Highland Seasons, page 7
“’Tis our home, Mary. We ken all the best places to hide…”
“Ye forget,” Mary said, her voice bright with mirth, “my sisters do as well.” She hugged him tightly as she chuckled, then sobered and captured his gaze. “We are about to celebrate our first Yule as man and wife. My sisters and their families will make it even more special, but while they are with us, I need ye to recall how grateful I am for ye.” She laid a hand on his cheek. “Ye will be at the top of every note I write, my first thought every morn and my last thought each night. I love ye, Cameron Sutherland.”
Cam couldn’t hold back the answering swell of love and contentment that filled his heart, nor did he want to. “And I love ye, Mary Elizabeth Rose. Ye are the best part of me.” His life, once nearly lost, had begun again with this woman. He needed her more than he knew how to tell her, but he had to try. “I ken ’tis early to say this, but I wish this to be the happiest Yule of yer life, the first of many we share together.”
“I do, too, Cam. Each more filled with love and laughter as the years go by,” Mary replied. “Happy Yule, my love.”
“There’s a likely looking tree,” Cameron Sutherland said the next day to his best friend at Rose, one of his guard captains, Paton.
“Aye,” the man agreed. Two years younger than Cameron, Paton was a recent addition to the clan, though he’d fostered at Sutherland. He’d come from the islands with Domnhall’s army and decided to stay. His skill with weapons and ability to lead men made him rise quickly through the Rose ranks and put him in Cameron’s company often enough to renew the childhood bond between the two men. “’Twill take a dozen men to move it once we cut the bloody thing down. Is there nay a tree closer to the keep that will do as well?”
Cameron scratched his head. “I dinna ken,” he said in a rising tone of amazement. “Why didna I think to look there first?”
Paton punched his shoulder and laughed. “Verra well. This one will do. Anything to make the laird happy during her family’s visit.”
“I fear it will take more than the perfect Yule log,” Cameron said, then immediately wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Paton had the gift of reading people, one of the reasons he was a good leader.
“Trouble dans la famille?”
Cameron winced and shrugged. He might as well say it. Paton might have some ideas for how to ease any pain Mary would feel. “I love Mary Elizabeth Rose with every fiber of my being. And to a lesser extent, her sisters and their families, as well. But the impending visit fashes me.”
“Why? From all I’ve heard, the sisters were united—“
“Against their father, aye. But now, her sisters are wed and Annie has a son. Things have changed.”
“Is that all?”
“Well, of course ’tis nay all.”
“So ye’re fashed because ye two have yet to be blessed with an heir to Rose. Is that it?”
“In the month since we wed? Are ye daft? I fear that despite her excitement over the visit, she’ll be disappointed. The changes in her family will overwhelm her. Rose is their home nay longer and that will make a difference to all of them. Thanks to her da, Mary had years of practice hiding her dismay from everyone.” Everyone but him, he meant. He knew her too well to let her suffer when she intended to enjoy the coming invasion of her family. She was excited and had the entire keep humming with preparations for the big event. For her, that big event was their arrival more than the Yule celebration. “I dinna ken what to do for her,” he finally admitted.
“Have ye talked to her about this?”
“Nay. I dinna want to plant the idea and have it grow. If she truly doesna mind, I dinna want her thinking that I do.”
Paton nodded. “Then keep that thought in yer mind at all times. If ye let her see ye fashing, she’ll want to ken why, to help ye, and that will lead—“
“Nowhere I want to go, aye.” Cameron shrugged and began to walk around the tree. It was a fine specimen, big enough to burn for the twelve days of the Yule celebration. “We’ll come back with more men tomorrow,” he decided, “and take it down so it will have time to dry.”
Paton took the hint and changed the subject, going on and on about a lass he’d lately had his eye on while they trudged back to the keep. Cameron let him talk but paid little attention. He felt better for having told Paton his fears, but he still didn’t know what to do if the impending visit was not all that Mary hoped it would be.
