A Laird to Hold

by Angeline Fortin

  Barely a second after Scarlett nodded her assent, the door swung open and her mother swept in with all the dramatic posture she assumed on the stage.

  “Scarlett, darl—” She froze at the sight of them snuggled together on the bed. “My God, it’s true. What is the meaning of this?”

  Scarlett’s one-time agent, Tyrone Halliday, followed her in and also paused mid-step. He scratched his bald head but managed to dislodge his surprise before her mother even twitched. Coming around the far side of the bed, he bent to kiss her cheek. His probing gaze lingered on the baby sprawled across her.

  “You look rough, Scar.” He’d never been one to cushion truth where he found it. Brutal honesty was one of the things she’d ever truly liked about him. “What have you done to yourself? A couple months of bullshit and you’ve completely gone to the dogs.”

  Laird seemed confused by Tyrone’s phrasing, but Scarlett wasn’t about to explain it at the moment.

  “It’s nice to see you, Tyrone.”

  His brows rose. “Is it? Not at all the impression I got when you gave us the proverbial boot a month ago.”

  Scarlett caught herself before the surprise showed on her face. That’s right, she’d given Tyrone notice. And her mother as well. When she’d first returned from the sixteenth century and faced their never-ending pressure to perform like a marionette for them while they pulled her strings, she’d refused to be their moneymaker any longer. She’d forgotten about their behavior over the years.

  “So, what brings you here now then?” Almost inaudibly, she added, “And what is she doing here?”

  Beyond the five years she’d been gone, Scarlett hadn’t come face-to-face with her mother in at least another year above that. Olivia preferred to do her pestering by phone or through Tyrone.

  “She arrived a few days ago.”

  So a month of not knowing where her daughter disappeared to was okay, but that extra week had been too much for her? What a caring mother.

  Olivia finally found her voice before Scarlett could say anything more. “What on earth is going on here, Scarlett? Do you have any idea what the papers are saying?”

  “Why hello to you too, Mother.”

  “Darling, this erratic behavior of yours is totally unacceptable. Disappearing without a word to anyone? Canceling all your appearances to linger about that dreadful castle and mope around all the while? We’ve been looking for you everywhere for days and how do I find out you’re here? Do I get a phone call? A text? No! I hear it on the news like I’m one of the rabble. And a baby?” She glanced at the infant on Scarlett’s chest but made no move to come closer. Her visual pass over of Laird lasted considerably longer. She’d have to have been dead not to notice such a gorgeous man in the room, and Olivia never missed a chance to assess a man’s potential.

  A smile under the circumstances would have been too much for her, but she did preen involuntarily, the move bred down deep, before pacing the room. Laird glanced at Scarlett, compassion and understanding for everything she’d ever said about her mother there in his eyes.

  “Really! I have no idea how you managed to hide that” —she jabbed her finger at the baby—“from me but let me tell you, you have some explaining to do, young lady. And to come to a public hospital? Where we couldn’t even begin to hide it? You should have said something. Let us prepare a response or even take you to Switzerland to sweep it under the rug completely. Tyrone is having a hell of a time fielding the calls, I can tell you.”

  “Yes, hell of a hullabaloo you’ve got going here, Scar.” Tyrone nodded but his upset wasn’t remotely as powerful as Olivia’s. Nor was Scarlett’s. This was all ancient history to her. A chapter she wasn’t interested in revisiting.

  Laird looked at her again and gestured minutely. The silent conveyance of a question offering everything from quiet intervention to knocking her mother out and dragging her from the room. Affection lifted the corner of her lips. She intertwined their fingers, drawing on his love and confidence, but didn’t have him come to her rescue this time.

  She wouldn’t wish her mother’s wrath on anyone.

  “I didn’t have much of a choice.” Scarlett deflected the dual condemnation of the others in the room. “An emergency, by definition…”

  “I don’t care what it was.” Her strides a quick, irate march, matched the staccato of her heels on the linoleum floors. Scarlett let her go, knowing from experience it was best to let her mother lose steam before launching a defense. “Do you have any idea what you’ve started here? We have commitments coming up, contracts. Your behavior over the past month has everyone questioning whether or not to keep you on and now this? A baby?” She emphasized the word again with the same disbelief and distaste.

