A Laird for All Time

by Angeline Fortin

  “There is much about ye that is a mystery, my…” the corner of his mouth jerked up again in an appealing lopsided grin. “My apologies, I shall strive to withhold my endearments as ye requested.”

  “Endearments?” Emmy laughed softly and sipped again of her wine. “You do know that you actually have to like someone to have it be called that, don’t you?”

  His grin took a devilish edge. “There are many levels of liking. In fact, I seem to have developed an entirely new liking for ye that I never had before.” The heat flared in his eyes and the soft brogue of his deep voice caused shivers to shoot down Emmy’s spine. “Truly,” he continued running a finger down her bare arm, “I’d verra much like to…”

  “My lord,” Dorcas said sharply interrupting his thought, “I can see you have not noticed that Chilton has called dinner. Perhaps you would care to lead dear Heather in?”

  “As the lord of my own home, I believe my dinner could have waited another moment, Dorcas, until my conversation was finished,” he responded in equal tones. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck before offering an arm to Emmy. “My lady? May I?”

  Emmy took his arm silently and let him lead her toward the dining room some ways away, but could not control the question for long. “Don’t like each other much, do you?”

  Connor sighed as much at the question as her unusual phrasing. “Honestly no, we have never been truly amiable to each other.”

  “A simple ‘never have, never will’ probably covers it, huh?”

  A sharp, rusty laugh of surprise escaped him once again. “Indubitably.”

  “Why don’t you get along?” she was unable to stop the question that followed.

  “Perhaps because facing her everyday has been a constant reminder of the humiliations ye once served me,” he voice was low and pleasant but the flash of anger in his eyes told another story.

  As they entered the dining room, Connor bypassed the chair at the foot of the table and propelled Emmy forward to seat her at his right hand. Though Emmy saw no problem with this, displeasure showed clearly on Dorcas’ face. Other places were taken around the table leaving the foot unoccupied before Emmy figured out why. “Shouldn’t I be sitting down there if I am supposed to be your wife?” she asked.

  “I cannot converse with ye way down there and feel no need to entertain anyone else.” He signaled the waiting servants for the service to begin. “And, alas, I feel that I must try to speak with ye.”

  Emmy waited as a footman placed her napkin in her lap and stepped back before leaning toward him. “Well, don’t put yourself out there if it hurts so much,” she murmured drily.

  Connor did not answer but looked around the table and Emmy followed his gaze, watching his family take their seats and chat with one another. None tried to address Connor directly. She wondered at that. Why would no one speak to him? Was he really such a bear that no one dared?

  Shaking her head, Emmy looked down at her elaborate place setting. She realized she only knew what to do with about fifty-percent of the forks, maybe three-quarters of the spoons. Why did she need three glasses? She had been to plenty of formal dinners throughout medical school and during her interviewing process but none of those up-scale restaurants had been as sophisticated as this. She glanced around the table to get a clue about where to start. Giving up, she decided to work from the outside in and hope for the best.

  Leaning toward Connor so her words wouldn’t carry down the table, she suggested, “How about we talk about why you are having this big formal dinner when it is crystal clear that you hate every moment of it?”

  Connor started at the question. He turned to her to find her gorgeous face just inches away. The strong beauty of her features nearly took his breath away. Strangely again he didn’t remember her being so lovely although Dorcas was there each day as a reminder. She was waiting expectantly for a response to her question, which in the face of her splendor he could not remember. “My apologies, what did ye say?”

  Emmy forked up a large piece of her first course and savored the buttery flavor of the fish. “You don’t like the clothes and fancy dinner,” she said around the mouthful. “It’s painfully obvious. So why do you do it?”

  Connor’s face hardened. The warm look that had darkened his eyes only moments before vanished to a hard glint. “My dear wife, ye more than anyone should know why I do all this.”

  Emmy temper spiked and her eyes flashed. “Pretending once again, that I am not your Heather, why don’t you humor me?” Her voice was hard and uncompromising.

