To Kill a Kettle Witch (Novel of the Mist-Torn Witches) (22 page)

At dinner, she ignored her food, and sometimes drank too much wine.

“What is wrong with Auntie?” Anna finally asked her mother.

“She’s besotted,” her mother answered, and would say no more.

A week following their return, hoofbeats sounded in the courtyard and as Siobhan was running, a messenger came to the door. She snatched the note from his hand, and when she saw the front of it, she gasped and tore it open.

Upon reading its contents, she leaned back against the wall for support and looked to Anna’s mother.

“He’s coming,” she breathed. “He’s coming here.”

Anna pieced together what had happened. During the visit to Kéonsk, Siobhan had met a man.

That evening, Anna went out to the stables after dinner. She knew her parents preferred she remain inside after dark, but one of her father’s spaniels had given birth to five puppies and Anna wanted to bring the mother a bowl of milk and see how she fared with her new pups. Time passed quickly, and by the
time she slipped back into the manor, she realized it was late enough that she might be scolded if she was seen.

Upon entering the house, she heard her parents speaking in the dining room, and something in their voices made her pause. They sounded tense, and their words came quickly.

Anna’s parents never expressed love for each other, but neither did they argue. They were partners in all things.

Going to one side of the archway to the dining room, Anna listened.

“Are you certain your expressions of concern aren’t due to his station?” her father asked, sounding bitter. “Does it trouble you that you married a timber and stone merchant, and your sister may marry the brother of a prince?”

“No, it isn’t that,” Mother answered, not sounding remotely offended by his accusation. “It is her . . . passion toward him. You know well that she’s given to extremes, but even for her this seems excessive, almost an obsession. Such excess of feeling does not bode well for a marriage.”

Peering around the corner, Anna could see her father by the hearth. He shrugged. “At her age, I find the whole affair ridiculous.”

That surprised Anna. Did her father consider Siobhan to be old? Although she was nearly thirty, she still looked young and beautiful.

“Hardly ridiculous,” Mother answered, “Malcolm Yegor is over thirty, and he’s never been married,
either. I simply wish Siobhan would show some reserve.”

Anna withdrew, for fear of being spotted, but that night when she crawled into bed with Adrienne, her mind was full. What kind of man could have such an effect on Aunt Siobhan?

Six days later, she found out, and nothing could have prepared her.

The family all awaited their expected visitor in the courtyard as he rode in. Aunt Siobhan had not been able to eat or sit all that day.

When Lord Malcolm of the house of Yegor swung off his horse and landed on the ground, Anna could only stare. He was tall with broad shoulders and tan skin. His face was young, but his hair was already turning silver. It suited him. He wore it longer than most men Anna knew and it curled back behind his ears.

His open smile was like magic as he took in the sight of the family.

“Siobhan,” he said, “you are lovely as ever.”

She ran to him. Anna had never seen a woman run to a man. Her face shone with a fire Anna had never seen before, either.

“Malcolm.”

The one whispered word was filled with raw love.

Malcolm looked over at the rest of the family. “Henri. Roweena. So good to see you. Thank you for the kind welcome.” His eyes moved to Landon, Anna, and Adrienne. “And who do we have here? Siobhan told me of children, but the lot of you look nearly grown.” He
flashed another smile. “Let us go in. My backside is sore from riding all day.”

Adrienne smiled back at him. His manner was so easy and open.

Anna and Landon didn’t smile. Again, they took after Father’s side, but Anna felt a rush of affection. Malcolm was like a force of nature who brought laughter along with him.

Dinner was an enjoyable affair that night.

Malcolm teased Siobhan, Anna, and Adrienne in equal measure, and he told comic stories of his journey there, such as when he was served the worst meal he’d ever tried to eat at a tavern along the way and attempted to choke the food down out of politeness.

Anna couldn’t remember her family ever laughing so much at the dinner table.

All through the meal, Siobhan watched him with hungry eyes, as if she couldn’t drink in the sight of him enough.

