Everything felt glorious. Cait grinned to herself, still half-afraid to believe the shift in fortunes from a month before. The sickness and tiredness that had plagued her was all but gone. She looked and felt the very picture of health. Although she hadn’t started showing yet, she was still quite certain that she was with child. In addition to missing her courses, she had a glow that could not be otherwise explained. The weather had been perfect, with a slow, soft spring settling over the Highlands and turning everything rosy. Most important of all, she’d just received glorious news: Ewan was coming home!
Of course, he couldn’t stay long, and he wasn’t going to be alone (wouldn’t his pesky siblings ever learn when they weren’t wanted?), but she still felt over the moon. It seemed like forever since he’d gone away. Still, perhaps paradoxically, he was in her thoughts as though he’d never left. Every time that she saw something new: tulips poking through the sunwarmed soil, a rainbow on the horizon, a pair of goslings-she imagined sharing it with him.
“Are you coming in for luncheon, Mistress?” Polly, the cook called out into the garden. Cait looked up and nodded her head, “Just a minute,” she replied, and then stood to wipe her hands on her apron and collect her tools. She was almost to the door when a sound caught her attention: hoofbeats.
Cait turned around, her breath catching in her throat when she made out a carriage on the road. It couldn’t be…She thought, trying to temper her hopes about who might be inside. She froze for a moment, her heart beating wildly in her breast, and then she sprinted forward.
Cait didn’t get any farther than the edge of the road when she had to stop to catch her breath. Despite feeling fit, her body was still under strain. It didn’t matter, however, because the carriage had almost arrived. She waited anxiously beside the fencepost while it covered the last hundred yards. Little Maisie and Thomas were already hanging out the window, and she thought she caught a glimpse of Muira’s hair as well, but she couldn’t yet see Ewan.
The horses continued up to the front of the house, causing Cait to retrace a few of her steps. She had just reached it when the door was flung open, and then the little MacRaes spilled out into the yard.
“Auntie Cait!” Maisie said, sprinting forward. Thomas, who didn’t know her as well, and Duncan, who didn’t know her at all, hung back. Cait gave the little girl a hug, and then looked up to watch as Muira, the nursemaid, and the new baby were handed down.
Cait kept her eyes on the doorway, her eyes widening in confusion when, contrary to her expectations, the door slammed shut. Muira must have been watching her, because she hurried forward, “Ewan was detained in Beauly,” she said, naming the next village over. “He’ll ride over tonight.”
Cait nodded her head, struggling to keep her expression from falling into a frown. “Lovely,” she said as enthusiastically as she could, and then gestured toward the house, “Shall we go inside?”
“I’ll leave the children in the garden for a bit,” Muira said, gesturing to their nurse, “They need to stretch their legs.”
Cait nodded, but then led Muira into the house, leaving cook to settle the nurse, “Did you have a pleasant journey?”
Muira nodded and rattled off a polite reply. Then she gave her friend a critical look. “You’re looking well,” she remarked in a tone that was almost questioning.
Cait flushed, well-aware of what her friend was asking, but not yet ready to spill her news. She wanted Ewan to be the first to know. It didn’t seem right to tell his sister that she was going to be an Aunt, before Ewan knew that he would be a father. “The country air,” Cait replied firmly, “It’s done me a world of good.”
Muira nodded pensively, “Nothing else?” she pressed.
“Nothing else,” Cait lied, and then herded her friend into the parlor.
“Good,” Muira said in a voice that sounded almost relieved.
“Good?” Cait asked, but her friend’s expression changed to a bright smile.
“I’m glad that you’re feeling well,” Muira said forcefully, “I’m tired of everyone being sick and injured and worried about the fighting,” she squeezed Cait’s hand, “Now, tell me everything I’ve missed.”
Muira and Cait sat in the parlor until supper time. Cait enjoyed her friend’s conversation, but she was still distracted. Every sound from the courtyard caused her eyes to flicker toward the door. Finally, Muira gave up.
