THE CURSE OF CLAN ROSS

SERIES

Includes:

GOING BACK FOR ROMEO

NOT WITHOUT JULIET

COLLECTING ISOBELLE

By L.L. Muir

KOBO EDITION

PUBLISHED BY

Lesli Muir Lytle

www.llmuir.weebly.com

THE CURSE OF CLAN ROSS © 2014 L.Lytle

All rights reserved

KOBO Edition License Notes

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This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

ALSO BY L.L. Muir

Going Back for Romeo

Not Without Juliet

Collecting Isobelle

Christmas Kiss

Kiss This

Blood for Ink

Bones for Bread

Lord Fool to the Rescue

Under the Kissing Tree

Ruffles and Rawhide

Somewhere Over the Freaking Rainbow

Where to Pee on a Pirate Ship

TABLE OF CONTENTS

GOING BACK FOR ROMEO

NOT WITHOUT JULIET

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

COLLECTING ISOBELLE

GOING BACK FOR ROMEO

Book One

PROLOGUE

Castle Ross, East Burnshire, Scotland  1494

Odd.

The stone closest to Laird Montgomery Ross’s foot looked to be the same shape as the hole remaining in the side of his sister's tomb, but he refused to reach for it.

"Nay. I'm not ready to be finished.” Monty whispered his complaint to God, for surely it was God's hand that wrought such an appropriately shaped thing.

Behind him, one of the priests cleared his throat. Monty knew without looking it had been the fat one who could not cease rubbing his hands together, even while Monty’s sister was led inside her would-be grave. The bastard had been rubbing them for a fair two days, since he’d arrived to try Isobelle as a witch. No doubt they were itchy for the feel of a woman’s neck since Monty had cheated them out of wringing his sister’s.

He could let the priest live, or he could be silent, but Monty could not manage both.

"If ye canna seem to clean those hands, Father,” he said without turning away from his morbid creation, “I'd be happy to rid ye of them before I finish my task here. I'm sure my sister wouldna mind the wait."

A gasp of outrage was followed by silence, although the Great Hall was filled to the corners with his clan. Those who could not find space inside would soon enough hear of each stone lovingly placed as their laird buried his sister alive within their very hall, upon the stone dais, behind the great Ross Chair. Hopefully they would remember Isobelle’s bravery and not how oft his tears mingled with the mortar.

None breathed, none dared rub their hands. How could he possibly continue?  How could he not?

“Nay, I wouldna mind a bit, if ye’re quick about it, brother mine.” Isobelle’s voice echoed eerily from the tomb and she smirked at him from within the tiny patch of light the same shape as the odd stone. “In fact, toss the bloody things in here with me and I’ll leave them at the gates of hell. Himself can collect them when he arrives.”

Her unholy laughter no doubt had even the dogs wishing they could cross themselves, but it was music to Monty’s ears. The Kirk’s men allowed her no blanket, but she’d have the image of revenge to keep her warm.

“Isobelle!” Morna screamed. Monty’s other sister stood off to his right, restrained by her puny Gordon husband. “’Tis all me fault. Forgive me.”

Isobelle’s sober face came forward to fill the hole as she searched for Morna, giving Monty one last glimpse of red hair.

“Morna, love. Dinna greet. The faery will come to make it all right again. Watch for the faery...and keep away from yer husband!”

“Silence!” the robed bastard roared.

Isobelle laughed again, backing away from the hole. After all, what could the man do to her now?

Monty would not ruin her trust in the blasted faery, but if the creature ever placed its magic toe on Ross land, it would be dead before it ever took a breath of heathered air.

‘Twas time.

He looked at the stone.

‘Twas meant.

“I love ye, sister mine.” His words were quiet, for Isobelle alone.

“And I you, Monty. Blow us a kiss.”

When he raised his crusted fingers to his lips, his palm filled with tears but they washed none of the nightmare away. He blew a kiss that was instantly returned.

“I’m stayin’ right here, pet. Ye’re no’ alone.”

“Get on, then.” The whimper in her voice was slight. “I’ll have a wee nap if ye’ll but douse the light.”

With a final wink she disappeared.

Monty reached for the stone, dipped its edges in muck, and pushed it home, breaking his heart in the doing. After long moments of stillness, his hands slowly opened and dropped away.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Morna swoon, but someone else would have to catch her—someone without mud or blood on his hands. Morna wouldn’t welcome his comfort anyhow. She claimed it was her fault, but he knew both sisters blamed him.

If he’d have known the outcome, would he have acted differently?  What kind of bastard would not?

There was no stopping the twisting of his face, the sob from his chest. He turned his head to the side and bellowed, “Out!”

Nearly everyone fled or slithered from the hall, all but The Kirk’s henchmen who would stay until they believed his sister dead. Only then did he hear the muffled sobs of Isobelle. She sounded as if she were deep in the ground.

His heart shuddered with cold. Dear God, what had he been thinking?  His plan was madness; she would never last. Not enough time. He had to get her out!

He reached for the odd stone...and was struck soundly from behind.

CHAPTER ONE

Castle Ross, Present Day

This wasn’t the first time Jillian MacKay had felt a holy-crap-moment coming on. She wouldn’t worry about it now, except for two things. First, her premonitions of holy-crap-moments were never wrong. And second, she was only minutes away from testing The Curse of the Ross Clan.

Jilly was alone for the moment, poised to enter the Great Hall of Castle Ross, the right heel of her green boots rocking nervously while she waited for the tour group to catch up to her. No sirens sounded. No trumpets announced that a simple girl from Wyoming was about to do anything noteworthy, even though, for the first time in her life, she thought she may actually be about to do something noteworthy.

She took a deep breath. Then another. Then tentatively stepped into the dimly lit Hall, turned to her left, and froze.

Holy, holy crap.

Silence stirred from its dreamy corner and rose to fill the Hall, pushing into every nook and cranny. There was no echo of her steps on the wood floor, no muffled voices of the tour group nearing the massive outer door—as if this moment was so pure, so important, that sound could not be allowed to sully it.

And all she’d done was look at his face.

The stone Highlander before her was as broad in the shoulder as a football player in full pads. His triceps must have been formed with soft wet clay smoothed and stroked with passionate hands, not chiseled from stone as she’d been told.

She wondered if it had been responsibility or defending his misdeeds that had layered muscle upon muscle with no thought for the tailor who must cover those arms. But considering the stories the Muir sisters told, Jilly’d bet the latter was true.

Montgomery Ross had earned his way into the Historical Arse section of the Scottish Hall of Fame.

Handsome Historical Arse, she amended, and couldn’t help gaping at him like a stupid fish. Good thing she was alone.

His wild hair draped and waved behind his shoulders. Small braids at his temples kept it from his eyes. And those eyes, while hard as stone, were softened by laugh lines. One corner of his mouth quirked a bit higher than the other side and Jilly would have given anything to have heard the man’s voice, or a snippet of his laugh.

If such a sound still bounced around the chamber, somehow, her ears couldn’t catch it. And her ears were not the only parts of her straining—her hands ached to slide up that chest and around his neck, but a voice in her head warned her to resume breathing and run away. If she ignored it, would she turn to stone as well?  Was the Hall so silent, not because she didn’t move, but because she couldn’t?  Then again, would it be so bad to stand here next to him for a couple hundred years?

Ho. Ly. Crap.

She touched her own chin. Still dry, still soft and fleshy. And so she continued her inventory, somehow feeling she might be tested on the details someday.

Wide cloth draped over his bare shoulder, slanted over his heart, and wrapped around his hips and bulging thighs. Jilly had to ignore his navel outright, even though he certainly couldn’t complain about her peeking wherever she pleased. Of course she wouldn’t; she should get points for that.

Large fists rested on his hips along with a belt for his sporran. Another strap crossed his chest under the material and no doubt held his sword to his back; its hilt peaked over his shoulder. Ties crisscrossed his calves over thick-looking socks that must not be trusted to stay up on their own. The too-perfect package ended with square-toed boots.

Jillian whistled. “The Muir sisters didn’t do you justice, laddie.”

Immediately behind him, a rough block of stone held him prisoner, as if the castle itself were trying to absorb him, sucking at the backs of his legs, his kilt and boots, demanding he return to the depths of the rock from which he’d sprung.

Jillian had never believed in ghosts, but she couldn’t argue with the feel of a tangible presence in the room with her. She jerked around to look behind her. The hairs on the back of her neck jumped up to scream in protest, only to still once more when she turned again to face him.

She grinned.

He must not want her to look away.

“Hello, Montgomery,” she murmured, then paused, insanely wishing he would return the greeting.

He smirked on.

Bright lights flickered on in the high raftered ceiling, illuminating the Great Hall and beckoning the tour group, and their voices, to flood the huge space. The silent spell shattered. The Highlander was no longer shrouded in shadows; his face was lighter, his amusement more pronounced. His kilt was still frozen mid-flutter, but Jillian could discern the slightest hint of lines in the cloth that had looked smooth when dimmer light streamed through the narrow windows. The sculptor had at least bestowed a hint of plaid to a man who’d probably lived or died by the pattern in his clothes.

“I see ye’ve met Montgomery.” Laird Ross, the ancient Highlander’s spitting image, walked up to her. His voice sent a shiver up her spine. It was a deep rumbly voice she imagined his ancestor might have had. “Ye’ll learn more on him in a moment. I’m happy to see we’ve found ye again.”

“I’m sorry. I fell behind. A woman suggested I wait for the rest of the group in here.” Jilly smiled.

The man’s eyes narrowed in concentration.

“Have ye by chance taken our wee tour before, then?” His gaze searched her face, her eyes, and lingered on her hair.

“Nope.” Jilly shivered and hoped her nerves didn’t show. “I think I just have one of those common faces, you know?”

He smiled and shrugged, then walked to the head of the crowd. “Let’s begin, shall we?”

Jilly had been thrilled to have Quinn Ross, the token Scottish Laird, giving the tour. He was single, she’d heard one of the other tourists say, a widower. Jilly had listened long enough to learn the self-proclaimed ruler of those ancestral stones supposedly turned to the history of this remarkable building to distract himself from his broken heart.

Before she’d lagged behind, she’d followed the enticing swing of Laird Ross’s kilt through the crumbling maze of his playground. It hadn’t been difficult to catch the purring in the man’s voice as he’d pointed out how incredibly advanced the castle had been for the renovations made in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. For example, he’d explained, the system engineered for cleaning the garderobes was eerily similar to modern day toilet flushing.

Lordy, how the man loved his castle. They were lucky he allowed tourists through it.

In his mid-thirties, Quinn Ross was easily the most glorious creature Jilly’d met on her first trip out of the United States, excepting the literally chiseled Montgomery. Women of all ages blushed near him the duration of the tour; she wondered if it was sorrow or simple humility that made him oblivious to it.

It was just Jilly’s luck to be more attracted to the stone version of him. Though silent as the rock that held him prisoner, Montgomery stole her breath, while she sensed something missing from Quinn. Shouldn’t it be Montgomery who was lacking a certain something?  Like flesh and blood?  The ability to detach himself from his home, for instance?

Maybe she’d just heard the tale one too many times and the medieval man was becoming real to her.

Reminded of her storyteller companions, Jilly looked about the Hall and saw the two standing just inside the doorway with their heads bent together. When they noticed her, their faces lit up.

The Muir sisters, sweet identical ladies far too old to be traveling abroad, filled their immediate area with a blue glow. There was nothing magical about it; their thick knit sweaters were periwinkle, their hair was a respectable bluish-gray, and they each wore their swollen blue veins like a set of jewelry along their necks and hands.

The only thing not identical about them was the pattern of those veins. Lorraine had a large one running down the middle of her left hand; Loretta had one on her right. Through their weeks of planning and traveling together, Jilly needed only to glance at their hands to keep their names straight.

It had been the most natural thing in the world for her to gravitate to these two. They had a joy about them that was just the opposite of the cantankerous woman who’d raised her, and anything contrary to Jilly’s former dull life was welcome. Grandma had been flannel and overalls; these two were perfume and polyester.

Perfect.

She walked to meet them as the tour resumed. One sister slipped a veiny hand around Jilly’s elbow and held on. Right hand. Loretta. She couldn’t tell which of them was shaking harder; Loretta from age, or herself from excitement.

Along one wall the hearth stretched wide enough to accommodate a dozen men in its dark, but clean maw. Along the opposite wall stood an ornate series of cabinets in which all manner of weapons and armor winked from behind glass doors, tempting even adults to ignore the signs requesting they not be touched.

A maze of red velvet cordons led the guests to the far end of the fifty-foot hall where a large pedestal graced the center of a thick stone dais. When the group neared the display, the tone of the presentation turned somber. No doubt the Curse of Clan Ross was about to be revealed.

Holy crap. This is it.

The sisters, one on each side, squeezed her upper arms as if they were thinking just that.

Quinn Ross began the tale with a combination of respect for the superstition and the disenchantment of a modern man.

“The curse of the Rosses is not unlike the tale of Romeo and Juliet,” he explained. “Imagine the Montagues were the MacKay Clan, the Capulets, the Rosses. But in the year 1494, the duty to one’s clan was far more important than any notion of love. Clan meant survival. Allegiances meant...survival. And when our fair Morna’s hand was the price we had to pay for aligning ourselves with the powerful Gordons, Morna did her duty; her Romeo, Ivar MacKay, understood.”

Men’s heads nodded. The women sighed. Apparently they didn’t see anything wrong with Ivar sitting back and letting someone re-assign the love of his life to another man. Maybe, just maybe, Montgomery hadn’t been the only medieval jerk in this little tragedy.

Quinn leaned forward, weakening knees with eye contact as he continued.

“Isobelle Ross was a witch...and Morna’s sister. And even though she was a strange and opinionated woman for those times, Isobelle loved her sister dearly. She would have changed places with Morna, but the Gordons would not consider a union with the wilder sibling who was already suspected of not being right in the head. But Isobelle couldn’t bear to see Morna suffer over the loss of her Ivar, so she placed an enchantment on a simple torque.” He indicated the large C-shaped piece of metal displayed upon the pedestal. “This very torque.”

Jilly stretched her neck to catch a glimpse of silver shining on a bed of black velvet. All along its outer edge were Celtic-looking symbols. A bit nondescript for such an important clan heirloom. If not for the multi-faceted spotlights and the plush black velvet, it might have looked a bit dull.

So, that was it. The necklace. Its prophecy had been recited to her so many times since meeting the Muirs two weeks ago that she’d dreamt about it every night since. Listening to Quinn Ross tell it yet again made her antsy, but his brogue lulled her a bit.

“Isobelle promised Morna that one day soon a faery would claim this bit of silver, a faery bearing the Immediate Blood of both the MacKay and the Ross clans, one who would have the power to reunite our Juliet with her Romeo. They needed only be patient.”

As if to test the patience of his audience, he paused to drink from a water bottle, long and slow. The crowd, including Jillian, was mesmerized by the dramatic bob of the man’s Adam’s apple.

She needed to get a hold of herself.

The Scotsman handed off the bottle and continued, knowing full well he hadn’t lost anyone’s attention.

“Unfortunately, even in their time, innocent women were burned as witches, let alone strange sisters who spewed prophecy. Instead of Isobelle’s plan easing her sister’s aching heart, it broke the organ entirely. Word spread like the plague, and The Kirk came to put Isobelle to the witch’s test.”

He raised an open hand to the stone Highlander behind his left shoulder.

“Ye’ve no doubt noticed the sculpture behind me. Some of ye likely believe it to be a fantastic rendering of myself, but in truth it is the image of Laird Montgomery Constantine Ross, Isobelle’s and Morna’s brother. The sculpture was done by a young Italian man who was searching the Highlands for inspiration and found it in the sad family tale. His name was Buonarroti. Whether or not it is the work of a young Michelangelo has never been proven, but I have seen with my own eyes some of his pieces in Florence, and they are very similar.”

Jilly had never considered going to Italy before, but if there were more gorgeous statues like this one under the Tuscan sun, it would be worth the trip to see them. With her shiny new bank account, she could make just about anything happen.

“Buonarroti offered to create this statue to guard over this structure to my right.” Quinn’s gaze lingered on the dark stone tomb before he turned back to jab a finger toward the statue. “Ye’ll notice the unfinished mass of rock behind the legs. It was said the man refused to complete the piece after being called “Mickey” one too many times, but Michelangelo hardly rrrolls off a Scot’s tongue, aye?”

Right on cue, the troupe laughed. Jilly thought Quinn Ross should try stand-up, but then realized this was his gig. A great routine and a daily paying crowd—the perfect set up.

“Betimes I get ahead of myself. Forgive me. As I was saying, Montgomery was laird here and as such held considerable power. But there was no power to equal that of The Kirk in those times. Thus Laird Ross, my great uncle twenty-one times removed, was unable to spare his sister from condemnation. He was, however, able to change the manner in which she was to die.”

Some of the tourists took a deep breath, likely repeat customers bracing themselves for the finale.

With a gesture, Quinn bid the group step closer.

“The oddly shaped construction ye see at the back of the dais was erected by Montgomery as a tomb for both his sister and the accursed torque, built here so she would always be near him. Ye see, Isobelle was spared from a stranglin’ and a burnin’, but she could not escape her death sentence. Before the last stones were set, his very-much-alive sister and her offensive creation were sealed inside the wall by her brother’s hand.”

The kilt-clad Hercules paused dramatically, no doubt so the tragic image could sink in. He pulled a handkerchief from his sporran and turned aside to wipe the corner of one eye. When he dropped the white cloth back in his pouch, the rest of the women sighed, the men cleared their throats, and Jilly resisted the urge to applaud.

“Montgomery thought only to spare his sister the horror of being burned,” Quinn continued. “He had no idea that he’d sentenced them both to madness. Day after day he sat next to the tomb, listening for any sound from his sister within. Actually, for the rest of his life Montgomery Ross would occasionally be seen with his ear pressed against the stones, listening.”

Jilly could not stop herself from leaning toward the edifice at one with the huddled masses, as if they might be able to hear some of what Montgomery had listened for. You could have heard a pin drop.

Quinn’s voice lowered reverently.

“For days he was tormented, regretting his interference, but The Kirk would not allow him to take back the bargain he’d struck. And during that time, Montgomery would cross and re-cross that invisible line into lunacy, thrilling over every little sound Isobelle made, only to cry to God to end her suffering. More than once, he tried to tear down the stones to put her out of her misery, only to be halted by The Kirk’s henchmen who stood guard until the witch was clearly dead. After ten and two days, the little sounds ceased...and the haunting began.”

The squawk of bagpipes lurching into life made Jilly nearly jump out of her skin. It was a moment or two before she was relieved enough to laugh along with the rest. She stood respectfully listening to the set of three tunes that first lured emotion out of her, pulled tears from her eyes with a mournful dirge, then prodded her like a racehorse across an open field. By the time the piper’s bag exhaled its final dissonant breath, she was exhausted.

“Gather ye round, gather ye round.” Quinn stood near the pedestal with its over-glamorized, but romantic jewelry. “If any of ye here is believed to have both Ross and MacKay bloods in yer veins, come forth and try the truth of Isobelle’s prophesy.”

Two very excited old women gave her a shaky squeeze before prodding her in the back. After that jolt from the bagpiper, Jilly prayed their dusty hearts would last the day. Hopefully, hers would too.

So. This was it. Time to play the game, Jillybean. Before she took a step, however, a girl about six or seven years old stepped up to Laird Ross.

“I’ll try it on, Uncle Quinn, if’n there’s nay one else.”

Rather than chide the little girl for interrupting his show, Quinn picked her up and chucked her under the chin. “And ye shall, Eileen, ye shall. We all ken ye have the bloodlines to do it, aye?  But let’s save the best for last.”

Eileen beamed.

And all those silly women sighed again.

Jilly was pushed forward a bit faster than she was prepared to go, but before she could turn a frown on the wiry sisters, Quinn caught her hand and pulled her closer until she was nearly nose to nose with the child on his hip.

“Considering yer company, and that black MacKay hair, I rather suspected ye’d be stepping up.” He nodded to the Muir sisters and introduced her to Eileen. “I’ve a feeling one of ye may do the deed this very day, aye?  And when a Ross gets a feeling, well, we’d best stay on our toes.”

Amen to that, cousin.

This was what she’d come all this way to do, butterflies be damned. Later, once she was alone in her B&B room, she planned to celebrate how less-than-dull the day had been.

Then she’d puke.

Jilly stepped in front of the pedestal. After a nod from the laird, she picked up the torque and worked it around her neck. Quinn put down his niece and took Jilly by the arm, turning her to face the crowd...

...a crowd that gave a collective “humph” when nothing holy-crappish happened.

“How do ye feel, lass?” He patted her shoulder. “Ye look a mite green. Do I need to fetch a rubbish bin?”

“No. No, I’m all right.” She pulled her face into what she hoped was a smile and turned her back to the group.

She wasn’t all right. She was mortified. Standing in the middle of way too many witnesses, trying on a supposedly magical necklace that was supposed to do who-knows-what, and trying not to look disappointed when who-knows-what didn’t happen, left her a wee bit angry at herself.

Magic necklace?  Are you kidding me?

Eileen smiled hopefully and clapped her hands. Jillian was more than happy to whip off the silly thing and hand it over.

“Looks like you’ll have to save the day, Eileen.” Jilly slung a brief smile in Quinn’s direction, then moved coolly through the crowd to the rear.

She couldn’t say when it had happened, but sometime between packing for the trip and stepping into the Great Hall, she’d forgotten she was only in Scotland to patronize the fragile sisters in their final fantasy. And to prove wrong her grandmother’s life-long conspiracy theory, that Scotland was a dangerous place for their family and no Scot was to be trusted.

She’d just gotten lost in the role she’d been playing, that was all. She’d begun to pity Ivar and Morna and had spent far too long wishing there was actually something she could have done to help them.

Ridiculous. They’d been dead so long even their dust had dust. Twenty-one layers of it.

She now had to keep in mind the second reason she’d come...

When her grandmother had died, she’d tried to pass her paranoia on with her estate, but Jilly refused to believe that a mysterious group of Scots had sinister plans for a specific Wyoming gal who’d never before been away from home. And for what? Her DNA?

Bull.

In another week she’d be back home, safe and sound, wondering what adventure she might try next while standing over Grandma’s grave, telling her how wrong she’d been.

There. She felt better already.

She couldn’t be disappointed that nothing had happened when she’d put on the necklace. Of course nothing had happened. She was just disappointed for the sisters. That was all.

Jilly was in no mood to stick around and listen to the wrinkled twins tisk and shake their heads. She was out of there.

But as she zipped up her second-hand leather jacket and headed for the door—and a three-mile walk back to town—she could almost imagine Montgomery Ross’s stony form screaming for her to come back and fight.

But Jillian MacKay was done making a fool of herself.

For the moment.

CHAPTER TWO

Castle Ross, 1495

Montgomery Ross took his leisure in his grand chair and let The Gordon come to him. At his right shoulder stood his braw cousin Ewan, and to his left, the Italian’s statue of himself. It did no harm to let the mighty Clan Gordon see him as a Roman-like god who was ever watching over his own.

Posing all those days for the mood-ridden Southerner had been worth the time after all.

“Monty, please.” Ewan spoke low. “I beg ye not to do this. Ye’ve nay thought this through, mon.”

“Oh?” Monty did not turn, but looked steadily at the entrance. “And who else would have me, Ewan?  Every lass on the island kens what became of my sisters. None would risk my affections now when the only two women I’ve loved were either buried alive or made to wish she were dead.”

“I won’t argue that, cousin. But why a Gordon?” Ewan grunted his frustration. “Nothing good happens when there’s one about. If ye marry the lass, a Gordon will be about all the time!  I’d rather ye married a bloody MacKay!”  He dropped a hand onto Monty’s shoulder and dropped his voice as well. “Mayhap ye should look a bit longer. Try the Lowlands. Hell, I’d rather ye kidnap an English lass—”

“Bite yer tongue and swallow yer teeth, Ewan.” Monty shuddered. “Besides, I’m finished with waitin’. I want the past year forgotten. I want sons. And The Gordon is the only man offerin’ up his daughter just now. I’m told she’s comely and quiet—and it wasn’t a Gordon who told me.” Monty wiped the cold sweat from his palms onto his thighs, then quickly returned his hands to their casual pose. “‘Comely’ is welcome, but ‘quiet’ is a true boon.”

“Neither Morna nor Isobelle were quiet.” Ewan snorted and removed his hand from Monty’s shoulder as footsteps sounded on the steps outside.

“Exactly.”

“Oh, cousin.” Ewan pulled his shoulders back and stretched to his full height. “I’ve a foul feelin’ about this...”

The great door opened and The Gordon finally entered looking none too happy, most likely for not being greeted out of doors. When Monty nodded permission for the man to descend the steps into his hall, the laird paused as if he might not wish to accept permission after all.

“Come.” Monty waved the man forward, holding a smile he did not feel. He had to prove his control in all things now, or the other man would never respect him enough to keep him as an ally, let alone a son-of-the-law, especially with all the trouble Morna had been.

The Gordon gradually came forward, all the while eyeing the statue as if it might come to life and draw steel.

Well done, Mickey. Poor Italian. He really had hated being called Mickey.

“Welcome, Laird Gordon, to my humble home.” Montgomery inclined his head but did not stand. “Ewan, bring The Gordon a chair.”

“Hold, Ross.” The visiting laird raised a hand and pointed to Isobelle’s tomb. “I’ll no’ take me rest in a graveyard, aye?” He turned his back. “We’ll speak out of doors, or not at all.”

The insult Montgomery felt for his sister lit his belly, and dread filled his chest as his temper jumped free of his control, as it used to do. He’d held it in check for months now. Perhaps he could at least avoid a war. As the words bubbled up, however, hope washed away.

“Then I suppose there will be no speech between us, Gordon.” Monty’s venom got the departing man’s attention. “If I’m to wed yer daughter, auld mon, the ceremony will take place here, on ground I consider sacred.”

The Gordon’s entire head turned redder than his hair had once been.

