A Year and a Day (43 page)

Finally, one of the guards gathered the courage to knock. The petition for entry was met with a barked, “ENTER!”

Then, none-too-happily, the man swung the door open and led his “captive” inside.

Cait had never been in the room before, and she had always been curious about
what it was like
inside, but she didn’t have time to look. As soon as she crossed the threshold, her senses were captured and focused on one thing alone: Ewan.

The voices that had been bickering back and forth died immediately when Cait was brought into the room. The man she assumed was
Laird
MacMillan
glared, the Cameron tanist gasped, Lachlan MacRae sat down
hard
, and Ewan was…
Cait felt her stomach flip-flop as she tried to place his expression. It was wavering somewhere between mystified, ecstatic, and furious.

“We…er…found her with Lady Frasure, sir,” the hapless guard who had discovered Cait admitted to his Lord. “I thought you’d want her brought here immediately. It seems that…er…Lady MacRae was right.”

“
This
is Cait Cameron?”
Laird
MacMillan
said, sneering haughtily at her simple, faded gown and unadorned hair. For a moment, no one answered.

“Dear, God!” Someone- either
Lachlan
or
James
- whispered. Then, Ewan’s voice overwhelmed the rest.

“Leave us!” he said, his voice so firm and commanding that no one, even
Laird
MacMillan
, thought to disobey.

Cait stared at the floor, once again reminding herself of a woman condemned as the room slowly emptied and the heavy oak door was shut and locked behind her. Her knees began to shake as silence took the place of the shouting from a few minutes before. At any moment, she expected Ewan to descend upon her. When it didn’t happen, however, she finally gained the courage to look up.

Ewan wasn’t staring back. In fact, he gave the impression that he didn’t even know that she was there. He had settled behind his desk and poured an enormous tumbler of
whiskey. He seemed
prepared to down in one swallow.

“Ewan?” Cait squeaked. Finally, his eyes shifted toward her. He still didn’t speak, however. He took a long, draught of the liquor and then stared up at her accusingly. Cait’s hands tangled in the fabric of her skirt, bunching and wrinkling the worn fabric. “Say something, Ewan!” she whispered, desperate for something-
anything
- to happen.

Ewan took another drink, sighed, and then sat the tumbler down. He gave Cait an awful, hollow, aching stare. “And what,” he began roughly, “Am I supposed to say?”

“I…I don’t know!” Cait admitted, after floundering for a few seconds. “I don’t know what to say either!” she wailed, and then recanted when she figured that wasn’t quite right, “I’m sorry!”

“Sorry?” Ewan asked, and then took another swig of whiskey, swallowing as though he were trying to rid a bitter taste from his tongue. “You’re
sorry
?
”

“Yes!” Cait whimpered, wondering if he was angry because she was, or because he didn’t think that she was sorry enough. “I…I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
 

“You didn’t mean for what to happen, Cait?” he hissed, “
You didn’t mean to let me
believe for all these
months
that you’d been killed- or
you simply didn’t mean to get caught?
”

“Both! Neither!” Cait’s eyes welled up with tears as she tried to work out what to say, “Everything, I’m sorry for everything!” she whimpered, even though a voice in the back of her mind was
insisting
that it wasn’t her fault. Ewan had been the one who had started the lies!

Cait’s tears seemed to move Ewan where her words had not. He sighed wearily and dragged his fingers throug
h his hair. “Don’t cry, Cait
,” he begged, sounding like a man on the very edge
of collapse
.

“B
ut you’re
so angry!” Cait responded, drifting toward him without realizing it. When she finally stopped, she was close enough to reach out and touch him if she tried- which of course she didn’t.

Ewan looked up, eyes rimmed with red. “I’m not angry!” he insisted, “I’m just…confused.” He turned to look out the window for a moment, struggling to get his emotions under control. “God, Cait! If you knew how much I wanted this! And now that you’re here…it’s all twisted and tainted. I don’t understand why you stayed away.”

“I didn’t know that you thought I was dead!” Cait blurted, meaning to speak in self defense and realizing, only belatedly, that she had incriminated herself.

“How could I think anything else? The English raids-!”

“I left before that,” Cait admitted sheepishly, “Only no one knew. I didn’t find out about the raids until later. I didn’t know they’d hit Glen Mohr until this week.”

“You
left
?” Ewan repeated in disbelief. “When? Why?”

Cait tried to frame her words carefully. It had all made so much more sense at the time! “I…I spoke to your sister,” she explained, “She told me what you were going to do.”

“Which was?” Ewan said, breathlessly.

“That you’d promised the
Laird
to
break off our marriage
!” Cait wailed, a little of the pain of betrayal returning.

“She said-!” Ewan gasped, then his expression grew murderous, “MUIRA!” He growled, wondering if, ever in her entire life, his sister had even
once
stopped to think before she spoke!

