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

"What else have I to do?" he asked as he walked to the door. He looked back at her. "What else have you to do?"

That said, he vanished.

Iolanthe stood there, gasping from the slap of his words. She was still trying to gather her wits about her when Thomas opened the door and peeked inside. 'Twas all she could do to dredge up a false smile.

"Good day to you, Thomas," she managed.

He stepped inside the chamber. "Are you okay?"

"I am well," she said, struggling to look as if she hadn't just had her pitiful existence rocked to the core.

What else did she have to do but change her clothes?

Love the man standing in front of her?

"Iolanthe, why don't you come downstairs with me?" he asked. "I've got the computer up and running."

"Ah ..." she stalled.

"It'll be fun," he said, holding the door open for her. "I can show you hundreds of pictures of the ocean, both above it and below it."

Ocean you'll never see, ye silly twit, said a vicious voice in her head. For you're too cowardly to go see it for yourself. Not that he'd want to take you anyway, uncouth and unlearned as ye are.

"Iolanthe?"

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She felt rather than heard him cross the room to her. When he was standing not a handbreadth from her, she looked up into his beautiful face and found a bit of her own despair mirrored in his eyes.

"Don't think so much," he said quietly.

"But—"

"Life is what we make of it, Iolanthe."

She folded her arms over her chest. His words didn't help her any, but she supposed there wasn't really much he could say. Or do, for that matter. There, not a handbreadth from her, stood the most handsome man she'd ever known, one who apparently had at least a few fond feelings for her, yet there wasn't a bloody thing she could do about it.

"Come downstairs," he said, stepping back and smiling. "It'll be fun."

She wasn't sure fun was what she would have, given her recent insight into the uselessness of her own existence, but perhaps she wasn't served by thinking on it. Enjoying his company was far preferable to sitting in her chair, staring out the window, and bemoaning her fate.

A fate she could not change.

No matter how desperately she might have wished to.

"The sea, Iolanthe," Thomas said, luring her after him like a fey spirit. "Come with me and see it."

She followed him from the chamber only because she could do nothing else. In the end, perhaps he had it aright and looking at aught else would distract her. From the fact that she couldn't touch him. Or that she would never be held by him. Or bear him children.

She felt a sob catch in her throat before she could stop it. He spun on the step below her and looked at her in surprise.

"Iolanthe," he said in consternation.

She shook her head and motioned for him to go on. " 'Tis nothing. Idle thoughts."

"That didn't sound like an idle thought."

"It was."

He stared at her for several moments in silence, then smiled sadly. "Come with me, Iolanthe. Just come and look. It'll be okay."

"It isn't your machine I fear," she protested. "I had other reasons—"

"I know." He smiled briefly. "Believe me, I know."

She looked at him and realized that he likely had some idea of what troubled her. Perhaps he shared her thoughts.

Assuming, however, that he felt for her as she felt for him.

She put her shoulders back. Well, if this was all they would have together, then it behooved her to make the best of it. As Thomas seemed to be doing.

So she put a pleasant expression on her face and walked down the stairs behind him.

His chamber with its trappings of business was comfortable enough, she supposed. It was nothing compared with hers, surely, which led her to believe that he had certainly selected the innards of her chamber with more care than his own.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Is it necessary for me to be?" she asked, sitting down next to him.

He laughed. "Answer enough, I suppose. All right, I'll tell you what everything is, then we'll see what's on the Net."

She nodded, hoping she didn't look as bewildered as she already felt.

"This is my laptop," he said, pointing to a thin black box. "It's hooked up to this lovely monitor here, which is big enough that we both can look at it."

The monitor was a white box of sorts with a shiny front in which Iolanthe could see her reflection. When Thomas turned on his laptop, the front of the beast sprang to life in a riot of colors. Sound flooded the chamber, along with several annoying beeps and whistles.

"There are all kinds of programs loaded," he said. "Games, encyclopedias, learning tools. Math, spelling, reading. Whatever you could ever want, it's there."

Reading. She heard that and nothing else. Not that anything about reading would do her any good, given the fact that she couldn't even spell her own name. She supposed Duncan could. She had always been surprised by the depths of his knowledge. He knew a handful of tongues, could figure sums in his head, and yet wield a sword with great skill. She wondered why he hadn't married. He would have made a fine father.

Then again, he'd been father enough to her over the years, so perhaps his gift for it hadn't gone completely to waste.

"Okay," Thomas said, interrupting her thoughts. "Do you want to look at the ocean first, then what's in it, or the other way around?"

"What's in it?" she echoed.

"The fish. Whales, sharks, jellyfish." He grinned like a young boy let Jose with his father's finest stallion. "You name it, I can get you a picture of it."

Iolanthe was surprised by how pleasing a thought it was to have Thomas at her disposal. Even more surprising was how genuinely, keen she was on the idea of seeing the marvels Thomas promised