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

wonder about the fact that he didn't look as if he'd grown to manhood with a sword in his hand, but the direness of her situation left her little time for that. Speculation could come later, if she was alive to indulge in any.

It was beginning to look as if her defender might need aid. She cast about for a solution. It might be possible to snatch the English-man's dagger from his belt and stab him with it whilst he was otherwise occupied.

She watched and waited, then leaped forward and ducked under the English-man's arm. She pulled his dagger free only to have him whirl on her and swipe viciously at her with his sword. Blessing all the miserable years spent ducking blows and like slashes from blunted swords wielded by her evil half-brothers, she dropped down and found herself still with her head atop her shoulders. Before the English-man could sweep backward with his blade, her rescuer had dealt the man a mighty blow to the head with the flat of his sword and sent him stumbling.

The English-man straightened, roaring like a stuck boar. Iolanthe didn't wait to see if her rescuer would be equal to fending off that attack. The moment the English whoreson's back was turned, she plunged her blade into his sword arm. He howled and dropped his weapon, but before he could turn on her, he found himself with a face full of sword hilt. Iolanthe watched her rescuer slam the hilt of his sword again into the English-man's nose. The crunch was a very satisfying sound.

The man slumped to the ground with a groan.

"Roll him over," said the man—in Gaelic, no less. "We'll tie him up and leave him."

"But—"

The man looked up at her, and Iolanthe found her protest dying on her lips. She stared down at him and felt as if her very soul had shuddered.

Despite her dreams, she was certain she had never seen the man before.

Yet for a frozen instant, she felt as if she had been in this place before, with this man kneeling at her feet, facing the question of life or death.

"Would you rather finish him?" he asked. "Could you do it?"

She should have been able to. It would have been a simple thing to pull the man's head back and slit his throat. She'd slaughtered sheep. What difference was there with a man who had intended to kill her?

Yet she found that somehow, she could not.

"His life will be hell if we let him live," the man promised. "Trust me on that."

Iolanthe pulled the English-man's dagger free of his arm and hastily cut strips from her dress. She held her rescuer's sword while he bound the man hand and foot. He stuffed cloth in the man's mouth and bound it as well.

The English-man began to stir, then he apparently realized what had happened to him, for he began to thrash. It was futile. Iolanthe looked down at him, then spat on him.

"May you die without honor or courage," she said.

Her rescuer grunted. "Rather we should hope he lives a long life to relive his cowardice." He looked down at the man. "I hope you live decades and find yourself haunted by the souls of those who you've slain in this very chamber." Then he leaned over and clouted the man on the head again.

The English-man slumped into senselessness.

Her rescuer looked at her, then held out his hand for his sword. Iolanthe handed it back to him, but kept the dagger she'd taken from the man lying before them.

"I brought clothes," he said, untying a bundle from his waist. "You'll need to wear them. I don't think we'll have trouble from the guards, but better we be viewed as two English-men just in case."

He turned away from her. Iolanthe held the clothes he had thrust at her and looked at his back.

"Who are you?" she asked.

He was silent for a moment. "It is a very long tale," he said finally.

That was another puzzle. He spoke Gaelic, but less well than he would have had he grown to manhood in the Highlands. She frowned. "Are you friend or enemy?"

"Friend, surely."

She considered. "What secret do you think you kn—"

He looked over his shoulder at her. "Hurry. We can talk later."

"We'll speak now," she insisted.

He turned his back on her. "Later. When we're not standing in the midst of the enemy's keep."

She couldn't argue with that, so she set the dagger down on the floor next to her, then stripped and dressed. She braided her hair and tucked it down the back of her stolen tunic. She left her dress on the floor. She looked down at her former captor, then stole his belt, slipping her filched dagger into it.

"I will have my answers," she said to her rescuer, putting her hand on the hilt of her dagger meaningfully.

He turned around, then looked at her hand. He met her eyes gravely. "You will," he assured her.

And then he smiled at her.

His smile was her undoing. It was as if he'd just found his heart's desire. The tenderness, nay, the undisguised joy in it was surely the most beautiful sight she'd ever beheld.

The man was obviously daft.

He held out his hand. She looked down at the poorly healed blisters, then met his eyes with a frown.

"Are you a monk that you have such blisters from unaccustomed swordplay?"

"Hardly," he said with a short laugh. "But what I will be is a dead man if we don't leave soon." He continued to hold out his damaged hand. "Come with me."

When her other choice was remaining with a soon-to-awaken-and-be-furious English-man, the madman before her seemed a most appealing alternative. Of course, there was the fact that she'd waited the whole of her life for him to come and get her. She took a deep breath, then slowly put her hand in his.

And then she saw a single tear roll down his cheek.

"What ails you?" she asked, looking him over for wounds.

He only smiled and shook