A Laird for All Time (19 page)

Sunlight pierced his eyelids and forced Connor to reluctant consciousness.  Groaning, he covered his eyes with a forearm.  Pain unlike any he could remember lanced through his temples and his stomach rolled unpleasantly.  An inventory of other sensations reminded him that he was in his own bed at Duart after being supported by Ian through an excruciating trip from Craignure made longer by several necessary stops along the way.  Chilton had aided his brother in practically carrying Connor up the stairs before depositing him unceremoniously in his bed.  Their mutual disapproval was obvious from the fact that they had left him in his clothes on top of the covers.

“You’re an idiot, you know?”

Connor peeked out from under his arm to find Emmy in the doorway with her arms folded in disapproval.  By God, she looked lovely!  Her silk dressing gown clung to the curve of her hips and pulled tightly across her breasts above her folded arms.  How could he ever have imagined that anyone could provide equal substitute for her?  Words leaped to his lips but he swallowed them down.

That Connor was back safely brought Emmy a measure of relief, but also a rise of irritation.  She wanted to pounce on him and demand to know what he had been thinking when he’d left.  For a full week she had wondered and worried, tormented by images of his bloody demise.  When she had been awoken the previous night to find Ian and Chilton hauling Connor into his room, she had considered offering her aid until the stench of him had assaulted her senses.  Drunk!  Totally shot.  Shit-faced, her college friends would have called it and they would have been right.  He had left her to go on a weeklong bender!  “What?  Nothing to say?”

“I apologize?”

“For what?”  She tapped her foot impatiently.  An apology was worthless if it meant nothing to him.  Even more so if he didn’t know what she was angry about.

“I apologize f
or disappearing for so long wi’out sending word.”  Connor kept his voice low in pitch.   Every word pounded in his head  and he would rather have not gone to the effort of speaking at all but he realized that Emmy would not be put off.

“Apology accepted.  And?”

His mind scattered and grasped.  “I apologize for returning home in such a sorry state.  I drank excessively and did go to a brothel…” he admitted, thinking Ian would have told her.  That her brows rose in shock told him that Ian had remained discreet on that point.  “I dinnae sleep wi’ another woman,” he clarified quickly.  “I admit that I had planned to, but knew within moments of getting there that I could ne’er do it.”

“Why not?” she asked, her voice tight and cool to hide the pain his confession had brought.  The thought of him laying a mere finger on another woman made her stomach clench unpleasantly.  “You have no obligation to me.”

His eyes met hers for a long moment and spoke volumes.  “Aye, I do.”

Her heart soared at the look in his eyes and his simple confession.  But he couldn’t be forgiven that easily, could he?  Keeping her expression cool, she considered him before nodding.  “Very well, then.  Apology accepted.  And?”

And?  He grappled for the additional apology she was plainly searching for.  He could not think of what she wanted from him though his mind was not functioning as efficiently as it might normally.  Connor thought it through as thoroughly as his physical state allowed.  Apology given and accepted for leaving and not sending word.  Likewise for the drunken state he had arrived in.  What else?  “I apologize…for…umm . . .” he trailed off.

“How about for all the heartache you have caused me and your family this past week?” she shot out as she crossed the room.  “For the hours of worrying and wondering whether you were dead or alive?”  She slapped his chest with each word that followed: “You.  Scared.  The.  Shit.  Out.  Of.  Me!”

Connor stared at her in astonishment.  She was angry because he had made her worry?  Because she had feared for his safety?  It was humbling to realize that his actions could so affect the emotions of another person.  Another implication struck him then.  Emmy wouldn’t have worried for him, and it had never occurred to him that she would do so, unless she cared for him.  To what extent he wasn’t sure, but that knowledge brought a warmth to him.  He grasped her hand before she could hit him again and cradled it against his chest.  “I apologize most sincerely for worrying ye.  I ha’ ne’er had anyone care when I left in the past.  It ne’er occurred to me to send word or assurances to ye when no one has ever asked that of me before.”

Feeling the sincerity of his words, Emmy rose and went to the door.  “Apology accepted.  Don’t do it again.”

“Wait!” Connor called and then let out a groan as a shaft of agony lanced through his temples.  He pressed his palms against his forehead as if he could physically force out the pain.

Emmy returned to the door a moment later carrying two glasses, one of water, he thought, and the other containing a large quantity of reddish liquid.  “Here, hold out your hand.”  He did so and she placed two objects in his palm.  They were brownish red and small.  He had no idea what they were.  He looked up at her questioningly.  “Put them in your mouth, don’t chew them.  Just swallow them down with this.  Chug it all.”

