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

about the lightbulb and its inventor, Thomas Edison; then he went on to tell her how many Scots had invented a great number of things.

After a time, he looked at her sheepishly. "Sorry. I tend to get carried away by these kinds of conversations. Will you come downstairs with me? I'm sure our preservationists have finished by now and are already up at the castle ready to tell me how much they hate my plans."

Iolanthe nodded and rose. She looked longingly at the chamber as they passed through it to the passageway.

"You know," he said, stopping her at the door, "the room is yours for as long as you want it. If you have anything you want to leave here, you can."

"Things?"

"Personal things."

"What personal things could I possibly need?" she asked.

He paused, then nodded briefly. "You're right. I think maybe I'm better off today just keeping my mouth shut and working."

She looked down at the comb she still held in her hand. 'Twas naught but illusion, of course, but it would last a very long time if she willed it. She'd kept her garden up for years at a time if she created it carefully enough. Why not a comb and a few trinkets lying about here to give her comfort?

She crossed the chamber, laid the comb on the little table under the window, then crossed back over to Thomas. He smiled at her, then opened the door for her. She left the chamber first, then followed him down the stairs and to the dining chamber.

There was no one breaking their fast at the table, but the moment Thomas pulled out a chair for her and then sat down himself, the innkeeper bustled in with food for him. She looked at Iolanthe.

"Will you ... um ..."

"I thank ye kindly, good woman," Iolanthe said, "but nay."

The woman would have looked relieved if her eyes hadn't been bulging so far from her head. Thomas only chuckled into his eggs as the door closed behind the innkeeper.

"Do you find something amusing?" Iolanthe asked archly.

He shook his head. "It's just Mrs. Pruitt is probably dying to ask you a thousand questions—mostly about Ambrose— you're sitting there looking as regal as a queen, and she just doesn't dare."

"Perhaps she isn't comfortable with a ghost at her table."

"You haven't seen the way she looks at Ambrose."

She sighed. "She'll have little satisfaction from me, I fear. I can tell her far less about him than she'd like."

"Well, don't tell her that. I think she thinks she's just found the perfect source for details."

"Then she should choose a less ignorant woman."

He sat back in his chair and looked at her solemnly. "Why do you think you're ignorant?"

"Because I know nothing."

"What have you been doing the past six hundred years, Iolanthe?"

'Truthfully?"

"Yes."

She couldn't look at him, so she stared at the opposite wall. It was heavily paneled in the style so popular during Elizabeth I's day. That much of history she knew, for she'd been watching events if not with interest, at least with dismay.

"The first two hundred years, I mostly sat about and raged silently over the injustice of it all." She looked at him briefly. "It was passing unfair, you know."

"Yes. I know."

"The next two hundred years, I watched the events unfold around me. I saw men come and go through my gates, listened to their talk at the table, saw the armies going north. Frightening the worst of them seemed within my power, and I did it ruthlessly."

"To save your kin."

"Aye." She sighed deeply. "But after Culloden and the slaughter there, I couldn't watch anymore. I couldn't listen anymore. So I made certain than no man stayed more than a few hours inside my gates. The castle became part of a lord's estate, but I never cared to find out who. It fell into disrepair, and that suited me perfectly."

"But," he began quietly, "what did you do? What did you do each day from the time the sun rose until it set? What did you do each night as you watched the moon cross the sky?"

She did look at him then, because she could do nothing else.

"I waited," she said.

"For what?"

She paused. "Change."

He said nothing in return; he simply stared at her. Then he spoke.

"And has it come?"

There it was again. She breathed deeply, felt the tang of autumn's chill in the late-summer air. Autumn had always been her favorite season. Free from the long, endless flatness of summer. New colors on the mountains, crisp breezes filling the air, her mind full of thoughts of long winter evenings passed by the fire.

And dreams of a man to share it all with.

She looked at Thomas McKinnon, with his dark hair falling into pale blue eyes, with his beautiful face smiling just the slightest bit, with his strong hands resting on the arms of his chair, and she knew that change had come. It had come in the form of a man who wanted to build her a place of her own, who had thought her important enough to care for, who considered her shrewd enough to share the great secrets of modern marvels with.

With her. Iolanthe MacLeod. Eldest daughter of a man who didn't think enough of her to remember her name.

"Aye," she said finally. "It has."

"And is this a good thing?"

She managed a nod. "Aye. It is."

"I understand the feeling." He smiled at her. "Are you ready to go?"

She nodded and rose with him. They left the inn and walked back to the castle. Iolanthe hesitated at the gates. It almost felt as if she no longer belonged. She didn't think she'd spent a single night away from this place in over six hundred years.

But lest she look the fool for finding that odd, she put one foot in front of the other and continued on her way.

Over the course of the rest of the day, she learned a great deal about the man she was watching. First was that he wasn't afraid to work. It had