“Yer sister’s grave could not be consecrated and ye ken it.” Gordon retraced his steps until he was once again standing before the grand Ross chair. “How dare ye speak to me—”

“Nay, sir. How dare you?” Monty stood and towered over the man who was too proud to retreat a step or two. “This ground is sacred to me in honor of the sister I lost as the unbearable price for an alliance with you.” Monty paused to catch his breath and capture his tongue with his teeth. Slowly lowering his arse back on his chair, he allowed the other man a fleeting sense of relief before he continued. “And if ye’d not see yer daughter wed to me here, then ye may take her home. But do not neglect to leave Morna and her dowered lands behind.”

Monty pointedly ignored The Gordon’s Runt, Morna’s husband, who now stood fuming at his father’s shoulder—or hip, rather—and instead, looked up at his own stone likeness, searching not only for control, but for a miracle. What could he possibly give The Gordon to stop this wedding from slipping through his fingers as his temper had done?

The answer smirked back at him. He waited for the other laird to follow his notice.

“The pity of it all would be yer lack of Ross grandsons, would it no’?” Monty waited patiently while the Cock o’ the North took in the details of Mickey’s work, no doubt imagining lads of a like build sporting ruddy manes.

The Gordon looked for a time and then some.

“Don’t just stand there, Ewan Ross. Fetch me a chair and a drink.” The old laird waved away his small escort, his gaze still admiring the statue.

The Runt narrowed his eyes in a miniature threat before making his way back outside, and Monty hoped his sister would not have to pay for the insult he’d just dealt her wee spouse.

“My condolences, Ross. I heard Isobelle was as great a beauty as my daughter-of-the-law.” The Gordon sat and accepted wine. “I fancy a ceremony on the morn as I wish to be headed North by the nooning hour.”

The meeting could not have gone better, to Monty’s thinking. In but a day’s time, he’d have someone other than his hulking cousin at his side. Surely, after he and his wife spent some time together, the blasted loneliness would be gone, as if it had never been.

Although he was never one to ignore one of Ewan’s foul feelings, surely this time his cousin was allowing his emotions to rule his tongue. Ewan had ever been as loyal to Morna and Isobelle as he’d been to Monty, and the man begrudged the Gordons not making Morna welcome. After a year, the stubborn woman continued to be unhappy, but their cousin refused to believe any fault lay at her feet.

At this time on the morrow, Monty would have a wife, his clan would have a reason to celebrate, and Ewan’s foul feeling would be proved as naught but a foul humor.

Anything less and someone would bleed.

CHAPTER THREE

“The Pub”, East Burnshire, Present-Day Scotland

Jilly really had no choice; she had to break into Castle Ross or start taking schizophrenia meds.

That flight-or-fight voice in her head had been joined by a decidedly masculine set of vocal chords insisting that flight was no longer an option. She kept hearing, “Get back here!”

Thankfully, the imagined summons was cut short by a band of sorts, made up of the Muir sisters’ contemporaries striking up an almost-lively tune. Soon the only tension left in the air was the fiddle player’s bow as it squealed across the strings. One man pounded on a bodhran, another played a small version of bagpipes, pumping air with a bellows under one arm instead of blowing with his mouth. Only a statue could have resisted tapping its toes to the tempo.

During the castle tour, Quinn Ross had plugged The Pub and mentioned he came here “of an evening.” As soon as he showed, if he showed, she planned to borrow one of the dozens of bikes propped up around the village green and do something she’d never done in her life...

Break the law.

It was still coming, that holy-crap-moment, and the warning was getting louder in a way she could never explain. Jilly only hoped she wouldn’t be explaining it to a bobbie, or someone from The Yard who wouldn’t have the slightest appreciation for Americans who broke into castles when ordered to do so by the voices in their heads—voices that were fond of whispering, “Here it comes. Here it comes. Ope. Not yet. But it’s coming...”

Jilly chose the path of self-medication and ordered a Green-Toed Faery, doing a slightly dignified, seated jig while she waited for the drink. A giant bag of chocolate was what she really wanted, but the only store in town closed at seven. Seven!

You would think she was in...Wyoming.

Clutching onto the bar and any excuse for conversation with the bartender, Jilly could feel numerous eyes boring cigarette-sized holes in the back of her jacket. Every now and then she would force herself to turn and look casually about the smoky pub if only to relieve the heat coming through her clothes. She could almost taste burning leather.

The old Jilly would be sitting back at the B&B waiting for someone to tell her what she’d be doing next, but she wasn’t ready to go back to being the obedient help; she suspected that’s all she’d been to her grandmother.

Nope. Her world was going to change—her life was going to change—if she could just keep from losing her nerve. Making her own decisions was a muscle she had to build, and so far, it was barely a swelling under her skin. Breaking into the castle to silence the voices was going to max-out that muscle big time.

Screw the chocolate; what she really needed was some distracting company.

At her quiet end of the bar, the handiest ear available for bending belonged to Jock, the unfortunately-named Scot who was mixing drinks and likely had never played a sport in his life. It looked completely probable that he saved all his energy to reach past his substantial belly to set a glass on the counter. And after watching for the last half hour, Jilly was sure the patrons were trying to keep their spills and watermarks close to the inside of the bar where Jock could more easily reach them, proving once again Scotland was the quaintest place on earth.

But quaint also meant small, and it was entirely possible that Jock was the only one in town who had not heard about Jilly’s failed attempt to end the Ross Curse.

Jock’s fussing brought him back to her end of the counter, a beautiful length of thick wood damaged and re-polished so many times it looked more like a long dark river rock made smooth by water and time. He flung one end of his towel over his red-suspendered shoulder and left it there while he gathered up dirty glasses.

“Bad day at the jewelry shop?” he asked with a wink.

Of course it was also entirely possible that Jock had been the one to spread the word.

Jilly hung her head. She’d been struggling to hold it up all afternoon, and music or no music, she just couldn’t do it anymore.

“Aw, come now, lassie. Dinna fash. Think of it this way, if ye’d have succeeded somehow, it would have ruined the tourist trade, aye?  Turned our wee community into dust. A ghost shire with no ghosts.” He patted her hand with his large smooth one. “So we’re every one of us obliged.”

Jillian raised her head and blew the man a kiss. He’d just moved to the top of her list of favorite Scots. But was he right?  Would ending The Curse mess with the people here?

A clang announced the opening of the pub’s wide door, and Jilly scooted closer to the shadows.

She couldn’t help the clenching of her stomach when she imagined the old sisters hunting her down. If she were a clever girl she could think of a way to never have to face the pair again. She couldn’t blame the afternoon’s failure on Lorraine and Loretta, though. She’d latched on to the lure of Scotland like a hungry fish after a shiny bug. The Curse had merely given her an excuse.

Ending the Curse may not be her destiny, but destiny was definitely calling her from the direction of the castle. She merely needed to break back into the castle and call it back. And she need not worry about conspiring Scots, since the place should be empty for the night.

Jilly propped an elbow on the glossy counter, cradled her jaw in her hand, and sighed into her fluorescent drink. It was as sad as it was amusing, this temptation to pull aside the hair on her forehead and ask Jock if she might have a Harry Potter-esque scar on her brow that read “FOOL.”

“Avoiding the Muir sisters, then?” Jock smiled at Jilly before turning to fill a pint for the newcomer.

Jilly wasn’t surprised. Many of the local Scots had greeted the old gals by name when they’d arrived in East Burnshire.

“They must have been here a few times.”

“A few.” Jock laughed. “I’d say they’re here nearly twice as often as the others.”

“Other what?”

“Other ghost busters.” He frowned. “Did they no’ tell ye that’s what they be?”

Jilly choked on her drink and wondered if tomorrow she’d be blowing fluorescent green crap out of her nose.

“Oh, I knew they brought me here to listen to a ghost story, and to try on the necklace,” she confessed, “but the term ‘ghost busters’ makes it sound like they might have packed Haz-Mat suits in their luggage.”

Josh laughed while he carried clinking glasses to the sink, but returned a bit more serious.

“The ghost of Castle Ross is no joke to this town, mind ye. Nor to His Lairdship. Without the revenue from the telly folk, the castle would have fallen into American hands long ago.” He swallowed. “No offense, then.”

Jilly waved away his concern. “Haunted Castles of Scotland, and all that?”

“Aye.” Jock started polishing a glass that had yet to be washed, but before Jilly could point that out, he took the dirty thing to the sink and pulled out a clean towel. He came back to polish the portion of the bar he could easily reach. “Never underestimate the tourist trade. Quinn Ross is a shrewd mon. As was his fither before ‘im. Those telly folk pay a dear coin to get inside Castle Ross with their shade sniffers, aye?”

“Shade sniffers?”

“Shades are ghosts, lass. Ghost findin’ equipment, aye?”

“Aye.” The word just popped out. It was a natural reaction but she hadn’t meant to mock him. His smile told her he didn’t offend easily either.

“As I said, if there were no ghost of Isobelle Ross, or the Mighty Caretaker, there would no longer be an East Burnshire,” he puffed. Talking and scrubbing at the same time had proved too much. He flipped the towel over his shoulder once again and leaned against the shiny surface. “Even if the mon is not the actual laird of Clan Ross, he’s laird enough to the likes o’ us. He’s earned his title as much as any auld hielander, ye ken?”

“Yes, I k…can understand that.”

As the evening crowd multiplied, she lost Jock’s attention. Eventually, he completely abandoned the English language in favor of growling and grunting at his other customers, the latter merrily clearing their throats and spitting Gaelic in response. At least she thought it was Gaelic. Her grandmother had taught it to her—both for the sport of talking about others at church without being understood, and so Jilly might be able to understand their supposed enemies.

The church thing would shock the Muir sisters right down to their T.E.D. hose.

No more excuses, then. It didn’t look like Quinn was going to show, so she’d have to hope he didn’t peek out the windows of the manor house at the moment she broke into the remains of his tourist attraction next door.

She checked her image in the mirror behind the bar one last time. Black straight hair and marble green eyes stared back, and she marveled at how she fit in to the local crowd. Who knew Scottish ancestry could be so prominent in a girl from so far away?

She pulled her bangs across what may or may not be a word bubbling up on her forehead and turned to the doorway...which was blocked by her matched set of companions.

Crap.

The women she’d come to think of as the sweetest little old ladies in the world had mutated. Like a double-dose of Vanna White, they parted and pointed to the door behind them. As Jilly took in their steely smiles and raised eyebrows, she smelled a rat.

Make that two. And they had something besides blue veins up their sleeves.

Jilly looked back to Jock for help, but his attention was elsewhere. With no obvious options, she reluctantly preceded Loretta and Lorraine out of the pub.

The pea gravel crackled like cereal under her green ostrich boots as they walked to the rental car, the crisp sounds traveled easily in the moist night air. Apparently they were going somewhere; it was going to be a very late night if she had to entertain these two before turning to crime.

Jilly climbed into the backseat of the rental. The whole silent treatment worked fine for her. There was nothing she wished to discuss. After the sisters got in, however, and didn’t turn the key, the silence got uncomfortable.

“Okay, uncle. Where are we going?” Jilly hated that she’d spoken first. “Are we waiting for something?” She hoped it wasn’t a lecture on the proper way to let your companions know you are walking back to town instead of waiting for them.

The ladies, she finally noticed, were watching the North road into East Burnshire.

“Haven’t you guessed yet, Jillian dear?” The driver patted her hair with a veiny left hand. Lorraine. “We’re not waiting for something. We’re waiting for someone.”

Even in the dark vehicle, Jilly caught the not-so-sly elbow Loretta gave her sister. It was a mild jab, no doubt in deference to the risk of shattering both Lorraine’s ribs and Loretta’s arm, but the meaning was the same.

Jilly suddenly had a vision of haz-mat suits stuffed in the trunk.

Headlights came down the road and the sisters ducked. Maybe it was what she planned to do later that made Jilly duck too.

A black SUV rolled to a gravel-crunching stop near the rear of the pub and she reminded herself to breathe while she waited to see who would emerge. Scrunched into the shadows for no sane reason, she would have giggled if she weren’t so curious about what the twins were planning.

As soon as the driver got his butt into the pub, the three of them were going to have their first serious conversation.

Light reflected off all angles of the shiny black door as Quinn Ross climbed out from behind the wheel. He wore jeans and a dark jacket, a wonder to behold all right, and she realized what made the man an eyeful had little to do with the bare knees and kilt she’d seen him wearing earlier. She could only imagine what the ancient laird, Montgomery Ross, could have looked like in similar attire.

Quinn glanced at the cars in the parking lot and Jilly prayed he wouldn’t notice the two piles of blue hair that hadn’t cleared the dashboard.

CHAPTER FOUR

If Jilly was going down, Lorraine and Loretta were going down with her.

It was only when they were flying down the road that the sisters finally confessed their intention to break into Castle Ross. After hearing it come out of an old lunatic’s mouth, the plan sounded absolutely stupid. What the hell had she been thinking?

Now she was a captive in the small, nearly airborne car at the mercy of an ancient Mrs. Andretti, whose memory of British driving rules came and went with every curve. They were holding on for dear life and Loretta’s help consisted of calmly repeating, “Left side, dear,” in rhythm with Lorraine’s strobe-light Alzheimer’s.

With arms wide, both hands splayed against fogging windows in an attempt to subdue the storm in her stomach, Jilly sent an unkind thought to whichever high school student supplied the sisters with fake I.D.’s, claiming they were still young enough to drive.

Sneaking into the castle unnoticed would be hard enough for Jilly alone, but with a couple of blue glow-in-the-dark, crisp-boned ladies picking a delicate path from shadow to shadow, they were doomed.

She didn’t know what they called “breaking and entering” in the U.K., but surely the punishment would be harsher. With her luck, these two would assume a confused demeanor and she’d get an added charge of taking advantage of doddering Alzheimer’s patients.

If the woman would only slow down, Jilly could try jumping from the car, but even though they were nearing the castle, Lorraine showed no signs of letting up on the gas.

When the ugly beast that hardly deserved the title of automobile lurched to a stop, Jilly was too relieved to attempt an escape. In fact, she was already preparing herself for her extended, forced stay in a Scottish jail which she hoped to find as quaint as the rest of the country.

Maybe that’s the way my world was supposed to change today—narrowing to a permanent view of cinder blocks and bars.

The sisters took her by the elbows once more and led her down the darkened path toward the stone structure of the Scottish attraction. They followed the same steps they had taken earlier that day, all but skipping over the bridge like tourists arriving for an advertised midnight show.

Jilly looked up at the battlements where she had first seen Quinn posing in all his plaid-swathed glory. Tonight there were only stars and clouds pushing at each other above the jagged merlons. Even now the image of him standing there sent chills tickling up her spine, as if he’d been the ghost of the other laird granting her a rare glimpse of his person.

Creeping around the rear of Castle Ross in the dark was an adrenaline rush, making it hard for Jilly to breathe normally. The stars were losing their fight with the clouds, quickly snatching up their meager light and fleeing. And even though she balked at the telling of ghost stories, while the shadows stretched and overlapped around her, she was surprised how quickly she could change to the side of the believers.

This is what it had felt like sneaking out in the middle of the night when she was an adolescent. Instead of lurking up and down the streets of her neighborhood with her friends at the age of thirteen, she was sneaking around private property with two old women whose fake I.D.’s said they were 69, but who couldn’t be a day less than eighty. And there wasn’t even the hope of getting a kiss out of the cute boy next door to make the adventure worth her while.

The absurdity of it made her laugh. Then she couldn’t stop; the cute boy next door was down at the pub and they were here to steal his necklace.

A silky smooth, but bony hand slid over Jilly’s mouth. Right hand. Bumps. Loretta. The humor of the situation evaporated. Of course she couldn’t tell in the dark, but she was sure the old woman was still smiling sweetly.

“Hush, Jillian dear, or I’ll conk you on the head.”

Jilly wouldn’t put it past either of them.

As if on cue, Lorraine slid a crowbar out of the elastic waistband of her slacks. When Jilly backed away from it, Loretta chuckled. “It’s only for the door, dear.”

Lorraine wielded the weapon like a familiar friend and popped the padlock from the entrance where a sign read “Personnel Only.” Loretta touched where the hardware had split the wood and gave her sister a scowl.

“Well, we didn’t have a key, sister, did we?” Lorraine said quietly.

Loretta shook her head and started inside, paused, and grabbed hold of Jilly, tugging her to the now open doorway.

“I don’t want to break a hip while on vacation, so you go first, please,” she whispered.

“Well, I don’t want to go to jail on vacation, but no one seems to care,” Jillian whispered more forcefully.

Neither sister was inclined to comment.

Once all three were inside and the door pressed shut, Lorraine pulled a flashlight from her pocket. Thus armed, the crowbar in one hand and the light in the other, the shriveled woman took the lead, Jilly and Loretta shuffling along in her wake.

Like so many castles, this one had seen additions and renovations a number of times through the centuries, and with all the stairs and hallways they traversed, Jilly would not have been surprised if they were hopelessly lost in five minutes flat. On the brighter side, they might stumble upon a group of tourists in the morning and blend in until they found their way safely—and legally—out.

Since the light was essentially blocked from Loretta by the two ahead of her, Jilly walked carefully, leading the old girl as if she were blind. So Jilly was shocked to hear Loretta’s clear voice ring out from the darkness behind her.

“Should be the next right, sister.”

So much for getting lost. Just how many times had these two toured that castle, anyway?

Jilly stopped dead in her tracks. Loretta bumped into her with a grunt. Lorraine must have noticed they weren’t following and returned with the light.

Two weeks ago she’d been an innocent, law-abiding girl before she’d run into these two...rats...in the genealogical library. How incredibly helpful they’d been.

What a crock.

“What is it, Jillian?” Lorraine whispered.

“How many others have there been?”

Silence pressed in on the little gathering plugging up the narrow, low-ceilinged hallway.

“How many?” Jilly demanded.

“Patience, dear, we’re counting.” Loretta patted her arm.

Counting?  So many they had to count?  No wonder Jock had known the Muir sisters. No wonder he’d been so nice to her. He knew she’d been conned.

“Nine, hasn’t there?  Before Jillian?” asked Lorraine.

“That’s what I got.” Loretta sounded pleased with her math.

Great. She was Booby Number Ten.

As it turned out, these two hadn’t even been employed at the library. They’d just been passing through. No doubt about it now, they’d been trolling for another MacKay/Ross sucker.

“Out of these nine people, how many were you convinced were the right one for the job?  How many had ‘Immediate Blood’?”

No pause this time.

“Nine,” they said in unison.

Immediate Blood. Someone with one parent a Ross and the other a MacKay. The old gals claimed it was a nearly impossible combination to find in Scotland since the feud began, just after Isobelle Ross had been buried alive.

Dear Lord, these two were out of their gourds. Jilly had to get away from them. She had her passport, her Visa. Thank God for Visa.

A bony hand tightened its grip on her upper arm.

“Lorraine, let me out of here,” Jilly said through clenched teeth. She just needed to get back to town. She’d walked it before. She could do it in the dark.

“Oh, she’s not Lorraine dear, see?” The speaker shined her light on her own veiny left hand.

“I meant you, with the light. Get me out of here or I’ll start screaming right now.”

“Oh, I don’t think you want to do that, Jillian. After all, you want to test the prophecy too. You want to really find out what’s going on here.” Lorraine gave her a long look, then sighed. “We’ve come this far—”

“Yes, we’ve never come this far before,” Loretta chimed in. “And this will be our last chance. You don’t want to cheat us out of our last chance, do you, Jillian?  Dear?”

They didn’t sound senile. They didn’t sound threatening. They sounded like they knew something they weren’t telling her. The walls started closing in on her. She needed some space. It would take forever to get back outside.

The Great Hall. There would be air there.

“Ten minutes.” Jilly pushed Loretta toward her sister, hoping the larger room was near. “That’s all you’ve got. And you can cut the ‘Jillian dear’ crap. You may be old, but you are not sweet. You’re conniving—”

“I beg to differ,” Loretta said cheerfully. “One can be both conniving and sweet at the same time.”

“Absolutely,” Lorraine said as she turned and led them deeper into the abyss. “If we only have ten minutes, you’d better shake a leg, missy.”

#  #  #

Exit signs pointed to possible escape routes and gave the Great Hall an eerie green glow, but Jilly immediately relaxed. There was room to breathe here, unlike the hallways that had confined her within the cloud of Estée Lauder. That fragrance surrounded her companions like the cloud of dust following Pig Pen on a Charlie Brown Special.

They had emerged to the side of the dais near the pedestal displaying the “enchanted” torque. Without the spotlight, the Celtic symbols looked a bit like miniature graffiti.

The ancient version of Laird Ross, if it had been his voice in her head, was gratefully silent when it was obviously the perfect time of night for him to try to communicate—not that she believed in such things. The accelerator on her imagination had merely gotten stuck that afternoon and was still sticking. Otherwise she’d never have entertained such possibilities.

Jilly stepped forward and maneuvered the tight “C” shape around her neck just as she’d sworn she wouldn’t do again. She experienced the same old nothing she’d felt before, no tinkling of chimes, swirling strains of Hans Zimmerman music, or sparkles in the air, but at least this time, there had been no audience to disappoint.

“Jillian, dear, what do you think you are doing?” sang one of the sisters.

Jilly looked up and found the pair standing at the far side of Juliet’s tomb. Lorraine, she assumed, had the crowbar and Loretta was now holding the flashlight for her. They had the nerve to look at Jillian as if she were the one to have lost her mind.

“If that glorified boomerang didn’t work this afternoon, why would you think it would work now?” asked Loretta. “Come away.”

She had a point. So what had they broken in there for if not to give the torque another try?

“What are you doing?” Jilly whispered loudly.

“Breaking into the tomb. Come help,” came Lorraine’s low answer.

Any moment Jilly expected the ghost of Isobelle to come flying out from between the stones and give the three their own personal curses to hand down for generations. They were as good as standing in a cemetery about to open the grave of a witch, and she was tempted to ask Lorraine if she might have a large cross down her slacks behind which they all might cower when the time came.

“Wake up. Wake up,” she chanted just in case, before obeying Lorraine’s summons.

As Jilly approached, Loretta scanned the rounded wall with the light while Lorraine ran over the cracks with her hands.

“See if you can find a likely place for a door,” urged the latter.

“I thought there was no door.”

The sisters stopped and gave Jilly the first honest and sober look of their acquaintance. Finally.

“We bought a torque today from the souvenir shop. Do you remember?” Lorraine’s voice was different. No trace of the sweet flippant granny now.

“I remember.”

“We’ve never thought to do that before.”

What did they plan?  To switch it with the real one?

“When I put it in my purse,” Lorraine continued, “I realized it felt the same as the one they have on display. No heavier. Not real. Oh, the patina on the Celtic markings makes the one on the pedestal look different, but the torque itself isn’t any heavier. That’s not silver, it’s tin. Just as the souvenir shop necklaces.”

“The real necklace was made of silver.” Loretta’s eyes sparkled in the near darkness.

“And if I were Laird Ross and trying to protect a silver necklace that was the famous family heirloom—”

“I’d have put it in a bank!”

Laird Quinn Ross’s bark echoed around the empty chamber without the baffling effect of dozens of tourists’ bodies to impede it. Standing in the green light of exit signs, his shirt glowed neon and Jilly was once again given the impression the man was only a ghost.

Thank goodness Jilly had used the ladies room recently or the Rosses might’ve had a mess to clean up before letting in tomorrow’s selection of shade sniffers. She braced herself for the brunt of the man’s wrath, for surely he wouldn’t yell at timid old women.

“You are a cheat.”

Jilly’s could feel her eyes bug out. “Lorraine, dear, don’t make things worse,” Jilly warned between her teeth.

“But she’s right, Jillian.” Loretta lifted her chin and raised her wrinkled brow at the glowing man. “He is a cheat.”

“Ye have vandalized my property.” He flicked on the lights and his own brows flew high. “Were ye going to vandalize the tomb, as well?”

Quinn took huge strides toward Lorraine, and instead of holding the crowbar up in defense, she hid it behind her.

“This tomb has been protected for over five hundred years and yet ye would take a pry bar to it?” He held out his hand for the weapon, but Lorraine merely frowned at him while she slid the bar back inside her waistband.

“You are a still a cheat, sir.”

He shook his head like a bee was buzzing around inside. “What the devil are ye talking about, woman?”

Lorraine got up in his face as much as a five-foot-three woman could do with a man more than a foot taller. Both stood with fists on their hips.

“You advertise that you have Isobelle Ross’s necklace.”

“I do have her necklace.”

Loretta stood back, smiling and scrunching her nose as if she couldn’t be enjoying herself more. Jilly was just glad his attention had not yet fallen on her.

“And you advertise that anyone who thinks they are of ‘Immediate Blood’ can try it on, to see if they can fulfill the prophecy.” Lorraine was on a roll, but Jilly worried she was just rolling downhill.

Quinn didn’t answer. He didn’t move.

“How long are you going to make them wait, your lairdship?”

The conversation had turned and Jilly hadn’t followed. But she didn’t want to bring attention to herself by asking for clarification.

The pause was so long and so silent, she wondered if the ghostly man really breathed air. Finally, his nose narrowed as he sucked in a deep breath. He didn’t look away from Lorraine.

“Ivar MacKay and Morna Ross are waiting for nothing. They are long gone, buried for centuries, madam.”

“Shame on you.”

Jilly would be damned if he didn’t suddenly look ashamed.

“I only do what has been done before.” His argument wasn’t much more than a whisper.

Lorraine reached up and stroked the man’s cheek. Why didn’t he pull away?

“But you have known real love, sir. You more than others know what could be won here for those poor souls.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his face was hard, his lips thin. “No one can do it for me. Why should I allow it for someone else?”

Lorraine struck him. Not hard; for all her wiry strength, she could have given him whiplash. It was more a wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee slap.

Loretta edged between the two, her hands also on her hips. “You have been guarding it from your family, not for them,” she declared, sounding appalled. “Don’t you think it would make Isobelle’s death mean something to allow the prophecy to be fulfilled?  Do you feel no loyalty to your ancestors?   Nothing for the Rosses?  Nothing for that man who listened to his sister dying for nearly two weeks?”

“No, madam.” The laird smiled triumphantly. “He did no such thing!”

Jilly didn’t understand, but Lorraine’s head whipped around and she stared at the tomb like she’d never seen it before.

“He didn’t what?” Loretta asked. Thank goodness Jilly was not the only one confused.