  The temper flaring in her eyes was arousing beyond belief, but Connor was determined to crush any attraction he felt for this woman who had betrayed him so long ago. “I believe one of yer greatest complaints about Duart was that we were a hoard of uncultured heathens who couldn’t even dine properly. Seemingly we weren’t refined enough for ye.”

  Pity stabbed through her chest. “You suffer through all of this...every night? Just to prove that you’re not a heathen to someone who hasn’t even been around to notice?” Emmy stabbed her fork into her food and lifted it waving it at him as a governess waved her finger. “Connor MacLean you have baggage, my friend. Serious baggage.”

  “Baggage?” he echoed. His flash of anger faded at her curious statement.

  “Deep, dark, serious, emotional baggage.”

  “Enlighten me. What is baggage?”

  “You know, all those scarred, debilitating moments that you are carrying around you and allowing rule of your life.” She waved the fork again. “Baggage.” Emmy took a sip of wine. “You need to let it go, honey.”

  “Let it go?” Let it go? The words echoed in Connor’s mind. She wanted him, if he understood her implication well enough, to just forget what had happened between them? That day had been a defining moment in his life. The moment when he had gone from being a happy-go-lucky youth to the man he was today. How was one to simply ‘let it go’?

  Instead of allowing himself to slide easily into the anger that such a blasé approach to his degradation would normally have caused, Connor reined himself in. He spent the next four courses silently pondering her statement and her person as well. Heather had changed these past ten years. She had gone from a haughty girl to an introspective, if somewhat pedestrian, woman. The lass didn’t even use the correct forks or eat like most women he knew. Meaning she actually ate and with gusto. Occasionally she made comments with a full mouth. She was common and familiar in her speech and had lost all refinement in her accent adopting that flat American intonation though there was a trace of what he knew was the accent of their southern states as well.

  And she pried into his private matters as if it was a normal event to speak of them.

  And he found it all…charming, he thought with surprise.

  From the expectant glances she occasionally sent him, she expected some sort of response to her advice, if it could be called that. In spite of her casual attitude to their shared past, she did not seem interested in raising his ire. Rather she was merely curious about why he still ‘carried’ it with him. Like baggage. Hmm, he thought. It was an interesting analogy.

  “Heather?” he asked in a low voice that carried no further than to her. “How does one ‘let it go’, as you so charmingly put it?”

  She did not answer immediately or flippantly as he would have expected, but instead responded an almost scholarly way, “There are many schools of thought on this subject, Connor. Unfortunately, I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist…I did not enjoy that aspect of medicine a great deal, but I would have to say in most cases it all boils down to one simple truth. A key.”

  Dorcas motioned for the ladies to retire and Emmy was forced to stand as the footman pulled back her chair. Connor rose and caught her arm before she could turn away. “And what is the key?”

  “Forgiveness, Connor,” she answered softly and left the room holding her skirts up a bit too far in front of her so she wouldn’t trip on them.

  Connor sat down
hard in his chair and leaned back, stunned. Taking a long pull on the whiskey that had been poured for him – he had never liked port despite Dorcas’s insistence that it be served to the gentlemen following dinner – Connor tried to ponder the idea. Forgiveness. Could it truly be so simple?

  Surely not!

  Chapter 9

  Emmy wandered around the smaller family parlor as the ladies chatted with one another. The men had not yet returned to the parlor but were instead enjoying port and cigars after dinner, Dorcas had explained when asked. Emmy did not know Connor too well, but hoped he was not in there smoking. Just the thought almost made her nauseous. She shuddered. Lord, she hoped not!

  Surveying the parlor, Emmy noted the ladies had broken apart and were seated in several different groups, drinking more tea. One of the younger cousins was playing the grand piano in the corner while another picked at a nearby harp. The softly played music was a pleasant backdrop to the buzz of conversation.

