A Laird for All Time (22 page)

Emmy sighed in relief and slumped back in the chair.  Connor had been staring blankly at the screen for so long that she had begun to fear where his ruminations had taken him .  He was starting to believe the truth of her claim if he was questioning the hows of the whole thing.  From there it was a small step to total acceptance.  She didn’t realize how tense she had become until her muscles were free to relax and the blood began to flow back into her fingers where they had been clenched so tightly together.

Still, Emmy didn’t have a real explanation to offer.  “I don’t know how it happened or how he did it, Connor.  If he did indeed do it and he isn’t just some crazy old man spouting nonsense when I saw him at the inn.  But he was there with me.  Now he is here and so am I.  He is the constant.”  She shrugged, aware that it was a pitiful response.  “He said at the inn that it was about second chances and something about a simple life but other than that I’ve got nothing.  I just don’t know.”

He raised his head and met her gaze for the first time since her revelation.  “Ye said that before.  Second chances?”

“He said there had been tragedy in your family and that everyone deserved a second chance.”  Emmy thought again of the conclusion she had drawn.  “I think he meant Dory.  I think in my future that she might not have made it through her delivery.  I looked at my guidebook after that and it said your title had passed to a cousin after your death.  Not Ian and not a nephew.  That either means that Ian and Dory had only girls or Ian….”  She faltered.

“Died before me childless.”  Connor’s voice was low and distraught.

“Yes.”

“And I had no heirs.”

“Yes,” she repeated softly.

Still, he could not help but shake his head.  He felt as if his mind were about to explode from the excess of information presented to him this past hour.  His future lay out before him.  Unchangeable?  Connor thought again about Emmy’s passport and the birth date it had shown.  Emmy wasn’t even of his lifetime.  This device, this iPhone, was beyond his lifetime.  He would never live long enough to see its invention.  He would be dead long before she was ever born.

He tapped the edge of the music player and stared unfocused at it, beyond it.  A larger issue raised its head.  If Emmy were of the future, was it against God’s plan that he love her?  She could not have been meant for him to be born beyond his years.  Connor pondered the natural order of God’s will but could not decide whether her arrival was a gift from God to complete his life or a result of sorcery that could just as easily be taken away.  One thought prompted another question.

“Ye said ye’re ignorant of the force that brought ye to this time?  Ye were unaware?”  There was an intensity to his expression that was not typically present.  His dark eyes were turbulent, troubled.  He looked
…worried? 

“What are you thinking?”

“Ye were brought here wi’out yer knowledge, aye?”  She nodded with a sinking sense of dread when his next words began to emerge cautiously.  “What is to stop ye from being taken back in equal fashion?”

Emmy met his eyes and for a moment her personal fears, hopes and anxieties flared in them.  He read them easily and felt a painful tightening of his gut. 

“Nothing,” they said together.

Connor disappeared into his bathroom obeying her suggestion to take some time alone and shut the door firmly.  Running some cold water in the sink, he splashed his face and stared at his reflection in the mirror above.

For a moment his mind was a complete blank as he stared into the dark shock of his own eyes, rounded and weary.  He needed to examine the facts at his leisure and ponder the possibilities and implications of her presence.  However, beyond the truth of her origin and her incredible story, it was the other issue that flooded his mind and sent him reeling.  At any moment, she could be gone. 

Just like that.

Was God so pitiless as to dangle happiness before him and then snap it away like a cat with its toy?  They needed to find Donell; that was a certainty.  If Emmy was right and it was his magic that had done this, then the old man was the key to keeping Emmy here with him.  Emmy said Donell had mentioned everyone deserved a second chance.  Emmy assumed that it was only Dory who needed a second chance, but when she had also told him that he would die without an heir, it had occurred to Connor that perhaps she was his second chance as well.  His life had already changed dramatically with her presence.  If she were to stay, to become his countess, it would be his second chance to live the life he had imagined years ago.  Life as a husband and father, not just laird of his clan.

He just needed to have some faith that Emmy was his destiny.  The chain of events that delivered her into his time was part of God’s greater plan.  His destiny was to be hers and hers to be his.  He felt certain that was it.  That she was
his
second chance if he was to have one in this life.  He needed to have faith.

