A Year and a Day (30 page)

Sensing her chance to escape, Cait started to put him back into the cot- but the baby didn’t stand for it. His eyes popped open, and he opened his mouth to release an almighty yelp- which she quickly stifled against her breast.

After a few more similar attempts at returning Ewan to bed it was clear that what he was craving was attention- and she really had no choice but to give it to him- unless she wanted to endure an entire morning of his cries. She knew that her husband wouldn’t be happy, but she really had no choice but to carry the baby back to their room.

Ewan he arched a brow at the baby when she swept into the room.

“He won’t settle down,” she said apologetically, and perched on the edge of the bed. Her husband slid behind her and looped his arm around them both.

“I can call the cook to watch him if you’d like.”

“No!” Cait blurted, and then remembered herself. “Unless- unless you want me to!” she said quickly.

Ewan frowned, “Don’t
you
want to be rid of the baby?”

This time it was Cait’s turn to be perplexed. “What? Whyever for?” she said, frowning. “I mean…I…”

“I know,” Ewan laughed. He reached around her and brushed his fingertip against the baby’s cheek, “I just…” he hesitated, but finally spoke, “I know that children aren’t really your thing, and it really isn’t your job to take care of my sister’s kids.”

Cait didn’t even hear the last bit of his sentence. Her mouth fell open in shock at the first thing he had said, “Children aren’t my thing?”
 

Ewan looked away, although his finger kept stroking his tiny nephew’s skin. “I just meant…of course, you’re wonderful with children…but I know…you prefer if they are…uhm…seen and not heard.”

“What?” Cait said again, completely agog. “That’s ridiculous!”
 

Ewan blinked, “It is?”
 

“Yes!” Cait said, cradling the baby a little closer, “I love children!”

“You
do
?”  Cait couldn’t understand the look of shock on her husband’s face. She
knew
that
he
didn’t like children- but surely he didn’t expect that was true of everyone? She cradled the baby closer.

“How could I help it?” she said in a quiet voice. Ewan tilted his head, watching as his wife bent over the tiny creature in her arms. Finally assured of being held, his little namesake drifted back to sleep, his little mouth hanging open and releasing soft, sighing breaths. Cait was watching him with an expression of wonder on her face. “Isn’t he perfect?” she asked.

Ewan felt a knife twist in his heart when he realized that she wasn’t kidding. There was no way that she could ever feign the love in her eyes. It was a much different expression of the emotion than reigned when she looked at him: warm instead of burning- but very real. Cait
did
love the baby. Cait
did
want children of her own. It was like seeing something familiar under slanting light- everything he thought he knew was cast in
strange shadows and colo
rs. “But…” Ewan’s mouth puffed independently of his brain, “But…you don’t want children of your own!”

Cait’s brow furrowed, “You don’t believe that!” she said, and then fell silent, reminding herself that it didn’t matter what
she
wanted-
Ewan
didn’t want children- didn’t want the baby that they already had.

“But…” Ewan sputtered on, “Why did you never get married then, before….” He stopped speaking and looked uncomfortable.

“Before I grew into a tired old spinster?” Cait said, an edge in her voice. “Who would have me?” she spat.

Ewan sighed heavily at her sudden anger, and then dropped an appeasing kiss against her cheek, “Me,” he whispered, unable to stop himself, even though he was only making things worse in the end, “I would have you…”
If I could…
he added in his mind.

But he
couldn’t
. Ewan tried to remind himself to be firm, despite the fact that his heart was taunting him with images of the family he would never have- the life that he so desperately wanted to give his wife…but surely, she didn’t have to be his wife to have his baby? He consoled himself with thoughts of the little cottage across the river. Maybe someday, after some more suitable woman had provided him with an heir, he could give Cait a little baby of her own?

Shaking his head to clear the uncomfortable thoughts from his mind, Ewan reached down for the baby again. “He looks like my sister,” he remarked with obvious relish, privately thinking that his newest nephew had done better than his brothers, who
both favored their MacRae lineage
.

“He looks like
you
,” Cait corrected, already able to pick out her husband’s strong chin and expressive eyes in the little baby’s face. It would be almost heartbreakingly easy to imagine that he actually was Ewan’s child…that this was
their
baby that her husband was petting so reverently.

“Aye, he does a bit,” Ewan acknowledged with a proud but self-conscious blush. “The lad’s a Cameron through and through.”

“You really seem to like him…” Cait began tentatively, wondering if now was the time to break her own news.

“Aye,” Ewan answered again, staring down at the baby and looking lost in thought.

“You’ll want a baby of your own some day?” Cait said, quieter still. Her entire body was tensed to the point of breaking as she waited for his answer- prepared to let it determine, one way or the other- what she would say next.

Only, Ewan’s answer never came.

“Master Cameron!”

Cait and Ewan both sat bolt upright when a strange voice echoed through the house. They heard a clatter in the kitchen, and then the cook bustling toward the front door which had been thrown open without so much as a knock.

Ewan reached automatically for his dirk
.

“Ewan?” Cait said anxiously, when the hail for her husband was repeated. She stood up from the bed. The sudden motion woke the baby, who promptly awoke started squalling again.

