A Laird for All Time

by Angeline Fortin

  Connor shrugged wanting to ask for an explanation, but not wanting to rile her up again. “Verra well, perhaps then ye’d like to join me sailing on the sound. I believe ye mentioned that ye had planned to do so on yer holiday. Maryland does have boats, I believe. Ye might be more familiar with them.”

  “You have a boat?” Emmy raised a brow in surprise as he nodded. “Where?”

  “I keep it docked in Craignure,” he told her. “The waters here are a bit shallow for a dock and the company there keeps it in good repair.”

  “How big is it?”

  “She’s a forty foot schooner. Excellent for short trips to the mainland and comfortable enough for a lady to enjoy. I have a small crew to navigate her so ye wouldn’t have to get your hands dirty,” he assured lest that be an issue for her. Given her usual approach to matters, he rather doubted it but didn’t want to take any chances. “What do ye say?”

  Emmy narrowed her eyes. “How would we get to the boat?”

  “We ride, of course,” his eyes twinkled with his response.

  “Hilarious,” she muttered. The footman finally arrived with their wine and Emmy gratefully took hers thinking she might become an alcoholic if she stayed here too long. A glass of red wine a night was supposed to be good for the heart, but she’d kill for a simple bottle of Dasani or better, God help her, a Diet Coke. Looking over the rim at Connor, she waited for a response, hoping that he was only joking. “Well?”

  He sighed mockingly and took his own drink as well. “I have a comfortable carriage we can use to transport us to Craignure.”

  “Then I accept,” she brightened and raised her glass with a smile.

  “I’m sure ye will find it most enjoyable.”

  “Well, I did want to get some sight-seeing in while I was here,” she reminded.

  “Aye, sight-seeing,” he parroted. The term was unfamiliar but self-explanatory, but again he was disturbed by the turns of speech and expressions she used when speaking. He didn’t think it was merely the American vernacular either. Clearly she was comfortable with the cadence of her words for she showed no hesitation in speaking or chagrin that her speech was low. There was no inkling of Scots left in her accent at all. It was most odd.

  Chapter 20

  “I have a question, if I might be so bold to ask it,” he started hesitantly wondering if he might be willfully destroying their truce by doing so.

  “Shoot.” She took a sip of her wine but glanced up at him when he remained silent, a slight frown puckering his forehead. “That means go ahead. Ask away.”

  “Yer speech patterns are most odd,” Connor offered and watched her brows rise in surprise. “I mean no offense,” he assured her quickly not wanting to prompt a fight between them.

  “None taken,” she said drily. “And? There has to be an ‘and’ there.”

  “And, I was wondering if all Americans speak as ye do.”

  “What is wrong with the way I talk?” Emmy inquired curiously. “I realize that it isn’t as melodic as your accent, but it is easily understandable where there are some people here who are barely intelligible.”

  “It is not yer accent, in itself, that I am asking about,” Connor corrected hedging a bit.

  “What is it then?”

  “It is more the way ye phrase things, the euphemisms you use.” He tried to explain. “The way ye say things is most unusual and often confusing.”

  Emmy understood easily. “That’s American slang for you, honey,” she drawled saucily in her best southern accent.

  “Slang?”

  “Yes and I know you know what slang is even if you don’t understand the word. Slang is a word or saying that is taken from pop…well, popular culture of the times to describe something else.” The definition was easy but she searched her mind for an example from his time. She snapped her fingers a couple times as she racked her brain. Aha! “Like rack your brains!” She smiled in triumph. “You know that one, I bet.”

  “I am familiar with the phrase, aye,” he nodded wondering where she was going.

  “Well, you are not actually putting your brains on the rack, literally, right?” He agreed. “That saying is like the slang of the medieval ages.”

  “Like ‘drawing the line’, for example,” Connor nodded again. “I see.”

  “So the way I talk is merely the result of the age and culture in which I live,” Emmy explained. “You see?”

