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

as junior high girls fighting over a boy. The attacks had started the day after he'd returned from Edinburgh. Once the generator had gone on, apparently all bets had been off.

First had come the continual litany of dire threats and warnings about restoring relics better left ruined, delivered via a megaphone. The alliterations and adages they had engaged in had made him slightly queasy after a few hours, but unfortunately he'd been without a garrison to drive them off. He'd had to settle for praying for rain.

Which had produced nothing but a week of sunshine.

He'd forgotten about Fulbert and Hugh, though. It would seem the two had taken enough time off from their continual feuding to get fed up with the warbling rendition of rousing patriotic melodies, because the megaphone had mysteriously disappeared.

But the protestors and protests had not.

The trio had apparently hired a flock of sheep to lounge lackadaisically on the road up to the keep. Once the sheep lounged to their satisfaction, they'd ambled up to cluster at the gates. Thomas had wondered what Mrs. Pruitt could whip up with mutton as the main ingredient, then thought better of it. It would be just his luck to find the sheep rented and himself facing a lawsuit for doing one of them in.

The next day had brought a group of schoolchildren weeping at the gates over the wanton destruction of a national treasure. Thomas had almost been moved by that when one of the more vocal of the boys had piped up and demanded to know when "we's off for the fish 'n chips ye promised us!"

He'd finished the roof that day with a clear conscience.

And then they'd pulled out the big guns.

The following morning, he'd eaten his breakfast as usual, made polite conversation with Iolanthe and the men, then headed up to find an amazing lack of protest at his gates. It had almost been unsettling, the quiet, until he'd headed out into the forest to relieve himself. This much he could say with certainty: blue urine was not what a man wanted to see pooling a discreet distance from his toes.

All right, so the last was really nothing but a harmless prank. Who knew what it would be next? Laxative brownies? Plastic wrap on the toilet seat? Plastic wrap on the toilet seat after a batch of laxative brownies?

The potential for truly staggering mischief boggled the mind.

All of which had given him the impetus to get downstairs as soon as possible before any other unwholesome substances were added to his breakfast behind Mrs. Pruitt's back.

He arrived in the dining room to find no one there. There was cereal on the sideboard as well as a pitcher of milk and some juice. He lifted the milk up and sniffed, then realized he probably wouldn't know if something had been added even if it reached up and tweaked him on the nose. He was momentarily tempted by the juice, then remembered that Mrs. Pruitt herself had slipped him sleeping pills in an innocent-looking glass of orange juice. Was there nowhere to turn?

He was just beginning to investigate the depths of the cereal box when Mrs. Pruitt came into the room bearing a plate heaped with scrambled eggs, sausages, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, and a bit of ham. Ah, breakfast. He looked hopefully in her other hand for some warm toast, but saw none.

"Toast?" he asked.

"Cooling in the kitchen," she informed him briskly.

Of course. He looked over his plate. "The traditional English breakfast," he noted.

She set the plate down at his place. "Aye."

"Has the traditional English breakfast left your sight at any time during its preparation?"

She looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "How was that?"

"Did anyone ask you to place anything suspicious in the traditional English breakfast?"

Mrs. Pruitt just stared at him blankly.

He was starting to feel like airport security. But he had to face the fact that he didn't have a bag scanner. He supposed that he trusted Mrs. Pruitt, the orange juice scandal aside, so he sat down and dug in.

"Have ye gone daft, lad?"

"Just checking," he managed through a mouthful of egg. "This is delicious. Thank you."

"Eat hearty," she suggested. "You'll need it."

"Why?"

"You've another protest going on up the way, I shouldn't wonder," she said, bustling out the door.

Great. The furnishings for the tower were supposed to be delivered that morning. He could hardly wait to see what he would find in the middle of the road this time to prevent the same.

He finished his meal, sighed, and pushed away from the table. He took a brief moment to enjoy the peace and quiet before he left the inn and walked up the road. It didn't take him long to get to the castle. He knew it was nearby.

He could smell it.

Now, this was going too far. He stopped just down the way from the walls and stared at the steaming pile of manure that blocked the way to the barbican. As he stood there, he realized that calling what he saw a mere pile was misrepresenting it. It wasn't a pile; it was a mountain. It was going to be impossible to get a truck backed in close enough to the barbican to unload his stuff. It was going to be equally as impossible to carry the furniture around the hill.

His ghostly acquaintances and kin stood to one side, surveying the disaster. Iolanthe looked at him as he came to a stop next to her.

"A gift for you," she noted.

"I'm at a loss for what to say," he said.

"Merde?" she offered.

He laughed in spite of himself.

" 'Tis one of the few French words I know," she said.

"It's appropriate." He looked at Ambrose. "You couldn't stop them?"

"What would you have suggested?"

He had a point. Thomas sighed. "You're right."

"They're passing determined," Ambrose noted. "I doubted a mere bit of haunting would stop them."

Thomas heard the roar of a truck in the distance. He sighed with a shake of his head. Just how was he going