A Laird for All Time (2 page)

Connor eyed her attire.  He had noticed as she slept upstairs that her clothes were more than unusual.  Trousers!  Positively indecent wear for a lady.  The tight pants accentuated her long legs and the short little jacket accented her tiny waist. The blouse beneath was surprisingly sheer. It was also abundantly clear she wore little beneath it. “Yer shirt seems to be a wee bit on the thin side,” he offered at length, still staring at her chest.

“Ye can see her legs
,” Ian commented.

Emmy glanced down at her
jeans.  “You can’t see my legs.  I’m covered to the ankle!”

“Can see yer shape,”
he clarified as his eyes skimmed down her figure with appreciation, drawing an unpleasant cluck from Dorcas.

Men have no appreciation for fashion, Emmy thought and
asked directly of Dory.  “Don’t you like it?” Surely, from a female view, her look was good. It might be a bit trendy for conservative Britain, but she wasn’t visiting the Queen here.

Dory
pursed her lips in disapproval and changed the topic: “Maybe it would help us if we understood who you think you are.”

Emmy’s mind went blank
and she stared at them dumbly for a moment before an idea popped into her mind  “If you would simply check the visitor’s list, my name is Emily Rose MacKenzie.”  The faces around her still looked skeptical, so she added, “Don’t you have records of the guests you’re expecting here?  I’m the American who was crazy enough to come over in the fall rather than the summer?  On the last day the castle is open to tourists?  I was told the laird and his family usually lived in Edinburgh for the summer and that’s why the house was open to visitors from May until October.  I didn’t know the owners would be here…” she stopped, suddenly aware that she was rambling while frowning confusion deepened on their faces.

“
So ye came back now because ye werenae expecting any of us to be here then?” Connor misinterpreted.

“No
! I already told you I have never been here before!” she insisted.  “I am a tourist… just visiting on vacation.”

“Vacation?” the three repeated
blankly.

“Yes, vacation!” Emmy
responded, searching her mind.  What did the Brits call it? “Holiday!  I am here in the UK on holiday.  For ten days.”

“Ye
returned here for a holiday?” Ian asked bewildered.  “Why would ye do that?”

Emmy screeched behind her teeth in frustration.  “Not returned!
  Listen! I’m just a tourist!  I am staying in Oban across the sound; I have a room there.  I just got in yesterday and came straight here on the ferry today because you close tomorrow for the winter!

“
I am an American!  I live outside Baltimore.  I’m originally from Richmond, Virginia.”  The brows grew even more puckered.  “I did my undergraduate at UVA and attended John Hopkins.  I graduated at the top of my class, I did my residency at Hopkins… I’m a doctor, dammit!  I know who I am.  Why don’t you check my passport if you’re unsure?”

“Passport?” The word echoed around the room from three mouths
, as if it were foreign to them.

“Do you have another word for it maybe?” she asked, baffled by their confusion.  “I can show it to you.  It’s in my large tote.”

Again, three mouths silently formed the word “Tote.”

“The brown leather
bag.” She spoke slowly, with bemusement at their confusion.  Undeniably, something was being lost in the translation.

“I’ll have one of the
servants fetch it for ye.” Ian offered.

Emmy discreetly massaged her temples where a throbbing headache had begun to pound. This was all so unreal.  Here were these strange people, dressed ultra-conservatively, having no sense of fashion, yet questioning hers and insisting that she was someone they knew.  The woman who looked just like her was wearing a floor-length skirt and a blouse that buttoned up tightly to her chin.  She looked horribly uncomfortable as she alternated between staring at Emmy as if she had seen a ghost and looking at her with deep suspicion.

Her
head hurt, her eyes burned, and she wanted nothing so much as to take a handful of Excedrin and sleep until this was all over.

And that man
! Unable to help herself she peeked up between her fingers at him.  Oh, that man.  The
laird
.  He made her heart pound faster just looking at him.  He had changed from the kilt into a pair of tight charcoal pants and white shirt.  The shirt had been left open at the neck and had only a short collar on it.  Odd style.  European probably.  His hair wasn’t actually black at all but rather a dark rich brown - nearly mahogany in fact with lighter variable streaks that could only be natural.  He was well over six foot and she guessed about 255-260 pounds full of muscle, thick and heavy.  He was built like a right tackle football player she had known in college, but his were the kind of muscles built through heavy work, rather than reps in a gym.  He was rugged and beautiful.  And angry.  She couldn’t help but wonder what he would look like if he were to smile.

He was staring at her as if he were trying to see right through her.  As if he could see into her mind.
  If he were insane, it would be the greatest loss to womanhood she could imagine.  He was otherwise the most compelling man she’d ever met.