  “Your granddaughter.” Scarlett took a wee bit of pleasure in her mother’s wince. Olivia could hardly bear being the mother of a fully-grown woman. Being labeled as a grandmother would send her scurrying to her plastic surgeon for a complete redo. “Wouldn’t you at least like to look at her?”

  “No, I would not.”

  “Would you care to meet my husband then?” Scarlett asked, unable to tamp down the wicked glee she took in shocking her mother again.

  “Husband?” Olivia leveled a horrified stare upon first Scarlett then Laird, but made no further comment.

  Tyrone, however, held out his hand. “Tyrone Halliday. I’m Scar’s agent.”

  “I ken who ye are,” Laird answered curtly, but took his hand and shook it. “James Hepburn.”

  “So how did you two meet?”

  Olivia threw up her arms. “Who cares how they met? What I want to do is figure out how we’re going to explain this.”

  “We’re not,” Scarlett responded firmly.

  “Not? We must. Do you have any idea what sort of fiction the press are coming up with out there? We need a story to set them straight. Straightaway, before it’s too late.”

  “I have no intention of explaining anything to anyone,” Scarlett stated more decisively. Her daughter began to fuss against her, no doubt sensing her mother’s growing agitation. Reaching for her button, she rang for the nurse, who appeared so instantaneously she must have been lingering outside the door. “Would you take her for a few moments, please? I need to talk to my mother and don’t want to upset her.”

  The nurse nodded and gently removed the baby, wrapping her tightly in a blanket before whisking her away. Scarlett adjusted her hospital gown until she was covered again and pushed herself up. If she was going to have this conversation, she wouldn’t take the confrontation lying down. Laird, too, stood and glared at Olivia.

  Her mother hardly noticed, pacing the room with visible agitation. “You cannot be acting like this. There are cameras everywhere. Spies everywhere. Any one of the hospital staff could pass information or pictures to the press. Put on some makeup, for Christ’s sake. You are better than this. What is everyone to think?”

  “That maybe under all the outward polish I’m something better than just Scarlett Thomas?” She cocked her head. “Just as you like to think you’re more Olivia Harrington rather than just Thelma Lou Ellis?”

  Tyrone shot Scarlett an approving nod. She doubted he’d ever seen her deliver such a killer blow. Much less stand up to her mother.

  The pacing came to an abrupt stop. “Watch your mouth, young lady.”

  Nevertheless, the reminder had Olivia straightening, smoothing her hands over the sloped sides of her cherry red, I’d-like-to-speak-to-a-manger asymmetrical bob and down the front of her bronze suit jacket as she sucked in her gut. Just like that, Scarlett’s temperamental mother disappeared and the publicist/manager was back.

  “An excellent reminder to both of us. We have an image to maintain,” Olivia continued in measured tones though her artificially green eyes spewed venom. “Though these last few months may have damaged yours irrevocably. People are talking, Scarlett.”

  “And I don’t care what they’re saying, Mother,” Scarlett reiterated. “Not that I ever rea
lly did, but I care even less now.”

  Olivia resumed her pacing as if Scarlett hadn’t spoken. “Tell me, is it drugs? We’ll find a good place. Somewhere discreet. I cannot understand how you slipped this by me, Scarlett.”

  “It’s not drugs, Mother.”

  “It certainly must be. We’ll have to come up with a story and something feasible. Tyrone?”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  “Better do it quick. We’ve got that makeup campaign coming up and the magazine cover shoot. We can’t afford to lose them. Though when they get a look at you…” She winced. “They’ll have to Photoshop the hell out of her, if they keep her at all.”

