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

"Why not?" he asked placidly. "We may not want fourteenth-century Scotland, but there's no reason we might not want some other time. Or pick your country. If you could live in Scotland in any century, when would it be?"

"There's not much choice," she said grimly. "Clan wars or wars with the English? And 'tis only recently that I've learned what happened after the outlawing of the plaid." She shook her head. "If I were to live there, it would be in your day. At least there are tourists to keep my people alive in the north."

"All right, then," he said. "We'll come back to the present. If you like, we'll live in Scotland. If you'd rather, we'll go live on the shore in Maine."

"In the Colonies?"

"Don't make it sound like it's just short of Hell. There's a lot to be said for America."

"Is there?"

He shot her an amused glance. "We'll live in both places; then you can decide for yourself."

She laced her hands together. "Doesn't it matter to you? Where your home is?"

"Home, Iolanthe," he said slowly, "is people, not a place. If you'll allow it, my home will be with you. Wherever. Whenever."

She met his gaze and felt her damnable tears start again. He blinked a time or two himself, then managed a roguish smile.

"Since I'm hoisting a sword in your defense, how would you like to give me the details I'll need?"

"You're assuming I don't want to be a ghost anymore."

He hesitated, but so slightly she would have missed it had she not been watching him so closely.

"Yes, I'm assuming that. Now, details, if you don't mind. It may mean both our lives this time around."

Well, if he wanted to delude himself with the possibility of actually rescuing her from a man who had murdered her six hundred years earlier, she supposed the least she could do was humor him. What would likely happen was he would spend a nasty night in the forest and find himself with a healthy case of the ague. He'd come back to the inn, and she would end up nursing him as best she could. At least then she could avail herself of the chance to tell him he'd been a fool.

Unless he actually succeeded.

And the hope that bloomed suddenly in her heart from that was almost too painful to be borne.

She waited until she could breathe normally again, then began to speak.

"I'll tell you of my family," she said quietly. "And believe me when I tell you that these are the things that only those who lived them would know."

"You and Duncan."

"Aye," she said. "Though he would likely tell the stories with more charity than I will."

He looked at her briefly. "I'm sorry to make you do this."

"Nay," she said with a wave of her hand. "'Tis best you know the truth." She sat back, gathered her thoughts, then plunged in. "My father, Malcolm, married quite young. My mother bore him first a son, Alexandir, and then me a pair of years later."

"And then no more?"

She shook her head. "No bairns of my mother. My father's love, if he'd ever felt it, soured almost immediately. 'Tis nothing short of a miracle that I was ever conceived. My sire had a lover in the village and 'twas in her bed he sought his pleasure almost from the start."

"Great guy."

She smiled without humor. "Aye. Now the trouble began when I reached my tenth summer. My brother, ten-and-two, was a strong, strapping lad even then. He had accompanied my mother to see her kin when they were set upon by our enemies. Duncan had been out riding the borders and stumbled upon the deed as it was happening. My brother had already fallen from wounds that were grievous. My mother had been set upon, in the way a woman ofttimes finds herself, by that band of misbegotten curs. Duncan slew them all in a mighty anger, but 'twas too late to stop the harm done."

"Oh, Iolanthe," Thomas said with a sigh.

She shrugged. "It was long ago, and my mother has long since found her rest."

"I'm sorry."

"My brother died a handful of days after the skirmish. My mother never recovered. She wasted away, and half a year later, she followed Alexandir into the earth."

"Leaving your father to his mistress."

"And their children, aye." She took a deep breath. "I was, as you might imagine, an uncomfortable reminder of my brother's death. My father, I think, after a year or two, forgot about me. I lived in the hall, true, but he never spoke to me or acknowledged me."

"And your half-brothers and -sister?"

She smiled at him. "What do you think, Thomas?"

"I think I'll give them all a piece of my mind when I see them."

"How gallant you are."

"No," he said, looking at her. "Desperate."

The intensity of his glance made whatever she'd been planning to say die on her lips. By the saints, the madman was truly in earnest.

"You are going to do this," she whispered.

"You're convinced only now?"

She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at him again.

"You'll need their names," she said quietly. "If you're to survive."

"Thank you."

"Duncan you'll know, though I suppose he won't remember you. He was a very practical man though, even then, with no great love for my father."

"I can't blame him for that."

"Neither can I, actually. My half-brother, Angus, is the eldest of the brood my father sired on his whore. The next was Grudach, his younger sister. 'Twas they, those two, who beguiled me into leaving with the English-man."

"How?"

She smiled bitterly. "They told me his keep was on the sea. You see, my sire had sent Angus out into the world, partly because the fool impregnated too many village wenches when he was at home and partly because he had a gift—so my father supposed—for making alliances."

"And your father thought you needed them?" Thomas asked. "Isn't your home pretty far north?"

" 'You can never have too many allies,' " she said, "which is the wisest thing my father ever said. He