The Guardian by Diana Knightley

Sixteen - Kaitlyn

Iwas on my knees over Magnus, he was awake, he was always awake, but his arm was over his eyes, pretending to be asleep.

“Wake up love, it’s our anniversary!” We were in a tent, on the shore of the loch, within sight of the castle, but hidden behind a tree so it could seem like we had ‘gotten away’. I had picked this as my anniversary present, to go camping with my husband, because it was my favorite part of our year away. The only part of that time that had been worth it — the deep alone time I had gotten to spend with him.

“Och, so early in the morn?”

I laughed. “Do you want chocolate? I stole it from the storeroom.”

He opened one eye. “Nae, ye can hae it.”

I popped the chocolate piece in my mouth and moaned with pleasure. Then I began licking each finger clean of it and Magnus’s eyes grew wide. He lumbered up, pushed me back, climbed onto me, and kissed me. “Ye taste like chocolate.”

I licked his lips and he nibbled my bottom lip and then his mouth traveled over to the side of my neck and sucked there for a moment and my legs wrapped around him, pulling him close.

He tugged my shift up to my waist and entered me with the most delicious exhale against my skin, a warm rush through my insides as he held me and pushed and pulled against me, our mouths against each other’s ears. It was a lovely, lovely oh god oh and—

Suddenly we could hear Isla’s cry and it was coming closer.

He whispered, “Och, the bairn has terrible timin’.”

“Oh my God, she’s coming to the tent.”

He held my leg up near his shoulder and tried to continue.

“Hurry, she’s coming closer.”

“Wheesht, I’m trying to concentrate.”

Beaty’s voice was trying to console Isla as she carried her toward us on the path.

I whispered, “Go fast.”

And he did go fast, a very very fast fuck that ended with a rush just as Isla’s wails made it to the tent.

Beaty called in, “Queen Kaitlyn, Isla was wantin’ ye and she would nae listen tae reason on it.”

Magnus blew out a breath against my skin.

“Hold on a moment!” I said in my most singsong voice. “We just woke up, let me get up, hold on.” I giggled as I tried to get my shift down to my feet. My husband lumbered off me to cover himself in the bedding properly.

I opened the tent and Isla dove in. “Mama!” She grinned. “Mama tent!”

Beaty said, “I am so sorry, Queen Kaitlyn, I kent ye were celebratin’, she was havin’ a fit, and I couldna get her tae calm down.”

“No worries, Beaty, you can leave her with us. Actually, if you see Archie will you tell him to come too? That would be a nice way to celebrate our anniversary.”

Beaty left and Magnus went out and built a fire while I gathered the breakfast we had brought: bread, butter, and jellies. We heated coffee over the fire and as we were eating, Archie arrived. “Hello!”

Magnus said, “Hello Wee Man, ye want some breakfast?”

And so the four of us sat around the fire on the edge of the shore, a comfortable morning full of ‘telling the kids about when we camped’ and talking about when we camped in the snow all of us together right before we came here. Then Archie and Magnus walked over to the field and picked flowers for me and Archie gave them to me in his fist with the pronouncement, “Happy Anniversary!”

And when Magnus asked me if I wanted to stay there for the whole day I said, “You know what? This morning was perfect. I love you, thank you. Let’s go back home.”

Archie helped us take down the tent and we left a small pile of gear there for one of the young men to come get with a cart as the four of us walked back to the castle. A lovely anniversary, one of my favorites of all time.

* * *

James was honestly going to marry this lady. She was lovely, but as Hayley kept saying, “What the hell?”

Whenever we needed him he was sitting beside her, on the wall, as she fiddled with her telescope and made notes in her book or they were gone on long walks. She didn’t ride much, having grown up in the city of Edinburgh, so walking was what they did.

He asked us about sharing a light with her, and after the group had conferred and then given him permission, we would see them up on the walls, him holding a flashlight and taking notes, while she looked up at the stars.

Then he asked if he could go home and get her a telescope, a new one, one to blow her mind.

Magnus said, “Nae, not now, it might be too dangerous.”

“To travel? But we need supplies soon, right?”

“Nae, not tae travel, it might be too dangerous tae shew her what the skies hold out there. Ye daena want tae frighten her, I recommend ye go slow.”

He nodded, but I could tell he wanted to get her one. And that it was hard to hold his excitement.

She was very pretty, with her high ginger coloring, so we could see why he would like her, yet Hayley, Emma, and I kept whispering in hallways. “Is he serious with this?”

Hayley’s theory went like this, “There is no way he’s doing it. This is one big game of chicken, you’ll see, as soon as he catches a whiff of the church he’s going to back out of there. He’ll be a cattle reiver with Rob Roy again in no time.”

My issue with her was that she was smart and inquisitive and committed to astronomy, a science nerd, even if her science was based on knowledge from three hundred years ago. I was confused that James, my old boyfriend, liked her: he’d been a player most of his life. She did not fit his mold at all. Also, though she seemed to laugh easily, she was eighteenth century raised: demure, obedient, devout.

We whispered suspicions though that some of her piety was a cover to protect herself from accusations of witchcraft. We couldn’t blame her for being guarded.

And we were all guarded, too. It wasn’t that we didn’t like her, it was that we had to hide so much from her, that our conversations were stilted and weird. We had to check our stories and jokes, and pretend not to be modern. We weren’t sure how to behave.

This was why getting to know her seemed difficult.

Lizbeth and Sean took all of us in stride, they understood that there were things we had that were frightening, but also useful and convenient. They purposely didn’t ask questions, and simply chalked it up to ‘Magnus’s kingdom’. Sean assumed it was within the same time period. Lizbeth knew something else was going on.

Maggie, Sean’s wife, ignored all of it, thinking us odd, and misunderstanding our behavior as ‘foreign’ and as Magnus told me, “She takes comfort in that she prays for ye, but she daena go as far as believin’ ye wicked, she likes her shoes and her mattress too much for that.”

I said, “I love that she doesn’t think you’re wicked, just the women.”

He chuckled. “Aye, she believes all the men of the castle tae be verra proper, tis the women she worries on, ye might corrupt us with yer wicked ways.”

“Och,” I joked, “it makes me furious on the one hand, but oh well, she might as well pray about me, I can use all the help I can get.”

* * *

The night before the wedding, we had a light dinner together saving the effort of a large meal for the feast the following day.

Zach stood in the middle of the Great Hall during the meal acting incredulous, saying, “So we’re seriously going to have a wedding tomorrow? With hotdogs for the meal? What the hell is going on?” Then he said, “Nah, I’m just joking, I’m psyched you boys brought the meat sticks. I’ve been so sick and tired of cooking every damn thing from scratch — takes all the fucking fun out of cooking I tell you.”

Emma laughed. “You don’t do all the cooking, you know. Eamag does most of it.”

“Yeah, I’m mostly organizational at this point, she has pointed out that I add too many spices, and she’s not having any of it.” He grinned wickedly. “Wait until she tastes Dijon mustard tomorrow. Sweet ketchup. Potato chips, am I right, Quentin?”

“Hell yeah, we brought Doritos too.”

Zach kissed his fingertips. “Delicioso! I’m tempted to kick her out of the kitchen and serve the meal making her wonder how the hell I made it all.”

Emma said, “You would never kick her out of the kitchen, you love arguing with her about cooking.”

“True, that old broad is like my best friend.”

We all laughed.