The bailey rang with laughter and shouted greetings as Mary’s sisters arrived. She joined in the laughter as Cat dismounted and was immediately surrounded by old friends. Her sisters had come home to people they’d grown up with. People who were happy to see them. Mary couldn’t contain her joy and embraced first Annie, then, once Cat made her way out of the crush, her youngest sister. Iain approached next, eight-month-old Ewan squirming in his arms. “He wants down,” Iain announced, as if it was not obvious to all.
“He willna stop until he’s on the floor,” Annie said, taking the wean from her husband. “Then ye crawl so fast, I have to chase ye,” she added, chucking her son under his chin until he rewarded her with a grin. “He’s so active, as soon as he finishes one meal, he’s asking for the next. Iain says he was like that, too, so I expect Ewan will grow out of it, but we’d best warn Cook we could pester her from morning till night.”
“I’m sure Cook can handle him,” Mary assured her, then turned to Cat. “Was the trip difficult for ye?”
“Nay, everyone is fine.” Cat turned and smiled at her husband as Kenneth came up and put an arm around her waist.
“Everyone needs to rest a wee before the celebrations start,” Kenneth said with a glance at Cat’s belly.
“Are ye—” Mary started, and then stopped. Despite her eagerness to know if Kenneth meant her youngest sister was with child, she should let them announce it in their own way. “Dinna fash,” Mary said instead. “Let’s go inside and get everyone settled. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up.”
“Where is Cameron?” Kenneth looked around, then spotted him. “Ah, helping with the horses, of course. Iain, let’s go give him a hand with the wagons.”
With that, the two men made their escape, leaving Mary’s sisters and wee Ewan to go inside with her.
Mary chose to keep that evening’s dinner simple and light. The travelers were tired and would need to find their beds. Ewan was safely ensconced in the nursery with the clan’s other bairns so that the parents could have a restful night. When the meal ended, the men gathered by the hearth fire with their ales. Mary took her sisters up to her old room, the one Annie and Iain would share. She and Cameron now used the laird’s chamber. Annie headed straight for the window seat while she and Cat settled side by side on the edge of the bed.
Save for the Brodie traveling cases stacked against one wall, the chamber was the same as if the last few months had never happened. She and her sisters sat in their usual places in the room Mary had grown up in, where they always went to share problems, heartbreaks, and happiness. Mary hoped the latter was on tonight’s agenda. She waited, not sure who would start.
Annie, of course.
“So, how is married life?” Her middle sister asked with a smile.
“Wonderful,” Mary said. “Exciting. Exhausting. Or maybe that has more to do with being laird.”
“Likely,” Cat interjected. “Though ye have done the job for Da for several years. And now ye have Cameron to help ye. So what about yer life now is exhausting ye?”
Her smirk told Mary what she was thinking. She and Cam were still newlyweds, after all.
“Leave Mary alone,” Annie warned. “Ye and Kenneth are much the same.”
“It was so romantic. A double wedding! I never dreamed mine could be shared with my sisters in that way,” Cat rhapsodized. “I’m glad we live as close together as we do. If Da had his way, we’d be scattered across Scotland.”
“Or gone nowhere at all,” Annie reminded her with a nod to Mary. “It has been a momentous year.”
“And now with Yuletide upon us, we can be together again,” Cat said, then yawned. “But I think rest is first on the list.”
Cat wasn’t going to share her news with them? Mary hid her disappointment, still determined to let Cat tell them in her own way. “For ye two, aye,” Mary said. “I’ve a keep to run and hungry family to feed on the morrow.” She yawned and stood. “I will bid ye good night. I’m so glad ye are here. I hope ye ken that.”
Cat and Annie stood, too. “Of course we do. We will get busy with the preparations tomorrow,” Annie told her, then she, too, yawned. “I guess that makes it unanimous. Get some sleep.” With that she winked and Cat burst out laughing.
Mary laughed, too, all the way to the laird’s chamber she now shared with Cameron. “Ye are here! I thought ye would still be drinking and telling tales with Iain and Kenneth.”
