His Heart's Home

by Sterling, Stephanie

  “See, you’ll be writing your own letters to your sister in no time at all,” Duncan grinned, smiling warmly at Ciaran as she put the piece of chalk down for the evening and called to the boys to start saying their prayers.

  “Well, we’ll see,” Ciaran said shyly, although she was pleased Duncan didn’t think she was a complete lost cause.

  She tucked the boys in for the night and settled Mary down to sleep. When she returned to Duncan he had gone back to writing to his sister. Ciaran was ravenously curious to know if he was writing anything about her and the children, but she couldn’t quite pluck up the courage to ask. She got out some mending instead and sat quietly by the fire, rather enjoying the companionable silence. She said as much aloud.

  “Of course, it won’t last long once the new baby arrives,” she sighed, mentally preparing herself for the sleepless nights that were soon to come.

  Behind her, Ciaran heard a sharp snap, and looked around to see that Duncan had just broken the nib of his pen. She frowned, and made a soft murmuring sound of concern.

  “Oh dear, do you have another one?” she asked. “Can you fix it?”

  “What did you just say?” Duncan croaked, sounding truly odd.

  Ciaran knotted her brows together in a puzzled frown. “I asked if you had another pen. It will be a shame if you can’t finish your letter.”

  “No,” Duncan groaned. “Be-before that? What did you say?”

  “Um…” Ciaran cast her mind back to try and recall what she had been talking about. “Oh! I was just saying we should enjoy the peace and quiet while we can, because it will all be over when the new baby comes.”

  “What new baby?” Duncan whispered. He looked rather pale. He got up from his chair ever so slowly and walked over to where she was sitting.

  Ciaran laughed, still completely confused by Duncan’s behavior. “Our new baby of course!” she laughed. Duncan was staring at her as though she had just sprouted a second head. “Duncan?” she said uncertainly, and the smile slipped from her face. “What’s wrong?”

  “You can’t be having a baby,” he said bluntly.

  It was Ciaran’s turn to go rather pale. He didn’t want her to be having their baby? Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes.

  “What do you mean?” she whimpered.

  “I can’t-I can’t have children-”

  “Why not?” Ciaran sobbed. “Why don’t you want children? You’re so good with the boys! With Mary! Why don’t you want our baby?” she cried, never having expected this reaction from Duncan.

  He caught hold of her hands, stopping her when she tried to pull away. He dropped to his knees in front of her and shook his head.

  “Ciaran lass, that’s not what I mean. I would love to be a father, a real father, more than anything in the world, but I-I can’t have children.” Ciaran sniffed uncertainly and looked at him expectantly, wanting more of an explanation. Duncan gave it, albeit unwillingly. “Aileen and I, we-we tried for years and years to have a baby,” he said unhappy. “And we never-we didn’t-I couldn’t-”

  “Oh Duncan,” Ciaran whispered, as understanding finally dawned on her, and with it a great helping of relief. “That wasn’t-it wasn’t because of you,” she said carefully, still jealous of the past he had with his wife. “It can’t have been you,” she said more firmly, pulling his hand against her stomach. “Because you’ve given me a baby. I promise.”

  Duncan took a deep breath and pressed his palm down through the gathered layers of her skirt until he met the curve of Ciaran’s belly. It was more pronounced than before. He’d noticed it, of course, but Sean had always kept the woman half-starved! Duncan thought it was no more than the product of having three square meals per day. Now that she had drawn his hand against the curve, however, he could feel how taut and firm it was, and he remembered the mornings that Ciaran had been feeling ill.

  Was it really possible? Was she really carrying his child?

  Duncan couldn’t explain how he was feeling, a mixture of happiness, awe and disbelief. He’d wanted to be a father for long, but had finally accepted that the goal was beyond his reach. Was he willing to take the risk of hoping again? He’d been so certain he couldn’t have a child of his own.

  What if the baby wasn’t his?

  Unbidden, the thought popped into his mind-although, blessedly, he was able to push it away.

