My Heart Stood Still

by Lynn Kurland

  My wee brain caught fire and left me with no wits, she finished with a snort. She almost wished he could hear her thoughts and know just what a reprehensible oaf she found him.

  "I read this poem once," he said. " 'Loveliness shone around her like light/Her steps were the music of songs.' " He looked up at Ambrose. "Do you know it?"

  "I don't, lad."

  "It's Lachlan MacDonald," Thomas said. "I couldn't think at all when I was looking at her, but that's what came to me once I could think straight again. It's a fair description of her, don't you think, those lines of verse?"

  Iolanthe couldn't have cared less if Saint Michael himself had been wielding the pen when those words had been put to parchment. She could only gape at Thomas in surprise. He was using such to describe her?

  "Then you found her beautiful," Ambrose prompted.

  Thomas shook his head. "No."

  Iolanthe was almost relieved to find that she hadn't misjudged his character. He was simply without redemption. Flawed. Unpleasant. Besides, why would he have found her beautiful? She knew the truth. She'd seen her own visage—

  "Beautiful is too tame a word," Thomas said, interrupting her thoughts. "She was ... stunning."

  Iolanthe was sure she hadn't heard him aright. Stunning? What meant he by that foolishness? That she was so ugly that she left him gasping with horror? She looked at him narrowly. He wasn't gasping in horror now. In truth, he was smiling—and the sight of that was almost her undoing. By the saints, he was a handsome man. When he smiled, she could almost forget his lack of character.

  "I'd walked into that hall expecting to find another Connor MacDougal, or perhaps a dozen of him, facing me, so when I saw her, I was, well, speechless. Which for me is a rare condition."

  Would that it afflicted you more often, she thought, but she couldn't muster up any venom to go with the thought. If he wanted to think her beautiful, poor fool, then he could, she supposed. She was too surprised that such a thing would occur to him to do much but stare at him, dumbfounded.

  "And then what happened?" asked Ambrose. "I take it you found your tongue."

  "I told her my name, and she wasn't exactly impressed. Things get fuzzy from there, and I'm not sure quite what I said. My head was killing me, and it was all I could do to stand up. I'm fairly sure I was very rude."

  He paused. Iolanthe supposed a more foolish woman might have thought he looked almost repentant.

  "I made her cry."

  "I daresay they were tears of rage, not hurt," Ambrose said placidly. "Herself has a fiery temper."

  "I owe her an apology."

  "I'd say you do."

  "If she'll listen."

  Ambrose shifted a little uncomfortably. "Well, I daresay you may not have her full attention the first time. I'd keep at it, were I you."

  Thomas looked at him closely. "Then you know her? You know her name?"

  "I know her," Ambrose said.

  "What's her name?"

  "Don't know it," Ambrose said evasively.

  Thomas blinked. "You don't?"

  "It's something of a secret of hers," Ambrose said.

  "Hmmm," Thomas said with a frown. "Well, then what do you know about her?"

  Ambrose smiled into his cup. Iolanthe saw him do it and knew he was about some kind of mischief. She was half tempted to urge him on. Perhaps he would startle the fool into some sort of fatal heart condition.

  Then again, perhaps she should bid Ambrose cease with his games. If he chatted Thomas up long enough, the oaf would spout more of that ridiculous nonsense he'd been blathering on about before.

  About her being lovely, and all.

  "I know her father," Ambrose was saying.

  "And?"

  Ambrose only smiled.

  "Are you going to make me beg?" Thomas asked.

  Ambrose stretched with his cat's smile, and Iolanthe shook her head. Here came the killing blow. The man hadn't held the chieftainship for so long without having a mighty head for strategy. She could scarce wait to hear what he was going to say to destroy Thomas.

  "Are you sure you want to know?" Ambrose asked.

  "I'm sure."

  Ambrose paused dramatically. "Well, lad ..."

  Thomas waited. Then he frowned. "Yes?"

  "Well, she'd be your ... aunt."

