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His gaze slid to the door he presumed led to the kitchens as the lady rushed out, followed by several servants carrying a bath and pails of water, some of them steaming.
"It's looking to me like it will be a while ere ye see yer bride," Gilly said dryly, his narrowed eyes following the servants up the stairs.
"Aye," Ross agreed on a sigh. He'd hoped to get this business over with and head back to MacKay at once. This being the first time he'd left the castle since the trouble after his father's death, he was a bit anxious to get back and assure himself that all was well. It was looking like he wouldn't be leaving as soon as he'd hoped.
"WILL YOU TELL me about Kate?" Annabel asked as she paused beside the bath the servants had prepared for her.
"What is there to tell?" Lady Withram said bitterly. "She ran off with that stupid boy."
"She must love him very much," Annabel murmured as she began to remove her gown. "And he must love her too, to risk Father's wrath this way."
"Oh, aye. She loves him and he loves her," Lady Waverly said with disgust and then added, "He loves her in her fine expensive gowns and with her hair shiny and gleaming and done up on top of her head by her maid." She shook her head. "The little fool did not consider what would happen to all those fine feelings when the gown is but rags on her back and she is pale and dull-looking from lack of food. As for he, I'm sure he looks just fine to her working here, but they'll be without now. The love will not last long, and then what will she do?" she asked harshly. "Most-like run back here with a bastard in her belly, tears in her eyes, and a plea on her lips for us to take her in."
"Will you?" Annabel asked quietly.
Lady Withram shook her head and muttered, "She is dead to your father."
"And to you?" Annabel asked.
"I am not the lord of this manor. I am but a woman," she said quietly and then with some venom, she added, "But, nay, I would not take her back either. She did not think one wit about us or how this would affect us when she made her choice." Lady Waverly's mouth twisted bitterly. "Well, she has made her bed and must now lie in it."
Annabel thought that was rather harsh, but didn't comment. Setting her gown across the chair by the fire, she removed her chemise and then reached for the laces of the shirt she wore beneath it.
"What the devil is that?" her mother asked, drawing nearer.
"A cilice," Annabel mumbled with embarrassment.
"Is that goat hair?" Lady Waverly felt the hem and grimaced. " 'Tis course. It must be fair uncomfortable. Why the devil would you be wearing a hair shirt?"
Annabel sighed unhappily and let the shirt drop to the floor as she undid the last lacing. She stepped into the steaming bathwater before admitting, "The abbess ordered me to wear it."
"Why?" her mother asked at once.
" 'Tis a punishment at the abbey," Annabel muttered.
"These marks on your back are not from the shirt," her mother said, running a finger lightly over the welts on her back.
"No," Annabel agreed. "Those are from a whip."
"They whipped you at the abbey?" her mother asked with amazement.
"Nay. I did."
"Why on earth would you do a thing like that?" she asked with dismay.
"Because the abbess ordered me to," Annabel admitted quietly.
"The abbess . . . ?" She stared at her aghast and then asked sharply, "What the devil have you been up to at that abbey?" Her tone suggested she didn't really want to know and Annabel supposed she was now thinking both of her daughters were a great disappointment.
Sadly, Annabel guessed that was true. Kate hadn't been a very dutiful daughter, and she herself hadn't been a very good oblate. She'd tried. Annabel had tried very hard to be a good novice, but she was forever late, or unkempt, or staining, or damaging her clothing, or ruining her slippers, or tracking mud about. The list of her mistakes was endless. She ate too much, talked too much, moved too fast and just generally wasn't a suitable, shy, retiring, dignified, serene nun. That was why the abbess hadn't let her take the veil yet and hadn't raised her to nun status. It was why she was still available for her parents to force into marriage.
Annabel didn't point that out to her mother, but she was very aware of it herself. If she'd just tried a little harder and been a little better, perhaps she'd now be a nun and not facing the horrifying future her parents had arranged for her. And it was horrifying to Annabel. She didn't know a thing about anything to do with marriage, running a castle, or . . . well . . . anything really. She was stumbling blind into an alien situation . . . or being pushed into it . . . and she was terrified.
