My Heart's in the Highlands by Angeline Fortin Read Free Book Online Page B

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