  Thomas stood up so fast, his chair went crashing back onto the floor. He slapped his hands on the table.

  "My what?" he shouted.

  "A wee bit removed," Ambrose said calmly. "Trace your mother's line back to the fourteenth century and the laird Malcolm. You'll find that he has a pair of daughters. The younger was Grudach. The elder is your vision up the way."

  Thomas leaned on his hands and hung his head. "My aunt."

  "Your half-aunt, if you want to put a finer point on it. Your mother's ancestor and the lass up the way had different mothers."

  "Oh, that's a relief." Thomas looked calculatingly at the bottle, then shook his head. "I'm going to bed."

  "Best place for you. Rest your head."

  "My aunt," Thomas muttered as he walked around the table. He paused at the door. "Well, outside of that news flash, it was a pleasure talking to you, my laird."

  Iolanthe watched as Ambrose preened like a peacock. He beamed a smile over his shoulder at Thomas.

  "My pleasure, grandson."

  Thomas left the chamber with a shake of his head. The door closed behind him. Ambrose drank deeply from his mug, as if he hadn't a care in that white-capped head of his. Iolanthe rose to her feet.

  "You old fool," she grumbled.

  He looked at her and winked. "Auntie."

  "Be silent," she said in disgust.

  Ambrose laughed as he rose, crossed the room, and pulled her into a ferocious hug. "Come and have a tankard of ale with me. It seems years since last we did so."

  "It has been years," she muttered, but she didn't protest

  when he tugged on her hair affectionately, nor did she decline the offer of a chair before the fire next to his and a hefty mug of drink. She sat and drank, then found that she couldn't ignore his assessing gaze any longer. "What?" she demanded, looking at him.

  He only smiled. "A father's worry, my girl. Nothing more."

  How was it when he called her girl, it was full of affection and concern? Would that her father could have shown her the like. Would that she'd had a father such as Ambrose.

  "You know," Ambrose said slowly, "there are many men who are not good."

  "Stop reading my thoughts."

  " 'Tis difficult not to, when you think them so strongly. Your father, I daresay, was less of a man than he might have been."

  "You've been talking to Duncan."

  "As it happens, I have. He is my kinsman as well, you know, and he has a fine head for thinking. But that isn't how I knew of your sire. Unlike you, my dear, I get out and travel about. There is much to be seen in this world, and you've no reason to lock yourself away in that keep."

  The reason she stayed was such a foolish one, she could scarce bear to think on it. To think she remained confined simply because she didn't want to travel about without a man to share the view with her.

  A particular man.

  And a particular view.

  "And whilst I was out traveling about, I visited your sire," Ambrose continued.

  "You didn't!"

  Apparently he had no fear of her temper, for he only looked at her placidly. "Raging and roaring like a stuck boar, as you might imagine." He shivered. "Don't know as how anyone gets any sleep in that keep with him howling at all hours."

  "And he stopped bellowing long enough to talk to you?"

  "I am a MacLeod as well, my girl, and I can shout as long and as loudly as the rest of them."

  "And what did the wretch have to say for himself?" She knew no words would excuse him, but 'twas an idle curiosity she had.

  "It was more what he didn't say." Ambrose looked into the fire. "You were but a wee thing when your elder brother was murdered a
nd your mother wounded so grievously."

  "I had passed ten summers already in his hall," she interrupted.

  Ambrose sighed. "I cannot answer for his actions. Perhaps your sire went mad from his grief."

  "He didn't. He'd been whoring about for years. He certainly had no trouble taking a mistress and siring other children on her—and that years before my mother was wounded."

  "As I said, he was not himself."

  "And I am to forgive him for that?" she exclaimed, then she shut her mouth with a snap, horrified by how plaintive her question sounded. She threw her mug into the fire. "That doesn't excuse him."

  Ambrose merely looked at her. "I think you need to forgive him more for yourself than for his own absolution. Whatever neglect, whatever injuries he did to you are in the past."

