My Heart's in the Highlands by Angeline Fortin (ebook reader screen TXT) 📕

The marquis squeezed her hand gently. “Idon’t mean to distress you, my lady. Rest now. We can talklater.”

He moved to withdraw and rise but Mikahclutched his hand. “No! I would like you to stay, if you don’tmind. Will you help me?”

Lord Ayr sat back and flashed a half-smilethat would have set her knees trembling if she had been standing.Her prone position was good for something, it seemed.

“Of course,” he replied.

“Tell me who I am.”

“It’s possible you have amnesia,” he noddedas if in understanding. “You did take a blow to the head.”

“No, I don’t … I don’t think so anyway,” sheargued almost incoherently. That wasn’t it at all. She knew …perhaps too much. “Tell me?”

“You are Lady Hero Conagham, Marchioness ofAyr.”

“Hero?” her brow wrinkled, but then Mikahknew the answer just like that. “My mother loved Shakespeare.”

Mikah couldn’t understand why she was sayingthis. She was Mikah. Why would she agree that she wasn’t and stillfeel the answer to be right? Why would she know that tidbit either?Her mother hated Shakespeare … and yet didn’t. She shook her headonce more against the confusion.

“I had thought you might have been named fromChristopher Marlowe’s Hero and Leander,” Lord Ayr said witha smile.

“No, Mother thought this more amusing.”

“Naming you Hero?”

“No,” she answered and then smiledreluctantly at his jest—she knew he intended the question as alittle quip because the crinkles at the corners of his eyesdeepened just a bit. It made her feel better, so she tried to focuson him instead of wallowing in the chaos of her mind. “Much AdoAbout Nothing. Mama thought the play was pure hilarity. Shethought that the antics of Beatrice and Benedick were some of themost amusing banter ever written for the stage but she disliked thename Beatrice intensely.”

“So she named you Hero instead.”

No!

“Yes,” she said, and in her foggy mind, shewas Hero …

… and Mikah.

And that was the problem. The source of thechaos.

She couldn’t seem to separate the two. It wasas if her consciousness had somehow been influenced by this HeroConagham. She picked away at the back of Mikah’s mind like atermite digging her way in so that she might overrun Mikah’spsyche, battling to be at the forefront of Mikah’s consciousness.The confusion and shock that she had been riddled with ever sincethe accident had left her in this trance-like state while she triedto comprehend what had happened or at least come to terms with it.Was she hallucinating, perhaps?

Or, considering the appearance of the manbefore her, dreaming?

Either way, she was still Mikah … butnot.

If that made any sense.

Mikah didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry,because she knew it did not. She was afraid that if she did engagein either one, she might not be able to stop. That alone might gether sent to the loony bin, if the insanity in her head did not.

Sensing that her distress was building, LordAyr squeezed her hand, “Don’t think about it now, love. Just rest.Tomorrow we’ll go home to Cuilean and there everything will getbetter.”

Cuilean, Mikah thought dreamily,letting her eyes drift closed. The tension and anxiety drainedaway. Home.

Love.

Chapter Four

The castle at Dùn Cuilean

On the shores of the Firth of Clyde

Ayrshire, Scotland

June 1856

“Are we almost there?”

“Almost, Papa,” Mikah said without hesitationfor the relationship or the question itself. They were nearingtheir destination. Mikah could feel it in her bones. Every mile thecarriage traveled, every sight and smell that assailed her, toldher so. She could feel the excitement building inside of her, notjust her own excitement but Hero Conagham’s as well.

It was all still very strange.

When Lord Ayr, the doctor, and the maid,Mandy, had finally left her alone the previous afternoon, Mikah hadstudied herself in the mirror of the dressing table. What she sawhad surprised her. She looked much the same as always, but palerand a little softer, as if she had never been out in the sun andhad skipped her twice-weekly Zumba class for months. Her clothingand hairstyle were middle Victorian in styling. Furtherinvestigation of the hotel room had revealed furnishings that sheconsidered antique, while a peek through the window showed a worldout of time with a smoky, industrial skyline and carriages, wagons,and people dressed much as she was.

Gone was the twenty-first century, and Mikahkept waiting for the dream to end. At any minute she expected towake up and find herself when and where she belonged. Not in thesummer of 1856 but safe and sound back in the autumn of 2012. Herarms would most likely be covered in bruises in the days to comefrom her constant pinching. When the dream persisted, there hadbeen moments of panic that bubbled up in her chest until she’d beenready to scream.

Then she would think of home. Not Mikah’shome in Milwaukee but the castle, Dùn Cuilean, where they would bearriving shortly. She could see it clearly in her mind, feel alonging for the place deep within her soul.

Her home. Hero’s home. It didn’t matter. Itwas home.

And Ian Conagham would be there was well.

Those two thoughts had subdued theschizophrenic hysteria that had kept building in Mikah the previousday, leaving her able to consider her situation more logically.Clearly, she must have taken quite a blow to the head, because thiswas the most absurd dream she’d ever experienced. Whether herdreams were realistic or fantastical, Mikah seldom dreamed that shewas someone else. Even if she were a warrior princess from outerspace, she was still Mikah, warrior princess from outer space.

On the rare occasion, she might dream thatshe was someone else, but never both at the same time. That was thepart she was having the hardest time understanding. In this dream,she was only—how to put this?—mostly Mikah. Hence theschizophrenic paranoia. She didn’t feel delusional or insane … justsort of dually occupied.

Pushing this Hero Conagham back, trying tostuff her into the back of her mind, was a battle Mikah knew shecouldn’t win. It was as if she had been placed in a fantasy worldwhere she was but portraying the lead character. If Mikah tried toinject herself into the role,