by Lynn Kurland
"You're drooling," Thomas said pleasantly.
Zachary shut his mouth with a snap, but the look of complete idiocy didn't leave his face.
"Is he daft, then?" Iolanthe whispered to Thomas.
"Just awestruck," Thomas said dryly. "Don't worry, he'll get over it."
Iolanthe nodded, then looked around her, noting the familiar things and the changes. The lack of rushes was a vast improvement, but the hearths looked the same. There were new doors off the great hall, but the same stairs leading up to a pair of other chambers that had been built adjacent to the great hall in Jamie's day. She wondered absently if that part of the keep had been added to. With the way Jamie seemed to accept strangers and family alike, he would need a goodly amount of room to house them all.
"My laird."
Iolanthe stiffened when she heard Thomas's voice laced with affection and respect. She turned to look at the recipient of such consideration and found herself rendered immobile. Why, the man couldn't have looked more like her grandsire if he'd been his twin. He stood and came over to her.
"Granddaughter," he said.
"My laird," she whispered.
Then she burst into tears.
Jamie gathered her into his arms and patted her back soothingly. "Ach, there, there, lass. No need for tears."
She wept as if she'd never wept before in her life. It was unseemly and untidy, but she couldn't seem to stop herself.
"By the saints, Thomas," Jamie said, his voice rumbling in his chest, "what have you done to the girl?"
Iolanthe shook her head and pulled away. Thomas shoved a cloth into her hand, and she dried her eyes and blew her nose. She looked at Jamie and managed a smile.
"He saved my life, my laird," she said. "A braver rescue I couldn't have asked for."
"Well, then," Jamie said, beaming his approval on Thomas, "give us the tale, man. Here, sit with your lady and tell us how 'twas done. We've worried mightily over you both."
His lady. Iolanthe sat next to Thomas and found, surprisingly, that being addressed as such was not only tolerable, it was highly desirable. She did her best to remember names as introductions were made, then promptly forgot everything as she listened to Thomas give his report. It took most of the late afternoon, through dinner and through more talk before the fire. She couldn't remember the last time she'd passed such a pleasant evening.
Well, outside of all the evenings she'd passed in Thomas's company since his rescue of her.
Iolanthe felt her eyelids begin to grow heavy and wondered if anyone would notice if she simply went to sleep.
Peacefully.
Without fear.
She realized she had actually fallen asleep only when she heard Thomas calling her name softly. She opened her eyes and found him standing in front of her. She smiled up at him.
"Aye?"
"I've brought your things in," he said gently. "Elizabeth has a room all ready for you. I put your gear in there."
"Thank you." She looked at him, then frowned. "You've your coat still on. Have you more things to fetch?"
He shook his head. "I'm not staying."
She sat bolt upright. "You're what?"
"I'm not staying."
"But... but..." she spluttered. "But you can't go back to Thorpewold."
"I'm not. I'm just going to... um... Ian's for a few days," he said, gesturing vaguely. "He lives close by. We have some... um, business together. Yes, business."
She snorted. "You're a poor liar, Thomas McKinnon."
He blew out his breath and squatted down in front of her. "All right, I'm going to Ian's to give you time. I want you to have peace here to decide if you want me or not. Is that truthful enough for you?"
"Well," she said, taken aback, "you've no need for a temper."
"Ha," he said, rising. He looked at her crossly. "Ha." Then he seemed to consider, discard, then consider again.
The next thing she knew, he had hauled her up to her feet by her arms, pulled her into his arms, and clutched her to him with his face not a finger's breadth from hers.
"Make up your mind, Io," he said. "Please."
And just when she thought he might just kiss her, he seemed to think better of it. He released her with less reluctance than she would have liked, but she couldn't blame him. She had led him on a merry dance the past few days. 'Twas little wonder he had no patience left for her.