Faith said that for everything there was a reason. 
Ecclesiastes.

While bathing and dressing, Connor had become convinced of his deduction.  He found Emmy in her room, dressed and reading a book while she waited for him.

Given the plate of sandwiches and pitcher of her iced tea before her, she clearly thought that it would take some time for him to consider what she had told him.

“Had ye considered that God has a plan for each of us?  That He may have brought ye here?” he asked, his eyebrows rising nearly to his hairline in surprise when she frowned dubiously at his conclusions.

“I told you before, Connor, I have no clue what brought me here - only who,” she shot back.  “For all we know it could be the whim of a bored old man.”

“Wi’out a reasonable explanation, I feel we must rely on something other than empirical evidence.  Hence, faith.”  Connor joined her, taking a sandwich as he realized it had been almost ten hours since their breakfast tray that morning.  Beef, tomatoes and…vinegar?  Interesting.  He took two more.

“So you think that Donell’s actions were a part of God’s plan and that we should have faith that we are meant to be together?  Do you actually think God makes every decision before you do?” she wondered aloud.  “Haven’t you ever read Sartre?  Free will and all that?”

“Who?”

“Jean-Paul Sartre?  Never mind, my point is that destiny implies an absence of choice as if we can’t control what happens to us,” she lectured.  “I like to be in control.”

“I understand what ye’re saying, but, if I might be so bold, ye dinnae control it,” Connor pointed out with little mercy.  “It snatched ye up wi’out so much as a by yer leave.  Wi’out yer cooperation, knowledge or consent.”  He counted these out on his fingers.  He picked up his sandwiches so he could pace the room while he ate.  “It is true, no man wants to think himself helpless in shaping the events of his own life, but I do believe that on occasion God guides our path to that which is beneficial to us.”

“Donell sent me here,” she replied flatly.  “Nothing more, nothing less, whether we understand that power or not.  What we need to do is find him and figure it out from there.” 

“And I agree.  He is the key.  But…” he arched a brow at her, “have ye so little faith, my love?  Truly?”

“Wow, Connor.”  His belief was so absolute that Emmy was almost envious and terrified by his conviction.  She wanted the same, that knowledge that she would be with him, here, forever.  Yet, it terrified her that she might be.  As he awaited her reply, Emmy sighed, reflecting on her own views.  “I would have said an hour ago that I was fairly religious, but I have nothing on you.  I believe in God, I do, but that He is guiding all of this
…I just don’t think so.”

Connor wondered at Emmy’s skepticism, but he needed something to believe in.  Her revelation had shaken the very foundations of his intellect so much so he wasn’t sure he could rely on it.  Until they found Donell and determined whether he held mysterious powers or was just simply an old bampot, the only foundation available to him was his faith.  He was embracing it wholeheartedly lest he go mad trying to figure it all out.  “Emmy?” he questioned.  “How do ye perceive the time ye’re granted here?”

Emmy met his serious gaze and knew it was not the time for flippant answers.  Without clarification from Donell about his ramblings at the inn, what else was she to do beyond what she had already been doing?  She’d had several weeks of wondering but had long since settled into the approach of ‘wait and see’.  She meant to take each day with Connor as a gift.  Why would he not do the same?  “I guess I was just thinking that we would take it as it came, appreciate each day like it might be our last,” Emmy told him. 

“As it just might be.”

“But would you rather wake up each morning dreading that it might be the last or be thankful each morning that we have another day together?” she argued, rising to stand in front of him.  She embraced him around his waist, laying her head on his chest and held on tightly until he finally raised his arms to return her embrace.  “I will take what I can get.  If it’s one day or a year…I just want to enjoy it with you.  We have lost so much time already.”

A day or year, she mentioned, but not a lifetime.  Connor leaned back and stared down at her face, wondering at the mind hidden behind it.  He might spend the rest of his days arguing philosophy alone with her and be happy for it.  He could live a lifetime utterly engaged by her.  He wanted it and had known it from almost the moment he met her, confirmed it during his hiatus of the previous week, but clearly her mind wasn’t looking beyond the immediate to that lifetime he pictured. 

To Emmy, their liaison was short-term still.

He wondered what she would say if he asked her to marry him, to stay with him for a lifetime.  To trust that it was their destiny to be together whether by God’s hand or man’s.

