A Year and a Day (6 page)

Ewan kept one eye open, watching Cait’s face as they worked, gratified by the way that her lips hung open, her neck curled back into the billow while her breath released in ragged puffs. He was under no obligation to please her. Their bargain had not specified so much, but he felt honor bound to recipro
Cait
e the exquisite sensations that she was giving him. She
seemed
to like things well enough, and so he kept driving forward, harder and faster until his muscles began to quake. A terrible pressure had built inside his chest, making it difficult to take a breath. He was so
terribly
close.

He wanted Cait to join him, he realized a second too late. He slipped a hand between their bodies, hoping that an added touch of friction would send her home, but there wasn’t any time.

“Ewan!” she moaned, and the sound of her voice, thick and drugged with pleasure, was the final push that sent him over the edge. He spilled inside her, while unbelievable pleasure seared through his veins.

It was several seconds before he could move again, but his first sensation, after the last cracklings of pleasure had died away, was of regret. He hadn’t brought Cait to a peak of her own…but there was time for that yet, he thought sleepily,
time enough for both of them to explore one another’s bodies to the utmost.
Ewan didn’t know where the final thought had come from, but he was getting tired of second guessing his motivations. Perhaps Cait wouldn’t mind a tad bit less
respect
as long as there were other compensations?  After all, it might take quite a while until there was a child.

“Ewan?” Cait’s tiny voice was muffled beneath his flesh.

“Hmmm?” he called drowsily back, pleased that she wasn’t afraid to address him.

“You’re crushing me.”

“Oh!” he rolled onto his side as if he’d been scalded, and then sheepishly met her gaze. “Sorry, I…”
was a bit overwhelmed for a moment
, he started to say, but didn’t, especially when Cait started wriggling out of the bed.

“Cait?” he asked anxiously,
Cait
ching her wrist just as she was sliding a knee over the edge of the mattress. “Is something wrong?”

“Don’t be silly!” she responded.

“Did I hurt you?”

Cait blushed furiously. “Heavens, no! That was…” she scrunched her nose as she searched for an appropriate description. “nice.”

“Nice?” Ewan echoed, feeling a stab to his pride. He
knew
that the encounter hadn’t been quite up to his typical standards, but he’d been handicapped by unfair rules! He was trying to be polite!

His indignance must have shown on his face, because Cait cocked a brow, “Nice,” she said again, and then added in appeasement, “Very pleasant. I have to go.”

“You have to go?” Ewan said, sitting up as Cait started to climb out of bed. She didn’t look back over her shoulder as she padded to the far end of the room and picked up her skirt and bodice. “Go where?”

“To work,” Cait answered simply as her mind raced through all the tasks she had neglected to perform that day. There was the wash she’d left hanging in the sun, mending to do, stairs to scrub- and now she’d need to change Ewan’s sheets.

“To…to work?” he asked, puzzled- and still smarting that she was so anxious to be rid of him.

“Aye,”
Cait
said, struggling into her bodice so quickly that the laces were all askance, “Unless you’ll have me lazing about all day?”

“But-!” he stammered several times, his tongue feeling strangely thick and dumb as he tried to communi
cat
e that his
wife
really had no business toiling, but the words refused to form. She was gone before he found his voice. “See you later then,” he called after the slamming door.

Still feeling miserable and chastened, Ewan was in no fit state to react when the door was flung open again. “Cait?” he called hopefully, but that emotion changed to chagrin when he saw the woman standing in his open door.

“Ewan Charles Cameron!” A voice shrieked from the doorway, and then the speaker barreled through the door heedless of Ewan’s disheveled appearance. “And so what do you have to say for yourself?” she raged.

“Muira,” Ewan said, wincing in the face of his sister’s unchecked fury. Her cheeks were nearly the color of her hair as she stood before him, hands on her hips and gave him a heated glare
. “Something I can do for you, C
arrot?” he drawled, falling back on the hated childhood nickname as he tried to regain composure, “You seem lost.”

“Hardly,” she snorted, waddling another step closer, “Would you like to explain yourself?”

“Explain what?” Ewan countered, though, of course, he had a hint what she was on about. He wasn’t surprised at all by Muira’s sharp reply.

“Explain why the
Laird
has just told me that he performed a wedding today!”

“
A Handfasting
,” Ewan corrected quietly, at great risk of stoking his sister’s temper even more, “and it’s nothing to concern yourself about.”

“Not concern myself about it?” Muira raged, “Not concern myself about my brother and my own best friend?”

“It’s a business arrangement between Ca- between
Mrs. Cameron
and myself-” Ewan answered tersely, hoping against hope that this laid the matter to rest.

It did not. If anything, Muira’s flush deepened. “A
business arrangement
?” Muira stormed, “A
BUSINESS ARRANGEMENT?
And you don’t find it a wee bit cruel?”
 

“What’s cruel about it?” Ewan asked. He hadn’t expected Muira to be thrilled that she’d missed the ceremony, such as it was- but he was stunned to discover that she objected to the marriage. He’d expected her to be
its
most ardent supporter. She’d always been outraged by Cait’s lowly state.

