Connor shared a grin with his wife. “Maybe I should have Emmy explain theXandYswimmers.”
Scarlett rolled into the room with Rhys pushing her in an ingenious wheeled chair. Wrapped in a coarse white robe, with hideous stockings on her feet, her long auburn hair tangled around her shoulders and a bonny, weary smile on her lips, she’d never looked lovelier to Laird’s mind. Her brown eyes were lit with laughter that warmed his troubled heart.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “I’ve already tried and he’s not buying it.”
“Aye, a stubborn arse my brother is,” Rhys chimed in. The two laughed together and an affectionate smile tugged at Laird’s lips.
Years before, their close friendship had dealt Laird fits of jealousy. Even when he knew he had her heart, he’d envied the intimate bond between them. Now he was glad for it. For both their sakes.
However, he wasn’t pleased Rhys had stolen Scarlett for a turn around the hospital in her condition. Setting Hermione on her feet, Laird jumped up and tugged at the ridiculous garb he wore. He found the scrubs as grating as the word used to describe them. They were binding and rather tight—something Scarlett hadn’t minded as much as he for some reason—but then the scrubs weren’t meant for a man his size.
“Where have ye been, lass? Ye should be abed. Resting.”
“It’s a different time, Laird. No rest for the weary here. They’ll expect me to be up and about today and out of here tomorrow.” Scarlett shifted her gaze to the incubator and Hermione joined her, pressing her face against the plastic shell to get a better look at her new sister. “Not that I’ll be going anywhere until the baby is able to go…well,go homeseems a rather loose statement at the moment, doesn’t it?” She chewed her lip. “Which leads to the bigger question. Has anyone seen Donell around at all?”
“No, he seems to have disappeared entirely,” Emmy told her. “The old bugger.”
“I hate it when he does that.”
“You’re preaching to the choir.”
Laird parted his lips, an inquiry on the tip of his tongue, but closed them again. “Nay, I’m no’ going to ask.”
He’d already spent the better part of the previous day and night gaping like a simpleton left and right, a thousand questions on his lips. From the hard white and beige floor beneath his feet to the lights shining down from above and everything between, everything single thing he gazed upon roused one question after another.
He’d seen tubes stuck in his wife and his newborn daughter with no conceivable idea as to their purpose. Had his new bairn confined to a box for reasons beyond his ken. Words were spoken by doctors, nurses, and even his wife that held no meaning to him.
Naïvely, he’d thought Scarlett’s stories had readied him to face the future, but nothing could have prepared him for this. Navigating this time was like learning a new language without knowing the alphabet it was derived from.
His wife’s warning made more sense now that he was here. He was out of his element in this place. For the first time in his life, Laird found himself inferior to others. Not even his illegitimacy had brought him so low, and the feeling sat ill upon him. His survival instinct warred with the need to protect his family.
Nothing would prevent him from the latter. Regarding the former, however, he’d chosen to keep his hands—and curiosity—to himself. While he might be able to ignore what he saw, blocking out the sounds was much harder. This new world was incessantly loud. Constantly abuzz with the sounds of the machines, talking of persons in the hallways, and the roar of whatever lay outside their windows. What was beyond, he wasn’t certain he wanted to know. Their brief experience outside the hospital doors soured his interest.
He longed for home without even a full day having passed. For the comfort of his hall, the familiar clatter of his family and household to soothe his ears.
But Scarlett was correct. They could not leave this place without their wee bairn. Or without the presence of the enigmatic Donell. Wherever the old man had hied himself off to, he best return soon or suffer Laird’s wrath.
“How long will the doctors require the bairn to stay in this box?” he inquired of Emmy.
“Not too long,” she told him. “She was far enough along not to require any breathing tubes, so that’s a blessing. She has a little jaundice but that’s not unusual. So once that clears up and she’s able to maintain body heat and eat without assistance, they’ll let her go. Maybe a few weeks or so.”
Weeks more seemed far too long to Laird. What was he to do in this time and place for weeks more? He was a nobleman, an administrator of his estate, and a courtier with duties to the infant king. He wasn’t used to idle time or idle hands.
He had a castle to build.
By God, but the view of Dunskirk when the shuttle had hauled them away had been an inspiring one. Scarlett had tried to describe what the castle would one day become, to draw out their plans, but to see the changes, what it would become, with his own eyes had left him awestruck. What a legacy he would leave behind.
Ifthey were to ever return home, that was.
Emmy
There was a spirit of lightness and gratitude in the small hospital room. Undeniable, but as the primary reason for their travels had been accomplished to their highest expectations, Emmy couldn’t help but think about the ramifications of their journey and what awaited them.
Even the thought of playing doctor with her sexy husband in his scrubs couldn’t banish the apocalyptic scenarios chasing one another through her mind. Gathering up her long hair, she twisted the length and wrapped it into a bun at the nape of her neck before letting it fall loose. Then repeated the process. A nervous habit she hadn’t succumbed to since her residency.
“Listen, I hate to be the voice of negativity…”
“Nay, ye dinnae.”
