A Laird for All Time Angeline Fortin (comprehension books .txt) 📖

He turned his serious gaze to hers.  “Do ye want me to?”

Emmy shrugged nonchalantly.  “Everyone thinks we’re living as husband and wife and probably assume we’re sleeping together.  It would probably scandalize them if they knew we were living in sin.  How long do you mean to go on then?” she wondered.

“Until I decide what to do with ye, I suppose.”

A seductive smile tilted a corner of Emmy’s lips as she looked up at him through lowered lashes.  “What do you want to do with me?”

His silence was broken by a harsh laugh and he grabbed up her hand to press a kiss to her fingers.  “I think ye know verra well what I want to do with ye, my lady!”

Emmy laughed as well, caressing his chin with her thumb before patting his cheek.  “Well, besides that!” she drawled.

“Truthfully…other than that…I really have no idea,” he answered truthfully.  “A part of me still wonders that ye have some ulterior motive in being here.”

“And maybe the other half is inclined to believe me?” she tossed out casually.

He scowled and pulled back from her.  “No, not yet.”

Emmy sighed and sat back in her chair crossing her arms over her chest.  “Stubborn!” she huffed.

“Scots,” he answered and she had to fight the twitch that threatened to bring a smile to her face.

She pouted in silence ignoring the self-admitted, stubborn Scot and enjoyed the scenery as the waters widened to Loch Linnhe and Duart emerging in the distance.  “How wonderful the castle looks from here!  Oh, it’s beautiful!” she said more to herself than to Connor. The castle rose up from the rocky cliff on its coastal side showing off its great defenses.  Clearly that was why it had been built just so.  As they sailed past and the perspective rotated, Emmy got the view from the southeast.  The morning sun hitting the side of the castle and the mountainous vista behind it capped in the low clouds.  The landscape around it seemed so barren.

She watched it until it was out of sight.  Turning again, she noticed a small piece of rock barely large enough to call an island jutting from the water.  If not for the small lighthouse that marked it, they might have passed it unnoticed.  “What is that?” she asked.  “I didn’t notice it on the way here.”

“Ahh, interesting story there,” Connor glad to start a conversation from the uncomfortable silence that had enveloped them.  “Tis the Lady’s Rock.”

“Lady’s Rock,” Emmy repeated.  “Why does that sound familiar?”

“Hundreds of years ago my ancestor, Lachlan Cattenach who was the laird at the time stranded his wife Catherine on that wee island because she hadn’t yet bore him an heir.”

“Nice.  Just like a man to blame the woman,” she muttered with clear sarcasm.  “Oh, I remember this from the guidebook for the ferry!  The guy ‘accidentally’ left her on the island,” Emmy used air quotes around the word.  “He expected her to get washed away by the tide because the rock would be underwater at high tide.”

Connor nodded with amusement.  “And when she had disappeared the next morning, my ancestor wrote distraughtly to her brother, the earl of Argyll, of her death.”

Emmy picked up the story sitting forward with a smile.  “And when the laird was invited to Inverary meet the earl, there was Catherine sitting right next to her brother at the table, saved by a passing fisherman!  I forget, what happened to the laird?  Did the earl kick his butt?”

Laughing aloud, Connor shook his head.  “Nay, they let him go unharmed though a couple years later he was killed by another of Catherine’s brothers, some say in revenge.”

“Serves him right for trying to kill his wife for something she had no control over.  I mean, they had other kids, right?  A girl?” she asked.

“I believe so.  Why do ye say she had no control?  If she gave him only lasses…” he dangled the question curiously.

“Gender determination is all on the father, Connor, surely you know that?”  Her mind raced.  When did they figure that out?  Thinking back to her college courses, Emmy recalled that a woman – she felt a little smile lift her lips at the thought - named Nettie Stevens had discovered the chromosomes pairings and their role in deciding the sex of a child.  But that had been in 1905.  Ten years from this time.

“What do ye mean, all on the father?”  There was a bit of indignation there that amused Emmy a bit.  Male pride never died.

“I am saying the mother has nothing to do with the sex of a baby.  The father is solely responsible for that.”  He snorted in disbelief and Emmy leaned toward him.  “No, it’s true!  Okay, think of it this way,” she held up a closed fist.  “Here’s the egg, in the woman,” she clarified.  “Let’s call that egg, ohh I don’t know, ‘X’.  No matter what the egg will always be an ‘X’, with me so far?”

He nodded skeptically and waved her on.

With her other hand, Emmy wiggled her fingers with a flutter.  “Over here are your little swimmers, the sperm.”  Connor flushed a bit but nodded again while Emmy counted them off with her thumb.  “Here’s sperm ‘X’, this one’s called ‘Y’, then another ‘Y’ and another ‘X’, okay?”  She poked her index finger ‘X’ to her closed fist.  “Mr. ‘X’ sperm hits the egg and we have baby ‘XX’.  Two X’s together and you have a girl.”  She switched fingers and pressed her middle finger to her fist.  “Mr. ‘Y’ sperm gets to the egg first and you get baby “XY’, a boy.  Got it?”

“I believe so.”

Emmy waved her fingers back toward him.  “X or Y it is all in the sperm.  The woman has absolutely nothing to do with the sex of the baby.”

“Nothing?” he echoed in amazement.

“Nada,” she confirmed.

“How can ye know this?”  He didn’t doubt she was right.  She spoke with such authority and assurance.  He was