  “I do,” he hummed into his wine. “It is unusually colorful, yer slang. I have wondered also about yer use of profanities. ‘Tis most unusual for a lady to curse so often.”

  “I do not!” Emmy protested looking honestly surprised.

  “Ye do,” Connor argued enjoying the look of dismay on her face. “Ye have said ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ on many occasions since arriving.”

  Emmy rolled her eyes dismissively. “Well, that doesn’t count. I mean, everyone uses those words all the time without even thinking about it. Shit, too. People say that so much I don’t think it even counts anymore. ‘Oh, shit!’ ‘Holy shit!’” she exclaimed not batting an eye as he stared at her in astonishment. “People say that all the time without thinking twice. But I don’t really swear, you know?”

  Connor was again torn between amusement and shock as he listened to her explanation. “What do ye consider really swearing?”

  “Well, I don’t take the Lord’s name in vain if I can help it and I try very hard not to use the f-word,” she responded defensively.

  “The f-word?” he questioned.

  “Oh, I know you know the f-word!” she flourished her finger at him. “Everyone for hundreds of years has known that word. Women generally dislike it as a descriptor for…well,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “sex.”

  “Ahh, that word!” Connor threw his head back and laughed. “Ye don’t like that word and what it infers?”

  “Tends to suck the romance right out of any situation,” she sniffed and turned her head away from him in annoyance feeling that humor was making fun of her in some way.

  Connor seized the moment to lean in and whisper in her ear. “Would ye rather make love? When ye get all hot and sweaty and come apart in my arms, will calling it ‘making love’ be enough to describe all we will feel together?”

  He traced a finger down the back of her neck as she gasped and stared up at him. A shaft of lust shot through her. Her hand shook and Connor took her glass from her before she dropped it setting both their glasses on a nearby table. His eyes dark with desire, he turned them away from the others in the room and looked down at her with that hot gaze.

  “When we come together,” he continued in his low brogue. “Don’t ye want me to fuck you, lass?” She gasped as he said the word, her lips parted and as shiny as if she had just licked them. He wanted to kiss her badly.

  Emmy gasped as the word came out with his accent nearly rhyming with ‘book’. With that intonation, the word lost all offensiveness. Instead she quivered inside. Still, closing her eyes in denial of the word, Emmy shook her head despite the heat that was rising within her. “Or,” he whispered his breath tickling her ear, “do ye want me to make love to ye?” He drew out the last four words with his deepest brogue and Emmy’s legs nearly collapsed under her.

  Clenching his arm, Emmy savored the images that flashed behind her closed eyes. She swallowed thickly and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Oh, Connor. My God!” she whispered hoarsely. “What you do to me.”

  “If it’s anything like what ye do to me, then we’re in trouble,” he guaranteed.

  “I always thought that having ‘weak knees’ was just a euphemism,” she admitted breathlessly, “but it’s really true. Sometimes I can barely stand when I am around you.”

  His dark eyes grew molten at her confession. “And sometimes parts of me stand too much when I am around ye.” His voice was low and gruff, but Emmy understood his meaning only too well.

  “Yup, we’re in trouble,” she confirmed and recovered her wine taking a long drink
and fanning herself with her hand. She noticed Dory and Ian approaching and smiled, thankful for the distraction. “Dory, you are looking so much better!” she enthused perhaps overmuch.

  Dory blushed and smiled running a hand over her large stomach now unfettered by the corset and covered with a much more suitable gown that was cut with several large pleats in the front to allow for her girth. Truthfully she now looked huge in comparison to her appearance just hours before. “I feel better,” the woman confessed. “The babies have been carrying on all afternoon. I had never imagined it could feel like this!”

  “Wonderful, isn’t it?” Emmy grinned.

  “Very much so now that I understand it,” the woman confessed. “Truly I wish you had come much sooner so I might have had a greater appreciation of what has been happening.”

  “I’ll remind you that you said that when your ankles are so swollen you can barely walk and your back is killing you,” Emmy teased.

