Lynsay Sands

by An English Bride in Scotland

  “They are not behind the attacks,” she said with certainty. “They both respect your skills as a laird, and appreciate what you do for your people, and—”

  “And?” he prompted when she stopped herself.

  Annabel hesitated, but then said, “In truth, I do not think they have a mean bone between them. And while both claim to be useless with a sword, I suspect they would each take an arrow or sword blow for you … and mayhap even for me.”

  Ross studied her for a moment and then the beginnings of a smile curled one side of his mouth and he said, “Ye like them.”

  Annabel smiled wryly and nodded. “Aye. They are good-hearted men. A little wicked with their sense of humor,” she added dryly, “but good men.”

  “I’m glad,” was all he said, and then he took her hand and placed it on his arm to continue down the stairs.

  “Ah, good, ye’ve finally dragged yerselves down to join us,” Uncle Eoghann said when he spotted their approach. “What took ye so long? We were beginning to worry ye’d both fallen unconscious this time.”

  “Aye, lad, but we did no’ want to check in case ye were prayin’ again,” Fingal added with a grin and then laughed and added, “Ah, aye, ye were too. I can tell by the pretty blush yer wife just donned.”

  Annabel grimaced, wishing she could control the telltale color, but since she couldn’t she merely shook her head and settled at the table, hoping that if she did not respond he would let the matter go.

  She should have known better, Annabel supposed as Fingal continued, “And on a Sunday too. Tsk tsk, yer a naughty little nun.”

  “Nun?” Ross echoed with confusion.

  Annabel’s eyes shot wide as she realized there was one thing she had yet to tell her husband.

  “Belly? You never returned last night like you promised.”

  Two things, Annabel corrected herself, stiffening at that complaint from behind her. Turning, she watched Kate approach from the stairs in the borrowed pale yellow-and-white gown that hung so badly on her.

  “Wife?” Ross said in question, drawing her attention again.

  “Belly,” Kate snapped the moment she turned away from her.

  Sighing, Annabel rubbed her forehead and forced a smile for her husband. “I shall explain everything, I promise,” she assured him, getting to her feet again before adding, “later.”

  Turning then, she moved the few feet to join her sister and said, “I am sorry, Kate. I did mean to come back. I intended only to take a short nap, but I guess Seonag forgot to wake me as promised. I slept clear through the night.”

  “Nay,” Seonag announced, drawing Annabel’s confused gaze as she approached from the general direction of the kitchens. Pausing next to them, she clarified, “I did no’ forget. Ye did no’ sleep but moments the first night fer watching over the laird. Ye needed yer sleep last night, so I did no’ wake ye as ye asked.”

  “Oh,” Annabel said faintly, unsure what to do with that. The woman had been looking out for her well-being. Besides, Annabel wasn’t that sorry that she’d missed revisiting with her sister. The first visit had rather put her off. And really, while she’d wanted to be awake for Ross when he first opened his eyes, the way it had turned out … well, she could hardly be sorry for the way he’d woken her instead.

  Although she could have done without the whole castle bursting in on them, Annabel thought. And the man hadn’t said a word about her stupidly babbling that she loved him either. Not that she wanted him to say anything, Annabel assured herself. She wasn’t even sure where those words had come from. Certainly she liked her husband, and enjoyed his company and his bedchamber skills. And yes, she respected him. He was a good leader to his people and—

  “Belly.”

  The snapped word drew Annabel from her thoughts to peer at her sister with a bit of irritation. She absolutely hated that nickname, but all she said was, “Aye?”

  “You cannot allow such insolence,” Kate said grimly. “I wanted to talk to you last night and instead sat about bored and unhappy. She ruined everything by not waking you. Punish the old crone.”

  Annabel’s eyes widened at the demand, and then narrowed. While Seonag’s not waking her had not upset her, her sister’s words did. Somehow the girl seemed to just get under her skin. She had never met anyone so … so … spoiled.

  “I am not punishing her,” she finally said, her voice quiet but firm. “And her name is Seonag. Please call her that in future.”

