“Because there is somewhat amiss in his head. Rot has set in. It started long ago. Get yer men, go up and put a lock on the outside o’ his door. Do it now while yet he sleeps.”
“I canna!”
“Why?”
“He would tear the place apart.”
“Let him. He will ha’ to live in the wreckage.” Alan had never spoken so to his father, had never dared, but aye, with Annista’s arrival much had changed.
“Keep him prisoner?” Father’s voice fell to a harsh whisper. “And if anyone found out? That the heir to Kallan was locked awa’ by his own family—’twould be perceived as a weakness. These are troubled times. If it is thought a stain o’ madness touches us—wha’ will that do to our support o’ the earls who stand against the queen? Her agents will put it out that we are all madmen.”
Alan did not know what to say. His father’s obsession with the politics of the country was a madness in and of itself.
“At least bar his door till he can dry out. I do no’ think the drink causes his madness but surely it exacerbates it. Tears him fro’ whatever thin moorings he retains.”
“Aye.” Father looked daunted at the thought of it, but he nodded. “I will speak wi’ Toland.” The blacksmith. “See can a lock be fitted.”
“Till then, ye maun bar the door. Place footmen there.”
“He will kill any footman.”
And there it was, plain and simple. Out in the air.
Evan would kill.
Had he killed his wife? Had she fallen down the stairs as Evan claimed, rendered weak and dizzy by her illness?
Had she been fleeing him in the night?
Had he pushed her?
None of them would ever know, lest Evan admitted it.
“Can a bar no’ be fitted to his door?”
“I do no’ see how. There are no brackets—”
“The blacksmith can fit those.”
Something akin to terror bloomed in Father’s eyes. “No without Evan hearing.”
“Let us go and see.”
They walked up together in through the door by the kitchen and utilizing the narrow back staircase that clattered beneath their feet.
It was already too late when they reached Evan’s chamber. It lay empty, the bedclothes tumbled and stinking.
Evan, gone.
God—or the devil—alone knew where.
Chapter Seventeen
Father sent men out looking for Evan, no doubt believing it was best knowing where the danger lay than otherwise. Alan himself heard him give the order. The men were to check all the young master’s haunts. Not interfere with him, merely report back. For the young master’s safety, of course.
Alan did not know why Father continued trying to save face. All the servants knew what Evan was. Yet the grip of supposed-civility remained strong.
“I maun return to the stables,” he told his father. He could see Mother in the solar, weeping, the housekeeper trying to lend comfort.