  With a groan, Scarlett rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. She hadn’t slept well enough the previous night in the crowded hospital room to fight this fight with the nuance required. Spilling the entire truth of the matter was sounding pretty good right then but with the way her luck was going, her mother and Tyrone would try to see her put into a mental ward. That would help nothing and no one. “Gentlemen, could I have a moment alone with my mother, please?”

  “Are ye certain, lass?” Concern and protectiveness was clear in Laird’s heavy brogue.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Pride and encouragement shone in Laird’s pewter eyes. He nodded and held the door for Tyrone, who protested in perfect chorus with Olivia before Laird took him by the arm and escorted him out.

  Laird

  “I’ve got to say, you’re not at all the sort I thought Scar would ever hook up with,” Tyrone said, rubbing his arm after Laird released him.

  Laird didn’t exactly understand all of the man’s words but got enough of them to discern an insult of sorts embedded within. Crossing his arms across his chest, Laird scowled down at the agent in a manner that normally sent lesser men atremble.

  Built like a bull the man might be, but Tyrone was still a fraction of Laird’s size. Despite the difference, he merely frowned in return. The whole of his bald head creased in the process. He looked Laird up and down as if he were more a curiosity than a threat.

  “Strong silent type, huh? I guess I can understand why she likes you.”

  “Ye best leave Scarlett be. She has all she needs to fulfill her,” he responded in a quiet brogue, using some of the phraseology Scarlett had used upon him in years past. “And worries aplenty wi’oot ye heaping more upon her.”

  “You expect us to just walk away from our biggest moneymaker?”

  “Aye, I do. Wi’ haste,” Laird’s accent held a hint of warning. This man with his carefully trimmed goatee and smarmy smile had once been both ally and adversary of his wife. A protector. Which side he was on now was difficult to ascertain, but Laird needed to make sure the battle lines were clear. “I warn ye, I may allow Scarlett to fight her own battles wi’ her mother, but I willnae let anyone hurt her in any way. If ye bring pain of any sort upon her, my wrath will be returned upon ye tenfold. Ye hae my promise.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Serious? I would gi’ my life to protect her.”

  “Give your life?” Tyrone shook his dark head as if Laird’s phrasing were as foreign to him as many modern idioms were to Laird. “Who says things like that anymore?”

  “Is protecting those ye love such an old-fashioned concept?” he asked. “Scarlett is mine and what is mine, I safeguard.”

  To Laird’s surprise, the man smiled and relaxed. “As much as a feminist Scarlett is, I never thought I’d see the day when she let a man call her his like that. Does she know you do that? Claim her like that?”

  “She is my wife.”

  “Damn.” Tyrone crossed his own arms and smiled, this time with genuine humor and a touch of approval. “You’re actually in love with her, aren’t you? Not just with Scarlett Thomas superstar, but with her.”

  This man didn’t deserve any affirmation of the personal feelings shared between him and Scarlett. Laird continued to stare at him. To his surprise, the man smiled more broadly.

  “Good for you then. For her. I’ll lose a mint if she doesn’t come back into the fold, you know.”

  That reference Laird understood. “She willnae. I can promise ye.”

  “Yes, I can see that now. Perhaps even understand it to a degree.” For a split second, something akin to desolation crossed the man’s face before the fleeting expression was gone and the oily smile was back in place. “For what it’s worth, I’ll try to cushion the worst of all this for her. If I can. And her mother, too, though that will be more difficult. She’s a regular bitch.”

  The overture surprised Laird after all he’d heard about the man from Scarlett. “Ye’d hae my thanks if ye could manage it.”

  “If there’s anything else I can do to help, give me a call.” Tyrone withdrew a rectangle of stiff paper and held it out to him.

  Laird took the calling card then shook the man’s extended hand. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m well able to protect my family wi’oot yer assistance.”

  “I’ll bet you are. I would love to hear how you met her and managed to hide all of this someday.”

  “I wouldnae count on it.”

  Tyrone laughed, humor and approval in the sound. “I like you, James. You really might be just what she needs.”

  “Aye, I am.”