With complete faith, he tossed them into his mouth and followed them with a mouthful of the liquid.  Appalled by the taste, he tried to pull back but she tipped up the glass and forced him to finish it or pour it down his shirt.  “What the devil was that?” he sputtered when it was gone.

“Hair of the dog that bit you,” she told him matter-of-factly.  “It’s called a ‘red eye’ or as close as I could get with what was available here.  Tomato juice, beer, and an Indian spice I found in your cupboard since you didn’t have any Tabasco.  Oh, and a raw egg.”

“Ye’re jesting,” he rasped but, while he saw humor in her eyes he knew that it was truth she spoke.  “Ye’re nae jesting.”

“Good for what ails you,” she teased.  “I was going to have you drink the juice from a jar of pickles, but your cook wouldn’t let me have it.”  Noting the disbelief written clearly on his face, she laughed.  “It’s an old Dutch cure.  I’m surprised you didn’t know that one.”

“Normally I just ha’ strong coffee.”

“Oh, no!”  Emmy shook her head.  “Coffee is one of the worst things for a hangover.  The caffeine is a vasoconstrictor.  It shrinks the blood vessels and only makes your head hurt more.”

“Really?”

She nodded.  “Before you can ask, the pills were Advil.  A
painkiller.  Should help.  Now for this.  Drink up.”

Connor gulped the
water, which felt cool and refreshing as it went down.  His head spun suddenly and he sank back down weakly.  Emmy took the glass into the bathroom and returned with it refilled, placing it gently on the table beside his bed.  “I recommend as much water as possible.  It will help with the dehydration.”  She bent over and placed a kiss on his forehead and withdrew wrinkling her nose.  “Get some more rest; you should be fine when you wake up.  Then take a shower and eat something.  Juice, like orange juice would be best.”

“Aye, doctor.”

A smile tilted the corner of her lips as she looked back over her shoulder at him.  “You really are a complete idiot, you know?” she told him, though her voice was strangely affectionate.

“I know,” he returned as she shut the door behind her.  He lay for a moment in the silence thinking how nice it was to have a person care for you and take care of you.  The last person he could remember coming to his aid so tenderly was his mother, before she had become ill and taken to her own bed.  She would sit at his bedside when he was ill and comfort him with gentle words and a cool hand.  He must have been only seven or eight years old the last time.  Emmy’s bedside manner was more chiding, less tolerant, but comforting and loving nonetheless.  God, he loved that woman.

Perhaps he should tell her.

Was it worth taking a chance?

The little battery symbol on her iPhone had lost another notch, Emmy thought miserably.  Just two bars remained before her one viable link to her time would be gone…or at least nonfunctional.  Not true, she admitted, there was still her camera but this loss of connection…she was feeling the inevitability deeply.  No more music.  It was a tragedy.

Emmy MacKenzie was a fan of music without bias to genre or era.  Old or new from classical to country, she loved it all.  The playlists on her iPod reflected her eclectic tastes.  All the greats were there, maybe some not so great but all loved for what they offered to the history of music.  It was the reason she had pursued the piano and guitar aside from her mother’s reasons.  When it came to her favorite pastimes, the only thing better to Emmy’s mind than hearing music was making it.

She was perched on what was quickly becoming her favorite rock on the pebbled beach northwest of the castle.  Knees drawn to her chest, hair down and loose and rippling in the breeze.  Soon it might be too cold to stay out long like this, she thought, hugging her arms tightly around her calves.  Her ear buds piped a musical montage to the crashing of the waves against the beach and the cry of the gulls.  The Bee Gees blended into the Black-Eyed Peas and away to the Doors.  It was the soundtrack of life.  Every song brought a feeling, a memory.  What would she do when it was gone?

In the distance, a small fishing boat was making its way down the coastline.  She shivered, thinking how chilly it must be out there today.  It was the first of November.  Ironically, the Styx song
‘Boat on the River’ came on and Emmy had to smile.

“Emmy!”  A voice broke through the music and Emmy started, turning and pulling the white cords from her ears as she did so. 

“I called yer name several times,” Connor mentioned casually as he took a seat beside her.  He wanted to comment on the reappearance of the object that had prompted their argument a week ago but decided against it.  How could he think of fighting her when she looked so lovely?  Her hair unbound and rippling in the breeze, she looked like a young lass this day. “Ye must ha’ been lost in thought.  Or ha’ ye changed yer name again and willnae answer to the one ye said ye wanted?”

His voice was teasing so Emmy decided to assume he meant the comment in that light.  “I was just thinking,” she answered.  “You look much better.”

“I feel much better, thanks to ye.  I’ve ne’er recovered so quickly from my excesses before.”  There were dozens of questions tearing through his mind, all begging for answers.  “Ye’re a good doctor.  Ye must be successful.”

