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

"Ah," she said, nodding. "I understand."

"Do you?"

"I've no illusion about my visage," she said stiffly. "If you wish to think on its ugliness and all my other undesirable traits, then you're welcome to and damn you for it."

He was going to make a concentrated effort not to gape anymore—maybe tomorrow when he'd recovered from today.

"Iolanthe, how can you possibly think that's how I see you? I think you're stunning."

She looked unconvinced.

"Should I start telling you what I think more often?"

She shrugged, but he suspected she wasn't as unconcerned as she seemed.

"Then again," he said slowly, "maybe you'd be better off not knowing everything I think—"

"Why not?" she asked suspiciously.

"Well, because I was thinking, well, you know, um, about ... us," he finished as lamely as he ever had.

She blinked. "Us?"

"Us. You and me."

She looked immediately and horribly offended. "Why, ye wee lecher," she exclaimed. "How can ye consider such—"

It was amazing how her accent grew thicker the more irritated she became.

"I wasn't thinking lecherous thoughts," he said, though now that she brought it up, he had to accept that having any kind of physical relationship with her was completely impossible and, well, it just didn't bear thinking about.

He slapped his hands on his thighs and rose. "I think it's time for bed."

She gasped. "As if I would share yours!"

This was not going very well.

"I'll go to my bed," he said, "and I'll show you the way to yours. That's all."

She rose with a sniff.

He scratched his head. It wasn't something he did very often, and he wasn't sure he was all that comfortable with having to do it. Did she want him to take her to bed? Did she just want him to want to take her to bed? Was she offended that he hadn't offered?

"I'm confused," he admitted.

"You're a man," she said haughtily.

And that, he supposed, said it all. He took a small measure of comfort in realizing, as with a great deal of bafflement he led her up the stairs and down the hall to her room, that she was, despite her ghostly status, a woman, and as such was completely out of his league when it came to truly comprehending the depths of her thought processes.

He paused in front of her door, turned, and looked at her. And then just the sight of her turned his stomach upside down and he promptly forgot everything he'd been thinking except that she was the most exceptional woman he'd ever laid eyes on and that he was very glad he'd brought her to his temporary home.

"I hope you'll be comfortable," he said quietly.

She nodded.

"I'm glad you came."

She seemed to relax a bit. "Thank you," she said. "I am, too."

Before he knew what he was doing, he thrust out his hand. Hell, sixteen all over again and surely a bigger idiot now than he'd ever been then. But what was done was done, and there was no taking it back.

Iolanthe looked at his hand for a moment, then slowly reached out and put her hand in his.

He stared down at it, and for a moment, his entire world shuddered. It was as if he'd done this a thousand times before. He met her eyes and saw there the echo of what he'd just experienced.

He felt no touch, though, and for some reason that was possibly the most devastating thing he'd ever felt.

She pulled her hand away quickly and tucked both hands under her arms.

"Thank you most kindly for the evening," she said formally. " 'Twas a pleasure."

"You'll stay the night?" The words were out before he could stop them. He simply couldn't bear the thought of her going back up to the castle and, well, just being there out in the cold and dark.

"Perhaps."

"Please, Iolanthe. Please stay."

She looked down. He would have given anything to have been able to put his hand under her chin and lift her face up.

"I'll go back with you in the morning," he promised.

She hesitated, then nodded. Thomas took that as a good sign. He opened the door, waited until she was inside, then shut the door behind her.

Then he rubbed his hands over his face and walked to his room before he did anything else stupid.

Like fall in love with a woman he could never have.

Chapter 14

Iolanthe woke and blinked at the sight of sunlight streaming in through a window. The sight was so unusual that she sat bolt upright in bed and looked about her in a panic. It took her several moments to realize where she was.

At the Boar's Head Inn.

As Thomas McKinnon's guest.

She flopped back onto the bed and stared up at the canopy above her. That she should have a chamber at an inn was unusual enough. Not once during her lifetime had she enjoyed the like. That a man should be providing the same for her was nothing short of miraculous. That Thomas McKinnon should be that man was indeed the most improbable of all.

She wondered if this counted as the rescue she'd always longed for.

Nay, there was no sense in speculation about that, for naught would come of it but more to think on, and she had enough of that already. She rose and forced herself to look over her surroundings, just in case she didn't return. For whatever reason.

The chamber was luxurious, to be sure. It was odd, but she'd never been inside any of the inn's bedchambers. She remembered vaguely when the inn had been built, but she hadn't come to look. Ambrose had, after his own demise, come to pay his respects when he'd come south for a wee holiday. He'd apparently found the inn to his liking, for he'd stayed for the subsequent centuries. She'd been inside the kitchen, of course, but never further.

She didn't want to think about what that said about her importance.

She dragged her hand through her hair. Perhaps 'twas best that she not give that any more thought. She fashioned a comb from illusion, then rose to look for a