“I see,” said Alan, not at all sure he did.
“If Kallan makes a vow and a promise to these men and their cause,” Father said, keeping his voice low, “we maun be sure ’twill hold—even if somewhat happens to me.”
More promises, then. Those Alan had made so far had not held up very well.
Erskine leaned across the table toward him. “We require yer vow as well as yer Father’s. We stand all together or no’ at all.”
Ah, Alan thought. So once again he was being volunteered and pushed into a situation he did not want. Just like with his marriage.
But Annista—
Was he glad now that he’d been forced to wed with her?Gladmight not be the correct term.
He desired her with a hunger the likes of which he’d never suspected he might harbor. No woman—and very few other things—made him lose his head the way he had there in the lodge.
The sweetness of her breasts, though, still lingered on his tongue. The way she had cradled his head to the warmth of her, welcoming him. Eager for his caress. Och, aye, they would lie together.
“Son?” Father interrupted his rampant thoughts. “Will ye gi’ these men your answer?”
Alan blinked away thoughts of Annista and eyed the visitors again. “Ye ask me to gi’ my pledge to a cause when I do no’ ken even wha’ that will require. I am no’ certain I can do so.”
“Surely yer father has explained it all to ye?”
Surely he had not.
“Gentlemen, my vow is my sound word and no’ to be broken. I will know, before giving it, all it entails.”
“I respect that,” said Alexander Cunningham. “Erskine, ye tell him.”
The Earl of Mar did so, in a tight and low-voiced manner, speaking plans that likely should never be uttered aloud. The deposal of the Queen. Her son in her place. A Protestant council.
“And—wha’ o’ our countrymen, our friends and neighbors who hold to their Catholic faith?” Alan asked when the earl was done. “May they no’ rise up in protest?”
“We shall subdue them—” Erskine’s eyes glowed with fervor, “those who will no’ relent.”
“Or,” Father put in almost gently with a hard look for Alan, “those no’ under our protection.”
So that was it. The true meaning of his marriage. Alan could only admire his father’s tendency to shield and protect an old friend. For he risked himself in doing so. Himself and his estates.
Alan supposed by agreeing to participate in this dangerous scheme, he could himself further protect Annista and her family. Because those in the inner circle—and those for whom they spoke—should be off-limits.
Did he want to protect his wife? Aye. Did he want to plunge into intrigue so deep he could not see the bottom? Nay.
He told himself it was all a farce anyway. At best, a ruse. He was not his father’s heir. He stood in only—as ever—as a substitute for Evan.
That being so—if all of it were a lie—what value his promise?
Chapter Thirty
“Sit down, lass, for the love o’ God. Ye will drive me mad.”
Annista paused in her third—or perhaps fourth—circuit of the solar. She could not keep still. Too many thoughts teemed in her head.
She’d ducked away to her chamber where Bonnie—seeming much recovered—had helped her change into dry clothing. Now returned to the solar and her mother-in-law’s company, she yet shivered.
She thought of Alan, still wet. Wet he had been when he suckled her, his hair dripping. Wet and hot and hard—
She arrested her thoughts there. She, like Lady MacKallan, would go mad.