  "They feel as fresh as if 'twere yesterday."

  "Aye, and they bind you to those stones up the way as surely as if by chains."

  And with that, he turned away and contemplated the fire. Iolanthe had nothing else kind or polite to say to him, so she stomped from the kitchen in a fury.

  Her anger lasted all the way back along the road and almost all the way to the keep. It failed her just before she reached the barbican. She looked at the castle in front of her and cursed it. Aye, 'twas her prison, as surely as her father's was in the north. And, just like him, she wasn't sure she would ever free herself from it.

  Then she realized just what she hadn't done. She'd gone to the inn to seek Ambrose's advice on how to rid herself of a man who had offended her so deeply, only to listen to that same offensive man describe her in glowing terms she was certain no one had ever used on her poor self before. She'd left without any ideas on how to rid herself of him.

  Of his bad-mannered self.

  Of his astonishing compliments.

  "Oh, by the saints," she said in disgust.

  Mayhap she would go back down on the morrow and consult with Ambrose on how she could be about her business. She wasn't about to go down again that night. Perhaps on the morrow Thomas would come back to the keep, and Connor MacDougal would push him off the parapet and save her the trouble of having to do it.

  Or perhaps he would come and say to her face what he'd said to her kinsman.

  She sighed, called herself a dozen kinds of fool, and went back into her prison.

  Chapter 9

  Thomas stood at the bend in the road where he could just begin to see his castle. He stared at it thoughtfully, trying to firm up his plans in his head. He had wanted to spend the night thinking about them, but after his conversation with his grandfather heaven only knew how many generations removed, his head had been pounding so hard that he'd gone straight to bed and passed out. His head was better today, but his plans were no closer to being thought out.

  Would she be there again? Would she even speak to him?

  Would he get a chance to give her what he held in his hand?

  He smiled wryly and started up the road to his—or was that her—castle? Whatever the deed said, he could hardly deny that the person who really had a claim on those stones was that nameless, beautiful woman who haunted them.

  Who haunted him.

  His half-aunt, no less.

  He trudged along, sincerely hoping he wasn't on his way to making a colossal fool of himself. He bypassed the protestors, who carried new signs and pelted him mercilessly with words. Ignoring them was no trouble. Ignoring the other souls who loitered about the gates would be a different story.

  He sighed deeply. It seemed like he'd done this a thousand times before. He wondered if that was because he had the only flowers he'd been able to scrounge from the garden clutched in his hand like a five-year-old ready to present them to his mother.

  Only he wasn't going to see his mother.

  And he had a damned large audience.

  The usual suspects were loitering at the front gates. Thomas fixed a serious look on his face. These were bribery flowers. Anyone with any business sense at all knew that the best way to get your foot in the door was to come bearing gifts.

  At least that's what he told himself as he watched the entire group of Scots look at what he was holding in his hand, then, as if on cue, erupt into gales of hearty laughter. Well, all except Connor MacDougal, who only regarded Thomas with his customary look of malice.

  "Come a'wooin', have ye?" he demanded.

  "I'd say it isn't any of your business," Thomas answered easily.

  "Won't work," Connor said.

  Thomas raised an eyebrow. "You've tried?"

  "With that acid-tongued wench?" Connor said with a huff. "Who'd want her?"

  All right, so Thomas didn't know her all that well. So she was actually his half-aunt quite a few generations removed, and that should have been enough to give him pause. None of that mattered. First off, she was a woman and, as old-fashioned as it might have seemed, he made it a point to treat women with more respect than he would have his buddies in the locker room. Second, she was without a doubt the most arresting creature he'd ever seen, and that alone should have made up for whatever other flaws she might have reportedly had. Third, and lastly, he was quickly acquiring an intense dislike for the former laird of the Clan MacDougal.

  "You and I, my laird," he said looking up at the man coldly, "will someday come to blows, I think."

  "She won't want yer pitiful blooms," Connor sneered.

