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

Connor snorted into his cup then burst out laughing. The light humor softened his rugged features. “My apologies. Inside joke.”

“I’m an OB/GYN,” Emmy explained pleasantly enough though there was a hint of tightness in the words. “Johns Hopkins.”

Scarlett bit back a smile. An inside joke for Connor, but undoubtedly not so amusing to Emmy. She was sure the lives of Victorian woman were not so removed from medieval. No doubt she’d caused quite a stir being a real doctor.

Their visitor wasn’t the only one to nearly spit out his drink. Laird, too, gasped and coughed. “Ye mean ye’re the doctor Donell brought us?” He jerked a thumb at Connor. “No’ him?”

With a soft laugh, Scarlett leaned her head against Laird’s shoulder and patted his arm. “Oh, my dear, sweet chauvinist, haven’t we talked about all this many times before?”

Laird shook his head, but a shadow of a smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Aye, we hae and after all this time, I’ve managed to accept the concept of gender equality.”

She glanced up at him skeptically and he grunted.

“Wi’ ye, at least. Aye?”

“Aye, with me, at least.” She turned back to the others. “Well, I, for one, am glad to hear of your excellent education. This delivery may go a bit easier than the last where I had to explain the concept of sterilization to the midwife attending me.”

“The last time?” Emmy asked.

“We have a daughter, Hermione. She’s having her dinner, but should be down soon.”

“Excellent Scotch,” Connor praised.

“We distill it here at Dunskirk,” Laird responded, his voice a tad less stilted than before as his stony chill finally slipped away.

Scarlett took in the people around her. The men, at least Laird and Connor, were beginning to warm up to each other—that is, they were actually speaking beyond grunts. Connor had chosen an excellent topic to break the ice in complimenting Laird’s whisky. Though Donell still had his nose buried deep in his cup. She turned and waved for Emmy to follow her to a grouping of furniture close to the fireplace. “I’m sorry, standing is exhausting these days.”

“I understand completely.”

They sat across from each other while Emmy held her hands out to the fire. “Old castles, huh? I haven’t been warm in months, I swear.”

Scarlett smiled but it soon slipped away. She picked up her cup of lukewarm milk and took a sip. “I don’t understand why Donell would bring you so soon. Seems like a lot of trouble. I’ve a month to go. At least.”

“So long?” Emmy assessed her as if she could see into her belly. “I’m happy to help, of course, but if Donell thought I’d be waiting around for a month… How sure are you?”

“Well, as sure as I can be. I’m just working backward, which seemed to work accurately the first time around.”

Emmy was all doctor now. Scarlett could see the transformation in her eyes. “And there were no issues with your first pregnancy?”

“Other than being utterly terrified by the lack of technology the entire time?” Scarlett laughed softly and a bit harder when Emmy winced. “None of your own yet?”

“Not yet. It’s a nerve-wrecking thought, I’ll admit. Though I’ve been assured it will all end up fine in the end.”

“Who told you that?”

“My grandson.”

The very idea made Scarlett sigh. “Oh, how sweet. I wish I had such reassurance.”

“You have Donell in your corner.”

Both brows shot up of their own will. “As I said, I wish I had such reassurance.”

The quip made Emmy laugh, her green eyes alight with amusement once more. “You don’t know what to make of him either?”

“How can I when he never stays around long enough to ask?”

“Yet he’s been here forever, right?”

“Right.”

They shared a knowing look.

“Listen, Scarlett…” Emmy’s voice dropped to a low whisper, low enough the men wouldn’t hear. “Donell said something outside that’s bothering me. I was saying something along the lines of how we’re his little projects…”

“Yes.” She’d often felt like one.

“He said…well, he said you were the project.”

Scarlett frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not sure.” Emmy cast a sidelong glance at Donell. “I would like to examine you, though, if you’re comfortable with it. I don’t want to alarm you, but Donell seemed to think you’d need more help with this delivery than might be available in this…well, time.”

Panic chased away the last traces of amusement or even confusion. Scarlett’s hands fell reflexively to her stomach once more. “Is there something wrong with my baby?”

“I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It could be something as simple as a breech or the need for a cesarean. Both of which I’ve done beyond the twenty-first century, if knowing eases your mind at all.”

“You think that’s all?” Scarlett asked hopefully, but wasn’t hedging her bets.

For all Donell liked to stick his nose into people’s business, it wasn’t like him to be intentionally helpful when the situation didn’t suit him. Otherwise he would’ve sent Emmy for “assistance” the first time around. Or helped save one of the countless lives lost over the years. Not just babies or children, but some closer to home, including Rhys’s lover, Willem, who’d recently died of a fever.

Was she to be next?

“Seriously, don’t stress it.” Emmy laid a comforting hand on her arm. “I’m sure it’s nothing I can’t handle or I wouldn’t be here, right?”

“Right.”

Emmy patted her arm again. Her uncertainty must have been evident. “I’ve never lost a baby. Even under conditions worse than this.”

In the face of the doctor’s calm, steady reassurance, a measure of Scarlett’s worry melted away. It was comforting to know there was someone around who knew more about modern childbirth than she did for a change. “Good to know.”

“Still, you’ve got a point. A month