A Year and a Day

by Stephanie Sterling

  Cait nodded gratefully, but couldn’t help blurting, “It looks just like my other necklace!”

  “You’re what?” Lady Frasure said, suddenly going pale.

  “My-my other necklace,” Cait said less certainly, reaching into the modest neckline of the gown, “The one that my mother gave me.” Cait retrieved the golden signet that hung around her neck and offered it for inspection.

  They were identical.

  “Where did you get this?” Laird Frasure said fiercely, putting a hand on Isobel’s shoulder to steady his swooning wife.

  “From…from my mother,” Cait said anxiously.

  “When?” he barked.

  Cait took a step back, “When I was a little girl. I’ve always had it.”

  “She has,” Muira said, stepping protectively between them. “She didn’t steal it, she-“

  “Then how did she come across it?” he hissed, “How in the hell did an Englishwoman-?”

  “Cait wasn’t always in England!” Muira spat back, uncowed. This gave Laird Frasure pause, and so she continued, “Her mother was a Cameron-the niece of the Laird of the time. Only…”

  “The laird’s niece?” This time it was Isobel who spoke, her voice barely a whisper as she stared almost pleadingly into Cait’s eyes.

  “Y-yes, my lady,” she acknowledged.

  Ewan had just walked into the hallway-no doubt drawn by the sound of raised voices. He looked appreciatively at his bride, and then quizzically at his sister.

  “How old are you?” Lady Frasure asked, still quiet and pale.

  Cait named the year and date of her birth.

  “Liar!” Laird Frasure spat so harshly that Ewan stepped forward.

  “Now see here!” Ewan growled, but Lady Frasure intervened before his words were necessary.

  “Gordon! It’s her!” she said, almost reverently.

  “That isn’t possible!”

  “Look at her, Gordon!” Isobel fairly shrieked. “You’ve seen little Robert. You remember-!”

  “She’s ENGLISH!” the old laird said, as though this settled the matter. He looked at his wife in consternation. His outburst had made the rest of the group fall silent until, suddenly, Ewan added:

  “No, she isn’t.”

  It was another long moment before Laird Frasure turned to his Cameron counterpart. “But…Colonel Everleigh.”

  “Colonel Everleigh flatly denied being her father,” Ewan said, unable to meet his bride’s eyes. He knew that she had no love for her father-but it was still a rejection. “He said that her mother was pregnant before he ever took her to England. Ask Laird Brodie, if you like. He said that he’d killed the woman’s husband and-“

  He didn’t get a chance to say any more. Isobel’s frail body broke with a sob, and she sank down onto the floor until Laird Frasure and Ewan were able to help her back up.

  “What’s going on?” Ewan asked anxiously. “I don’t understand.”

  “You…you wouldn’t,” Laird Frasure said, all of the anger drained out of his body, replaced with a bittersweet wonder. “If the story is true…” he took a moment to drink in Cait’s figure again, taking particular care to study her eyes. “It seems…that is…”

  “Your mother is the one that Davie told us about,” Isobel supplied for him, finally finding her voice. “You are the little one that was lost.”

  Cait shook her head, her mouth opening and closing like a fish gulping water beneath the waves. “But that’s…I couldn’t…it’s…” she struggled, “That would make me-“

  “Our granddaughter,” Isobel said, the skin around her own eyes crinkled and damp with tears, “Our Cait. We found you at last!”

  “But…” Cait stared in disbelief, unable to speak, even when Isobel threw her arms around her neck.

  “I knew it! I knew it the moment I saw you. You looked so much like my Robert-Davie’s older brother, you know…it’s the eyes…Oh, I never thought I’d find you. I thought I’d go to the end of my days…”

  “Ewan? Are you ready?” Lachlan stuck his head out the door and cast a curious glance upon the scene.

  “In a moment,” Muira snapped, and then caught her husband’s arm, leading him back into the chapel as she whispered in his ear, no doubt disclosing what she’d just witnessed.

