by Lynn Kurland
He heaved himself from the car, retrieved his suitcase, and entered the inn. Mrs. Pruitt gave him a cursory glance.
"You're home," she noted.
"Finally."
"Hrmph," Mrs. P. said. "Business go well?"
"Had to sell my company. But it cost them."
"Well done, then," she said approvingly. "Best be about your business here. You'll note there've been some changes made."
He could hardly wait to find out what those were. Had Connor MacDougal taken over the keep? Had Iolanthe departed for locations unknown?
He threw his gear into his room, dragged a hand through his hair, and left at what others might have called a dead run. He called it a quick trot. He was out of shape, anyway. Too much time in a boardroom was hazardous to one's bum. A little healthy jog up to the castle was just the ticket for him.
He slowed once he was within sight of Thorpewold, then he came to a halt in front of the barbican. At least there were no protestors.
Nor were there any ghosts.
He wandered inside the gates. The bailey was empty, and he wondered, with a brief flash of panic, if he might have imagined the past couple of months. Ghosts and all.
Then he heard a chorus of manly laughter and a few hearty curses coming from the tower, and the tension dropped off him like scales. Who needed New York with its hearty deli sandwiches, its world-class entertainment, and its mouthy cabbies? He had a keep full of ghosts who'd taught him to curse in Gaelic while he pounded nails into floorboards.
Life was good.
He walked across the bailey and up the steps. A pair of Highlanders guarded the door to his office, which stood ajar. They looked ready to alert the occupants of the room, but he shook his head quickly.
"Let me just look," he whispered.
"As ye will, my laird," whispered one of the men. The other one nodded with a wide smile.
Well, perhaps my laird was pushing things, but Thomas couldn't help but feel somewhat flattered by the title. He was tempted to let it go to his head, but he suspected Iolanthe would soon disabuse him of any delusions of grandeur he might have had.
He went to the doorway and listened. He could hear Iolanthe talking but couldn't make out what she was saying. So he leaned in the slightest bit and looked around the Highlanders who were standing at the door blocking his view.
He could hardly believe his eyes.
Iolanthe was sitting in his chair, reading aloud.
All right, if all he had seen was her with a book being held up in front of her by two struggling Scots, he would have been surprised. What he saw just floored him. Not only was she reading, she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that said "The Stone of Scone Rocks." Thomas opened his mouth to comment on that, then shut it and shook his head. Best to leave that one alone.
"Och, turn the page, ye silly twit," she snapped at one of her men. "Cannae ye see I'm finished with that one?"
"Sorry, lady," came the abashed reply of a bekilted soul who then apparently used most of his energy to heave a simple page over. He fell back on the floor, spent.
Iolanthe cleared her throat. "Here we are then. 'See the knight run. See him run after the dragon.' " She looked at her audience. "The dragon's snatched the wench, ye ken."
The men nodded obediently.
Iolanthe turned back to her book. " 'See the dragon turn and spit fire.' " She cursed at another of her guardsmen. "I'm finished again, Robert. Follow along more closely next time."
"As ye will, lady," Robert said, struggling manfully to turn the page. "But I ken naught of this reading business."
"It's past time you learned," she said sternly. "Must we turn Thomas's computer back on for another go at the alphabet?"
There was a hearty chorus of nays in answer.
"Well, then," she said. "Follow along and see if you can't keep up." She looked over her shoulder at Roderick, who lounged behind her. "Sit up, you fool. This is the difficult part, and I may need help."
Thomas smiled and leaned against the doorframe where he could look at her but be hidden behind several substantial guardsmen. He listened in wonder as she plowed through the simple book. So the book was easy. The fact that she'd learned to read in the short time he'd been gone was nothing short of amazing.
What surprised him even more was suspecting that she hadn't done it just for herself. She'd had centuries in which to learn to read. That she had chosen the past two weeks while he'd been gone had to have some significance.
A half hour and twenty guardsmen later, Iolanthe had finished her book. The final pair of book holders collapsed with groans, and the rest of the guardsmen, those who hadn't been incapacitated by their labors, got to their feet and filed out of the doorway. Thomas stood back to let them pass. Connor MacDougal looked at him with a scowl.
" 'Tis drivel, that," he said curtly.
"Sounded like a good story to me."
The MacDougal looked down at him disdainfully. "No doubt it would to a simpleton such as yerself."
So things hadn't changed that drastically if Connor MacDougal was still being nasty. Thomas leaned against the doorframe until the last man had passed, then looked inside. There were several bodies still littering the floor. Roderick sat next to Iolanthe, sprawled in some chair of his own imagining.
But it was Iolanthe who Thomas could not tear his gaze from. She was looking over his desk, apparently selecting her next tome for the enlightenment of the garrison. What he wouldn't have given to have walked into the room, put his arms around her, and spun her around to kiss her soundly.
Actually, he was willing to give quite a lot for the privilege.
"What think you of The Ogre and the Troll?" Iolanthe asked absently.