“What did you say to me out front?”
Emmy asked curiously.

Connor looked blankly back at her for a moment then shook his head remembering.  “It was Gaelic.  It meant welcome home.”  Actually, he had said ‘welcome home, wife,’ but did not feel the need to clarify given the insanity of her refusal to admit her identity.  God in Heaven, he did not remember her being so lovely even with Dory here as a daily reminder.
  It was bewildering and he was struggling to maintain his anger toward her.  It should not matter if Heather had suddenly become the most tempting woman on the face of the earth.  He loathed her.

“Didn’t sound too
welcoming,” she muttered and his gaze returned intensely to her face.

The heat in his dark
brown eyes was deep and turbulent, unsettling and thrilling to Emmy at the same time.  He was the stuff of fantasies, she thought.  All of her fantasies.  Years of imaginings since she was a teen had always placed a man such as this at their center.  She almost wanted in that moment to be who he thought she was.

“Who do you think I am, exactly?”
her husky voice questioned before the thought even formed in her mind.

He let out a disbelieving snort.

“Humor me.”

“To humor ye
, my love.” His deep, intriguing brogue again brought Connery-esque fantasies to her mind.  Fantasies, fantasies.  “Ye are my wife, Emeline Heather Stuart MacLean, Countess of Strathclyde.  Ye left here, ran away to be more accurate, ten years ago today and no one has seen ye since.”

His wife
!  What woman would want to run away from him? she asked herself.  The thought of having all the benefits of marriage to him made her clench her knees together tightly.  Remember, she reminded herself, he’s insane… mental.  It didn’t matter; her knees quivered anyway.  “And what exactly happened ten years ago today that I supposedly ran away from?”

“Our wedding
night.”  He turned his back on them and stared out the window, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

It was a defensive posture Emmy recognized immediately.  It was hurt.  Pain of loss.  Anger.  All brushed away with harsh sarcasm.  Unfortunately she wasn’t in much of a mood to cater to his male pride.

“Must not have been an experience worth repeating,” she muttered under her breath.

Unfortunately he heard.

He whipped back to face her. “Ye dare to mention such a thing?”

“Relax, big guy, I’m not here to bruise your tender male ego.  If you have problems in the sack
, not that I can imagine
that
,” she rolled her eyes sarcastically, “it’s none of my business.”

“The sack, as ye so quaintly put it, was ne’er reached, as ye well remember.  Ye
left before that.” His voice rose as he worked his temper back up.

She stood up
to face him  “It wasn’t me!” she yelled right back.

“I dinnae remember ye
being so temperamental, my dear.”

“
If you ‘my dear’ me one more time, I swear I’m going to…”

“Ye
’re going to what?”

“Um, Connor?” Ian interrupted from the door
way. 

“What?” they both snapped
, turning towards him.

Ian held up her large
tote in one hand, her purse in the other. 

“Oh, thank God!” Emmy huffed as she
stalked over and snatched the bags from his hand.  “Let’s get this over with so I can get the hell out of this loony bin.  Real shame, too,” she muttered to herself as she rummaged through the larger bag.  “Man, you finally meet a guy that curls your friggin’ toes, and he ends up being some whacked out SOB who has nothing better to do than… Aha!  Here you go, Laird MacLean.  Read it and weep then call me a cab, and get me the hell out of here!”

The grin that had been forming on Connor’s lips faded at this last.  He was sure that she had no idea she’d been talking out loud. 
It intrigued him that she said he ‘curled her toes’ though he had no idea what ‘friggin’ was.  Frowning, he took the dark little booklet she was waving at him and stared down at its cover. There in shining gold letters was that word. Passport.  Below it was some sort of emblem of an eagle and shield with ‘United States of America’ below.

It fell open to a colorful page of another eagle and flag.  And there was her portrait as well.
A
color
photograph? He had never heard of such a thing. It was an excellent photograph, he thought.  He had never seen one that sharp, though there were lines all across it.  To the right was printed her name, the one she had given him.  Her nationality was listed as USA and her birthplace, incredibly, as Virginia, USA.  She had gone to America?  He had been there years ago looking for her.  It was only one of the hundreds of places it seemed he had searched for her until they had all assumed she was dead.  But she had been there, near Baltimore, she had said.  Then he saw her birth date.  March 10, 1982.

“It seems that
yer forger wasnae as good as ye must have thought.”  He tapped the booklet against his hand.  “Yer birth year is listed here as 1982.”

“Yes, I was born on March 10, 19
82.  What’s the problem with that?”

“Because that would be impossible considering that it is only 1
895.”

“Get out!  You think you can pull some prank like that on me?”

