house, I believe, and I expect they will return to the solar when they are done.”
“Where is Evan?”
Master Jameson shot Alan a look before turning his gaze strictly away. Alan probably should not speak of Evan before the man, but everyone associated with the household knew what Evan was.
Particularly the housemaids.
Alan’s stomach churned again. Because he’d had no breakfast, he told himself.
Father’s concern deepened but he said, “Still in his room, I will warrant. Does he ever rise before ten o’ the morn?”
Alan stepped up to his father’s desk and, out of deference to Jameson’s presence, spoke in a low tone. “Ye ha’ better make sure from now on. I am responsible for the wench. And I will no’ allow what befell her sister to happen again.”