  Ciaran’s devotion to him had never wavered. He’d never popped home unexpectedly to find her idle or away. If she were the sort of woman who wanted to cheat, she would have come to him before Sean had fallen and, besides, she didn’t exactly have much opportunity to meet other men.

  Soothed, Duncan finally allowed a tentative smile - a look which magnified a hundred fold when he felt a tiny, fluttery kick.

  “There he goes then,” Ciaran said, feeling the jab as well. “I knew he’d not be still for long, an active little fellow, this one.”

  “A boy?” Duncan asked, finding it difficult to speak with the huge, ridiculous grin that was plastered on his face.

  “Aye,” Ciaran said, nodding firmly.

  “You can tell?”

  “I’ve never been wrong yet,” Ciaran said with a proud smile, “For myself or my mother or sisters. I just know. This one’s going to be a boy. You can count on it.”

  A son… Duncan fel.He pressed on Ciaran’s belly a little firmer, waiting to feel the baby kick again.

  “How long have you known?” Duncan asked, reluctantly stepping away when Ciaran began to squirm.

  “Oh, for a few months now,” she replied.

  “But you never mentioned it?”

  “Well, I thought you knew!” she fired back. “Besides, it didn’t bear mentioning. You’ve got enough on your mind.”

  “Yes, but-!” Duncan stammered, dumbfounded Ciaran could find the matter so mundane, “But-a baby!”

  “Well, I take it you’re not displeased?”

  “No!”

  “Well, that’s good then…and you know now-and there’s still a bit of a wait.”

  “How long?” Duncan asked eagerly, trying to remember how long it was before his mother or Maisie had been able to feel their babies kick.

  “Oh…I wouldn’t expect him to come along before March or so.”

  March.

  Duncan counted backwards in his head. It was already nearing the end of November, so that was barely four months away. The baby was more than halfway here!

  “How are you feeling?” Duncan asked, aghast to realize Ciaran was on her feet. He pushed Ciaran down onto the most comfortable bench, hating that there wasn’t something better.

  “I’m fine,” Ciaran assured him, popping up again to finish the dishes. “A bit tired, and a bit unwell in the mornings, but that’s all to be expected.”

  “Are you sure?” Duncan pressed, certain that it couldn’t be good for her to be on her feet so much. He remembered very clearly when his mother had been pregnant with his brother Cameron and he was certain she’d cut back her activities quite considerably while she was. Then, when she’d been pregnant with Cora…

  Duncan shivered to remember how close his mother had come to death in bringing her final child into the world. Nothing would happen to Ciaran, would it?

  A black cloud crossed in front of the bright sunshine that the idea of the baby had brought. It was true that Ciaran was much younger than his mother had been at the time of Cora’s birth, and she seemed as fit as a fiddle: lean, deep bosomed and broad-hipped, the perfect type for bearing children. He assumed that she’d come through it all fine three times before. Still, Duncan didn’t trust his luck enough to dismiss this fear. He wanted a child desperately, but what cost was he willing to pay?

  “Is something the matter?” Ciaran asked, tipping Duncan off to the fact that he was now wearing a frown.

  “No,” he answered quickly. “I was just thinking that you ought to sit down. Better yet, we should go to bed. I don’t want you working so much.”

  “Well, the work w
on’t do itself!” Ciaran retorted.

  Duncan nodded his head, and then looked thoughtful. “Perhaps you could use some help?”

  “Help?” Ciaran quirked a brow.

  “Aye,” Duncan said, warming to the idea. “My cousin Connor’s got a pack of lassies round about fourteen…or there’s the Ross girl…” he scrolled through his memory, picking out the tenants with extra pairs of hands to lend.

  Ciaran snorted, “The likes of me with a servant!” She shook her head, laughing at the idea, “Saints preserve us!”

  Duncan didn’t say anymore - but he didn’t drop the idea in his mind.

  The MacRaes had never been an especially wealthy clan, but Duncan’s father (and later Duncan himself) was still the laird. He’d been waited on his entire life. There had been cooks and chambermaids, nannies and nurses, butlers, stable boys and scullery girls. He had taken them for granted. When he and Aileen had been forced to flee, they still kept house with a maid to clean and a cook to keep them fed.

