My Heart Stood Still

by Lynn Kurland

  "Hrmph," Roderick said, sounding thoroughly offended.

  "You can come, too," Thomas said smoothly. "And Duncan, of course. Ambrose would enjoy talking to you, I'm sure."

  "We'll be there," Roderick said immediately. "Dressed properly, of course," he added with a pointed look at Thomas. "See if you can manage the same, old man, won't you?"

  Iolanthe wondered if Thomas knew what he was letting himself in for. The saints only knew what sort of mischief Roderick would combine with a proper table set in front of him and silver at his disposal. She half pitied the guests at the inn.

  "My lady?"

  She looked at Thomas and nodded at his expectant expression. "I'll come. To dinner," she added.

  "That's all that matters."

  Roderick began to snort and huff about, but she ignored him. She ignored Duncan's hearty clearing of his throat. She was a fool, and she knew it, but she couldn't seem to help herself. She watched Thomas leave, then made her way to her garden before she had to listen to any words from either of her keepers.

  She puttered amongst her flowers, but somehow, it didn't bring her the pleasure it usually did. She was used to longing for silence, for time apart from everyone in the keep. Her garden had been a haven of peace.

  Now, it just seemed empty.

  It was several hours later that she found herself retiring to her chamber at the inn. Dinner had been less terrifying than she'd imagined, though Mrs. Pruitt had been run ragged seeing to Roderick's demands for this and that, not that he'd been able to ingest any of it. But the proper tableware had been a must for him, and Mrs. Pruitt had been bowled over enough by his manner to fetch it for him.

  After dinner, Iolanthe had begged to be excused before she could find herself alone with Thomas. She hadn't made it through the door before he'd called after her that he would put her book in the sitting chamber. She'd left without acknowledging that she'd heard him.

  It ate at her, that book. Knowing that it was downstairs. Knowing that he'd bought it to please her. It was all she could do to ignore it as long as she did.

  It was very late when she finally made her way downstairs and walked into the sitting room.

  Thomas was asleep in a chair.

  The book was on the table, open to one of the pages.

  Iolanthe moved quietly around a chair and knelt down in front of the table where she could look at the pictures. The colors themselves were a marvel, as was the detail in the photographs, visible even by firelight. The idea of photographs had ceased to startle her after having looked at Thomas's photographs of his mountains. Now, she rather liked them, for 'twas easy to see details that no scratching of charred wood on paper would ever provide.

  She put her hand on the page, then took a deep breath and used all her strength to push the page over. It went, only after enormous effort on her part. She knelt back on her heels and panted as she looked at the next picture. It was equally as lovely, but not what she wanted. She marshaled all her strength for another flip of the page when suddenly she found a long arm in her way.

  "Let me."

  She didn't turn to look at him. She didn't dare. But neither did she protest when he continued to turn the pages for her. And then he turned the final page and she saw the dress.

  The dress.

  "Oh," she whispered.

  Then she wondered if her choice of gowns might be better kept secret. She looked at Thomas.

  "I'll decide later."

  "Whatever you want."

  "Thank you for the book."

  "It seems like a very small thing," he said with a shrug. "But if you like it, then I'm happy."

  She found that she couldn't look away from him. For the first time in either life or death, she was looking at a man who gazed at her with something a less reasonable woman would have mistaken for affection.

  Strong affection.

  She swallowed—with surprising difficulty, in light of her physical status.

  "I should," she managed, "be off to bed."

  "Is it late?"

  "Very."

  "Do you care?" he asked with a smile.

  "I suppose I should."

  He pulled a chair close to his and sat back. "Come and sit, Iolanthe. Tell me what you did the past few days."

  She was going to refuse, but she made the mistake of looking into his eyes. And somehow, he worked his fey spell upon her yet again, and she found herself rising and sitting in the chair next to him.

