“We ha’ walked far enough,” Alan said, “and should turn back.”
She wished she need never go back. Could commit herself to this woodland and live as her ancestors once had, close to the earth.
“Come along,” he urged. “We will be missed, back at the house.”
“I wish to see the view from the ridge.”
“No’ today. ’Tis better reached on horseback.”
“I lack those means.”
“I mean to rectify that, Annista. So I do promise.”
Him with his promises and apologies.
He grimaced as if he could hear her thoughts. Then he turned back, following the rill downstream.
After a few moments’ hesitation, Annista followed.
She could not run away, could not stay away, till she’d executed her revenge upon Evan MacKallan.
****
“Annista—’tis an unusual name,” Alan said, jarring Annista from her deep, bloody thoughts. She could imagine killing Evan but not quite what would come after.
“Wha’?” Had he truly spoken to her, or had she but imagined that also? “’Tis no’ my name,” she told him carelessly. “At least, it was no’.”
He lifted a black brow. He tried to engage her in innocuous conversation, to establish some sort of workable relationship between them where none could reasonably exist.
“My name is Ann. Just plain Ann. When we were very small, Robena—but a year and a half older than me—called me Ann-sister. All lisped into one, as it were. She had a lisp then.” A bolt of pain burgeoned in Annista’s heart. “It became Annista.”
“Ah.”
“Everyone took to calling me that and—well, it stuck.” Robena had granted her even her name.
“I see. So, then—would ye rather I called ye Ann?” When Annista glanced an inquiry at him, he added, “So as no’ to remind ye o’ your sister every time I speak to ye. Or—” he gave an ironic smile, “might I address ye as Madam Wife?”
“Not that.” She did not want him to address her at all. Yet—they were stuck with each other, were they not? Two souls in this place of madness.
“It does not matter. I ha’ been Annista so long, and as I say, it is not only Robena who called me so.”
He nodded somberly. She supposed she should give him credit for asking. The man did quite clearly seek a way forward. But her heart lacked the ability to grant him grace. And she would prefer him not addressing her at all.
“Tell me, Master Alan,” she said as they moved back through the wood, “wi’ what do ye to fill your time?”
“I work on the estate, mak’ certain the fields are well-used and the tenant farmers have no lack. Father and I lay out the crops and calculate the numbers o’ the beasts—”
“Should that no’ be Evan’s role?”
“It should.”
He did not elaborate farther on that and fell silent.
Annista gave a wry smile. “It seems ye tak’ up many of the duties that should be your brother’s.” Including marriage to her.
“Aye. And this place—much as I look after it and hard as I may work for its sake—will never be mine.” Ruefulness tinged his voice.
“Unless your brother were to die.” The words came from Annista before she could catch them back.