  Kate’s face screwed up with rage at the mild setdown, so it was a relief for Annabel to turn away from her and glance to the table when Ross said, “Wife?”

  At least it was until she noted his expression. He did not look happy as he asked, “Who is this woman?”

  “Oh!” Kate gasped, and her anger with Annabel apparently forgotten, she pushed past her to rush to Ross. Once she’d reached where he sat on the bench, she gave a sort of exaggerated shiver and gushed, “You must be Ross. It is such a pleasure to meet you at last.”

  Annabel stilled, her eyes narrowing on her sister, but Ross merely arched an eyebrow as he looked Kate over and then asked, “Who are ye? Another new embroiderer?”

  Kate’s head went back as if he had slapped her, but she recovered quickly and released a tinkling laugh as she said, “Oh, goodness no. Although, in this gown you could be forgiven for confusing me with a new servant.” She peered down and held it out to the sides, emphasizing how large it was and somehow making the neckline drop indecently low at the same time. “ ’Tis borrowed of course. From Annabel,” she added in case he hadn’t realized. “But then she is far larger than me. I fancy you could fit two of me in here.”

  She laughed away at that and glanced over her shoulder as if expecting Annabel to join in laughing at the joke. She didn’t.

  “No’ to worry, lass,” Uncle Eoghann said, mildly drawing Kate’s attention back to the table. “Ross has the best cook in the highlands working fer him here. He’ll soon feed ye up and ha’e ye looking less sickly.”

  Kate stiffened briefly, but otherwise managed to ignore the comment. Annabel, however, felt better for it and cast the man a grateful smile.

  “I still do no’ ken who ye are,” Ross pointed out quietly.

  “What?” Kate asked with surprise. “I should think you could guess by now. Or did Annabel not tell you of my arrival?” Kate asked, sounding amazed, and then she shook her head and settled on the bench next to him, saying, “She probably just worried you would be disappointed at having her foisted on you in my place.” Leaning toward him, she ended in a throaty voice, “I am your Kathryn.”

  “My Kathryn?” Ross asked, eyebrows arched.

  Reaching out to caress his arm, she said huskily, “Well, I was always meant to be yours.”

  And apparently had decided she was willing to be his now that her grand romance with the stable master’s son had failed so miserably, Annabel thought unhappily, her hands clenching at her sides as she watched the couple worriedly.

  “She’s yer lady wife’s sister, Kate,” Fingal announced abruptly, and then, just to be helpful, Annabel was sure, added, “Ye ken … the lass who kindly ran off to toss up her skirts with the stable master’s son so ye were able to marry our sweet Annabel in her place.”

  While Kate had managed to ignore Eoghann’s earlier comment, this one she couldn’t. Turning her head sharply, she stared daggers at Fingal. Honestly, Annabel was surprised not to see blades sticking out of his eyes. Fingal, however, grinned back at her like the cat who ate the cream, and said, “We’re forever grateful fer that, lass. Our Annabel is a true lady.”

  “You nasty old bas—” Kate began, and that was when Annabel stepped forward and caught her sister’s arm to urge her off the bench. Kate bit off the rest of what she’d been about to say and turned furiously on Annabel instead. “What are you doing? I am not done here, Belly.”

  “Aye, you are,” Annabel assured her solemnly and dragged her toward the stairs.

  She got her halfway the
re before Kate tugged her arm furiously free and stamped her foot. “I will not be manhandled. I am going to break my fast as I planned.”

  She whirled away to start back toward the tables. Annabel did not give chase or grab her back, she simply barked, “Kathryn Jane Withram!”

  Kate paused and turned reluctantly back, her expression petulant. “What?”

  “This is my home,” Annabel said firmly. “And I am lady here. I suggest you take yourself up to your room now, else I shall order the men to drag you there.”

  Gilly and Marach rose as one at those words, apparently more than happy to do it.

  Kate’s eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened, but then she shrugged and moved back toward her. “Very well.”

  Annabel waited until she had passed, offered her husband an apologetic smile and then followed her sister upstairs. Both of them were silent as they mounted the stairs, but the moment they were in the bedchamber and the door was closed, Kate rounded on her.