Her low husky laughter flowed through him as she threw back her head and laughed freely.  Tossing her hair, she tucked it behind one ear.  “Oh, Connor!”

“What do ye find so amusing?”

“I didn’t learn that at medical school!” she chuckled.  She assumed a professorial tone.  “It is an ancient remedy long employed by millions of college students across America, usually shortly after their first frat party.”

“Let me understand, ye’ve employed such a tonic yourself?”

“Many times, though not recently.”

She’d had a habit of drinking heavily?  He stared at her, sure that his eyes were wide with astonishment.  Ladies of his acquaintance imbibed lightly and rarely.  Connor had never before met a woman who had admitted to intoxication let alone public intoxication if his interpretation of ‘party’ was correct.  But then, he had already conceded to himself she was not a lady in the strictest definition of the word, though her professional calling was noble if not genteel.  “Well, however ye came to be familiar wi’ the cure for my infirmity, I thank ye.”

“No problem.”

They sat in awkward silence for a moment, staring out over the water. Each wondered what the other was thinking, wondered who would be first to break the uncomfortable moment. Emmy wanted very much to gloss over his actual absence…he had confirmed and apologized for his idiocy and Emmy wasn’t one to beat an issue to death.  It had never done any good to rehash an argument again and again and she was inclined to let the subject lie.  However, the whys of his departure concerned her the most.  She was curious what had prompted it and what had finally made him decide to accept her identity.  That was twice now he had called her by her name and she wondered at the mechanism that had gained his acceptance.

Connor could feel the force of her unspoken questions.  She would want answers, he knew.  Emmy just wasn’t the type of person to accept words or actions she would consider unjustified.  She was not a docile, meek woman.  She did not allow manly edict to be laid down;
she demanded logical and reasonable requests if she were to follow them.  As Ian had noted, she would not be told what to do.  Though, in truth, it was a quality he found most attractive in her personality.  He felt it was a reflection of her self-confidence and intelligence.

Given that intelligence, Connor knew that if he laid out a coherent ex
planation of his actions, she would analyze it in the same vein and respond based on reason and not pure emotion.  Whether her conclusion would fall in his favor or not, he was uncertain.  But before he tackled that matter, there was one explanation he felt he was owed.  “Emmy,” he began, thinking her preferred name suited her in its comfortable informality, “is it truly possible that yer arrival here was a simple coincidence?”

Emmy turned her head and regarded him over her crossed arms.  It was a simple question but the answer was not nearly so straightforward.  She could not plainly say she had no idea how she had come to be here - and now – so she strove to be as honest as she could without revealing too much yet.  “I came to the UK for a vacation
…holiday.”

“The UK?”

“United Kingdom,” she clarified and he nodded, encouraging her to continue.  “It was meant to be a ten-day trip from London to Edinburgh and over here to Mull.  Duart is one of the best preserved examples of medieval architecture and I’m fond of the architecture of that period, so here, Edinburgh Castle, St. Paul’s, Westminster…that kind of thing.  That I arrived at your front door on the day I did, appearing as I did for the purpose of your personal history is, yes, a coincidence.”

Connor studied her expression for a moment.  There was honesty there.  Truth.  But there was something else.  Something more that she was withholding.  He wanted to know what it was but sensed that any attempts at coercion would be met in a similar fashion  as his previous try.  Besides, verbal sparring was not on his agenda for the day, not only because he did not wish to argue with her, but his head wasn’t feeling that good just yet.  “Thus far then, ye seem content with remaining at Duart despite having no true connection to its occupants.”

“I wouldn’t use the word content,” Emmy responded lightly, “but you would be right in saying that I haven’t been in a hurry to leave.”  It was an evasive answer and Connor recognized it as such.  How to pry the truth from her?

“Is there any particular reason ye’re in no hurry?” he asked tentatively.

A soft smile curved her lips as she studied him.  Fishing, she thought.  God, she just loved him, insecurities and all.  He just wanted her to say it, didn’t want to be the one to say it first…well, again.  She could just put him out of his misery, if that’s what it was.  But what if her thoughts that he hadn’t meant it proved to be true?

“There are several reasons I am still here,” she began.  “The most basic would be that I truly feel that Dory will need real help in delivering her babies and that I can provide that.  She is becoming like a sister to me in a sense probably because it is hard to look at her and not feel an affinity toward her.  This past week, we have become close and I find that I want to help her, not only because it is my job but because I care for her.”

Reasonable and logical, just as he had predicted.  A ghost of a smile hovered on his lips.  “And another?”

Emmy bit her lower lip nervously.  “This thing between us, Connor, it is real, isn’t it?  Despite the absurdly short amount of time we have known each other, it feels like I’ve known you my entire life.  I know how you think.  I bet I can tell you better than you could explain it why you left last week.  Unless you’ve managed to completely fool me and I’ve read everything wrong, I know you.  I hope I am not such a fool that I could be so thoroughly snowed.”