“Montgomery Ross did not listen to his sister die. It was an act. A hole was dug beneath the tomb after the wall was sealed.” The words were barely out of his mouth when he clenched a handful of his own dark hair and staggered back against a table where he promptly sat down. “Shite. I canna believe I just told it.”

Jilly could at least understand this. If word got out, the tourist trade at Castle Ross would take a hit. That tragically romantic tale was his livelihood, and contributed mightily to the livelihood of the village, if Jock was to be believed.

Lorraine’s face lit up as she stepped close to the wide tower of black stones.

“So there is not a skeleton inside wearing the cursed torque of Isobelle Ross?” Her voice rang with the giddy joy of a woman with fresh gossip.

“Oh, the necklace is inside. But Isobelle is not. She lived a long life, I am told, in the Caribbean where witches were shown deference.”

“Why did she leave the necklace behind?” Jilly asked.

He seemed to notice her there for the first time. Again, there was a pause while he looked at her. Perhaps the Scots had no qualms about looking a person over, but it made her feel exposed.

“She insisted the cursed thing must never leave this tomb, and it hasn’t.” Quinn ran a hand down his face. “Nor will it ever, madams.”

“But you’ve seen it, have you not, Laird Ross?” Lorraine patted the side of the tomb. “You had to have seen it to design the replicas.”

The weary Scotsman nodded, then clasped his hands in front of him and stretched his shoulders before letting his arms fall once again to his sides.

“I’ll not call the bobbies if ye leave now,” he offered. “But please don’t come back to Scotland again. Or at least to my portion of it.”

He didn’t look at Jilly and she hoped it meant that he didn’t include her in his edict. Suddenly she was overcome by the certainty that she might suffer terribly if she were never allowed to spend some time here. Perhaps it was the Ross blood in her. What had he said to Eileen?  When a Ross gets a feeling, well, we’d best stay on our toes.

What would he do if she refused to leave?  After deciding breaking in to Castle Ross was the last thing she wanted, she now felt the same about walking out the door.

Loretta and Lorraine stood together now, arm in arm, and faced Laird Ross with that scary set of smiles that would forever give Jilly the chills. She almost pitied the man.

“In exchange for allowing ye to leave, ladies, ye will be expected to give yer word that ye will not reveal what I have told ye here this night.”

Silly man. He obviously wasn’t familiar with the smell of a Muir rat. If he were, he would have already called for help.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Absolutely not. No. Absolutely no. Uh, uh.”

Jilly did pity him. Surely Quinn was trying to sound commanding, but he was doing a better impression of a Monty Python player.

“I’m afraid you have no choice, Laird Ross.”

Lorraine dressed the poor fellow down like he was still in grade school, back in the day when a teacher could blister a kid’s butt and he’d be the one in trouble with his parents.

“Yes, sir. Why, even our Jillian here would spill your story to the American tabloids and then where would you be?” Loretta said with feigned concern.

“Actually, if the story made it to our tabloids it would probably double his business,” Jilly felt her duty to point out.

The denim-thighed Highlander did not look relieved.

“I don’t think that’s what he’s worried about.” Lorraine gave him a knowing smile, which he returned with a glare. “Are you, Quinn?”

“That’s ‘Mr. Ross’ to you, madam,” he ground out.

Oh, he was wishing he’d called for help, all right. Jilly could see it in his eyes. She’d felt that way herself only moments ago, in the dark hallway when she’d realized she hadn’t been the first to be bested by the Muirs. It gave her and the handsome man something in common—members of The Victims of the Muirs Club, the VMC for short.

She wondered if he considered her one of the instigators, but then, he trained his frown only on Lorraine and Loretta. He hardly noticed she was there.

Lorraine finally looked at Jilly. “The Rosses have been telling this tale for centuries, dear. If word got out, they wouldn’t get credit for making up a good story—”

“They’d be famous liars,” finished Loretta, now wearing a knowing look of her own.

“Ye’d take the honor of Clan Ross and toss it to the dogs?  Spiteful women, indeed.”

Lorraine and Loretta smiled on, unaffected.

“Lead the way to the tomb, sir.” Lorraine offered her flashlight to the Scotsman who briskly stood, snatched the light from her hand and stomped from the hall.

The Muir sisters followed in a hasty parade and Jilly was left with nothing but the smell of their perfume to lead her way.

#  #  #

Twenty minutes later, Jilly was pulled up into Isobelle Ross’s tomb—essentially a large stone jewelry box—and Jilly felt quite like Jillianna Jones as she pushed drapes of spider webs and dust aside to make space for herself. With the opening directly centered in the floor of the oblong structure, there was barely enough clearance for the four of them to stand without falling back through the hole.

It surprised Jilly not to be in the throes of a panic attack in such cramped quarters. Perhaps it was the excitement of the moment, or the renewed hope that she may well be able to save the star-crossed lovers, that kept her from freaking out. If they did find remnants of a skeleton in there, however, all bets were off.

“Ye’ll not be takin’ it out of this tomb, ladies.” His jaw was set as he stared at Lorraine over the one beam of light he shined on the ceiling.

“Agreed,” said the sisters, in stereo.

Jilly knew this was no time to request a history lesson, but she couldn’t help it. “Why did Isobelle not suffocate, Mr. Ross?” she asked.

“The mortar and things have settled a bit since it was built, aye?  Sealed it a bit tighter than it was when the stones were set. Montgomery could only leave a crevice or two what with The Kirk’s men watchin’ o’er his shoulder.” He paused, looking down at the hole until his frown softened into something akin to pity. His voice softened also. “They’d let her have no water, no food, no light. Not even a blanket. So for a while he did wonder if his sister would survive long enough for the others to carve their way through. They couldn’t very well walk into the hall and be takin’ measurements, could they?  So there was a chance they would be diggin’ up right beneath the bastards’s feet. It was a long wait, aye?”

He didn’t look up for confirmation. While he paused, the vibrations of his Scot’s burr settled around them like dust too heavy or lethargic to be stirred much by their intrusion.

“When she could hear them diggin’, she’d cry out to cover the sound. And Montgomery would cry out with her. To be sure the others wouldn’t feel the poundin’, he would throw fits of madness and push the churchmen as far away from the tomb as they’d go.”

Quinn looked up into Jilly’s face, his eyes black and shiny in the combination of flashlight and ancient shadows, his smile strained.

“I suppose it was no act after all.” He shrugged. “If their plan was discovered, his sister would die a horrible death...of his own design. Can you imagine it?”

Jilly could imagine it all too well. When they’d learned tonight of Isobelle’s escape, she had been vastly relieved, happy Isobelle had not died such in such a gruesome manner, and grateful she no longer needed to hate the man whose likeness so closely resembled this Scotsman’s. Actually, after she’d heard the first telling of the old laird’s hare-brained idea to bury his sister alive instead of letting her burn as a witch, she’d wanted to reach back through history and knock him on his butt. Now she just hated the clergy for putting them all in such a situation. What kind of priest would agree to such cruelty?

“My grandda was told, as was his grandda before him, that by the time they got to Isobelle, she was near dead with thirst, but she lived. One man whisked her away in the night, never allowing her to bid her sister, Morna, godspeed.

“She had her brother’s promise that the torque would stay put, for Morna’s sake. And so it has. Montgomery sealed the floor and it has been the duty of each leader of Clan Ross to see the cursed thing stays here for all time. The small room below also kept Montgomery’s friends from being discovered while they dug and pounded, and the passages twist and turn so oft, it was easy enough to point to the ceiling down the way a bit and call it the floor of the tomb. In a way, keeping the abomination guarded is likely one of the reasons this castle has stood firm against time, ye ken?”

“Where is it?” Jilly blurted. Her heart was breaking for these people that lived and suffered so long ago. If her presence here could bring Ivar and Morna together again, she was anxious to get the ball rolling.

Or maybe the quickest way out of the nightmare was at the bottom of the delusion pool and she only needed to dive in.

Quinn turned his back and fumbled around against the wall. A muffled clank and a curse built the tension from Jilly’s toes up to her shoulders. When he turned back to them, he held what looked like a dusty metal tennis visor without the elastic. He held it close to his body as if he feared the women would snatch it and run, which strangely enough, Jilly felt the urge to do.

The necklace closely resembled its replicas for sale in the souvenir shop except for two chunks of white held to it with prongs, like diamonds on a ring. Bones. Pieces of them, anyway. They had to be. Around the outer edge were the familiar Celtic symbols.

“One from a Ross and the other from a MacKay, I would think,” said Loretta or Lorraine. Jilly could not pull her eyes away from the morbid jewels long enough to study hands.

She no longer felt the urge to touch the thing but she kept open the option to jump through the hole in the floor and run away; there was a sinister pressure in the stagnant air around her. Waving at her from the back of her mind was her grandmother’s conspiracy.

Had it only been two weeks since she’d walked through the doors of the genealogical library in Salt Lake City?  Had she known the sisters for only days and not years?

Just as they might have done for any other visitor, the Muirs had listened to what leads Jilly had on her grandmother’s family, had patiently written down the dates and names she knew, and ordered microfiche to dig deeper into her ancestry. She’d been immediately comforted by their gentle words and kind encouragement. With these two as her champions, she’d felt nothing was impossible, that other relatives could be found.

Little did she know.

It was only after she told them her birth father’s name of Ross that Lorraine and Loretta revealed the animated, obsessive sides to their natures. At first, Jilly had been charmed by their stories of mysterious curses and star-crossed lovers. Compared to her own unhappy grandmother, the Muirs showed an unrepentant zeal for life, an optimism to which Jilly had never before been exposed and she’d been caught up in the wrinkly whirlwind.

When they took her under their fragile wings, a lonely orphan from a lonelier state was powerless to turn away from them. When they had insisted she accompany them on their last tour of Scotland before they were too old to travel, her first reaction was suspicion. After all, hadn’t she been warned away from Scotland all her life? Too bad she hadn’t taken it more seriously.

There was one secret, however, that Jillian kept to herself—every warning about the country and its people drove Jillian crazy with curiosity until Scotland became a mysterious gift she was dying to open. And now, it was all hers with no one left to forbid her from ripping off the paper.

The sisters had immediately played the “pity” card and convinced her they’d feel ever so much safer if there were an able-bodied young woman along, just in case. If ever Jillian MacKay had an Achilles Heel, it was her need to be needed. And that need, combined with the bright bow tied around the country, had made her such an easy recruit.

Until now, though, it had all been a game. It was easy to come to love these women while she worked out just who was patronizing whom. Looking back, Jilly chided herself for never imagining the game could turn dangerous.

“Jillian.”

She turned to find Lorraine looking as disturbed as she felt.

“Don’t touch the necklace, dear. I’ve changed my mind.”

Laird Ross looked at the necklace curiously, then up at Lorraine. “Do ye sense something, then?”

“I do,” both sisters volunteered.

“Must be a woman’s ken. What say ye, Miss MacKay?  Have ye changed yer mind as well?” Quinn bit his lip.

He looked like a child who suspected he was about to be turned away at the gates to the amusement park. Perhaps he was a romantic after all.

“I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, honey,” Loretta said. “Enchanting this necklace was clearly not The Lord’s work.”

The Devil’s then?  Well, that was a cheery thought.

Then it struck Jilly funny and she began to laugh. The theme music from Disney’s Peter Pan echoed in her head and she nearly broke out singing, “Think of a wonderful thought…”

They’d come that far. They were trying something not tried before. The necklace had lain inside its stone box all these centuries, hidden from the very people who might allow two souls to rest in peace together, and it seemed a pity to not at least try. Her laughter had driven away the creepy feeling and the fact that four somewhat reasonable adults were standing inside said box, hovering over the beam from a flashlight, divining whether or not one of them should try on a necklace that may or may not be a dangerous fashion statement. It was the silliest thing in the world.

The Muirs were not amused.

Laird Ross was grinning. Apparently his vision was good enough to see the silliness too.

“Nope. I’m going to try this.” Jilly put her hands behind her, not yet ready to touch the thing. “But before I do, I need to know your best guesses for what will happen. Do you think their souls will just be reunited?  Or do you think it will change the past in some way?  You don’t suppose they’ll be…”

“Teleported?” Laird Ross answered. Lorraine’s eyes widened. “We did get Star Trek in the UK, aye?” he added.

Loretta smiled her wrinkliest smile and patted his hand.

Lorraine frowned. “If they’re brought through time, there won’t be enough room for all of us in here.” She wasn’t kidding. The woman was shuffling around examining the floor space. “Loretta and I should wait below.”

Yellow streaks did not look good on periwinkle sweaters, but Jilly could hardly blame her. Besides, standing alone in a small space with Quinn, who looked a bit more like his ancestor in those shadows, sounded more pleasant than anything so far. When she glanced up at him, he was smirking as if he’d read her mind. He reached up and pulled a thick web of dust from her hair and it was all she could do not to sigh like a teenager.

Just as Jilly had decided to spend a good hour’s worth of the flashlight batteries studying the color of his eyes, he handed her the light, maneuvered the necklace around his forearm and bent to lower Lorraine through the hole.

“I think you should concentrate on Ivar and Morna as you put on the necklace, Jillian dear,” came a suggestion from beneath the floor. After both sisters were safely out of the tomb, she faced Quinn over the hole. She was about to suggest a kiss for luck, but all thoughts of flirting were swept from her head when the light flashed on the torque held steady once again in the Scotsman’s hands. She took a deep breath, pushed aside that creepy feeling hovering in the plethora of shadows, and nodded.

The man took the flashlight from her and held out The Curse of Clan Ross. The moments pulsed by while she repeatedly told her hand to lift.

Take it. It won’t bite...surely.

Suddenly, a calm came over her, a feeling of rightness. The torque was meant for her; she suddenly knew it. And whatever might happen, after she put it on, was meant for her as well.

The half-moon of tarnished silver seemed to meet her half way. Quinn hesitated for a second before he released it.

Jilly looked back and forth between the mounted bones, wondering which belonged to which family, imagining that if she concentrated, she just may know. She turned it in her hands and raised it toward her neck.

Quinn stepped back against the wall with the light once again trained on the ceiling, providing the most illumination possible. She only noticed from the corner of her eye; she couldn’t take her gaze from the...thing...in her hands.

The metal ran cool between her fingertips, like barely restrained liquid, thrumming against the tiny ridges that created her fingerprints.

Was it testing her? Should she say something aloud? Assure the thing she was indeed of Immediate Blood?

Put it on. I need to put it on.

She raised the living, breathing crescent to her neck and pushed it past her skin. The second the cold metal fell against her collar bone, the flashlight died.

“Shake it,” Jilly suggested.

There was no response. The torque seemed to have lost its animation in the darkness, so she let her hands drop away.

“Here. Hand it to me,” she said as she reached forward, careful not to step in the hole. “I’m right here,” she said in frustration when she couldn’t connect with Quinn’s searching arms.

At least they’d better be searching.

“This is not funny, Quinn Ross. Lorraine!” she hollered down the hole, but her voice was incredibly loud in her own ears.

She squatted down and steadied herself with one hand on the floor while she felt for the panel that covered the hole. It had been tipped against the wall just to her right. She could feel nothing but the wall.

“You know, after all this crap I can’t believe you guys would play such a stupid joke. I know you’re there.”

And suddenly she knew nothing of the sort.

Very carefully she got down on her knees and felt the floor, trying not to panic while she searched the dusty stone for the hole. She found nothing but a rough ring cut in the stone, in the center of which was...stone.

Someone had put the freaking hole back in the donut!

The floor was not nearly as dusty as she’d expected. Holding her hands out to the sides she felt the rough walls she feared would still be surrounding her.

Calmly, surprisingly calmly in fact, she stood and pointed her toe, and using it like a blind man’s cane, she swept the entire floor to be sure it was solid. When her hands found the small alcove, she lifted the necklace from her skin and set it back where it belonged, but nothing happened.

Her holy crap moment had arrived.

Sitting down might be a sign she was giving up, so she paced. It was a pathetically small path around that donut hole, but it was a comfort to do something.

She clicked her heals and repeated, “There’s no place like home.” Three times. She didn’t try another set of three for fear of sounding foolish, in spite of there being no one to hear her. In her need to be calm, cool, and collected, being cool seemed doable, for the moment.

She wished she had something other than her fists with which to pound on the wall and suddenly remembered the crowbar from Lorraine’s pants. If she didn’t have anything that might move that stone out of the floor, she was at the mercy of whomever knew she was inside.

A bit more frantic, a bit less cool, she found the necklace and pulled it back on.

Something happened the first time I put it on; whatever happens now can’t be any worse.

Then, picturing thick blue veins on a frail left hand and enunciating clearly, Jilly screamed the name, “Lorraine!”

CHAPTER SIX

Castle Ross, 1495

Montgomery Constantine Ross stood upon the dais of the Great Hall and gritted his teeth in what he hoped resembled a smile. It was his wedding day, for pity sake, the day his clan would finally stop hounding him to take a wife. In the future, they would only be hounding him for offspring.

Or so he had hoped.

Insisting his wedding be held in his hall, to chase a sad memory away with a happier one, had been truly clever on his part. Hanging festoons of flowers around the tomb was the daft idea of Sorcha, his mistress, and he was beginning to wonder if she were harboring a bitter thought or two when she’d suggested it. Once the boughs were hung and his wedding altar turned into a shrine to his supposedly dead sister, it had been too late to relocate the cursed things.

Father McRae blethered on in Latin, standing bravely with his back to the tomb, which the Gordons eyed nervously as if the structure might well conceal the only portal to Purgatory.

Which, in a way, it did. Life for Montgomery had certainly been Hell just before the dark stones had been gathered for it.

His Gordon bride stood to his left. He’d not been instructed to take her hand yet, and he feared he’d have to do a bit of stretching to reach it if she continued to edge away from him as she was doing. She was a comely thing. Not fragile, thanks to God. And other than an odd whimper when she’d been pushed up next to him, she’d not made a sound.

Quiet. An un-Gordonly quality to be sure. Perhaps in time he’d be able to forget from whence she’d sprung. In a very wee while, she’d be a Ross, by damn. With any luck, by the morrow she’d be on her way to bearing his first son.

Further off to the left stood his sister, Morna. No doubt her wee husband stood beside her, but he was likely lost in the folds of her skirts.

Monty had hoped Morna would have forgotten the events that put her in the arms of The Runt, but since she’d arrived the day before, she’d looked her brother in the eye only once. Today her attention was not upon the ceremony, but upon their sister’s tomb. Unfortunately, her memory was proving to be as good as his own.

After today, however, with or without his sister’s approval, he would take a grand step away from the past. If Morna couldn’t make the best of her life, that would not stop Monty from making the best of his. Even his clan had ceased to see him as a monster, and he’d give them no reason to resurrect the notion.

That was, unless he had to kill someone.

With the sounds coming from the tomb behind Father MacRae, Monty prayed whomever was playing this cruel jest would fall and break his neck on his own. He had heard a muffled voice cry, “Away,” but the holy man had shown no signs of hearing it, and Montgomery did not dare look sideways at his Gordon bride to see if she’d done so.

He’d been rather clever in choosing a Gordon to wife. Since all of the furor Isobelle’s witchery had caused, he’d needed to cool tempers in order to keep that alliance strong. Morna was driving the Gordons to distraction mourning the loss of both her true love, and her sister. This new marriage would draw attention away from her, for a wee while at least. And hopefully, when the Gordons took notice of Morna once more, she’d have weathered the worst.

Montgomery had wrestled with himself over telling Morna that Isobelle was alive and well, but with the current sentiment toward witches in Scotland, he had to let the farce continue, even if Morna suffered for it. Witches did not suffer, he reasoned, therefore Morna proved her innocence with her misery.

Better a living, unhappy sister, than a dead one. One could say it was the new battle-cry of Clan Ross.

Equally unhappy was the Gordon miss. Etha or Ethel, or some such name, stood next to him in abject misery, inching away from him even now as if he were a leper.

Well, good. She had no business being any happier than he. And a certain air of sacrifice seemed...appropriate for Ross weddings of late. Let a Gordon be the one to sacrifice this time.

Monty reached out, took her arm in a gentle hold, and hauled her up against his side. Eda, or Etha, or whatever her name was, shook beneath his fingers, but she at least stayed put.

God’s blood, what was that scratching?  If Ewan thought it amusing to break into the tomb and play ghostie, he was risking all to do it.

Montgomery turned his frown to his left and saw Ewan standing by Morna, his chin on his chest. His ears and the tip of his nose—the only skin visible in his golden mass of mane and beard—were bright red. He must have heard it, also. When his cousin looked up, Montgomery took one look at the man’s bulging eyes and knew he had no part in the mischief afoot.

Father MacRae faltered when someone pounded on the black stones. He looked around in question, then his gaze settled on Montgomery, who immediately felt as if he were once again a youth sent to confess his sins.

“Away,” cried the muffled voice, definitely from inside the bloody cairn.

He didn’t need to look to know what was happening behind him, and in the wake of his fleeing and surprisingly fleet-footed bride, Monty vowed that whoever had broken his way into that tomb would be sealed inside with the rest of its secrets.

Montgomery took a deep breath and turned in time to see Morna collapse. Gratefully Ewan was there to ease her to the ground.

“It seems, Laird Ross, that Isobelle’s ghost is none too keen on ye taking a Gordon to wife,” said the priest, the long hairs protruding from his nose waving as he huffed in amusement.

The look in the old man’s eye raised the suspicion that the priest knew full well what had happened to Isobelle.

“Send for me if ye ever get a woman willing to fight a spirit for yer hand, son.” The insolent man made him a jaunty bow then walked leisurely out of the emptied hall.

MacRae had the gall to laugh aloud before he was out of hearing. A holy man may not fear ghosts, but he should at the very least feel in jeopardy of a good kick in the arse. Montgomery had little enough love for The Kirk and only a grudging respect for the priest he’d known his life through, but he was the one to see to this auld mon’s bread and the protection of his backside. A wee bit of respect was all he expected, aye?

Intending to remind the clergyman of just that, Montgomery started to follow.

“Monty. Laird. Where do ye go?” called Ewan.

“Get everyone out of the keep, Ewan. None will set foot back inside for a fortnight. Perhaps in the quiet, Isobelle’s ghost will move on.”

Montgomery exited the hall in time to see the Gordons ride off after Emma, or whomever, and realized they intended to leave Morna behind. With her beauty, the Gordon Runt would be back for her in a day or two, but Montgomery couldn’t begrudge the man taking a quiet breath while he could.

Morna had just suffered yet another shock. Perhaps it was her due, to finally be told of Isobelle’s escape, but he did not look forward to his youngest sister’s reaction. In fact, he might just wait and tell her a moment or two before she would ride off with her wee husband.

First, he would seal up the floor well and goodly so Isobelle’s secret would not be shared any further. It was time to move the clan to less pungent quarters at any rate. The soon-to-be ghost could wail in peace until the weather cooled, and hopefully the tomb would contain the smell of the body. Execution was the least the man should pay for wreaking havoc on Montgomery’s hard-won Gordon alliance, let alone costing him a fine-looking bedmate.

Alone. Still.

Would it take another year for the superstition to settle?  Could he wait another year to have a wife and children to fill his home with noise once more?  Or was it only his sisters’ noise he missed?

Poor Sorcha. She so wanted to marry him, mean man that he was. But a laird needed wee lads, and that required a young and fertile lass, not an older widow with no children to show for her marriage. And although the woman tried, she eased only his body, not his loneliness. Not his soul.

How he would ever convince a lass to be Lady of a haunted castle, only God knew. The Gordons were not yet out of sight, but word had likely reached England by now of Isobelle’s supposed attendance at his wedding, and even if his home were not truly haunted, it would be soon enough.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Wake up. Wake up, wake up,” Jilly chanted into the black air around her. It would be simple enough to pinch herself, but she honestly dreaded finding proof that she was indeed entombed.

She also chose to believe the worst of the Muir sisters. And Laird Ross, or whoever he really was. For all she knew, the entire town was in on this little charade. Maybe there was a curse of some kind and they had needed a virginal sacrifice. A wonderful way to snag one would be to station two of their conspirators in the United States where they could find some orphan whom no one would miss.

Yes. The sisters had completely set her up. The entire night—the break in, the confrontation, even the moment when the sisters told her not to try on the necklace after all—it was all just part of the routine.

Remembering the way Quinn had looked at her in front of the statue, she could easily imagine he was assessing her worthiness of the sacrifice. The way he’d accidentally let Isobelle’s secret slip?  Oh, brother!

That was it. The perfect explanation. And convenient too. She would much rather believe her survival centered on whether or not the “Stepford Twins” would come to their senses and let her out—or some James Bond would come to her rescue—than to believe the reason there was no flashlight, no dust, and no hole in the ground was because she had traveled through some black hole in time. She hadn’t had good enough grades in Science to examine that possibility, let alone find a solution.

If she’d traveled to another time, no one would know she was inside, so no one would be racing to get her out, as they had for Isobelle Ross. She would suffocate, or worse, starve and die from dehydration.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

Through her feet, Jilly felt vibrations.

“Thank God.” She knelt on the floor, pounding and screaming, “I’m here. Please. Get me out of here.”

The pounding stopped on the other side.

Maybe they’d left to get the authorities.

Maybe they thought she was Isobelle’s ghost.

Maybe they were making sure she couldn’t get out.

She pounded until her hands felt they would explode like water balloons. She hollered until her ears hurt. Her voice was hoarse and scratchy from what little dust she had loosened from the walls, so she listened until her own breathing was the only proof she hadn’t gone deaf.

Rest. She needed rest. It was at least midnight and she was in shock. If she wanted to wake up from this nightmare, then she would need to sleep first.

It made as much sense as anything else.

She laid her cheek on the cool rock floor, chanting “Sleep, sleep, sleep,” while her tears dripped off the bridge of her nose onto the all-too-clean floor.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Monty stood on the steps shading his eyes from the bright morning sun, watching the procession of wedding guests excitedly departing through his gates, no doubt intent on hurrying home to spread the fantastical story of dead Isobelle Ross chasing the mighty Gordons from her unhallowed home.

It was something fiery Isobelle would have done in life, as well.

He missed his wild sister so dearly, perhaps he should send for her. Isobelle could roam the halls and battlements of her keep now and all would assume she was but a ghost. It had been a good year since her supposed death, nearly to the day, so it was only right she would begin her moaning again on such an auspicious occasion. ‘Twas always Isobelle’s way, to mark such coincidences.

