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

tried to remember what she had learned about dealing with the mentally unstable.  Damn, she never, ever wanted to go into that field, why would she retain any working knowledge on the subject?  That laird had her totally frazzled.

“Connor, right? Okay, Connor, let’s compromise here,” she tried in a low soothing voice.  “I’d be willing to accept that I must bear a remarkable resemblance to your wife, if you will just for one tiny moment consider that I might just not be her.”

“I might have considered that if you weren’t here, now exactly ten years from the day you left.” Connor answered.  How long was she thinking she could preserve this denial of her identity?  He wasn’t sure whether he should be angered or amused by her tenacity.

“Ten years later you think you’d know me? Her?  Get real!  I could not see my own mother for ten years and not recognize her.  What makes you so sure?” she challenged.

A female squeal sounded from a nearby doorway.  As Emmy turned, a young woman who looked remarkably like her yet white as a ghost, whispered “Gracious” and fainted promptly into the other man’s arms.

Her eyes met the laird’s.  He smirk was obvious as he descended the stairs pointing at the other woman.  “That’s what.”

Emmy followed the men into the sitting room nearby as the one named Ian carried the woman over to a small sofa and laid her gently down.  Emmy stared in amazement.  She had always heard that everyone had a doppelganger somewhere in the world.  Here was hers.  She could tell no physical difference between their two faces.  She almost wanted to reach out and touch her to make sure she was real.  Weird.  A shudder passed through her that she couldn’t identify…trepidation?  Fascination?  Fear?

The man called Ian took a small vial from a maid who scurried in after them and waved it under the woman’s nose until she started and began to revive.

When she opened her eyes, the woman examined Emmy suspiciously for a long moment before summoning a small smile as she struggled to sit up.  “Heather, we thought you’d never come back.  Tell me, where have you been all this time?”

Emmy sighed, unsure of where to go next in this tangled mess.  “Listen, uhh ma’am, I’m afraid we have a bit of a misunderstanding in the works here…”

“Come, Heather, you’re not going to pretend that you don’t recognize your own sister?” the laird taunted as they helped the other woman into a sitting position.

“Sister?” Emmy’s eyes locked with blue eyes that looked so much like her own and shivered.  The light brown hair, much like her original color…before she had it highlighted, of course.  They could have been twins, that much was true, except the woman was obviously well along in her pregnancy maybe the end of her second trimester.

When Emmy remained stiff, the other woman’s eyes narrowed slightly.  “Oh, poor dear…you don’t remember, do you?  It’s me, Dorcas, your sister.  Remember?”

Disarmed by the unusual name, Emmy snorted in surprise.  “Really?  You’re kidding, right?  Dorcas?” Emmy couldn’t contain her amusement, chuckled out loud drawing puzzled stares from all the room’s occupants.  “Listen, Dorc..Dorc...I’m sorry, I can’t say it.  Is there something else I can call you?” Emmy shook her head again with a snort.  “Just can’t do it with a straight face.”

Dorcas and the men continued to look puzzled, but the woman finally sighed.  “You may call me Dory, of course…as you always did,” she added with a curious frown.  “What is it about my name you seem to find so amusing, if I may ask?”

Emmy sat down on a nearby chair tucking one leg beneath as was her habit.  Slouching back in the seat, she waved her hand casually.  “You know?  Dork?” she waited expectantly but all three faces remained blank.  “I guess it’s an American thing.”  She shrugged.  “Let’s move on, shall we, and get back to the issues here.  This assumption that I am your sister,” she jabbed a finger in the laird’s direction, “and his wife.”

The laird stepped forward pointing a finger right back at her and opening his mouth to speak when Dorcas…no, Dory, held a calm palm out and urged him to sit as well.  “Come, Ian and I were just going to pour some tea.  Join us.  We’ll work through this.”

Emmy stared at the laird, Connor, as he sat and stared at her until, in short order, she found herself being handed a cup of hot tea.  She frowned down into the cup.  Hot tea.  Of course they drank tea in Great Britain but…yuck!  At least in London she had managed to find a Starbucks or two.  She set the cup and saucer down on the table in front of her.

“That’s an interesting, ummm, ensemble you have on, Heather,” Dory sniffed with just a bit of an edge as she poured tea for the men.  A nudge from Ian stopped her as they took glasses of some sort of liquor from an attending servant. “Is it the latest style in traveling apparel?” Dorcas poured her own cup and took a sip analyzing Emmy over the rim.

Emmy looked down at the “ensemble” that she had recently bought just for this trip.  She wore a nicer pair of dark wash skinny jeans tucked into knee-high black suede boots for warmth and comfort in the cool fall of Scotland.  Her white silk blouse was topped with a short, black velvet jacket and silver scarf with long tassels. Maybe not as comfortable for travel as just jeans and a t-shirt, but that wasn’t what she was going for.  She hadn’t wanted to give the impression of a sloppy American tourist for the locals to poke fun at. “I think it was designed more for style than travel.  Don’t you like it?” she asked the room in general only now noting the disconcerted looks of the two men as they looked her over.  Emmy had long been considered and treated as a