My Heart Stood Still

by Lynn Kurland

  My Heart Stood Still

  Lynn Kurland

  Prologue

  THE BORDER

  FALL 1382

  They had betrayed her with a promise of the sea.

  Go with the English-man, and he will show you the strand, her half-brother had said. Father has traded you to make an ally, but you'll have a keep on the shore as your recompense, her half-sister had said.

  Trust us, they had said.

  Liars both.

  The woman stood in a cold guard's chamber and stared out the small slit of a window before her. The only thing she could see was darkness, but perhaps that was a boon. It obscured the bleak, endless stretches of land that surrounded the keep in which she found herself captive—land seemingly so far removed from the sea she wondered if the villagers even knew that such a thing existed. 'Twas almost a certainty she would never see the like now.

  She was tempted to weep, but she knew it would serve her nothing, so she forbore. After all, she was a MacLeod, and MacLeods did not weep with fear.

  Despite how desperately she wanted to do so.

  That she found herself in straits terrible enough to warrant tears was difficult to believe. Was it possible that just a fortnight ago the English-man had come to her home? She had stirred herself only long enough to determine that he held no interest for her, then thoroughly ignored him. 'Twas odd to see an English-man so far north, true, but her father often had men from many foreign places at their keep. She'd had much to occupy her and had paid little heed to one more unfamiliar fool loitering at the supper table.

  A pity she hadn't, for the next thing she'd known, she had been given to the English-man. That her father would think so little of her that he would send her off with a stranger didn't surprise her. That a stranger would take her surprised her very much indeed. What value she had to him, she couldn't imagine.

  Perhaps she should have refused to go. She would have, had she supposed she had had any choice. But she'd been but one lone woman in a press of half-siblings who hated her, with a father who had forgotten she existed until that moment when he'd needed her. The whole lot had no doubt been rejoicing that they would soon be well rid of her. Defying them all had been unthinkable.

  Besides, she had contented herself with their promises of a keep by the sea.

  More the fool was she for having believed them.

  Of course, it wasn't as if she'd continued on the journey willingly, once she'd learned the true character of her buyer. Her struggles had earned her naught but heavy blows that had set her ears to ringing. The farther south they had traveled, the less often she had tried to escape. By now, she supposed she had traveled so far south that she stood on English soil—a place she had never thought to find herself.

  She had certainly wished for a different life than the one she suddenly faced. Since her mother's death, she had dreamed of a man who would come to take her away. Aye, he would have been a braw lad with a mighty sword. He would have arrived at her keep and demanded that she be given to him. Where words might have failed, his sword would have spoken meaningfully. Her miserable life at her father's keep would have been over and a new life begun with a man who loved her.

  Such, she supposed, was the stuff of dreams only. She had been carried from her keep, true, but only to face a fate she suspected was far worse than her life at her sire's keep ever had been. There would be no rescue now by a man who would love her. She knew with dread certainty that she would meet her fate where she stood, and she would meet it alone. The only choice left her was to do so with courage.

  The door opened behind her, and she closed her eyes briefly. Then she drew herself up, put on her fiercest expression, and turned to look at her captor.

  The man stood just inside the door with a torch in his hand. He set it in the sconce, shut the door behind him, then bolted it. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  Ah, so that was how it would be. Whatever the man wanted from her, he intended to have his answers one way or another, so it seemed. But there was one thing she would not endure. She lifted her chin.

  "I'll not bear rapine."

  He wrinkled his nose. "Think you I would bed a wench of Scots breeding?"

  "What do you want, then?" she asked curtly. Perhaps if she spoke strongly, he would find her not worth the trouble of harming. It had worked countless times with her half-brothers. This fool could be no more intelligent than they.

  "I'll have the secret of your keep," the man said.

  "The what?" she asked blankly.

  He looked at her coldly. His was not a handsome face, and the determination there did not improve the visage. "You know of what I speak. Your brother himself boasted of it. He spewed out bits and pieces of the tale as we sat in an inn near Edinburgh. He said there was a magical secret in the MacLeod keep that would bring a man riches beyond belief and that you, best of all, knew that secret."

  Ah, so that was why the English-man had taken her so readily. Damn Angus, the blabbering fool who could scarce hold a thought in his head, much less any wits with his ale. She shook her head in disbelief. A pity her father couldn't have chosen someone else to forge his alliances. For some reason, and one beyond her comprehension, her father seemed to find his son trustworthy, for he sent him on all manner of journeys to far-flung places to woo and befriend powerful men who might become allies. It shouldn't have surprised her that the selling of her soul had much to do with one of Angus's foolish acts.

  She looked at the man whose name she hadn't bothered to pay heed to when she'd heard it. She could scarce believe he'd gone to such lengths to uncover the truth of Angus's tales. Then again, with the state of his keep, perhaps he had need of the gold.

  But to give him what he asked?

  Never.

