My Heart Stood Still by Lynn Kurland (best book club books of all time .TXT) 📕

you didn't want to run me through with your sword?"

"It wasn't your fault, Tommy lad."

Thomas suppressed the urge to scratch his head. "I just don't get it. How could you have known me? Before I ever went back through Jamie's gate?"

"Because, Thomas, me lad, that was the past, and this is the future. And somewhere in between, you were born to the task you took on."

Thomas had the intense desire to sit down. "Do you know," he said conversationally, "that I really thought I understood how things worked."

"I think," Duncan said slowly, "that there are certain truths in the world. And out of the world," he added. "And then, lad, there is such a vast amount we don't understand, that if we knew just how much it was, we would go to bed and never arise again."

Thomas looked at him. "You're a very wise man, Duncan."

"I've had a long time to think."

"Thank you," Thomas said simply. "For my life."

Duncan shrugged. "'Twas a life worth savin', surely. She'll come to feel that way about her own in time."

"How do you know she doesn't already?"

Duncan smiled dryly. "I've known her for centuries, Thomas. She was no different as a ghost than she was a woman. And just because you saved her from being murdered doesn't change the lass and who she is."

"Maybe you're the one I need courting advice from."

"Me?" Duncan asked with a laugh. He held up his hands in surrender. "Nay, lad, I'm hardly the one to tell you how to woo a lady."

"She's your daughter."

"Aye, and that likely makes me the last person you should ask."

Thomas paused. "But I should be asking you if I can marry her."

Duncan laughed. "Ah, Tommy lad, wouldn't she laugh at the thought of me saying you yea or nay?" He chuckled a time or two more, then shook his head. " 'Tis the lass's heart you'll have to win."

Thomas sighed. "I think I've said too much for that to be done easily."

"What foolish thing did you do?"

"I told her I loved her. And that she'd been a ghost for six hundred years."

"And?"

"And that she'd loved me, too."

Duncan clucked his tongue. "Now, laddie, that was perhaps goin' a bit too far, don't ye think? Never," he said, wagging his finger at Thomas, "never tell a woman how she's supposed to feel. There is no surer way to set them off."

"Thank you," Thomas said with a scowl. "I realize that now."

"Shoulda realized it then."

"It's too late, thank you very much," Thomas said, through gritted teeth. "Do you have any useful advice?"

"Watch your back."

"Huh?" Thomas said, then turned and ducked just before Connor MacDougal's sword sliced through the air where Thomas's neck had recently been. He straightened and glared at the taller man. "Laird MacDougal."

"I'd hoped we'd be rid of ye fer guid," the laird growled.

"Not yet."

"Then there's still time fer me ta use ye to decorate me gates." He raised his sword and grinned a wicked grin that sent chills down Thomas's spine. "Don't move, little rabbit."

Thomas pursed his lips. "I'm unimpressed, MacDougal." He paused and a thought struck him. "You're a Highlander. I have a Highland girl to woo and win. Have you got any ideas on how I might go about that?"

The MacDougal stopped in midswing and blinked in surprise. He lowered his sword. "Weel," he said, looking almost pleased, "weel, laddie, now there's a matter I've quite a bit of experience with."

"Do you?"

"Aye, but I do." He made patting motions over Thomas's shoulder. "I'll give it some thought and give ye a list at me earliest opportunity."

"You do that," Thomas said faintly. He waited until the other man was gone before he turned back to Duncan. "I'm stunned."

"Wait until he gives you his list," Duncan said with a shudder. "Poor wenches who had to endure him."

"Maybe I should be scared."

"I would be, were I you."

"Well, let's get back to something less terrifying. What's your advice?" Thomas asked.

"My advice," Duncan said slowly. "Aye, well, here it is."

Thomas waited. And he waited some more. "Well?"

Duncan looked at him gravely. "Let her go."

"What!"

"Let her go," Duncan said. "Take her back home, and let her go."

"You're crazy."

"She knows where you live."

Thomas folded his arms over his chest. "No."

"What else will you do, Tommy, me lad?" Duncan asked. "Hold her here against her will? I thought that was why you went back to save her, to free her from this place."

"Yes, but..." He almost said, Yes, but not to free her from me.

He stood still for a moment and considered the ramifications of that. He'd known that last day at Artane that he was losing whatever tenuous grasp he'd ever imagined he'd held on her. Nothing had changed. Was he to hold on to her so tightly that she couldn't escape simply to keep her near him?

If he wanted to take her freedom, then he was no better than Charles, who had taken her life from her.

"She knows where you live," Duncan repeated. "And if you're unwilling to let her go so far away, get you to Scotland with her."

"Scotland?"

"Aye. Go up and stay with young Ian. He has room enough for you. He's only a stone's throw from the laird's keep."

Thomas sighed. "All right," he conceded. "I'll go back to the inn and do what Iolanthe wants to do." He looked at Duncan. "Want to come?"

Duncan smiled. "There's naught for me here any longer, laddie. Aye, I'll come with you."

Thomas looked around him at the castle and realized that for him, too, there was nothing there. If Iolanthe wanted to come look at the place, he'd bring her. If she wanted to keep it, he'd give it to her. If not, he'd give the place to someone who would be a match for Connor MacDougal.

His sister, Victoria, for instance.

The thought of that was so astonishingly perfect that he laughed.

"Lad?"

Thomas smiled at Duncan. "Just idle thoughts. Tell me, is Connor married?"

"Wed?" Duncan asked, sounding shocked. "Ach, aye, but she left him and a pair of wee babes