There would be no one willing to work inside, more’s the pity. And with just his sister and himself within the walls, he’d likely go mad and seal her up in the tomb after all.

Nay. She was much safer where she was.

“Ye’ll not believe this, Monty,” said Ewan as he squeezed out through the massive door. The man used his given name far too often, but Monty would never chide him for it. With his sisters gone there were few who remembered Montgomery Ross was more than just the laird of the clan.

“What is it?  Did ye end with killing him?”

“Nay.”

Ewan was never one to dilly-dally. Perhaps his friend had no stomach for executions this day.

“Where is he, then?  I vowed the mon would be sealed inside Isobelle’s tomb and I’ll see it done myself if needs be.”

Ewan rubbed the back of his neck, his face lined with a fierce frown.

“That’s just it, ye ken?  He is in the tomb.”

“Dead?”

“No. No, he’s alive. I heard him cry for help.”

Ewan was going soft, then.

“But ye packed the stones so he canna get out, as I ordered ye to do?”

“Nay.”

Ewan’s head would roll from his shoulders if he did not cease sawing on his neck the way he was. Montgomery was too confused to be angry. Yet.

“So, ye let him out?”

“Nay. I’m sorry, Monty. I don’t ken how he got in there, but...”

“But?”

Ewan looked around, then leaned toward him. “But the floor is sealed as tight as it was after we took Isobelle out,” he whispered. “I doona ken how he got inside.”

“God’s blood,” Montgomery cursed as he flung the door open and started inside. “If he’s made a hole in the side, he’ll be gettin’ away.”

“But Monty—”

“Why did ye not check the walls, mon?”

Ewan sputtered after him through the hall. By the time Monty reached the tomb, he had a torch held high. He rushed to the tight space between it and the back of the hall.

“I tell ye I have, Monty. I looked. The tomb is sound.”

Montgomery had to see for himself. After searching every stone three times, and going to the tunnels below to check the floor, he gave up. There was no possible way anyone was inside.

“Someone must have been standing behind it during the wedding. With all the upheaval, I hadn’t considered it,” he said. “Mayhap a Gordon. He would have walked out the gates, laughing with the rest.”

It tasted bitter, the idea of a Gordon besting him. It was a temptation to take Morna back from them, and her dowered lands. It had been a year, and she had not yet conceived. He could claim it to have been no better than a handfasting, married only if there were issue, and turn his back on the blessing of the church. He was laird here. He could do anything he liked if the king did not get involved, and England kept the king busy enough these days.

If he believed it could undo what he had done to his sister, if her heart could be mended, he would be sore tempted. But that was not to be. It was rumored Ivar MacKay would never marry another and was as unhappy as Morna, but the man would never defy the church to have her. In times like these, it was dangerous to make holy enemies, or enemies of a clan as large and as close as the Gordons.

What a woman he’d become in a year’s time. Of course there was no undoing the past. He’d done what was best for his clan at the time. He’d stand by his choices now in spite of losing the companionship of his sisters.

“What about the cry for help, Monty?  I was telling no tales.” Ewan waved a hand before his eyes to return his attention to the matter at hand.

“Ah, we’ve heard nothing since then. I say it was voices from the hall ye heard while ye were below. Voices do strange things between stones, aye?”

“As ye say, then.” Ewan’s face dropped, like a dog that had been ordered to surrender a bone. “So, if no one is in there, can the others come back inside?”

“Nay, for we cannot explain how we ken there is no ghost. I declared none shall enter the keep for a fortnight, and a fortnight it shall be.”

And with that he slapped his friend on the back to lead him outside.

“And the widow Murray will not mind ye biding yer nights with her, I reckon.”

“Nay, Ewan. I reckon she won’t.”

#  #  #

That night, Montgomery tossed and turned in the widow’s sheets. Every time he drifted to sleep he would dream himself back into the tunnels beneath the tomb. He could hear his sister crying through the walls, having no faith that he would reach her in time.

But he always did.

As the last slab of heavy stone was lowered away from the opening, she would slip through the hole, landing on her bare feet, suddenly recovered enough to peck at him until he sealed the opening yet again, forcing from him the promise to keep her necklace safe. As soon as the vow was made, Isobelle would be gone, the tomb closed tight, and again he would hear her crying from within.

It mattered not how tired he was from clawing at the stones to get to Isobelle once more. He dared not hesitate; she would die if he did.

Half awake, Montgomery tried to push his thoughts in another direction, lead his dreams to something more pleasant. He was sitting in the Ross’s grand chair upon the dais. A beautiful woman approached. His wife. Her hair was straight and black, her eyes green and sparkling as moss just beneath the surface of a clear running burn. When she smiled at him, his toes curled with pleasure.

Then tears began streaming down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Monty,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “I dinna ken how she got in there, but...”

“But?” he heard himself ask.

Plump tears gathered in her eyes. “But the floor is sealed as tight as it was after we took Isobelle out. I don’t ken how our daughter got inside.”

Our daughter. She was sealed inside like Isobelle was. And I have to get her out!

It didn’t matter that he may be walking in his sleep, Montgomery had to find Ewan and get his daughter out of that cursed tomb.

“Ewan!  Ewan!” he bellowed, not caring if the whole clan roused. “Get up, Ewan.”

“I’m up and at ‘em, Monty,” his friend grumbled as he swung his door open. “Will I need me boots?”

“Aye. And hurry.”

He couldn’t help but pace in the moonlight while he waited for Ewan to emerge from his cottage. At the last moment, he thought to call out his apologies to Ewan’s sister. She did not answer. It was probable she slept on, uninterrupted. This was not the first time he had roused Ewan in the middle of the night, but he hadn’t done so for months. Not since the last time he’d been chased from his bed by such nightmares. But then he’d been grieving over never seeing his sister again, not because she’d perished.

As his daughter would do if he didn’t get to her in time.

He tried to explain this to Ewan as they made their way up the rise to the Castle.

“But ye don’t have a daughter, Monty. Ye don’t even have a wife.”

“I ken the truth, Ewan. I’ve not gone daft. I must just make bloody sure, aye?”

Ewan laughed. “It makes perfect sense, but only because it is the wee hours before morn. Tomorrow I don’t plan on being kind about it. Not kind at all.”

CHAPTER NINE

Jilly was suffocating. Whether it was from the staleness of the air, the lack of oxygen, or a panic attack making her lungs feel tiny and useless, she was definitely suffocating.

Each time she had awakened to find that the nightmare continued, she’d gone through what was now a routine. She tried on the necklace and imagined Laird Ross, being careful to imagine Quinn, the 21st century one, not Montgomery Ross, the statue. She had concentrated on the Muir sisters, individually and together. She had not only clicked her heals like Dorothy, but had found hope in another old movie, digging in her pockets to find a modern penny. Unfortunately, there was no light by which to read the year, but surely it would get her back to the 1980’s at least.

At this point, she didn’t care why she was in the tomb. The century didn’t matter. Ritual sacrifice didn’t matter. Air did.

All her rituals failing once more, she lay on the floor to conserve air and tried to remember Laird Ross’s theory about dust settling. She wasn’t sure if she should hope for more time than Isobelle had, or wish for it to all be over sooner. There really was no guessing how much air and days remained, and it was the not knowing that drove her quietly out of her mind.

Too bad she hadn’t magically travelled back in time, to a year where the castle would have been filled with medieval dinner guests. Or better yet, filled with men like Michelangelo’s Highlander.

The food would have probably killed her anyway.

Suddenly, like a flood of light, memories of her grandmother’s warnings poured onto the darkened stage inside her mind, overlapping like rushed dialogue in a manic play.

“Never trust a Scot.”

“Scottish soil is poison for MacKays.”

“The devil’s playground.”

“Avoid it like the plague.”

Closing her eyes did nothing to stop Grandma’s voice.

“Never let them know you speak Scots.”

“$100,000 for every year you stay away.”

“Wyoming is your home.”

“Stay in Wyoming.”

She so wished she had.

Then, in the cool darkness, with nothing but imagined variations of blackness before her eyes, one question rose to the fore and drowned out all the mislaid warnings. She’d wondered it a million times, but chalked it all up to the ravings of an eccentric, bitter woman whose occasional mention of her Scottish husband was only to mutter the word wicked. But now, the question screamed out for an answer, like a long ignored middle child who had taken as much neglect as it could take.

How had Grandma known?

How could Ivy MacKay have suspected what would happen to her granddaughter in a remote Scottish Castle less than a year after her own death?

The panic that usually accompanied Jilly’s paranoia did not come.

Grandma had a secret, and if it could be ferreted out, this would be the place to do it. Even locked in the damned tomb, the knowledge that Grandma was now powerless to stop Jilly from asking questions came with calming determination to do just that.

The truth was out there somewhere. If she could just find out what Grandma knew, the old woman’s eccentricities could be put to rest, buried beside her in a grave her husband should occupy, but never would.

Jillian Rose MacKay could move on.

She’d once asked where her wicked grandfather lived, but the old woman had glared, told her to mind her own business, and then redirected Jilly’s attention.

You had to hand it to Grandma; she had definitely controlled her own world, every discussion, every silence. She had nipped at Jilly’s heels and guided her every step, every thought, like a border collie manipulated sheep, with fear and a little sting when one least expected it.

The image made Jilly smile in the dark.

Ivy had even tried to wield that control from the grave, but thanks to a poorly constructed clause in her will, her power was cut.

Jillian had millions and before getting locked in the tomb, she’d had her freedom, or so she’d thought.

After finally crossing that Wyoming border, without Grandma quickly herding her back to the farm, Jilly thought she’d be able to hunt down her own happiness. Only hours from home, however, finally in a big city, she’d lost her focus and allowed the Muirs to do the herding. Only the twins had been much more subtle; they’d used whimpering instead of barking, and puppy dog eyes, albeit surrounded by an atlas of wrinkles. The outcome had been the same. Jilly was, ever and always, right where someone else wanted her to be.

But no more. If she ever got out of here, she’d get to the bottom of Ivy MacKay’s conspiracy theory, she’d ditch the Muir twins, and grab some Highlander off his...mountain, and take him home for a pet. She’d need a home. Italy would do. She’d get tattoos and pay for Italians to serenade beneath her balcony—even when she wasn’t home.

She’d have fresh flowers in her bathroom, for hellsakes.

She’d never again return to Wyoming, or to Scotland. And if she ever had a daughter she’d warn her...

No. She wouldn’t.

There was nothing about her grandmother’s actions she’d ever wish to repeat.

Jilly could almost feel the old woman rolling in her grave.

Lost in her rantings, it took a moment for Jilly to discern the pounding in the floor beneath her. She felt it more than heard it actually, but held completely still until she was sure she was not hallucinating. Considering her unlikely situation, she thought she’d done a reasonably good job of keeping her imagination in check all these hours—or was it days?  But with oxygen deprivation, mirages of sound may be just around the corner.

Then she felt it—a direct hit on the stone beneath her cheek. Her ear was ringing from it and she cried out in a mixture of surprise, pain and hysteria. Good Lord, she was going to blubber all over someone, and she sure hoped it was that Quinn Ross.

Maybe the penny was from the late nineties and he’d be a little younger.

The stone jumped and she squealed. “I’m here. Oh, thank God. I’m here!”

Then nothing.

Nothing at all.

She begged her heart not to stop, forbade her eyes from crying.

Just count to ten. Just count to ten. You can endure anything for the count of ten.

She counted to ten, backed up a couple, and counted 8, 9, and 10 again.

What was it with this place?  If you cry cried out, you lost?  If you kept your mouth shut, you got out?  If she had to start her parole over again, there wasn’t enough air to survive it.

“Listen you, whoever you are,” she yelled at the floor. “You get me out of here right now. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but I...am...dying in here. I can’t breathe. So you make me an air hole and make it quick. I also need a flashlight and some water. If I were down a mineshaft you would have made sure I had those things already. Air, water and a light. Got it?”

Laughter, rich and clear bubbled up around the stone beneath her. She blinked frantically to clear her vision as a thin line lit its edge.

“Monty!  Yer daughter is English!” she heard someone say before he burst into laughter once again. And even though the laughter continued, it was joined by the slide of rock against heavy rock.

Long moments later, the laughter stopped. The two-foot-diameter stone began to lift. When the edge rested to the side of the hole, Jilly pushed it with all her might to slide it out of the way.

She was taking no chances. After one peek to make sure the tunnel floor was as she had left it, she yelled, “Stand back,” and dropped through, leaving the darkness behind.

After her knees recovered from her landing, she turned to find the very welcomed sight of Quinn Ross before her. He had changed back into his kilt, which she thought odd, but it was probably daytime and the man did have a job. Other than the fact the tunnel was lit with a realistically flaming torch, everything was as she had hoped.

Talking would have to come later, Jilly decided, as she flung herself into his arms and let the Sob Fest commence. What mattered for the moment was not the how’s and why’s, but only that he was here, and she was out. If he were responsible for the prank, she’d sue him later. For now, the tartan across his shoulder was the only snot rag available and she was determined to use it liberally.

She was vaguely aware of the man pulling her legs to one side and sitting on the floor with her still in his arms. With him thusly settled in for the duration, she had no qualms about soaking the man with tears and slobber while she exorcized the nightmare. Once it was clear, however unlikely, that she had indeed soaked a good length of his sash and was still in need of a tissue, she calmed down. It wasn’t a lace-edged handkerchief like the Muirs’, but a paper napkin in her jacket pocket finished the job nicely.

“I’m so tired. And thirsty. I don’t know if I can make it back to the Bed and Breakfast.”

“If ye’re fair certain the greetin’ has past, I can see to the rest.”

Jilly assumed his brogue must be more pronounced when the man was working. She had no idea how much time had elapsed, but the strength of Quinn’s arms was all she needed.

“And a drink. I need a drink.”

“Aye,” he said.

Jilly took a deep breath and shut her eyes, confused at how exhausted she was considering all the sleeping she’d done. That, however, was just another thing to examine later.

She came awake for a moment when he removed her leather jacket. It was dark but for a night light somewhere behind her and she could barely make out Quinn’s outline as he held a tin cup of water to her lips.

“Can you turn a light on, please?  And leave it on?  I’m sorry to be so silly, but I just need light...and water...and air.”

As Jilly nuzzled into the soft flannel pillow, she heard that other man laughing again and she couldn’t help but smile.

“God’s blood, Monty. Yer English daughter wears trews!”

CHAPTER TEN

“Shut yer maw, Ewan.”

“Oh, I think no’, yer lairdship,” mocked his cousin. “I warned ye I’d no’ be kind to ye today.”

Damn it, so he had.

The two of them sat upon the top step of the keep with their elbows on their knees and their faces on their fists, reviewing their escapade of the last evening, assuring each other it had not been a dream.

For the life of him, Monty couldn’t think where he could send his cousin to keep him from brayin’ away like the ass he was. He needed some peace; he needed to think. If the lass was somehow his daughter, he was a sick, sick man and needed to be on his knees in the chapel, begging God to forgive him for his urges.

She couldn’t be his daughter. She couldn’t. And in truth, she hadn’t claimed to be. It was only the dream. In the dream, his wife had told him, but if the dream was correct about her being sealed inside the tomb, was it also correct about her being his child?

Was it also correct about his wife?

She’d been a comely thing, and even in his dream he had known her as his own. His heart and body had responded to her even though he’d but seen her take a few steps, had heard her speak but a few words. His mind had told him she was his, and he’d found no reason to question it. And her eyes...

His daughter had those same eyes—or what he’d seen of them between puffy eyelids when she stopped her greetin’. Perhaps his attraction was just the lingering of the dream, the memory of the mother.

The buzzing in his ear was Ewan’s voice, droning on about something or other. His cousin was uneasy; Monty could tell by the speed of his speech. That day he sounded more fashed than Monty’s ever known him to be. Then realization made him smile. Ewan was worried Monty would put the lass back in the tomb to rot, as he’d vowed to do the day before.

He’d not tell Ewan his plans for the lass; he didn’t have any. His main worry was how to rid himself of his odd feelings when he watched her sleep. Which was why he was outside now, sitting on the cool stone steps, as far away from his bedchamber as he could be and still feel as if he could protect her.

Ewan took a long needed breath.

“So, ye’ve a child.” Ewan punched his arm. “And ye’ve kept it from me.”

“Don’t be daft, Ewan. She’s no’ my child.” Monty felt heat rising in his face. Ewan’s keen intuition was a flighty thing. Sometimes he kenned exactly what Monty was thinking, and other times he needed a good knock to the jaw to understand.

“Ah, likely not, I suppose, and more’s the pity. Ye’d have had to sire her at no more than ten, I would think.”

Just then, the widow Murray walked before them and gave the slightest nod toward her house. Monty gave her an equally subtle shake of his head in answer. Whether she wanted a conversation or a tumble, he had no mind for either—with her at any rate.

God’s blood but he was a sick man.

“Do ye not reckon?” ended Ewan.

“Reckon what?”

“Were ye no’ listenin’?  I said ye’d have had to sire her at no more than ten summers yerself, ye ken?”

His heart lurched. She was a grown woman, to be sure. And he was all of nine and twenty.

He was so relieved he could shout, but he only stood and frowned at the world as befitting a man who had just missed his wedding night. He was becoming quite the talented player.

Ewan popped up as well, edging his way between the large door and his laird. Monty knew Ewan was itching to protect the lass and he couldn’t help but tease.

“I’m going inside. I want ye to keep watch. I want no one contradicting me orders.”

At the mention of orders, Ewan paled.

Good.

“Mont— Laird Ross.” Ewan cleared his throat. “I think it would be a mistake if ye punished that lass as ye planned to do yesterday.”

Having spoken his mind, Ewan lifted his chin and waited.

“She’ll not go back in the tomb, Ewan. I’d already decided. Did I not tell ye so?” Monty raised an innocent eyebrow.

The relief on his friend’s face did not last long.

“No, ye foosty skunner. Ye’d not told me so. I’ve been gumming my jaw all morning…”

Monty did not wait around to hear the rest but laughed and pushed his way past the grumbling fool and through the door. In truth, he couldn’t have stood still much longer; so anxious was he to return to his chamber above stairs where that lovely woman, who was definitely not his daughter, lay sleeping.

Her face flashed before his eyes as his legs made quick work of the stairway. Straight black hair tucked becomingly around her shoulders. Odd length, that, but it was charmingly odd. Her eyes were clear and bright—when they were open—and suddenly his dream came back to him.

His wife. He had assumed the daughter to whom she referred would look much the same, so when the lass dropped out of the hole looking just as expected, he’d never considered her to be the mother. He’d been too weary last night to consider anything as more than it appeared.

His footsteps scratched and thumped clearly in the silence of the deserted hall. His quick steps echoed his mood as he flew up the stairs. As he turned toward his chamber, his fingers ran lightly over the stones of the outer wall, the rocks worn smooth by hundreds upon hundreds of similar touches. Her cheeks would be smoother still.

His wife.

He couldn’t wait to tell her—just as soon as he found out who had put her up to her shenanigans.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jilly came fully awake in an instant, but she didn’t so much as twitch. She’d already suffered from this backward plane of existence where one suffered longer the more one complained. If she were awake when she shouldn’t be, no one else would know.

Was that light coming through her eyelids, or just the hope of light?  If she opened her eyes to blackness, would she go mad?

A man cleared his throat. The loveliest sound on earth; she was not alone.

She sat up and drank in the sunshine, throwing her arms wide, exalting when her fingers brushed against nothing at all. The cup of water was there. Light, water, and air...

...and Laird Quinn Ross, dressed in a less formal kilt for today’s tourists. She beamed a smile at him for lack of something appropriate to say, but the grin he answered her with was a bit unsettling. Her chest expanded and felt tight in the same instant. Please God, don’t let him have any further games to play with her.

As she felt her smile fall away, so did his.

“Laird Ross,” she greeted tentatively.

“Lass,” he answered, but nothing more. He only stared at her as if he waited for some sort of apology. She’d spent who knows how long buried alive in his bloody tomb, could very well have died while he was taking the time to change his clothes and who knows what else, and she had done something wrong?  Not likely.

“Well?” she prodded. Surely he would be falling on his knees begging her not to go to the authorities.

“Well, what, English?”

Surely he had meant to call her “American” in that less than flattering tone, but he didn’t look like he was in the mood to be corrected. In fact, the scowl brewing on his face was so fierce she would even waive her need for his apology.

For now.

Jilly opted for casual conversation—anything that might end the tension in the room.

“Where are the Muir sisters?” she asked.

His scowl turned to surprise, then back to a scowl. “So, the Muir twins. Why I should be surprised I dinna ken, but at least it was no’ a Gordon.”

“What are you talking about?  What have those two done now?”

He crossed to the small window and looked out. Wondering if he was looking down at Lorraine and Loretta, she tossed the covers off and joined him. Her shoulder bumped his arm as she sought what had caught his attention, and he turned to give her more room.

“Sorry,” she said, then froze. He stood so near, his chin only inches away since his attention had turned to her. Jilly’s shoulder was pressed against the center of his enormous chest. It felt like a wall of rock beneath folds of flannel, and heaven help her, it was bare beneath.

The sisters were forgotten as she became mesmerized by his right hand slowly snaking up in front of her, sliding around her neck and burying itself in her hair. She had no power to resist the turning and tilting of her head, and although there was no pause in his movements it was surely an entire minute before his mouth pressed against hers.

Never before had Jilly experienced such a romantic kiss, nor been held so gently, yet intensely. Her toes curled inside her cowboy boots as she resisted the urge to pull herself against him, and she savored the seconds until the kiss would end.

But it didn’t end.

He took a step into her, pressing his body forward, causing her to turn to face him. A second later her attention rested again on their unbreakable kiss. After a deep breath, he moved again and she felt like they were dancing; his lips held hers, his right hand remained on the back of her head, his left was at her waist. Her hands rested on his chest and her feet had a mind of their own. She opened her eyes to find his closed and she wondered, as she allowed her lids to fall, who was going to watch where they were going?

He led. She followed beautifully...until they reached the bed.

Jilly was finally able and willing to stop his momentum and pushed back long enough to get her boots beneath her. Reluctantly, she eased her mouth from his, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of the right thing to say. She only knew that she had no intention of lying down with the half-dressed Scotsman since before this morning he had never shown much romantic interest in her. Jilly was probably little more than the tourist on today’s menu and it was that insult which gave her the energy to fight her racing hormones. She wanted to set aside today’s chemistry lesson to examine later, along with everything else she wasn’t ready to know.

Reality, however, was ready now, nudging its way into her misty mind; he was probably trying any means possible to keep her from suing his ass.

“Are ye married?” he whispered, bending to press his warm, soft mouth against her neck.

“No,” she said clearly, answering more than his marriage question and trying to banish the chills that made her want to curl up like a cat. At least he should have understood her meaning when she put all her muscle into shoving at his knotted shoulders.

He was as immoveable as the statue in the Great Hall, but she did manage to get her carotid out of reach of his teeth.

“Then I claim ye.”

If it weren’t for the authority in his voice, she would have laughed. He sounded dead serious and she would have to make a dead serious effort to get out of his arms.

Now, being raised in Wyoming did not mean she had lived a backward life, but Jilly had to admit she had, on more than one occasion, chased a greased pig and ridden an uncooperative animal or two. Little did she see them as life skills, but the agility from such experiences came to her aid now, only this time she played the part of the greased pig.

When Laird Ross lifted his left arm to get a better hold, she swung on it like a trapeze bar and escaped to his side. Then, making the most of her momentum, she spun and pushed him face first on the bed.

He bounced once before flipping onto his back. Fortunately he stayed there, propped on his elbows. Apparently his laughter sapped all his strength.

Warily, Jilly shuffled backward, waiting for the next attack.

“I fear ye’re opposed to me claim, English,” he said, “but ye’d best get comfortable with it. I’ve set me mind, aye?” He waved a hand impatiently between them. “Just what is yer name, lass?  The word “English” does no’ sit lightly on me tongue.”

“Very funny, Mr. Ross.”

“Laird,” he growled.

“Oh, really?  Are you truly the laird of the Ross Clan, or do you just use the title for the tourists?”

Amazing how fast a man could cover a ten-foot distance. He had her back against the wall without even touching her.

“I dinna ken ‘tourists’, but I know an insult when I hear it.” His voice was deceptively quiet, and for the first time since meeting the man she believed him capable of violence.

Touchy subject. Got it.

But she was a bit touchy too. Had she no right to be?  Had she not gone through Hell, and all because of her name?  Her blood?

“Well, the old man can’t remember my name. Imagine that,” she jeered. In truth, he looked much younger than when they’d first met. She had guessed him to be nearing forty. Up close and personal, and in the light of day instead of the light of a flashlight, he looked maybe thirty.

A grudgingly given smile tugged up one corner of his mouth before he took the smallest step back.

“I’m sore pressed to remember meetin’ ye afore, English. So I beg ye take pity on yer elder and tell me.”

A chill ran up her spine, chasing the path of some imaginary, but very cold, fingers. Something wasn’t right. Her hand remembered the feel of a penny in the dark. Had she relocated to the nineties?  He did look awfully young. But then again, he knew Lorraine and Loretta, so maybe not.

“How long?” she choked out. “How long was I in there?”

Thankfully he did not pretend to not know what she was talking about.

“In the tomb, aye?  It will be sext, the nooning hour, in a wee while. I would say yer wailin’ began this same time yesterday. Only ye know how long ye were there afore ye cried out, “Away, away,” and ruined my perfectly fine weddin’.”

Yesterday. Good. It had seemed more like a week. To punish truly evil criminals they should lock them in a room with no light. Maybe she’d send an email to the senator when she got home.

Home. Even if her apartment were only full of boxes, the thought of the worn blue 1980’s carpet nearly made her cry with longing. Perhaps it was only because she’d decided not to go back. In the light of day, Wyoming didn’t look so bad.

“Laird Ross. Could you please take me back to the Muirs?  I’d like to go home. Better yet, call me a cab and I’ll fly home without them. No offense, but I’ve had enough of Scotland.”

“Acab?  Ye’re called Acab?”

“Funny. But seriously—”

“So ye are not called Acab?”

Jilly huffed out a breath of frustration, hopefully her last for the day. “Look. My name is Jillian Rose MacKay and I’d like to go home. I don’t want to try on any more necklaces or hear any more secrets or prophecies about the Ross Clan or anyone else.”

