Lynsay Sands

by An English Bride in Scotland

“I will have to think about this … and talk to Ross,” she added, turning to the door.

  “Nay,” Kate cried, clawing at her arm. “You have to promise. I will not have you writing them.”

  “I promise I will tell you before I send a letter if I do, but that is the best I can offer at the moment,” Annabel said firmly, tugging her arm free and slipping out of the room before Kate could grab her again. Pulling the door closed, she hurried up the hall to her own chamber, sure with every step she took that Kate would give chase. When she reached the master bedchamber and managed to slip inside unaccosted, Annabel leaned against the door with relief and closed her eyes for a moment.

  Her eyes popped open a heartbeat later at a shuffling sound though, and Annabel stared with dismay when she spotted her husband turning from the window to face her. Damn, she thought wearily, it seemed she would now be giving those explanations she’d promised Ross.

  Ah well, Annabel thought, pushing herself away from the door. Better to get it done. At least then she would not have to worry about how he would react to the news that she was an untrained ex-oblate, as well as the presence of her sister in their home.

  ROSS WATCHED ANNABEL move away from the door and walk sedately to the chairs by the fire. When she settled in one and glanced to him expectantly, he left his position by the window to join her. He’d barely set his behind in the chair before she blurted her explanations.

  “I was sent away to the abbey at seven and raised there. I was trained to take the veil. I illuminated texts, and worked in the stables until the morning my mother arrived to collect me. I had not yet taken the veil so she took me from the abbey to Waverly, where I was married to you. I have no training to run a castle and a passel of servants. I am doing the best I can, but will no doubt make mistakes and please say something for I shall continue to babble until you do and I—”

  “Breathe,” Ross interrupted quietly.

  Annabel paused and stared down at her hands in her lap as she took a deep breath.

  Ross considered her silently, her words slipping through his mind. Actually, learning this explained some things. Her discomfort around his men at first, something she still suffered when in the presence of men she hadn’t met previously. Her patient acceptance of his sometimes less than considerate behavior, like—

  Pausing, he frowned and asked, “If ye lived in the abbey since ye were a child, yer wardrobe—”

  “I had none,” Annabel interrupted him to confess. “I was not given a chance to pack when my mother collected me from the abbey, so I had only the gown I was wearing and the one they altered to fit me for the wedding and then wore here. You did me no disservice by not giving me time to pack. There was nothing to pack.”

  Ross nodded at this news. It made him feel a little better. He’d felt guilty on several occasions about that business. Every time he’d found his wife and Seonag sewing diligently away, for instance, and the day Giorsal had visited with her husband and the women had been forced to remain upstairs sewing because Annabel had nothing to wear. It eased his conscience somewhat to know he wasn’t entirely at fault for that. He was glad.

  “Now explain how yer sister came to be residin’ in the bedchamber next to ours,” he said and Annabel frowned.

  “That is it?” she asked uncertainly. “You are not going to chastise me for your not being told about my lack of training and experience? You are not going to demand the marriage be annulled because you were tricked into marrying someone so inept?”

  Ross raised his eyebrows with surprise and then shrugged. “Yer a smart lass, wife. Ye’ll learn.”

  Annabel seemed somewhat stunned by his response and sat back for a moment to simply stare at him as if seeing him for the first time. He let her get away with that for a moment and then reminded her, “Yer sister?”

  “Oh,” Annabel let her breath out on a weary sigh. “She just showed up here yesterday while you were sleeping. Apparently, Grant, her stable boy, was not prepared for her to be so … er …”

  “Spoiled?” he suggested dryly.

  “Aye, she is spoiled,” Annabel admitted with an apologetic grimace.

  “And demanding.”

  “Aye, that too,” she agreed unhappily.

  “And a bitch.”

  Annabel gasped at the word, but Ross shrugged.

  “ ’Tis no use pretending she is no’ a bitch. She ordered ye to punish Seonag, and then was doin’ her damndest to hurt ye below with her comments about the gown being so big and whatnot.”

  “I do not think she meant to hurt me exactly,” Annabel said without much conviction. “To her it is just fact that she is prettier than me … and slimmer.”