  "Maybe not." Thomas smiled briefly and walked around him and past the suddenly silent group of men that watched.

  "She won't want ye either!" Connor bellowed.

  Thomas didn't deign to answer.

  "Witless mortal! I'd say ye couldn't tell one end of a blade from the other!"

  Well, the MacDougal had a point there, but Thomas wasn't going to concede it to him. He'd never considered learning swordplay, but maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea. That led him to uncomfortably speculate on the reasons why that seemed like such a good idea. Was it because it would be a handy thing to know how to do or because it would impress her?

  As if she would even be impressed by anything he might do! He imagined he could take down an entire squad of Scots, and she probably would just yawn. He could only guess how quickly he would find his flowers thrown back in his face. Though he couldn't deny that he would deserve it, maybe he could plead having had a migrainelike headache on the afternoon in question and hopefully receive a bit of mercy.

  He tried not to wonder why it mattered to him.

  He also tried to ignore any more self-initiated probes into the condition of his mental state. He'd considered that far too often of late. The truth was, he was so completely out of his element that he hardly recognized himself anymore.

  Take last night, for instance. He'd gone down the kitchen, helped himself to a bottle of whiskey and a glass, then found himself completely unable to ingest the vast quantities of it any rational man would have, given the circumstances. Instead, what had he done? He'd had a conversation with his four-hundred-year-old ancestor about a woman who just happened to be his six-hundred-year-old aunt.

  And both of them were ghosts.

  And if that wasn't bad enough, now he was bringing apology flowers!

  He clapped his hand to his forehead in an effort to bring some sense back. It only hurt, which made him wonder if it might not be a good time to go back to bed where he would be safe.

  He understood ice and snow and sheer mountain faces. He understood staying alive outdoors in all kinds of weather. He understood business and how to survive all kinds of attacks from within and without. He understood construction and tools and finish work.

  He didn't understand women.

  He especially didn't understand medieval women who were ghosts.

  He walked into the bailey, then caught sight of the garden to his right. It was the part of the castle he'd missed the two times before. There was a wall there, probably seven feet tall, but he knew it wasn't part of the outer defenses. It seemed to enclose some kind of space, and he could s
ee from where he stood that the area was filled with a riot of flowers.

  He walked under the arched entrance, then found himself unable to proceed further. It was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. The garden was huge, and he supposed that in times past it might have included a small training area or perhaps stables and other buildings necessary to the running of a medieval keep.

  Now all it contained were flowers. Thomas could hardly take in the scope of what he saw. Not that he was much of a horticulturalist. He knew some of the plants around his house—such as that uncomfortable familiarity with the rhododendron outside his front door—but past a few rosebushes and pansies, he'd couldn't put a name to much.

  It probably would have taken him a month of poring through reference books to have looked up everything he saw. The flowers bloomed madly, riotously, and unnaturally, given the time of year. Those realizations passed through his mind, but he didn't stop to consider them. All he knew was that the castle had to have one hell of a gardener to produce this kind of beauty at this time of year. The flowers he held in his hand were simply weeds in comparison.

  And then he saw her.

  She was sitting alone on a stone bench placed against the wall. As before, her stillness reached out and touched him. And as it did, he understood how quickly and heedlessly he tramped through life. Though he didn't consider his pace unusual, he certainly pushed hard when he needed to. Even climbing mountains, he usually made a quick business of it. Rarely did he linger at his summits.

  But to sit and be still?

  With her?

  It was overwhelmingly tempting.

  He started down the path toward her, trying out different kinds of apologies and wondering which would be the most effective. He could dazzle her with semantics, excuse himself with a dozen clever explanations, bowl her over with enough justifications to weary a judge. But would it make a difference?

  She sat still, her hands in her lap, dirt on her dress and on her fingers. Her hair was pulled back in a braid, and it fell over her shoulder in a fat, heavy tail. Thomas cleared his throat as quietly as possible, but she looked up just the same.

  And the flowers in the garden disappeared.