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

It was the first time I'd heard it from mortal or unmortal lips since my mother died.

And such was my undoing.

I passed time with him, finding that 'twas sweet indeed to have a man look at me as if he found me beautiful. That it was pleasurable to have him listen as if what I said mattered to him. And that the thought of him possibly losing his life to give me back mine was the most terrible thing of all.

He had a mad thought, a thought that he could actually go back in time and save me before I was murdered. I told him nay, that 'twas foolish. I ignored him when he spoke of it. I favored him fully with my anger when nothing else seemed to deter him.

Yet still he persisted. Either 'tis love in truth that he feels for me, or he's simply a mad fool on a foolish errand. Yet what man gives up his life willingly, if not for something or someone he loves?

He left Thorpewold and came north, to my ancestral home near the feet of the Benmore Forest. My great-greatgrandfather, who had been the one to discover the time gates, trained him in swordplay and other necessities. But how much can a man learn of a way of life in merely a pair of fortnights?

I came home the day before he left. He found me in the meadow. He told me he loved me. He told me that there was no reason I couldn't remember the future. That should he be successful and I not lose my life, there was still no reason I couldn't remember my life as a ghost. My laird James tells me 'tis possible, but I wonder if the two have spent too many nights slipping into their cups and they are both daft. James speaks of alternate realities, but it makes little sense to me. All I know is that I might be restored to my life.

Yet I will lose the life I have had.

So I have written these few words. My laird still bids me give more of the tale. He has it aright, but I wonder how much time I have left. Thomas has been gone a pair of days. If he succeeds, will I simply cease to exist here? Or will I be pulled backward in time, with my centuries of memories intact? Or will it be as if those centuries had never happened and I will remember nothing of my kin, my enemies, my friends?

My love?

He is a braw lad, though, so perhaps if I cannot remember him, I'll see my way clear to love him again.

For I loved Thomas McKinnon as a ghost. I never said as much to him, and for that I have my regrets. But I did love him, and I would have passed the rest of his life happily with him, sharing whatever small things we could have shared.

I'll make an end here. If time is allotted to me, I'll go through the centuries in another part of this book. But as for this much, I've said enough.

I, Iolanthe MacLeod, write this by the hand of my laird, James MacLeod, and I make it in the year of Our Lord's Grace 2001, in the autumn of that year.

Chapter 29

Thomas wondered, as he stood near a group of trees in the middle of some guy's field and fought for his life, if Jamie's training really had been adequate. He stood back to back with Duncan, wielded his sword for all he was worth, and decided as he had to jerk aside to avoid being skewered that perhaps he was just a little bit out of his league. It was one thing to pretend to fight off men you were fairly sure wouldn't maim you if push came to shove. It was another thing entirely to fight off ragged, unkempt soldiers who seemed to find the idea of two Scots surrounded by a half a dozen English-men to be good entertainment for the afternoon.

He'd never killed before. In fact, he'd always made it a point to leave as little trace of his passing as possible when he climbed mountains. All right, so maybe he'd done in numerous rabbits over the course of his long and illustrious career out in the wild; that was dinner, and the bones were probably biodegradable after a few centuries. The thing about this was, he had no intentions of eating the grim-looking characters he faced at present.

The only upside he could see at present was that Lord Charles had left behind the majority of his troops. If he and Duncan could do these guys in, they would be home free. Thomas was certain that the entire party, including Iolanthe, hadn't been made up of more than ten. That he and Duncan merited such a large force was a compliment.

On the whole, though, he would have preferred to have been insulted.

He heard Duncan grunt behind him, which in and of itself wasn't noteworthy. But it was a sound that was somehow unsettling. Thomas didn't dare turn to find out how he was, or even to ask him, so he merely concentrated on keeping his own head resting comfortably on his shoulders and all his limbs intact.

His chance to finish his side of the battle came sooner than he'd hoped. He stabbed the man in front of him with a clean stroke through the gut, grabbed the man's knife from his belt as he fell, then turned to face the other two. They came at him both at once, and he found himself reacting out of the instinct Jamie and Ian had instilled in him. He thrust one way, ducked and came up under the sword of the other man, plunging his knife into the other's belly.

He stepped back from the dying men, then turned and looked at Duncan. Duncan finished his last