My Heart's in the Highlands (6 page)

“
Thank you, my lord.” Hero tilted her glass and took a sip, her bright eyes questioning his over the rim.  “No changes?”

“Who am I to change anything?” Ian responded lightly.
  In truth, he hadn’t even considered dismissing the existing staff or engaging new ones an option.  He still had much to learn about being the marquis. 

Chapter Six

At the back of Hero’s mind,
Mikah was thinking that this was simply the craziest dream she’d ever had in her life and she mustn’t break character by bursting out in laughter over the absurdity of it all.  She’d never dreamed like this before, being another person with thoughts of her own, and her dreams had never before featured a scenario filled with characters so real, with memories and emotions attached to each one.  She thought of Mandy, Boyle, and her chambermaid, Nancy. Each was as familiar to her as if she had known them for years.  And she had a hundred, a thousand, memories of the Duke of Beaumont as well, each as vivid as her memories of her own dad. 

The conflict
ing memories had renewed her aching head over the course of the afternoon as she had tried once again to sort it out.  The fogginess had returned until Mikah reminded herself that if she simply relaxed and let Hero drive—so to speak—everything became much simpler.  The remainder of the day had been much easier.  Hero was a pretty conservative girl, Mikah thought, recalling how she had spent the afternoon following their arrival at the castle.  The hours would have been labeled "tame" by anyone’s standards, past or present.  Hero had read awhile, napped, taken tea, done some needlepoint—Mikah thought she might have mentally dozed off for a while there—then Mandy and Nancy had returned and prepared a bath for her in the attached dressing room before helping her to dress for the evening. 

All
Mikah knew was that she’d had more exciting moments sitting through Professor Hickman’s History 101 class in college.   Those quiet moments, however, had given her time to sort through all the new recollections that were gathering in her brain, examining the new memories.  If this truly was but a dream, it was certainly a vivid one, and already it was longer than any other she could recall. 

It had become
even more vibrant since she’d met Ian’s appreciative gaze while descending the stairs that evening.  Just the sight of him standing tall and proud, his bearing straight from years in the military had sent her heart racing.  The intensity she saw in his eyes held her focus, sharpened everything around her, making it all the more real.  Mikah almost felt as if she might live Hero’s life with her with happy acceptance if Ian were part of her future.  A pleasurable thought … if a tad voyeuristic.

Such a bizarre dream!

A more sobering thought struck her then and Mikah was surprised that she hadn’t considered it before.  What if it weren’t a dream at all?  Perhaps, when that car in front of the museum had smacked her, she had been seriously injured.  Even now, she could be in the hospital, unconscious, or even in a coma!  Perhaps that was why all of this was so different from what she had previously experienced and why it was lasting so long. 

She was comatose.

She
had heard that people in comas would sometimes awaken describing different experiences during their unconscious periods.

Other
notions popped into her head then, one after another.  Perhaps she was dead and this was some sort of life-transference thing.  Or perhaps this was a step on the road to Nirvana and some Dharman traffic controller had mistakenly put her into a life already in progress.  Or a past life perhaps.  Mikah wasn’t much for the paranormal, but she knew that many people and religions believed in such things, including Hinduism.  Given the similarity in their appearances, perhaps Mikah was a reincarnation of Hero and had slipped back into this life when she was injured.  It was plausible, if illogical.

All she knew now was that she knew nothing for certain.
 

Mikah
was Hero now, with her and in her.  What had happened or was happening to Mikah’s own body was a mystery.

“You look very serious all of a sudden,” Ian said, his whiskey-smooth brogue breaking through her woolgathering, and Mikah shook her head, forcing the ghostly thoughts away.

“
Not at all,” Hero denied smoothly.  “I suppose I’ve not quite recovered from the accident.  It may take a few more days before I’m back to normal.”

“
You seem to have survived well enough,” he assured her.  “Nary a scratch to be seen.  Though I understand head injuries often carry unseen consequences.  Should we have another doctor called in for you?”

