Not like what she’d felt for her sister.
Mother arrived at Annista’s chamber door, weeping, not long after the conversation with Father.
A very lovely woman was Kirstin MacRowan. Robena had taken after her, with fair hair and rosy cheeks, her body slim as a willow.
The last time Annista had seen her sister, only three months before she died, her cheeks had not been rosy. They’d been pale as chalk. Her form had wasted to skeletal and her eyes looked haunted.
She had tried to whisper her troubles to Annista as they had done long ago but he—Evan MacKallan—had forbidden it, kept an eagle eye on her, and prevented any confidences.
Mother wept beautifully, as Robena always had. If and when Annista wept, it proved an ugly thing, the tears torn from her, usually in anger.
A two-pronged attack this was. Father had not succeeded in swaying Annista, so he sent Mother in.
Were there no lengths to which the man would not go to save his skin?
“Anni,” Mother said as she stumbled in, a handkerchief clutched to her face. “I need to speak wi’ ye. I—”
“Did Father send ye?”
“Nay. Aye. I come for his sake, aye.” Even before Annista shut the door, a waterfall of tears commenced. Mother perched on the bench that faced the fire and held out a hand.
What could Annista do but clutch it? Mother’s fingers felt icy, and when she lowered the kerchief, real pain filled her pale blue eyes.
“Ye ken full well, Anni, how desperate is your father’s situation. He will never renounce his faith and I—I respect him for that. But if he is arrested—”
“He will no’ be arrested. There is nay cause.”
“The earls who stand against the queen and who want these lands will manufacture a reason. They will install a Protestant earl here. And what will become o’ us?”
“Perhaps I will marry.” She’d always intended to, for she understood the desires of the flesh well enough and had always intended to have a family of her own. “Not,” she added before Mother could speak, “Evan MacKallan.”
A new look invaded her mother’s eyes. “I want to save your father’s life, aye. But, Daughter, that is no’ why I come to ye now.”
“Nay? Why, then?”
“I never should ha’ let your sister go to that man. Och, I did no’ ken what he was then. But we had heard tales enough, and she did no’ want to go. I will ne’er, ne’er forgive mysel’.”
The admission did not provide Annista with the satisfaction she’d expected.
“When I think o’ her there alone, at his mercy—” Kirstin MacRowan narrowed her eyes. No hint of tears lingered there.
“Then why—Ma, why would ye countenance sending me?”
“Because,” Kirstin reached out and seized both Annista’s hands. “Ye are no’ yer sister. Ye are strong and—and fierce. Perhaps stronger than him.”
Stronger than a demon?
“Daughter,” Kirstin looked at her, crazed light filling her eyes. “I want ye to go and wed wi’ that terrible man. And then I want ye to kill him—for me.”
Chapter Two
“Son, I ask ye to do but this one thing for me.”
Alan MacKallan spun on his heel and looked at his mother. Morning light spilled into the solar, and she stood silhouetted against it so he could not see her expression. He did not need to. He could quite clearly hear the pleading in her voice.
“Nay,” he told her. He said it shortly, since he knew an argument would be forthcoming if he did not shut the matter down at once. He could not stand yet another argument.
It seemed to him that for as long as he could remember, naught but discord had filled their lives. And especially of late, his very existence—and that of everyone around him—had broken up into a series of arguments, of quarrels, of ugly scenes, of violent outbreaks.