“I’d better get the children washed for the meal,” she announced, and then shot her sister-in-law a knowing smile, “I imagine Ewan will be along before long.” And then she left.
Cait hoped that her friend was correct, but it was another four hours, long after the children were tucked in bed, and after
Muira had withdrawn to her own room, when she finally heard the sound she had been straining for all evening: a knock at the door. Cait could barely restrain herself from running down the stairs and opening it herself. However, she managed. She sat in her chamber and listened as Cook climbed out of her little bed and lifted the bar on the door.
“Master Cameron,” she said quietly, expecting that the rest of the household would be asleep. “We didn’t expect you until the morning.”
“I didn’t want to wait,” he answered back. “Where is my wife?”
“In her room sir.”
Every footfall on the stairs was matched by a heavy thud of Cait’s heart. She sat up in the bed, barely breathing as she listened to footsteps traverse the hall, and finally open the door.
Ewan stepped quietly inside and removed his plaid and boots, not seeing her at first. She restrained herself until he stepped into a patch of moonlight. Finally, confronted by the glory she’d been denied for three long months, she leapt out of bed. Her arms were around him before he knew what had happened.
“Oh, Ewan! You’re home!” she gushed, “Oh, I was so worried! I missed you so much!”
He stiffened in her embrace. Cait frowned at his strange reticence to embrace her back, but she was too ecstatic at seeing him again to give it too much thought. He was weary and probably stiff from riding so far, and she wrote it off as nothing more.
“Darling,” she whispered. Then, using the weight of her arms around his neck, she dragged him toward a kiss, “I’ve got the most wonderful news to tell you!”
“In the morning,” Ewan growled, the curtness of his tone shocking Cait into silence, and into releasing his neck.
“Ewan?”
“I don’t want to talk about it now,” he snapped back.
Cait frowned worriedly, causing Ewan to sigh. He reached up to stroke her cheek, “Poor Beauty,” he whispered.
Still stung by his rejection, Cait leaned into his touch. He didn’t draw his hand away. Instead, he bent forward to kiss her forehead-but they both knew that it wouldn’t be enough. It was followed by a dab of his mouth against her nose, her chin, and finally their lips connected.
He was never going to be able to give this up.
Ewan felt as if he had just plunged into the sea with no land in sight. He knew that he was going to drown, and he was overcome with a mixture of panic and resignation. He had to break things off, he reminded himself forcefully. He’d given the Laird his word. Even Muira agreed, grudgingly, that it had to be….but not yet, he told himself, ignoring how selfish his behavior was. Surely he’d earned one last night of heaven, after all? He wasn’t called upon to be the Laird yet.
Cait’s tongue flicked tentatively against his lips, which parted automatically. Ewan drank her in like water falling onto parched earth. “God…Cait…” he groaned, and there wasn’t time for any more speaking, only gentle grunts and sighs as he relearned every inch of her magnificent body.
He still couldn’t explain what made Cait different. There was physical pleasure, of course, but the connection that they shared went deeper than that. Cait knew him. She understood him. She loved him-he was certain now that his sister was right, even if Cait had never dared to speak the words. It was unfair and painfully ironic: the one wo
man who could bring him to his knees was the one woman that he couldn’t have.
Ewan roamed over Cait’s body with his lips and tongue, priming her for his possession, but he couldn’t hold out long. He’d waited too much already. It was only a matter of moments-only long enough to strip away their clothes-before he laid her across the bed and fused their bodies into one. She was so tight, so wet. He all but lost himself in sensation. He was barely inside her before he wanted to come. Every fibre of his body was keening toward that release-but a flicker of conscience saved him at the last moment from making his folly total.
Cait broke around him, muscles shivering and clenching. He felt himself hovering on the bring of his own release. Then, with a burst of strength that he didn’t know he had, he withdrew completely from her body. Still mindless with sensation, Cait only made a tiny gasp went he pressed his sex against the soft flesh of her belly, and finally came.
Ewan groaned in self reproach when he spilled himself onto her skin. Cait looked at him in confusion, but he tried to smother the look in a kiss. His tongue pushed into her mouth and, after only a moment’s anxious hesitation, she melted for him again.