  Or mayhap it wasn't a spell. Mayhap 'twas that she wanted already in her heart to do what he'd merely asked her to do. Mayhap 'twas that she wanted with all her poor heart to do nothing but sit and have speech with a man whose beauty stole her breath, whose kindness brought tears to her eyes, and whose tenderness broke her heart.

  So she sat and she told him all he wanted to hear. And when he told her of Edinburgh's marvels, and his eyes began to close, she sat and watched him dream.

  And then she was truly lost.

  Chapter 17

  Thomas slowly opened the door of his room and peered out into the hallway. The coast was clear, so he quickly exited his room, locked it behind him, and hurried down the steps. Iolanthe could fend for herself, as far as he was concerned. Never mind the handful of tender moments they had shared over the past week since his return from Edinburgh. He was worried about getting breakfast before it was sabotaged.

  He had seriously underestimated the deviousness and tenacity of the preservationists. In fact, he'd almost forgotten about them during his trip to Edinburgh. When he'd returned, he'd been concentrating so hard on Iolanthe that he hadn't really given them much thought.

  But then they'd become hard to ignore.

  They might have looked like proper, dignified citizens of a respectable age, but they played as dirty as junior high girls fighting over a boy. The attacks had started the day after he'd returned from Edinburgh. Once the generator had gone on, apparently all bets had been off.

  First had come the continual litany of dire threats and warnings about restoring relics better left ruined, delivered via a megaphone. The alliterations and adages they had engaged in had made him slightly queasy after a few hours, but unfortunately he'd been without a garrison to drive them off. He'd had to settle for praying for rain.

  Which had produced nothing but a week of sunshine.

  He'd forgotten about Fulbert and Hugh, though. It would seem the two had taken enough time off from their continual feuding to get fed up with the warbling rendition of rousing patriotic melodies, because the megaphone had mysteriously disappeared.

  But the protestors and protests had not.

  The trio had apparently hired a flock of sheep to lounge lackadaisically on the road up to the keep. Once the sheep lounged to their satisfaction, they'd ambled up to cluster at the gates. Thomas had wondered what Mrs. Pruitt could whip up with mutton as the main ingredient, then thought better of it. It would be just his luck to find the sheep rented and himself facing a lawsuit for doing one of them in.

  The next day had brought a group of schoolchildren weeping at the gates over the wanton destruction of a national treasure. Thomas had almost been moved by that when one of the more vocal of the boys had piped up and demanded to know when "we's off for the fish 'n chips ye promised us!"

  He'd finished the roof that day with a clear conscience.

  And then they'd pulled out the big guns.

  The following morning, he'd eaten his breakfast as usual, made polite conversation with Iolanthe and the men, then headed up to find an amazing lack of protest at his gates. It had almost been unsettling, the quiet, until he'd headed out into the forest to relieve himself. This much he could say with certainty: blue urine was not what a man wanted to see pooling a discreet distance from his toes.

  All right, so the last was really nothing but a harmless prank. Who knew what it would be next? Laxative brownies? Plastic wrap on the toilet seat? Plastic wrap on the toilet seat after a batch of laxative brownies?

  The pot
ential for truly staggering mischief boggled the mind.

  All of which had given him the impetus to get downstairs as soon as possible before any other unwholesome substances were added to his breakfast behind Mrs. Pruitt's back.

  He arrived in the dining room to find no one there. There was cereal on the sideboard as well as a pitcher of milk and some juice. He lifted the milk up and sniffed, then realized he probably wouldn't know if something had been added even if it reached up and tweaked him on the nose. He was momentarily tempted by the juice, then remembered that Mrs. Pruitt herself had slipped him sleeping pills in an innocent-looking glass of orange juice. Was there nowhere to turn?

  He was just beginning to investigate the depths of the cereal box when Mrs. Pruitt came into the room bearing a plate heaped with scrambled eggs, sausages, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, and a bit of ham. Ah, breakfast. He looked hopefully in her other hand for some warm toast, but saw none.

  "Toast?" he asked.