"Oh, please no," Roderick begged. "I can't listen to that yet another time."
"Then I'll find someone else willing to aid me—"
"How about me?" Thomas asked, stepping into the room.
Iolanthe spun around and gaped at him. "You're home."
You're home. Sweeter words had never caressed his ears. He smiled at her.
"Yes. I can see you've been busy."
She looked as if she couldn't decide if she was pleased or horrified. She smoothed her clothes self-consciously, then finally clasped her hands in front of her and looked at him in consternation.
"You look nice," he said.
"At your sister's feet lies the blame," she said with her chin up. "She lured me into all manner of shops in the village."
He felt his jaw go slack. "Megan was here?"
"For a se'nnight."
He wasn't sure what he was more surprised by: that his sister had been up without having let him know she was coming, or that she and Iolanthe had bonded enough to go shopping together. In fact, the more he looked at the woman he loved, the more he could see his sister's stamp on her wardrobe. Jeans, sweatshirt, Keds. Megan's standard uniform.
"She sent me the books as well," Megan said, gesturing behind her.
"I recognized her favorite titles," Thomas said. He looked at her and could hardly believe the change in her. It wasn't just her clothes that had changed. Something had happened to her over the past couple of weeks. He shuddered to think the things his sister had introduced her to.
But that wasn't what affected him the most. It was looking at her and realizing how much he'd missed her. He should have called her every day. He should have sent her gifts, filled her room with flowers, written her letters. He would make up for it. He wouldn't leave again.
Well, unless you counted the little trip he planned to make to Jamie's castle to use that forest time machine.
He walked over and picked up one of the books. "I'll turn the pages for you, if you like."
"I've only just learned," she said defensively. "You would find these books quite beneath you."
"Would I?" he asked. "Why don't you let me be the judge?"
She pursed her lips. "Your sister said that often about you."
"Well," he said cheerfully, "of the
lot of them, Megan knows me best." He reached around and picked up one of the books. "Let's go read."
She wasn't moving.
He smiled encouragingly at her. "Come on, Iolanthe. It'll be fun. Do you want to go back to the inn, or shall we stay here?"
She shrugged. "I don't care."
"It's your choice."
"Nay, you choose."
"I'll choose," Roderick said, standing up with a curse. "I cannot listen to the two of you any longer. Let us away to the inn and see what the good Mrs. Pruitt is cooking, then we can pass the evening in the sitting room listening to our lady read her delightful little tales."
There was one thing Thomas had no trouble deciding, and that was that he had no desire to spend the evening with Roderick as a third wheel.
"Ah, ye're back, lad," Duncan said, coming in behind him. "How was your battle on yonder fair shores? I'm for the inn where we might tell such tales with a fine supper under our noses."
Thomas looked around for any more interruptions. When none materialized, he tried to judge Iolanthe's preferences. She didn't seem any more excited about accompanying Roderick and Duncan to the inn than he felt. So he invited the pair to go on to the inn ahead of them. He looked down at the bodies still littering his floor, then at Iolanthe.
"How does a walk sound?" he asked.
"Pleasing enough," she said carefully.
"A walk to the village?" he suggested.
She nodded. "Lovely. 'Tis a lovely place."
"And such lovely company," he agreed. "It sounds like a perfect afternoon."
That she was willing to even venture to the village was noteworthy. Who knew what other adventures she'd be willing to go on?
Perhaps one to save her life?
"I met some people in New York," he said casually as they walked through the gates. "People you might be interested in."
"Who?"
"A man and a woman."
"Interesting," she said absently.
"They were, actually, and for a very specific reason. The man, Alexander Smith, has a sister who's married to a Highlander."
"A wise choice on her part," Iolanthe said, "but why would that interest me?"
"Because that Highlander is James MacLeod."
She, quite suddenly, choked.
"Yes," Thomas said, looking at her with one raised eyebrow. "That James MacLeod who is, I believe, your great-great-grandfather. You know, the one without a death date."
"Um," she managed.
"My thoughts exactly," he said. "Are you interested in all the other things I learned?"
"Ah ..." she stalled.
"It would seem," he continued, "that there are little gates on his land through which a person can travel back in time." He stopped and looked at her. "Any of this beginning to sound familiar?"
She shifted uncomfortably. "Well, there are the rumors, of course."
"Ambrose didn't know?"
"I'm not one to be speaking for that one—"
"Iolanthe," he warned.
She sighed and relented. "Very well. Aye, Ambrose knows."
"And you know."
"Aye," she admitted. "I know as well."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"What was I to tell you?" she asked. "My grandfather told me there was a means of traveling through time, and that there was a place in the forest where it could be done. But I never tried it myself, so how was I to know 'twas more than fancy?"
"Because you were willing to die for the secret."
"Aye, well," she said, "there is that." She gave him a small smile. "I knew the secret, 'tis true. I also knew that there was a king's ransom in jewels and gold hidden in the fireplace, put there by my great-grandfather, who had extorted them from various smugglers who had come through that same forest gate. And I'd given my word that neither secret would pass my lips on pain of death." She paused. "Can you fault me for being a woman of my word?"