"Surely Kate and her stable boy cannot have married without Father's permission," Annabel said now, desperation goading her on. "Perhaps if we found her--"
"They may not be married, but do you really think he has not bedded her yet?" her mother asked harshly. "We have learned since her leaving that Kathryn used to slip from the castle at night to meet the boy and often did not return until just before dawn. There are witnesses who were too afraid to say anything at the time, but came forth in droves once they went missing," she added bitterly.
"Well she may not be an innocent anymore, but perhaps she's come to her senses and--"
"And what?" Lady Withram snapped. "What would we do with her? The Scot would kill us in our beds for handing him a sullied bride, and he'd have every right to."
Annabel's eyes widened with dismay. "But--"
"No more buts, Annabel," her mother said sounding suddenly weary again. "This is what must be done. You will marry the Scot. 'Tis better than withering away in an abbey full of women anyway."
Annabel frowned at this comment. She distinctly recalled her mother telling her that becoming a nun was better than being under the thumb of some horrid man all the days of her life when she'd delivered her to the abbey. She'd made it sound preferable to marriage and children. So which was true? It seemed that depended on what her parents wanted her to do.
Unfortunately, no matter what was true, she simply didn't have any choice in the matter. Her parents had decided on her future. She didn't have a stable boy to run off with, and certainly the abbess wouldn't take her back after releasing her into her mother's care. That lady was probably relieved to be free of her clumsiness and ineptitude.
With nothing else to do, Annabel began to soap herself. It seem
ed she would marry, be a wife to this unknown Scot, the mother of his children, and lady of his people . . . Lord save them all.
ROSS NODDED POLITELY when Lord Withram excused himself to go check on how the ladies were coming. It was the third time he'd done so since their arrival. It seemed his betrothed, or her mother, had decided a bath was in order and was now "prettifying herself for him," as Lord Withram had put it. Apparently, it was a lengthy ordeal. He had arrived two long hours ago and still hadn't seen hide nor hair of the woman he was supposed to marry.
Hoping that wasn't a sign that his betrothed was too terribly unattractive, Ross glanced to the side when Marach appeared there, tapping him on the shoulder.
"What is it?" he asked, and listened curiously as Marach bent to murmur by his ear.
"I went to check on our mounts, to make sure they were bedded down all proper."
"Aye," Ross murmured.
"When I got there I overheard the stable master and another man talking on how the stable master's boy had landed him in hot water with Lord Withram by running off with his lady daughter just two days before she was to marry "the Scot."
Ross straightened abruptly at this news and eyed him in question. "Are you sure ye heard it right?"
Marach nodded solemnly. "I heard them talking as I approached and paused to listen. They went on about it for a bit. How the stable master'd like to whip his boy fer being so stupid, especially for a spoiled light-skirt like the eldest Withram lass. He went on about how the two don't have enough sense to come in from the rain, and'll most like end up dead by the side of the road somewhere. And if ye refused the second daughter they're replacing her with--and for some reason they seemed to think ye would," he added significantly, before continuing, "if ye refuse her, the stable master is thinking he'll most like end up homeless and dead right next to 'em."
Ross relaxed back on the bench with a frown. What was wrong with the second daughter that the men would be so sure he'd refuse her?
"Bloody English," Gilly muttered, having overheard Marach's words. "He could ha'e told ye the situation when we arrived. Instead, he's trying to pass off a sow's ear as a silk purse, he is. Pawning off the second daughter on ye like that. And she must be fair ugly for the men to think ye'd refuse her. Surely his trying to trick ye like this and no' being aboveboard on the matter is grounds to refuse the wedding?" he asked, and then added with sudden cheer, "If so, we can head home and find ye a fine Scottish lass to wed and bed."
