A Laird for All Time by Angeline Fortin (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📗

point.  The laird was dug deeply into his beliefs and even Dory didn’t even believe that her word was going to change his mind until it suited him to do so.  She forced herself to recall that she just needed to go with the flow as Dory had said.  After all, she needed a place to stay until she figured out how to get back home.  Surely somewhere someone was working on the fix for it.  She shivered at the passing thought that no one knew what was going on.

“Come, ye’re cold,” he offered his arm in a most gentlemanly way to her.  “Come inside and breakfast with me.”

Emmy took the arm he held insistently out to her but withdrew with a start when her hand touched the bare skin of his forearm.  Hot. Electric.  How was she to do this if the slightest touch had this effect on her?  Connor had jerked away as well confirming her suspicion that it effected him equally.  She thrust her hands into her coat pockets and stared up at the side of the looming castle aware that he pocketed his hands too.  “I’ll have to bring my camera out later when the sun is higher and take some pictures,” she offered in way of light conversation as they walked side by side.  Connor opened the heavy gate and bowed with a sweeping arm that she should precede him into the courtyard.

“Ye own your own camera?” Connor asked in surprise stopping to stare down at her upturned face as she registered the shock in his question.  Why should she gaze at him with such confusion? he wondered.  He knew of no one save the photographer in Inverary across the sound who owned their own camera.  “Are ye a photographer then?”

“Only as a hobby.”

“You must have done verra well for yourself in America to own such a thing.  Did you marry a rich man?”

“I’m not married,” she replied.

“Are ye not?” he questioned softly, irony readily recognizable.

“Let’s not go there today, okay?” she sighed again trying to keep Dory’s recommendation in mind, but she didn’t like being the object of Connor’s constant bitterness.  She wanted him to like her.  For what reasons, she chose not to examine too closely.  “Listen, can’t we just have a nice breakfast without an argument?”

Connor shrugged, surprised by her request. He realized that he would like that with her. “Aye, I suppose.  What are we to talk about then?  What are yer plans?”

“My plans involved sightseeing, perhaps a boat ride around the sound, a bit of shopping and much relaxation,” she told him.  “But, strangely, I don’t think I am going to get any of those things now.  Certainly not relaxation.”

Her tone was sharp and filled with a scorn and sarcasm that Connor felt was odd coming from such a lovely face.  There were little crinkles in the corner of hers eyes and a slight natural tilt to her mouth that told him that she smiled and laughed often.  He had not seen her do so as yet…at least from actual good humor.  “Ye seem verra angry, Heather, and bitter.  Yet yer face tells a story of a happier life,” he touched the corner of her eye lightly tracing the tiny lines there.  “Did ye not come here of yer own free will?  I do not understand at all why ye insist on pretending ye do not remember what once occurred here.”  He pointed to a detailed metal and glass door set in the right wing of the castle.  “The chapel where we wed,” he pointed out.

Emmy stared up at his handsome face filled with almost caring concern.  His brown eyes in that moment were tender and warm.  Yet, his face was not one that showed a life of laughter, she noted.  There were lines, yes.  A frown line between his brows.  A mouth that turned down just a bit at the corners as if he had not smiled in a long while.  He was an angry man, she realized, bitter from the embarrassment this Heather had once served him.  Had he loved her so much then that he had not been able to live happily without her?  She reached up and rubbed the hard line between his brows away with the pad of her thumb.   “I am sorry that you haven’t been able to move on with your own life, Connor.  It must have been pretty hard on you.”

His gaze hardened as Connor frowned and pushed her hand away.   “Spare me yer pity! Ye know nothing, Heather, of my life.”  He informed her in clipped tones as he turned away and headed for the castle door in angry strides.  He spun back suddenly stopping Emmy in her tracks as she moved to follow.  “I looked for ye for years!” he shouted angrily with a slash of his hand.  “I went after ye!”

Emmy stared back into his angry eyes.  “Out of love, Connor? Or pride?” she asked softly.

Connor snapped his mouth shut and turned away disappearing into the castle without another word.

Chapter 7

Taking a small plate of food from the buffet that was being laid out in the dining room as she passed, Emmy went straight up to her room intent on avoiding the laird until his temper cooled. He ran hot and cold without warning and she wasn’t in much of a mood to tiptoe around him. She shouldn’t have pushed him though with that last volley, she scolded herself.  She was used to getting the last word in and sometimes spoke without thinking.  As Dory had warned, he would probably be a perfect boar because of her thoughtlessness.

Her room or suite as it appeared was actually a bedroom and sitting room with the large dressing room and bath attached.  The door to the sitting room had been closed the previous evening but had been opened when the maids had straightened up this morning.  Where the bedroom was light and feminine with its light