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

visit museums.  They could spend their evenings wrapped in each other’s arms before a roaring fire, perhaps reading to each other.  “I can give ye all those things,” he said softly.

Emmy glanced over at Connor wondering at his serious tone, but realizing when she saw the look on his face.  Reaching out, she caught his hand.  “I already know you can give me all the things I love, Connor.  Didn’t I already tell you that?”

“You did, my love,” he nodded.

“Then stop worrying, okay?  I’m happy right where am I.”

But to Connor’s mind a nagging, ‘for now’ dangled at the end.  He still couldn’t understand how she could be.  Surely the absence of all she left behind would one day lead to her discontent.  Truly, he was almost discontented just thinking about everything he was going to miss!  “What do ye miss the most?”

“Why do you want to torture yourself, Connor?”

He was torturing himself, he admitted dwelling on the things that would lead to her discontent.  But perhaps if he knew, he might be able to fix some of them.  “Humor me,” he tossed her words at her.

Her lips quirked a bit.  “Fine, then.”  She thought for a moment.  “I miss my car!”  She laughed and he joined her for a moment.

“Continue.”

“Heaters, I guess.  The fireplace is nice but it doesn’t get warm everywhere, though sleeping with you is better than the best heater.  And I suppose in the summer, I’ll miss air-conditioning.”  She gave him a smile but he waved her on.  “Ice cream…”

“We can make ice cream.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”  She tilted her head back as the horse swayed her from side to side.  “I will miss my music now the battery died.”

“Perhaps we could find an electrical generator, as you mentioned, so ye can…charge it up?”  He raised a questioning brow and she nodded that he got the terminology right.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Is there anything else?” he questioned but then pounced on the obvious.  “Movies, of course.  I would miss movies if I were ye.”

“Of course, movies.”  What else?  Emmy thought of her little house and life in Baltimore.  What else would she miss?  Surely it didn’t all boil down to heat, cooling, ice cream and music?  She’s miss all kinds of things, her friends, work, the restaurants and theater.  There were tons of things she would miss. Surely there were. “I don’t know, Connor.  Stop stressing about it, okay?”

Still, he shook his head and smiled ruefully at her.  “I will attempt to rid myself of worry,” he assured her and changed the subject.  “Tell me something about our future…I mean, our as in the Scots, of course.”

“Of course,” Emmy wrinkled her brow as she thought and finally confessed, “I wish I knew more to tell you, but, as I mentioned, I was always more interested in the architecture rather than history as a whole.  Let me think.”  She pondered the required college history courses she had taken and what she had seen on the History Channel.  “Queen Victoria dies a few years from now, not long after her 60th anniversary on the throne.  Have you met her?” she wondered.

“Aye, I have, she is a woman of amazing character,” Connor frowned as he considered her revelation.  “It saddens me that she will soon depart this earth but not surprising.  She has led a long, fulfilling life and out-lived children of her own.  What else?”

“Let me see, there will be the Spanish-American war soon, but that will be in Cuba,” Emmy racked her brain but shook her head.  “The Titanic will sink, that was a pretty big deal, but no, not anytime soon.  The Boer Wars, Spanish-American War…can’t remember too much about those.  I can’t think of anything else big for about twenty years.”

“What happens then?”

“War,” she said softly realizing for the first time that this was not a done deal to Connor that this was his future.  It would affect him much more than it did a student in a classroom a hundred years from now.  It would impact his life and possibly his cousins or future nephews would fight in that war and lose their lives to it.  Emmy frowned as a wave of sorrow overtook her for the pain he might experience in the years to come.  “They will call it the ‘Great War’, I think,” she went on when she realized he was waiting for her to continue.  “World War I we call it in the history books.  England, France and the US will fight together against Germany, I can’t remember why exactly.  Sorry.  It’ll be pretty bad though.  Russian revolution is in there somewhere, too.  The tsar’s entire family will be killed by revolutionaries and that monarchy will fall.”

“What of our monarchy?” he asked urgently thinking the foundation of his nation might change dramatically in the years to come.  As a peer of the realm, he took his government  seriously.

“Oh, you’re fine!” she assured him quickly.  “Don’t worry!  The English monarchy is one of the most famous in my time.  They are ridiculously popular.  They are treated like celebrities.”  Connor’s brow rose in question.  “Well, they are very famous, everyone wants to see them, take a picture, you know.”

“It is  much the same now,” he nodded thinking of the crowds that lined the streets each time the queen or one of her family ventured out in public.  Connor thought for a moment then asked, “Ye say the war will be called World War I?  Are there more that will follow?”

“Yes, unfortunately, in the 1940’s there will be another along the same lines, the US, England, France and Russia against Germany, Italy and Japan.  It will be a big one, but there are many other wars big and small.  Too many others.  I told you the future is a violent place, Connor.”  Emmy scrunched her nose.  “Even when I left we were fighting.”

“It seems the future is not all sunshine and roses,” he said to lighten her mood.  “Tell me something that will happen besides