“Do you deny it?” Cait sniffed.

At this, Ewan’s face grew guilty, “I promised him…but I couldn’t go through with it!” Without thinking, he reached forward to brush away her tears. Cait stiffened, bittersweet sensations racing across her skin at his first touch in so long. She wanted to melt into i
t- but she wanted to recoil too
. “You can’t tell me that you didn’t feel what we had,” Ewan said roughly. “You had to know that I loved you!”

“Loved?” Cait croaked, hearing nothing more than the past tense of the verb.

Ewan closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly before he dared to look up. He wondered how Cait could dare to ask him such a question. How could she be so cruel? For months he’d been half-alive, jealously guarding a tiny flame of hope that she might be alive, doing everything in his power to find her if she was. He’d gone to Glen Mohr himself and turned over every stone, he’d fought the English like a man
possessed;
he’d lain awake so many nights remembering the sound of her voice and the
feel
of her skin. He could have had
any
woman- but he’d chosen her- and this was how she repaid him! He was
furious
! And yet…
Ewan put his hand to his face, discreetly
swiping away the rim of moisture gathering at his
eyes. He wouldn’t
dare
let
them
turn into tears
. He
wasn’t willing to risk another cross word, or a frown, or even a denial if there was a chance she might go away again.

“Where did you go?” he forced out, in lieu of answering her question. He was prepared to deal with facts. Emotions would have to wait.

Cait took a deep breath. “To the Frasure lands. I…I went to the cottage,” she said, “and
I
kept walking. I was going to go to
Edinburgh
.”

“What’s in
Edinburgh
?”

“A ship to
London
,” Cait admitted, glancing at her feet again.

“But you didn’t go?”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

Ewan quirked a brow. “You didn’t have a choice?”

“I ended up at Frasure castle and…well…” She flushed with embarrassment, “I got arrested.”
 

“Arrested?”
 

Cait blurted out the story of the stolen apples, and her friendship with Lady Frasure. “She’s like a mother to me,” Cait said quietly, “and she dotes on Robert so.”
 

“Robert?” Ewan asked, face paling as another man was named.

Cait hurried to change the subject, “I would have sent word, Ewan! I swear it! Only- only I thought that you didn’t want me to come back. As far as I knew, no one had ever come looking. I didn’t hear about the cottage. The next I heard, you were marrying someone else!”

“But you
did
come back!” Ewan said, giving Cait another pang of guilt. She didn’t feel like revealing that her presence had come only at Lady Frasure’s absolute insistence.

“I
did,”
she admitt
ed cautiously. Her skin tingled
when Ewan reached for her again. his
hand rested on the curve of her waist.

“God, Cait! Do you know what almost happened? Another minute and…”

Without thinking, she laid her finger across his lips. Ewan started, but then leaned into the touch, pursing his lips so that it became a kiss. Cait shivered as his mouth gently brushed his skin and then drew away. Was it possible? Could he forgive her?

He must have read the question in her eyes, because he answered, hoarsely. “I don’t know Cait. I
don’t know if I can do it again..
.”

“But?” Cait asked hopefully. There had never been a question of wanting Ewan back, only of whether or not it was a realistic dream. She’d do
anything
to win him
again
.

“But…” Ewan said. He opened his mouth to talk, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, before she even knew what was happening, Cait felt his lips on hers.

Cait had forgotten how all-consuming it felt to be caught up in Ewan’s arms. She felt surrounded,
enfolded
by his warmth and strength. All of fears that had plagued her for so long fled in the face of his love.

Ewan might still be angry with her. He might still be justifiably
furious
, but his body assumed control. Rage melted into passion as his broad, rough palms skated over the curves which had ached for his touch so long. Time stood still as he held her, chest to chest and mouth to mouth. All of the agony of the past, all of the uncertain turmoil of the future faded to nothing in the face of the glorious present they shared.

She
needed
him. Cait felt as if a part of her very self- a limb or a piece of her heart- had finally been returned. It was such delicious torture
. S
he never wanted it to end.

Ewan echoed her reluctant surrender. He meant to pull away at every instant, he couldn’t…
didn’t
. Every touch drove him deeper, but he couldn’t work up the will to care. Tomorrow he’d be angry. Tonight, he was willing to sacrifice his pride to revel in all of his dreams coming true.

Cait was alive!

Ewan repeated that simple, joyful phrase over a
nd over again in his mind
. He still didn’t understand why she’d left. It still hurt him that she
hadn’t
trust
ed
him, but those
things
didn’t seem to matter so much while her body was burrowed against his chest.

He kissed her like he would never have a chance to kiss her again- the way he wished he’d had a chance to when he’d said goodbye before. He stroked and plucked and strummed her skin until they were both damp and gasping for breath. Only then did he permit Cait to wriggle free.

Cait’s cheeks flushed crimson as she looked up at the
Laird
. “What are we going to do?”