“Aye, lassie,” Ian added.  “October 18, 1895.”

Emmy’s head spun as she looked dizzily around the room, at the lovely antiques, the oil lamps,
Dorcas in her high-necked white blouse and long skirt, the Gibson-girl hairdo.  She turned about the room.

For the second time in her life she fainted.

A horrible burning in her nose brought her sharply back to awareness.  “What?  What happened?” she asked as she slapped away the smelling salts beneath her nose.

“Ye
fainted…
again
,” Ian remarked with some disgust.

“Well, my dear,
those travelling papers were an excellent forgery.  Impressive yet imperfect.”  The laird had retreated and was now ensconced once more in his chair leisurely sipping his drink.  “Are ye ready to ha’ yer bluff called and explain to me why ye’ve decided to return after all this time?”

Emmy looked into his
chocolaty eyes and knew that there was no way to explain this; she didn’t have a clue herself.  Sure, in her bag there was proof of where, and
when
she was from, but at this point they would probably just think her mad.  Maybe a witch or something equally unacceptable.  She wondered what they did to witches in 1895.  Oh, why hadn’t she majored in history?  She loved historic architecture, that was why she was here to begin with, but she had never really studied history. 

Maybe it was b
etter to just play along for now.  At least until she had a handle on what was going on.  If she went along, faked her way through, she might work her way out.  “Yes,” she lowered her eyes and tried to appear repentant.  Ian helped her to the settee next to Dory, but Emmy found she could do little more than stare at the man across from her.

Emmy slouched back with her arms crossed and
considered her choices, and him.  What to say?  What to do?  Play along, she thought.  But he hates his wife, a part of her mind argued.  Emmy did not want him looking at her with hatred.  No, there were other emotions she wanted to see in his eyes.  The realization startled her. 

“Heather, please sit up.  Your posture is
absolutely atrocious,” Dorcas chided, handing her another cup of tea.  “Here, this will make you feel just the thing.”

Again Emmy found herself staring down into a
nother cup of tea with some disgust.  “Could I get a large glass full of ice, please?” she asked Dorcas.  Though her eyes showed curiosity, the woman nodded to a footman standing near the door who left the room immediately to do her bidding.  Emmy swirled the cup idly as she waited for him to return, staring down steadily into the liquid and making no move to look at, or speak, to any of the other three occupants of the room. 

What to say
?  What to do?  Questions again raged through her mind, but no alternatives presented themselves. She was in another time!  Unbelievable! Things like this just did not happen to normal people, to anyone for that matter, unless the government had come up with some portal through time and were covering it up?  That had happened before, well not with time travel specifically, but it had happened in other scientific arenas.  Wasn’t there some fuss in the 1950s though about some ship that was in Philadelphia and disappeared, only to show up in Norfolk just moments later?  Something like that?  She couldn’t remember.  But there were always all kinds of stories about government cover-ups and conspiracies.  That could be the answer. 

If it was something of that nature, w
ould they reverse it?  Could they?  How widespread was it?  Were there others here like her?  Others stuck in other times having this same discussion in their heads?  Perhaps, but what to do until she knew for sure?  She most emphatically did not want to be burned as a witch, or something equally repellent.

The footman’s return brought Emmy out of her reverie as
he held out a small tray with a glass full of ice to her. Rather than the uniform cubes she was used to, this ice looked as if it had been chipped off a block. Still, ice was ice. Nodding and whispering her thanks, Emmy took the glass and carefully poured the hot tea into it, unaware of the bewildered stares she was receiving from the others.  Then she took a few extra minutes to dig around her tote for some Sweet & Low. 

Connor
watched, intrigued, as Emmy slapped the little pink packets against her hand before tearing them open and shaking the powdered contents into her drink.  He wondered what it was.  Her forefinger followed the powder into the glass where she stirred it for a moment before popping her finger in her mouth to suck off the excess liquid.  That small action changed the course of his thoughts entirely.  It was the most innocently erotic action he had ever seen a woman perform.  The images that came to his mind aroused him unexpectedly.  Stifling the arousal without mercy, he embraced his anger and broke the silence.

“Well, Heather
?” Connor prompted harshly, aware that she wasn’t going to willingly begin on her own.

“Okay,” Emmy looked up
and met his dark gaze once more, feeling its pull like a whirlpool tugging her under the water.  “Well, I returned here because I wanted to…” She stared into his stormy eyes and felt the attraction between them, the chemistry, and knew that he had felt it too.  It was strong and intense, unlike anything she had ever experienced before.  It was a reaction like those you read about but are sure never actually happen in real life.  So, the words, when they came, seemed to be the most truthful she had ever spoken in her life.

“I came
here to be with you.”