  “Well, is there room for one more in the family?” Ewan finally asked softly when Isobel stopped crying and managed to let Cait go.

  Cait turned toward her husband. Her heart was practically bursting with joy. She had a family-a real family-and a respectable one to boot!

  “I suppose I’ll make a proper Laird’s wife now,” she whispered to Ewan too low for her grandparents to hear.

  “Aye-if I ever get you to the altar.”

  “Is that a hint, Laird Cameron?”

  “It might be,” Ewan retorted, and then took a step toward the chapel door. “Shall we?”

  Cait nodded her head. “Aye. A moment,” she promised.

  Ewan nodded his head, and offered his arm to Lady Cameron, “I’ll help you to your seat,” he offered. “And perhaps you wouldn’t mind holding little Robert for a while?”

  Isobel nodded, but then turned back toward her husband, “Oh! But Gordon-“

  “-will be walking his wee granddaughter down the aisle, I assume?” Ewan said with a roguish grin that made Cait’s heart flutter all over again.

  The ceremony was perfect.

  Cait was charmed by how much work the other women of the castle had gone through to finesse decorations from their meagre supplies. Pine boughs had been draped out instead of flowers, but there were candles gleaming everywhere, and lengths of bright tartan draping the windows and pews. Every man, woman and child who could be spared was there, packing the seats and watching Cait with quiet expectancy.

  Cait barely remembered her vow-except for a single line. “Until death do us part,” Ewan spoke, and then winked at Cait and whispered. “I love you too much for just a year and a day.”

  After the wedding there was a feast.

  Cait had never seen so much food in her life, and guessed the strategy of eating it all before the British arrived. No one seemed to think there would be a tomorrow-at least from the quantity of meat and wine that they consumed. Everyone was full and drowsy when Ewan told Cait that it was time for them to go.

  Caitcalls went up as he led her toward the staircase. Cait flushed crimson.

  “Quite now!” Ewan called back mischievously, “You’re embarrassing my poor, virgin bride!” Said bride, of course, was carrying their five-month-old child.

  Cait was too happy to be mortified, however. She laughed along with the rest and then consigned Robert to Lady Frasure as she turned to climb the stairs. Very soon, the noises of the boisterous crowd were far behind them and, before she knew it, she had arrived back in the solitude of their room.

  Cait had never felt so utterly loved. She adored her husband-her real husband-but it was more than that. She felt, at last, like she truly belonged, like she had finally come home.

  Ewan stopped outside their chamber and turned to Cait. She caught his eye in question, but didn’t gain a response before he scooped her into his arms. “Tradition,” he answered sheepishly, and then winced when Cait’s welled up with tears as she remembered what seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “Cait,” Ewan started to speak, but his throat felt constricted. “I was such a fool…”

  “Shhhh…” Cait urged him to be silent, and placed a slender finger against his lips. “We both were,” she assured him.

  “If I could take it all back…”

  “I know.” They had reached their bedside, but Cait was still cradled in her husband’s arms. “I know we’d do it differently.”

  “I just wish I hadn’t wasted so much time…there isn’t much left.”

  Cait stiffened at the reminder of peril. Wrapped in her blanket of happiness, she had almost forgotten the outside world and the danger that was about the strike. “It was enough,” she finally whispe
red, although she knew that wasn’t true. If she’d met Ewan at her very birth and lived to be a hundred she still couldn’t have begun to love him like she wanted. “You’ve made everything so wonderful, Ewan,” she assured him. “Even before. Even before you ever noticed me, just being around was like…like standing in the sun.”

  “Cait!” From the way he groaned her name, she wasn’t certain if her words had offered respite or more regrets. Regardless of the motivation, however, Ewan’s fingers finally started skimming over her skin. “I mean to have you, Lady Cameron…” he whispered against her skin, “I want…everything.”

  “Everything,” Cait promised, and laid back onto the mattress, surrendering herself completely to Ewan’s touch. She only wished that the night would stretch long enough to let their vows come true!

