by Lynsay Sands
"Aye," her mother had agreed grimly and caught Annabel by the arm to drag her into the castle.
Annabel hadn't resisted, but had allowed herself to be dragged along, her head turned the whole time and eyes wide on the man who she had come to realize was her father. Her mother wasn't the only one who had aged these past fourteen years. Her father was no longer the strong handsome man she recalled from her youth. His muscular chest had fallen, it seemed, down to where his flat stomach used to be, only it was muscle no more. And he had somehow grown shorter, or perhaps he had only seemed taller back then because she had been a small child.
As for his once handsome face, it was now covered with graying facial hair that appeared to have grown in as wildly as untended weeds in a garden. She could hardly fathom that this was the father of her memories. So startled by this transformation was she, that Annabel hadn't really taken note of what had been said, so was completely taken aback when they'd entered a bedchamber in the upper tower and her mother had made her announcement. While her initial response had been a squawk of pure protest, she was now trying to understand the information just imparted, but her brain couldn't seem to absorb it.
Annabel took a deep breath and gave her head a shake. A couple more deep breaths and she felt calm enough to ask, "Pray, I do not think I heard you correctly, my lady. Did you just say--?"
"You are marrying the MacKay in your sister's place," her mother repeated firmly. Oddly enough the firm tone she used did not make the words any more comprehensible.
"How can that be?" she asked with confusion. "I am an oblate. I am to take the veil." She paused briefly, but when her mother didn't comment, Annabel thought perhaps she wasn't grasping the situation, and added, "I am becoming a nun. I am marrying Jesus."
"Not anymore," her mother assured her. "You have not yet taken the veil, and are free to marry. The contract states that Ross MacKay is to marry the eldest surviving daughter of William Withram. With your sister gone, that is you now. You have to marry him or we forfeit the dower as well as a great deal of coin. It would ruin us. You will marry him."
Annabel stared at her silently and then asked, "What happened to Kate? How did she die?"
Lady Waverly released a snort of disgust and walked over to sink wearily onto the end of the bed. "Would that she were dead rather than having caused the shame she has brought upon us."
Annabel's eyes widened and she rushed forward as hope clutched at her briefly. "If she is not dead--"
"She ran off with the stable master's son," Lady Waverly interrupted harshly. "Your father has disowned and disinherited her. For all intents and purposes, she is dead. You are the eldest daughter now and you will marry Ross MacKay."
Annabel sank onto the end of the bed next to her mother, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her weight. Her voice was equally weak when she said, "But I do not know how to be a wife. I was always going to become a nun. All my training has been toward that end. I do not know the first thing about running a household, or--or anything," she added helplessly.
When her mother patted her hand, she glanced to her in the hopes of some encouragement and received, "Aye. 'Twill most likely be a mess. Howbeit, at least your father and I will not be ruined."
"Aye, there is that," Annabel agreed dryly.
Lady Waverly nodded, apparently entirely missing her sarcasm. That was probably a good thing, she acknowledged. The abbess would have frowned on the comment and punished her accordingly. The abbess had punished her a good deal over the years. In truth, Annabel supposed she would not have made a very good nun anyway. Certainly she hadn't made a very good novice. Or a good postulant for that matter. She'd been a postulant for years before the abbess had put her forward to be a novice, and Annabel suspected the woman had done so out of sheer pity.
Annabel wasn't sure what was wrong with her exactly. She had expected to be a nun and had made a real effort to fit into the fold, but despite her best efforts, her tongue did run away with her at times. Her tongue, her temper, her appetite--
Grimacing, Annabel cut off the litany in her head. She was well aware of her shortcomings as a nun. The abbess and prioress had both pointed them out often enough. Still, as bad as she might have been at it, being a nun was the only thing she knew and if she could not manage that after years working toward it, how on earth would she get along as a wife and lady, for which she had absolutely no training?
Annabel sighed miserably and her mother popped up off the bed as if it were some sort of cue.
"Well, I had best go see where the maids are so we can get you dressed," she announced briskly, heading for the door.
"Dressed?" Annabel asked uncertainly, standing as well.