Thinking of all the things a doctor in the mid-nineteenth century might do to
her, Mikah just shook her head.  Rather than face another encounter with an outdated doctor, she thought it might best if she took her chances playing a wait-and-see game.

Mikah faded into the background
, lured by dread and worry, while Hero chatted with Ian.  ‘What ifs’ abounded in Mikah’s mind.  What if she was seriously injured?  How long would this go on?  What if she was dead and she’d been thrown into a past life?  What if this
was
her life now?  Should she hang on to her old life or seize the moments before her?  Should she fret and worry or relax, letting life take its course?  Would it help or change anything?

Probably not.

There was no way for her to know.  Mikah felt suddenly ill, and Hero knocked her wine glass over, sending the glass clattering into the silver and recalling Mikah to the present moment.

“
I’m so sorry, my lord,” Hero mumbled.  “How clumsy of me.”

“
Not at all,” Ian answered as a pair of footmen rushed forward to deal with the spill.

Mikah stilled in awareness.
  Could Hero feel Mikah’s presence now when she hadn’t given any indication of it before?  Was she as aware of Mikah as Mikah was of her? 

That was an interesting conce
pt.  So far Mikah didn’t get the vibe that Hero knew she was there.  She didn’t feel worry or fear from Hero, and surely a woman as tame as Hero would totally freak out if she started hearing voices in her head.  In a pre-Freudian world like this, such madness would probably get a girl shuttled off to the nearest loony bin before she could blink. 

Still, how to test it?

Mikah hadn’t really voiced any thoughts or questions yet that Hero might not have initiated.  A blow to the head from the accident might have disoriented her enough that she might ask the same things that Mikah was thinking.  She might have had some moments of memory loss, leading to the same questions Mikah had asked.  The injury could have left her as lost in thought and reflection as Mikah was.  The afternoon had certainly belonged to Hero.

But she had said her name.
  Hadn’t she?

Hmmm
, Mikah thought as she sipped from the freshly poured glass of wine while she considered her role in this bizarre world.  Was she merely a bystander, or was she to be a player?  Suddenly, she wanted to test the idea.  Wanted to see if she was to have any control.  But what to do?  If she wanted to get up or move, there would be no way to tell if it were she or Hero who had started it, so the test would have to be done with words.  Something, Hero would never say.  Like Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Mikah
opened her mouth …

Chapter Seven

“
Ahh, here’s our dinner.  Thank you!”  Ian greeted the arrival of their meal.  “Again I must apologize for the informality of the dinner.  I find it tedious for both myself and the men to have them wait on me course by course, so I’ve had them just bring it all at once so that I might serve myself.”

“
Not at all, I find it very charming,” Hero replied, taking the wind out of Mikah at her lost chance for validation as their meal was laid out on the table before them, dish after dish.  The food looked familiar and more elaborate than Mikah considered "simple fare."  It would take some getting used to, she supposed, this clashing and melding of what they both knew and didn’t know, what they liked and didn’t like.  She wondered again if Hero were there like a reflection on the other side of a mirror, having these same musings, and was determined to find an opening to test her theory, but for the moment her stomach took over at the sight of the tempting meal.

Dishes were revealed one by one.
  A small tureen of mushroom soup, a leg of spring lamb, veal in a white wine sauce, haddock and oysters from the firth, estate-grown vegetables, and a sour cherry trifle.  “My goodness, it all looks wonderful and I declare I’m simply famished,” Hero announced, allowing Ian to dish her up a bit of each one. 

Well, that was all Hero.

Really?  I declare?

Stomach grumbling,
Mikah let it go for the moment and dug into the delicious food, enjoying the light conversation as Ian related anecdotes from his youth and university days while Hero shared some information about her own.  Again, Mikah was awash with memories.  These were her stories.  She couldn’t shake that feeling.  It wasn’t just as if she were on the outside looking in, a bystander in the life she was living.  These memories were as real to her as anything she could recall from her own childhood days.  The antics of Hero’s sisters brought a poignant ache to her chest.  The loss of a family member caused real grief and sorrow.

