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

right time? He could get there three years before her death, or twenty minutes afterwards."

Margaret frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose you have it aright, husband." She looked at Thomas. "Forgive me, my friend. I hadn't thought the problem through."

Thomas swallowed with difficulty. "Are you serious? About this time travel business?"

Alex sighed. "I'm going to trust you and hope that my trust isn't misplaced."

"It won't be."

Alex took a deep breath. "Well, this is the thing. It's a long story, but my sister wound up in fourteenth-century Scotland and in time married the current laird of the day, James MacLeod."

Thomas blinked but said nothing. All right, so he had a castle full of ghosts. If that was possible, maybe there were other things possible that he hadn't banked on before.

"They came forward, back to the twentieth century, thanks to a time gate in the forest next to the keep."

"Really," Thomas said evenly.

Alex smiled briefly. "Hard to swallow, I know. And believe me, I wouldn't believe it either, but you see, I've used the gate in the forest. And I've used the other gates scattered all over his land."

"The one to medieval England, for instance," Margaret added.

Thomas looked at her with wide eyes. "Then you're—"

"Margaret of Falconberg," she said.

Thomas could only gape at her.

"I was born in the Year of Our Lord's Grace 1165," she added with a smile.

Thomas didn't want to believe it, but he had a single, compelling reason to.

Iolanthe.

What if he could travel back in time before her death? And stop it?

Thomas sat back in his chair and simply considered for several moments.

And as he considered, he remembered vividly the way he'd felt as he'd climbed the stairs to that cursed guard tower—as if he'd been there before. But he'd known he hadn't.

Yet, what if he had?

"Think on this, husband," Margaret was saying. "Even if all goes well, and Thomas reaches the proper time, how will his lady recognize him? She knows him from now, not then."

Thomas stared at her in horror. "I never thought of that."

"A pity you couldn't go back in time and have some kind of predetermined sign," Margaret mused. "So that she'd remember you."

Alex laughed suddenly, leaned over, and kissed Margaret full on the mouth.

"You're brilliant!" he exclaimed.

She looked momentarily startled, then smiled sweetly. "Am I?"

"I read an article on memory once," Alex said enthusiastically. He focused that enthusiasm on Thomas. "The theory was, our brains are only using a fraction of what we're capable of using."

"I wonder, husband, if you're using less of yours than usual," Margaret said.

"I'm not. This piece said that there's no reason we can't remember the future." He shrugged happily. "Who knows, maybe that whole déjà vu thing is the future we've already done and we're just remembering it."

"Well..." Thomas said slowly.

"Drivel," Margaret said crisply.

"And you have a better idea?" Alex asked her.

"Why raise the poor lad's hopes when 'tis an impossible task?"

"Why not raise them? Where's your faith?" Alex asked with a smile.

"I have faith in my blade—"

"So," Thomas interrupted, "you're saying that if I go back in time and stop her murder, that there's no reason that she couldn't remember me?"

"No reason that she could either," Margaret put in grimly.

"Do you remember where you read the article?" Thomas asked Alex.

He shook his head. "Sorry. But it seems logical enough, when you think about how the universe is going forward and backward in time concurrently."

Thomas looked at Margaret. "What do you think?"

"I think that if you love the girl, perhaps you have no choice. But 'tis a very great risk you take. What if you take all the pains to rescue her, and she'll have nothing to do with you?"

Thomas didn't want to think about that.

"And can you wield a sword?" she continued. "You cannot go back without that skill. You'd last the space of ten heartbeats, then find yourself dead or in someone's dungeon."

"She has a point there," Alex agreed.

Thomas gave that some thought, then looked at them. "Will you teach me?"

Alex shook his head. "You don't want us—"

"He certainly might want me," Margaret interrupted haughtily.

"He wants Jamie, my love," Alex said. "Who better to teach him to fight like a Scot?"

"I suppose," Margaret conceded reluctantly. "I must admit that I've no complaints about his skill."

"See," Alex said, looking at Thomas with a grin. "My wife's glowing recommendation of my sister's husband. Now, if you were to ask Jamie, he would tell you that he's unequaled, in any century."

"And is he right?" Thomas asked.

"It's a toss-up," Alex said. "Margaret is without peer as well."

"Wise man," Margaret said, smiling sweetly at him. "You'll live to fight another day."

Alex looked at his watch. "They're five hours ahead of us, which makes it after midnight. I'll call Jamie tomorrow morning and talk to him." He looked at Thomas. "If you like?"

"Please do."

Alex smiled. "It'll all work out. It always seems to."

Thomas had nothing to say to that. The thought of actually being able to do something about his situation was so astonishing, he could hardly take it in.

"I think," he said, standing slowly, "that I should go back to my hotel and try to recover."

"Leave us your number."

"Do you think I'd do otherwise?"

Alex laughed and got to his feet. He extended his hand and shook Thomas's. "I'll call you after I've talked to Jamie. I'm sure he can help."

Thomas nodded, said his good-byes to both Alex and Margaret, then stumbled from their room. He made his way back to his hotel in a daze, his thoughts nothing but a jumble in his head. Just what was he going to say to Jamie when he finally met him?

Hello, cousin. I'd like to time-travel through one of the gates on your land. Do you mind?

If he hadn't been so desperate, the idea would have been too silly to contemplate.

He sat on the end of his bed, stared at nothing, and thought back on what he'd heard that afternoon. He could try to go back in time and rescue Iolanthe before she was murdered, and maybe