His eyes had grown bigger with every word out of her mouth so she thought she’d better stop talking before the things exploded. Maybe an apology would get her out of here.

“I don’t mean to be—”

“MacKay,” he whispered. But he’d pronounced it ‘McEye’.

“No. MacKay,” she corrected.

Once again he was in her face, but instead of bending to kiss her, he ran his fingers through her hair like it was made of tinsel. When he stopped that, he stared into her eyes for a moment and growled. The sound intensified as he leaped and slid to the window.

“Ewan!” he bellowed.

He then lunged to the door and picked up a broadsword like the one she’d seen on a bed of red velvet, under glass. Apparently, he played with the antiques when the tourists weren’t around.

When he turned to her with murder in his eyes, she huffed and gave him her best “oh, pulease” look before she stomped over to the bed and sat down. If she had to go through another dramatization before he let her go, he’d better make it quick. Maybe he’d also forgotten he’d given the same performance at the beginning of the tour, pretending to want her away from his castle before she brought the infamous curse on their poor Ross heads.

He sure didn’t act worried about being sued by an American he’d wrongfully detained. The Muirs were her only witnesses, and they sure wouldn’t speak up for her if they were in on the joke. Maybe she didn’t have the upper hand here after all.

I’d better just play along and get out of this asylum as fast as I can.

A heavy door slammed somewhere below and she and Laird Ross stared each other down as they listened to approaching footfalls. A moment later, through the crude bedroom doorway, strode a lone man who closed the warped wood panel behind him.

“Hello,” she sang cheerfully. “Can you two get on with it so I can get out of here?”

The man looked from her to Laird Ross, but didn’t say a word. He took in the other man’s stance and bravely moved in front of her.

This should be good.

“Ewan?”

“Aye, laird?”

“Take this one back to the hole. If she’s not inside when I return, she’ll be dead before she goes in this time.”

But Dear Lord, he’d said it all in Gaelic!  And what’s more, she understood!  Grandma, damn her, was right again.

The man he had called Ewan, bless him, didn’t even flinch. Poor acting.

“Back from whence, Monty?” he asked.

At least Ewan still spoke English for her.

“I’ll be huntin’ down those Muir sisters to put them inside as well. And do as I say, Ewan.” With an entirely too strong performance, he announced, “She’s a blasted MacKay.”

Laird Ross opened what posed as the door, but Jilly shot to her feet before he could disappear.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough of your little act at Castle Ross. I am getting out of here. You can tell the Muir sisters I didn’t want to play anymore.”

She got past Ewan easily enough, but when she tried to power her way around Quinn, he raised his sword between them. He really shouldn’t be swinging that thing around if the shine on the edge of the blade had anything to do with how sharp it was.

“Look. I hate to point this out, but technically, if you don’t let me leave, it’s ‘kidnapping’. I think that may even trump ‘breaking and entering’, so if you want to play this thing out in front of the authorities, I’ll take my chances.”

Ewan placed his hand on her arm. “Laird Ross is the highest authority here, lass, except for the king, of course.”

“Oh, of course. The King of Scotland, I presume. Not the Queen of England. Of course you can’t step out of character for a silly American, can you?” Jilly felt her blood rise to heat her face. “Just how do you think your tourists are going to like hearing that Isobelle Ross escaped her tomb with the help of her idiot brother?” She raised her chin to show she was serious about spilling their precious beans, then tried to look as mean as a Wyoming rancher on the subject of wolves let loose in Yellowstone. “And if you don’t let me out of here, right this second,” she growled in Gaelic herself, “the tabloids will be digging for Isobelle’s bones while the world watches on TV.”

Laird Ross smiled a most unpleasant smile. In fact, she’d handily succeeded in forcing him to break character. Ewan held tough, though. He even closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Method actor, she assumed. She’d heard there was an acting school in Scotland.

Jilly turned back to Mr. Ross.

“I suppose we have no choice, then, Jillian. Rose. MacKay.” He turned his sword and let the tip pierce the wood at his feet.

Good. It was about time he gave up and let her go.

She took one step only to come up against that chest once more. She would probably miss that chest. Looking up at his face, she bid goodbye to those wonderful lips, then waited for his parting remark.

“Ye’ve tied our hands, lass. We canna let ye go.”

And just that quickly she was once more an expendable movie character who threatened a murderer with no back up whatsoever. How stupid could she be?  Everyone who had seen even one horror film knew you shouldn’t go into the basement when the power went out, and you didn’t threaten to expose the bad guy unless you held all the cards.

Stephen King would have been so disappointed in her.

So stunned by her own stupidity and that this Ewan fellow would dare assault her, she only put up a token resistance as he dragged her by the wrist down flights of stairs and into the Great Hall.

When she saw the amazing transformation the room could not have undergone in just a day, she felt herself going into shock. Apparently, dealing with this new development was something she was not going to be able to put off until later. Ready or not...

Her arms turned to ice without her leather jacket and she considered asking if she could go back for it, but the only audible word escaping her mouth was, “Okay. Okay. Okay.”

Her head was light and her legs gave out, forcing Ewan to carry her over his shoulder. He was speaking to her in soothing tones, but she may as well have been underwater. Then, even upside down, she could not mistake the route he’d taken. The stone steps passed above her head like a medieval escalator.

Medieval Hall. Medieval stairs that had not yet smoothed with the passage of time and thousands of feet. A Scottish laird who had miraculously become younger in a matter of days. He wore no shirt. Wide cloth had been draped over his shoulder, slanted over his heart, and wrapped around his hips and bulging thighs. She’d seen a chiseled version of that navel, the large fists, his belt and sporran. She remembered the ties crisscrossing his calves over thick-looking socks...that must not be trusted to stay up on their own.

Below her hanging hair, Ewan’s own square-toed boots carried her deeper into the darkness—boots with the look of another century.

How obtuse could she have been?  The nightmare, it seemed, would continue.

But how had the sisters come along?

She saw but felt nothing when Ewan propped her in a corner of the workroom and moved beneath the hole to kick against the tree trunks that wedged against the rock plugging the stupid hole. She felt as if she’d dropped through it only moments before.

Ewan gave a great shove with his shoulder and the stone fell to the ground and broke.

“A shame, that,” Ewan said with a grin, but Jilly didn’t understand why. The only movement of which she was capable was shaking. Even her breath shook as she sucked it in and let it seep out. With her eyes she soaked up every bit of light from the torch set in the wall.

A memory to save for later.

Dear God, she was going to die. She was like a prop in someone’s sick little play, and she cursed the day she met the sisters. Would they die in the blackness with her, or would they already be dead and she’d be locked in the tomb with their bodies?

She dug deep for some strength so she might fight Ewan when he tried to get her into the tomb, preferring to die beforehand like Laird Whoever-he-was had promised she would. Whoever he was, was not the humble and kind Quinn Ross.

Another door slammed and she listened to the bastard’s footsteps making their way through the keep. She could feel that sharp blade coming with him.

Ewan turned toward the sounds as well. Perhaps he was content to let “Monty” do the deed.

That’s right!  He’d called him Monty!  Of course! It was no surprise now that he was the monster who’d broken the hearts of both his sisters. Monty had built the tomb with his own hands and buried Isobelle inside.

Never mind that he’d also gotten her out.

Still, it was this man’s fault Jilly had been sent here. If he would have just let Morna marry Ivar she’d be home now, oblivious of the horrible things people were capable of doing in the fifteenth century, never imagining that little old ladies had blood cold enough to lure a person into her own grave.

When Laird Monster swaggered into the passageway, Jilly’s tears of disillusionment flowed traitorously down both cheeks. Blinking through thick walls of salt water, she watched two women emerge from behind him. He must have tricked the sisters to come. Either that or she couldn’t clearly see their restraints.

Wearing pale gowns past their ankles, they picked their way around Ewan’s dusty mess in daintily slippered feet and bent over Jilly. Their bright blue eyes were familiar, but their hair was long and red, streaked sparingly with white. They didn’t look a day over fifty, and there were no ropes around their still-smooth wrists.

“Run,” Jilly managed to warn them in a whisper.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Montgomery Ross had not seen such a potent combination of tears and accusation since the day The Runt had dragged Morna from Isobelle’s quiet tomb. He’d weathered such tears before. He could weather these.

Could he no’?

The woman had needed a lesson in fright.

Had she no’?

Or had he allowed his temper to make a muck of things again?

Refusing to revisit other times when he may have been hasty in his distribution of punishment, he took a steadying breath. Then two more. Smoke and dust assaulted him. Oh, how he hated this place.

Did it matter this lass was a MacKay?  Did she deserve to suffer the fright he had forced upon her out of pride?  Granted, his foolishness a year before had put the honor of his clan in jeopardy, but he would guard that secret with his life. And his sons would guard it as well.

But would those sons have black straight hair and bright green eyes?

His dream came back to him and he stretched his mind to remember the way his wife had looked upon him. He glanced at the woman in the corner and could not imagine that look of fear ever changing to the adoration for which he longed.

The MacKay woman struggled to stand and with the aid of the sisters, she was able to do so, albeit against the wall. All blood had drained from her face, but she swallowed and raised her chin. Every time she blinked, fresh streams of tears raced down her cheeks to dribble onto her wee shift, but she’d no’ greet as she’d done the day before.

She thought he was here to kill her and yet she wouldna greet. She was a proud MacKay, as Ivar ever had been. He could run her through and she likely wouldn’t raise a hand to dissuade him.

He should cut his own tongue out for making her believe him capable of killing a woman. For his temper it was he who should be sealed inside the tomb with the secrets that were his duty to protect.

Gah! He was a monster.

“Get out,” he spat at the sisters who had been looking at him with disgust, as his own mother would have if she were alive.

The Muirs, too, were a proud lot. Either that or they thought they knew him better than to ever need flee from him. He’d heard the lass warn them to run, but as was always their way, the sisters chose to believe what they chose to believe. Too bad they chose to believe in Isobelle’s charmed torque, else he wouldn’t be needin’ to shoo them away from his home every other sennight.

“Keep a firm control on yer tongues, women, and Ewan can see ye home. If ye ever meddle in my affairs again, ye will be sent to the Gordons.”

“I beg to differ with ye, Laird Ross, but we’ve no’ had a hand in whate’er is afoot here.” The one to the right patted the lass’s cheek while she spoke. “We ken not this woman, so blame her for no sins o’ ours.”

How was it they could smile while they confessed to having sins?  They must make Father MacRae daft.

“Ah, but she kens the two of ye, do ye no’, lass?”

The MacKay woman frowned and caught herself before her legs gave out. Here they were, brayin’ on, while she awaited the bite of his blade.

“Get out. All o’ ye,” he roared, then didn’t wait for their footsteps to recede before he fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around the lass’s waist, both to hold her up and hold her close. His impression from his dream, that the woman was already his wife, would not leave him.

He pressed his ear against her middle and closed his eyes, demanding that the vision return. “Forgive me my tongue, lass. Forgive me. I’ll no harm ye, I swear it. Betimes I just go out of sorts with Isobelle’s nonsense. She’s a wicked lass, to be sure for startin’ this celtic knot.”

“Y...you’re not going to put me back in the tomb?”

“Nay. Never. I so swear. If I should break my oath, may God show me only misery for the rest of my days.”

Her next breaths were fair to steady.

“And you said Isobelle is a wicked lass,” she said.

“And she is.”

“You didn’t say Isobelle was a wicked lass.”

“Aye. Wherever she is, she’s up to the same. I know my sister well, ye ken?”

“Your sister.”

Her voice was sounding weak again. It was time to get her away from the hole and show the lass some light. She wanted for little more than light. And water. And air. An easy woman to please if ever he met one.

He picked her up and headed back out of the passageway. “Ye were in there. In the tomb. Ye ken Isobelle’s no’ inside, nor what would be left of her. Ye even said ye ken I helped her escape.”

She nodded, but her eyes were wide. Did she not believe she was safe enough with him?

“And who told ye my secret, lass?”

He wouldn’t have believed her eyes could open any wider, but they did. In case he was clutching her blue-clad legs and thinly clad torso too tightly, he relaxed his hold. Instead of being crushed to his chest, she had plenty of space to breathe.

It didn’t help.

She looked up at him with owl’s eyes, serious as the live long day.

“Ye won’t believe it.”

God’s blood, had she forgotten how to blink?

“Tell me, lass.” He needed to know the man who had the power to ruin his clan. “Jillian, who told the tale?”

She looked down at her belt while he carried her up the last of the steps, but her brows stayed high. She took a deep breath and puffed it out quickly.

“The same one who helped me into the tomb.”

So, he could silence a wagging tongue and kill the bastard who had buried alive his future wife, all in one swing of the blade.

“The same one who handed me Isobelle’s necklace.”

It was fortunate he had moved into the Great Hall, away from the stairway for his knees went weak as a sapling in springtime. The Almighty help him but he’d forgotten to ask about the damnable necklace. He’d sworn to his sister the thing would never be removed and now he hardly dared learn its fate.

“And where is the necklace now, Jillian?” he croaked.

“Oh, it’s still inside. In the dark.”

The Great Hall was also dark without the cooking fires and the windows shuttered, but he made his way to the Ross chair on the dais as if the stones beneath his feet had been worn to guide his steps. He collapsed in relief, holding his wee MacKay wench close to his heart.

It was safe—the necklace at least.

“And who was it put ye in there, sweet lass?”

She smiled and hunched her shoulders up around her ears in the oddest of expressions. Endearing, but odd nevertheless.

“It’s lucky you’re sitting down. His name is, or rather will be...Laird.” She cleared her throat. “Ross.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

For a moment, Jilly thought the man may just put her back in the hole after all. His head pulled back, his brows scrunched in confusion.

About time she had his attention.

A minute later, he nodded as if he had it all figured out, which more than likely meant he understood she must be out of her mind. Soon after, he frowned as if in pain.

Did it bother him so much that she was insane?  For a moment, she thought it was sweet, unless of course, he considered the proper treatment for insanity was to lock someone away in an unpadded, unlit stone cell.

“I am not insane,” she insisted, just in case she was right about the treatment. “Although this is going to sound pretty crazy. I’m here to help Ivar and Morna—”

His hand clamped gently over her mouth. He looked deep into her eyes and shook his head.

“Have a care, lass. We don’t talk of such things here.”

She lifted her chin, nudging his hand and it fell away.

“You don’t talk about Isobelle’s prophecy, or you don’t talk about the possibility of someone being insane?” Jilly whispered. His frown was nothing compared to the fire in his eyes and Jilly quickly picked up his hand and pushed it back against her mouth.

He moved his fingers over her lips for just a moment before removing his hand.

“Sweet lass. I’ll apologize again for frightening ye so badly, but that be the last. And I’ll allow time for ye to recover from yer fright. But come the morrow, ye’ll give me the mon’s name, whether he be dear to ye or no. Let him face me as a man.”

No one had ever dumped her on her rump and walked away before. It was the medieval equivalent of having someone hang up on her, and she was miffed she couldn’t call him back and hang up on him, or even knock him on his fanny in return. He had disappeared into one shadow or another and she was glad he hadn’t hung around to laugh.

Jilly scrambled to her feet, brushed the dust off her Lucky jeans—which she should never again refer to as lucky—and stalked off in search of her leather jacket. Castles, surprisingly enough, were cold even in the summer, and she couldn’t just pretend it was air conditioning.

She had tried that mind-over-matter trick far too often during the bitter winter months in Wyoming. It never worked. Leather, she had found, was the only sure thing. It had taken years of staking out the second-hand store in Cody to get her hands on one, and she wouldn’t give it up now, even if it would have had “witch” spray-painted across the back.

It suddenly occurred to Jilly that she didn’t actually know what season it was.

Dear Lord, she’d actually traveled through time. However, she was well aware of her mental stress levels. After watching her grandmother’s lucidity teeter around like a drunk on a rooftop, she recognized mental fatigue when she saw it, even if it was from the inside looking out. She was not strong enough to question time travel at the moment. In the last few days she’d been through enough trauma to justify years of therapy already, there was no sense adding more.

At least not until after she’d procured food, more sleep, and a day or two of staying alive.

She found some stairs that ascended, thank heavens, and started hiking. If it took some time to find the jacket, the exercise would at least warm her. The going, however, was slow. She had no idea fear could be so draining. If she could just get some food into her stomach, she was sure she would be able to stand and fight if necessary.

Please God, don’t let it be necessary.

As she passed a long slit window, the smell of roasting meat assailed her and she nearly vomited from hunger pangs. Once she located her precious possession, she would follow her nose and beg like a dog if need be, but she had to have some of that.

She’d gotten only a glimpse out the window this morning, just before that unforgettable kiss, and they had to have been standing at least on the third floor. Or perhaps it was the kiss that had made her feel so high.

Thankfully, with that bearing alone, she quickly found the room in which she’d awakened, slid into the softened brown leather, and was on her way. With hands braced on both sides of the narrow stairwell, her cowboy boots flew down the stairs in a blur of green toward the Great Hall doors, which would lead to her pre-cooked prey.

Jilly raised both palms to push the gigantic door open, but her flesh met flesh, not wood. And the flesh wouldn’t budge.

Laird Montgomery Ross, the honest to goodness laird of Clan Ross, in the Highlands of Scotland in the year fourteen hundred and ninety something, or so she believed, had barely beaten her to the door and now stood as yet another barrier between her and a very important meal. Reluctantly, she let her hands fall away from his chest.

Jilly did not behave well when hungry and unfortunately for him, she didn’t care if he thought her the biggest beyotch in the county. If they hadn’t recognized PMS in the fourteenth century, historians would look back on this day and say, “Ah, of course.”

“Move, you medieval oaf. There is food out there and if you don’t let me by you, I’ll eat your arm. Got it?”

He smiled, frowned, and smiled again, obviously having a difficult time playing the angry laird when being threatened by an “Englishwoman” whom he doubled in size. Standing that close to his full-faced grin, she couldn’t stay in character either.

She wanted him to believe Jilly MacKay was a harping shrew he should avoid at all costs. Really, she did. But his smile was brilliant; a masterpiece of white teeth, dimpled cheeks, and tiny creases shooting out from the side of his eyes like sunbeams. Laughter was no stranger to this face, which was surprising indeed since history would remember him as a sober, melancholy man.

What sad events were destined to change him?

Perhaps it was pity on her face that wiped his good humor away.

“I will bring ye food.”

“Good food?” she pressed. “Some of that meat they are cooking out there?”

He nodded, the kind of solemn nod that was some dramatic “do or die” promise. Was she supposed to tap him on the shoulder with a sword, or something?  She reached up and patted his massive pectoral muscle instead, which made them both uneasy. He could have been insulted at being treated as an appreciated puppy, but she couldn’t seem to stop. He was rock hard, as in, “someone-forgot-to-add-the-flesh-to-the-Stepford-Warrior-and-went-straight-to-paint” rock hard. And if she didn’t stop patting him, the paint would rub off.

Finally Jilly snatched her hand back and found him staring at her with a fire in his eyes that had nothing to do with his earlier fury.

“Is that all ye desire?” he asked, his voice low and raspy.

“I...I don’t know what you mean.” Indignant was not her strong suit. She was much better at grumpy.

“Food. Or did ye want to taste my arm before ye decide?”

Oh, she wanted to, all right. And he knew it, damn him.

“No, thank you. Just regular old food.” Oh, that could be dangerous. “Not old food, mind you. Just fresh—cooked food.”

He nodded again and watched her hand for a moment. Were men so easily trained?  He looked disappointed when she didn’t pat him again and she cleared her throat to cover her short laugh.

“Stay inside. No one can lay eyes upon ye. Ye’ve led them all to believe a ghost now inhabits the keep, and that is all they will know.” In a gentler voice he added, “When it is dark, I will walk with ye along the battlements, if ye wish.”

He leaned toward her and breathed deeply, like he was daring her to touch him, or to raise her face for a kiss, but she kept her gaze on his chest. The covered part. And just as she caved in and looked up, her stomach screeched for food.

Surely it was for food.

He smiled and pulled the door open, muttering something about air and light.

“And water,” she whispered loudly through the opening as it narrowed. Hopefully he had heard. Grandmother was always a stickler for hydrating and it sounded like something the woman would have suggested for the treatment of shock.

Jilly had just turned away when the door cracked open and Laird Ross whispered back, “I know.”

And Lord help her, she giggled.

What was wrong with her?  She felt like she had just met a cute boy at the mall, or made goo-goo eyes at a young man in the campus library and she was giddy with the prospects of seeing him again.

“Get a hold of yourself. He digs you out of an early grave, then threatens to bury you alive again—or kill you himself—and you forgive him because he has dimples?  Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Jilly eyed her would-be tomb and chose a perch in the shadows as far away from the structure as possible. She would be ready to pounce on her lunch as soon as it cleared the door.

Minutes wore on without so much as a mantle clock to tick them away.

“Back in time. I’ve gone back in time. He’ll never believe me.”

“I believe ye, lassie.”

Ewan emerged from the shadowed doorway and grabbed a long pole from the shadows. Looking up, he hooked a panel of wood and removed it from a high narrow window to hang it on a hook beside the opening. He did the same with the other three windows, then moved to stand in the warm sunlight.

With that kilt he could have been just another actor from the Castle Ross Tour, only his pleats were not so neat, nor was the wool, she suspected, lately laundered. His plaid had the look of a dog’s rumpled bed, comfortable only to the dog.

“He’s gone to get me some food,” she explained, poised on the edge of her stool, ready to run. Of course she had no reason to be nervous; this man had blithely carried her to her possible death not an hour ago, but he’d had no new instructions to do so again.

As far as she knew.

His head tilted to one side while he peered at her through narrowed eyelids, and she remembered what he’d said. He believed her.

“How long had you been listening?”

“Baah.” He waved a hand, indicating his eavesdropping was not important. “’T’is me job to watch the laird’s back, lass. And guard it from even the likes o’ ye. But what ye really wish to ken is if I heard ye spoutin’ madness. And I did.”

Oh, great. Why didn’t someone rummage around and find her a sturdy broom and a pointy hat?  If she were lucky, the firewood would be nice and dry, too.

“I was wondering if you knew the time,” she queried. It was worth a shot. “With all my traveling I seemed to have lost track.” Oh, brother.

“Ye’re the faery Isobelle told us would come, lass. I ken it. And what’s more, Monty...Laird Ross kens it as weel.”

It could be the lack of food, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out if he was trying to give her hope, or threatening her. How wonderful would it be if this golden, shaggy man were on her side?  Was the universe watching out for her after all?   It only needed testing.

“So, Ewan.” She thought a friendly manner best. “Do you always do whatever your laird tells you to?”

He looked none too pleased. Angry in fact.

“I’m no simpleton, lass. I’ll not be teased into disobeyin’ me laird. Ye’re not to go out of doors.”

“That’s not what I was asking.” Frank beat friendly any day. “I want to know if you go around murdering people for him and if you plan to murder me when his mood changes again.”

Ewan shook his mane. “He would never harm—”

“Leave him be, lass.”

It must take a lot of grease to make such a huge slab of wood open silently.

Laird Ross was well inside with the door closed before Jilly was caught red-handed trying to lead his troops to treason. She almost felt guilty enough to have forgotten about the food. Almost.

She flew to his side and surveyed the bounty he carried and she couldn’t help but smile at him in gratitude. She tried to take the platter away from him, but he held firm.

Please, God, don’t let him make me earn it.

“It’s not all for ye, aye?” he said and moved to the long table that ran parallel to the hearth she’d studied in another century. It had been a little more battered, but cleaner then. Today, whatever day that was, the fireplace was soot-blackened with a variety of empty hooks lurking in its layers of shadow.

Ewan dragged her abandoned stool, along with another, to plop down next to the table. Laird Ross took what looked to be a leg of a giant turkey and swaggered up to the throne chair. The golden one sat and indicated Jilly should do the same before inelegantly diving into the meat on the platter.

Had she not been so hungry, she would have laughed, and she fully intended to do so—after she stuffed her own face.

The meat was dark and moist. A bird of some sort. Large, too. Possibly a goose. A couple of Grandma’s rolls would have been lovely with it, and a couple extra to make sandwiches for later. She’d have to do without Miracle Whip; mayonnaise probably hadn’t even been invented yet. Better to just gorge while she could. Who knew how often those two ate?

Once she caught her breath she looked across at Ewan. He was eyeing her and the last large meat-covered bone on the plate. His greasy hands were twitching and every few breaths he’d suck in his bottom lip and release it with a smack.

Slowly, Jilly reached for the meat, then let her hand hover above it, fingers flexing. Ewan’s brows popped up, but he brought them down again when he realized she was watching.

“I’ll let you have it on one condition,” she whispered.

He answered with only a noncommittal scowl.

“You make sure I get another meal today.”

“Done,” he said, then grabbed, bit and chewed before her hand ever moved.

She laughed aloud when he paused long enough to give her a wink and a hairy grin, and when he sucked in his bottom lip this time, his whiskers even followed. She had thought it odd the way the man’s facial hair was a bit darker under his bottom lip. Now she knew why. It probably never had a chance to dry.

“Stop whisperin’,” commanded the other man.

Jilly turned to find the laird of Clan Ross holding the nearly clean leg bone like a scepter, and she couldn’t help but smile.

“My lord—er,laird—Montgomery.” She shook her head. “If you didn’t insist on sitting on your throne, you could play down here with the little people.”

She could have sworn his bottom lip had protruded from his five o’clock shadow, if only for an instant.

“They’ve taken the benches outside,” he explained. “There was nowhere else to sit.”

“And why were they taken outside?”

“Because just after my wedding was ruint, I ordered everyone out of the castle while we let our damned ghost wail herself dead again, is why.” He glared daggers at both her and Ewan.

What was his problem?  He thought they were whispering?  He couldn’t be jealous. Could he?  Or was he just looking for a little credit for not killing her?

What an ass.

“Forgive me, Laird Ross. I should be groveling at your feet, thanking you up and down for letting me live.” She hurried to kneel before his freaking throne. “Although, had you not lost your temper, I wouldn’t have been in danger.” She stood and put her hands on her hips.

She was on a roll. She’d never been on a roll before.

