“You know, I’m getting damn tired of hearing you say that.” Emmy stood nose-to-nose with the old man, glaring down at him from her superior height. For all her feminine Victorian clothing and elaborate hairdo, she was a menacing sight. “How does it work exactly?”
“I’m no’ a bluidy god, lass,” he shot back.
“You’ve sure been acting like one, haven’t you?” Emmy snapped. “Otherwise, I don’t think we ever clarified exactly what you are.”
“Emmy—”
“No!” She shook off Connor’s hand and jabbed a finger at Donell. “Mr. Wizard here has been playing with us, all of us, all this time, without ever once providing answers to our questions in return. And I damn well want some.”
“Lass, we dinnae have time for this,” Donell repeated.
“Yes, and I’m sure when we do, you won’t be around.”
There was a peculiar desperation in Emmy’s voice that shook Scarlett to the core. She understood where such anxiety came from, though. None of them knew Donell’s ultimate agenda. If there even was one. What he might do to them. Take away from them. The uncertainty of it all was enough to rattle even the strongest personality.
And Emmy’s was pretty damn strong.
For the hundredth time, Scarlett wondered who or what Donell really was. When she’d first met him at Dunskirk Castle in 2013, she’d thought him nothing more than a jolly, elfish old man with weathered features offset by a merry smile and twinkling eyes. When she’d met him again in 1513 wearing an ancient tartan and tam, he’d given the impression of a clichéd Scotsman. Never aging. Never changing. If he wasn’t a god, or the wizard some whispered of, what was he? What did he want from them?
“Emmy.” Connor’s tone was more gentle this time. She snuggled into his arms as if taking a moment’s comfort before turning back to argue the logistics of the matter with Donell some more.
“Where then?”
“This location. In her time,” Donell proposed flatly.
“That’s the best you can do? Not even closer to a hospital?”
For a moment, Scarlett wished Emmy would push Donell even harder. Then she sighed. “Please don’t fight, Emmy. I’ve managed quite well without being bickered over these past years. I have no desire to start again.”
Emmy was more cynical. “You think he can drop you back where you left off looking likethat”—she gestured to encompass Scarlett’s condition—“and no one is going to question the changes? You know how the paparazzi can be. You’ll have the fight of your life the moment you step foot back there and you know it.”
Scarlett winced. Damn, she knew everything Emmy said was true. She’d be trending on every form of social media in less than five minutes of setting foot back in her own time. “I don’t care. Let them fight among themselves trying to figure me out.”
Laird tensed beside her. Her protective knight. “I willnae let ye go into a fight wi’out protection.”
“It won’t be that kind of fight,” she assured him, but the very thought of facing cameras and crowds again exhausted her. She sagged against Laird. Without a word, he swept her into his arms and strode toward the stairs to their bedchamber.
Connor whispered something in Emmy’s ear and followed them. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Many thanks, but nae.” Laird glanced back over his shoulder at the other man. “Yer Emmy can be a bit headstrong. How do ye put up wi’ a lass like that?”
“I like a lass who pushes back.” Connor’s grin was filled with satisfaction.
Scarlett rolled her eyes. Laird often maintained he liked her for the same reason but there was no comparison between her and Emmy.
She wondered, though, did Emmy’s own husband not see it? That the outward bitchiness was nothing but a façade for the fear beneath? Not fear for her own fate but for those elements beyond her control?
Having lived most of her life among the sort, Scarlett could spot a control freak from a thousand paces. And unless she missed her guess, Emmy was as big of one as they came. The woman could give a few actresses Scarlett knew a run for their money. Here in this time and place, she’d have zero control over the outcome of anything much less the birth of a child.
Then to put her up against Donell who took control as if he owned it?
The entire situation must scare her more than it did Scarlett.
Scarlett
“So, what do you think of this plan?” Laird asked, as he carefully set Scarlett on her feet next to their bed.
He held her steady as she reached under her outer skirt and untied her multiple layers of wet woolen petticoats. Once she let them drop, he lifted her onto their feather bed as though she were an invalid. He tried to cover her up but she pushed the quilts away, unwilling to be bound when her deepest instinct was to run.