The next day, Malcolm went out riding with the children. Anna never forgot that day. He was almost like one of them. They wandered the quarry and talked of small things. In the forest, he showed them a number of spiders’ webs and told them all about the different spiders. In the pond, he found a gelatinous sack of frogs’ eggs first and then some hatched tadpoles, and he told them of the life process of frogs. He knew a good deal about nature and the land.

In all her life, Anna’s father had never once spent a day like this with his children.

Unfortunately, when they returned to the manor,
Aunt Siobhan rushed to meet them in the foyer. She looked unhinged.

“Where have you been?” she cried at Malcolm.

Anna was stunned at the panic in her voice.

But Malcolm swept Siobhan into his arms, looking down into her face. He almost appeared pleased by her wild anxiety to see him.

“What is wrong?” he asked.

“You were gone all day,” she cried. “I didn’t know where.”

“I was out with the children. Forgive me. I should have told you.”

The two of them began to exchange soft words, and on instinct, Anna drew her brother and sister away.

Her father would have been mortified should their mother have ever made such a scene, but apparently Malcolm wasn’t troubled. He appeared drawn to Siobhan’s need for his company.

At dinner, things had returned to normal, and once again, the manor was filled with laughter.

The next day, when the children and Malcolm went out riding, Aunt Siobhan came with them. It did strike Anna as somewhat odd that Malcolm had no interest in talking about business or politics with her father as most grown men had always done before. Malcolm preferred less serious company.

Before Anna knew it, wedding preparations had begun.

A magistrate came from Kéonsk. Malcolm and Siobhan were married in the rose garden behind the manor. A celebration followed, and Anna always remembered
this as the happiest of days. Aunt Siobhan’s face glowed from morning to night.

The next day brought sorrow, though, as Siobhan began packing and Anna realized her aunt was leaving them for good.

Though Anna was known for her reserved nature, she could not help weeping, and her aunt rushed to her.

“Don’t cry, my girl. We will see each other.”

“Where will you go? How far?”

“A good distance, I fear. Malcolm’s older brother is the prince of Yegor, and Malcolm was given a vassalage in the south. We will live in his keep and oversee those lands.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

Siobhan held her close. “It’s time you learned this is the fate of women. Men stay in their homes, at least first sons. Women marry and leave. That is the way of things.”

Anna drew back and wiped her eyes. “What do you mean? I’ll never leave here.”

“You will. Landon will inherit the estate. Someday, you and Adrienne will both marry and be taken away, as your mother was taken from her home, and now I am taken from my second home here.”

This was a revelation to Anna, and she didn’t like it. The thought made her stomach go tight. She loved the land of the Janvier estate and had no wish to ever leave.

But Aunt Siobhan joyfully rode out of the courtyard the next day, leaving Anna feeling abandoned. Why did things have to change? With the departure of Malcolm and Siobhan, some of the life went out of the house.

Anna had no choice but to accept this change.

The following year, another shift occurred, only this one brought her happiness.

The summer she turned twelve, a man, a boy, and a few guards rode into the courtyard, and as Anna walked outside with her father and brother, she realized the visitors were expected.

Her father’s expression was cautious, and she wondered what was happening.

The man in the lead was well dressed, in a dark blue tunic and polished boots. He dismounted and took Father’s hand in a friendly manner.

“Janvier,” he said. “So good to finally meet you. I do apologize for not coming sooner.”

The boy dismounted next. He looked to be about Landon’s age, only taller with a solid build and red-brown hair.

“My son, Tobin,” the man said, motioning to the boy.

Within a few moments of listening to the man and her father talk, Anna began to understand the situation. Apparently, these were their neighbors on the east side of the property. The man’s name was Phillip Bonnay, and his own elderly father had recently died, leaving him to inherit.

As opposed to timber, their lands had been given over to vineyards, and they grew miles and miles of grapes. The elderly father had never seen fit to make friends with his neighbors and had ordered no unnecessary contact. But Philip Bonnay felt differently, and now that he was in charge, he’d come to visit.

Or this was how Anna interpreted the meeting.