“I should be thanking you for bringing me food, but you wouldn’t have needed to if you wouldn’t have kept me from going outside.” She began to pace, barely noticing the gaping mouths of both men. “I’d thank you for letting me out of the tomb, but I wouldn’t have been in there if you hadn’t built it. If you hadn’t separated Ivar and Morna, I wouldn’t have needed to come fix your mistake—”

“Ewan, get out.” Montgomery Ross’s mouth wasn’t gaping any more. She’d say he was smiling, but it was more like a sneer.

Ewan looked like he was praying as he trotted to the big door and escaped.

She should thank him for the prayers...but he was probably praying he wouldn’t have a big mess to clean up after his laird was done with her.

She faced His Majesty.

“I’m sorry. I was just tired of being reminded how close I’ve come to dying. For just a little while, I’d like to forget where I am and how I got here.”

Montgomery looked at her for a moment, stroking whiskers that seemed to grow by the minute. His eyes were half closed, dreamy, and then the look was gone.

“I ken just how ye feel, lass.” He stood and followed Ewan’s footsteps to the door, where he paused and turned his head to the side. “I meant what I said. Stay indoors. Don’t be seen. Obey me or ye will be made to regret more than ye already do.”

He was gone before she could argue. Probably before she could get any further down the list of things he’d screwed up. Before she could rip his head off and spit in the hole.

He’d said something before. What was it?

Something about his wedding being ruined...someone in the tomb had ruined his wedding...

She had ruined his wedding!

Holy crap. She’d ruined his wedding. Where was the bride?  Was babysitting Jilly keeping him away from his honeymoon?  Had sparing her pissed off his wife?

At the thought of Montgomery being married, a pang went off in Jilly’s chest like a cannon’s boom. The idea seemed so incredibly wrong. Then she remembered; he’d never married, hadn’t they said?  No children. That’s why his cousin Ewan became laird here.

Was she to blame?  If she hadn’t come, would he have lived happily ever after?

It shouldn’t matter—at least she hadn’t messed with history—but it did. It mattered a great deal. From the moment she’d laid eyes on his statue, she’d wished he could have been happy. Now she was here, in his life, and if it was the second to last thing she did, she’d find him some happiness.

It was only fair, since the very last thing she would do was really going to piss him off.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Montgomery stomped for the outer bailey and as expected, Ewan fell into step beside him.

“Where do ye go, Monty?”

“Armory.” He noticed Ewan’s inspection of the grand blade in his hand. No doubt he was looking for traces of MacKay blood.

“Should we be leavin’ the lass alone, do ye suppose?” Ewan moved ahead of him and turned to watch his face while walking quickly backward.

Ewan was in dire need of being put in his place, and Montgomery was more than happy to see the duty done.

“The lass will no longer require watchin’, Cousin.”

Dinna smile. Dinna smile.

Ewan stopped dead, but Monty was prepared and walked smoothly around the suddenly pale man. A moment later, Ewan was at his side again, peering even closer at the blade.

“What do ye mean, Monty?  I don’t mean to question ye, but I do have questions, aye?” Ewan fell silent as they ducked, one after the other, under the eaves of the blacksmith’s roof.

Caught unawares, like a rabbit, the smithy’s son shivered in the corner, his wide eyes darting about for an escape. Monty’s gut clenched, not because this was the lad whose confession to a priest had led to Isobelle’s trial, but because the lad feared him so. He was sure others still considered him a monster, but were better at hiding their disdain.

“Yer name is Orie?” He tried to soften his voice a wee bit, but the boy would better appreciate being treated like a man. At least he would have at that age.

The boy’s shaking chin bobbed up and down. “Aye, laird.”

“Orie, I have a dull blade, can ye fetch me a good stone?”

“Aye, laird.” Orie straighted away from the wall and skirted around Ewan.

“And Orie?” Monty stopped the lad with a frown.

“Aye, laird?”

“Ye were not to blame for any of that business with me sisters. Do we understand one another?”

“Aye, laird,” was all he said, and Montgomery wondered if he had the right lad. Did the smithy have other sons?

A moment later, the smithy strode past his forge and over to his visitors. He was of a size with them both, his arms bulging through torn cloth, his face dark, not from the sun, but from the heat of a lifetime of stoking fires. Those same fires had left the man with white stubble for eyebrows and very little hair on his sweating head. Those sparse brows lowered as he looked over at the corner where Orie had stood a moment before, then back to Monty.

“What can I do fer ye, yer lairdship?”

“Orie is seeing to my needs, Ethan.”

Those eyebrows flew high, the eyes below began to moisten and shine like his forehead. The man stumbled and Monty put a staying hand on his shoulder. Perhaps he’d had the right son after all.

When everyone was standing unassisted once more, Orie returned with a sharpening stone the size of his own fist. Tears had cut a clean stream through the dirt that resided on the lad’s cheeks, but he didn’t greet, praise be.

“Thank ye, Orie.” He turned to the father. “Ethan.”

Cool fresh air filled his lungs as he made his way up the incline to the inner bailey. Beside him, Ewan was whistling, but that wasn’t right; his cousin was supposed to be worried about the MacKay wench.

“Didn’t ye have some questions, Ewan?”

“T’is a fact, I don’t, Monty.” Ewan’s steps were light as he matched Monty’s pace.

“But ye wanted to know, did ye not, why the lass no longer needs guarding?” Monty walked through the gates and slowed, veering to the left before stopping to rest a foot on a bench placed a small distance from the milling of tradesmen and women going about their business.

“I suppose I am wondering that, cousin.” Ewan dropped his arse carelessly next to Monty’s foot. He was taking all the fun out of it, damn him.

“T’is simple enough. The lass likes her food too much to risk being seen. She’ll stay out of sight.”

“Oh?  Aye, I suppose she does.”

Monty leaned his forearms across his bent knee and lowered his voice.

“But ye were worried for a moment, cousin, that I had slit her throat. Admit it.”

Ewan’s grin was unsettling.

“I freely admit it, Monty, darlin’. I thought yer infamous foul temper had been the death of her.” Ewan’s grin widened. “I didn’t wonder for long, though.” He turned and waved at a pair of women who were conspiring across the way.

Monty was forced to smile and wave as well, but he quickly turned his back before the women thought to join them.

“And why, pray tell, did ye not worry long?” He let his irritation with his cousin show in the fiercest scowl he could summon, little good it would do on the man who knew him best.

“The lad. Orie. Anyone who would care so much about a child’s worries is far too soft to kill a woman.” Ewan chuckled, then burst out laughing.

“Mayhap I would not be so soft if my weapon were sharper. So I will leave it to ye to see it remedied.” He shoved the hilt and stone in Ewan’s hands and turned to leave his cousin to his work, but he had nowhere he wished to go and stalked back to sit beside the other man.

Ewan’s chuckling subsided.

“Come now, Monty. I’m sorry I called ye soft.”

Monty’s hand batted away the apology.

“T’is not that, Ewan.”

“Then what?  The lad?  I daresay he and his father—”

“Not the boy, although I should have held out a hand to the lad long before now. He was taught to fear for his soul and it was but his soul he was mindin’ when he went to that priest. Had he gone to Father MacRae, I doubt any of it would have happened. MacRae would never have believed Isobelle bewitched, even if told about the necklace she forced Orie to help her create.”

Although he suspected his cousin of doing it a purpose, the man was likely going to dull his blade rather than sharpen it, so Monty took it away and wrested the stone from Ewan’s other hand. Perhaps they’d while away the entire day, him glaring at Ewan and Ewan grinning insolently back.

Sliding the rough stone along his favored dragonslayer always soothed him in the past. It was the reason he’d gone in search of a new stone to begin with.

“If not the boy, then it must be the woman who eats at ye so.”

“Aye,” he mumbled.

Swit. “I’ve been thinking on it, Ewan, and I’ve decided ye must marry.” Swit.

“Surely ye’re not so angry with me, laird, for callin’ ye soft.” Ewan had suddenly misplaced his grin.

Better.

“Dinna be daft. ‘Tis not punishment.” Swit. “After what has happened, I don’t believe any lass would dare marry me.”

Swit.

Swit.

No denial, then. Ewan must have come to the same conclusion.

Swit.

“There’s nothing for it, then.” Ewan shifted forward and put his elbows on his knees, then lowered his voice. “Ye’ll have to marry the MacKay wench.”

Sw—

“I cannot marry a daft woman.” Monty shook his head. “My bairns wouldn’t be right in the head.”

Swit.

“She’s no daft, Monty. She’s perfect.” Ewan’s hands rubbed together. “She kens the truth, that Isobelle’s ghostie did not chase away yer bride. ‘Tis certain she does not fear ye. Much.” Ewan frowned. “Well, often, at least. Wantin’ her is not a problem.”

“For me, or for ye?” Monty’s belly began filling with fire.

“Let’s say...for ye.” Ewan straightened and grinned again, damn him.

“Let’s say.”

“Aye.” Ewan’s grin broadened the more Monty damned him, even when it was done silently. “And I believe she prefers ye.”

“Prefers me?” The fire in Monty’s belly fizzled and his chest swelled. He suppressed a grin of his own. “Prefers me over ye, ye mean. She’s seen no one else, Ewan, and every lass would prefer me to a shaggy horse of a man like ye.”

“She steals a glance at ye every time ye’re lookin’ away, ye shaggy horse’s arse. Not that ye’re lookin’ away all that oft.”

A crowd was gathering twenty paces away, but their faces were all smiles, and it occurred to Monty that Ewan and he hadn’t tussled in over a year. Considering how his and his cousin’s voices had risen, it was no surprise his clan was anticipating some long overdue sport.

Ewan noticed them as well and his smile stretched far into the depths of his facial hair.

“Ewan, heed me. ’Tis for the good of the clan.” Swit. “I think ye should be laird.”

Swit.

Swit.

Swit.

“I see.” Ewan rubbed his chin. “Ye’re the daft one, then.”

Swit.

“Nay, my friend. The only one daft here is the lass.”

Swit.

“‘Tis not true, Monty.” Ewan eyed the blade, then frowned. “Ye aren’t trying to sharpen that blade to actually kill the lass, are ye?  Ye can’t do it. She’s as sane as we are. Perhaps more.”

Swit.

Swit.

“Montgomery Constantine Ross, I’ll not let ye do it!”

The clansmen laughed and leaned their heads together, likely making bets.

“I sharpen my blade because it wants sharpening.”

“And I tell ye this, Monty, because it wants telling and not because it will spur this fight along.” Ewan stood and rolled his shoulders. His voice lowered once more. “The lass, as ye well know, is not daft. Ye may as well marry her since ye can’t send her back where she came from, because we don’t ken where she came from, because she’s...Isobelle’s...faery!”

The word “faery” came out in a whoosh as Monty tackled his cousin’s middle, and hopefully none could have guessed what Ewan had meant to say. The next quarter of an hour was spent happily pummeling his lifelong opponent because of the truth; that Jillian Rose MacKay must be the one Isobelle had foreseen and she was indeed the only lass for him. But he hit Ewan a little harder for the tragedies his friend did not see; that he could not fall in love with a faery, for pity’s sake, or he would just relive the prior year’s heartache, losing her to a witch’s fire; and if she truly were this faery, that meant his sister really had been bewitched to have conjured her.

A sound blow to his left jaw necessitated he worry about such things at a later time.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jilly paced the cold bedchamber, trying to warm the parts of her anatomy not covered by her jacket. It seemed impossible, however, to chase away the chill of realization. She could well have been gasping her last breath if Montgomery Ross had stuck to his plan. In the dark it had been easier to convince herself it was only a nightmare; nightmares came with the hope of waking up. Fully cognizant now, rested and fed, she was horrified anew at how close she had come.

Taking a break from where she was and how she’d gotten there just wasn’t to be. She’d tried to sleep, but failed.

He’d saved her life. Her one and only life. She should be grateful—she was grateful. When she’d jumped out of the tomb and into his arms she’d shown him how grateful. And then she’d bawled like a lost calf.

She was in Laird Monster’s debt, and if he could name his repayment, would it be to stay out of his business, stay away from Romeo and Juliet?

She shook her head.

“Ivar and Morna. Ivar and Morna.” Not very romantic names, but their story was the same. The Muirs made it sound like Morna wasn’t searching for a way to be with Ivar, nor was he fighting for her. Either they had given up or they waited for Isobelle’s faery.

More like Isobelle’s chump.

We need you, Jillian dear, to accompany us to Scotland. There’s a place you’ve just got to see.

From now on, Jilly would equate the word ‘need’ with the word ‘chump’. If only she could train her ears to hear, “Jilly, dear, we chump you to patronize a couple of old mares and take them for one last trot around the corral. Only the corral is across the Atlantic.

“Yer complainin’ wastes my time,” her grandma’s voice echoed in her head.

Right, then. Time to suck it up. The job at hand was to reunite two people and, debt or no debt, she meant to get on with it. But she needed to find them first.

She was feeling more in control already, although she tried to ignore the fact that she was being a good girl and staying where Laird Monst...Montgomery wanted her.

But she owed him, right?  The least she could do was keep from complicating things by allowing her person to be seen, and possibly remembered...forever.

Jilly leaned against an inside wall and crossed her darling boots.

She followed his orders, not to be seen by Laird Ross’s people, but Jilly could not stifle the urge to observe. Since the castle was empty, she’d been offered a bit of free reign, no doubt as recompense for leaving her in the dark overnight. If it weren’t for her reluctance to mess with history, she’d probably be dancing on the front steps with her tongue sticking out. As for Monty’s idea of consequences, he already promised he’d never put her back in the tomb, but the threat of “no food” had her toeing the line.

She slipped a dark blue curtain off the bed pole and wrapped it over her head like a hood before peeking around the edge of the window. The stones of the outer wall made the sill quite deep and she doubted anyone could see her as she peered out of the shadows onto their sunny little world. How hard could life be with only survival to worry about?  Eat, cook, sleep. Eat, cook, sleep.

A long-haired child, no telling if it was a boy or girl, chased a chicken between a couple of women who stood chatting and nodding. The plaid-swathed kid was nearly clear of the two when one woman swung an arm out to knock him or her on the head. The child rubbed his offended noggin and ran on, not nearly as interested in who had abused him as he was in the chicken.

It took a village, Jilly supposed.

Another woman, her beauty visible even from a distance, walked by the two and was greeted amicably enough. When the lone woman had passed, however, they put their heads together and spoke close to each other’s ears. A large man joined them and they jumped apart before smiling up at none other than Ewan. With all that shaggy gold hair, it could be no other. Perhaps it was just the distance, but one of his eyes looked swollen.

Jilly was delighted to have recognized someone among the strangely clad inhabitants of Castle Ross. Those period costumes were a little brighter in color than she usually saw in the movies. And if she didn’t pay close attention, she would forget she was on the movie set, not watching a screen, and she would get busted if she didn’t stay off camera.

She had been watching for Montgomery, she realized, when her heart leapt at his appearance in the small plot of dirt visible to her.

He nodded at Ewan and the women, then hurried to catch up to the pretty one.

Jilly not only felt as if she’d been punched in the chest, she was frantic when the pair moved out of her line of sight. Was she the bride?  She’d looked a bit older than him.

Stepping back into the room, she approached the opposite side of the window and found them once again. Her chest felt no better when the woman struck a seductive pose, both hands on her hips with a bare shoulder raised in a shy gesture as she swung her elbows forward and back, occasionally rubbing one against Montgomery.

Flirting apparently was an ancient invention.

That idea led Jilly to some quick calculations, but even the thought of this woman actually being about five hundred and twenty-five compared to her, that still meant she was around 35, willing, and able to make Laird Ross’s day.

This Laird Ross could give his twenty-some-odd great-grand-nephew acting lessons. He had managed to get ahead of the woman and turn to face her, which meant he was also facing Jilly. Therefore it was easy to see every nuance of his little performance. He had a dark red shadow on his cheek.

His greeting had been cheerful, but quickly deflated. Now his brows were raised and his head tilted in a “woe is me” kind of pose. His chest rose and fell, his heavy sigh nearly audible. The beauty asked him something and he folded his arms protectively across himself before he nodded and answered. Like choreography, she stepped forward and put her hands on his arms in a gesture of pity, reaching up to gently touch his injury.

Oh, pulease.

“Poor wittow Montgomwy, weft at the altew. Did that nasty old ghost make you sad?” When his head nodded emphatically as if the woman had asked the same question, Jilly laughed.

Laird Ross’s head jerked up in the direction of her window and Jilly stepped back before their eyes could meet.

Her heart raced and she didn’t know if it was from winning his attention away from that woman, or if she was afraid of the consequences. After only a split second’s consideration, she knew it must be the former, because she didn’t feel the least bit contrite.

Dying to see what was happening outside, she raced out of the room and further down the hall until she found another room with a window. Breathing deeply, in through her nose and out her mouth, she quieted her gasps and inched toward the window, the blue bed hanging still over her head.

The couple was straight out from the embrasure so she had to stand on a chair further inside the room so she could watch them from the shadows of the low ceiling. The conversation continued, but Montgomery did not look pleased. Gone was his act of the victim. His hands were now on his hips, his frown turning up toward the first window every few minutes. His nods were curt, his attention clearly no longer on the woman before him.

Hah!

The woman, on the other hand, had assumed all Montgomery’s mannerisms. Her arms were wrapped around her ribs and her lower lip jutted forward while she spoke.

Baby talk, Jilly suspected. Nice. She bet Montgomery loved that.

When the latter moved to step around her, the woman looked over her shoulder toward the first window and screamed.

“Isobelle,” she cried, her voice cracking. “Caterwalling” is what Grandma would have called it. “Isobelle’s shade,” she wailed. “In the window.”

It was a fine excuse to throw herself in the laird’s arms, and the beauty took full advantage. If she heaved her bosom many more times against his chest, Jilly might need to look away.

The poor man, locked as he was in the hysterical woman’s embrace, could only frown back and forth between the woman’s head and the place “Isobelle’s shade” supposedly stood.

“Laird Ross, ye can’t be thinkin’ of goin’ back in there. Ye’ll have to stay out here with the rest o’ us.” The pretty woman said more, but she no longer played to the crowd; her head rested against her victim’s chest while she whispered little nothings up at him.

Clansmen’s eyes were still drawn to that other window, but when the woman had insisted the laird stay outside, most had laughed and turned away. Obviously familiar with her tactics, they seemed content to return to their business, but many crossed themselves as they did so.

To see Ewan’s reaction, Jilly moved once again to the right side of the window. He slapped both ladies on the backs, the trio enjoying a hearty, but quiet laugh at the pretty woman’s expense, no doubt, but Jilly could not find it in her heart to pity her. The only nervous glance Ewan spared was directed at his laird, not the window, before he turned his attention back to the others.

By the time Jilly could get back on the chair, the lone woman was walking away, her nose in the air, her hips rolling, and her feet stomping up dust in her wake.

“Good riddance.”

In the quiet of the empty keep, Jilly’s whisper echoed eerily and for a moment she felt as if she were a shade. The new rebel inside her demanded she jump onto the window sill and holler to prove she could not be ignored. The angel on her shoulder shuddered.

Laird Ross was nowhere to be found. Jilly hopped to the floor and searched both side views. Ewan was now glaring up at the first window, his companions gone.

A heavy door slammed.

“Crap.”

Jilly looked around for a place to hide, but there was only a small bed, quite low to the floor, and the chair. If there had been a wardrobe, or a large trunk, Jilly wouldn’t have hidden inside anyway. Dark enclosed spaces had seen the last of her.

Quick heavy steps sounded from the echoing stairwell and Jilly giggled. What else could she do, really?  She felt as she had as a child, playing hide and seek at the farm down the road, on the verge of being discovered. Her lungs were incapable of taking in any more air, her excitement making it impossible to let any out.

She hurried to sit with her back against the wall with the bed between herself and the door. The blue curtain she wadded into a ball and clutched it to her chest to stifle the urge to laugh—or scream. Her concentration was split between shallow little breaths and the sounds of the hunter.

Indistinct curses mixed with the hard “thunk” of furniture being slammed about. She did make out the name MacKay, or Mac-Eye, at least, and she was insane to wish him to come looking for her, but Lord help her, she did. Never mind that his mood had turned murderous again.

In spite of the fact he had vowed he would not harm her, she still shivered when he began closing the distance down the hall. Her heart stopped when he detoured into the small windowless chamber first. The organ leapt to life once again when he came out.

It was too much.

When he stepped into the room, his head whipping around to pin her to the wall with his glare, she whimpered. It was the kind of whimper one made when being tickled unmercifully...right before one breaks out in unashamed laughter.

Which Jillian did.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Montgomery was quite impressed with himself. His first two steps were gigantic, the third, silent as he planted it in the middle of the bed. His fourth step landed in front of the MacKay woman as three hands covered her mouth—two of hers with one of his on top. Hopefully he’d reached her in time, before her daft laughter could be heard from out of doors.

He allowed the full force of his wrath shine from his face as he bent over to cower the woman into silence...

And she laughed harder.

Tears streamed onto her fingers from her crinkled green eyes and she shrugged her shoulders. When he noticed the wad of blue cloth in her lap, he squatted, grabbed it, and pushed it against her mouth, careful lest he break her lovely white teeth. She welcomed it, clutching it tightly against her renewed guffaws. Thankfully, the cloth muffled the noise, but it was as if a cloud had covered the sun. Such laughter had not been heard in his home for some time, since his sisters would squeal in similar fits of silliness, and he wished it could have gone on a wee bit longer.

Now she was shaking her head, holding up a finger. He’d no idea what she’d meant by the gesture, but it was likely not favorable. He thought to frown at her again, but he wouldn’t want to renew her fit.

The woman was daft as the day was long, and The Ross could never marry a woman who was infirm in mind, faery or no. It had been only chance that he’d dreamed of a woman like her. She was, after all, of the coloring he preferred, and he’d dreamed of a similar looking woman before. Until this day, he’d not remembered the MacKays had such straight black hair, nor bright green eyes. He’d been blind to the fact Ivar MacKay had those same traits.

“It’s not my fault.” She wiped her mouth with the rag.

“What is not yer fault, MacKay?”

She blanched at hearing her surname. Odd. Did the MacKays have something to do with her being here?  Perhaps she wasn’t a faery after all, but a pawn in a game Ivar wished to play.

“Can’t you just call me Jilly?” she whined.

“Does MacKay remind ye who sent ye here, then?”

She frowned now. Good, then. Frowning was a silent way to pass the time.

“No, it does not,” she growled. “It’s just that you say it wrong. It’s MacKaaaay. Not Mack-eye.”

“I doubt me The MacKay would like it pronounced so, mavournin’.” May it please God she didn’t recognize the endearment. With the mixture of Gaelic and English they used to communicate, who knew how broad her vocabulary.

“What does mavournin’ mean?” she asked softly. God’s blood, he could melt right off his own bones if she continued to talk to him thusly. When the widow, Sorcha Murray, used that breathy whisper, and especially when she used such an endearment, she wanted something. Perhaps this lass was the same, but he hoped not. He rather liked the way she said just what she thought, even if she had to put her hand over her own mouth to stop the words coming.

“It is a name for one who vexes another. Ye vex me, mavournin’, like no other.” The taunt brought back the frown. A most charming frown, like she was a child imitating someone older.

“Well, mavournin’, right back atcha.”

“Atcha?  What is ‘atcha’?” He’d had no idea Ivar MacKay had English relatives, and her language sounded odder each time she spoke. But heaven forbid she should speak Gaelic all the time. He was surprised his ears hadn’t bled.

Perhaps she felt the same about his English. Admittedly it had been a long time since he’d first learned the language. Perhaps he should keep her around a wee while to renew his fluency.

“Right back at you. You vex me. That smile vexes me. Your frown vexes—”

He kissed her quiet. He didn’t want her spouting about how he vexed her; he wanted to hear her call him “mavournin’” again. There was so much he wished to convey to her in that brief embrace, but he pulled back. He was pleased her eyes were closed so she would not see how heartbroken he was she would never be his. That he’d never have a daughter that looked so, even if she got into misdeeds as her mother did.

If she were neither daft, nor a faery, he still could not marry a MacKay. Their children would always be suspected of witchcraft thanks to his sister’s damned prophecy.

“And your kisses vex me,” she finished, though her voice was weak enough to lend doubt to her words.

He stood and held out a hand to her and as he pulled her to her feet, he remembered how this tipsy-turvy conversation had begun.

“What is not yer fault, Jillian?” God’s teeth, he hoped she hadn’t noticed the way he’d said her name.

Her eyes widened. She’d noticed, then. He’d need to stop that if he were ever going to allow her to leave. Untouched. And what other way could an honorable Scot send an Englishwoman home?  At least he hoped she was English.

The two of them cleared their throats in unison. When their eyes met, they both laughed. The cloud was gone. The sun shone. And all from the laughter of an Englishwoman. Maybe it was he who had gone daft.

“Haud yer wheesht, lass. I’ll not have Widow Murray coming in here to rescue me from Isobelle’s ghostie.” Hell, would he never be able to finish his thoughts?  “Which reminds me, lass. Ye vowed ye’d not be seen. Is it because ye’re a MacKay and I a Ross that ye feel no sin in breakin’ a vow given to me?”

Jillian’s hands flew to her hips and she fairly snorted like a bull. Utterly charming. Never he mind. He could easily stay here and blether with her all day.

“I did not break my stupid vow. Widow Whats-her-name didn’t see a thing. I was at this window when she screamed. She made it up. If you hadn’t been frowning up at the other window, she would have never thought...” Her mouth opened and closed twice before finally snapping shut.

“She would have never thought...?”

At least the woman had sense enough to hang her head in shame.

“If I wouldn’t have laughed, you wouldn’t have been frowning at any window. It was my fault.” She looked up into his eyes. “I’m very sorry if I caused problems for you.”

There was something wrong here. It sounded like her heart was breaking. Her white teeth worried her bottom lip. She’d broken no vow. She’d not been seen. What did she fear?

Then it dawned on him and he laughed.

“Ye won’t be missing yer supper, Jillian. Not today.”

She straightened her shoulders and grinned.

“Good.” She sighed. “I’m starving.”

#  #  #

Something was amiss and Montgomery couldn’t put a point on it.

