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

alive and well six hundred years in the Future. He claimed to have met the man and eaten at his board.

Lies?

Somehow, beyond reason, she didn't think so. He hadn't lied to her about anything so far. He'd certainly withheld a bit of truth, but he hadn't lied. But she suspected that the truth he withheld would be that which interested her the most.

"My lady?" Thomas asked again. "The lord wishes to know if you speak French."

She looked at the lord of Artane and smiled weakly.

"Merde," she said.

It was, after all, one of the few words she knew.

The lord looked at her with wide eyes, then suddenly burst into hearty laughter. He clapped Thomas on the shoulder and pulled him up the stairs toward the great hall. Thomas took her hand and pulled her up the steps after him.

The hall was enormous, and it even smelled passable. She walked over the fairly fresh rushes and soon found herself seated at the high table with Thomas next to her. When the lord found himself engaged by a man of his house, Thomas leaned close to her.

"Roger," he said. "The lord Artane. I told him I was French, you were Bulgarian, and ours was a love match which displeased our parents. I gave him a few names he would recognize and be impressed by and asked him for hospitality until we recover from our traumatic journey."

Perhaps he was a better liar than she'd supposed.

"Did you," she whispered, "give him a reason for our journey?"

"Pilgrimage," he said. "I told him we'd heard tell of a new shrine in Edinburgh, made all the more desirable because of the dangers involved in getting there."

"Those barbaric Scots," she said darkly.

He grinned at her. "Something like that."

She nodded, then realized something he'd said. "Wed?" she said, choking on her wine. "We're wed?"

"Can you think of any other reason we'd be traveling alone together? Well, besides the fact that all our household was murdered and by that malcontent, Lord Charles."

"You didn't," she breathed.

"I had to tell him something—Oui, seigneur," he said, turning to face the lord of Artane.

And then he was off babbling in a tongue she couldn't understand. But what she did understand was that he had saved her from looking like a whore.

She found her hand suddenly captured in his and held up for Artane's inspection. Thomas pointed to her fingers and made motions that left even her realizing that her wedding ring had apparently been absconded with.

Ach, those bloody thieves.

She found that, for the first time in years, she was actually enjoying herself. Her only regret was that she couldn't understand Thomas. But his hand gestures, his bearing, his very voice wrung noises of sympathy and outrage from their host.

And it won them a meal.

Iolanthe was certain she hadn't eaten in days. She did her best not to fall upon the food like a savage, but that was a true test of her mettle. Thomas ate with just as much enthusiasm, so she didn't feel so clumsy.

It seemed hours before Lord Artane stood. Thomas rose as well. Iolanthe followed him, simply because she didn't know what else to do. Thomas listened intently, then bowed and gave a great and lengthy speech of thanks.

Merci, she knew as well.

He looked at Iolanthe.

"Baths, my lady," he said, looking as if the idea pleased him. "And new clothes, if we're fortunate."

"At this late hour?"

"He worries about our comfort."

A bath? Och, she'd swum in streams often enough, especially when escaping her more cowardly brothers who thought the waters cursed, but to willingly step into a cauldron of steaming water?

And she'd thought facing a sword had been difficult.

"No?" he asked.

"Oh, aye," she said, swallowing back her fear. "If they like."

So she found herself led off to a chamber she couldn't have found again had her life depended on it. She was stripped and put into a tub of steaming water. She tried not to flinch as she was soaped, rinsed, and dried off.

And then she was given clothing so fine that it almost made up for all the previous tortures.

The gown was, however, predictably too short, but that was remedied soon enough by a pair of industrious seamstresses who attached extra material to the hem and made it look as if such a thing had been planned. A tanner was then brought in. He measured her feet and stitched her a pair of soft leather shoes so quickly it seemed as if he'd produced them by some magical means.

Her feet were shod, her nether limbs covered, and her hair brushed until the women gave up trying to straighten it and let it be about its usual business of twisting and turning around her face and down her back.

She smiled and bowed her thanks and received smiles and bows in return. She opened the door, hoping against hope that one of the women would take pity on her and lead her back to something she recognized, such as a bed, so she could collapse with exhaustion.

Yet there someone she recognized stood, leaning against the far wall and looking so magnificently handsome that she caught her breath.

He straightened and stared at her with just as much surprise.

"You're beautiful," he said. Then he cleared his throat hastily. "Not that you weren't before."

"You're cleaner," she noted.

"I am," he agreed cheerfully.

"And braw enough, I suppose."

He put his hand over his heart and made her a little bow. "Milady's compliments leave me weak." He looked up from his bow and smiled at her.

Which made her feel distinctly weak in the knees.

"Off with ye, ye wee silly man," she said with as much bluster as she could manage. "Ye'll make yerself dizzy, bowin' and scrapin' thusly."

He held out his hand. "I have a surprise for you. If you're not too tired."

She looked at his hand and was surprised to find that her hand was putting itself in his, just as boldly as you pleased.

But once it was there, there was no sense in not leaving it there, or in