He wondered if she would run away and leave him alone again.

“Don’t look so worried, Connor.”  Emmy rubbed away the creases in his forehead.  “I don’t think our time is up yet.  Just enjoy it with me, please.”

Connor hugged her to him and pressed a kiss on her brow.  “I love ye, Emmy.  It is nae a feeling content for a day or a year.”

A sizzle of apprehension shot through Emmy at his words.  They were possessive and absolute.  He would never let her go, she thought, simultaneously awed and frightened.  She was still trying to comprehend that enormity of feeling this love incited within herself.  Imagining that it might be magnified by mutual love was almost overwhelming.  Emmy wasn’t entirely sure that she knew how to cope with it all.

For a moment she wondered if it might be better for them both if it all just ended now.

Where was he? Emmy wondered as she waited for Connor to put in an appearance at dinner that night.  After his avowal of love, Emmy had turned away, excusing herself to start preparing for dinner, eager for a chance to escape the intensity of that moment.  She had taken her time bathing and grooming, hearing him doing the same in his room, wondering if she had bitten off more than she could chew.

In her mind, romantic love had always been an abstract thing.  She had no memories of her parents living together and had no idea of what a healthy relationship looked like.  She had had no serious relationships of her own and most of her friends were still single.  Love had always been the stuff of movies and romance novels; an idealistic dream filled with a white wedding and happily ever after. 

This was not what she had imagined at all.

She had never thought there would be uncertainty, fear and anxiety involved.  Commitment was one thing.  Emmy could picture herself doing commitment, had always thought/hoped that her marriage, when she got around to it, would be her first and last.  She had always planned on doing it right the first time, forsaking the easy out of divorce.  To her a pre-nup was an expectation of certain failure.  But this!  It wasn’t simply a commitment to Connor in the balance here.  It was a commitment to this time.  An absolute acceptance that she would stay…here, for the rest of her days.

Emmy looked around the drawing room at the ladies in their magnificent dinner gowns and the men in their formal attire.  Crystal glasses clinked together above the polite murmur of conversation as the staff wove through the groups serving drinks unobtrusively.

This wasn’t the way she was raised.  Oh sure it was nice to never think about working all day or figuring out what to have for supper.  No laundry, no cleaning.  No anything.  There was giddy indulgence mixed with guilt every time Margo waited on her.  It extended to every servant in the castle.  Emmy didn’t think she had been born to be served in such a manner.

And the idleness!  Emmy thanked God that she had a useful skill to keep most of her days occupied.  The past week had shown her that the women in the castle did little more than needlework and gossip.  Dory, at least, interacted with running the castle.  In fact, it took much
of her time, but the others lived lives of indulgent laxity.  Emmy knew she couldn’t live that way forever; she had more ambition than a life permanently on vacation.

Loving Connor was one thing, but Emmy just wasn’t certain she wanted to stay here.

“Where is Connor tonight?” Ian asked as he approached with Dory.  They were late as well.  Dory had admitted to being worn out by all the activity of the babies.  Another examination had shown amazing growth over the past week.  The weight and movement were wearing on Dory physically.  Emmy had debated whether to tell her that twins usually came early, but didn’t have the heart to while the woman looked so worn down.

Emmy also worried whether her skills would be enough to save Dory’s life if the whole second chance idea were the real reason she was here.

Emmy turned her gaze from Dory to Ian only to find his eyes alight with humor.  Given his expression and the similar ones  so many other faces, Emmy could only assume the castle gossip had revealed to everyone just where and how she and Connor had spent the last twenty-four hours.  She willed away the heat of a blush and stared him down until he simply quirked his lips at her and winked.

“I’m sure he’ll be here shortly.  He was getting dressed when I came down.”  Emmy looked at the door again and sighed.  “I hope.”

“Did you have another fight?” Dory whispered in worry reaching out a comforting hand to Emmy.  Emmy shook her head but accepted the concern with a tight smile. 

“Not so much a fight,” she said in denial, “just some adjustments now that he has recognized that I am not Heather.”  She whispered this last as she studied Dory.  “I would have thought you might have some issues with me sharing a bedroom with Connor now that it’s all out in the open, at least between us four.”