  "Your journey was wasted," she said flatly. "I have nothing to tell you."

  "You lie!"

  The sudden violence in his voice made her jump. Fear stole over her in spite of her fine vow to remain calm.

  "My brother is the liar," she managed.

  "But he said you knew—"

  "He is a boastful, foolish boy who should have remained at home and passed his time mucking out the stables," she said. "My father is the greater fool for having let him leave the keep."

  The man cursed fluently and at great length. Then he looked at her. "You're of no use to me then."

  A desperate hope bloomed suddenly in her breast. "Then you'll release me?"

  "And have you return to your sire and snivel out your sorry tale?" He shook his head. "I think not. I was the fool for thinking your sire would have entrusted you with knowledge of any value." He laughed shortly. "He didn't even give you a name. What does he call you? Gel?"

  She pursed her lips. 'Twas true her father could never remember her name. Being that she was his eldest girl-child and the only girl sired on his first wife, girl was what he called her. But her mother had given her a name, one that her father was too feeble to wrap his tongue around. Her mother had never used it save for her ears alone. She supposed now that no one remembered what it was. Certainly her half-brothers didn't. Nothing they called her was worth repeating.

  Nay, her true name she would keep as hers alone, until she met a man worthy to share it with. And that man would not be the one standing before her.

  Her other secret was indeed the secret of her keep, but neither would she give that. Not upon pain of death, for so she had sworn herself. Her grandfather had entrusted it to her, and she would not betray that trust.

  Though she had to admit that giving her grandsire her word when they were together on the side of a mountain was one thing; keeping that word when she alone was looking at death was another.

  "If you let me go," she said, trying m
ightily to keep the quaver from her voice, "I will not return home." There was no sense in not trying to free herself. She hadn't given her word not to do that.

  "The promise of a Scot means nothing."

  "But—"

  "Nothing," he interrupted shortly.

  "My brothers will come to see how I fare," she warned, though she knew in her heart that wasn't true.

  The man grunted. "They seemed rather happy to see the last of you. I doubt anyone will come after you." He folded his arms over his chest. "This choice I will at least offer you. Will you starve, or will you be put to the sword?"

  Her heart felt as if it 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 looked at the man facing her and could scarce believe she found herself in his clutches.

  "You," she said, "are an honorless whoreson."

  "Perhaps. But at least I am giving you a say in your end."

  "And I am to be grateful for it?"

  " 'Tis more than your sire offered you."

  There was truth in that. She took a deep breath, then attempted a swallow, which she found to be a futile exercise. She'd seen men starved 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.

  But, by the very saints of heaven, she didn't want to die. She wanted to live. She wanted with every bit of her soul to continue drawing breath long enough to have her heart's desire.

  She wanted to see the sea.

  And she wanted the man of her dreaming to look at it with.

  The man facing her drew his sword. Perhaps he thought she wasn't able to choose. Perhaps he thought he offered her the more merciful death. She suddenly found her thoughts less on what she would never have and more on not shaming herself by falling to her knees and 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.

  And then Iolanthe MacLeod knew no more.

  Chapter 1

  MAINE

  AUGUST 2001

  Thomas MacLeod McKinnon was a man with a problem.

  Not that problems bothered him usually. He generally viewed them as challenges to be solved, heights to be summitted, obstacles to be climbed over and outdone. That was before. This was now, and his current problem was the sight before him.

  There were—and he couldn't really call them anything else—mouse ears poking up from behind his rhododendron.

  He blinked, drew his hand over his eyes for good measure, then looked again.

  Now the ears were gone.

  He shifted his last sack of American junk food to his other arm, then crossed his porch to look more closely at the bush in question. He bent down and studied it, trying to judge what the angle of his vision had been a moment before and how such an angle might set a particular configuration of leaves into an earlike pattern. He pitted all his skills of observation and his considerable stores of logic and ingenuity against the problem. After several minutes of effort, he came to a simple conclusion:

  He was losing his mind.

  "Okay," he said aloud. "There are plenty of reasons for this."

  The rhododendron didn't offer any opinions on what those reasons might be.

  It would have been something he could have dismissed rather easily if it had been the only sighting. Unfortunately, he'd just about run off the road on his way home from the store thanks to the same delusion. He'd been innocently driving along when he'd glanced in his rearview mirror and seen those same black orbs attached to a beanie hat floating quietly in midair in his backseat.

  All right, so he was driving an old Wagoneer that hadn't been washed all that often. It hauled stuff for him, and that's all he cared about. It was possible, he supposed, that some dust particles left over from his last trip to the dump had coagulated into a beanie-and-mouse-ear configuration. It was possible that the sun had reflected off something else and cast a shadow where you wouldn't have thought one should be.

  It was also possible that his first conclusion was right and his mind was really starting to go.

