“You will, my lord.”
“But not yet.”
Hero met his dark gaze. Nothing would please her more than to say aloud the name that had been pounding in her mind since she’d discovered it. “Very well, Ian.”
Ian watched Hero as she left his arm and greeted his butler, Boyle, warmly hugging the old man and pecking him on the cheek. It was a display entirely improper for a marchioness, yet that impropriety charmed Ian thoroughly.
“Welcome home, my lady. I am so pleased to see you much recovered since your arrival,” the starchy old butler offered in a warm, fatherly tone that Ian hadn’t been privy to since taking over the marquessate. “The others and I were quite worried for you.”
“Thank you, Boyle,” she answered graciously. “Please let everyone know how much I appreciate their concern. I will come around and see them all on the morrow. I am so glad to see that Lord Ayr kept you on when he arrived. I had wondered.”
“My lord made nary a change, my lady, since his arrival,” the butler returned as he stepped forward and pulled out a chair for her at the foot of the long dining table. “Everyone will be glad to greet you on the morn.”
“Please move Lady Ayr’s setting to join me at the head of the table, Boyle,” Ian commanded, startling the pair as well as himself. At Hero’s inquiring look, he offered only a shrug. “It makes no sense to sit so far away if there are only the two of us here.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” With a warm smile, she journeyed up the long table to wait beside the chair that would be to his right. Boyle hastened to please her, pulling out her chair and seating her before doing the same for the new marquess.
Once they were settled, a pair of footmen poured their wine and Ian lifted his in toast. “Welcome home, Lady Ayr.”
“Thank you, my lord.” She tilted her glass and took a sip, her twinkling gaze questioning his over the rim. “Nary a change since your arrival?”
“Who am I to change anything?”
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 marquess.
Hero’s eyes danced in amusement then, and Ian wondered if she might be able to read his thoughts.
Chapter Six
Mikah thought she ought to have her feet up and a bag of popcorn in her hand, because watching Hero’s awkward attempts at flirtation was providing some of the most cringe-worthy moments Mikah had ever seen. In real life or on the big screen. She’d like to help the poor girl out, but trying to force her consciousness into the spotlight had become a battle Mikah couldn’t win.
It was as if she merely portrayed the lead character in this awkward chick-flick. If Mikah tried to inject her own personality into the role, the script became ambiguous. She’d discovered if she simply relaxed and let Hero take the starring role —so to speak—everything became much simpler. The lines rolled off her tongue. Hero knew them all. She knew the rules of this time and place. She knew how to dress. She knew what to say and how to act.
Except when it came to men, it seemed.
Hero was a pretty conservative girl. Obviously more comfortable with the hours she’d spent reading, stitching, and napping since their arrival than engaging in conversation with a handsome man across the dinner table. All Mikah knew was that she’d found more stimulation in Professor Hickman’s History 101 lectures at Northwestern.
However, understudy in this particular play or not, Mikah couldn’t help but feel as if she were in the spotlight herself when Ian’s appreciative gaze swept the length of her while descending the stairs that evening. Just the sight of him standing tall and proud, his bearing straight from years in the military sent her heart racing. The intensity she saw in his eyes held her focus, sharpened everything around her, making this dream all the more real. Even when she’d dreamt of him in the past, it had never been this vivid.
What if it weren’t a dream at all? The sobering thought struck her then and Mikah was surprised that she hadn’t considered it before. Perhaps, when that car in front of the museum had smacked her, she’d been seriously injured. Even now, she could be in the hospital, unconscious. Perhaps that was why this delusion was so different from what she had previously experienced and why it was lasting so long.
She was comatose.
She’d heard that people in comas would sometimes awaken describing different experiences during their unconscious periods.
“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 grisly 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 physician 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 an up close and personal encounter with outdated medical practices, it might best if she took her chances playing a wait-and-see game. Surely she’d awakened at some point…
Unless she was dead.
And what? Maybe this was some sort of life transference thing and she’d been reincarnated into Hero? It was plausible, if illogical. Mikah didn’t necessarily believe in the notion though she knew it was canon in many religions. Hinduism, Jainism, even Buddhism. Besides, didn’t one normally start a reincarnated life at the beginning of it? She doubted some Dharman traffic controller had mistakenly put her into a life already in progress on her road to Nirvana.
What then? This was heaven? Mikah studied Ian as he watched Hero babble on, his eyes lit with impossible warmth. A sexy smile played at the corner of his mouth. It might look a hell of a lot like heaven from where she was sitting, but Mikah knew she hadn’t racked up enough good karma in her life to win the divine lottery by ending up with her dream Highlander.