Dory rolled her eyes slightly.  “As long as everyone here believes that you are wed, I will not say anything.  Besides, who am I to judge your relationship with Connor?”  She added this vaguely and Emmy shared a questioning glance with Ian, who only shrugged.  “However, I will continue to pester you on your deportment and posture whenever necessary,” Dory added with a tired smile, pressing a hand to the small of her back.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”  Emmy reached out and rubbed her friend’s arm sympathetically.  “Maybe you should get some more rest, Dory.  You look whooped.”

“Whatever that is, it sounds appropriate,” Dory confessed.  “I do feel ill tonight.”

“Hang in there, sweetie,” Emmy soothed, and shared another look with Ian.  His mouth was tight with worry and stress.  Fatigue and pain was starting to wear on both of them.  “Why don’t you take her back up and just relax tonight?  I’ll have Susan bring you up a tray.”

He nodded and thanked her.  Emmy gave Dory a comforting embrace before sending them on their way.  As they made their way to the door, they stopped to have words with Connor as he came in.  The laird nodded and even leaned in to give his sister-in-law a light kiss on her cheek, an act that left most everyone watching in shock.  The more congenial rapport between the two had become obvious and most of the family was awed by the changes that had come over Connor in the past several weeks.

Connor wended his way through the crowd talking briefly with a few of his relatives before making his way to her side.  He kissed her hand and greeted her formally
before commenting, “Dory is nae looking well this evening.”

“It has been a long couple weeks for her,” Emmy answered, wondering at his aloof formality.  “Truthfully, I don’t think she has long to go.  I might have to put her on bed rest just to get a little more time out of her.”

“I’m sure whatever ye say will be for the best,” he agreed.  “I’ve sent men to find old Donell but ha’ nae had any luck as yet.” 

“What’s wrong, Connor?” she whispered, keeping a light smile on her face for the benefit of those ever curious who were watching.

“Nothing.”  Connor saw the disappointment in her eyes at his response.  Aye, they were beyond such polite veneers.  He sighed and his frame visibly relaxed, drawing a sigh from Emmy as well.  “Better?”

“A little?  What’s bugging you?”

“I am simply displeased wi’ the conclusion of our conversation earlier,” he admitted truthfully.  “It seems that our perceptions of our relationship are nae one and the same.”

“It’s not that I don’t love you, Connor, I do,” Emmy rushed to reassure him.

Connor met her gaze and read the honesty and intensity there.  She might speak the truth but there was something else lingering in her eyes.  He took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.  “What is it then?”

“Fear, I suppose,” she admitted hesitantly then released a deep breath, letting her shoulders drop.  Emmy sent him a pleading look.  “Try to look at it from my point of view,
okay?  You love me and your life changes little.  You still have your home, your family and your job.  But if I embrace this - our love for all time, a future together - my life changes completely.  I lose a whole world.  And what if it doesn’t work out?  I feel like I have a lot more to lose.”

“I feel as if we ha’
everything to gain, my wee pessimist,” he said but held up a hand before she could respond.  “However, I will concede the point for now. Given what I have seen, I understand that ye feel there are sacrifices.  I can only hope in time that they can be outweighed by the advantages.”

“Connor . . .” she started shaking her head.

“Come, let us to dinner.”  He held out his arm and smiled lightly as she took it.  “We shall start with yer one day at a time and see where it goes from there, shall we?”

Mutely, Emmy nodded, letting him lead her to the dining room yet inside her heart was aquiver.  My God, he had such faith in her, she realized.  It was as if he just knew that it would come to her eventually.  It was terrifying yet at the same time, she didn’t want to let him down.  Only her mother had ever shown such faith in her.  It was wonderful and heartbreaking.

“Tell me more about the future,” he prompted in a low voice as they were served their first course.             

Ahh, a diversion!  Thank God for normal, almost normal, dinner conversation.  “What do you want to know?”  Emmy cast him an encouraging glance as she dug into her sautéed halibut.

“I recall when I mentioned the automobile to ye previously; ye seemed unimpressed and suggested that ye’ve seen one before.  Aye?”

She nodded.  “Cars, we call them.”

He continued in a horrified tone.  “Have ye driven one?”