  They had made love before dozens of times. They’d made love urgently. They’d made love recently, but it had never been like this. Laying in her husband’s arms, feeling him worship her body with every piece of himself, Cait knew that they had only barely scratched the surface before. Ewan was a part of her, in body and in soul. With him, she finally felt complete.

  It was worth it, she thought, later that night (early that morning, truly) when they finally curled together and started drifting to sleep. Death might ride with dawn and shatter all her newfound happiness, but she wouldn’t have missed it. Even if this was all there was. Ewan had made her life worth living with a single night.

  It was dawn when the guards came to wake the Laird.

  Ewan was already awake. He knew, despite it being his “wedding morning” that he wouldn’t be allowed to lie abed. The English cannons would not respect his schedule, and so he had no choice but to rouse himself and go to meet the others. He thought about waking Cait. She’d be safer in the chapel, an awry cannonball might topple the tower, and the laird’s chambers would be ripe for looting-but perhaps death at the hands of the soldiers would be a kinder fate than whatever would await her if she were found in the common lot.

  Ewan refused to indulge his macabre imagination on the thought. He forced himself instead to focus on his job of preparing to fight. He was proud of the men that he met waiting on the wall. So many of his clansmen had fallen. The lairds themselves had taken up muskets and arrows, along with old men and unbearded boys, but none of them looked afraid. They were all facing outward with grim resolution. They might not be able to win the fight-but they were determined to inflict a cost on their foes-to prove that, even in death, a Highlander bowed to no one.

  “Is Cait coming down?” Laird MacRae asked his brother in law from where he was standing at the gate.

  Ewan shook his head. “No. I let her sleep while she’s able.”

  Lachlan nodded his head, “Muira has the babies. They’re in the chapel…” he began, but then his jaw tightened, and he looked fixedly at the horizon, not daring to move, clearly struggling in the face of an emotion Ewan understood too well.

  “Thank you, Lachlan,” he said unexpectedly.

  The other man turned. “For what?”

  “Being here,” he said, although he knew that the other man must bitterly regret the fate. “There’s no man I’d rather fight beside,” he continued, surprising even himself when he realized it was true.

  Lachlan nodded seriously and turned back to the wall. He was silent for a moment, before his face broke into a grin.

  “What?” Ewan asked.

  Lachlan shook his head, waving away the question, but finally admitted, “I was thinking of Graem.”

  “Graem?”

  “Our old Laird,” Lachlan explained, “He wanted peace between the Camerons and MacRaes so badly…” Lachlan looked over the small number of his clan who were with him-only the handful that had come for the wedding. “You know we’d be here if we knew,” he said, speaking of his entire clan. “In spite of everything.”

  “I know,” Ewan said. Then, he clapped Lachlan on the shoulder. “I was glad to know you, MacRae.”

  “And I you,” Lachlan admitted, and then they turned back to the wall.

  This was the part Ewan hated-the waiting. In the grey, dim light just before the dawn he could see English soldiers moving through the ranks. They had moved their artillery up during the night-almost to the walls. The castle wouldn’t withstand more than a few direct hits.

  He hated the helplessness he felt watching the gunner’s load their weapons and prepare the fuses. Any minute, any second the first would be lit, shattering the tense silent with the thunderous fury of death. His muscles tensed. He barely breathed as the seconds ticked slowly by. The sun crept slowly over the horizon.

  Then, he heard it.

  A single shot was fired. In tandem, all the men on the wall hunkered down and prepared to fire-only, the shot hadn’t come from the British. The cannons didn’t fire. A cry went up in the centre of the camp-and then Ewan saw it: an army on the horizon streaming toward them at impossible speed.

  “What the-?” Ewan started to curse, but fell silent as he looked over the ranks of the approaching army. It stretched as wide as the hillside: men on horses with infantry men hustling in between. Laird Cameron’s heart clenched in his chest as he wondered, just for a moment, if this truly were the end. If the men were English reinforcements, there would be no hope at all. He tried to estimate the number of soldiers-and that is when he saw the tartan. “The…Frasures?” he said, dumbfounded as he turned back to his brother in law again.

