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

And please leave out all the herbs you think I need to heal my flaws."

" 'Twill be a powerfully short list, then."

He scowled at her, but she only smiled, then began to tell him of her garden. He noticed that she paused often, as if she judged the depth of his interest. In reality, she could have been talking about the intricacies of defluking sheep, and he wouldn't have cared. It was enough that she was talking to him.

His heart was satisfied.

Of course, listening to the contents of her garden was fascinating as well. As was hearing all she didn't tell him. Judging from the time she spent either tending her plants or carrying them down to the village to heal the sick, he gathered she didn't spend all that much time hanging out with her family. She said nothing about her father nor did she mention any siblings, and he assumed she had all of the above.

"What did you do for fun?" he asked.

"Fun?"

"Amusement. Entertainment. Something other than work."

She looked off into the distance for a moment or two. "I went up into the hills," she said slowly, staring out over the garden, unseeing. "Or down the meadow in front of our keep. Where I could turn my back on the hall."

Ah. That was something to chew on.

"I see," he said quietly.

She brushed her hands off briskly. "It grows late."

Thomas looked around him and realized that it would have been pitch dark if it hadn't been for the full moon. He laughed uneasily.

"I think I was distracted."

"Gardening will do that to a body," she conceded. "You should go back to the inn whilst you can still see to get there."

He rose, then looked at her still kneeling at the garden's edge. And it struck him how completely wrong it was to leave her behind. Building her a solar was great, and maybe that would solve the problem in the future, but it did nothing to ease his mind for the coming night. Where would she go? Where would she sleep?

"Iolanthe ..." he began.

She turned back to her garden. "Off with you, now. 'Tis a fair walk."

"I really think—"

"That you should hurry? Aye, I agree. I've work to do here and no need of further distraction."

This was not what he wanted to do.

"Will you—" he began.

"I've work to do," she said, not looking at him. "So do you. Morning comes early."

Well, it looked like there was no point in arguing with her. Today. But tomorrow was another day.

He jammed his hands into his pockets. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

She nodded, but she didn't look up at him.

Thomas backed away, then turned and walked in a sideways kind of way that any crab would have proudly claimed. He just couldn't take his eyes from her. And he was quite sure that the sight of her kneeling in the dirt with the moonlight falling all around her would haunt him for the rest of his days. The desperate loneliness of it was almost enough to make him retrieve his sleeping bag from the inn and unroll it near the bench.

He paused by the garden gate and waited to see if she would look up. And if she had, he would have made good on his plan.

But she didn't.

He sighed, turned, and walked out into the bailey. He nodded to Duncan, who stood guard at the garden entrance, ignored the MacDougal and the Victorian Fop, and parted the large cluster of Highlanders loitering at the gate with almost no thought at all. His eyes were too full of what he'd left behind, and he vowed to himself that he wouldn't leave her behind again. It was clear to him that his head was no longer in control of his fate—and maybe that was for the best, because if he listened to logic at the moment, he probably would have returned to the inn, packed up his suitcase, and headed back to the States.

Instead, he went back to the inn, ate what Mrs. Pruitt had left for him, and went to bed.

He had the feeling he would need all his wits about him for the battle ahead, because he was just sure that wherever he wanted to lead her, Iolanthe wouldn't go quietly.

Chapter 12

Iolanthe watched as Thomas's workers went about their business. They were no less nervous than they had been the day before, nor since they'd come to work several days earlier for that matter. Her men circled about the lads like ravenous wolves harrying a hapless sheep, despite her having warned them off. They wouldn't show themselves, but she couldn't stop them from hanging about. The saints pity the lads should an all-out battle ensue between them and any number of indiscreet Highlanders.

She walked out into the bailey purposefully and called for Duncan. He dragged himself away from his post near the barbican and came to her.

"Aye?"

"Those are lads who need no encouragement to carry tales to the village. I've asked the men not to show themselves, but I'm worried they'll do it just the same."

"I'll see to it."

She watched him go and wondered if her word would be enough. She had been at the keep the longest, and apparently that was reason enough for hers to be the final say—at least at times. The MacDougal certainly would have been happier had things been different. She was a woman, after all. She looked over the men and couldn't help but be a little grateful that they respected her as they did. Perhaps it was that she was of their ilk. Why they found themselves at her keep, though, was still something of a mystery to her. Duncan, she understood. He was kin. Several other MacLeods had come south as well, and that she understood, too.

As far as the others went, perhaps their ancestral homes were too crowded either with the living or with their enemy dead raising a ruckus—like her father howling forever in the Fergusson's dungeon—that a bit of peace