A sharp ‘ha’ of sardonic amusement escaped Emmy before she could stop it and she covered her mouth before she choked on the bite of fish she had just taken.  “Is this one of those things that you don’t think women should do, Connor?  Like voting?”

He had the good grace to look a bit embarrassed as he pushed his own food from side to side.  “I will admit that when the thought occurred to me, my mind responded in immediate denial.”

“Well, it is a negative stereotype that will last many years, so rest assured that you are not alone in that.”  Emmy’s lips quirked in humor as she patted his arm.  “I wish I could take you
there, Connor.  I wish you could know my world.”  She looked around to make sure her words were going unnoticed.  “I wish I could take you for a ride in my car.”

“Ye
own
one!?”  He was incredulous at the idea.  A camera and an automobile!  Truly her world must be rich to allow for such a thing.  And her iPhone as well!

“I have a MINI Cooper,” she told him before leaning back to allow the footman to change the courses.  Beef medallions in red wine next.  “It’s pretty small.  I could try to draw you a picture later if you like.  Cars are nothing like the ones you have seen anymore.  They come in all shapes and sizes.”

“The one I saw in London could travel nearly sixty miles in an hour, I believe,” he commented, showing greater appreciation of this course than the last.  “How fast can yers travel?”

“The car itself can go about 120,” she told him, “but limits have been set by law regulating speeds depending on where you are, like an open highway versus a residential area.”

Connor gulped at the thought of reaching such speeds and took a deep pull on his wine.  “How fast ha’ ye traveled?” he asked, dread evident in his voice.

“The f
astest?  Maybe a hundred on the open road,” she admitted but continued, “but I am not too much of a speed freak.  Still there is car racing for sport as you’ve seen and their cars can go into the two hundreds somewhere.  I’m not exactly sure.”

“I cannae
imagine traveling at such speeds.”

“Oh, that’s nothing!” she waved it away, loving that she could shock and awe him.  His mixture of dread and enjoyment was like offering a fairy-tale to a small child and she so enjoyed entertaining him.  She might spend a decade just telling him about such things, taking pleasure in each moment. “There are high-speed trains and planes that can go from here to New York in hours.  Some can go faster than sound.”  A smile curved her lips as he gaped in disbelief. 

“What is a ‘plane’ that it can go so fast?” he asked.

“Airplanes?”  She frowned, trying to place their invention in history.  “Flying machines, you know?”

“No!” he boomed and everyone at the table turned to stare.  He lowered his voice again and leaned his head close to hers.  “Unbelievable!”

“I think I might be hearing that word often in the next few days,” she teased.  “But, yes, it is true.”

Emmy ate her third course quietly while Connor digested the idea.  She could see the wheels of his mind spinning.  “What of travel to the moon?” he added.  “Ye mentioned that previously.  Has man flown to the moon yet?”

Emmy nodded, pleased to see the boyishly eager look come back to his eyes.  “I remember my mom saying that she had watched it on TV as a girl.  It was a big moment, everyone was thrilled by it.  Mom said her father cried.  Neil Armstrong, the astronaut who was the first one to step on the moon said, ‘That’s one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind.’”

She said this in a low disjointed voice that brought a reluctant smile to his face.  “Have ye gone to the moon?”

With a giggle, Emmy sat back briefly, twirling her wineglass and staring at him in amusement before leaning back toward him.  “No, though I have given you an impression of absolute progress in the future, it still hasn’t gotten to the point where more than a handful of trained astronauts have been to the moon.”

Connor felt a sigh of relief coming from deep within.  He was thankful that progress hadn’t gone too far for it occurred to him suddenly that she had been right earlier…with all she could have in her own time there was little appeal his could hold for her.  He now understood her reluctance to stay here.  The future provided a good life for her; what more could she ask for?  How much could she sacrifice?  Perhaps love was not enough.

They excused themselves from the rest of his family after they had eaten and returned to their rooms where Emmy drew him pictures of cars and the space shuttle, she called it.  Emmy also told him about a proposed elevator to outer space that was mentioned in
Popular Science
magazine, a periodical he was thankfully familiar with.  Since she had mentioned it twice already, she also explained the TV to him.  Connor thought its function must relate much to a movie in one’s home but Emmy added that it also told shorter stories and relayed current events much like a newspaper.