“They hid it well, but they were worn out from the journey. Riding alone, they would have been here much faster, but wagons for the things the lasses and a bairn need made for a longer trek. They went to check on their horses, but they’ll be in their chambers soon.” He took Mary in his arms. “And ye ken what that means, Mary my love. Ye have reached the end of yer list for the day. All except for the most important thing.”
“Truly? Whatever could that be?”
Cameron dipped his head and brushed her lips with his. “Does this remind ye?”
The scent of ale filled her nose. “Ach, aye. We need more mint.”
“How about this?” He trailed his tongue down the side of Mary’s throat and gently bit where it joined her shoulder.
“Ye lads need to hunt tomorrow?”
“And this?” He lifted her skirt and traced his hand up the outside of her leg to her hip.
“Hmmm…’tis beginning to come to me.”
“I’ll see that it does,” Cam promised.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Whoever that is, I’m going to kill them,” Cam said, dropping Mary’s skirt and releasing her. He went to the door and flung it open.
“I’m so sorry to bother ye,” Annie said, “but Iain just returned from the stable and sent me to tell ye one of yer mares has a swollen knee.”
“Why did he send ye and nay come himself?”
Annie grinned. “He feared he might ah…interrupt ye…”
Cam bit his lip on what he wanted to say about Iain’s equine observational skills—and his timing.
“The mare twisted her knee yesterday. The stable master is aware and caring for her.” The Rose stable master also had plenty of well-trained lads to help him and didn’t need Cameron—or Iain Brodie—second-guessing his decisions. “But thank Iain for us, Annie. Good night.”
“Ye are nay going—”
Cam glanced around at Mary, who stood by the bed watching him deal with her sister and laughing at him. Nay, not out loud, but amusement shone from her eyes.
“I’ll check with the stable master in the morning. Thank ye, Annie. Good night.” Cam closed the door.
Annie immediately knocked and forced him to open it again. “Aye?”
“Good night to ye both, too.” She gave Mary a bright grin and went on her way down the hall.
Cam closed the door and put the bar across it. “Nay more interruptions, Mary my love.”
She went into his arms. “They’ve had their fun, so I think no’.”
The next day, while the men were out of the keep stripping the branches and bark from the tree Cam and Paton had chosen, preparing it for the hearth, Mary and some of the lasses ventured out to collect evergreen boughs for the great hall. By the time they finished, evening approached and Mary checked with Cook to ensure supper would be ready when the men returned. Before long, the keep’s heavy door swung open. A dozen men waited there, Paton, Iain and Kenneth included, carrying the huge log between them on their shoulders, Cam at the fore.
“Clear the way for the Yule log,” Cameron called out. “’Tis here to bring good luck into the keep for the new year!”
Mary smiled. Cameron had such a way of making everything better. Her da had simply seen it carried in and placed into the hearth. Cam’s announcement made it more of an event.
Everyone shifted to the walls, pushing aside any remaining benches between the door and the hearth. Tables had already been pushed back, and people lined the path toward the hearth, smiling in anticipation.
In contrast, the men carried the log between them with solemn ceremony. Once they laid the biggest end of it in place on glowing coals, Kenneth turned and gave Cat a wink, and Iain smiled at Annie. Cameron beckoned to the healer, who anointed the log with a concoction made of wine and herbs that would scent the hall and help the log catch fire. The rest of the log extended out onto the hearthstone and beyond that onto the great hall’s stone floor where rushes had been swept well clear. Each day, the log would be pushed farther into the fire as it burned away.
Before the evening meal, once the tables and benches had been moved back into place, and to the cheers of the assembled clan and guests, some of the clan’s older children adorned the log with pinecones, holly berries, and slices of dried apples, gifts to any deities that might grant the clan good luck. Then, to help the log catch fire, men piled kindling on the coals on either side of it.
