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

and Emmy back home. There was no need to have you stay so long after the baby was born.”

“Oh, we’ve enjoyed it,” Emmy assured her. “Haven’t we, Connor?”

“Aye.”

Hugh narrowed his gaze on his new friend, noticing again his lack of enthusiasm. From everything Connor had told him, he’d been having a fine time. He wondered what had happened to change his mind.

“’Tis a fine lute here,” Laird commented, drawing Hugh’s attention. “Where did ye get it?”

“I found it at an antique shop on the Royal Mile,” Hugh told him. “My mother had one like it.”

“Do ye play?” Laird asked, setting aside his drink to lift the fat-bellied instrument off the side table and strum the strings. He frowned and turned one of the pegs to tune it. Then another.

 “Nay, I never learned.”

Claire scoffed at his confession. “Couldn’t learn is more like it. My Hugh is a regular savant when it comes to most things but turns out he’s completely tone deaf.”

Laird smiled as he tuned the instrument. “Nae man is perfect, lass. Other than myself, of course.”

Scarlett let out a loud moan that roused more laughter. “Don’t let him fool you. I taught him how to play.”

“Aye, I was imperfect then. Now…?” Laird shrugged as if there were nothing more to say on the matter, prompting another round of mirth.

Laird plucked each string in turn, then nodded with satisfaction. To Hugh’s surprise, he began to pick out a melody. More of a surprise, he recognized the tune after a few bars as an old Scottish folksong Auld Wallace. Then Laird sang along softly.

 

O for my ain king, quo gude Wallace,

The rightfu' king of fair Scotland.

Between me and my soverign blude

I think I see some ill seed sawn.

 

Wallace out over yon river he lap,

And he has lighted low down on yon plain,

And he was aware of a gay ladie,

As she was at the well washing.

 

What tydins, what tydins, fair lady, he says,

What tydins hast thou to tell unto me

What tydins, what tydins, fair lady, he says,

What tydins hae ye in the south Countrie

Though it was neither a mournful tune nor a slow lament, Hugh felt a stab of melancholy for his homeland. Not the Scotland of now but the Scotland of old.

The Scotland revisited in the company of these men.

As if she sensed his wistfulness, Claire slipped her hand into his and lay her head on his shoulder. She looked up at him with a question in her eyes. One that was easy to answer. While Hugh might feel some nostalgia for the time he was born, there was no time he’d rather be. No era better suited to him. No place he’d rather raise his child.

He was precisely where he was meant to be, and with whom he was meant to be with. Hugh could forgive Donell his methods because of his current happiness. Even if given the opportunity, he would never go back. Especially after Donell’s assurances regarding his family’s welfare.

Still, he had to wonder at Donell’s motives. This master plan of his which had been mulled over and questioned many times by them all these past weeks. If the birth of Laird and Scarlett’s child had been the plan of most concern to the old man, Hugh had to think he was part of it. The others concurred. The baby had been saved so Hugh might be born.

But what was he then? Another project? But what could be so important to Donell that he went through such troubles to make sure Hugh arrived safely in this time? To erase all history of Rosebraugh, his family, and the life he led before?

Were Scarlett’s worries the same?

Hugh usually excelled at puzzles of all sorts, but the potential endgame of this one left him baffled. His questions might never be answered.

Certainly not if Donell refused to make another appearance.

 

Jack

“Listen, Prescott, I hired you to follow that actress and learn what you can about the people she’s with.”

Jack turned his head and glowered at the man, sick of his bullshit and his tired navy blue suit. “And so I have.”

His employer sneered, slicing his hand through the air between them. “Bullshit, the only one you’ve even talked to so far is the red-headed man.”

“Aye and I’ve learned a lot from him.” Jack nodded, his fingers tightening around the handle of his beer mug. “First, he’s a poof. I wouldn’t have expected it given his ultra macho persona.” It’d been a surprise but a pleasant one. They hadn’t shared any of the old ‘How’s your father’ yet, but oddly enough, he didn’t mind. He was happy with a slap and a tickle or even simply sharing long talks instead, for Rhys was an endlessly fascinating guy. “Secondly, he’s fiercely protective of his brother and sister-in-law. Third, he’s good with kids. He dotes on his niece.”

The information didn’t satisfy the aggravated man next to him though. “But where are they from? What are they doing here? I want answers. That’s what I hired you for.”

“They haven’t said a thing about it. Any of them, and I’ve met them all,” Jack shot back. “The only one who has something to say is the child, but nothing she’s told me makes any sense.”

His client latched on to the tidbit like a terrier with a bone. “Like what?”

“Odd stuff, like wanting to know what things are that any child should know. Like traffic lights, for example. Or those light-up athletic shoes all the children wear these days.”

“Whose child is she?”

“Scarlett Thomas’s.” Jack leaned back, disturbed by the wild expression on the man’s face.

“Has she said anything about where they came