He turned and left the great hall. Iolanthe watched him go. The door shut, and she found herself very much alone. She sank back down into her chair and looked over her shoulder at the door for several moments, expecting Thomas to come back in and say he'd been jesting with her, that he had no intention of leaving.
But the door remained closed.
At length, she turned to look at the fire, feeling the silence descend.
And with that silence came perhaps what she had needed from the beginning.
Peace for thinking.
She closed her eyes. Mayhap Thomas had things aright, and that was the best thing for her. She would make herself a place in his world, then find Thomas and thank him.
And hope she hadn't waited too long to give him the answer he wanted.
Chapter 40
Thomas stood in Ian MacLeod's kitchen and looked at what was supposed to serve as dinner. What had he been thinking to pit his pitiful cooking skills against an AGA stove? Who cooked on that thing anyway with any success? Since when did a wood fire replace a good, old-fashioned gas oven? He wanted to turn a dial and have the right temperature. He didn't want to coax a fire, feed a fire, and subsequently have that fire incinerate his supper.
It was shaping up to be a helluva Thanksgiving.
"I've seen worse," Ian MacLeod said, folding his arms across his chest and regarding the well-done bird. "Much worse."
Thomas didn't doubt it. After all, it was Ian's stove. Thomas just couldn't believe that Ian hadn't burned his share of things initially as well.
"You know," Thomas said, "you could have warned me about this thing."
Ian grinned in a way that left Thomas with no doubts that he'd raised more hell than was good for him in a former lifetime.
"You needed aught to occupy your mind," Ian said pleasantly. "What better to do than to try and best my cooker?"
"I can think of lots of things," Thomas said with a scowl.
"Don't worry. There's a bit to be saved here," Ian said, poking the chicken with a knife. "And we've other things as well. See here, my fine, golden browned rolls." He sniffed appreciatively. "Truly, I have missed my calling in life."
Thomas had a great deal of experience with both Ian's cooking and his swordplay, and, nice as the food was, Ian's swordplay was what was stellar.
"Nah," Thomas said, taking a roll and testing it, "you'd be bored with just food."
"Perhaps," Ian agreed. "Though I must say the convenience of a modern kitchen has definitely improved the contents of my suppers." He looked at Thomas. "I daresay you've had experience with that, having spent your own amount of time in medieval Scotland."
"I ate pretty well once we got to Artane," Thomas said. "But before then, yes, it was pretty much touch and go." He finished his roll, then stretched. "I still say you're a better swordmaster than a cook. Besides, where's the joy in life if you can't do something every day to keep up the blisters on your hands?"
Ian clapped him on the back. "I don't have blisters on my hands," he said with a grin.
"Thanks for reminding me," Thomas grumbled.
Ian laughed. "You've done very well for yourself, and should you continue on this path you've chosen, your blisters will disappear as well. The MacLeod blood runs true in you, Tommy lad."
"For all the good it does me."
"It provides me with sport enough," Ian said, filching a roll. "What say you we finish this fine feast, then indulge ourselves in a bit of the same?"
"It's snowing outside, Ian."
Ian looked puzzled. "Aye."
Thomas wondered, and it hadn't been f
or the first time in the past week, just what he'd been thinking to want to come stay with this maniac.
"Maybe tomorrow," Thomas said. "There's probably football on your satellite dish. We should watch it. It's tradition."
"Ah, well," Ian said, patting his disgustingly steel-like belly, "I suppose a day of leisure now and then wouldn't harm me."
"It'll give the rest of us a chance to catch up," Thomas assured him. "Let's get this served."
"I'll fetch my lady."
Thomas put everything on the table and waited for Ian and his family to return. Just the sight of the three of them so happily settled was enough to make him think perhaps a little swordplay wasn't such a bad idea. It would certainly take his mind off his own problems.
Such as a week with no sign of Iolanthe.
If he hadn't known better, he would have suspected he had dreamed her.
"Lovely dinner, Thomas," Jane said, settling her son in his chair and sitting down next to her husband. "Crunchy chicken. I like it."