When all was ready, Mary’s heart beat faster as she contemplated the role she had assumed for the clan. It was the laird’s responsibility to light the Yule log, and by doing so, to bring good fortune for the coming year. Somehow, this simple celebration, made with solemnity, but also with great joy and hope, brought her role home to her in a way that gave her chills as nothing else had done since her father's passing. She took a breath, glanced at Cameron for strength, and received it from his encouraging smile, then lit a torch made from the remains of last year’s Yule log in the coals of the hearth fire. She touched it to the head of this year’s log where the healer’s wine mixture flared up, then lit the kindling, and finally, laid the torch on the now-burning Yule log. “May by this act the gods of Yule bring joy, peace, and prosperity to our clans now and for the next year, till we celebrate again,” she said, and felt a sense of peace and satisfaction fill her.
“’Tis perfect!” Cat exclaimed.
Cameron moved behind Mary, wrapped his arms around her, and for a moment, rested his chin on her head. “Well done, lass,” he whispered into her hair.
“Ye, too, my love,” she told him, nodding at the cheerful blaze in the hearth. “Ye chose well.” Mary agreed with her youngest sister’s sentiment. Cam had chosen a grand log that would carry them through the twelve days of Yuletide, with some left for next year’s torch.
Cameron turned her to look at him. “I did, indeed, Mary my love, when I chose ye.” In front of the entire clan, he bent his head and kissed her.
Lost in the joy of the moment, Mary kissed him back.
Later, while they ate supper, she confided, “I hope last year’s luck doesna carry over from its torch.”
“Nay? Other than me nearly dying, and ye losing yer da, oh, and the Grant conspiracy to take over Rose, I thought ’twas a great year.” At Mary’s disbelieving frown, he added, “After all, I won ye, and we are wed, Mary my love. ’Twas a year I will remember with joy till my dying day.”
“Ye make a good point,” Mary conceded with a smile and a kiss for his reminder to look on the bright side. “I hope ye have a very long memory.”
After supper, while Cameron dealt with a summons from the stable master, Mary met with Cook, then headed to their chamber. Her husband hadn’t returned yet, so she readied herself for bed, already thinking ahead to what she planned for the next day. She fell asleep mid-list and woke to the sun shining through gaps around the edges of the window covers.
Cameron still lay beside her.
“’Tis early yet, Mary my love,” he told her, taking her hand in his. “Ye needna get up right away.”
“What about ye?” She turned to him and ran a finger down his cheek, then cupped his chin.
Cam reached for her, and she went into his arms without another thought for what the day would bring. This man made her happier than she’d ever dreamed possible.
“I treasure every moment of our time together,” Cam told her.
“As I treasure ye.”
When Mary and Cam made their way downstairs, they heard that some of the women had headed out into the woods soon after sunup to collect mistletoe and holly. The lasses returned, laughing and chattering like birds with the first of their harvest as she and Cam finished breaking their fast, then headed out again. Other women brought out stores of ribbon and lace, and some came from their crofts bringing bread and cakes to add to what Cook could produce. A little later, the men went hunting while the women saw to decorating the great hall, laughing while they worked, some humming or singing. Mary and her sisters joined in, each taking on a different task to help the other lasses in the clan, but sharing pleased looks as they saw how much the clan seemed to be enjoying this time together.
“’Tis because of ye,” Annie confided softly at one point when she and Mary stood to the side, looking over the decorations going up in the great hall. “The change in everyone since ye and Cam took over is clear to me, even if ye dinna see it yet.”
Mary’s heart lifted. She did see how much happier everyone seemed. “I’d like to accept that, but I canna take all the credit. Cam has much to do with the changes. Perhaps even more than I. They are used to me. He has made the difference. And they’re happy to see ye and Cat, too, ye ken.”
Annie hugged her and they went back to work.
Once he returned from the hunt, Cameron cornered Mary outside the kitchen where an alcove hid them from view, wrapped her in his arms and kissed her, then did it again. “I missed ye,” he admitted. “And I’m here to make certain ye have me on yer list for today. And some time to rest.”
“Always, my love,” she answered and captured his lips. “Thank ye for making this a wonderful Yuletide,” she told him after they came up for air.
