Heart of Stone by Rebecca Ruger
Chapter Twenty-One
Years ago, when he’dreturned to Caerhayes from the big fight down near the bridge at Stirling, Calum had traveled first with Aedan Kinross to that one’s home, Little Marshwood. At that time, he’d known nothing of homecomings, had no expectation of any reception. But Little Marshwood, and more specifically Aedan’s family, had laid out a near royal welcome for their returning son. All the residents of the keep and many from the nearest town had crowded into Little Marshwood’s hall and yard; banners and ribbons flapped in the cool autumn wind; wine had been imported from Spain and songs had been sung to their bravery; heaping platters of food appeared, one after another. The celebrations had lasted for three days, with games out of doors and the heroics of the Scots told by bards day and night. Calum had never seen anything like it.
When he’d left the warmth and joy of Little Marshwood, he’d had no expectations of any such frivolity at Caerhayes, but still he’d found himself a wee bit surprised that Caerhayes had done nothing, nothing at all, to commemorate the return of the MacKinnon army. He couldn’t recall at the time if he’d known or felt any dejection at this slight, but he considered that return now as he was nearly upon Blackwood.
Home to Julianna.
He didn’t need to give his men any direction. They were not going first to the keep, but to their newly built homes, where lived their family. As they crested the last hill of the mountains west of Blackwood, Calum urged his horse into greater speed, charging across the flat meadow and up over the rise where one day sheep would roam. Finn and Artur and the lads were close behind, moving with as much speed, as if they’d been gone a month or more and not merely a fortnight.
At the top of the ridge, where directly below sat the beginnings of the second and third cottages, they could see the big croft, the one they’d made with their own hands only weeks before.
Calum drew up sharply as splashes of color caught his eye. The cottage that he and Julianna would share with the lasses was bedecked with streamers and pennants and what appeared to be banners with brightly painted symbols, including a fair representation of the MacKinnon fighting lion and a laurel crown with three eagle feathers, an honor normally only entitled to a clan chief. A line had been strung from one corner of the roof to a nearby birch tree, so that more pennants and garlands could be hung, as the front of the croft, under the thatch, was crowded with so many decorations.
The men all stopped alongside him, that they stretched out across the ridge, all six in a row. No one said anything, staring with varying degrees of wonder at such a magnificent welcome.
Until Finn broke the silence, wondering, “Think this comes with a meal as well?”
“Aye,” said Tomag, “and we ken we’re getting sweetbreads, if there is a feast.”
Sadly, the house appeared empty, the door and shutters closed, the place quiet.
Almost perfect, Calum thought, imagining Julianna and the girls must be up at Blackwood.
Artur chuckled, bringing some attention to him. He put his hand to his ear, tilting his head and smirking. “Full welcome about to be had.”
Calum heard it then as well, giggling and a funny screech. A moment later, they saw Helen first, coming from the trees and the trail beyond the cottage, from the direction of Blackwood. She spied the six of them almost immediately, before any other lass came into sight, and covered her mouth with both hands with her surprise. To the amusement of Calum and his men, she shrieked and pivoted, darting back from whence she came, calling loudly, “They’re here! They’ve come home!”
The men all grinned at this and the squeals that followed, and in the next moment, Julianna and all the girls were sprinting out from the trees.
“Yah!” Calum ordered briskly, putting his heels hard to his steed’s flanks to move down the hill, his gaze on Julianna.
All other homecomings, good or bad, his own or another’s, would forever pale in comparison to this, to the teary smile lighting her beautiful face, to the sight of her running toward him.
They met then, all of them, in the yard in front of their new home. Calum was the first to plant his feet on the ground and had barely done so when Julianna threw herself at him. He gathered her up, held her close, and lifted her feet off the ground as he claimed a hungry kiss. The pounding of his heart nearly drowned out the other homecomings, but he knew that the men were greeted just as cheerily, that they were as happy to be home as Calum.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, for any reason. In fact, he wondered if he had ever cried tears of joy. He thought not. He didn’t actually cry now, but he felt it, his eyes and nose heating and his throat constricting while he held her so tight.
“That’s some welcome,” he said to his wife, against her lips.
The palms of her hands covered his cheeks while their foreheads touched. “You probably haven’t any idea how happy I am to see you.” She knew no shame, no reticence to cry in front of him, her eyes watery and her smile wobbly.
“I ken I do, bride. But you ken, you’re no’ supposed to make the homecoming so damn sweet, might give a man ideas about going away again, just to return.”
“Oh, no,” she said shakily. “Don’t ever leave me again. Please.”
He drew back only enough to set her on her feet, but kept his arm around her, kissed the top of her head one more time. He pointed to the decorations. “How long’ve they been hanging?”
“Actually,” she answered, “we hang them every morning and bring them in every night, as we hadn’t any idea when to expect you. And thank you for not returning in the rain, because we left off putting them up on those days, afraid the dye might run.”
They were interrupted by Marta, who likely hadn’t stopped bouncing since they’d come, who’d embraced every other man—Artur first, no doubt—and who now was running toward Calum, looking as if she were about to leap at him. She did. Calum pulled his arm from around Julianna just in time to catch the wee sprite, and honest to God, he knew a fabulous sense of peace, previously unknown through all his life, when this little lass crunched her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. Calum held her, patting her back awkwardly, forced then to breathe in steadying breaths through pursed lips lest he embarrass himself by weeping like a bairn now.
“Finn, I was so looking forward to meeting your wife,” Julianna was saying as she hugged the captain. “Did you not bring dear Magda from Caerhayes?”
“Dinna be giving me grief, lass,” he said, the joy of his tone overcoming the crotchety directive.
