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

His mouth had dropped open, and he seemed to be straggling to take in air. His look of complete astonishment was enough to make her wonder if she'd just insulted him thoroughly.

"Mountains?" he repeated with a gasp. "Mountains? You have hills. Bumps. Grassy knolls. I'm talking about mountains." He took a tiny rock and dropped it at her feet. "That's the highest mountain in England." He looked around him, then pointed to an enormous boulder. "That's the size of Mount Everest. It's huge. And the other, K2, is impossibly difficult. All right, so I admit that maybe K2 was pushing my skills a little—especially on the way back down—"

"You couldn't just sit down and slide?" she asked.

He was making those noises again, as if there simply wasn't enough air about him to aid him in breathing. She laughed at his consternation, and the look that earned her was enough to silence her abruptly.

"You laughed," he said, sounding as stunned as he looked.

"Aye, and I imagine I should be sorry for it."

"Well, you just insulted a big part of what my ego's based on, but I'll forget that. You laughed."

She shrugged with a smile. "I suppose so." She looked up at the sky and considered how long it had been since she'd done the like.

That she couldn't remember was the pity.

"Iolanthe, come back to the inn with me."

The depth of her good humor enveloped her with such agreeableness that she could hardly say him nay. But perhaps she was being too hasty. After all, she rarely left her keep. It was where she felt safe.

Not happy, but safe.

"I imagine they have an empty room as well, with a comfortable bed," he added.

Iolanthe sat there for what seemed to her a very long time, feeling the first chill of autumn brush across her soul.

Change.

The warmth of a comfortable house with family therein beckoned to her with a lure she found almost impossible to resist. There would be conversation there, companionship, laughter. No more haunting walls, keeping to the edge of the hall because she felt awkward with the men, wishing desperately for a place to sit that was hers alone and one where she was wanted.

"I'll stay with you," he said gently.

She looked at him, heard the earnestness of his words, and felt the strength and comfort behind them.

"You won't be alone."

Ach, but now the man was reading her mind. She looked up at the sky and considered how pitiful she was to wish for such simple things as those.

"You have family there as well," he added.

"Aye," she said, sighing, "but he's a blathering old fool."

"But he loves you." He smiled down at her. "That has to be worth something."

She rose. She could scarce believe the foolishness of her act, but she rose just the same.

"You're coming," he said, sounding pleased.

"If you like," she said with a shrug she hoped spoke volumes about her disinterest in the idea.

"Yes," he said. "I'd like very much. Besides, now I can give you a proper appreciation of just what I've climbed. You're not nearly as impressed as you should be."

And so she went with him, walked through the bailey and out her gates. She ignored the gapes of the Highlanders who lined the road as she passed, as well as the curses the MacDougal heaped upon Thomas's head. She ignored the fact that this was the second time in less than a se'nnight that she'd traversed these paths, when her usual visits never came more often than once a decade or so. And she most vigorously ignored the fact that she was walking along with a man at whose invitation she came.

A man she could never have.

But he was drawing her after him like a fey piper, and she followed with nary a thought in her head but for the pleasure of his company and the warmth that awaited her at journey's end.

"Who are you?" She stopped at the bottom of the road leading up to the inn and looked at him searchingly.

He only smiled and shook his head.

Fey and daft, that's what he was, she decided as she followed him.

And there she was, becoming just like him.

Chapter 13

Thomas sat in a comfortable chair in the inn's cozy little sitting room and savored both the fire at his feet and the company around him. It had been a remarkable evening, made all the more so by the people he had shared it with. He leaned back with a smile and replayed in his mind the events of the past handful of hours.

He had walked back to the inn with Iolanthe, almost surprised that she had come with him, yet not surprised at all. It had felt right. His heart had been content, and even his head had stopped shouting the impossibilities at him. He'd opened the front door for her, then walked with her into the entry hall, remembering vividly the first time he'd done the same thing and seen Ambrose leaning against the sideboard. He'd never thought to be walking through that door with Iolanthe at his side. She had seemingly thought nothing of it.

Mrs. Pruitt, on the other hand, had apparently thought a great deal of the occasion. She had taken one look at Thomas's companion, her eyes had rolled back in her head, and she'd started to slip toward the floor. Thomas had leaped around the counter and tried to catch her, but she'd stiff-armed him and dragged herself back upright. She'd put her shoulders back and produced her most businesslike expression.

Thomas had requested the inn's finest bedroom to be prepared—at his expense of course—and retained for Miss MacLeod's personal use for as long as she cared to remain. Mrs. Pruitt had said, manfully, that it would be done at once. She had only given Iolanthe another look of intense speculation before she'd made for the stairs. Thomas had invited Iolanthe to sit with him in the library until dinner was ready. It had seemed the safest place to