"Well you cannot meet your betrothed in a wimple," her mother said as if that should be obvious.
"But--is he here now?" she asked with new alarm.
"Nay, but he will be soon and I'm sure it will take forever to make you acceptable. Wait here; I will return directly."
"Mother?" Annabel said suddenly as the woman started out of the room.
Lady Waverly paused in the door to peer back impatiently. "What?"
She hesitated, but then raised her head and asked the question she'd wondered since being taken away from her home as a young child. "Why was I sent to Elstow as a child?"
Her mother's eyebrows rose slightly. "Well, you would have been sent there anyway eventually."
"I would have?" Annabel asked with a frown.
"Aye, and Kate would have too had I born a son after you. But as it happens, while I was with child several times afterward, none survived to birth."
Annabel couldn't tell if it was relief on her mother's face or regret . . . perhaps a combination of the two. She suspected the woman would have been pleased to have born one son for her husband, and that was it. Being hampered with baby girls had not been convenient from what she could tell.
"So," her mother continued with a shrug. "Kate, as the eldest and heir, had to stay here to learn how to run Waverly so that after your father and I died, she would know how to run it when it passed to her and her husband. But there was no reason to keep you here."
"You never considered the possibility of my marrying instead?" Annabel asked quietly, even though she was quite sure she knew the answer.
Lady Waverly grimaced and shook her head at the very suggestion. "Kate was always the one with the fine looks. You were always a chubby little thing. To find a suitable lord, willing to marry you, would have taken more coin than we were willing to invest. Fortunately, the abbey took you for half the dower it would have cost us to marry you off, and they took you young, so we didn't have to feed, clothe, or bother with training you all those years either. And, of course, it's always good to have a family member in the church praying for your soul as we knew the abbess would make you do." Her eyes narrowed. "She did make you pray for us, didn't she?"
"Aye," Annabel said at once.
"Good." Lady Waverly relaxed, but then raked her with a displeased glance. "Now, 'tis going to take a great deal of work to make you presentable. I need to get the servants so they can start on it straightaway."
"Of course," Annabel murmured, and then watched the door close. While her mother had made it obvious she was a disappointment, Annabel was used to that. No matter how hard she had tried, she'd always seemed to disappoint the abbess too . . . and no doubt would be a disappointment to her husband as well.
Pushing the depressing knowledge away, Annabel peered around the room she was in. She was quite sure it was the room she'd shared with Kate as a child, though the bedding and drapes around the bed were different now. It made her recall nights long ago when she and Kate had lain abed giggling about some joke or other. That in turn made her wonder about her sister.
"She ran off with the stable master's son," her mother had said.
The idea was rather shocking to Annabel. A sense of duty was pounded into postulants and novices at the abbey. All she could think was that Kate must have truly loved th
e stable master's son to go against their parents so. She would have to ask her mother about it when she returned, Annabel decided as she removed her wimple.
"Thank God I did not cut my hair," she muttered as she ran a hand through the long strands. Annabel was quite sure having a shorn head would not have helped matters here.
Chapter 2
"Sit, sit."
Ross tore his gaze away from the woman rushing down the stairs at Lord Withram's words and moved to settle at the table.
"You must be thirsty after your journey. I shall see about refreshments," the man said and hurried away.
"He seems a touch anxious about something," Gilly commented as they watched the lord of Waverly scurry, not to the kitchens, but to the woman who had just come downstairs. Grimacing, he then added, "But then, so was the stable master. Wringing his hands and avoiding our eyes in the stables."
Ross had noticed that. He'd also noted that everyone they'd passed or encountered so far had smiled nervously and then rushed away as if afraid they may be asked a question they didn't want to answer. It was enough to make a lesser man nervous, but Ross wasn't the sort to worry about things before they happened. He was content to wait and see, so he merely grunted in response to Gilly's words and watched Lord Withram converse briefly with the lady before the two hurried off to the kitchens together.
"Where do ye think yer bride is?" Gilly asked.
Ross shrugged, his gaze moving around the oddly empty great hall. The great hall at MacKay was rarely empty. There was always someone coming or going and he would have expected that to be the case here too, so the complete absence of people was a bit curious.
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."