  “She already has been doing that,” Ian said playfully earning a swat from his wife but he just kissed her cheek earning another blush from his wife. Connor looked on in amazement. Who would have thought Dory could unwind enough in public to allow a kiss from Ian without scolding him roundly for it? It was astonishing.

  “I want to thank you as well, my lady,” Ian continued taking Emmy’s hand earnestly, “for everything you have done for us and for our babies.”

  “And I thank you for the beautiful gown, despite the blackmail which accompanied it, but truly, I have done nothing,” Emmy protested.

  “Oh, but you have!” Dory argued taking Emmy’s other hand. “We both feel like you’ve made such a difference for us since you’ve been here. I can’t believe it’s only been a few days! It’s almost like truly having a sister again.”

  “Well, thank you,” Emmy murmured but Connor’s head was spinning. What did Dory mean by that? ‘Almost’ like having a sister? Again? Surely it was just a turn of phrase? Perhaps they hadn’t been close before Heather left?

  “I am just happy I can help,” Emmy offered unaware of the confusion that had staggered Connor’s mind.

  “I do hope that you will be here to help with the delivery?” Ian asked. “We wouldn’t have it any other way. Please say you’ll stay?’

  “Please, say you will,” Dory echoed. Emmy looked up at Connor with a questioning glance wondering at his opinion of their plea but he was staring at Dory with a frown again creasing his brow tapping his lips with a considering finger. He looked puzzled and Emmy wondered at the cause.

  Didn’t he want her to stay now? But perhaps this was the reason she was here! Maybe this was the whole point of this…this journey she had taken. In her past, maybe Dory did not survive the birth. Could that be it? Was that something like, Heaven forbid? God’s will that she come here to this time and place to save a woman’s life? Oh, she wanted to run up to her room and flip through her guidebook immediately to see if there was any mention of this family in particular. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Perhaps it was all there!

  “My lady?” Ian questioned jogging her back to the moment and she started with a smile.

  “I would be delighted to help in any way I can when the time comes.”

  “Thank you!” Dory smiled again and even reached over to hug her briefly. Emmy was startled but returned her embrace.

  “Ahh, there is Chilton to call us for dinner at last!” Dory announced. “I for one am famished! Shall we?”

  Ian held his arm out to his wife and they all looked at Connor expectantly. Connor however was lost in a study between Heather and Dory as he looked back and forth between them. They were the same height, same build. Excepting of Dory’s current condition, Dory had always been as slim as his Heather. Their features were identical, same mouth, nose and bright blue eyes. The smile currently lingering on Dory’s face made them almost impossible to tell them apart whereas her traditional scowl had made the difference before. Heather’s hair was a bit lighter with streaks of blond and she had those long sweeping bangs in the front, but other than that, they were the same. Absolutely the same. They had to be twins! There could be no other explanation. But the way Dory had said ‘almost’. It was eating at him, this curiosity. Why would she have said that?

  “Hello?” Emmy sang wagging a hand in front of his face. “Earth to Connor, are you there?”

  Connor blinked and stared down at her questioning expression. “Beg pardon?”

  “You were lost in space there for a minute,” she teased. “Welcome back. Did you have a nice trip?”

  “What?” he questioned as his brother and Dory laughed lightly.

  “Dinner, Connor,” Ian reminded him slapping him on the back.

  “Aren’t you going to lead me in?” Emmy asked taking his arm. “It is, like, your job, you know.”

  “Of course,” Connor put a hand over hers and led her from the room as all the others trailed behind him. Clearly they had all been waiting for him to come to his senses.

  “What were you thinking about?” Emmy asked curiously. “Because you were completely zoned.”

  “Zoned?” he asked.

  Emmy whistled and fluttered her fingers away from the side of her head. “Gone.”

  Indeed, he had been gone for a moment, he conceded. Distracted by the impossible confusion of his thoughts. “It was nothing, just business.”

  “Ahh, the old ‘just business’ excuse,” she teased as he sat her again to his right leaving the seat on the end once again vacant. This time Dory didn’t seem to mind as she seated herself next to Ian. “What kind of business?”