The next day, Ewan awoke his wife with a kiss on the back of the neck. They were still snuggled together. His arm was threaded around her waist, and he used his fingers to strum the flat plane of her belly.
He’d been laying like that for what felt like hours, lost inside his thoughts. Despite the comfort of lying with his wife, he hadn’t been able to rest. He was too tortured by his thoughts, and of what he was meant to do. He was still thinking, desperately, of any way to put things off.
He knew that he couldn’t stay married to Cait forever, but he was beginning to wonder if he really had to rid himself of her right away. After all, Laird Cameron was still healthy. As long as Cait didn’t get pregnant, why couldn’t they keep things precisely as they were, and simply drift apart naturally at the end of a year? Cait couldn’t expect more than that. Besides, she’d still be his wife until then regardless of what he did now.
“Ewan?” Cait said sleepily. She rolled onto her back so that she could see his face.
“Good morning,” he whispered, and then dipped down to brush her lips.
“Good morning,” she answered back, blushing at the low, seductive hush of her voice. He smiled faintly, and then glanced away. Cait frowned, “Penny for your thoughts.”
Ewan looked guilty-as though he’d just been caught at something. He hesitated for a moment, and then spoke: “I was thinking about you?”
“Oh?” she asked, pinking with pleasure.
Ewan nodded. He put his hand on her stomach again, palm flat, pressing gently, “I was thinking how glad I am to have you to myself. I thought that I wanted a baby but…” he took a breath and blurted, “I’m glad that you aren’t pregnant. I don’t want a baby now. I only want you.” All of the blood drained from Cait’s face, but Ewan didn’t notice, he just kept talking, not daring to stop and think about what he said. “I’ll have to have a baby someday, but I’m not ready yet. I think that it would…complicate things between us and…well…it really isn’t fair. We’ll only be together for a year after all. Don’t you agree?”
Cait did not agree, but she couldn’t seem to find her voice. She couldn’t even breathe as Ewan’s words sliced through her heart, shredding all of her dreams. “I…” she started, but couldn’t say more.
“It’s perfect just like this,” Ewan said, his voice growing in confidence when she didn’t protest. If she could come around to his way of thinking then there really was no call to break things off just yet. “And I want to keep it this way. I don’t ever want it to change.” Finally finished, he smiled. “Was there something you wanted to tell me?”
“Yes,” Cait said in a tiny voice. Then, meeting his eyes, she lost her nerve. “I mean…no,” she said, changing her mind. She couldn’t tell Ewan that she was having his child when he’d just made such a passionate declaration against the idea!
“Good,” Ewan said, the tone of his voice darkening and becoming more husky before. The hands that had been lightly raking her belly grew more insistent. He used them to push her back into his blatant arousal. “Of course, I don’t mean that I want to stop having fun.”
Fun, Cait thought, the word sounding bitter in her mind. Is that what Ewan called what they were doing? How like a man! She felt numb and betrayed by what he’d said before, and resisted the first tingling of sensation when his hands plucked at her hips and breasts. She didn’t want to forgive him for what he’d said, for what he’d done in sucking the joy from her happy news, but she was too enslaved by his body to resist for long. It was only moments before she was answering his suggestive touch, bucking into his hand and goading him harder and faster with soft mews of pleasure into his ear.
He didn’t come inside her again. Cait noticed this time, and thought bitterly of the night before. Coward she thought, and held her tongue, even though she knew that his efforts were too late to make a difference. She felt heartsick at Ewan’s sudden rejection, and dirty where his seed was drying on her skin.
“Should I ring for a bath?” he asked, wiping off his own body with a damp rag and putting on his clothes while Cait remained in the bed. She shook her head. Muira would have already called for hot water for the children, and there were only limited servants to lend a hand. Cait was sure that she could manage. Besides, she didn’t particularly want to forget her pique so soon.