"That's a good thing," Thomas said dryly, "since that's all that's available."
"Trust me," she said with feeling, "we've had worse."
Ian put his hand over his heart. "You wound me. I thought you had forgotten those days when I strove to master the beast."
Jane leaned over and kissed his cheek. "You're a great cook. Now," she added with a smile.
Thomas smiled into his potatoes as he listened to them banter affectionately. It reminded him sharply of his own parents.
Dinner was alternately scary and delicious, depending on who had cooked what. The chicken, its crunchy outside aside, was a good substitute for turkey, and everything else was certainly something Thomas would have found on his own table.
But it was the company that left him filled. Ian and Jane were a wonderful couple, and they seemed to have no trouble drawing him into their circle.
Ah, that such a family could be his.
When there were little more than scraps left on the table, Ian leaned back and pushed his plate away. He stretched, then settled himself more comfortably in his chair.
"I heard your tale at Jamie's, Thomas," he said, "but your lady was sitting there next to you, and I wondered how freely you spoke. I would have an entire retelling now, if you've a mind for it"
Thomas almost said he didn't think he could get through it again, then it occurred to him whom he was talking to. Just like Jamie, Ian had also come from medieval Scotland. Who better to tell his story to than a medieval Scot and his very twentieth-century wife? If anyone could help him understand where Iolanthe was coming from, it would be these two. Of course, neither of them had been a ghost for six hundred years, but maybe that was muddying the waters where they didn't need to be.
So he launched into a retelling of his story, and he left nothing out. That wasn't to say that he laid bare his heart. He suspected, though, that enough of it came out just the same, because Jane looked at him sympathetically, and Ian cleared his throat roughly more than once.
He found himself lingering over his week with Iolanthe at Artane, realizing as he did so that it was without a doubt the most precious time he'd had with her. At the moment, he suspected there was little he wouldn't give to have returned to that time and the simplicity of their relationship.
He described their first failed attempt at time-traveling, then their success. Ian had been enormously amused by Iolanthe's reaction to cars buzzing by on the freeway.
"Poor lass," he said with a chuckle. "I doubt I would have found it so startling, but then again, I am accustomed to the sounds of fierce battle."
Jane looked at him with one eyebrow raised. "We won't talk about your first ride in a taxi. Or about all the times you almost electrocuted yourself by trying to investigate various appliances—or the television insides—with your sword."
Ian looked just the slightest bit sheepish. "Finish your tale, Thomas," he said. "And make haste before my lady embarrasses me further."
"There isn't much more to tell," Thomas said. "It took us a day and a half to get from the rocks to the inn. We camped in someone's field overnight, and I guess I can just be grateful we didn't get thrown in jail for trespassing."
"That could have been ugly," Jane agreed.
"We took a day to settle in, went up to the castle, which was a disaster, then took a day to go shopping."
"Did that please her?" Ian asked. "You took her in a car, I assume."
"She didn't care all that much for that. The shopping even less. But the worst was to come. Once we were home, my family showed up."
"And?" Ian asked.
"Iolanthe ran into them on her own. I came down the stairs to find my sister strangling her, she was so happy to see her."
"And this is a bad thing?" Ian asked.
"She'd known Iolanthe before."
Before. With a capital B. He couldn't say the word that he didn't think of it that way.
"And Iolanthe? How did she react?" Jane asked.
"I think she felt suffocated. For various reasons."
"Your family couldn't have grieved her," Ian said with a frown. "Did they startle her?"
Thomas shook his head. "I don't think so. I think the problem was that Iolanthe recognized Megan. She seems to have these flashes of memory every now and then."
"That has to be unsettling," Jane said gently.
"I'm sure it is," Thomas agreed. He drained his glass, then sat back. "So there you have it. After enduring my family for an evening, she begged me to bring her home, and so I did. So there she is over there, and here I am over here. And I haven't got a clue what to do to close the distance."
