A Stockingful of Joy (3 page)

Closing the door, she went to the table and picked up a flaming beeswax candle, part of the Frasers' Christmas bundle, and placed it on the narrow window-sill. The glow would attract lucky spirits toward her home and help to bless the coming year.

She had given the other candles and most of the food to the MacGhille children, keeping a little cheese and oatmeal for herself, along with the flask of
uisge beatha
, which she doubted the children should have.

Remembering the Frasers' gifts, she went to the cupboard and sliced off a bit of the cheese, which was pierced with round holes. As she passed the circle of hearthstones, the fire blazed brightly for an instant. Catriona frowned, aware that a sudden burst of flame could foretell the coming of a stranger. A chill slid through her, but she dismissed the unsettled feeling.

She opened the door, then held the cheese slice up to one eye. Elspeth Fraser had told her that looking through a hole in the cheese would show her what would come in the new year. She peered through the hole, partly dreading whatever omen she might see, convinced that good fortune had forgotten her existence.

Seeing only fluttering snow and darkness, she wondered dismally if the view portended a cold, lonely year for her.

Then she gasped. Through the small hole, something moved out in the falling snow. She narrowed her eyes, and saw a man and a horse coming slowly along the ridge of the hill. Lowering the cheese, staring in disbelief, she watched the horse advance with high, labored steps through the deep drifts. The man was enveloped in a thick plaid, unrecognizable through the darkness, though he was a tall, large man.

Parian, she thought. Surely Parian rode toward her house for a New Year's visit. Catriona stepped backward to slam the door shut, and leaned against it.

Regardless of his thick blond hair, Parian MacDonald was a poor omen indeed. She would not let him into her house.

He was thoroughly lost, and his head ached fiercely. Not an auspicious end to the old year, nor a lucky start to the next, Kenneth thought in irritation. Icy, slanting snow stung his face and hands, and he shivered in the bitter cold. He drew his plaid higher over his head and peered through swirling veils of white.

Snow smothered the hillsides and filled the air. He had little sense of his location anymore. A few hours ago, when the snowfall had been a mild, pretty flutter, he had approached Loch Garry and turned toward the hills that edged its northern side, certain that the MacDonald girl's shieling hut would be there.

Riding upward, he had met three MacDonalds, who had ridden toward him with
suspicious glances, no doubt recognizing the Fraser badge, a sprig of fresh yew
stuck in his woolen bonnet, and the Glenran pattern of his plaid. In turn, he
knew the distinctive red and green design that they wore: Kilernan MacDonalds. Kenneth had nodded politely as he passed.

"Fraser! A Fraser!" The MacDonalds turned to chase him. Leaning forward, he urged his garron to a canter, but his mount slipped on the icy slope. The MacDonalds caught up to him, shouting threats. One swiped an unstrung bow at him, another swung a sword, and the third kicked at him. Struggling to dodge their blows, wary of fighting them, Kenneth noticed that they wavered and laughed drunkenly; they had already begun to celebrate the New Year, and saw him as some sport.

His garron stumbled and went down, pitching Kenneth from the saddle. He rolled to avoid the MacDonalds, who landed on him in a brawling, hooting cluster. The force of their attack drove his head against a rock. As he faded from awareness, he heard them swearing and running back to their horses.

When he awoke, the snow gathered silently around him in the growing darkness. Groggy and shivering, grateful that two thick plaids had saved him from freezing, he struggled to his feet, found his garron, and managed to ride onward.

Now he touched his fingers to the painful lump on the back of his head and felt the swelling there, then felt his bruised and cut lip. The horse walked ahead slowly, impeded by heavy snow and dim light. Kenneth did his utmost to stay warm, and to stay upright in the saddle as dizziness swamped him.

"What a pair we are," Kenneth muttered. "Ambushed and wounded, and now caught in a blizzard. Luck is not following us into the new year." He glanced around, certain that the hour must be close to midnight. The MacDonald girl's shieling hut was somewhere in these hills, but he would not find it this night.

He would take shelter wherever he could, in a stranger's home, an empty shieling, even a cave. Tomorrow would be time enough to find the girl and deliver the pack of food and household items that was tied to the saddle behind him.

