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

the man’s protective embrace. “Dinnae think to be selling information to one of those prattling scandalmongers we’ve seen upon that blasted box.” He gestured to the television mounted to the corner of the room.

“I would never. I swear.”

Reading the truth in her unusual periwinkle eyes, Laird nodded tightly. “My name is…” Scarlett cleared her throat and the litany of reprimand and cautionary advice only a wife could infuse into such a tiny sound reminded him of where he was. “Most call me Laird.”

Hugh nodded stiffly. “Aye, I was told as much, but may I ask yer true name?”

A feral growl deep in his throat heralded Laird’s impatience, but the stranger neither cowered nor looked askance as any God-fearing man might. He but met Laird’s stare evenly. Waiting patiently. Laird’s respect for their visitor notched up ever so slightly. Behind him, he felt Rhys relax, but suspicion kept Laird tense.

However, he wanted answers far more than he wanted to cow the man, so truth down to the bare bones accompanied his answer. “My name is Lord James Stewart Patrick Hepburn, Laird and Earl of Achenmeade. This medallion was a gift to me from my mother, Lady Elizabeth Stewart, as it was gifted to her by her father, James Stewart the Auld King.”

“Laird!” Scarlett cried out, but Laird ignored her protest. ‘Twas the time for truth. Not prevarication.

“Now tell me ‘ere I’m persuaded to violence, where did ye get it?” The man’s face paled, but not from fear. Laird could sense fright well, even from a distance. Instead, this Hugh Urquhart, though stricken by the news, did not appear as dubious of Laird’s lineage as he might expect. “Speak!”

“From my mother, as well. Given to her by hers when she married my father,” Hugh answered, recovering his composure. “To my knowledge, there has only been one Earl of Achenmeade. How is it that he is here before me?”

The disclosure stunned Laird into silence for a moment. What? No son to pass on his name? Or was it worse than that? Would he and Scarlett never return to his time so he could carry on his name? The idea struck him with dread, but he bore the blow well. “What ken ye of it?”

“I know the history of my family verra well,” Hugh responded, further shocking him.

Hugh looked down at his wife, who was gripping his arm with both hands and staring up at him with open concern written on her face. He tweaked her chin with a slight smile. “’Tis fine, lass. I saw it coming.”

“I didn’t,” she mumbled.

Nor had Laird. He shook his head to clear it, aware that everyone behind him had grown quiet as they absorbed the news. Denial wedged away common sense and the notion of the impossible. Was this man saying he was Laird’s clansman?

“Five hundred years is too long while to ken yer ancestry,” was all Laird could manage from beneath the cloud of his doubt.

“Mayhap, but two hundred is no’.”

His revelation hammered the stunned silence of the room firmly into place. To the last, all eyes were upon the stranger in varying degrees of disbelief. Laird’s was the most profound. Was this Urquhart saying what Laird thought he was? That he was his descendant? That he was not from this time either?

Both?

There was a tug on the leg of his trousers. Glancing down, he found Hermione smiling up at him. She broke the weighty atmosphere with a merry command of, “Da, up.”

Reflexively he lifted her into his arms. She grinned at him and patted his cheek then turned to the couple across from him. “I hae a new book.”

Hugh, staring at the child in wonder, made no move, but Claire took the book Hermione was holding out with a smile. “How wonderful. Can you read it?”

The toddler shook out her auburn curls and Hugh extended an open, if somewhat trembling, palm to her. She set her hand in his without pause and Laird oddly thought they needed to teach her not to be so friendly to strangers. How absurd a reflection for the moment.

Hugh spoke softly, his eyes fixed on the child. “I was born at Rosebraugh Castle on Cromarty Firth in the year seventeen hundred and twelve, oldest son of the Duke of Ross and Lady Aileen MacGilvery. If I’m no’ mistaken, ye would place yer birth date far beyond that date.” He looked past Laird to the tiny bundle wrapped in pink in Scarlett’s arms. “I wonder which of yer lasses I’m descended from.”

Astonishment at his revelation crippled the room until all they could hear was the din beyond the closed door. Then Scarlett broke the silence with a low profanity that got all of their attention.

“That son of a bitch. I’m going to strangle him for this.” She looked around at the startled, yet blank faces all turned toward her. “Well, you get it, don’t you? What this is all about?”

“Now, lass, dinnae be giving away all my secrets.”

Hugh

No one in the room had even twitched but at the sound of the pebbly burr, they all swiveled around and stared at the old man who stood just inside the door, looking for all the world like he’d just stepped out of an old-world pub.

Donell looked up at Hugh with a frown that folded his forehead into more rows than a Shar Pei. Hugh’s own confusion contorted into far greater layers.

“What are ye doing here, lad?” Donell demanded. “I hae to admit, I dinnae see it coming.”

“Donell? Auld Donell?” Hugh’s constricted tone couldn’t convey a fraction his bewilderment, which was amplified to astronomical heights when Claire echoed his amazement.

“You know him, too?” Scarlett asked the room, then snorted indelicately. “Why am I not surprised.”

“You know him?” Claire repeated the question