  "Cooling in the kitchen," she informed him briskly.

  Of course. He looked over his plate. "The traditional English breakfast," he noted.

  She set the plate down at his place. "Aye."

  "Has the traditional English breakfast left your sight at any time during its preparation?"

  She looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "How was that?"

  "Did anyone ask you to place anything suspicious in the traditional English breakfast?"

  Mrs. Pruitt just stared at him blankly.

  He was starting to feel like airport security. But he had to face the fact that he didn't have a bag scanner. He supposed that he trusted Mrs. Pruitt, the orange juice scandal aside, so he sat down and dug in.

  "Have ye gone daft, lad?"

  "Just checking," he managed through a mouthful of egg. "This is delicious. Thank you."

  "Eat hearty," she suggested. "You'll need it."

  "Why?"

  "You've another protest going on up the way, I shouldn't wonder," she said, bustling out the door.

  Great. The furnishings for the tower were supposed to be delivered that morning. He could hardly wait to see what he would find in the middle of the road this time to prevent the same.

  He finished his meal, sighed, and pushed away from the table. He took a brief moment to enjoy the peace and quiet before he left the inn and walked up the road. It didn't take him long to get to the castle. He knew it was nearby.

  He could smell it.

  Now, this was going too far. He stopped just down the way from the walls and stared at the steaming pile of manure that blocked the way to the barbican. As he stood there, he realized that calling what he saw a mere pile was misrepresenting it. It wasn't a pile; it was a mountain. It was going to be impossible to get a truck backed in close enough to the barbican to unload his stuff. It was going to be equally as impossible to carry the furniture around the hill.

  His ghostly acquaintances and kin stood to one side, surveying the disaster. Iolanthe looked at him as he came to a stop next to her.

  "A gift for you," she noted.

  "I'm at a loss for what to say," he said.

  "Merde?" she offered.

  He laughed in spite of himself.

  " 'Tis one of the few French words I know," she said.

  "It's appropriate." He looked at Ambrose. "You couldn't stop them?"

  "What would you have suggested?"

  He had a point. Thomas sighed. "You're right."

  "They're passing determined," Ambrose noted. "I doubted a mere bit of haunting would stop them."

  Thomas heard the roar of a truck in the distance. He sighed with a shake of his head. Just how was he going to solve this one? He watched as another truck pulled onto the gravel road. The only light in the gloom was that this other truck was delivering a contingent of his very-well-paid workers from a neighboring village. He paused to consider. This might make a difference.

  Thomas walked to one side of the hill and looked at the contingent of preservationists who stood there gloating.

  The leader of his workers came to a stop at his side. "Blimey, mate," he said in awe. "Never seen such a mighty pile o' sh—"

  "Me neither," Thomas interrupted. "I imagine there are a few shovels back at the inn, don't you think?"

  The man looked a little sick at the idea.

  "Send someone to fetch as many as possible."

  "But it'll take all day to move that," the man complained.

  "I'm less concerned about how much we move than to where we move it."

  The man blinked at him for a moment or two in silence, then realization slowly dawned. He grinned, then began to whistle as he walked off with a bounce to his step.

  Thomas returned to stand next to Iolanthe and waited. It didn't take long before men with shovels had returned and set to work.

  Almost immediately came a screech from the other side of the manure mountain. That screech was followed by howls of irritation and downright outrage. Thomas walked around the manure and viewed the damage.

  The three members of the National Trustees Concerned with Preserving Ruins were coated quite liberally in a substance Thomas didn't want to examine too closely—especially since he knew its origin.

  "How dare you!" Constance screeched.

  "Blue pee," Thomas countered. He looked at the two men standing next to her, spluttering. "Missing tools. Hassles from morning until night."

  They glared at him.

  "I'm not spray-painting Buckingham Palace, for heaven's sake," he said in disgust. "Can't you just cut me some slack? I promise I won't touch the outer walls."