He and Ewan had moved his Ross chair down to the floor and placed it at the head of the table. His friend sat to his left and the MacKay woman to his right, eating as if they were in a race. He’d never noticed a woman eating so much, but then he’d supped with few, and none at all since his sisters had gone.

If he would have allowed the hounds inside, Montgomery was sure their hackles would be up, so strong was the smell of danger. If Ewan would emerge from his trencher for but a breath of air, he would sense it as well.

“Would the two of ye stop yer swillin’?” He had spoken quietly, but there was no mistaking the edge in his voice. She’d probably cry at him.

She laughed.

“Sorry. I guess I was being rather piggish. It’s much better than I thought it would be.” She took a long swallow of ale, wiped her mouth with something from her pocket, and gave him her full attention.

He’d think about that combination of praise and insult later. Right now, his senses were screaming.

“Ewan. I’ve a feeling.”

Ewan looked about him, alert. His eating knife spun in his hand to be gripped as a weapon.

“You have a feeling?  A bad feeling?” whispered Jillian.

At least she was not laughing now. In fact, she looked not to doubt him at all.

“Move behind me chair, mavournin’.”

Ewan jumped a bit at hearing the endearment. Damn. Of course his friend would catch that.

Ewan glanced between him and the woman. “Just who are ye callin’ mavournin’, Monty dear?”

Montgomery leaned forward and glared his order for Ewan to hold his tongue. “The lass who vexes me, of course.”

Ewan smiled, damn him.

“She vexes me some as weel,” his friend confessed.

Montgomery was going to kill him.

“I’m sure ye’re mistaken,” he countered, then prayed the woman was daft after all. If she were, the fact he was talking through clenched teeth would mean nothing.

“You’re both morons,” she muttered as she walked behind his chair. He felt better already. Perhaps it had been the fact her back had been toward the open window.

An arrow shattered against the wall behind and to the side of Ewan. Only after seeing the debris did Monty remember the whirring noise that had preceded the hit. If Jillian had still been in her seat, she would have been struck.

The blazing fire made them clear targets for whomever hunted them from the outer wall. It was the only place high enough, unless someone foolishly volleyed an arrow up through the window from the bailey below, uncaring of whom he might kill. It was no secret Montgomery and Ewan were the only ones inside the keep, and anyone who wanted one dead would not care if the other were killed as well. Clansmen shared enemies as surely as allies.

Also, the arrow had struck hard enough to shatter. A straight skilled shot through a narrow window, then.

As skilled as Ivar MacKay.

Montgomery did not intentionally leave his seat, but found himself running about by instinct alone. He hoisted the table onto its side and slid it close to the hearth, effectively blocking most of the bright light. Next, he and Ewan grabbed poles and hung the wooden shutters over the high windows from whence the attack had come. Ewan ran out the back of the hall, to sound the alarm, but Monty remained with Jillian.

God’s blood, if she’d been killed there really would have been a ghost to haunt his hall. Although her death would have saddened him, he had no doubt Jillian Rose MacKay would never rest her tongue, dead or alive. What a sad way to keep her by his side.

And when had that silly notion become a desire?  He’d known her one and one half days. No time at all. He’d known his Gordon Bride much longer, and yet he could not say the color of her eyes. They had definitely not been bright green, with a small yellow ring around the center. Hell, he couldn’t even remember the other one’s name. Edith?  Erma?

And the Gordon woman had not been plotting against him. Or had she?  Had Jillian been sent by the Gordons to ruin his wedding?  Granted, The Cock of the North was pleased enough to have a stronger alliance with Clan Ross. After all, it didn’t look as if their bloods would be mixing through Morna and The Runt. They’d been married over a year and either the small man was unable to do the job, or Morna never ceased her crying long enough for him to do it. With the marriage of The Ross and The Gordon’s daughter, a comely enough maid, there would have been surer success.

The woman herself had smiled brightly enough at him when they’d met two days before the wedding. Surely she had nothing to do with putting Jillian in the tomb.

There was one, however, who would spill blood, or entomb an innocent, even a clanswoman, in order to keep The Rosses from gaining a better standing with the mighty Gordons. The man who had enough cause was the man Montgomery no longer recognized as the friend of his youth.

Ivar MacKay.

If Ivar had sealed Jillian in the tomb, he would die for it.

The table was heavy, but now that the windows were covered, he moved it away from the hearth to grant more light into the hall. A spark had settled on the massive top and he dowsed it with water. He had watched his da and grandda build that table. It would not see its destruction in his lifetime. Or the lifetime of his sons, he reckoned.

And they would not be Jillian’s sons if her mind wasn’t sound. The woman was kneeling beside the wall using one shard of the arrow to push the other pieces round.

“It cannot be fixed, lass.”

She huffed. Exasperation came easily to this one.

“Of course it can’t be fixed, you mavournin’,” she said, rolling her eyes and sitting back on her feet.

His heart leapt at the near endearment.

“It’s just mavournin’, Jillian. A name, not a thing.”

“Oh.” She didn’t say it again, but leaned forward to resume her poking at the floor. He was sorely disappointed.

“What do ye, there?” He pulled up Ewan’s overturned stool and sat near her. If he had to vex her further to hear it, he would happily do so.

“Looking for markings. So you can identify the shooter.”

The shooter?  “Ye mean the archer?”

She looked up and grinned, then drew out an “aye” worthy of any Scot.

He laughed, but stopped abruptly when she held up the arrow’s point. Only Ivar made such points. Like a miniature Scottish weapon, the sides had wee blood channels in them.

Blood channels.

When they were boys, Ivar had been obsessed, making sure his every weapon bore the famous Scottish device. His friend had ever been one to spout on and on about loyalty to king and country. Too bad he hadn’t always proved to be so loyal.

The familiar burning began in Montgomery’s belly. He would not relive the sins of a year before. Had he not suffered enough?  His two sisters were torn from his life. His clan was now the subject of a curse. Safer, since the alliance with the Gordons, but with a wee complication of his sister being found a witch.

And it was such a wee curse. What did it matter if the MacKays and Rosses were afraid to mix their blood?  Any woman was as good as the next. The Rosses would just have to hunt for brides from clans along their other borders. Friends could be replaced just as easily.

“Enough.” He bellowed to his busy mind, only to find the word echoing about the high-beamed ceiling.

Someone pounded on the great outer door. “Laird Ross,” a man’s voice cut through the thick wood.

Then a woman’s voice. “Laird Ross, are ye dead, then?” she demanded, followed by more pounding.

Thank The Lord he’d thought to lower the bar.

“Lass. Jillian. Hide ye in the stairwell. Quick now,” he added firmly when she raised her chin. “Do ye want to hang...or burn?”

That moved her trews-covered arse.

Stalling for as long as he could, he made his way over to the great wood portal then lifted the heavy cross beam. The door flew open, but he caught it and stepped forward, pushing his would-be rescuers back out into the evening air. Joining them on the steps, he pulled the door closed behind him.

“I’m not dead, Widow Murray. An assassin lurks among us, and ye all choose to stand up here and give him a fair target?”

“He’s only after ye, Laird, do ye no’ think?” asked a soldier with a faultering voice. “Perhaps we should go inside, to be sure.”

“I ordered everyone from the keep for a fortnight, and a fortnight it’ll be.”

“Monty!” Ewan shouted from the wall. “He’s torn his plaid gettin’ away.” He paused, as did every ear, waiting to hear the colors. “It’s a MacKay.”

A sad silence dropped like a blanket in the gloaming, as if a child had died.

“You there,” Montgomery told the soldier. “Saddle my horse and a dozen others.”

Ewan’s voice crying, “MacKay” had turned the fire in his belly into iron, and a lucky thing, too.

He’d need to be cold and hard if he were to kill his old friend.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

They found them on the border.

Between MacKay and Ross lands ran a burn, slow and sure. It was named The MacKay-Ross burn, or The Ross-MacKay burn, depending upon which side of the burn one happened to be standing while discussing it. If a fight landed both parties in the creek, then it was just The Burn.

The Burn is where Monty and Ivar had met now and again when they both were able to sneak away from training, chores, and interested eyes. In the treed shelter they’d hidden from large cousins and even larger lassies. Many a time they’d stayed the night through to prove to each other how truly fearless they were, and on nights they did not prove so brave, they would run together from the banshee to a cottage nearby or barn in which to hide.

Later, they wooed their first women to this place. The Burn. And later still, Monty had found Ivar there with Morna.

Aye. That first lapse in loyalty had not come from a Ross, but from a MacKay.

Monty looked down upon the dark head of his enemy and marveled that the man could sit so at ease with his men and his conscience. Had he not anticipated being followed after failing to do the foul deed?  That The Ross was able to crawl up into the tree above showed how Ivar MacKay had let his reiving skills dull.

“Disgraceful,” Monty said in full voice.

The four MacKays all leapt to their feet, but not one unsheathed a weapon.

Ewan walked casually in from the MacKay-side trees, braced his feet for battle while his arms hung deceptively at his sides, but only a whisper away from a dagger at his hip and a skean dhu at his knee.

“Monty. Ye’ve come.” Ivar laughed as if he had no suspicion that he may be hanging from that same tree in but a moment or two.

The hangman dropped from the tree, landing but two paces from the condemned, and before any could react, the latter hugged the former to him and pounded his old friend on the back.

“Thank God. Or thank Isobelle, I should say.” Ivar stepped back, grinning and looking about. “Where is she, old man?  Where is Morna?”

Montgomery had never suffered a loss of speech before then, but he’d be damned if he could guess what the other man was thinking.

“Monty, where is Morna?” Ivar’s smile had faded and he now looked about the clearing, noting the number of Ross men now circling the camp. “I don’t understand.” His face and his voice fell. “The prophecy, man. Is it not time?”

Montgomery’s head ached. While he rode toward The Burn he had played out Ivar’s death in various ways; the only thing left to decide was in which manner the MacKay man would die, how much he would suffer. If the whole of the MacKay clan had been waiting on the rise it would not have surprised him more than finding the man lounging beneath a tree waiting for a faery to bring Morna back to him.

The man was daft...as were many folks these days. Surely it was not Montgomery whose mind rattled about in his head, although the whole of Scotland believed it was so.

“Where is Luthias?” Montgomery asked, finally noting Ivar’s shadow was not among this lot.

“He has no patience for sitting about, hoping for miracles.” Ivar’s voice had completely lost the joy of those first few words. “And where is Ossian?”

Was there suspicion there?  Perhaps not. It was a natural question to follow his own.

“Dead.”

Ivar’s eyes stretched wide for a moment, searching his face. Surely he saw nothing.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” the man said. “I was not told.”

Montgomery’s stomach pitched. Of course Ivar was sincere in his regret. Until only a year ago, the five of them spent much time together; Luthias dogging Ivar, Ewan and Ossian shadowing himself. As the future Laird of his clan, he had need of two protectors. As the third in line for the MacKay lairdship, Ivar needed no such special treatment. The sure start to a good fight had always been for one to say the other was weaker, or himself more important. His knuckles itched now for such a scratching.

“Have ye replaced the man with this dozen, then?  Are ye so afraid for yer health?”

Oh, his knuckles would be satisfied, and soon, but he wanted answers first. Either Ivar was taunting him into fulfilling the purpose for his visit, or the knuckles on the other man itched as well. The forced smile on the MacKay’s face told him the man was merely frustrated that his miracle had not come to pass and he wished for Montgomery to join him in his misery.

“Are ye growing soft, as well as frightened, Monty?”

It was the familiar name that slapped him. Ewan was the only one who called him Monty now.

“Leave us. All of ye,” he barked.

The MacKays never moved until Ivar nodded. At least all training had not been forgotten by his enemy.

When even Ewan and his lads had departed, Montgomery stepped forward and gripped Ivar’s shoulders, forcing his former friend to look in his eyes.

“Tell me ye had no hand in sealing the woman in the tomb,” he demanded.

Ivar frowned, then his brows rose.

“Morna,” he choked out, clutching Montgomery’s forearms before his knees gave way. Montgomery’s grasp kept the man upright. “Is she—”

“Nay. Not Morna. The MacKay woman. Did ye have no hand in it, then?  Ye did not send Jillian MacKay to stop my wedding?”

“I did not. The Jillian I ken is only five or six summers. Someone sealed her in a tomb?  Isobelle’s tomb?”

Montgomery nodded, satisfied the man had never used Jillian so, but disappointed she was no kin of Ivar’s. The other two alternatives left him sick.

His enemy waited for more.

“Truth to tell, this Jillian is a woman grown, not a bairn. I have yet to find her family, or discover if she is who she claims to be.”

“Have ye considered the Gordon bastards?”

“Aye, I have.”

A moment later, they were sitting on the MacKay side of The Burn as they had for years; Ivar on the ground with his back against a giant felled tree and Montgomery on a large grey boulder with a seat naturally hollowed out, as if by an ancient puddle of water. But now the boulder looked half the size it had when they had first discovered it, and the noble trunk was rotting in pockets of crumbled rusty bark.

Montgomery pushed aside the pain of the last year, and its sources, to enjoy the familiar feeling of not being alone in the world, to remember what it was like before women and responsibilities changed the size and significance of things. For just a wee while, he was Monty, sitting with Ivar, hiding from the world and planning its conquest. They were going to rise together against The Cock o’ the North and show The Gordon their bare backsides.

No one could take away knowledge, however, and pretending the last year had never happened was a game Monty was too old to accomplish.

“Tell me about the weddin’.” Ivar tossed a pebble over his shoulder and smiled when it made a splash.

Monty shot Ivar a frown. The man held up his hands.

“Aye, everyone has heard. But I’d like to know what really happened. By the time the tale reached my ears, Isobelle had come back, the faery from the prophecy was well on her way, and they only waited for ye to come and fetch me.”

“Ah, so that is why ye were here. Waitin’ for me to take ye to a faery and bring about a war with the Gordons.”

“I kenned not what to think, but I was going to be here on the chance I might have my reason to live given back to me. And I was not about to cross the MacKay/Ross Burn and give ye leave to run me through.”

“Speakin’ of runnin’ a mon through, and blood channels—”

“Were we speakin’ o’ blood channels, then?”

“Aye. ‘Tis why I’ve come. I mean to see ye hang for yer attempted murder o’ the MacKay lass.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jilly had not hidden in the tunnel as she’d been instructed, but had slipped into the shadowed space between the tomb and the back wall. If the hall filled with people, there was little chance of her being seen if she stayed quiet. And even if Medieval Montgomery didn’t like her interpretation of his order, he should be grateful she’d hidden at all.

He’d used that nonsense about burning her to gain her cooperation, that’s all. They only burned witches, didn’t they?

Hope flashed.

He already believed she was from another time, or a fairy. Why else would he worry she might be hung as a witch?  And hadn’t Ewan told her he and the laird already believed her?

“We don’t discuss such things here,” he’d said.

Bullcrap. He didn’t want to admit such things here.

Neither had she, back in the states, when the Muirs had told their romantic tale. It didn’t seem like hundreds of years away, but it felt like a modest lifetime.

No. Montgomery Ross was pretending he didn’t believe her, but why?

While Jilly racked her brain for possibilities, she was content to remain in her small space, with escape available to either side, or above her. Although The Ross had gone outside and left the hall empty, she’d take no chances. Besides, she wanted to show him she had obeyed, albeit to a point.

Jilly had just determined to confront Montgomery to discover the reason for his pretense, when the great door opened and quickly closed. She was about to call out when the shuffle of far more delicate feet than Montgomery’s or Ewan’s padded through the hall.

Who would chance being caught disobeying the laird?  Well, besides her, of course.

“Isobelle?” a woman called, tentatively. “Are ye here, Isobelle?”

Jilly smiled. Widow Murray was a fifteenth century shade sniffer.

As quiet as a mouse, one tiny movement at a time, Jillian began climbing the back of the tomb. She just had to see what the woman was going to do next, and who knew when she’d have a real life opportunity to use her rock climbing talents.

“Isobelle,” the widow began again, her voice bouncing eerily around the nearly empty cavern, “I wanted to thank ye for chasin’ away the Gordon woman.”

Bless you, Grandma, for the Gaelic lessons.

Movement off to her right side had Jillian freeze as she was reaching for her next handhold. The widow’s voice had sounded as before, like the woman had stopped mid-hall in all likelihood to keep warm in front of the hearth. If there was someone at this end of the hall, it was someone else.

With the top of the tomb but a foot from reach, Jilly scrambled as quickly as possible to get out of sight. Blood rushing in her ears made it impossible to say how much noise she had made, but the lack of reaction from the widow was reassuring.

The roof of the tomb was a solid slab of stone, into the center of which Jilly crawled and flattened herself as much as she could. As she pulled her leg away from the edge, the slightest shifting of air raised goose bumps on her calf.

Someone had slipped behind the tomb. Jilly could feel them there. It was Ewan. Lord, let it be Ewan.

“Ye’ve done yer work well, Isobelle.” The widow was apparently not finished. If she was looking for some kind of contact, Jilly was tempted to oblige her, but Ewan would rat on her if she gave the older woman a heart attack. “No lass, from any clan, will want to fight the likes o’ ye. But now,” the woman continued, “if ye’d be kind enough to move along, I’d like to have Montgomery back. He willna come to me as long as he believes ye’re here. He’s said as much.”

“Nay yers,” came a whisper from the high ceiling.

Holy crap.

Isobelle really was here.

“Nay yers,” the same voice whispered before the first echo had died, only this time from the right end of the tomb. “He’s nay yers,” it said, now more viciously from the left end. “Montgomery Ross belongs to a MacKay or to none at all.”

The last was sung clearly from the ceiling, followed by overlapping cackling from all directions. And just as Jilly was about to leap from the tomb and race Widow Murray to the door, her leg was anchored to the rock lid by a firm bony hand. Her scream mingled with the widow’s and every stone of the castle rang like a bell.

The great door was left ajar for only a minute, and while Jilly struggled to free her leg, the wood slammed shut of its own accord.

The cackling continued, in a less menacing tone, but still in stereo.

“Ye nearly had me wetting meself, dearie,” complained the ghost who still held Jilly’s leg. The hearth fire was dying from lack of attention and it was impossible for Jilly to see any form in the shadows behind her.

Suddenly the hand released her, patted her calf then disappeared. Light flared and Jilly looked back to the hearth where a woman with graying red hair stirred it to life. Though the blue-clad woman struggled to keep her lips shut, she was still laughing. A second version of the same woman came into view from the end of the tomb and joined the first at the fire. When their gazes met, they both bent in half, laughing themselves silly.

Muirs.

Jillian had the distinct urge to run for her life.

“Come down, lass,” one of them called to her. “No need to hide from the likes o’ us.”

Unwilling to turn her back on the two, Jilly crawled to the right end and shimmied down the rock in half-light, dividing her attention between her grip and the odd sisters. With every inch closer to them, Jilly’s anger grew.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’d been here?” she demanded, glancing at hands so she could nail them with their names. There were no veins visible to give her any hints, however. Too young, she supposed. The poker reminding her of a certain crow bar and she took a guess. “Loretta, you could have given me a heart attack.”

The other one turned sharply to Jilly.

“She’s not Loretta, dearie.”

“Lorraine, then.”

“Neither is she Lorraine, lass,” her calf-attacker claimed. “But we’d like to ken who Loretta and Lorraine are.”

Dear Lord. More Muirs.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“I’ve no’ been across The Burn. I swear it.”

In days gone by, Montgomery would have believed Ivar without thought, without doubt. Not now.

“The assassin’s plaid was torn when he escaped.” He tossed the wee strip of MacKay plaid at Ivar’s feet.

“My plaid is whole.”

“Easily changed.”

“True.”

He eyed the MacKay man from head to foot. His clothing did not look freshly donned.

“And I suppose ye have a dozen arrows in yer quill?”

“I do.”

Ivar, ever perfect where his weapons were concerned, always kept an even dozen arrows to hand. As he used them he would count, therefore always knowing how many enemies he could still fell before needing to change weapons.

Understanding the seriousness of this meeting now, his former friend sat still while Montgomery fetched the weapons in question. He could feel Ivar’s eyes on his back as he walked away, but the man would not attack. If he were still hopeful the prophecy would come to pass, he would need The Ross’s permission to get to Morna, and as long as he breathed, Montgomery would never allow the man to cross The Burn and live.

He returned to the rock with the quiver in hand, then sat and took the arrows out, two at a time. After the fifth pair was laid across his lap, there was but a lone arrow remaining and it was hard to tell which of them was the more surprised.

If Ivar truly held faith in Isobelle’s prophecy, would he have tried to kill the woman who might bring it to pass?

“I swear—”

“Save yer oaths, MacKay,” he barked.

Thankfully the man held his wheesht so he could think. If not Jillian, then had Ivar tried to kill him?  The pain of that possible betrayal must have shown on his face, for Ivar reached out and put a hand upon Montgomery’s knee.

“Monty. I would as soon kill myself as I would ye, in spite of everything. Ye cannot believe I would harm ye to get to Morna, for that would only hurt her more. For a poor man’s sake, I could no easier kill ye than ye could kill me.”

But that was exactly why Montgomery had come.

And finally, Ivar’s eyes showed understanding.

“Good God, man. Ye would have killed me, wouldn’t ye?”

How dare he sound betrayed. There was only one traitor here.

“What in Alba has become of ye?” Ivar stood and began pacing from the log to the water and back again before coming to a stop at Monty’s feet. “Has yer year alone been any harsher than mine?  Than Morna’s?  Has it?  Has peace and quiet and the pity of the Murray widow killed the memory of the rest of us?” Ivar paced again, tearing at his dark hair. “Is that it?  Have ye worked so hard to forget what ye’ve done?”

“Forget what I’ve done?  I drive myself mad trying to forget what ye did, ye bastard.” Montgomery’s voice was raspy with the anger boiling up from his stomach.

Ivar stopped and stared at him. Good. Mayhap he finally realized what seducing his sister had done. When the other man started laughing, however, Montgomery chided himself for even considering Ivar had any conscience.

“So,” the man chuckled, “Montgomery Ross has convinced himself he had no blame in the war between Ross and MacKay. Righteous Ross remembers nothing.” The last words were spit out with bitterness. “Go home, Monty. Go back to the world the way ye’ve fashioned it. Go back to yer feigned innocence. I’ll not kill ye, or yer woman, and I’ll discover the MacKay who tried. Ye’ll have to be content with the punishment I give him.”

Montgomery allowed MacKay to leave. There was no deceit to be found in his eyes tonight. He had not tried to kill Jillian, or him. And the man had said he would discover which of his clansmen was guilty. Montgomery would be content with that, just as Ivar said he must.

Sadness dogged every step of his short but solitary ride home. If he had held out any hope of ever ending this war with the MacKays, that hope was now gone. His friend refused to believe that his actions with Morna had caused all grief since then.

Of course Ivar’s hell would pale compared to his own. The man had lost his woman. In but an hour he could find another to take her place. Perhaps she wouldn’t be clever and lively like Morna, but Ivar could find something to love about someone else.

Monty had lost so much more.

Those twelve days, waiting to see if Isobelle lived or died, were a hell Ivar had obviously not imagined. So wrapped up in his own woes, the man had never once considered putting the feud aside and coming to stand by his former friend.

If the tables were turned, Monty wouldn’t have let a wee nuisance like banishment stop him from being at Ivar’s side.

For twelve horrifying days, Monty had kept watch. Morna had but come each morning to see if her sister was yet out of her misery, only to retire once more to cry on the shoulders of her friends. It was Montgomery who had held vigil, counting each moment, each breath, each beat of the heart on the other side of the wall.

No matter that he had pushed Morna away one morning, fearful she would hear Ewan’s and Ossian’s pounding. She fled before he could reconsider. If she had truly desired to stand beside him, he would have relented. He’d have allowed her to discern what was happening beneath their feet. But she had only put up a token resistance.

Monty realized he was still angry with Morna, hurt that she’d left him to suffer those days alone. Was that why he had never seriously considered letting her know that Isobelle lived?  Was he such a petulant child, then?

Monty’s grunt surprised his horse and he patted the beast’s neck to console them both.

He had enforced Morna’s betrothal to the Gordon Runt, keeping her from Ivar’s arms. Of course she wouldn’t have wanted to stand beside him through the nightmare that resulted from his actions. He was a right bastard. The only fault that lay at Morna’s feet was her denial that the betrothal came before she and Ivar turned their eyes on each other.

The urge to vomit overwhelmed him.

The image of that last night, guarding the tomb alone, came back clearly with little to see before him but a moonlit glen.

"Dear God, don't let her be dead.” Montgomery's whisper dissolved in the air as he flew down the stairs to the dungeons below the keep, his kilt flapping against thighs that could not move fast enough, thighs that had weakened from a fortnight without much food. A stomach alternately filling with worry and hope had little time to grumble.

When had the steps multiplied in number?

"Idiot, idiot, idiot," he spat at each step.

He'd only been buying time when he'd bargained with the priests to allow Isobelle another means of execution. Surely, if he'd given it a bit more thought, he could have come up with something better than burying her alive. But The Judges had jumped on the idea, no doubt thrilled to have a witch tortured thusly.

Unfortunately, digging a tunnel to rescue his sister had also occurred to The Kirk men, for they ordered the tomb to be placed upon stone. His insistence that the tomb be erected in the Great Hall led them all to believe Montgomery Ross was mad—including Montgomery Ross.

Invincible fool, to think picking through solid rock would be quick work. How he loathed his arrogance now.

Slower then, with no light to guide him, he slid himself along through the tunnels, hands spread wide before him to feel the gaps in the walls, his eyes straining for the hint of light around a door.

Nearly an hour had passed since the last bit of pounding had ceased. They had to have her out by now, but no one had come. He had stood, hands pressed to the tomb wall, waiting for the vibrations to begin again, torn between going below and keeping the guards away lest the sounds resume and their deed be discovered. How easy it was to hold them at bay while he gave voice to frustrations.

A foul stench reached out and stung his nose. Vomit.

If it was Isobelle’s, she lived. If it was from Ewan or Ossian...

“Dear God, strike me now if I’ve killed our Isobelle.”

Tears poured down his face in thick trails, stinging the cheeks still smeared with the mud from the tomb. Morna would not recognize him. Would to God he would never have to face her again if Isobelle’s blood was on his hands as Morna believed it already to be.

Lost in fear, he nearly passed the lit doorway before realizing it. Then suddenly, his arms were too heavy to lift. Pushing the door open was the last thing he could bring himself to do.