He shivered with cold, despite the protection of two plaids, a leather doublet, woolen trews, and deer-skin boots. He patted the horse's neck with a note of encouragement he did not feel; riding through MacDonald territory was dangerous enough for a Fraser, but exposure and death were a far more real threat now.

He remembered the tale Lachlann Fraser had told of traveling one Christmas Eve through a fierce snowstorm. No wonder Lachlann had promised protection to the newborn child of the woman who gave him hospitality. Just now Kenneth would give anything he had for the barest sort of welcome.

He peered through the snowy veil that obscured his surroundings. A moment later he saw a faint sparkle of golden light ahead. He narrowed his eyes, wondering if the light was a trick of the blow to his head, but the glow flickered and held.

Riding forward, he saw a small house, a single candle glowing in the window. Grateful for his good fortune, Kenneth dismounted stiffly. When his dizziness abated, he untied the bundle from the saddle, wanting to offer something in return for the hospitality he hoped to gain. He waded through the deep snow to knock at the door. Silence followed. He knocked again.

"Be gone from here!" a woman's voice called out.

"I am in need of shelter for the night," he called.

"Go away, Parian MacDonald!" she returned.

Hearing that name, and the woman's soft voice, he realized that he had found the MacDonald girl's shieling after all, through sheer luck. "Catriona MacDonald," he called, knocking again. "I am a Glenran Fraser. Let me in." A long silence followed his statement. He pounded on the door. "I am in need of shelter for myself and my horse."

She opened the door a crack and peered at him. "A Glenran Fraser! What are you doing here on such a night?"

"Let me in, if you will, and I will tell you," he said. The firelight that haloed her form darkened oddly as he looked at her. He leaned against the door frame. "Let me in, girl," he said wearily. "I have come far."

"Which Fraser are you? Are you the blond man? If so, I must let black Cù go out and come in again before you enter."

Confused, he realized that she referred to the midnight tradition of first-foot. If only for the color of his hair, he would be welcome. He lowered the plaid that covered his head.

"I am the dark-haired one," he answered. "Kenneth Fraser. May I come in?" His legs felt strangely weak. He willed the sensation to pass. It did not.

The girl opened the door, and Kenneth stepped across the threshold. He heard her speak faintly, as if from a distance. Then darkness gathered around him like a thundercloud.

«
^
»

He went down at her feet like a felled oak. Catriona dropped to her knees and slipped her hand under his head. His tall, muscular body took up much of the space in her tiny home: his feet were on the threshold, his head lay near the hearth. The cat, who had leaped upward when the man fell, now sniffed gingerly at him.

"Kenneth Fraser!" Catriona said anxiously. "Kenneth!" After a few moments, he groaned and moved slowly, then raised himself to his knees. Catriona helped him to stand, but he leaned so heavily against her that his weight and height threatened to topple her to the floor.

She half dragged him the few feet toward the bed, a narrow mattress boxed in the wall by wooden panels and a heavy curtain. Shoving the curtain aside, she let the man drop to the bed. He sank, face downward.

"You may have dark hair," she said as she lifted one of his legs, then the other, to the mattress, "but a drunken, staggering first-foot must be a poor omen, and I do not thank you for it."

"I am not drunk," he said. His voice was slurred. "I came to bring you blessings of the new year. Am I your first-foot?" He put a hand to his head and rolled to his back, groaning.

"You are," she said, "and an unlucky one, I am sure." She scowled down at him. She had thought him a handsome man when she had seen him at Glenran, but now he was bedraggled, bruised, and near frozen; his lip was cut and swollen, and his expression was stupefied. She had seen men in this condition at Kilernan, men who drank and brawled on New Year's Eve, and indeed celebrated heavily from Christmas through Twelfth Night. Her uncle was the worst of the lot.

"
Tcha, "
she muttered. "This sort of blessing I do not need. You are drunk, wet, and frozen."

"I am not drunk," he said again, sitting up. "
Ach
, my horse is outside. I must—" He stood, swayed, and grabbed the frame of the box-bed for support.

Catriona slipped beneath his arm to keep him from falling over. He laid an arm over her shoulders, and walked, unsteady and stumbling, toward the door.