When Marta shifted, Calum set her down, watched her run back to Artur, who was happy to open his arms to her. Helen had Finn’s attention now, showing him what looked to be a ball of fleece, telling him they were learning the skirting, washing, and carding of the wool. Barbara was speaking with Booth while Julianna hugged Peadar and they spoke quietly for a moment. Brida stood with Tomag, her face flushed for all the excitement, telling the lad that they had all the thatch needed ready for the other crofts to be finished.
Calum smiled, happy simply to stand and watch, taking it all in.
***
“HOW IS IT THAT WE AREalone,” Calum wondered, inside their croft, “so soon after our arrival?”
Julianna turned and grinned at him. “A feast, such as we’ve begged of Fenella, doesn’t just happen, Calum. The girls were sent up to the keep to help with the preparations.” She winced then, sorry to have to tell him, “I will have to join them soon.”
She stood in the center of the main room, near the table they would one day all share for all their meals and watched as Calum passed his gaze around their home. He turned as he did so, giving his attention to the added utensils and crocks around the hearth, and the second bench that had come from Blackwood’s carpenter, that now completed their dining arrangement. He took note of the vase of wildflowers upon the crude table and the stack of willow baskets they’d stored behind the door. He stepped near the doorway at one end of the croft, peering into the chamber they would share. Their room, they’d decided when their croft was being constructed, was on one end of the cottage, as deep as the house itself, but only half as wide. Julianna hoped he noticed the coverlet she and the girls had spent all of one day sewing. Fenella, that dear, had shown her a trunk of spare fabric, naught but pieces and bits, in different colors and pale patterns that they’d delighted in. They’d made three heavy counterpanes, one for each of the beds in this croft, stitched in parts as would be a quilt, with several triangles or squares of the MacKinnon tartan sewn into the haphazard pattern.
Aye, he’d noticed. He turned and grinned at her and said, “Very nice, Julianna.”
She pointed to the girls’ chamber at the opposite end of the house. “They have the same on their beds as well.”
Calum returned to her and kissed her once again. Julianna melted into him.
“We haven’t slept here yet,” she told him when he released her, seeming happy only to stare down at her, his hands in her hair, his eyes searching her face. “Wanted to wait for you to come home.”
“Home,” he repeated.
Wanting the matter that had taken him off put to rest, Julianna asked, “Will you tell me about it? About what happened at Caerhayes?”
He shrugged a bit. “Domhnall is dead. I’ve sent word to Robbie.”
Julianna tightened her fingers around his forearms. “I’m sorry, Calum. Do you want or need to talk about it?” It couldn’t have been easy, whatever had transpired.
He didn’t appear beset by anything but a desire to look at her, his compelling gaze so steady upon her, moving over her so thoroughly. But he leaned against their family’s table, drawing Julianna between his legs. He kissed her briefly.
“It’s done. He admitted what he’d done, defended his actions as seeing to the welfare of Caerhayes.”
“Have his own nephew murdered to ensure that the MacKinnons would survive? Sounds both illogical and cold-hearted.”
“As he is.” He drew in a great breath and exhaled slowly. “Was. We caged him, put him in chains, inside a cell, thought we might have to wait for either a special council to be called of the nobles, or for the Lord of the Isles to come down and pronounce judgment. He hung himself inside his cell before either of those things might have come to pass.”
“Oh, Calum.”
“It...it dinna bother me.” He paused, said with a shrug, “Confirmed his guilt, I thought. And there was none to mourn him, none that I saw. Caerhayes now can be returned to Robbie, as it should be. She and all those MacKinnons are in good hands then.”
Julianna waited, watched Calum chew the inside of his cheek, wondering if he would say more. He did not, not on that topic. He met her gaze and smiled at her. He wanted it done then, and so she would let it rest.
She liked his hands on her hips, leaned in closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “And how did Finn escape Magda? Or did he not and I should expect some knife-wielding harridan come running to Blackwood, come to retrieve her husband?”
Calum explained to her, “Finn visited Magda before we departed, all his guilt assuaged when he found a pair of men’s boots at the foot of the bed. They parted”—he grinned—“amicably, Finn said, whatever that means.”
“He’s truly free then?”
“And happily so. Just ask him, he’ll tell you.”
Julianna wanted now to kiss him and hold him, to feel his arms around her. But Calum drew another breath and said, “I ken I promised you this, this simple life, but Julianna, say the word, and we’ll go to Caerhayes, make our home there.”
While the question surprised her, her response did not have to be thought out. “I want to be with you, Calum. I dinna care where that is. What do you want?”
“The same. You. But is this good enough?”
Sensing some doubt in him, Julianna was quick to assure him, “Oh, Calum, this is...this is everything. This is perfect. But if you want—”
He began shaking his head, quieting her. “Tell me you love me, that you want to make our family here.”
A soft smile creased her face. “I do. I love you, Calum.” She lifted a brow and spread her glance briefly around the nearby area, the table and the benches. “Make our family right here?”
Calum showed her a crooked grin. “I have no preference as to where the procreation happens.”
“Aye, then. Brace yourself.”
Calum smiled outright at this and Julianna lifted her face to his kiss.
But he did not kiss her. He drew her closer. He raked his gaze over her with a fresh intensity that flipped her stomach most deliciously.
“I love you, Julianna. Some days, I swear I ache for you, to see you, to see your smile. I’m away from you and I’m thinking about you. It dinna ever stop.” He blew out a breath. “It’s no’ love, it has to be something more, for how it fills me, and weakens me and empowers me. It’s more than love, aye?”
“Aye, Calum, it is.”