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

the woman I love and intends to murder her. I'm here to stop it."

"Is that so?"

"It is. And none of you will hinder me."

The knight snorted. "Hinder? Rather we should aid you. The bloody bastard slew me for givin' him a cross look."

"And me for spilling his porridge," said another.

"Me for no reason a'tall!"

Thomas found himself inundated with tales of murder and mayhem. Not a soul stood about him who hadn't been done in one way or another. The connecting thread through the stories was the identity of the man doing the slaying.

Too bad Charles didn't see very clearly. His life would have been hell otherwise.

"We'll aid ye," said another knight, stepping forward and drawing his sword.

Thomas considered. "Can you make yourselves visible?"

There was a resounding chorus of ayes. Well, there was something to be said for that. It was one thing to be a single man assaulting a medieval castle. It was quite another thing to arrive with an army.    .

Never mind that the army wasn't corporeal.

Thomas formulated a plan. He laid it out for his new contingent of ghostly helpers, then thanked them kindly and continued on his way.

The guards didn't even bother to shoot at him. They heckled him from atop the walls, and he only nodded in appreciation. The more helpless they thought him, the better. As long as they didn't pull up the drawbridge, he was in business.

He paused at the barbican and faced a guardsman with a drawn sword.

"State your business," the man said.

"I'm here to kill Lord Charles."

"Are you now?" the man asked with a laugh.

"I am," Thomas replied.

The man briefly looked as if he just might be for the idea, then apparently he thought better of it. He smiled pleasantly.

"Come in, then," the man said, waving him in. "We'll see to your comfort right away."

"I have some friends who want to come, too," Thomas admitted.

"Bring them as well," the guard said pleasantly. "We've space enough in the dungeon for many."

But space for ghosts waving swords and farm implements? Thomas smiled to himself as the guard soon found himself facing two score of armed knights and peasant men he hadn't seen the second before.

His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped to the ground.

"Too easy," said one of the knights grimly. "There'll be sterner tests than this before us."

"Yes, well, let's try to surmount them quietly," Thomas said. "I'd like the element of surprise to be on my side."

The knight waved him away. "Be about yer business, man, and leave us to ours. We'll see to the garrison."

Thomas left him to it. He himself dispatched three men on his way to the tower, but once he was on the steps, he found himself alone.

With his memories.

He struggled for air as he trudged up the same steps he had climbed only once before.

Or had it been more than once?

Had he been up these steps countless times? Was he stuck in some kind of cosmic vicious circle that only continued forever because he failed each time? Was someone trying to tell him that he wasn't going to succeed?

He pushed aside his thoughts and staggered up the few remaining steps. He stopped on the landing and heard... nothing.

He leaned against the door frame and panted, despair crashing down on him.

Had he come too late?

Chapter 30

James MacLeod considered himself a fairly learned man. After all, he'd been laird in his day, and he'd passed a goodly number of years in the Future with all its methods of learning just there for the taking. He'd also traveled a great deal in various centuries. Up until a se'nnight ago, he'd believed that he'd seen and done much that any man would be proud to call to mind.

And then he'd seen his great-great-granddaughter and found that she was a ghost.

And then he'd begun to write down her memories.

It was, he supposed, a bit like traveling through time. The painful thing about her memories, though, was the things she had missed. The sights, smells, tastes: all the things he had taken so for granted.

He set his pen down, realizing that Iolanthe had stopped speaking some time earlier: Jamie looked down at the book on his desk and realized that there were but two more pages. One was already covered with Iolanthe's delicate scrawl, and he quickly flipped past it. She'd obviously taken great pains to write something there and 'twas no affair of his what she said. The last page was still blank, and he found that he was loath to write anything else there. He looked at it and felt impressed to leave it as it was. Perhaps when she was restored to life, she herself would fill it with her own words written in her own hand.

That the rest of the book was finished at all was something of an accomplishment. He'd been at it for hours at a stretch, relieved by others in his family for hours at a time as well. He suspected there wasn't a soul in the keep who hadn't taken down at least a few pages of Iolanthe's tale.

"What do you think will happen?"

Jamie looked up, startled by the sound of her voice. "What?"

She fixed him with those pale, grayish violet eyes of hers, and he realized she was near to weeping.

"If he succeeds," she whispered, "what will happen?"

"Ah," Jamie said, scrambling mightily for something to say to stave off her tears, "I wish I knew, my girl."

"Will it be painful, do you think?" she asked, looking away.

"I couldn't say," Jamie managed. "Traveling through time has no pain. Perhaps it is like unto that."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Aye, my laird. Perhaps you have it aright." She sighed. "I can only hope 'tis done quickly."

"Some things are better done in haste," he agreed.

She looked at him and smiled. "Thank you for aiding me with my tale."

Jamie put his elbows on the desk and knocked his pen on the floor as a result. He leaned over to pick it up.

"It was my pleasure," he