  “Keep her humble, will you?” Tyrone turned and took a few steps down the hall before turning back. “I kind of like knowing she’s met her match, you know? She’s put the fear of Scarlett Thomas into too many men over the years.”

  Laird’s nod was brisk but inwardly he smiled at the man’s sentiment. Aye, his lass had answered every push with a shove when he’d first met her. Every meeting between them fought like foes on a battlefield. The habit had aggravated and intrigued. The years since had never been dull with his spirited lass at his side.

  God help him, he wished he were as confident they had many more years to come, but ill feelings had beset him that he couldn’t dispel.

  Something far more malevolent than his mother-in-law was coming for them. He could feel it with a dire foreboding.

  Scarlett

  “I don’t care whether the National Enquirer is posting pictures of me in articles of celebrities aging badly, or whether every damn person on this planet is analyzing every last bit of video of me from the past year trying to pinpoint the moment they should have noticed I was pregnant. I care nothing about them. Nothing.” Scarlett repeated the word with solid emphasis. “All I care about is making sure my daughter is healthy and taking her home.”

  “Back to Memphis?” Olivia cried. “And that man, too, I suppose? I have no idea what you’re playing at, Scarlett, but you need to get over this nonsensical rebellion of yours and get back to work.”

  “No, Mother. I told you already, I’m done with it. All of it,” Scarlett reminded her. “I will not change my mind, so please stop pestering me.”

  “Of all the…!” Her mother huffed. “Ungrateful.”

  “On the contrary, I’m incredibly grateful,” Scarlett corrected her. She was, for every nuance of life in the past five years. For Donell bringing Laird into her life most of all. “I have more to be grateful for than you can imagine, more than all the lauding in the world could ever possibly provide. What you are failing to comprehend, Mother, is that I am no longer the actress or celebrity you want me to be. All that matters now is my life as a wife—”

  Her mother raised a brow. “To that beastly man? Where did you dig him up?”

  Scarlett gritted her teeth. She’d let Laird leave her knowing there was nothing Olivia could do to harm her physically, but she’d forgotten how much she’d often suffered mentally under her mother’s capricious parentage. Mercurial at best, she’d ranged from wanting to be Scarlett’s best friend to the worst parts of Mommy Dearest over the years. Even talking to her was exhausting.

  She hadn’t faced a battle like this since the Scottish war with the English at Flodden Field, unless Scarlett counted her occasional argume
nts with Laird. At least those were mitigated by the fact that they usually ended up being resolved with a surrender by one or the other in their bed.

  “That man is the most loving, caring man I’ve ever known and the father of my children.” She grimaced at the can of worms she’d just unwittingly opened.

  “Plural? My God! What else have you been hiding? I hardly know you anymore.” Olivia threw up her arms again and resumed her frantic pacing. “In just a few weeks, you’ve become a complete stranger.”

  Try five years, Scarlett wanted to say. To explain how she’d aged, changed by more than just a few lines on her face. Grown from a girl to a woman. “I know you have a hard time understanding the concept, but nothing means more to me than my husband and my children.” She took a deep breath. In all the years she’d been gone, an inkling or two of regret had washed by for leaving what little family she had behind. From time to time, she even missed her parents. “My family is everything to me.”

  “Am I not your family any longer?”

  Olivia tried to sound hurt, but Scarlett could hear the fallaciousness in her tone. Obviously over the years she’d forgotten what her mother was like. Where was the parental love? The concern? The joy of having a grandchild?

  “I love them. More than anything. I won’t expose them to the life I lived.” She took a steadying breath. How to explain real love to a woman as cold as ice? Not once in her four, going on five, marriages had Olivia ever been in love. Never displayed any outward affection for her own daughter.

  Scarlett hadn’t known what she was missing until Laird. She’d never had the chance to experience it, much less recognize it when it was right in her face. Until it had almost been too late to do anything about it.

  Laird had shown her love. The real thing. The sacrifice. The hardship. None of that mattered because she’d gotten so much in return every day. Each day was a bonus, as she’d told Donell so long ago.