Love in the Time of a Highland Laird (A Laird for All Time Book 3) by Angeline Fortin (whitelam books .TXT) 📗

“So his name will remain unsullied?”

“Aye. His name. And now mine.” He dropped back in his chair. Al knew he was shaken more than he let on.

“Can I help?” she offered, trying to find a way to ease his burden. “I don’t have the best handwriting, but I’ll give it a shot if you want.”

“Gladly, lass.”

Retrieving another pen from the drawer, he spent a few minutes showing her how to use it and let the ink draw up inside of it. Her blotchy, ruinous attempts restored his ususal congenial humor.

“My grandma had one of these.” She laughed. “Now I know why she kept it in a box and never used it.”

“Ye mentioned her last night,” he said, resuming his seat and taking up his pen. “Yer grandmother and her farm. Is she still alive?”

Constantly with the personal questions! But he’d had a bad morning and she didn’t mind talking about her grandmother. So, Al obliged him. Sort of.

“You know, she hasn’t even been born yet, right?”

“Ah, the time paradox ye spoke of.” He grinned back and tapped the base of his pen to his temple.

“To answer your question, no. She died when I was sixteen,” she told him. “I loved her dearly. Loved being with her away… away from everything else. She encouraged me to read when—well, she always encouraged me. When I was a kid, I loved to go visit her. Her farm was my happy place.”

“What did she raise?”

“Oh, it hadn’t been a working farm since my grandfather was a little boy,” she corrected, concentrating more on her writing and trying to make it look as nice as his. Handwriting was a lost art. “But she had a bunch of cats living under the deck and an old horse out back.”

“Where was this farm? In your colonies?”

Al rolled her eyes dramatically. “The United States. That’s what it will be called once they gain their independence from England in oh, about thirty more years. No more king.”

He nodded in approval. “More power tae them.”

He asked her what had prompted their revolution and happy with the change of subject, she told him.

Though they were interrupted twice by the absentminded Archie who ended up with nothing to say either time, the afternoon passed quickly.

Chapter 20

“What is that?” Al swallowed the bit of toast she’d been munching on for her breakfast late the next morning. Peigi was laying out a heavy-looking black dress for her to wear. Nothing like the lightweight linen dresses she had been wearing over the last couple days. It looked wholly uncomfortable… and hot.

“Master Keir… I mean, His Grace, asks that ye wear it, miss. A surprise, he said.”

Yes, he was full of those.

Peigi’s eyes were wide with anticipation. “Ye’ll look lovely in it, I think. Yer hair will shine against the black.”

“I’m sure one of the normal dresses will be fine no matter what we do, won’t they? It’s been awfully warm lately.” The past couple days had been warm for the end of April. She’d been hot even in the lighter dresses simply because of the corset and all the other layers that accompanied them. She’d die of heat-stroke in this one.

“He did ask that ye wear it, miss,” Peigi urged once more.

“Don’t worry, Peigi,” Al assured her. “I won’t let him blame you, but there’s no way I’m putting that one on today. I want the thinnest one we’ve got, with the shortest sleeves and the fewest layers.”

The maid giggled as she listed off her criteria.

“And I’d like my hair up and off my neck today, too.”

She generally wore her long hair up in a ponytail or messy bun. While there were ribbons aplenty, they tended to slide right off her silky hair when she tried to tie it back or braid it. There was nothing else for her to use but combs or the stiff wooden bobby pins available now. Frustrated, she’d given it up after just a single attempt to do it herself.

“If you don’t mind helping me again, that is?”

“Nay, miss. I’m happy tae help ye wi’ it e’ery day. I told ye, ‘tis my job tae assist ye.”

Wincing at the reminder, Al just nodded. She’d never had help taking care of herself, not even from her mother, since she was five. It was more difficult than she thought, accepting it now. “Thank you.”

Forsaking even the corset and drawers she was slowly becoming accustomed to given how warm it already was, Al opted in favor of her own bra and panties. Covering them in a linen shift, she allowed Peigi to help her dress in a light linen dress of periwinkle blue with a simple ivory underskirt and only one petticoat. Though she knew her best hope of a life here without regrets meant embracing all it entailed, there were just some things the future did better. Undergarments was one of those things. The assumption that she could dress herself was another, but the maid was just too earnest and kind to deny.

After Peigi announced her perfectly respectable, Al dropped down on the vanity bench and let Peigi brush out her hair. Trying not to squirm impatiently as she braided and twisted and pinned the long locks until they were all up and off her neck as promised.

“Ye will tell the master I did insist upon the black?”

“I will,” Al said, patting the girl’s hand assuredly. “He won’t blame anyone but me, I promise.”

Peigi relaxed, her usual smile returning to grace her round face. Bringing over a wide-brimmed but flat straw hat, she placed it at a flattering angle over Al’s hair-do and pinned it securely. “I’m tae tell ye, also, Ma—His Grace requests that ye join him in the front hall as soon as ye’re ready.”

“The front hall?”

The maid beamed at her. “Aye, miss.”

“We’re going out?”

*

“Ye’re nae dressed tae go oot,” Keir said with a frown when she reached the front hall.

In contrast to the past several