  Ross frowned at her disheartened tone of voice and the way she had slumped in her seat as if trying to make herself look smaller. Sitting forward in his own, he said, “First o’ all, she is no’ prettier than ye. Her eyes are a mud brown, not the lovely teal blue o’ yers. Her hair is a nice gold color, but ’tis lank and just lays on her head like straw, while yers is the color o’ midnight and flows in waves from yer head to frame yer lovely face beautifully. And her lips are smaller, thin even, not like yers, which are large and luscious enough to give a man ideas that turn his staff into a sword in search o’ a sheath.”

  Her eyes widened incredulously at this and Ross shook his head.

  “Wife, ye should ken by now that I find ye beautiful, and love yer body. I bed ye at every opportunity.”

  Annabel flushed at this.

  Satisfied that he had made it clear that she had nothing to fear when it came to her looks, Ross sat back and added, “ ’Sides, even if she had been fortunate enough to have been born more attractive than ye physically, she’s no’ a nice person, and that combined with her acting like a light-skirt would counter it quickly enough.”

  “Light-skirt?” Annabel echoed, feeling as if she should defend her sister … whether she wanted to or not. “That seems a bit harsh, husband. She simply fell in love with the wrong man and ran off rather than marry the one she was supposed to.”

  Ross’s eyebrows rose. “So ye saw nothing wrong with the way she was sidling up to me, jiggling her bosoms in me face, and pawing me body right there in front of everyone. And me being yer husband, too.” He shook his head with disgust at the memory.

  “Ah.” Annabel frowned. “So ladies do not act like that?”

  Ross felt his eyebrows fly up his forehead, but then asked with concern, “Surely ye jest?”

  Annabel bit her lip, but admitted, “Kate insisted she was not flirting with you, that she was just being nice because you were my husband, and that I must be jealous. So I started wondering …” She hesitated and then shrugged helplessly and pointed out, “I grew up in an abbey, husband. I do not know what is appropriate behavior outside the abbey walls. Perhaps her flirty attentions were how women interact with men.”

  “Flirty attentions?” he echoed with amazement. “Is that what ye call her sliding her hand up under me plaid trying to measure me manhood?”

  “What?” she gasped with some amazement of her own.

  Ross nodded grimly. He’d nearly plowed his fist into the chit’s head when she’d tried that. Fortunately, Fingal had distracted her with his less than complimentary comments and then Annabel had dragged the lass off.

  “I only saw her rub your arm,” she muttered with displeasure and he recalled she had been behind the girl and several feet away. He had no doubt she hadn’t been aware of what Kate was doing under cover of the table. That was a relief, for he’d wondered why the devil she wasn’t smacking the girl silly herself.

  “What are yer plans fer her?” Ross asked finally. Much as he disliked Kate, she was Annabel’s sister and if she wished her to stay with them for a while, he would try to be forbearing. Although, frankly he wanted to toss the sneaky wench out of his home and never let her return. Not because she’d tried to feel him up at the table—that had disgusted him—but the thing that had really infuriated him was the way she treated
Annabel. She had hurt her several times in just a matter of moments below and he wouldn’t have that. No one was going to hurt Annabel … and if Kate called Annabel ‘Belly’ one more time—

  “I am going to write to Mother and Father,” Annabel announced, interrupting his thoughts and Ross felt his heart sink. They would be stuck with her for a bit then as the letter went south to England, and then longer still as the response traveled back. Damn, he’d be lucky not to kill the woman ere she left.

  Chapter 15

  Annabel woke slowly, roused by the donjon blowing his bugle. Shifting sleepily, she rolled toward Ross to see if the sound had awakened him, only to find the bed beside her was empty. He’d left early … again. Ross had been up and out of the keep well before the morning bugle every day for the last week. The man worked far too hard.

  A knock sounded at the door, and Annabel sighed and sat up, tugging the linens and furs to her chin as she called, “Come in.”

  It was no great surprise when Seonag bustled in, a ewer of warm water in one hand and soap and linen in the other.

  “Is the laird gone already again?” Seonag commented dryly as she carried the ewer to the small table against the outer wall where Annabel performed her morning ablutions.