Muira opened her mouth to scream again, but paused before the words came out. She studied his face for a moment, searching for something, and then shook her head in disbelief. “Ewan Cameron,” she whispered, “Don’t
tell
me that you don’t know!”
 

“Don’t know what?” he asked gruffly. His fingers finally closed around his shirt and he pulled it swiftly over his head.

“Don’t know about Cait!” Muira
answered
her voice considerably softer now. “That she’s been in love with you these fifteen years!”

“In
love
with me?” Ewan squeaked, feeling like all of the air had just left the room. “That isn’t possible!

“It
is
!” Muira countered. She sighed at the continued blankness on his face, “Oh, Ewan- even you aren’t as thick as that!”

He bristled, but then deflated sheepishly as he scrolled through memories in his mind: how Cait was always silent as a girl whenever he and his friends were in the room, how she always smiled and looked away when they spoke, how she took such extra care to tend his room and, perhaps most telling of all, how wanton she had been in his arms that afternoon.

“Dear God,” he breathed when he finally realized that what his sister had said was true. He stared glass-eyed for a moment, and then turned on Muira, “What in the HELL am I meant to do now?”

“You’ve made your bed,” Muira said, looking as though she
was
almost enjoying his discomfort, “and it looks like you
unmade
it at least once so far! I suggest you lie in it-
properly
!”

“And make her more in love with me than she was before?”
 

Muira frowned at his arrogance, “That
would
be terrible,” she said in a not-very-sympathetic voice.

Ewan growled, losing patience with his sister’s sniping, “But Muira, we’re only married for a year!”

“Only a year to start,” she corrected quickly, “There’s nothing stopping you from going on.”

“Except for the fact that I don’t want a wife!”

“But you’ve got one already!”

“Only to be the mother of my child!”
 

Muira’s eyes flashed dangerously again, and so Ewan thought it was better to bite his tongue. “And what do you think happens, Ewan, when the year of yours is at an end? Who’ll be taking care of your baby then?” she challenged, “Who will keep him fed and clothed and tend him when he’s sick?”

Wetnurses,
Ewan thought, but had the wisdom not to say
, and nannies- and Cait can see him when she wants
. He might live in his uncle’s household, but he had considerable property of his own. There was no reason to think that his child would ever go wanting.

“Who’ll see to your supper?” Muira continued, “And darn your socks? And see that your plaid is pressed
and ready? And tend your room?
There are plenty of benefits to having a wife- things that you might not have considered before. What if- heaven forbid- something happens to the wee bairn? What will you do if you want another?”
 

That point, at least, caught his attention. His nieces and nephews, thank God, were sound- but they were young yet. He’d watched the
Laird
bury his only two sons that morning, and watch the end of his line. Their deaths made Ewan the tanist- next in line to assume leadership of the clan- and he had a responsibility to bear an heir as well.

“What are you suggesting I do then?” he asked after a long silence, “Pretend that I love her back?”
 

Muira frowned sadly and shook her head, “I’m not asking you to lie,
Ewan-
just
to
give the woman a chance.”

Ewan shrugged his shoulder
s
- a gesture that could be
interpreted as either “yes” or “no”. He was s
till trying to wrap his mind around what he’d learned. Cait loved him!
At least
, he supposed
,
there
were marriages that had started off worse!

“Are ye still here Cait?” Mrs Gibbons, the portly old housekeeper of castle Cameron walked into the kitchen and frowned
.
All of the other kitchen lasses had been gone for more than an hour. The supper dishes were washed and put away, but Cait was still standing over a copper cauldron, scrubbing with all her might at stains only she could see. “That’ll do, lassie!” The old woman said, plucking the rag out of Cait’s fingers, “It’s time for bed!”

Cait would have argued with the housekeeper, but she knew that she was right. She wasn’t even meant to work in the kitchens, but she’d been desperate for something to do! Ever since leaving Ewan’s room early that afternoon she’d been a veritable dervish, volunteering for every task available- anything to keep her too busy to think. As long as she was working, this day felt like all the ones before it. She could keep on pretending that nothing had changed.

As she finally climbed the winding staircase to her bedroom, however, the day’s events came flooding back, and by the time she reached her room, tears had blurred her vision.

She pushed open the door to her room
carefully;
half-afraid that Muira would be waiting inside. She’d spent most of the day avoiding her friend, keeping in near-constant motion so that her friend couldn’t find her. She knew that Ewan’s sister would want to lend a sympathetic ear- but Cait simply wasn’t ready to talk.

Luckily, the tiny chamber was empty when she finally arrived, and so Cait slipped gratefully inside. Now that she was finished working, exhaustion began to sink in. She barely had the energy to strip off her bodice and skirt and finally crawl into bed alone.

Every part of her body hurt. Her arms, and legs, and back- but worst of all was the tender aching between her legs, the reminder of what Ewan had done, and that her innocence was spent.