  Though given many curious stares, no one tried to engage her in conversation. Not surprising but, wondering what a Victorian woman talked about in her spare time, Emmy drew closer to a group to listen. One of the older ladies, Connor’s aunt Millie, she thought, was relating a story of her youth and mentioning how her mother had died when Millie was just sixteen. “It was difficult enough when she died but even more so entering into marriage with no mother to explain how things should be.”

  “What did she die of, Millie?” Emmy asked curiously wondering in an academic way what the causes of death were to young women in the nineteenth-century.

  “I beg your pardon?” The older woman asked twisting to face Emmy.

  “I’m sorry,” Emmy apologized. “I wasn’t trying to be rude. I was just curious about the cause of her death. I’m sure it must have been hard on you, losing your mom. I know because my mom died when I was nineteen. She had breast cancer.”

  The ladies’ gossip all fluttered to a halt as a flock they turned to Emmy. “I know,” she nodded feeling all their eyes on her, “it was terrible. She had to have a double mastectomy early on.” Brows drew together on several ladies’ faces. “She had both breasts removed,” she explained quickly drawing more gasps. “Years of chemo and treatments, but in the end…”

  “I’m sorry dear, I must have misunderstood you. What did you say?” Aunt Millie asked raising a hand to halt Emmy’s detailing of her mother’s cancer treatments.

  “I said my mother died of breast cancer and had both breasts removed,” Emmy repeated in a loud slow voice wondering if the woman was hard-of-hearing.

  A low murmur went around the room, the music stopped and Millie fanned herself frantically. Puzzled, Emmy frowned at them. “What? Oh, I know breast cancer used to have this shameful taboo about it, not to be talked about, but we are all modern women, aren’t we?” She waved her hand dismissively but remembered that as recently as the 1950’s and 60’s that breast cancer had been a subject rarely discussed. It had once been considered ridiculously shameful or some such nonsense, she recalled now.

  A hush settled and Emmy turned to see their attention on Connor standing in the doorway. He cocked his finger at her signaling she should follow him out of the room. Still oddly intrigued by the upset in the room Emmy followed him out the door.

  Connor took her by the elbow and ushered her farther down the hall until they were out of earshot. Leaning back against the wall, Emmy watched with some amusement as he tried to figure out what to say. “My dear, I understand that you have been away for some time, perhaps even away from polite society for that time, but surely you haven’t forgotten how to make civil conversation?”

  “It’s a disease, Connor, nothing more shocking than that. I know it used to be kept a secret like there was some personal shame in being inflicted but really,” she humored him.

  “I do not believe it was your reference to the disease in and unto itself that has upset them,” he rebuked her casual absurdity.

  “What? Breast cancer…Breast? This isn’t about some absurd Victorian sensibility about body parts, is it?” Emmy joked thinking he could not be seriously disturbed by such a thing.

  “This is no laughing matter, Heather,” he waved her off as she started to deny the name. “A lady converses upon the weather and social events. I cannot have you speaking of such crudities in front of the ladies of this house.”

  “Crudities? How can you even say that? It isn’t a crudity; it is a body-part, a breast!”

  “Heather!”

  Emmy cupped her breasts in her own hands and insisted, “Breasts, Connor. Body parts. Basic anatomy.”

  “Heather, I am warning you…”

  “I am not Heather! I am Emmy MacKenzie and I am a doctor, an OB for crying out loud! A breast is a breast is a breast and I’ll be damned if I’m going to pussyfoot around basic anatomy to cater to the ‘tender sensibilities’ of a bunch of women who need to get out and get a life!” she snapped right back at him.

  “You will stop this!” he barked.

  Emmy glared at him for a brief moment and then rolled her eyes. “Breast, breast, breast, breast….” she childishly chanted as she rocked her head back and forth with each syllable. “Breast, breast, breast….”

  My God, she was exasperating, Connor thought, difficult, a wee bit annoying and utterly delicious in her indignation. When had she begun to be so outspoken? And to keep saying it over and over? Each reiteration of the word in question focused his attentions away from the offense to the ladies of his house and more entirely on the aforementioned body part still cupped in her hands. Her breasts cupped in her own hands. The word pounded through his head. “Breast, breast…” Her breasts were magnificent, he thought. Large, full and ripe.