“Snowed?”

“Duped, bamboozled, hornswoggled.”  She read his face and eyes, seeing only affection and humor.  Surely he was not so Machiavellian that he could dupe her so entirely.  “Have I been?”

“Snowed?”  He hesitated, then slowly shook his head.  “Nay, my love, ye’ve nae.”  Connor caressed her cheek lightly.  “It is real, this attraction between us.  In truth, it is the verra reason for my persistent insistence that ye were Heather.  Once I had admitted to myself the possibility that yer story, however unlikely, might be true, anyway.  If ye were Heather, then as Dory’s sister there were grounds for yer continued presence at Duart.  If ye were nae, ye would ha’ cause, even impetus, to leave.  I dinnae want that.”

“You wanted me to stay?”

“I still want ye to stay, though, I suppose we must reveal the truth to the others and assign ye other chambers for propriety’s sake,” he added regretfully.

“Let’s not jump the gun on that just yet,” Emmy was prompted to respond.  “Other than Ian and Dory, no one knows yet and I don’t think they need to.  And if Dory can handle us being
roomed next to each other knowing the truth then I think we’re okay for now.  Unless there is another reason to move me?”

“Such as?”

Emmy twisted her lips, reluctant to put voice to her fear.  “Perhaps you would rather not…encourage my affections or give me reason to think there is more between us?”

“What are ye trying to say?”

“I am trying to figure out if you just want to sleep with me or if you want more than that.  That maybe a couple rounds in the sack will be enough for you.”  She looked away down the coast.

Tenderly, Connor grasped her chin and turned her back to face him.  “Ye’re trying to discern whether I just think ye’re ‘a piece of ass’, I believe yer phrasing was or whether I care more fully for ye.”  It was not a question.  Either she was an open book or he knew her as well as she knew him.  “If ye will think back to the disagreement we had prior to my departure, I believe ye’ll find that ye had the right of it before.”

Emmy didn’t pretend to misunderstand him.  “I thought that you might have regretted the words when you left so quickly or that you hadn’t meant it at all.  A slip of the tongue or something.”

“Is your glass truly ever half-empty?” he chuckled.  “Let me make myself clear then, though I put myself at yer tender mercies in doing so
…ye’ve won, my love.  I am defeated.  I love ye, Emily MacKenzie.  Ye’re a fascinating, intelligent woman.”  He stroked her cheek once more and looked down at her exquisite face.  “I felt so right from the moment I first saw ye and it has little to do with yer body - lovely as it is.”

Emmy closed her eyes and turned into his palm, covering his hand with her own and savoring the moment.  Other than her mother, no one had ever before told her that they loved her, well, discounting Billy Everson in the 2nd grade.  How brilliant it felt!  Satisfying, intoxicating!  Her chest ached with emotion.  “Oh, Connor!  I am so glad to hear you say that!”

“Because?” he prompted softly.

Emmy opened her eyes and met his gaze.  She saw the stress and uncertainty there and knew she could not leave him hanging.  “Because love is best when returned and, Connor, I love you.  You are maddening and aggravating and challenging
…”

“Why thank ye,” he offered acerbically.

“But,” she drawled, taking his hand in hers, “I love that you madden me and aggravate me and challenge me.  You make me think and make me feel in ways I have never done before.  You make me
feel
.  I have had an ache in my chest since I met you, a heartache at the thought of losing you.  I don’t know what I would have done if it was completely one-sided.”

“Unrequited love is said to be a most horrible state and I will admit that I had many fears that such a fate might be my own.  Having been rejected once before had made me hesitant to allow any vulnerability.
  Much as I wanted ye, I dinnae want these feelings and had even considered that we might enjoy each other wi’out emotional attachment.  Once I realized my feelings, I even thought to deny them.  While I might feel as I did, I had no intention of revealing myself to ye in fear that my feelings might nae be reciprocated,” he confessed.

“It’s hard to take a chance on love,” she agreed.  “I doubt I ever would have said anything if you had not been stronger and braver than me and done it first.”

“It is a man’s burden.”

“Let’s not go there, Connor,” she teased.  “Where I am from, women propose to men all the time.”

He looked horrified.  “Ne’er say so!”

“Okay, I won’t
,” she teased.  “That’s why you left?  You didn’t want to be emotionally vulnerable to me?”

“It is
nae in my nature to appear weak.”

“No, I suppose not.”  Emmy leaned into his arms and laid her head on his shoulder.  “But I love you anyway.”

His breath drew in deeply and exhaled in a rush.  “I love ye, as well, so incredibly much.”