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

statement, stating that she’d married—but not to Grayson—and yes, had a baby. Scarlett had staunchly refused to answer any other questions despite her mother’s protests and had gotten another lecture about fame and fortune for it.

Her troubled relationship with Olivia only served to stress Scarlett more.

Laird might have liked to drive from there to the theater so she might relax instead of strangling the steering wheel with her white-knuckle grip, but he hadn’t the skill as yet to navigate the vehicle at fast enough speed to evade the paparazzi who often trailed their escape. And he had no more desire than she to reveal the name of their hotel lest the crowd stalk them there. If so, their incessant presence would never end.

Even now, she claimed they were just people doing their jobs. Yet each picture of Hermione or the baby that flashed on a TV screen rubbed salt on the festering wound of her mounting anxiety.

Aye, he knew she was as anxious as he to return home.

“Nay,” he finally answered, entwining their fingers. “This place has me oot of sorts. Just assure me ye’ll be as glad as I to put this time behind us and go home.”

“I will be. Because I love you, our children, and our life together. I will be,” she vowed with truth enough in her eyes to appease him, but a hint of mischief entered them again as she added, “After this, of course. You’re going to love this, even if it’s the one thing about this time you love.”

Her relaxed demeanor since they entered the theater gave him joy enough to compensate for whatever futuristic torture she meant to ply him with.

He was sorry to have cast a shadow over her enjoyment.

Even if it was at his expense.

“What are we aboot, lass?” he repeated, once they were settled at the center of the many seats. “A play?”

“No.” She grinned then shifted her eyes to smile more politely at the young woman coming down the aisle. “Thank you so much for bringing this down for us, Janice.”

“No problem at all, Miss Thomas. I’ll just go get it started for you, if you’re ready?”

“We are. Thank you again.”

The woman was the same one who’d let them in the front doors. The theater manager, Scarlett had told him. She carried with her a tray bearing two tall bags, two paper cups and a few small crinkly packages similar to those Laird had gotten from the vending machines at the hospital.

“Popcorn.” Scarlett handed him one of the bags after the attendant left them. “Soda. And candy. Everything to make this perfect for you.”

“And what is this exactly?”

“A movie,” she told him brightly, watching his face for his reaction.

He’d gotten rather adept over his lifetime at hiding his emotions from everyone. His father, stepmother, brothers, sisters, men-at-arms, but Laird had never been very good at it with her. Nor had he succeeded with this attempt. Scarlett’s lips twitched with suppressed amusement over his thinly veiled dismay. She’d told him about films often, especially in those early days of their marriage when she’d been eager to tell him about the future and he’d been as keen to hear it.

Over the years, she’d mentioned her past less and less. Laird dug through his memory in attempt to recall all she’d told him about movies. Something to do with moving pictures.

But before he could, the lights dimmed turning the theater to pitch blackness. “What the bluidy…?”

Then there was a beam of light and the curtains parted. Images, like from the television but enormous beyond belief filled the wall, music built louder and louder until Laird couldn’t hear himself think. Beside him, Scarlett smiled still but her gaze had shifted from him to the moving pictures.

Then words appeared and Laird soon smiled as well.

Just a little.

Inwardly, of course, because two could play her game.

Scarlett

“Did you love it?” Scarlett inundated him the moment the screen went black.

“I dinnae hate it,” was all he would give her.

“Oh come on! I saw you smile. You loved it.”

“I liked the popcorn, but no’ the soda. The chocolate nuggets were acceptable.”

Since they’d lost several minutes at the beginning of the movie as she explained the awesomeness of what he was eating to him, Scarlett knew acceptable was a gross understatement.

“The movie, however, had its share of disappointments. It wisnae precisely like the story ye’ve read,” he argued, eating the final handful of popcorn. “Vital portions of the tale were missing.”

“To put each line and action from a book that length into a movie is impossible,” she justified. “Things have to change, otherwise it would be way too long. Come on, tell me you loved it.”

“I love ye,” he whispered, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pressing his lips to hers. He tasted of salt and chocolate.

Sweet yet savory, Scarlett could have gobbled him up and planned to as soon as he confessed. “It’s Harry Potter, Laird. Tell me you loved it.”

“I’d be a fool no’ to,” he allowed. “Once I became accustomed to faces ten-feet tall, that is. I’ll admit, Harry was exactly as I’d pictured him.”

Of the books she’d brought to the past with her, from Austen to Bronte to Rowling, Laird had always liked the Harry Potter series the best. Despite his skepticism when it came to the reality of magic. Seeing his face light up with the special effects on the screen had been as satisfying to Scarlett as seeing The Sorcerer’s Stone on the big screen once again.

She wished they had time here for Laird to see them all and perhaps binge watch Doctor Who while they were here. The newest Doctor was being announced soon, and she couldn’t help being curious. But conversely,