"Maybe she just needs time," Jane offered. "She's been through a lot."
"I wish that time didn't have to exclude me," he said. "And I wish she wouldn't feel so indebted to me. Why can't she just let me do what I want to for her?"
"How would you feel were the places reversed?" Ian asked with a brief smile. "You saved her life, you've fed and clothed her, and you've delivered her to her home. Would you be so willing to accept such from a woman?"
"Were you?" Thomas asked frankly.
Ian smiled as he shook his head. "Of course not, though at first I had no choice."
Thomas looked briefly at Jane. "I don't want to pry into your finances—"
"We're an open book," Jane said. "I had enough money to get us to Scotland, and Ian's done everything since."
"How...?"
"Some of Jamie's wealth was mine," Ian said. "So Jane didn't have to fund us for long."
"Which was good, because I was broke," Jane said.
"Then I began my training school," Ian continued. "That
has added considerably to my funds. At the very least, it pays for nappies for the wee one."
"Tell the truth," Jane chided. "You could be living on your inheritance for decades."
"The old cache in the fireplace story?" Thomas asked, just as dryly.
"Do you know of it?" Ian asked, surprised.
"Iolanthe told me. Her grandfather had told her. Apparently it was quite a hoard."
"Was and still is," Ian said. "There is surely enough there for Iolanthe to have a share."
"She doesn't need a share," Thomas said. "I have more money than I'll ever spend in a lifetime."
"But that isn't the point," Jane argued. "She needs her own money."
"Why?" Thomas asked. "I have plenty."
Ian shook his head in warning. "Don't start her on this. There is no good reason for it, but Jane insists. She makes her own funds by weaving, so she'll have her own coin to spend." He looked at Thomas earnestly. "Spare yourself, brother, and do not argue with them on this."
"Some women need their own checking accounts," Jane insisted. "It has nothing to do with love or money. It has to do with independence."
"From what?" Thomas asked, ignoring Ian's frantic motions to stop. "From their husbands?"
"In part."
"I don't understand."
"You're a m
an," Ian interjected. "Save yourself and leave it at that."
Jane frowned at her husband, then looked at Thomas. "I imagine Iolanthe doesn't want to feel completely obligated to you."
"But I don't mind!"
"Well, I imagine she does. Think about it, Thomas," she said. "You saved her life, gave her the clothes on her back, and now you've brought her halfway across the island to her home. I imagine she wants to love you just because she loves you, not because she feels obligated to."
"And you think she thinks having her own money will make this happen?"
"I do."
Thomas looked at Ian. "I'm baffled."
"Aye," Ian agreed. " 'Tis the way of things."
"Some women don't care," Jane continued, "some women do. It's your job to figure out how your woman feels about it and respect that."
"I think," Thomas said slowly, "that things were a lot simpler back in the Middle Ages. The man carried a sword, and the woman didn't."
Ian laughed heartily. "Aye, you're a lucky lad to have had a wee taste of life as it truly was. In truth, though, I knew many a woman as skilled with a knife as I." He shook his head. "We're all the same, no matter the century. But I daresay my Jane has it aright. Jamie should give your lady an inheritance."
"I could give him—"
Ian shook his head.
"Then he could give her—"
"Nay, Thomas. Jamie wouldn't accept your money; it would insult him."
"But no one worries about insulting me," Thomas pointed out.
Ian shrugged with a grin. "You'll have bairns enough to drain your coffers. Now, as I was saying, let Jamie give her an inheritance so she feels as if she could make her own way if necessary. Then are you both on the same footing."
"And then I can put money into her checking account?"
"Bingo," Jane said with a smile.
"I think I just don't get it."
"Don't try," Ian advised. " 'Twill do nothing but give you pains in your head."
"I think it's very simple," Jane said.
"And I think that maybe a little sword work in the snow is making more sense to me all the time." He looked at Ian. "Interested?"