Within moments, she could see her father relaxing
as he, too, began to see the situation for what it was, simply a friendly visit. Given the nature of their neighbors to the west, no wonder he had fostered some trepidation at first.

“Come in and have some wine,” he said.

The boy, Tobin, looked to Anna and Landon. “Could we ride around the land for a while? I’d like to see the quarry.”

Landon had never had a male friend his own age, and he was eager to agree.

“Let me run and get Adrienne,” Anna said. “She’ll be angry if we leave her behind.”

And so, while the men sipped wine and talked in the house, all four of the children rode to the rock quarry. Within the first hour, Tobin had become a natural fourth in the trio of siblings. He had some things in common with their new uncle, Malcolm. He was quick to laugh and smile, and he put other people at ease. Unlike Malcolm, he didn’t appear to need the esteem of others. He was himself, and he let people take him or leave him as he was.

Anna, Adrienne, and Landon all found his company most welcome.

He and his father spent the night—as the ride back to their own estate took half a day—but this was the first of many visits from Tobin. Anna’s father was glad for Landon to have a male friend, and so Tobin was often invited to come and stay as long as he liked.

The children took lessons from their mother in the morning, mainly writing, arithmetic, and languages. Tobin joined them and appeared to enjoy himself. He
was possessed of great imagination, and when they all went riding in the afternoons, he began to make up games for them to play such as “knights against villains.” Anna and Landon nearly always played the knights, and Adrienne and Tobin played the villains. As Anna was not the type to think up such games herself, she came to value Tobin more and more.

He helped her to miss Aunt Siobhan less.

In addition to proving a fine playmate, Tobin was also a good listener. Anna rarely shared her fears or feelings, but one day, when they found themselves walking alone in the courtyard, she told him what Aunt Siobhan had shared about “girls,” and how they must marry and leave home one day.

“I don’t want to leave here,” she confessed, “and go to some strange place with the man I marry.”

He listened and then said, “I may have to leave my home, too. My older brother will inherit the vineyards.”

Anna stopped walking. “You have an older brother? You never said.”

“You never asked.” He sighed. “He’s a good brother. His name is Edward, and he’s nearly twenty, so he has little interest in me. He’s not like our father when it comes to visiting. He rarely leaves the estate. But he’ll inherit our home, and I don’t know what I’ll do.”

In that moment, life seemed very unfair to Anna, that only the first son of any family had the right and privilege to remain in his home once he grew up.

At the end of that summer, a letter from Aunt Siobhan arrived, and Anna’s mother smiled upon reading it.

“She’s given birth to a healthy girl named Jenelle.
Mother and baby are doing well. We must send them some gifts.”

“A girl?” Father said without much interest. “Hopefully, she still has time to give him a boy.”

For the next year, Anna tried to push aside her fears of being married off and sent away when she came of age, and she tried to enjoy her life as it was. Tobin’s entire family was invited for the winter celebration and feasting, and Anna met his mother and older brother. She liked his mother, who was plump and sweet-tempered. His older brother, Edward, reminded her a good deal of her father, serious and interested mainly in his business and family economics. The two of them got on well.

Anna knitted Tobin a black wool scarf, and he gave her a new pair of leather riding gloves.

The following summer, the world took another shift, this one much darker. It began slowly at first.

Mother began hesitating before opening any letters from Aunt Siobhan, and then she began taking them off in private before reading them. Anna had a sense something was wrong but did not dare to ask.

Near the end of that summer, Anna’s mother came to her.

“Your aunt is having some . . . difficulties and has asked me to come south for a visit. Your father has agreed, but I think it best that you accompany me. You’ve always had a calming effect on Siobhan, and your mere presence might make things more evenly tempered.”

Anna was surprised on several levels. Did she have
a calming effect on her aunt? She hadn’t realized. More, she’d never in her life been off the Janvier estate. The borders of her father’s lands were the extent of her world.

Several days later, she and her mother and a retinue of guards rode south. Though Anna couldn’t help feeling some fear at first, the journey itself proved enjoyable. She’d never had her mother’s full attention. They spent the nights at inns along the way, slept in the same bed, and whispered to each other.