Finished dressing, Ewan left the room. He had noticed Cait’s silence, but supposed that she was simply overtired. He decided not to dwell on the matter. Happily, as soon as he entered the dining room, he was provided with a distraction.
“Maisie SIT in your chair! Thomas, quit poking your brother. Duncan, jam toast is NOT a hat!”
Muira was sitting at the end of the table, the baby was on her lap as she presided over a chaotic meal. All of the children had been bathed. Maisie’s pale gold hair was drying down her back-but they also looked as if they’d required another washing as soon as they left the table. They were covered from head to toe in honey, crumbs and egg.
“Uncle Ewan! Uncle Ewan!” the three oldest called, bobbing out of their chairs until a sharp word from their mother sat them back down again.
“I want to see my pony today, Uncle Ewan!” Maisie begged, twisting in her chair, “PLEASE can I see my pony?”
Ewan chuckled, remembering the girl’s last visit to the farm. He’d promised her a horse of her own when she was older.
“It’s not fair that Maisie gets a pony!” Thomas pouted. “I want one too!”
“Thomas. That’s greedy!” Muira chided, but Ewan shook his head.
“How about I take you all down to the stables?” he suggested, thinking that the bright, cheerful babble of the children would be a perfect antidote to his grey mood.
The day before Ewan had been, frankly, sick of their incessant chatter and bickering. It was the primary reason that, despite his hunger to see Cait, he’d tarried in the village. He did love the children, however. He felt a bitter pang: He wanted a child of his own.
He supposed he was lucky that Cait clearly didn’t. Surely she would have married sooner if she had a desire for a great pack of bairns-and she had protested when he first voiced his idea. Ewan could understand the feminine point of view. It was dangerous to have a child. He’d worried for his sister with each and every pregnancy. He was grateful that she and the babies had always turned fine-but that wasn’t always the case.
Ewan shuddered when he thought about Cait dying to bear his child. What would be the point if he lost her? He could never be perfectly happy unless she was close, which was going to prove a problem when the year was up.
Ewan led his niece and nephews out into the barnyard, and he paused for a moment while they ran after a kitten. Just across the shallow river he saw the beginning of Frasure lands, and an idea struck into his mind. He would have to have another wife to bear his heir. He wasn’t looking forwar
d to it-but he had managed to sleep with other women before. There were a few prospects that didn’t turn his stomach. Hadn’t the Laird said that there was no reason to keep Cait on the side? He couldn’t settle her in his mother’s house, but perhaps he could keep her just across the river. Laird Frasure was a good man. He wouldn’t hesitate to offer a Cameron shelter as a personal favor to the tanist.
A bittersweet smile flitted across his lips as he imagined the scenario. It would be a half-life with Cait, but at least it would be a life. He’d have to spend most of his time at the Castle, of course, but he could surely arrange a pretense for visiting the farms-and spending most of his time in the little cottage just across the bridge. He imagined keeping house with Cait, just as they had at Glen Mohr. There would be nothing to keep her from bearing his child then, if he could bring her around. It would be a by-blow, but he was certain that he would love it even more than his legitimate heir.
“Uncle Ewan! Come on!” Maisie said impatiently, and tugged his hand so that he finally snapped out of his daydream. He led her to the stables and showed the children “Maisie’s” horse: a fine chestnut pony that had been born the spring before.
After showing them the horses, and exacting promises that they wouldn’t approach the animals on their own, he left the children to explore the countryside, while he returned inside to seek his wife. She was just coming down the stairs when he entered, looking pale and as though she’d just been sick.
“Cait? Are you okay?” Muira asked, frowning sharply.
“Of course!” Cait snapped in a tone that was uncharacteristically hard.
Muira quirked a brow, shot her brother a questioning look, and then made a pretense of changing the baby’s swaddling to leave the room. As soon as they were alone, Ewan approached his wife.
“Good morning,” he said in a rich baritone, and then popped another kiss on her cheek, “You decided to join us.”
“Yes,” Cait said curtly, and then sat down to what was left of the morning meal: a few slices of cold toast, a boiled egg and an apple.
A Year and a Day Page 16