  Duncan might not be quite as prosperous as he had been (after buying up the land, his gold was more or less gone), but he still didn’t think it was right to keep his new wife to a lower standard than he had the first. Besides, regardless of what Ciaran said, he knew she did very hard work. If, by some miracle, he’d been blessed with a baby, he wasn’t going to take any chance of it being snatched away. So, with the aim of finding a helper for Ciaran, he made the rounds the next day, trying to find a helper for his wife.

  The Ross’s wouldn’t help.

  He didn’t get very far into explaining his situation before Ross shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, Duncan,” Mr. Ross said respectfully, “But we need all of the girls right here. You know how it is with such a large family - so much washing…and there’s the spinning and the weaving to do. I’m sure your young lady can manage on her own.”

  And the MacNab’s wouldn’t send a girl either.

  “Oh! You wouldn’t want Becky. She’s more trouble than help, and we simply couldn’t spare her sister.”

  Nor would the Andersons, a new family that had moved in at the end of the year and rented a piece of his land.

  Duncan was growing frustrated when he finally came to call on his cousin, Frasure Cameron. Frasure’s girl was on the young side, which was why he was asking last-but she had a good head on her shoulders and a cheerful disposition-and she was family, besides. However, when he was told that Molly Cameron wasn’t available either, Duncan’s temper finally snapped.

  “So, tell me then…” Duncan said hotly, looking his cousin in the face, “Why it is that a family of six has so much work that a mother and four daughters can’t manage it all, and my Ciaran’s fit to do all of the working herself?”

  Frasure shrugged and took a sip of whiskey that he’d poured into glasses for them both. “I don’t profess to know.”

  “You ought to be happy to help me!” Duncan said angrily, “After all I’ve done! I’ve given you land to live on, fair terms, helped to build your house. I’m the Laird and-!”

  “We’re not in Scotland anymore,” Frasure said testily, and then added icily, “And you were never my Laird.”

  The barb only made Duncan’s angrier. “I know for a fact that the lass stayed with Carrie Whitlock for more than a month when her bairn was born. Her mother seemed to manage then!”

  “She did,” Frasure said testily.

  “Well, why is it she can wait on that empty-headed Yankee and not her cousin’s wife?”

  Frasure refused to hold his peace any longer.

  “Well, she’s not your wife, is she?” he fired back.

  Duncan blinked, stunned. “She-!” he started, but his cousin already continued:

  “YOUR WIFE is lying out in the churchyard back in New Bern-if she’s not up in heaven weeping for your soul! I know well enough to mind my own business. If the others are too cowardly to say it to your face, then so be it. If you want to be whelping babies on Irish mares that’s your affair, but I’m not going to send my daughter among such people and I don’t blame any of the others who won’t do it either! It’s a disgrace, Duncan MacRae! You ought to be ashamed!”

  Rage like nothing he had ever felt before blinded Duncan to reason. His fist was flying before he had registered the thought. Frasure went stumbling back from the blow and fell hard on the ground. Duncan wasn’t content to leave him in the dirt though, not yet. He grabbed Frasure’s shirt collar and dragged him roughly to his feet.

  “Who do you think you are to speak to me like that?” Duncan snarled, looking as though he might just rip the other man’s head off. Frasure was slightly less willing to open his split lip this time. “What do you know about anything, Frasure?” he sneered. “What gives you the right to pass judgment on me?”

  “Duncan! Get a grip!” Frasure swore, trying, and failing, to break free of the other man’s hold.

  “Damn you, Cameron! My life’s been one misery after another! You’re right, I have buried a wife, but do you I think I’ve forgotten that? Do you think I’ve forgotten that I buried my mother before her time too, or that I watched a brother I worshipped die before my very eyes?”

  “We’ve all got our sadness,” Frasure snorted, rolling his eyes. “But we don’t all take up with the first-”

  Duncan’s fish sailed forward again.

  Frasure went down for a second time and this time Duncan didn’t drag him back up onto his feet. He watched his cousin sit reeling from the blow while he attempted to get some control over his temper. He wasn’t successful.

