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

Well, his hand was already on the plough. No point in turning back now.

"While we're gone," Thomas said, "I'd like to ask you some questions if you don't—"

"The Tolbooth," Duncan was muttering to himself. "Aye, there's a fine place to start. The castle, to be sure, but later, after we've been to St. Giles ..."

He walked off toward the barbican, still making his list. Thomas looked around hopefully for some kind of aid, but there was none to be seen. Iolanthe was nowhere in sight. He found himself torn between waiting for her to reappear and a desire to get on with his business so he would have a place for her to run to—a place he could find, that was.

Perhaps Duncan would know what had set her off. Maybe he had moved too fast for her. After all, he'd just managed to get her down to the inn a couple of days before. Maybe she'd never been in a car. Maybe she'd never been to a big city before.

He waited for another few minutes, but he had no sense of her being in the vicinity. With another look around the bailey, he gave up and walked toward the barbican. He wouldn't be gone long. With any luck, he wouldn't find himself thrown into jail for causing a public disturbance by bringing a ghost to town.

He caught up with Duncan on the paved road back to the inn.

"And that house of ill repute. Aye, there's the place for a goodly bit of speech with old mates!"

Heaven help them.

It was three days before Thomas managed to pry Duncan away from his buddies arid get him back in the car to go back to the inn. He supposed he could have left the older man behind, but it seemed only polite to get him back before he forgot where he was supposed to live. Thomas found the proper road with only a minor amount of side-seat driving from Duncan, which consisted mainly of disparaging remarks about the constricting properties of roads versus the head-across-whatever-field-pleases-you freedom of a horse, and started toward home.

The trip had been worthwhile, even apart from Duncan's successes. Thomas had found everything he needed to finish the construction. He'd found a computer system he could live with, furniture for an office and a living room, and things for Iolanthe's room.

It was the last he'd been most concerned about, and he'd spent a fair amount of time dragging Duncan to antique stores in various parts of town. He'd found much of what he wanted, but the rest he'd been forced to settle for in a department store. He hoped it would please her.

He hadn't pried as much information out of Duncan as he would have liked. The man was very skilled at talking at great length around the subject you were interested in. Pointed questions about Iolanthe's background had been met with blank stares. So Thomas had settled for hearing stories about her half-brothers and half-sister and used them to reconstruct what he thought her life might have been like.

What he had learned, though, was that her mother and brother had been wounded in a skirmish with a neighboring clan. The brother had died, and her mother had languished for some time before succumbing herself. Apparently, though, Iolanthe's father had been hard at work siring other children on a mistress during the last few years of Iolanthe's mother's life. Iolanthe's subsequent existence had seemed very Cinderellaish with that crop of half-brothers and a half-sister who, after the death of Iolanthe's mother, had seemed to think she was put there just to see to their comfort.

But the circumstances surrounding Iolanthe's death were ones that Duncan absolutely refused to divulge. Not even a hint as to the details. Thomas had tried a half dozen different approaches, but all had left him still languishing at the bottom of the mountain, as it were. Duncan simply wouldn't budge. Thomas supposed if he ever learned the whole story, it would be from Iolanthe herself.

He wondered, however, if he would have the choice. Duncan had no idea, or so he professed, why she wouldn't have wanted to come to Edinburgh. Thomas wondered if it had to do with the car. Duncan had taken to it after a couple of involuntary whoops of some strong emotion as they hit the first major road. There was no predicting what Iolanthe would have done in the same place.

But if it wasn't the traveling that bothered her, then what?

Well, he'd get back to the inn and see if she'd been there. He'd show her what he'd bought her and describe the wonders of the city. With any luck, the next time he went, she would go with him.

And do what was the question, but it didn't deserve an answer. He could take her to the theater or the ballet. They could tramp over historic ruins. They could walk in the moonlight.

Everything else was superfluous.

Wasn't it?

Chapter 16

Iolanthe stood at the inn's back kitchen door and found herself suddenly quite unable to go any farther. She was, surprisingly enough, desperate for some kind of company besides that which she found herself surrounded by at the keep. But why she had come to the inn was a bit of a mystery, even to her. Never mind that she had a chamber there with things of her own lying about. She'd been up at the keep for three days now, ever since Thomas had gone to the city. She hadn't had the stomach to come back to the inn without him.

Which left her wondering what was possessing her that eve. Companionship, that was it. But what companions would she find at the inn? She'd seen Fulbert de Piaget and Hugh McKinnon walking down the road to the pub, arguing companionably about which was better, Scotch whiskey or British lager. Ambrose she'd already seen wandering off as well to parts unknown. That left no one at the inn she particularly wanted