“Didn’t sound too welcoming,” she muttered and his gaze returned intensely to her face.
The heat in his dark brown eyes was deep and turbulent, unsettling and thrilling to Emmy at the same time. He was the stuff of fantasies, she thought. All of her fantasies. Years of imaginings since she was a teen had always placed a man such as this at their center. She almost wanted in that moment to be who he thought she was.
“Who do you think I am, exactly?” her husky voice questioned before the thought even formed her mind.
He let out a disbelieving snort.
“Humor me.”
“To humor you, my love.” His deep, intriguing brogue again brought Connery-esque fantasies to her mind. Fantasies, fantasies. “You are my wife, Emeline Heather Stuart MacLean, Countess of Stratheclyde. You left here, ran away to be more accurate, ten years ago today and no one has ever seen you since.”
His wife. What woman would want to run away from him? she asked herself. The thought of having all the benefits of marriage to him made her clench her knees together tightly. Remember, she reminded herself, he’s insane…mental. It didn’t matter, her knees quivered anyway. “And what exactly happened ten years ago today that I supposedly ran away from?”
“Our wedding night.” He stood turning his back on them and stared out the window. His arms crossed tightly over his chest.
It was a defensive posture Emmy recognized immediately. It was hurt. Pain of loss. Anger. All brushed away with harsh sarcasm. Unfortunately she wasn’t in much of a mood to cater to his male pride.
“Must not have been an experience worth repeating,” she muttered under her breath.
Unfortunately he heard.
His back stiffened as he whipped back to her. “You dare to mention such a thing?”
“Relax, big guy, I’m not here to bruise your tender male ego. If you have problems in the sack, not that I can imagine that,” she rolled her eyes sarcastically, “it’s none of my business.”
“The sack, as you so quaintly put it, was never reached as you well remember. You left before that.” His voice rose as he worked his temper back up.
She stood up facing him nose to nose. “It wasn’t me!” she yelled right back.
“I don’t remember you being so temperamental, my dear.”
”If you ‘my dear’ me one more time, I swear I’m going to…”
“You’ll what?” he sneered.
“Um, Connor?” Ian interrupted from the door.
“What?” they both snapped turning toward the door.
Ian held up her large tote in one hand, her purse in the other.
“Oh, thank God!!” Emmy huffed as she stalked over and snatched the bags from his hand. “Let’s get this over with so I can get the hell out of this looney bin. Real shame, too,” she muttered to herself as she rummaged through the larger bag. “Man, you finally meet a guy that curls your friggin’ toes and he ends up being some whacked out SOB who has nothing better to do than…Aha! Here you go, Laird MacLean. Read it and weep then call me a cab and get me the hell out of here!”
The grin that had been forming on Connor’s lips faded at this last. He was sure that she had no idea she’d been talking out loud throughout it all. It intrigued him that she said ‘he curled her toes’ though he had no ideas what ‘friggin’ was. Frowning, he took the dark little booklet she was waving at him and stared down at its cover. There in shining gold letters was that word. Passport. Below it was some sort of emblem of an eagle and shield with the ‘United States of America’ below.
It fell open to a colorful page of another eagle and flag. And there was her portrait as well. It was an excellent photograph, he thought. He had never seen one that sharp though there were lines all across it. To the right was printed her name, the one she had given him. Her nationality was listed as USA and her birthplace incredibly as Virginia, USA. She had gone to America? He had been there years ago looking for her. One of the hundreds of places it seemed he had searched for her until they had all assumed she was dead. But she had been there, near Baltimore, she had said. Then he saw her birth date. March 10, 1982.
“It seems that your forger wasn’t as good as you must have thought.” He tapped the booklet against his hand. “Your birth year is listed here as 1982.”
“Yes, I was born on March 10, 1982. What’s the problem with that?”
“Because that would be impossible considering that it is only 1895.”
“Get out! You think you can pull some prank like that on me?”
“Aye, lass,” Ian added. “October 18, 1895.”
Emmy’s head spun as she looked dizzily around the room, at the lovely antiques, the oil lamps, Dorcas in her high-necked white blouse and long skirt, the Gibson-girl hairdo. She turned about the room.
For the second time in her life she fainted.
Chapter 4
A horrible burning in her nose brought her sharply back to life. “What? What happened?” she asked as she slapped away the smelling salts beneath her nose.
“You fainted…again.” Ian remarked with some disgust.
“Well, my dear, those travelling papers were an excellent forgery. Impressive yet imperfect.” The laird had retreated and was now ensconced once more in his chair leisurely sipping upon his drink. “Are you ready to have your bluff called and explain to me why you’ve decided to return after all this time?”
Emmy looked into his chocolaty eyes and knew that there was no way to explain this; she didn’t have a clue herself. Sure there was proof in her bag of where, when she was from, but at this point they would probably just think her mad. Maybe a witch or something equally unacceptable. She wondered