  “That being the case I don’t suppose you’ll want to stay here as my tenant, Cameron,” Duncan snarled.

  “What?!”

  “You might consider buying the land you’re living on - for what it’s worth mind, not what you’re renting it for,” Duncan said icily. “You’re right, we’re not in Scotland and I’m not your Laird, and I don’t consider you family anymore, so I’ll be stopping with the favors.”

  Duncan forced himself to turn and walk away after that. He blocked out what Frasure was yelling at him and strolled off in the opposite direction. He was still absolutely livid, but he was ready to feel guilty now too.

  Would Aileen really deny him the happiness he had found with Ciaran?

  He didn’t think so. She had loved twice after all. She would know it was possible, it didn’t mean he loved her any less. What Duncan found less easy to forgive himself for was the way he had treated Ciaran.

  Frasure, though Duncan hated to admit it, had a point. Ciaran wasn’t his lawful wife. It didn’t matter that he considered her such. He wasn’t a crofter out in the highlands who took a common law bride. He had been Laird MacRae. In the eyes of the world and in the eyes of God, what they were doing was wrong. He knew he wouldn’t have behaved this way in Scotland. He would have married her as soon as possible.

  So why hadn’t he done that here then?

  It was difficult to say. At first their relationship had been so fragile, and then it had become so settled and natural. Duncan had felt like he was married. That didn’t matter. He would make an honest woman of Ciaran now. He couldn’t bear to leave her exposed to cruel, gossiping tongues any longer. He would give her the protection of his name, for all that was worth, and have the pleasure of knowing that she was eternally bound to him.

  “Ciaran?” Duncan barked, throwing open the front door of their farmhouse with a noisy bang. The look of abject terror on Ciaran’s face as she turned to face him filled Duncan with instant contrition. “I’m sorry,” he muttered gruffly, trying to get a hold on his temper. He knew how scared Ciaran was of angry men - he couldn’t bear to have her scared of him.

  “What’s wrong?” she stammered nervously.

  “I… just had a falling out with Frasure Cameron,” Duncan grunted. His cousin’s name alone was enough to get his temper going again.

  “A falling out?” Ciaran whispered. “A fight you mean?” she murmured unhappily, chewing her lip nervously as she
spied Duncan’s bloody knuckles.

  Duncan glanced down as his hand too, and flexed his fingers gingerly. He hadn’t felt any pain at all until this second. He must have hit Frasure harder than he’d realized.

  “I don’t know that I’d call it a fight,” Duncan grunted, given the fact Frasure hadn’t had the opportunity to throw one punch.

  He wondered what the fallout would be? Duncan regretted hitting the other man, if only because it meant that Ciaran scurried away from him when he crossed the room to wash the blood off his hand in a pail of water that was on the table.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, lass,” he said softly, sad that he had to inform her of this fact.

  “I know that!” Ciaran said quickly, and a splash of color stole into her pale cheeks. She took a tiny step towards him. “What were you fighting about?” she whispered.

  Duncan glanced at Ciaran and then glanced away… she was going to be even more upset if he told her the truth, so he tried to obscure the details.

  “Frasure thought he had the right to tell me how I ought to live my life.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Ciaran asked slowly. She was silent for a moment. “Did he say something about me?” she whispered shrewdly. Duncan hesitated, and that was all the answer that Ciaran needed. She turned pale again and looked very upset. “He did, didn’t he? What did he say?” she cried, wringing her hands together. “Oh! I’ve caused so much trouble for you, Duncan!”

  “Hey! Hey! What’s all this about?”

  Ciaran looked like she didn’t want to say what she said next, but she had gone too far to hold it in any longer. “I know-I know your friends don’t like me.”

  Duncan was shocked, and outraged, to hear Ciaran say that! “What do you mean?” he demanded. Had things been said to Ciaran’s face? Had he failed to see what was going on right under his nose?

  “I-I don’t blame them,” she said quickly.

  “I do!” Duncan thundered, and Ciaran took a quick little step back. Duncan sighed and tried to remember not to shout. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, speaking more gently.