She had never really expected she would enjoy what passed between a man and a woman. Endure it, aye. Gain somewhat for it—a child—though she’d never envisioned herself as a doting mother. Most women came to that in the end.
Only one way to get a child. A dire necessity.
Only—it was not that. Neither dire nor a necessity. What she’d met with in the lodge was desire.
Her feet stumbled, and abruptly she sat down. It must be that or fall.
Lady MacKallan sighed. “I will no’ say I am comfortable wi’ all this intrigue.”
Annista turned her head to look at her mother-in-law. The seat where she’d ended was not far from that lady’s, and she could see the distress in the woman’s eyes. Aye, Lady MacKallan might possess more self-discipline than Annista, but she was no less uneasy.
“Intrigue?” she repeated.
Lady MacKallan shrugged unhappily. “All this business between Catholic and Protestant. Why can we no’ each attend our own kirk and leave it be?”
“’Tis about the monarchy, is it no’?”
“Aye. Unfortunately. Men make decisions, and those such as we maun follow along. Nay—” she stretched out a hand as Annista went to rise again—“pray, do not.”
“Where d’ye suppose Evan is now?” Annista cared far more for the answer to that question than for whatever might be happening in the main hall—though that did concern Alan. Her husband.
The distress in Lady MacKallan’s eyes turned to something more like fear. “Only the Lord Almighty knows.”
“Should he return here”—drunk or otherwise, though surely he must be sober by now—“wha’ will ye do wi’ him?”
Lady MacKallan hesitated, weighing Annista with that unhappy gaze as if wondering how to answer. “My husband plans to confine him—if we can.”
“And then?”
“Lass, I know nay more than that. Should I ring for some refreshments to help us pass the time?”
“I will choke if I take anything. They are like Cain and Abel, your sons. The one o’ them tried to kill the other.”
“Evan has a troubled mind. He always has. And the drink does no’ help.”
Annista swiveled on the bench where she’d landed. “D’ye think he killed my sister?”
Lady MacKallan’s eyes widened. “Wha’ makes ye ask that? Yer sister took a fall on the stairs.”
“Aye.” Those bleak, oaken stairs that she herself had so often climbed. “But why?”
“She had a fever, and was no doubt confused and wandering.”
“She was fleeing him, ye mean. God alone knows what he did to her.”
“Nay. I tell ye, she had been ill.”
“Did he torment her? Confine her? Did he pursue her when she left their chamber? Perhaps gave her a push at the top—”
“Do no’ suggest it! That is wicked.”
“Evan is wicked.”
Now it was Lady MacKallan who got to her feet. “Your sister was young and timid and perhaps no’ so happy here. She fell—”
“Ye may tell yoursel’ that in order to live wi’ what ye ha’ foisted upon the world.”
“Wha’ a cruel thing to say!”
