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

But if he changed the past, would she have a future? What good would all these machinations do him if Iolanthe couldn't remember him?

What if that little fridge over there was really stocked with booze and not just pop?

He sat there and tried to catch the breath he'd suddenly lost. He felt as if he'd just run a marathon. His legs were shaking, his heart was pounding in his chest, and sweat was pouring down his face.

So he might be able to get to her before she died.

But if he saved her, she likely wouldn't know him.

Damn.

Chapter 22

Iolanthe stood in the space Thomas had appropriated as his office and felt better than she had in centuries. She'd spent almost a week with Megan MacLeod McKinnon de Piaget and found her to be a marvelous companion. They had shopped in the village. Iolanthe had even ventured inside Megan's automobile and managed to keep from screaming as they traveled to a nearby village for different scenery. She hadn't braved Edinburgh, but Megan had assured her that perhaps it was better she go there for the first time with Thomas.

But even little ventures to a handful of little villages had widened Iolanthe's horizons. She'd learned to be unobtrusive in shops, to mask her ghostly condition, to avoid walking into and through things that would have bruised a mortal sorely.

She'd also discovered the pleasure of a nice change of clothes. No wonder Roderick found it so much to his liking. She and Megan had bought marvelous things called fashion magazines. They'd spent hours poring over clothes and shoes and ways to wear one's hair. Iolanthe had been scandalized by the pictures of women in scanty underclothing, but Megan had assured her it was nothing out of the ordinary. Iolanthe had remained unconvinced. She'd turned her attentions to the clothing she thought suitable and now found herself with dozens of ideas to try. Today she was wearing a long, patterned skirt with a dark blue sweater. It was lovely. It made her feel lovely.

Of course, clothes weren't the extent of the changes. Megan had been full of ideas on how to make Iolanthe's life more interesting. Books, music, art, travel. It was nothing Iolanthe had any experience with. She had been ashamed to tell Megan the extent of her ignorance, but Megan hadn't stood for any reticence. She'd grilled Iolanthe mercilessly, leaving no embarrassment undiscovered. But she had done it so gently and so relentlessly that Iolanthe hadn't been able to resist her. And when the true depth of her lack of knowledge had been plumbed, Megan had turned her lack into what seemed like an opportunity for great learning. Had Iolanthe not loved her before, she would have then. Which left her standing where she was at present, wearing clothes from the twenty-first century and using one of its handiest tools. She cleared her throat and gestured expansively behind her to what sat on Thomas's desk.

"This," Iolanthe said to the assembled, ragtag group of men clustered in front of her in the tower chamber, "is a computer."

There were several murmurs of appreciation and wise nods that answered that announcement.

" 'Tis shiny," one of the men said reverently.

"Handsome," another agreed.

"Fit fer tha rubbish bin," said Connor MacDougal with his usual disdain for anything he hadn't intimidated with his sword.

Iolanthe glared at him, then turned her attentions back to the more appreciative members of her audience.

'Today, I am going to learn to read," she announced. "And you are going to help me."

"I ken hoo ta scratch ma name," Connor said stiffly, "and 'tis enough fer me."

"Well," Iolanthe said, "it isn't enough for me." Truer words had never been spoken, to her mind. Now, were she to be completely honest, she hadn't been all that excited about Thomas's machine when she'd first seen it either. Beeps and strange-sounding voices coming from the little box, and a window filled with indecipherable scribblings? Never mind the astonishing pictures he'd shown her. On the whole, she'd found it less than impressive. She'd firmly decided it was beneath her to even investigate it further.

Then three things had changed her mind. Thomas had gone to New York. Megan had come to visit.

And she'd had the misfortune of eavesdropping on a handful of tourists from the Colonies.

She'd heard in glorious detail of the wonders New York had to offer. She surmised after listening for quite some time that 'twas a city definitely larger than the York that found itself in England, and much more interesting. Plays, music, and strange and exotic creatures called cabbies.

"And the women," one man had said with a rapturous sigh, which had earned him a sharp poke in the ribs from his lady wife. The poke hadn't deterred him or his male companions later when the women had gone off to examine the foliage in the forest. Iolanthe had listened with growing horror to the descriptions of the women. Intelligent, beautiful, rich, bedecked with jewels, and the equal of their men in every manner that counted.

And there she was, Iolanthe MacLeod, uneducated, unenlightened, and unalive.

Well, the last was nothing she could change. But the other things, aye, those she could do something about. That Thomas might not find her lacking.

It had unnerved her greatly when Megan had announced she needed to get back home to London. Iolanthe had come close to begging her to stay, but Megan had headed off that bit of groveling by promising to return often and see how things were going. She also introduced Iolanthe to the wonders of the modern telephone. Not that she would have been able to lift it on her own, but perhaps she might find someone to help her now and then. Megan had promised she would call Iolanthe often, then left the inn with tears in her eyes. Iolanthe had wept openly, then retreated to her chamber to mourn the loss of the first woman friend she'd ever had.

Her melancholy hadn't lasted