  “Ahhh,” he floundered.

  “Ye know, laird,” the old man sitting on Emmy’s other side leaned in, “I have been meaning to ask how the market went this year.”

  “The market?” Emmy questioned looking back and forth between the two men.

  “Aye,” the old man continued in his gravelly tones. “The cattle market in Glasgow. How was it?”

  Emmy looked again at Connor who seemed taken aback to be directly addressed, but she nudged him and gave him an encouraging nod. “Go ahead,” she mouthed.

  “Well, Uncle Innes,” he cleared his throat. Ahhh, Emmy thought, great-uncle Innes that was it! His grandmother’s brother. “We took almost four hundred head in this year.”

  “You raise cows?” she asked.

  “Only the best beef cattle in all of Scotland, lass,” Innes corrected in his gravelly tones. “Best there is! Lad here has more than tripled the herd these past five years. Sheep, too. In my day, we dinna raise a third of what the laird does now.”

  “Really?” She turned to Connor and nudged him again with her elbow. “Tell me more.”

  Connor cleared his throat again hesitantly but it wasn’t long before he was actively engaged in conversation. Soon most of the men at their end of the table joined Innes in the discussion. His other great-uncle Alistair who was his grandfather’s youngest brother, his uncle Robert and cousin Nab. The lively exchange soon had those seated at the other end of the table looking on in amazement as they watched the laird laugh and debate with his kin.

  Emmy slouched back in her chair – Dory did not even bother to raise a brow – and watched it all with a satisfied smile. Connor laughed and argued the finer points of livestock with his family. She could see his surprise when the younger men expressed an interest in taking a more active part in the work of the estate that was clearly much larger than Emmy had imagined. The home farm and range where the cattle and sheep were housed were over a mile away on a large acreage that covered most of the southern end of Mull. Interesting what one could learn when they had a chance to listen.

  The women spent a while longer without the men in the parlor that night but could hear the shouts and conversation of the men occasionally over their own chatter in the parlor. Instead of finding refuge the piano once again, Emmy was drawn into a conversation with the younger ladies, cousins of Connor’s, and Dory on proper prenatal care. Gladys, who was married
to Connor’s cousin Gregor, admitted that she was also in a delicate condition - here Emmy had to roll her eyes - and wondered about how best to have an easy pregnancy. The youngest, Nora, who had just recently wed young Nab who had been debating Connor over dinner, sat eyes wide open and listened in awe and trepidation.

  By the time the men joined them, Emmy was more relaxed than she had been in days. As she watched Connor saunter in her direction, she thought he was as well, perhaps not just in days but months or even years. He turned to make a comment to Innes who slapped him on the back as he passed and Connor smiled. It was a full smile of happiness, Emmy thought. No wryness or cynicism. Just happiness. “Look at you,” she commented lightly as he took a seat beside her. “You keep this up people might think that you actually are a friendly, humorous man.”

  He took her hand and raised it to his lips. Placing a warm kiss to her palm, he looked into her eyes. “Thank ye,” he said simply.

  Emmy shrugged and smiled. “Me? I didn’t do anything. I told you if you just lightened up a bit everyone wouldn’t be so afraid of you. Of course, now you’ll have to deal with everyone getting all up in your business all the time. Pestering you.”

  Connor closed his eyes and groaned. “Much thanks!”

  “That’s more like it,” she grinned and squeezed his fingers. “You’ve got a pretty decent family here, Connor.”

  He looked around the room and nodded. “They’ll do.”

  “High praise.” She released his hand and patted his knee. “Well, my work here is done I think.”

  Connor caught her hand as she stood. “Where are ye off to?”

  “To bed, I think.”

  “It’s early yet,” he argued trying to pull her back down beside him.

  Emmy sighed and stared down at his handsome face. “Well, you see, I didn’t sleep too well last night, or the night before for that matter. It’s been a long day and I’m just tired. Will you forgive me for giving in so early?”