  Lachlan was fairly beaming, “MacRaes!” he shouted, gesturing broadly toward the left flank of the riders.

  “And Brodies!” another called.

  Ewan scanned the ranks again, euphoria setting in as he counted a half-dozen clans lined up for battle.

  “How is this possible?” Old Laird Frasure asked, walking toward the wall, heedless now of the English soldiers milling nervously below. “Who could have gathered them? No one was left outside?”

  Ewan started to shrug-but then he picked out a Cameron tartan in the centre of the line. “JAMIE!” he cried, blurting his wee brother’s baby name in excitement. His heart fairly swelled with pride and relief. He’d given the other man up for dead. His joy was redoubled that, not only was his brother well, he’d been heartily useful as well.

  “We thought he’d been taken in the first attack!” Brodie said, following Ewan’s gesture.

  “Aye,” Ewan answered, “A miracle.” He privately wondered what-or more likely who his brother had been doing outside the castle on the night of his wedding, particularly after all the excitement of Cait’s reappearance, but Ewan made up his mind not to ask too many questions. It didn’t matter. Nothing seemed to matter except for the fact that they were saved. This wasn’t the end after all.

  The Scottish army stopped a hundred yards from the English lines and sent a rider forward. Ewan and the other Lairds watched without being able to hear what was said as words were shared. Then, just when they thought that the battle would end without a fight, the English cannons boomed.

  Ewan stumbled when a tremor rocked the castle. The guns were still pointed their way. The impact snapped the man back into attention.

  The prospects for victory might be vastly improved, but it wasn’t yet in hand. Hunkering behind the wall, Ewan took aim at the attackers, and prayed that fate would smile just a little more.

  The battle was fierce, but brief. Quickly unable to fight on two fronts, even if the castle was less sparsely defended, the English soldiers broke their ranks. They tried to escape into the woods, but had to go through the Scottish lines. He doubted that many made it. It wasn’t more than half an hour after the first shot had been fired that the fray began to settle. Finally, the only English left on the field in front of the castle were wounded or dead. They had made it. The Camerons would survive.

  EPILOGUE

  “Ewan, be a love,” Cait said, standing on her tiptoes but still failing to place a little china jar on top of a shelf. “I can’t quite reach it.”

  Her husband m
oved, but not quickly enough. She was already dragging a stool to climb up on when Ewan made it over and curtly demanded that she remain on the ground.

  “That isn’t safe for a woman in your condition!” he chided gently, and then reached over his head, easily placing the item in the place where Cait had directed.

  Cait stood back and admired his work, and then turned to pick up a broom. They had properly “moved in” to the Frasure Cottage only the week before. Ewan had to be gone again on Monday, and so Cait was anxious to settle in. They hadn’t brought a great deal of possessions from the castle, but she was intent on making the space looked live-in before he left. Partly, that involved arranging their belongings. Secondly, it meant trying to get the cottage clean!

  Wondering how there had ever managed to be so many cobwebs, Cait started to sweep the corners. Ewan plucked the birch broom handle out of her hands and laid it against the wall. “Rest, Beauty!” he begged. “That’s what the maids are for.”

  Cait scrunched up her nose at the word “maids”- still barely able to believe that the word didn’t apply to her.

  “You forget, Ewan,” she said, trying to sound light-hearted, “I’m used to a life of hard-labor.”

  “Aye,” Ewan unexpectedly acknowledged, but then Cait had to giggle when he twined his arms significantly around her enormously pregnant middle, “I know what kind of labor you’re good for.”

  Cait’s cheeks pinked, “It takes two, you know,” she retorted mildly-and then cast around for some chore that he wouldn’t mind letting her attempt. She was interrupted, however, by a soft wail.

  “Callum,” Cait sighed, guessing that it was one of their twins-last year’s addition to the Cameron clan-making all of the racket.

  Ewan shook his head, a faintly superior smile on his lips, “Keith,” he corrected, naming the second of the pair, as he followed his wife into the other room.