  “How could you let that man speak to me like that? You reprimanded me for unintentionally insulting a servant, and then acted as if I was the one in the wrong when that man as good as called me a whore. Me, a lady, and your sister.” Turning then, she threw herself on the bed and burst into sobs.

  Annabel stood by the door, shifting her feet uncertainly and rather confused. She’d followed Kate up here intending to reprimand her again, and more firmly for her behavior below, but instead now felt like the one in the wrong. How had that happened? And was she in the wrong? Fingal hadn’t called her a whore … exactly. Truthfully, he’d just bluntly stated what Kate had done, though she supposed the way he’d said it could have been more … er … or well less … er …

  “Oh bullocks,” Annabel muttered and then walked to the bed and settled on the side of it to stare at her sobbing sister uncertainly. Finally, she said, “I apologize if Fingal’s words offended you. He could have been more diplomatic in his phrasing.”

  “They did offend me,” Kate snapped, crying harder.

  “Aye, well, perhaps I should have said something,” Annabel muttered. But recalling how Kate had leaned up against Ross, petting his arm, talking all husky, and being all skinny and sexy, she added, “I suppose I was just set aback by the way you were flirting with my husband.”

  “Flirting?” Kate gasped, rising up and whirling to eye her with outrage. “I was not flirting with him. I would never do that. I am the one who did not want him in the first place. That is why he is your husband. Besides, my heart is broken right now. Grant is all I can think about.”

  “But you were leaning into him, and—”

  “I was being polite to my sister’s husband,” she said staunchly. “If you thought it was anything else, then perhaps it is because you feel ugly and jealous of me. You always did, Belly.”

  Annabel blinked in amazement at that. She’d been seven when she was sent to the abbey, too young to know enough to be jealous of anything. And as she recalled, she’d adored her sister. She’d followed her around like a mooning calf, looking up to her and—hell, she’d wept every night in bed for a year after leaving Waverly because Kate wasn’t there to laugh and talk with.

  Nay, she hadn’t been jealous of her then. She might be now though, Annabel admitted fairly. All right, aye, she was. She wished she were as pretty as her sister, wished she’d been trained to be a proper wife to Ross as Kate had no doubt been. Annabel never would have tossed him aside for the stable master’s son … who she was sure was a lovely man, but, really, he could not be as wonderful as Ross, she thought.

  Sitting there, she wondered if perhaps that jealousy had not caused her to read more into Kate’s behavior than had really been there. Or perhaps the only way Kate knew how to interact with men was in a flirty manner so didn’t see it as flirty. The way she’d acted with Ross may even be how all women acted around men, at least those women who had not been raised in an abbey where the only man in sight was a quaking old priest.

  “All right,” Annabel said finally. “Perhaps I misread your intentions with Ross.”

  “Aye, you did,” Kate assured her.

  “Well, I shall try not to allow my feelings about my lack as a woman and wife affect my judgment in future,” she said quietly.

  “Good.” Kate gave a sharp nod as if to say that was as it should be.

  “But in return,” Annabel continued, bringing a wary expression to Kate’s face, “I would appreciate it if you did not call me ‘Belly.’ ”

  “But that’s your name,” she protested.

  “Nay, my name is Annabel.”

  “But I always called you ‘Annabelly’ or ‘Belly.’ ”

  “And I always hated it,” Annabel informed her quietly.

  “Nay, you did not,” Kate said at once.

  “Aye, Kate, I did,” Annabel assured her.

  “Nay. You liked it,” Kate insisted.

  “I never liked it, Kate,” she said impatiently, finding it ridiculous to have to argue the point. She knew what she liked and did not like. “I hated it from the day you first started using it, and I told you that at the time and you just laughed and danced around me in a circle singing, ‘Annabelly has a fat belly. Annabelly has a fat belly.’ ”

  “Oh, God, I did, did I not?” she said with horror. “I am an awful sister!” On that note she threw herself back down on the bed and began to weep copiously again.