  “Aye,” she murmured, pushing the linens and furs aside to sit up on the side of the bed as the woman poured the steaming water into the waiting basin. “He left early to ride to MacDonald. There was something he wished to discuss with Giorsal and Bean.”

  “Ye mean he left early to get out o’ the keep ere yer sister goes down to break her fast,” Seonag said dryly.

  “That too,” Annabel murmured unhappily. She understood his desire to avoid Kate. She was most unpleasant to be around now and had been since Annabel had confronted her with what Ross had told her about her slipping her hand up under his plaid. It had been obvious from Kate’s expression that she hadn’t expected him to tell. Annabel supposed her sister had thought herself so irresistible that he’d keep it to himself and simply arrange some secret assignation with her. Annabel was so very glad he hadn’t.

  When first confronted, Kate had tried to claim she was just testing Ross, trying to ensure that he would be a faithful husband and could not be lured into straying by a beautiful face. But when Annabel hadn’t fallen for that, she’d got nasty … with everyone. Her one goal now appeared to be to make everyone’s life as miserable as she possibly could.

  Annabel couldn’t blame Ross for wanting to avoid that. But she did miss cuddling up to him in the morning before they started their day, and chatting with him at the table.

  “M’lady?”

  Annabel glanced to Seonag in question. The maid had finished filling her basin and had moved to the chest that held all the gowns they’d mended. They’d finished the very last one the afternoon before, and both of them had been greatly relieved to be free of the chore. Now, Seonag was staring down into the open chest with confusion.

  “What is it, Seonag?” Annabel asked with a frown.

  “Where did ye move yer gowns to?”

  Annabel raised her eyebrows in surprise at the question. “Nowhere. They should be there.”

  “Well, they aren’t,” the woman assured her, vexation covering her face.

  Annabel hurried to her side to peer into the empty chest. Bewilderment was her first reaction. “But they were all there before sup last night when I put the cream-colored gown away.”

  “Well they’re no’ there now,” Seonag pointed out grimly.

  “Aye. I can see that,” Annabel murmured, rubbing her forehead. “I just do not see where they could have gone, or who would have moved th—” Pausing abruptly, she glanced to Seonag and the two women said together, “Kate.”

  Annabel cursed and headed for the door, fury giving her feet wings and making her ignore Seonag’s squawked, “Wait!”

  She threw the bedchamber door open with a crash and hurried to the next door along the hall, reaching it just as Seonag caught up with her and threw a linen around her shoulders. It was only then Annabel realized she’d charged out of her room naked. Normally, she would have been embarrassed. In that moment, however, she didn’t care. She merely drew the linen around her, caught it under her chin with one hand, and threw Kate’s bedchamber door open with the other.

  “Why sister, do you not look fetching,” Kate said with a mean laugh.

  Annabel tore her gaze from the bed where she’d instinctively first looked, and glanced to the chair by the fire where her sister’s voice had come from. Kate was ensconced there, a rainbow of cloth scraps littering the floor around the chair as she sliced away at Annabel’s dark blue gown.

  “Actually, I am glad you are here,” Kate continued idly. “I could use some help sewing these now I have done all the hard work and cut them down to my size.”

  Annabel simply stared at her for a moment, and then her gaze shifted to the cloth on the ground and she choked out, “My gowns.”

  “What?” Kate asked, and then gave a laugh. “Nay, of course not. I got these out of that chest in your room. ’Twas obvious they were old secondhand rags, so I knew you would not mind me cutting them down for myself. I was growing ever so weary of the two you loaned me to wear.”

  Annabel clenched her fists and turned a fury-filled gaze on her sister. She wanted to kill her in that moment. She wanted to drag her out of that chair by her hair and wring her scrawny little neck and—

  “ ’Tis all right,” Seonag said quickly, scurrying forward to begin collecting the scraps of cloth off the floor. “We can sew these back into the gowns and fix them. No one will ken they were ever cut apart. I can—”

  “Oh, those are not the parts I cut off,” Kate said. “Those are what is left to make my dresses out of. I threw the extra panels in the fire as I cut each one off. Although,” she added pensively, “I suppose that was silly. I could have made at least one other gown from the scraps I removed from each gown since they were so big. Oh well.” She shrugged, and then raised her eyebrows. “Are you not going to sit down and help me?”

