A Laird to Hold by Angeline Fortin (free children's ebooks online .TXT) 📕

to retrieve Emmy and Connor’s coats and to bring her a cloak. Laird passed Hermione to Emmy, effectively forestalling any further arguing as Emmy cradled the sleepy toddler against her shoulder and proceeded to rock her with practiced efficiency.

“What’s all this?” a jovial male drawl boomed into the room as Laird’s brother entered, sweeping a heavy velvet cape from his shoulders. As usual, Rhys was dressed to the nines with a tufted and bejeweled velvet doublet beneath his draping Hepburn kilt. His shaggy ginger hair was ruffled and windblown, though his short beard was tidy. “I thought ye were to the Tarly’s tonight?”

“Change of plans.” Scarlett forced cheer into the explanation before Laird could say anything. “The baby’s coming a bit early and Donell’s brought someone to assist in the birth.”

Rhys was as perceptive as his brother. His all-seeing eye took in the strangers with their unusual clothing at a glance, before settling on Donell with all the suspicion Laird had given the old man. His hand fell to the hilt of his only armament, a jeweled dagger. “Ye’ll do no’ harm, auld mon.”

The threat brittle, full of dire promise. Rhys was one of the few people who Laird and Scarlett had brought into their confidence regarding her true past. Since he’d been the one to initially interrogate her after they’d found her at Dunskirk, the reality of time travel hadn’t surprised him and he’d accepted the truth. Far more readily than Laird had, at least.

He had been her greatest ally when she’d first arrived and become her dearest friend since then. Her confidante. But she didn’t wish to burden him with the whole truth at the moment.

“Everything’s fine,” Scarlett assured him.

“Then why is Laird strapping on his sword?” Rhys lifted an inquiring brow.

Sure enough, Laird was buckling on the wide leather belt that held his scabbard.

“Where do ye think ye’re going, lad?” Donell protested.

“I told ye, I’m going wi’ her. Frankly, auld mon, I dinnae trust ye to bring her back.”

Emmy snorted indelicately. “I so get that.”

Connor nodded in agreement. “That’s why I’ve come this far and I’ll no’ stay behind again. I’m going, too.”

Rhys lifted a brow. “Going where?”

Emmy tossed up her arms. “Fine, but you cannot take a sword into the twenty-first century.”

Rhys gaped as the words sunk in. “Twenty-first…?”

Laird, too, froze for a moment as if the reality of what he was about to do truly sank in, but then finished securing the buckle with grim determination. That done, he drew the huge Claymore from the scabbard about a foot or so, examined the jeweled hilt for a moment then slid the blade back in. Unlike Rhys’s weapon, the battle-tested sword was not a decorative piece.

“If ye think I’m going into the fray unarmed, yer mistaken.”

Emmy looked to Scarlett for help but she only shrugged. She knew her husband well enough to know when he dug in his heels, they’re be no dissuading him. She wasn’t about to argue this one sticking point when he knew all-too well how nerve-wracking life had been for her in her own time. He wouldn’t take ill treatment of her person lightly. By anyone. No, she wouldn’t be able to talk him out of arming himself, but could only pray he wouldn’t need to use it.

Connor also shrugged when Emmy turned to him in silent appeal. He ran his fingers through his dark hair until it stood on end. “I’ll hae to admit, after everything ye’ve told me, I’d rather like one myself.”

“Of course you’d approve,” she muttered with some disgust. Not for him alone, Scarlett presumed, but for the male gender as a whole.

“Into the fray, eh?” Rhys pondered the idea, combined with what little information they’d provided, and came up with an accurate conclusion. “I’m going as well then. Ye’ll need all the help ye can get, aye?”

Laird seemed ready to protest but Scarlett forestalled him with a jerk of her chin. Not only could she use another dear friend and steadfast ally at her side if she were to resume her former life, she could use the comic relief as well. Rhys had a way of finding humor in any situation. She had an ugly feeling that in the days ahead laughter would be a precious commodity.

“He comes, too.” The command was so definitive, no one dared to argue. Another contraction came, catching her breath for a moment. About ten minutes or so apart. They needed to move this along. “My daughter as well.”

Rhys fetched his sheath and blade and strapped them on. Donell looked ready to pull his hair from its roots.

“I cannae take ye all, lass!”

“Oh, of course you can,” she dismissed him as her maid returned. Scarlett took the garments and sent the girl away. No one else in the castle needed to see what was about to happen. They’d all think the devil was upon them if they did.

“He might be able to but can you imagine how it’ll look? We can’t all show up in the future dressed like this without making even more of a scene than we already will,” Emmy pointed out. “Do you have anything more modern we can wear?”

“Just more of the same.” She distributed the coats and slung her wool tartan over her shoulders.

Emmy scowled at Donell once more. “Let me guess, not a magician either?”

Scarlett almost laughed at the beleaguered look on the old man’s face and felt a stab of pity for him. “It doesn’t matter, Emmy. There will be a scene no matter what we wear.”

“There’s no chance we could do this anonymously?”

The idea was so absurd, Scarlett laughed aloud. “If Donell insists we go to my time, what do you think? I was in the middle of a media circus when I left.”

“Och, lass,” Donell griped. “’Tis a bluidy circus