  What he wanted were those breasts in his own hands. Without conscious thought, he reached for them.

  Emmy squawked to a halt as Connor’s big hands cupped her breasts roughly. He pushed her up against the wall pinning her there with his body as his fingers massaged her. Stunned, she let the heat of his caress flood through her and heedlessly leaned into him. Staring down into her wide-eyed surprise, Connor was shocked by his actions, but more so by her acceptance. She did not protest. Indeed her eyes grew warm and her hands covered his as they massaged her. He pressed against her more fully, reveling in the contact of their hips and thighs. Nuzzling her neck, Connor inhaled savoring the intoxicating perfume she wore. Most women he knew wore the scent of a single extract, roses, lavender, but her scent was an exotic blend of citrus, floral and spice, light and heady. Complex, just as she was.

  Connor leaned back and met her eyes once more, recognized her arousal and his own. She licked her lips as if to prepare for his kiss and suddenly he wanted nothing more. “Heather, my love,” he whispered huskily.

  Harsh reality settled on Emmy as she realized what he said and where they were. What was she thinking? She couldn’t believe she was allowing a near stranger to fondle her and in a hallway where anyone could see them as well! Granted it had been years since she had been held in strong male arms, years she since had felt desire. With this man, she felt it in spades and wanted oh so badly to be wrapped in his strength, to feel his passion. Madness! He thought her his wife absent these past ten years! He didn’t want her, he wanted his Heather!

  Emmy drew in a shaky breath. Shifting away slightly, she wedged out of his arms and turned to him avoiding his eyes now as embarrassment washed over her. “Well, that was ummm….” Words couldn’t describe. “Well then we’re agreed, I guess. I won’t say words that disturb other people and you won’t…do what you were doing.” Her eyes drifted over the ceiling, walls, anywhere but him. “Agreed? Umm…good. Good night then,” Emmy backed away to the stairs before turning to flee up them.

  She didn’t look back until she reached the top. Pausing to glance over her shoulder, she found him waiting at the bottom of the stairs, one foot on the lowest tread as if he were going to follow. When their eyes met, Emmy was burned by the passion she read there. She hesitated
. She could feel his want and desire even from the distance. Years of loneliness washed over her, and she knew she wanted him as well. She could either open her arms to it and embrace it or run like the nervous chicken that quivered inside her.

  She ran.

  Once in her room, Emmy flung herself on the bed in a tangle of skirts and, closing her eyes, moved her hands to where his were moments ago. Her breasts felt swollen and tingling, her lust was high and aching and she knew that for the first time in her life that she’d be willing to have sex with a man she’s just met. This is where one-night stands came from, she thought. This kind of insanity.

  But then, she couldn’t imagine one mere night satisfying the desire she felt. Emmy pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes and groaned. “I am such a fool!” Connor didn’t want her, Emmy, he wanted his wife. Oh, but she wanted him more than she had ever wanted a man, more than she could ever have imagined wanting a man. Right or wrong, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to fight it.

  Outside her door from their shared parlor, Connor paused with his hand raised, ready to knock. This was madness, he thought as he drew his hand back in a frustrated fist. He shouldn’t want her so badly! Where was his anger? Where was the wrath that had burned within him these past ten years? He had chased her across continents when she had fled, not because he had loved her but rather because he had wanted to bring her back here and publicly divorce her. He had wanted her humiliation in exchange for his. He wanted to watch her suffer as he once did.

  Where was that vengeance now? Lost in the face of overwhelming lust? When he had seen Heather at his front gates yesterday, he would have thought that he would gladly put her to a trial by fire for her sins of the past. Instead, he had lifted her into his arms, stared down into her lovely face and felt…sorry that he had frightened her. He had wanted insanely to protect her and had been more angered by himself than her in that moment.