Wild Catriona

by Oliver, Marina

  'Flora! Eliza says all's well. How are you, my sweet love?'

  The man who entered the room was eight years older than she was, a successful man before she'd ever met him. He was tall and dark, slender and with aristocratic features. He had an air of command, and men deferred instinctively to him. But he was as tough as any Highlander, could work alongside them in the fields, or tramp with them after deer, and not tire more quickly, even though he was not bred to crofting. She knew she was fortunate in her husband of just a year.

  She had fallen in love within a moment of setting eyes on him. It had been a wild, tempestuous craving, like nothing she'd ever felt before. He too had been visiting friends in the city, and they met at a concert her aunt had taken her to. Flora was lost the moment she looked into his silver-grey eyes. She trembled in dismay when she thought of how easily they could have missed one another, never met. At the time, and to her everlasting amazement, he had returned her love, and been willing to abandon his own to adopt her far less prosperous life in her beloved glen.

  She had not then known about Arabella, the English girl everyone had expected him to marry. Often, in secret, she wondered whether they had quarrelled, whether Jamie had turned to her too impulsively, and if he ever regretted it.

  Swallowing her frustration now, Flora lifted her gaze and forced herself to smile. She would love their baby. Jamie would see none of her doubts, hear none of her regrets.

  'Dearest Flora, I'm so proud of you!' he murmured, holding her gently as he kissed her.

  'Jamie! Aye, all's well,' she sighed. 'Here's your daughter. I'm sorry it's not a son.'

  Jamie stroked the child's soft cheeks, bent carefully over her as she lay in Flora's arms, and kissed her again. 'Don't fret, my love, we've plenty of time. We're still young enough to have a dozen sons.'

  Flora shut her eyes to conceal the dismay in them. Her pregnancy had been easy, so had the birth, but she could not relish the prospect of a dozen sons. And at nineteen there were many childbearing years ahead of her. She wanted more from life than endless pregnancies.

  'But I want you to myself for a while before then,' Jamie murmured softly, and kissed her closed eyelids. 'Here's a small gift for you,' he added, pressing a packet into her hand. 'Open it.'

  She unwrapped the parcel to find a jeweller's velvet-covered box. She opened it slowly and gasped, overwhelmed with astonishment and pleasure. Gently she picked out a pair of lustrous pearl earrings and held them to her cheek. 'Jamie! Oh, they're beautiful! They're much too good for me!'

  'They match your wedding necklace. I bought them then for just such an occasion, my love.'

  Flora clasped his hands tightly. She should not feel like this, with such a loving husband. Most husbands would have kept such a gift for the birth of a son. She would love this baby, she once more vowed silently.

  'What shall we call her?'

  Flora blinked. As she was so certain she was bearing a son she'd not so much as considered names for a girl.

  'We'll have to think of one,' she said, and suddenly yawned.

  Jamie was looking at what he could see of the tiny face, wrapped in a soft shawl. 'She's like you, dainty and lovely. I wonder if she'll have your eyes?'

  'All babies have blue eyes,' Flora told him. 'And they all have snub noses, too,' she added with a faint chuckle.

  'But she's got your dimples, and I hope she'll have your beauty.'

  Flora couldn't help smiling at his compliments. 'You always had a silver tongue!'

  'She looks like a rose, such soft skin, and pale pink cheeks, and that pursed little mouth like a bud just opening.'

  'Rose Lennox?' Flora tried it out doubtfully. 'It sounds good.'

  'Though I've never seen a rose with the colour of her hair,' Jamie said, laughing. 'Eliza said she'll have a temper.'

  Flora roused herself. 'Eliza asked me about that croft,' she said, remembering. 'For Andrew. He's anxious to know.'

  'I know, Andrew spoke to me earlier. But old Stuart's not even in his grave yet.'

  Flora leaned back into the pillows, blinking back sudden tears. Old Stuart MacDougal, distant kin of her father, had been one of her earliest friends. When she was a child he had taught her to read and write, as he had done many of the glen's children. He was better than the dry, elderly Minister, Flora's father had said, who taught nothing of value to crofters, giving his pupils only dry, bigoted religious pamphlets as reading matter.

  Stuart had taken her for long walks, shown her secret places where she could watch the deer, or look at the eagles nesting in a clump of tall trees beyond the loch. From him she had learned how to find food and herbs, trap hares, fish in the loch, and treat injured people and animals. She had loved him dearly, listened to his tales of past battles, stories of the clans, and the time when, as no more than a boy, he'd followed the Prince on his last attempt to win his throne. Would she come to love this placid bundle, asleep now in her arms, the same way?

  She leaned over and lowered the baby into the cradle beside her. Perhaps it was natural. Maybe daughters could not provoke the same feelings of awe and delight and achievement as a son would have done. But Jamie was right. They would have sons who could help on the croft as they grew to manhood. Thank goodness she and Jamie had sufficient money not to have to worry. He had acquired his fortune before they met. There were plenty of families in the glen where the arrival of another mouth to feed was a matter for worry, not pleasure. No wonder the young men like Andrew wanted to rent their own land. She did not have those problems. They were secure and wonderfully happy. She had all she wanted, apart from a son, and one day they'd have that too.

  'I'll try to love you, little one,' she whispered, and twisted her lips into a determined smile as she lay back once more, her eyes closed.

  ***