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

She was gone.

"Iolanthe?" he called.

There was no answer.

Jamie sat there in silence for several minutes. He took her book in his hand, flipping through the pages and looking at the various scripts there.

He hoped it had been without pain for her.

He took a ribbon and bound the book closed. He looked about his thinking chamber and considered where he might store it until she would be able to read it again for herself. If her memories had remained her own, she would enjoy rereading her tale.

But if she lost them, the book would be vital.

In the end, he slipped the book inside his desk drawer, shut it, and stood. There was nothing more he could do. He turned off the light and went to bed.

Chapter 31

Will you starve, or will you be put to the sword?" Iolanthe MacLeod stood in the English-man's tower chamber and felt as if her heart might shake the very walls surrounding her with the force of its pounding. A slow death or a less slow one. Where was the choice in that? She'd seen men starve to death in her father's pit, and it wasn't pleasant. Perhaps there would be pain with the other, but it would be over much sooner. And it seemed a braver way to die, if one had to die.

The man facing her drew his sword. Perhaps he thought he offered her a merciful death. She felt herself tremble and she suddenly found her thoughts less on what she would never have and more on not shaming herself by falling to her knees or weeping. She was, after all, a MacLeod, and a MacLeod always died well if he could.

So she lifted her chin, stared her murderer full in the face, and let his sword do its foul work unhindered.

She expected agony.

What she felt, however, was merely the brush of cool steel against her ribs.

She looked down, saw that her dress was torn, but there was no blood gushing from a life-ending wound. She realized what had happened and felt the strong desire to curse. What kind of fool was this, that he couldn't end her life with a single stroke? She'd heard the sudden banging on the door as well, but she hadn't expected her executioner to be so inept that being startled would cause his thrust to go wide.

The banging continued, much louder, until the door burst asunder and a man stumbled into the chamber. Her erstwhile murderer turned to face him, blocking her view.

"Merde," snarled the English-man.

Well, that word she knew. She could curse in three languages, and though 'twas a simple skill, it was one she was rather proud of. Then the two men began to speak in that despised peasant's English her grandsire had insisted she learn.

Ye never ken when it'll serve ye, my gel, he would say, with that damnedable glint in his eye.

"You don't need her," the other man said. "Release her."

Iolanthe felt her mouth hang open of its own accord. She was to be released?

The English-man laughed shortly. "And have her scurry home and bring her kin down upon me? Never."

His answer was unsurprising. What was surprising was that someone had come to rescue her. Iolanthe looked around her abductor to see who that someone might be. One of her brothers' friends? A cousin she'd never marked? One of her sire's enemies with foul designs upon her person?

But it wasn't. It wasn't any of them.

If she'd been a maid given to weakness, she might have felt her legs grow unsteady beneath her.

He was, despite how filthy and travel-stained he looked, the most handsome man she had ever clapped eyes on. Tall, aye, and broad. Dark-haired with eyes so vivid a blue she could see their color from where she stood across the chamber. His face was finely fashioned with the beginnings of a beard, though she suspected by its length that it wasn't his custom to wear one. But none of that was what was so startling.

It was that she recognized him.

That in itself was almost enough to make her wish for a sturdy chair beneath her backside, that she might contemplate the mystery in comfort.

She had spent the past ten-and-four years of her life wishing for a braw lad to come and rescue her from her sorry state. Almost from the moment she'd begun wishing for such a thing, the vision of a man's face had come to her with a clarity that was almost frightening.

This man's face.

And now he'd come.

His strong hands were empty, but she saw the hilt of a sword peeking over his back. That made her frown. That was how her kin ofttimes wore their blades, when they needed their hands free for other business of death. Was the man a Scot? His clothing bespoke otherwise. He sported things she'd only seen English-men wear, but 'twas ill-fitting. It might not be his. Who was he then?

"I know," the man said slowly, "the secret of the MacLeod keep."

Iolanthe gasped before she could stop herself. The man hesitated, but he didn't look at her. He continued to look at her captor.

"Release her, and I'll give it to you."

The English-man scoffed. "I'll have the secret and then kill you both."

"Will you?" the man asked, amused. "I think not." The English-man swung his sword, and Iolanthe clapped her hands over her eyes so that she might not see her rescuer be cut in half. But instead of a scream, she heard metal on metal.

And then the sound of a mighty battle. She pressed herself back into the alcove and watched as the two men fought fiercely in a space that was much too small for such a contest. The English-man fought like a man who was sure that a score of men waited without, ready at his slightest command to burst in and destroy whatever troubled him.

Her rescuer, which was all she could call him, fought with less skill but more determination. She was tempted to