  “Help you?” Annabel hissed with disbelief.

  “Aye. After all ’tis apparently your fault the cloth merchant will not come up to the castle. Otherwise I could have just had you buy new cloth for me to make my wardrobe from, rather than having to make do with castoff cloth from a dead woman’s gowns.”

  “To make your wardrobe from?” Annabel asked, amazed by her gall.

  “Well, you do not expect me to have to make do with just one or two gowns, do you?” she asked as if the answer should be obviously no.

  “I do not expect to outfit you with a wardrobe at all,” Annabel growled, her temper overflowing … a temper she had never realized she even had. If she weren’t so furious, Annabel would have been shocked by the rage racing through her as she stalked toward her sister.

  “Well, of course you should expect to make me a wardrobe. You are my sister and this is my home now. I expect—”

  “This is not your home. You are a guest here, Kate,” Annabel interrupted furiously. “And a very unpleasant one at that. Perhaps had you tried to act like a proper sister, I would welcome you here, but as it stands, I do not wish to even see you, let alone house and clothe you.” Her mouth tightened and she added grimly, “I have been waiting to hear back from Mother on her willingness to take you in, howbeit I am not willing to wait any longer, and I do not care if she wants to take you in. She shall have to. As soon as Ross returns I am going to ask him to arrange for your return to Waverly. Your lady mother is the one who raised you to be such a selfish, spoiled, spiteful brat, and she can now live with what she has created. I am done.”

  Kate’s eyes widened and then her face crumpled. “How can you say that to me after everything I have suffered!” she said through a sudden storm of tears.

  “Because it is true,” Annabel answered coldly, unmoved this time by her tears. “You have driven my husband from his home, terrorized the servants and done nothing but bedevil me, and no
w, now you have gone and cut up every gown I own but one.”

  “Every gown you own?” Kate asked with amazement and immediately shook her head. “Nay. These were secondhand gowns—”

  “In my chest in my bedchamber,” Annabel interrupted, growing furious all over again. “You had no business in there! And pray, do not try to tell me you did not know that while they were secondhand gowns, they were all I had to wear.”

  “Fine, I knew they were your gowns,” Kate snapped. “But I only destroyed them so that your husband would be forced to buy you new material for a proper wardrobe as befits a lady.”

  “Oh, please,” Annabel said dryly. “You are the most selfish creature in Scotland and England combined. ’Tis more believable that you did it to ensure I would buy new cloth and you could get new material for a proper wardrobe of your own. Besides, you already said the merchant will not come here so you know that is not—” Annabel stopped abruptly, her head coming up. “The cloth merchant will not come here? Why would the cloth merchant not come here?”

  She turned to Seonag in question, but Kate answered.

  “Because your dog attacked the spice merchant, and—”

  “Jasper did not attack the merchant,” Annabel snapped in the dog’s defense.

  “I am just telling you what I was told,” Kate said with a shrug. “Whatever the case, apparently the merchant stormed out of here yesterday morning. He was ranting about being dumped in a room and left to starve, and he would see you sorry for it. He was going to stay at the inn in the village until his wound healed, and then he would tell all the other merchants not to come here if they cared for their hide.”

  Annabel stared at Kate, absently noting what she was sure was glee in her sister’s eyes as she revealed this information. It was as if she was enjoying her misfortune. But Annabel couldn’t be bothered worrying about that now. Her mind was taken up with the enormity of what she’d just learned. No more spice, no more cloth, no more trinkets or pots.

  Most of what they needed to survive could be produced here at MacKay. They would not go hungry. What they counted on merchants for were the items that they couldn’t provide or make for themselves, like silks and spices from Asia, fur from Russia, salt and wine from France, cloth and tapestries from Flanders, and so on. They were luxuries really, not necessary really, but once used to those luxuries … Annabel couldn’t imagine months or years without being able to buy spices to aid Angus in his efforts. This was horrible.