  That at least stopped some of the gearing up for battle he could see going on in their heads. Nigel very carefully dabbed at his mouth with a handkerchief.

  "Leave the hall alone as well," he said crisply.

  "Can't," Thomas said. "Promised a ghost I'd give him somewhere dry to put his feet up."

  Nigel looked skeptical.

  "The MacDougal," Thomas clarified. "You'd recognize him if you saw him. You know the one carrying the six-foot broadsword?"

  The three looked surprisingly pale under their newly acquired layer of muck.

  "We can't give up," Constance said faintly.

  "Pick on another ruin," Thomas suggested.

  The three looked at each other. Gerard cleared his throat.

  "The Queen is rumored to be installing a satellite dish on top of Big Ben. That could merit our attention."

  "Her Majesty and MTV," Thomas said with a shudder. "Nasty thought."

  Nigel shook himself off and put his shoulders back. "Our work here is done," he announced.

  "But—" said Constance.

  "We've done all we can."

  "I agree," Gerard said, taking Constance gingerly by the arm. "We've left him something to remember us by until it decomposes. Let's be on our way."

  Constance threw Thomas a look of promise. "We'll be back, young man. And if you've done anything untoward to the outside ..."

  Thomas waved them away and walked back over to where Iolanthe stood with her kin.

  "Once we get this cleared, we'll get the furniture moved in." He smiled at her. "Do you want to wait in the garden and have it be a surprise?"

  She looked powerfully embarrassed. "There's no need—"

  "Come, granddaughter," Ambrose said, taking her by the arm. "Come show me your garden whilst young Thomas is about his work."

  Thomas watched her walk off, then followed along behind to make sure everything was ready for when the lads had the road cleared.

  The upside of his situation was no more preservation contingent and no cluster of Highlanders standing around ready to mock him for his wooing efforts. The downside was the mountain of manure in his driveway, but that he could live with. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad once he was ensconced in the tower.

  It took the entire morning to remove enough compost to be able to get the truck close to the front gate. Once that was done, Thomas supervised the unloading and the setting up of
his tower.

  He'd bought furniture for the bottom floor, comfortable things that had reminded him of the sitting room at the inn. Lighting had been something of a problem, but he'd decided on camping lighting. Kerosene and candles weren't exactly convenient, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

  The next floor was his office. He'd ordered a laptop with a state-of-the-art solar-rechargeable battery system. Someone was coming later to install the solar panels on the roof and set him up with a little dish for a satellite Internet link.

  And then came Iolanthe's room. He put a pair of chairs facing each other in front of the window. He set a desk along another wall with all kinds of obscure coffee-table books on it. He was fairly certain she couldn't read, so he'd found things he thought might interest her in pictures alone. He suspected that if she'd been as out of circulation as she'd said, even just the pictures would be mind-blowing enough.

  He'd found a tapestry frame, and an armoire into which he'd put a portable stereo and a small collection of CDs. He hadn't had time to look for much else. He'd just have to convince her to go back to the city with him so she could pick out her own stuff.

  He set everything up as well as he could, then paused for a moment and sat down in one of the chairs by the window. He stared out over the landscape in front of him with its rolling, sheep-dotted hills.

  Could he look at this for the rest of his life?

  He considered the things he might do with his nifty Internet hookup and his cell phone. He could carry on business, true. He could fly to New York every now and then just to keep things running in person. Or he could dump his company and think up something new to do. It wasn't as if he hadn't done that before. He didn't have to work if he didn't want to, but he knew he couldn't just sit around and atrophy for the rest of his life.

  He turned over in his mind the idea of restoring the rest of the castle. After all, he'd bribed the MacDougal into leaving with a promise of a roof on the great hall. Heaven only knew what kind of hauntings would result from a failure to deliver on that. Maybe he could put a roof on the hall himself, but to restore anything else would take a stonemason. It could be done, but would it be worth it? He would need someplace of his own eventually. Much as he loved Megan's inn, he couldn't stay there indefinitely.