Ewan motioned for his wife to stay where she was, and opened the door. He clutched the handle of the dirk as he stepped into the passage way. From her position behind him, clutching the screaming baby, Cait could only half-see his face. Her pulse pounded when she saw a look of shock pass over his face. “Gerald?” he gasped, and promptly lowered his weapon.

Cait took this as a sign of safety, and rushed forward. Standing just behind her husband’s shoulder, she could see a boy that she recognized from the stables back at home- only he looked as though he’d been dragged behind a horse.
His face was swollen, two of his
teeth were missing, and blood was drying on his hair. He looked exhausted. Nevertheless, excitement or fear had given him the frantic energy to clutch at Ewan’s hand.

“Master Cameron, you’ve got to come back!” the boy panted. “I came as fast as I could. I rode all night.”

“Rode from where?” Ewan asked sharply, even as Cait snapped her fingers at the cook- silently ordering blankets and refreshments to be brought. The boy slumped to his knees, looking as if his legs weren’t able to hold him anymore as he finally answered:

“From the castle, sir.”

Ewan stiffened again, “Eilean Donan?”
 

“No, sir,” Gerald whimpered. “From Castle Cameron.”

“Castle Cameron?” Ewan repeated in disbelief.

“Aye, sir- the castle’s under attack!”

Ewan’s heart had already been pounding in his chest. Now it was positively thundering. “Castle
Cameron
?” he breathed in disbelief. “Under attack? By
who
?” the MacRaes were, frankly, the only clan that he could reckon brave enough to attempt it, and they had been so nearly licked by the British that he didn’t see how they could ever mount even a skirmish, much less a full-on siege.

“Aye, sir. Your brother sent me. He sent a messenger to Eilean Donan too, but I don’t know if he’s got through. Even if he has…” the
boy’s
voice trailed off, leaving unspoken the number of MacRae dead they had both seen in the months before. “He said you could raise the Eastmarch and the Frasures and bring them straight away. The castle will hold for a week or two, but not much longer. There wasn’t any time to get ready. They were on us one night- a few broke through the wall before we stopped them.”

Ewan nodded his head, but his mind was no longer focused on the boy’s words. It had already leapt forward, trying to plot the most efficient route for gathering the men he would need to lead back to the castle. It would take nearly a week to get them all- and they might not have that much time! It would be better to get the few in the immediate vicinity and send another messenger- perhaps poor Gerald or
the groom-
to the Frasures and the further lands.

Cait simply stood back and watched as Ewan whizzed about the room. All of the softness and humor of the man she loved was gone as he reverted into his other half: the dedi
ca
t
ed, calculating war chief. “My horse!
” he barked, and the cook instantly scurried out into the rain to fetch the groom. He dismissed Gerard to the care of the housekeeper, and finally turned to Cait.

“You have to go,” she said for him.

Ewan closed his eyes and nodded his head. “Aye.”

“I wanted to tell you…” she started, feeling urgent to blurt the words straight away- only Ewan laid a finger across her lips.

“No confessions,” he half teased and half-begged. “It makes me think you don’t think I’m coming home.”

Cait shivered in premonition at the words, wanting to deny them, but forced to admit that was partly the truth, “But-!”

“No buts!” he insisted, and then bent to give her a kiss, “Thank
GOD
you’re still here,” he said, thinking aloud, and then he snapped out of his daze and reached for his sword. Long years as a soldier had taught him to prepare in minutes. Before Cait had even registered what was happening, he was accepting a parcel of food from the cook and heading toward the door. “I’ll be back, Beauty,” he promised, bending to give her a proper kiss before he left.

She barely felt it. She was too dazed by how quickly everything had spun out of control. “But…” she started again, but again Ewan shook his head.

“Give me something to come home to?” he suggested, and then kissed her again. This time, he lingered- barely able to let her go, but finally did. “I WILL be back,” he swore again. Then, with a final smile goodbye, he was gone.

Muira returned earlier than had been expected. Obviously, news travelled quickly. Cait was still upstairs in her room, staring out the window in shock when her sister-in-law returned to the house, soaked to the skin, but bustling with energy, “Cait!” she called up the stairs, “Cait! Have you heard the news? Has Ewan gone yet?”
 

Cait turned when Muira reached her door. She blinke
d several times, as if trying, but failing,
to awaken herself from a dream, “Yes, I’ve heard,” she finally said, “and your brother is gone. He left as soon as the messenger came.”
 

Muira nodded gravely. “I thought that he would. They’re saying in the village that Castle Cameron is under attack- surely it can’t be true?” she asked, but Cait thought she could detect a tiny amount of guilty hope in the remark at the notion that, for once, her own husband (at home in the MacRae fortress) might be spared the worst of the fighting.

Cait nodded vigorously, blinking to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over when she thought about how Ewan had slipped from her grasp. “Aye, it’s true enough.” She sniffed and then swallowed hard, unable to contain her tears, “I wish…I just wish he hadn’t ha
d to leave that way. One minute he was holding me…the next
…” the rest was lost in a choking sob.