  Annabel rubbed her forehead with her fingers, wondering how her requesting that Kate not call her what was ultimately a rather offensive name ended with a situation where she felt she had to comfort the girl. At least some part of her was urging her to comfort Kate. Another much larger part of Annabel simply didn’t want to.

  Frankly, at that moment she didn’t even want to deal with her. She wanted to pack her up in a wagon and send her home to their parents and let them deal with the daughter they had raised into the woman she’d become. Unfortunately, her mother had made it clear that Kate was no longer welcome at Waverly. But did that mean that she was stuck with her? She had not even seen her in fourteen years. Really, they were strangers.

  But she was her sister, her conscience reminded her, and she had been raised better than that. She had been taught charity and service and suffering and perhaps Kate was just her cross to bear.

  And reasoning like that was why Annabel had always disliked life at the abbey. Charity was fine, and service to God, but the suffering bit? She wasn’t so sure about. Should you give charity to the point that you hurt yourself? Were you expected to serve with complete and utter selflessness, even when the people you were serving were selfish as hell? And was she really expected to spend her life suffering in misery so that others were happy? Because she was pretty sure that taking care of Kate was going to be a thankless, miserable experience that made her life a living hell. But by the same token, she couldn’t just put her out; Annabel’s conscience wouldn’t allow that. So it looked like she was stuck with Kate … unless she could think of something else to do with her.

  Perhaps her parents would take Kate in after all, Annabel thought hopefully. Perhaps their anger had cooled now that there was no more worry about the marriage contract. Maybe they would allow her to return. They could always arrange for her to marry someone else, couldn’t they? Kate was their daughter; surely they couldn’t just cut her out of their hearts that easily. Of couse they hadn’t seemed to care much for Annabel’s well-being, but then she was as much a stranger to them as she now found Kate to be to her. But Kate had grown up at Waverly—surely they had some affection for her?

  “Are you just going to let me lay here crying?” Kate asked, sitting up to scowl at her. “Are you not going to comfort me?”

  Annabel stared at her, wondering why Kate’s demanding comfort just made her want even less to offer it.

  “I am going to write a letter to Mother,” Annabel said, standing up and heading for the door.

  “What?” Kate gasped with horror. “Nay!”

  Annabel didn’t re
alize she’d rushed after her until she caught her arm as she reached the door, and swung her back around. “Nay. You cannot do that. It would be humiliating and—”

  “Kate,” Annabel interrupted wearily. “I know this whole thing is humiliating for you. You ignored the contracted marriage Father arranged for you, went against our parents and ran away for love only to have it fail miserably. ’Tis unfortunate, but that is the situation. However, Mother and Father may be able to yet save the situation. They may be able to arrange a marriage with some nice man willing to overlook your transgression.”

  “Oh, aye,” Kate sneered. “You would like that, would you not. Me having to marry some fat doddering old fool and let him touch me. Never!” she snapped. “Besides, I am already married.”

  “You are?” Annabel asked with a frown.

  “Aye. We handfasted before we ever indulged in the bedding. In fact, we handfasted weeks before we ran away,” she said triumphantly. “So you see, I cannot be married off to someone else, I already have a husband.”

  Annabel frowned. She had no idea what handfasting was. She’d never heard of it and supposed the abbess and Father hadn’t thought it important for nuns to know about. But Kate seemed to think it meant she was married … which was something of a wrinkle, since this husband she had handfasted with now appeared to want nothing to do with her.

  “Promise me you will not write Mother and Father,” Kate said now.

  Annabel hesitated. If she didn’t write their parents, she was definitely stuck with her sister. At least, she was if Ross allowed it and at that moment she didn’t know which she hoped for more: that he would be furious and insist Kate be packed off to Waverly, or that he would be understanding and let her stay.

  It would be easier in one way if he was furious and sent Kate away. At least she would not have to suffer guilt at sending her away herself. However, she did dislike it when Ross was angry with her and didn’t want him to be. But if he let Kate stay, Annabel would be stuck with her, especially if she could not write her mother.