She wasn’t just playing a part in t
his dream.  She was living it.

Mikah
could feel the panic building up in her chest once more.  She couldn’t be two different people.  It was impossible!  My God, perhaps she truly had gone insane!  That blow to the head had damaged her irreparably! 

She dropped her fork with a clatter
, staring down at her plate.

Sh
e wondered if this was what it felt like when schizophrenia set in.  This portent of doom.  Maybe she was like the woman in the
Seven Faces of Eve
.  In that book, many different personalities had existed in the same body, but Mikah had always thought that schizophrenics weren’t aware of the other personalities inside them. 

Geez, they were going to lock her up for sure.

“My lady?” Ian asked with evident concern, reaching out to her.  “Are you all right?”

“
Yes.”

No!

Yes …

“
Maybe …”

“
Yes, maybe?” he asked gently and despite the humor of the words, Mikah could tell he was genuinely worried for her.  “Perhaps we should get some air?”

Mikah nodded numbly and stood when he pulled out her chair, clinging to his arm as he escorted her from the dining area, through the main hall, and up the stairs to the first floor.  Though a pair of doors was left open to welcome them into the Long Drawing Room at the head of the stairs, Ian instead guided her around the landing to the Round Drawing Room and across the circular salon to one of the five sets of glass French doors that covered the curved wall.  Beyond the doors was a rounded balcony that hung out over the 150-foot cliff below.  It was one of her favorite places at Cuilean. The moon shone on the calm waters of the firth, and Mikah inhaled deeply, feeling an inner peace.  As always, the stiff breeze blowing in from the loch buffeted her, blowing away her worries. 

As always?
  The thought ratcheted up Mikah’s blood pressure for a moment before she let the serenity of the view wash over her.  No need to panic, she thought.  It would surely be all right in the end.  She just needed to, as they said in England, "keep calm and carry on."

That sh
ouldn’t be too difficult, but she couldn’t have Ian thinking she was crazy either.  “I’m so sorry to have interrupted your meal,” Hero offered, resting her hands on the rail and leaning forward against it, letting the cool evening wind from the firth caress her fevered cheeks and soothe away the last threads of concern.  “Perhaps my injuries were simply greater than I had thought.” 

“
Think nothing of it,” he assured her, though his brow was still creased with worry. “I was just finishing up.  There’s no loss to one’s waistline by missing dessert.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that.” 

Mikah gave a
mental snort.  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye as he leaned back against the rail with his arms crossed over his chest.  Ian was a fairly large man in comparison to her five foot six, perhaps an inch or two over six feet.  He was athletically built, muscular without being too bulky.  Like a baseball player.  She would bet that he looked pretty good in a pair of running shorts and little else or in a Brewers uniform playing left field like Ryan Braun.  She would bet he never struck out and usually scored a home run.

Smiling inwardly at her baseball analogy,
Mikah felt much better.  Slow and easy.  It would work out in the end.

“Better?” Ian asked softly, as if he sensed her calm.

“
Much.  Thank you,” she said and leaned against the balustrade once more.  “This is one of my favorite places in the castle.”

“Mine, as well,” he said sincer
ely before falling silent.  Mikah could feel his eyes on her, assessing her.  She wondered what he thought when he looked at her so seriously.  Was he looking merely at the surface or for something deeper?  Or was his study more abstract and his mind on something else entirely?

“
You know, I had been wondering about something but hadn’t thought to ask anyone as yet, and you might be just the person to help,” he offered in a light, conversational tone, answering her unspoken query.

Like Mikah,
Hero didn’t know whether she should be disappointed or not.  Clearly though, Ian was trying to distract her from her worries, and Hero felt a wave of growing affection and gratitude warm her.  “What is that?”

“
This castle is incredibly old, right?” he asked.  “I found a book in my study about the history of the castle.  It’s several centuries old, but these interiors just don’t emulate what one would consider medieval.”