  He turned away and let himself into his house before he did anything else stupid, like discuss his hallucinations further with a plant. He dropped his keys on the entry hall table and walked back to his kitchen. Could an ultra-unhealthy meal of eggs, spicy sausage, and extremely processed cheese spread cure delusionary states? He wasn't sure, but he was willing to try.

  He emptied his groceries onto the counter, pulled out a frying pan, and dumped his sausage into it. He turned the burner up to high and listened with satisfaction to the sound of saturated fat sizzling happily. This was the life for him. Uncomplicated. Unfettered. Uncluttered by visions of things that belonged in theme park gift shops.

  Thomas tilted the pan to roll the sausages to one side, then cracked a handful of eggs into the freed-up space. With what the immediate future held in store for him, who knew when he might get a decent meal again?

  He turned the heat down, then began to walk around the kitchen, looking out the windows at the sea rolling ceaselessly against the shore and enjoying the smell of a late breakfast filling his kitchen. The more he prowled through the kitchen, though, the more unsettled he began to feel. He supposed it had a great deal to do with the fact that he was standing in a house he'd built with his own two hands, yet he planned to leave it behind and spend a year in a strange, foreign land.

  He shoved aside the temptation to speculate further on the condition of his mental state.

  The feeling of nostalgia, however, was a very unfamiliar one. He'd never been prone to it before. He'd always done what he needed to do, then moved on without a backward glance.

  His education was proof enough of that. He'd gotten his degree in history at twenty, decided it wasn't for him, then moved on to law school. Three years and a degree later, he'd dumped that idea as well. He hadn't wanted to teach either history or law. He hadn't been able to stomach the thought of spending his days litigating either. He'd walked away from both degrees without remorse.

  He'd turned to the stock market with hopes of making enough money to do whatever he wanted to without worrying about funds. In two very hectic years, he'd parlayed a fifty-thousand-dollar loan from his disgustingly wealthy grandmother into five million. He'd paid her back with interest and by a month of being her packhorse through France, then he'd taken the rest, rounded up a number of other serious investors, and started his own brokerage firm. Nine years later, he'd sold that firm and added the price of that sale to his already staggering list of assets.

  He'd moved on to create an elite securities management firm, but it was at that point that he'd decided he'd had enough. He still owned the company, but he'd given over the day-to-day running of it to a college buddy. After all, it was just money. He'd made buckets of it, and what did he have to show for it?

  Nothing.

  Well, except his house. Looking back on it now, he wondered how he'd managed to build a house in Maine, yet run a multimillion-dollar business in Manhattan at the same time. He'd spent every weekend, holiday, and vacation day for three years commuting north to work on his house, that's how. Standing there now, just the thought of it made him want to go take a nap.

  If he'd been a nap-taking kind of guy, which he most definitely was not.

  Of course, his life hadn't been all business—not by a long shot. Even early on, he'd always surrounded himself with trustworthy partners who had left him free to pursue his true passion, the one that made his father roll his eyes and his mother wring her hands.

  Mountains.

  Short ones, steep ones, tall ones, ice-covered ones; he didn't care. As long as he could climb them, he was happy. And when he wasn't climbing, he was either training to climb or working like a fiend to make enough money so he'd have ti
me to climb.

  All of which left him wondering why in the world he was putting his entire life—his house and his mountains—on hold to chase after something that seemed less like an obsession and more like Fate.

  He finished his prowl by winding up where he started. He reached over and jiggled the pan, then turned to look at his refrigerator. It was fairly uncluttered as far as fridge fronts went, but there, in unmistakable clarity, were the two things that had utterly changed his life.

  One was a picture of a castle. His sister had taken the photograph last Christmas, well after he'd bought the place, sight unseen. He'd noticed the auction in the New York Times a couple of years before that. Apparently, some titled Brit had been dumping some of his assets, and the castle had come up on the block. Without fully realizing why he was doing it, he'd forked out the money, then promptly put it out of his mind because something else had captured his attention.

  He looked at the other photograph and sighed. Mt. Everest stood there in all its stark beauty, with the trademark plume of white cloud adorning its summit. He supposed pitting himself against it had been inevitable. He'd been awash in a particularly satisfying rush of making a fortune when a buddy had dropped a picture of a mountain on his desk and dared him to climb it.

  Everest.

  Why not?

  Well, there had been plenty of reasons why not, but he'd ignored them. He'd packed up his office, packed up his place in the city, closed up his house in Maine, and moved to Utah. He'd hired a trainer and used both the desert and the mountains to physically make himself into a kind of climbing animal he'd never been before, even with the impossible heights and sheer rock faces he'd managed in his past.

  But it hadn't come without cost. He'd missed his sister's wedding in January because he'd gone the extra mile (well, extra three hundred to be exact) and hiked in to Everest base camp instead of flying in like the rest of his team. He'd been determined to make the summit and was willing to do whatever it took to get there. He was not a man accustomed to losing.