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

“After this, feel free,” Scarlett told him and felt Emmy’s approving eyes on her.

Laird retrieved their daughter, holding her in one arm. Tucking Hermione’s hood around her snugly, Scarlett gave a decisive nod to hide the apprehension growing in her heart.

“Whatever kind of show it may be, let’s get it on the road, shall we?”

“What will your time really be like?” Rhys’s stilted question revealed his sudden anxiety.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Aye, I do. Ye’re my family.”

“We both do.” Laird’s lips pressed against the top of her head and stayed there, whispering a prayer.

“Well?” Rhys pressed.

“Hell,” she told them.

“We’ve been there before.”

Not like this, she wanted to say, but he’d experience it for himself soon enough. “There will be no bowing and scraping. No one will know or treat you as the son of an earl.”

“Och, that’s too bad. Bowing and scraping are among my favorite things in life.” Rhys winked roguishly but Scarlett could see the apprehension in his eyes.

God, her love for her family was beyond reason. Funny how this time had changed that in her, the willingness to care so deeply. She couldn’t lose them. Any of them.

“Bugger it all, enough of yer natter.” Donell fiddled in his pocket for a moment, his hand fisting within.

Then the oddest thing happened, so quick she thought for a moment she might have blinked. For a fraction of a second, Donell disappeared, then he was back a few inches from where he’d stood before.

If she wasn’t sure she’d imagined it, Scarlett would have described it as a glitch in the Matrix.

Before she could ask about it, he waved an impatient hand. “Gather close.”

“Don’t you need Laird’s sword or something to do it?” To Scarlett’s limited understanding, that’s how his power manifested itself. In an object perhaps imbued with magic.

Donell only shook his head and mumbled something about dramatic effect. “Nay, get closer.”

Scarlett closed her eyes as both Laird and Rhys smothered her and Hermione in their tense embraces.

Even through her eyelids, Scarlett saw the wash of white light. Then there was silence.

The moment of peace didn’t last long.

Scarlett

Dunskirk Castle

Achenmeade, Scotland

October 2013

“Oi, there! You can’t be in there. The exhibit is clos…ed. M-Miss Thomas? Is that you?”

The authoritative voice that had begun the lecture faded into confusion once Scarlett emerged from the huddle. Then shock, as the young woman gaped at them, sidling back in fear when Laird’s free hand fell to the hilt of his sword with Rhys mirroring the movement.

Scarlett waved them off, but couldn’t as easily dismiss the small group of tourists amassed behind the museum employee. Already they were fanning out, phones at the ready. So, the fracas began, and sooner than she’d anticipated.

“Who are these people and why are they in my home?” Laird whispered under his breath, his stance protective.

“Museum, remember?” she murmured gesturing around them. Donell had dropped them into the same spot they’d left from, except now the great room was bare of its tapestries and furniture and lined with empty display cases. “She works here.”

“M-Miss Thomas, what are you doing here?” The woman’s gaze roamed over them all, filled with surprise that rapidly faded to curiosity. The faces not already hidden behind their phones, snapping pictures—or God help them, video—wore the same expression. “I didn’t see you come in. Or leave the other day, for that matter.”

“Other day? How long ago…?” She bit back the question realizing how insane she would sound. Asking ‘what’s the date?’ had gotten her a few incredulous stares from Rhys when she’d first arrived in the past.

Just as they were all getting curious and confused looks at the moment. Oh, Laird and Rhys in their kilts might mingle satisfactorily in this historical setting as if they were costumed players for the tours, but she in her medieval gown and Emmy and Connor in their Victorian garb made little sense.

It made Scarlett self-conscious in a way she hadn’t been for years. She’d forgotten what it was like to have eyes constantly assessing her. Gathering her plaid in the front, she hoped to hide her bulging belly as much as possible.

Then another contraction hit and she didn’t care so much what anyone else thought anymore. Only years of playing a role both in movies and in front of strangers allowed Scarlett to hide the flash of pain. Though her skills were rusty. Laird winced as she squeezed his hand.

“Are ye well?”

“We should hurry this along,” she whispered back.

He nodded and strode toward the main doors, thinking he’d need no directions in what was once his own home. Nor did he feel any of the same compulsion she did to make excuses to the attendant.

“Wait, Miss Thomas!”

Scarlett searched her memory for the name of the friendly clerk who’d worked the castle all those endless days she’d held vigil there, waiting for Donell to make an appearance and send her back to Laird.

Mary? Marion? No, something more unique. “Marius? Right?”

The clerk nodded with pleasure. “Aye, Miss Thomas.”

Scarlett beckoned her closer and the woman unclipped one of the velvet ropes cordoning off the area and stepped in, securing the clip once more.

“You’ve been so helpful these past few weeks.” She tried to keep the inquiry out of the statement, unsure whether the timeframe was accurate. “I wonder if you can help me one more time?”

“Of course.”

Scarlett’s mind raced, searching for a reasonable explanation to encompass them all. “My friends and I were just working on a play nearby—dress rehearsal, you know—and they wanted to stop by to see where my movies had been filmed. Since we were so