“
You’re right, of course,” Hero agreed, grasping his diversion thankfully.  “One of the old earls about eighty years ago hired Robert Adam to redesign the castle.  Are you familiar with him?”

“
The famous Scottish architect?  I am.”

“
He redid the entire floor plan of the interior.  Added rooms and took some away.  The original castle was U-shaped.  Adam capped the end with this tower as well as the two rooms flanking.  The center staircase was added to fill the former courtyard space.  There used to be just a narrow front and rear staircase, but he added that entire hall just for the grand impression it lent.  It took more than fifteen years to complete.  With these rounded additions, he turned the exterior into a romanticized homage to medieval architecture with all the turrets, but the interior is, thankfully, pleasantly Georgian.”

“
It seems that every wall, ceiling, doorframe, and mantelpiece is covered in plasterwork, friezes, and tablets.  They are all Adam?” he clarified with a nod of dawning comprehension.  “I should have recognized his style.  He did good work.”

“
He did,” she agreed.  “It’s one of the main things I love about Cuilean.  Why, it is my home …” Hero trailed off as if she had said too much.

“
No, it’s all right,” Ian assured her.  “It feels like a true home to me as well, though I’ve been here only a month.  It has an aura about it, does it not?  Of perfection?”  When she nodded, he continued, “So you like this balcony and the plasterwork.  What are your other favorite things about Cuilean?”

“
The gardens,” Hero said instantly.  “I could walk in them for hours at a time, and through the park also.  And the embattlements.  The history that one feels when standing upon the ramparts is very moving.”

“
Are you interested in history?”

“
Yes, I am.  Particularly art history.”  This was an interest shared by Mikah as well.  It was what Mikah’s original degree in college had been in, before she had gone on to do her Master’s and then her Ph.D.  She had aimed toward becoming a museum collections curator, as she was now in Milwaukee.  Hero had studied with a tutor only but her love of art was deep.

“
Really?” he asked with brows raised.  “Are you well versed in art?”

Pretty well
,
Mikah and Hero thought in unison, but Hero just shrugged modestly.

Ian watched the color return to Hero’s cheeks in a becoming blush and was glad that his conversation had been able to wash away whatever had troubled her.  He worried for her, he realized.  Head injuries were troublesome things that could lead to any number of problems.  There wasn’t much Ian wouldn’t do to provide her comfort or solace.  If light conversation and friendship were the keys to allaying her fears, he would happily offer both.

“
Do you know anything of the pieces in the Long Drawing Room?” he asked.  The room had once been called the Picture Room, a silly name, Ian had thought when Boyle had given him his initial tour of the castle.  The Long Drawing Room was a long narrow space that was once a part of the Great Hall of the original castle.  At the present time, the room held just a few chairs and small settees for viewing the oils, watercolors, and pastels that engulfed every inch of wall space with their heavily gilded frames.  There were some family-oriented portraits, as well as some portraits of past monarchs, but the bulk were landscapes that, Ian assumed, had been collected over the course of generations. 

He knew absolutely nothing about any of them, but Hero had a spark in her eye that told him she did and liked the idea of being dared to show of
f her knowledge.  He liked that she wasn’t merely some wilting lily.  Women of intelligence were far more intriguing than those who pretended to know nothing … or worse, truly did.

Eager to see more of her spirit, Ian challenged her to a test of h
er abilities and offered her his arm, leading her out into the hall and around the staircase to the room under discussion, which fronted the castle at the head of the stairs.  Stopping just inside the room, Ian pointed to a large landscape of a loch hung at chest height to the right of the doors.  It was perhaps two feet by three in width and seemed rather dark and dreary to him.  “This one?”

“
An oil on canvas landscape by Alexander Nasmyth, who has been called by some the father of Scottish landscapes.  Untitled and fairly recently done, probably within the last fifty years,” she said promptly.

“
Untitled, hmm?” Ian raised a mischievously skeptical brow.  “Seems rather convenient to me.”