"Six hundred years after—did you say cache of cash in the fireplace?"
"Supposedly. But I had no proof of it. The time-traveling I believed even less." She shrugged. "I've never been back to the Highlands, so all I had were the rumors, and they seemed so fanciful, I couldn't credit them. Ambrose claimed 'twas true, but laird though he might be, he has a powerful weakness for idle tales."
"Well," Thomas said crossing his arms over his chest, "apparently the rumors are true."
"How would you know?"
"Alexander Smith married a woman from the twelfth century. I saw her with my own eyes and listened to the way she talked. And then there is your great-great-grandfather. You have to agree that Jamie is who he says he is. Ambrose's word has to be enough for you on that."
"Aye, I suppose it is." She looked down at the floor. "So," she asked reluctantly, "how is it done?"
"I don't know exactly how it works. What I do know is that in your great-great-grandfather's case, apparently Alex's sister stumbled back into fourteenth-century Scotland and met him then. They married—"
"They always do," she said darkly.
"—and used a time-travel gate in the forest near your home to come back to the twentieth century."
She frowned at him. "Why would you care? Do you have some great desire to see the poverty of Scotland in the past?"
No time like the present to spring his plan on her. "Actually," he said, "I have a very great desire to see just that."
"Why?"
This was the moment, the do-or-die moment that would shape the rest of his life. He hoped it would turn out the way he wanted.
He took a deep breath.
"Because," he said slowly, "because I want to go back to get you."
Chapter 24
Iolanthe stood at the door of the sitting chamber and looked at Thomas, who was talking on the phone to his parents. He was spouting an elaborate ruse about what he planned to do for the next pair of months. By the look on his face, she suspected that he wasn't all that skilled at lying. He hardly sounded convincing, even to her ears. Perhaps he was fortunate in that he was using the telephone instead of having to face his parents. One look would have told them all they needed to know.
"Dad, I know it's the end of September, but it isn't as if I haven't climbed in inclement weather before." Thomas smiled easily, as if willing his parents to believe him. "I'll be perfectly fine."
He held the phone away, which led Iolanthe to believe that his father wasn't very enthusiastic about Thomas's plans.
"I'll be back before Christmas. We'll have a great celebration here at the inn."
The phone was held abruptly away, then Thomas gingerly listened again.
"Mom? Mom, you know I'll be okay. I'm a very good climber."
A stillness came over him, and Iolanthe couldn't help but wonder if the moment of truth had come.
Thomas sighed. "No, no, and no. I've written Megan a letter and sent it to her. If I'm not home in two months, she'll open it, and you'll know what I've been up to." He paused. "What am I really doing?"
He looked across the room. Iolanthe found herself staring into bright blue eyes.
"I'm saving a life, Mom. A life that deserves saving."
Iolanthe felt her way into the chamber and sank into a chair. It wasn't as if she were truly weary; not having a body had certain advantages. But that didn't mean her spirit couldn't feel itself go weak in the knees, and such was the case at present. She leaned her head against the back of her chair and waited for Thomas to finish. And while she did, she listened to the easy banter he had with his mother and heard the affection in his voice. It had been so long since she'd had such tender communications with her mother.
Or with her love. She looked up as he sat down next to her. They hadn't spoken much since the afternoon before, when he'd told her of his scheme.
If she'd had hands, she would have clouted him strongly aside the head to try to bring sense back to him. Trying to shove him while shouting curses at him had been powerfully unsatisfying. She'd eventually given up and glared at
him as he'd spouted more foolishness about having found a way for them to be together.
She'd said the price was too high.
He'd said he loved her, and he thought it worth the risk.
She'd begged him not to go.
He'd said he wanted her in his life, in his arms, and in his bed, and he was going to do everything in his power to get her there.
After that, she hadn't been able to do anything but stay by his side and breathe through the terror that swept over her. Perhaps he could travel back through time, but to what end?
To find himself adorning the end of a sword?
And leave her alone, six hundred years in the future?
Thomas smiled suddenly. "I'm glad you came in. I left the door open for you."
He'd left the door open for her. How true that was. He'd left so many doors open for her, doors to a different life. He'd come to her keep, bringing change and possibility and hope.
A hope for life.
"I called Jamie this morning."
She looked at him in surprise. "Did you?"
"I'm going tomorrow." He looked at her. "Didn't you come south in the fall?"
She swallowed with difficulty. "Aye," she managed.
"Then the sooner I start, the better, don't you think?"
What she thought was that he was mad. What she thought was that she might never see him again. What she thought was that he was the single most beautiful man she had ever known, and the rest of her existence would mean nothing if he were not there.
But she couldn't say any of that.
"Iolanthe."
She refused to look at him.
"I wish you'd come with me to Jamie's."
She had been expecting that and had already made her decision. "I cannot."
"I don't understand why."