"Lie down," Catriona said, turning with him. "I will see to your horse." She led him back to the bed, and pulled the fur covers over him.

She threw her spare plaid over her shoulders, and went to the door and opened it, nearly tripping over the cat, who pawed tentatively at the snow piled on the doorstep.

"
Ach
, Cù!" Catriona pushed the cat aside. "Stay in here. Both of you," she ordered, glancing at the man on the bed, who mumbled indistinctly.

Catriona trudged through icy winds and hazy snowfall, took the garron by the bridle, and led him to the small byre, where her own horse and a cow, lent her by a neighbor, were stabled. She murmured reassuringly to the animals, filled their manger with oats, and hurried back to the hut.

Kenneth had removed his damp plaid and sat on the bed in trews and doublet, a blanket pulled high around his shoulders. His face appeared grayish, and he sagged against the bed frame. Catriona glanced at him as she stamped her feet and shook the snow from her skirt, then undid her plaid. "However did you find my house, as drunk as you are?" she asked.

"I am not drunk, girl," he growled. "And it was pure luck that I found you."

"Luck? I have little of that, and your arrival like this, on New Year's, is certain proof." She hammocked their plaids between the table and the bed to dry, leaving scant room to edge her way past Kenneth Fraser as she approached the central hearth. "Are you hungry? I can offer you oats and hot
uisge beatha
to warm you—but perhaps you have had enough of that."

He glowered at her. "Porridge would be kind," he said curtly. "I nearly forgot—that sack by the door is for you, with blessings of the New Year from the Frasers."

Catriona looked at him in surprise, and retrieved the bundle that he had dropped inside the door when he fell at her feet. She took it to the table and opened it. Inside, she found an abundance of goods: wrapped cheeses and roasted meat, more candles, milled oats and barley in cloth sacks, a flask of claret, a packet of currants, parchment papers holding spices, and even a small sack of white sugar. Catriona dipped a finger in the sugar to taste its sweetness, then glanced at Kenneth.

His dark eyes gleamed warm in the amber light. "Luck in the New Year to you, Catriona MacDonald," he said softly.

"Thank you," she whispered, her throat tightening. This man, a Fraser, had ridden a long way in foul weather to bring her a New Year's blessing. No one had ever done such a thing for her. She glanced away from his steady gaze uncertainly. "I will make you some food. It will cleanse the drink from your head."

He sighed, a half laugh. "No need. But I am hungry," he said. Catriona cooked oats and water in a kettle over the fire, stirred in thin slices of the roasted beef he had brought, and ladled the food into a wooden bowl, handing it to him with a wooden spoon.

"Will you not eat, too?" he asked. When she shook her head, he frowned. "When was the last time you ate a meal?" he asked. She shrugged; she wanted to bring his new gift of food to the children when the weather cleared, just as she had done with the other goods the Frasers had given her.

Kenneth scooped up a spoonful of porridge and offered it to her. She shook her head again. "
Ach
, girl, you cannot refuse my New Year's gift. You will offend me and bring ill luck to us both. Here, eat."

She leaned forward, and Kenneth touched the spoon to her lips, slipping the warm, salty oats inside. She swallowed, knowing he watched her, and felt a hot blush seep into her cheeks, and an intimate swirl ripple through her body. He offered her more. She shook her head, but he insisted, until she took the spoon from him and ate some. Kenneth finished the rest.

"There," he said. "That should bring us both some luck."

"I hope so," she said softly. "I need some luck."

"Believe me, girl, after being lost in that snowstorm, I am glad for the chance to bring some to you." He smiled a little.

She smiled, too, feeling oddly safe and peaceful then, as if he was not a stranger, or an enemy of her clan. She liked his smile, liked the quiet lilt in his voice, his gentle, teasing manner, and the bronze lights in his hair and his eyes. She liked the comforting weight of Fraser beef and oats in her stomach. Most of all, she was glad to have her loneliness eased on the first night of the year.

Kenneth looked toward the shuttered window, which trembled as the wind shoved it. "I cannot leave until the weather clears. May I sleep by your fire?"

"You are too weak to go anywhere. You may stay as long as you need. Cù sleeps by the fire, but he will make room for you."

"Cù? Dog? Where is it?" He glanced around the room.