Two voices murmured beyond the door, both male. The light broadened around the edge as it slowly swung open to reveal Isobelle’s form draped over the arms of Ossian. Her arms dangled limp and pale, her neck a slender stretch of white as her head hung back. Her red hair brushed the dirt without even a pulse to stir it.

“She lives, Monty.” Ewan grasped his arm and led him inside before pushing the panel of wood closed once more. “She willna be dancin’ a jig for a wee while, mind ye. But she does live.”

Monty plopped down on a barrel, still not convinced, still staring at his sister as if it were his last chance to do so. And perhaps it was.

“She was sick?”

“As would ye be, if ye poured that much whisky down yer gullet.”

The second man’s head came up, his smile stretched an unnatural distance across his face.

“Oh, hello Monty. When’d ye get here?” The man’s eyes blinked ever so slowly.

“Ossian?  Ye’re drunk!”

Ewan laughed quietly and slapped his laird’s shoulder, upsetting Monty’s balance on the barrel momentarily.

“As are we all, yer lairdship.” Ewan slid down the wall and landed with a thump. “It’s always been the quickest way to silence yer sister, aye?”

Drunk, not dead. He’d jump for joy if he thought his legs were anywhere in the room. They felt as if they still wobbled through the tunnels, not yet caught up to him.

He’d not killed his sister. Put her through Hell?  Certainly. Made her wish she were dead?  Probably. But he’d never hear about it; she would be gone before she’d have a chance to berate him. He’d have no last smile from her, but he’d hear no further curses. A fair bargain, then.

“But how are going to get her out of here with the two of ye drunk?  I can let none else ken what goes on here and she must go tonight.” Monty caught his fingers in his tangled hair and gave up trying to tame it, dropping his arm in defeat. “I’m sorry to see ye go, Ossian, but I’ll rest easy knowing ye’ll stay at her side until she’s settled.”

“Aye, Laird. I’m happy to do it.”

“Monty?”

“What is it, Ewan?” He turned to his friend, who was fast becoming one with the dirt floor.

“Are ye no goin’ to have Morna wish her own sister to fare well, then?” With his head sinking to the side, his big blond cousin was picking clods of dirt and rock from his hair, missing the largest pieces every time he felt for more.

“Nay, Ewan. Morna must never know. No one must ever hear how I’ve betrayed my own clan. Let them think I’ve failed my sisters instead.” He stood and reached for his rather pungent sister, kissing her dusty forehead before hoisting her onto his own lap. “The clan will see it all as doin’ me duty, and it will make me fearsome to my enemies, will it no?”

“Aye, Laird.” Ossian tried to get to his feet, but gave up and started crawling to the door. “Until the faery comes.”

Damn the man.

“Be wary the drink does not make ye lose yer tongue, Ossian Ross.” Monty’s temper allowed him just enough control to keep his voice down. “There will be no faery, because my sister was not a witch to summon one. And any man to utter the word “faery” on Ross lands will no longer be a Ross.”

As he waited for his friends to sober and complete Isobelle’s midnight escape, he murmured a thanks to God and then once more vowed to the devil that if a faery was sent to ruin his alliance, it would die before it took one breath of heathered air.

Montgomery reined in his horse on the opposite side of the glen from Castle Ross. Few cottages held the glow of firelight at this late hour, and the long high windows of his hall were hardly discernable. His horse shifted restlessly, reminding him how close they were to home. But Montgomery knew all too well. His home had become his prison where none but a lonely widow would ever visit again.

Excepting a faery he had vowed to kill.

It was hard to imagine Castle Ross as the same home in which he’d been raised. There were ever and always messengers hurrying to his father with news of visitors. Monty was pressed to remember a day in his youth when the great hearth was not packed full of roasting meat and fire sizzling with the drippings, all in preparation for a visitor or two. Surely Scottish Hospitality was born of this place.

Now he offered hospitality to his first guest in the past year, a faery or a madwoman wandering his empty hall like the ghost his clan imagined her to be. If she were to be his only visitor, however, he’d see she stayed as long as he could keep her.

He’d unwittingly given himself a fortnight of relative privacy with her; a delicious way to torture himself. But when that time ended, what would he do?  He’d vowed to kill her before she took her first breath-this faery of a woman with strange green boots and the blood of his enemy running treacherously through the same veins as that of his kin.

But it was too late now. If he’d ignored that dream, that vow would have been fulfilled without his ken.

He’d given her air. And light. And water. Could he take them from her again?

Where would he send her when he finished with her?  And just what was it he wanted to finish?  Luring her to his bed?  Or was she just a pleasant distraction until his friends and clan were allowed back into his home?

If he sent her to the MacKays, would she just find more trouble, maybe even find herself tied to a stake?  Would Ivar protect her?

The image of her ending up in his old friend’s arms was not a possibility he could dare to imagine at the moment without turning about and hunting his friend all the way to his treacherous lair. Actually, the image of her in anyone else’s arms did not sit well.

Any woman can be replaced by another. Wasn’t he just wishing Ivar would realize that?  Maybe, after he’d tired of the woman, Monty would believe it himself.

The woman, not the faery. She was flesh and blood, not wing and spirit. He had not vowed to kill a woman.

There. He felt better. His gorge had settled.

She had come to bring Morna and Ivar together, but she was only a woman, and as such could be stopped. If she had been a faery, she may have had a chance against him. Just to be wary, however, he’d not leave her alone for a moment.

Damn, but she’s alone now.

He was just leaning forward, to urge his horse home when the muffling blanket of darkness was sliced by a bloody scream—a scream he feared had come from his own hearth. No woman in her right mind would have been capable of such an unholy wail, which meant...

“Jillian!”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Jilly finished telling the local Muir twins the history of her twenty-four years of life, leaving out nothing, including her frustrations with the other Muir twins. She was embarrassed by how little time it had taken.

Mhairi and Margot had listened patiently, squeezing her hand when she’d found her grandmother’s behavior a bit too difficult to explain. Although the old woman had detested the Ross name and Scotland as a whole, she had given strange reasons for teaching Jilly to speak and understand Gaelic. “So ye can hear yer enemies plotting,” she’d argued. To teach her such a thing and then forbid her from ever setting foot in the country made even less sense when Jilly tried to explain it to the Medieval Muirs. But how grateful she was to be able to speak about and understand it now, after falling victim to the modern-day twins.

“But how had she known?” She turned to her new friends. “How did she know what would happen to me?”

“Mayhap she had also been a victim of the curse, lass.” Mhairi shook her head. “’Tis sad to think it will go on affecting so many generations.”

“Or she could have taken a peek into the future.” Margot shot her sister a look that was pure conspiracy. “If some can go backward, Mhairi, can some not go forward?”

“That, sister, is a discussion for another time. Poor Jillian has enough to fret over.” Mhairi patted Jillian’s head as older, veinier hands had done before.

“That’s something I’m pretty worried about, actually.” Jilly leaned forward and plopped an elbow on the huge table, putting a little distance between her back and the heat of the freshly stirred fire. “I think getting Ivar and Morna into the future is what I am expected to do. In the future, Morna’s husband will already be dead and she’ll be free to marry Ivar. My problem is they say that Morna died of a broken heart. I have to make sure I help them before that happens, but Laird Ross won’t let me out of here. Can you help me?”

“We’ll do what we can, Jillian, but we’re being watched.” Margot giggled. “Laird Ross’s man had a bit too much to drink—”

“—and drank the wrong thing, of course,” Mhairi chimed in.

“Oh, you two are definitely Muirs.” Jilly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Tell us about the others. Lorraine and Loretta?” Margot was squirming in her chair. “It’s nice to know the family will thrive, is it not, sister?”

“They have nothing but secrets up their sleeves, never give a straight answer, and though they must be close to ninety years old, they act like they’re fourteen.” Jilly tried to think of something nice to say, but couldn’t. “Why would they meddle in a curse that had nothing to do with them?”

The sisters looked at each other in that disturbingly familiar way, then turned back to her.

“It was all our fault, ye see,” Margot confessed too cheerfully. “And we’ll make sure our family passes on the duty of seeing the prophecy through.”

Funny how this conversation made Jilly feel like she was home again. Dear Lord, did she actually miss the Muirs?

Hmph, how could she?  They were sitting next to her, by the fire, recapping like a trio of ghost busters—or shade sniffers—after a busy day at the office.

Jilly suspected there was another shoe scheduled to drop, as shoes tended to do around Muirs, so she braced herself.

“Isobelle is not a witch.” Mhairi took a deep breath, a cleansing breath, like someone clearing her conscience.

“Come again?” It was a very, very big shoe...and Jilly’s head felt like the bullseye. Her brain literally ached.

“Isobelle is not a witch,” Mhairi repeated.

Then just how had Jillian Rose MacKay gotten to the fifteenth century?

“But we are,” they said in unison.

The hall door flew open, banged against the wall once, then slammed shut.

Standing there in the dance of shadows and firelight stood the fierce, wind-blown laird of Castle Ross. His chest heaved with exertion and Jilly took her lead from the sisters; she sat seemingly unruffled by his entrance, his physique, or the promise of retribution in his eyes.

Power in numbers.

But then again, the Muirs had an altogether different power, or so Mhairi had just confided. No wonder Montgomery had not been surprised when she’d asked about the Muir sisters. No wonder he’d wanted to deny how she had come to be here.

“She’s right as rain in Scotland, Laird Ross,” said one sister.

“Unharmed. Completely unharmed,” said the other.

“No thanks to the two of ye, I’m sure.” He advanced, hands on his hips, eyes on Jilly.

“Actually, they came to my rescue.” She might need a lot of supernatural help to do her good deed and get home again. Better to stay on their good side.

“Laird,” he said.

“What?”

“He wants ye to call him ‘Laird’, lass.” Mhairi patted her hand and grinned.

“Why?” Jilly looked him up and down as he came nearer. “I don’t belong to his clan.”

“Ah.” Margot sighed. “But he wishes for it, I’m sure.”

“Enough.” His glare held much less bite as he walked around to set one hip on the table next to Jilly’s elbow. He swung his lower leg and nudged her. “What is this about rescuing, Jillian?”

“She prefers to be called Jilly, yer lairdship.”

“She does not.” He sounded so sure of himself.

“Aye, ‘tis a fact she’s just told us. Her grandmother called her Jilly Bean. It is a sweet endearment to her, Laird Ross.” Mhairi sounded as if she were about to giggle. Like Loretta.

“She prefers for me to call her Jillian. Isn’t that right, Jillian?”

There he went, making her name sound like a decadent chocolate pronounced with a French accent. She cleared her throat.

“As matter of fact, I don’t mind it so much when he says it.”

Good Lord, she was blushing, she could feel it. The fire warmed her bum, and her blush heated the rest of her. A walk outside was exactly what she needed before she went to bed.

“Jillian can tell me of her rescue. Ye two will sneak yerselves home, do ye hear?  I don’t ken how ye find yer way into my hall, but find yer way out of it. Without being seen. The way I rode in here, the entire clan will be watching from their windows.”

“Oh?” Margot said. “And just what had ye making such a stir, Laird Ross?”

He glared down at the woman, then shook his head when she continued to smile up at him.

“I was on the other side of the glen when I heard her scream, Margot. I nearly killed my best horse to race here in the dark.”

“It wasn’t just me screaming. Sir,” Jilly added when he scowled.

“It was Sorcha Murray, as well,” Mhairi chirped, on the edge of laughter once more. “She came in here high and mighty as ye please, with ye safely away, of course. Calling out to Isobelle’s ghost, thanking her for scaring away all yer marriage prospects—”

Mhairi’s long fingers couldn’t stifle her laughter, but Margot finished the telling.

“Then she invited Isobelle to make herself scarce, if she didn’t mind, so ye would...uh, be free to...”

“Nevermind,” Montgomery said.

Margot looked relieved by the interruption. Mhairi smiled brighter in the dying light.

Jilly closed her eyes, not wanting to understand. When she opened them, the sisters were gone. She looked to Laird Ross to see if he had noticed just how they’d left. He merely looked relieved, so apparently they hadn’t vanished into thin air, or stepped into the fully functioning fireplace.

Monty’s impulse was to swing the lass up into his arms and show her just how pleased he was to find her safe, but he settled for nudging her with his swinging leg.

“Ye may walk above, along the battlements if ye like.”

Jillian bit her lip, then released it, frowning. “Alone?”

“Nay. I’ll escort ye.”

“Good. I mean, thank you.” She raised her chin. “That would be great.”`

Was she afraid?  For a certainty she was stubborn. Did he dare hope she was lonely?

“Unless ye’d rather be on yer own, Jillian.” Monty shrugged and looked to the fire behind her. “If ye’re partial to solitude—”

“No!  No, I’m not. I mean, thanks, but that’s all right. You can tag along.” Her gaze fell to her fingers as they smoothed at a knot in the table’s surface. “Just in case...just in case I get lost or something.”

Not for the first time, he supposed he should have fostered some border lads, to keep a better ken of the oddities of the English tongue. She wanted him along. He understood that. This tagging business might prove to be something pleasant, surely not something she would allow just any man to do.

Now she was staring at his knee. Her hand twitched, as if she were tempted to touch it—as she’d touched his chest earlier. Did she want convincing he was real?  Odd. Whenever she was out of his sight, he’d been hard pressed to believe the same of her.

She snatched her hands back to her lap, the coward.

His chest began to swell of its own accord, but he contained it, along with swelling in other parts of himself. She pretended indifference; he would as well.

Monty’s home seemed to move beneath him a bit.

His breathing had faltered, he realized. One great breath and his vision steadied. The next deep breath was filled with the scent of fire-warmed Jillian and he pulled it in, reluctant to let it escape, wanting it on his tongue as long as it was there for the tasting.

Did she crush blossoms beneath her very arms?

Get a hold of yerself, mon, or ye’ll be falling at her silly green feet.

Monty mounted the stairs behind her, amused at the way she would hurry ahead of him, as if she thought shaking her rump a wee bit faster might discourage him in some way. He’d have killed anyone for dressing his future daughters in trews, but at the moment, they were a blessing to behold. She must be a poor lass indeed to be wearing such worn clothing. She obviously knew not how to ply a needle enough to mend it. The strange blue fabric had holes in mighty odd places and he caught himself watching for the sunny patches of skin that could be seen now and again when she stepped just so. Her knee was especially enchanting. Her thigh he had to ignore or go mad.

She spun on him, catching him mid-grin and none too happy about it.

“Must you follow so closely?”

He answered with another grin. At least she’d lowered her voice as they were now upon the battlements and their voices would carry in the misty darkness.

She huffed her frustration out through her nose, pushing away a thin wisp of earthly cloud that had boldly climbed high this night. When her eyes widened and her cheeks pillowed into a smile, he knew he was in for something devious.

“If you are going to walk so close, you must tell me about Ivar MacKay.”

He did some snorting of his own. That man’s name had been too much in his dealings this day and he was wont to be rid of it.

“No.”

“Then you can’t walk with me.”

Foolish lass. He’d do as he pleased.

He reached over and took her hand, linking it in his elbow as he turned and headed down the wall walk. She would have to stroll with him or surrender her limb. Thankfully, she understood and trotted along next to him until he slowed.

“Did you know him well?”

Ah, she hadn’t understood at all. But what harm would be done in talking a wee while?  At least neither Morna, Isobelle, nor Ivar himself were here to argue the details with him.

“He was as a brother to me.”

Her free hand clasped around his upper arm, as far as the wee thing could reach, in a gesture that was pure sympathy.

“I’m so sorry. How awful for you.”

She peeled her hand from him and blushed before turning to look out upon the clouds building slowly beneath them, removing them from the world he knew. If his clansmen looked up, they would detect nothing above the wall. With her dark hair, she nearly blended into the blackness so well she could neatly get away from him if he didn’t watch closely.

“When they tell the story, in the future mind you, they say Ivar and Morna were separated because of her duty to marry a Gordon.”

“And they’d be right.” He didn’t bother stopping her from speaking her mad little mind. Future indeed. But he was in no mood for further fashing tonight. His senses were centered on the steps they would take when they went back inside. He knew she would go to his bedchamber; it was where she had slept before. He would tell her just whose bed it was after they were both in it.

“In the f…where I come from, there is a story, a tragedy really, called Romeo and Juliet. It is the tale of two young people who fall in love, only they come from feuding families. There are a whole bunch of complications, but they manage to marry secretly. Then, when they are forced apart, they decide to die rather than live without each other.”

A daft woman from a daft place if they told such tales.

“A silly story. What man would kill himself for a woman’s sake?  If he were much of a man, he could always find another. The woman must have turned his head, tricked him into it.”

“That is beside the point.” She slipped from his grasp, but only to place both hands on her delightful hips.

“So, ye admit she tricked him into taking his life?” He loved it when she got her ire up. Apparently, she was partial to her silly story.

“She did n...well, she...there was a misunderstanding.”

“Ummm.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, they were so madly in love with each other it was a tragedy to keep them apart and it ended badly.”

“Madly in love.” He’d stressed the ‘madly’.

“Oh, you big oaf. I’m sure you have no idea what it is like to be madly...deeply in love with someone. Surely you don’t feel strongly about that widow woman.”

“I’ll not speak of it with ye. What I have or have not experienced is no’ yer concern.”

It was all he could do to keep from grinning. The poor lass was being eaten alive with jealousy. A fight between her and the widow would be something to see. Too bad Jillian was not to be seen at all.

“Can’t you understand?” she whined in a seductively low voice. “That is just the problem. If you had known real love you couldn’t possibly have kept Romeo and Juliet—I mean, Ivar and Morna—apart.”

He started walking again, alone.

She wasn’t jealous at all. She was plotting against him. The latter was infuriating. The former was like a bucket of Highland spring water poured over his head.

“Off to bed with ye now.” He turned and stomped toward her.

She nearly started out of her skin.

Good.

“We’ll speak no more of yer silly story, or of yer treacherous family. Ye will sleep in my chamber. I’ll sleep in another. And if ye are not there come the rise of the sun, I’ll hunt ye and Ivar MacKay down before e’er it sets again.”

And so saying, he strode past her, determined to clear his mind of former friends, sisters, and a wee visitor he should have left for dead in Isobelle’s tomb.

#  #  #

Jilly could kick herself. She’d done it again, said the wrong thing. And now her allotted time outside was going to be cut short.

“Wait. Please.” Jilly kept her voice low, but with the thick mist in the air, it carried to him easily enough, because he turned. Then he crossed his arms and waited, for an apology, no doubt. “I don’t want to go in just yet.”

His arms uncrossed and he walked back to her.

“And I don’t want to be up here alone. Would you mind sticking around?” She bit her lip.

“Ye use the oddest words to ask me to stay.” He walked over to the wall and leaned out between two merlons.

The gap was wide enough for two, so Jilly lifted herself up and leaned on her elbows beside him. He didn’t seem to mind or notice how tight the fit.

“Is it always this foggy?”

“What have frogs to do with the mist?”

“Not frogs.” She laughed. “Fog.”

He chuckled. “I ken what ye meant, lass. It was a poor jest.”

He kept his gaze forward while he spoke, so she copied him.

“So?  Is it always this misty at night?”

“Nay, some nights it is oddly clear.”

She shivered, and without looking at her, he snaked his arm about her shoulders and they instantly fit better.

Good Lord, there was something more effective than leather!

She struggled to act nonchalant. He never noticed a thing.

Apparently they’d discussed the weather and there was nothing else to talk about. She would have killed for a topic to broach. Maybe she could cover the weather again.

“This is weird. Your whole clan could be gathered down there and you would never know it.”

“Aye. It is usually like this.”

He’d said that already. Was he not even paying attention to their conversation?  He sounded a bit distracted.

“If the mist were gone, if the sun were bright as the nooning hour, and my entire clan laid out before me, it would feel like this, like something stands between us; they on one side and myself, alone, on the other.”

Jillian didn’t want to break the spell—poor choice of words. She’d never peg him for a sentimental kind of guy. Maybe he was just trying to explain how it was lonely at the top.

“Is it because ye are their leader that you feel so separate?”

“Nay, Jillian. After the events of the year past, they see me as a monster, aye?”

Whoa. He had her there. Surely she hadn’t called him Laird Monster to his face.

She shifted uncomfortably, but he didn’t move his arm.

“I see ye believe me to be the same.” He turned and looked at her briefly, nearly begging her to deny it, but before she could, he had turned back to look out once more on the white sea.

“If it is any consolation, you are not remembered that way.” She breathed deeply, making a memory of the smell of him.

“And how, in the fae future, am I remembered?”

“Well, you live quite a long time.” She hoped that would cheer him out of the melancholy that surely the fog had brought on. “And you get credit for tons of renovations on your castle, but I see you haven’t done those yet.”

He suddenly straightened and removed his arm, leaving her far too chilled to be attributed to the temperature. He cleared his throat, but made no move to turn away.

She was suddenly very scared of what he was going to ask.

“And...children?  Do I have any children?”

She couldn’t bear to tell him the truth and she suspected he wouldn’t be able to bear hearing it.

“I don’t know about that.” She sounded a little bit breezy, so she tried to tone it down. “I was just told about things that pertained to the castle, and to the prophesy.”

He relaxed, but remained aloof, and she was struck by the feeling that Montgomery Constantine Ross was as tragically lonely as one Jillian Rose MacKay. Even with her standing within a foot of him, he was on an island. And knowing how lonely he was destined to remain pissed her off big time. If at the end of all this, she was able to change just a smidgen of history, it would be for this man to find someone to love.

She didn’t want him to find this woman until after she was out of the picture, of course. But surely there was no harm in wanting a handsome, brawny Highlander to herself for a little while.

At least until she pissed him off again, which doing her duty here was bound to do.

“Maybe I was more tired than I thought, Laird Ross.”

“As am I, lass. But I meant what I said.”

“And what was that?”

He raised his eyebrows innocently, then worked his bare hand up behind her head as he’d done once before. She was cool, casual, and didn’t so much as smile as he bent to kiss her.

The jealous mist swirled around them, between their cheeks and noses, demanding attention she didn’t have to give. She couldn’t feel her feet, or the ground beneath them. She was blissfully aware of his hands, of his chest beneath her fingers, of each breath he took against her face. And when he exhaled, her cheek felt covered with peach fuzz.

If she found herself on the top of some spire when she opened her eyes, she would not be surprised, nor would she care.

He pulled back enough to speak, but pressed his forehead to hers.

“If ye’re not here come morning, ye and yer conspirators, whoever they be, will die by my newly sharpened blade.”

Fully alert now, Jillian knew one thing and one thing only as she marched back to the bedchamber she’d been assigned: she would be damned if she would be there in the morning.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It had to be midnight, but thankfully, Jilly felt recovered from her little adventure in the tomb. Time travel, it seemed, did not come with jet lag.

Rummaging silently through trunks with only the light of one candle to help her, it took a long time for Jillian to find what she was looking for. Finally, one square of wool plaid unfolded into something besides yards of material.

A dress. Of sorts. Remembering the blue gowns of the Muir sisters, she realized she needed something to wear beneath it and her own t-shirt wouldn’t do, so she kept digging.

If the man owned a chest of drawers he could keep this crap better organized. Two old slippers were found, but not together, of course. In fact, they’d been in two different trunks.

Didn’t any women clean up in here?

Judging from the stiffness of the skirt, whoever wore this one did so long ago. She would have liked to see if Isobelle had been her size, but in all likelihood a grumpy ogre of a man currently inhabited the sister’s room, one who would get even grumpier if he caught her planning her escape. The old stuff would have to do.

The slippers fit only because they stretched. If Cinderella would have lived in this century, she would have lost her prince as it looked like this woman’s feet couldn’t have been bigger than a five. A five that stretched to an eight, thank goodness.

No undergarments were found. No blouse-like concoction to wear beneath the dress that was not only sleeveless, but open from shoulder to waist. Her t-shirt would have to do after all, but thankfully, she had also found a brown cloak with a hood. She could conceal the flaws of her costume nicely.

No mirror. Of course not. It was probably best the man not know how incredible he looked. But then again, he probably did know. Widow What’s-her-face probably told him all the time.

Well, she could have him. Jillian, as proxy for Isobelle’s ghost, had been invited to leave, so that was what she was doing. She hoped he and his Sorcha would be very happy together.

But they wouldn’t be, would they?

She remembered him blaming her for ruining his wedding, but she had never asked how. He didn’t seem to be too broken up about it, after all. And if he really believed women were interchangeable, she certainly wouldn’t be the cause of his melancholy. Something much more than a broken heart was headed his way and she pitied him.

A kiss and a threat in the same breath?  I don’t think so.

There was nothing she could do about it—nothing she should do about it. Even if she had never seen a Michael J. Fox movie, she would know, somehow, that she shouldn’t mess with history.

Montgomery Constantine would have to be sad. It was his destiny.

But Ivar and Morna had disappeared from history’s pages. Ivar had no sons, no daughters. Never married, never led his clan in battle or anything else, or so the modern sisters had told her. With all that time on their hands, scoping out possible torque models while volunteering at a genealogical library, surely they would know.

Morna had married a son of the Gordon’s laird, but they had no children. Cinead Gordon, however, married another woman two years after his first marriage, and had half a dozen daughters. Morna supposedly died of a broken heart. If they staged her death, made it look like she jumped off a cliff or something, history would go on, uninterrupted.

Knowing all this beforehand, Lorraine and Loretta were right to expect the lovers to join them in the tomb. Did they also know Jillian would have to go back for them?  At least the guy in that one movie went back with appropriate clothing, not sporting lime-green-ostrich-skin-cowboy boots, a leather jacket, not-so-Lucky jeans and a souvenir t-shirt plugging a band called “Swagger.”

Thankfully, the bib of the dress covered “Swagger.”

The hem hit her mid calf, but there was nothing she could do about it. The slippers only stretched because they, too, were made of wool; if they got wet, she’d end up with size five feet the hard way. And the cloak must be Laird Bloody Monster’s because the excess more than made up for the shortness of the dress.

Who cared?  Surely there were no fashion police in fifteenth century Scotland.

The great thing about stone steps was they didn’t squeak when tread on. With her boots, jacket, and jeans stuffed into a cool leather pouch, Jilly crept down the stairs and headed in the opposite direction of the hall. She had yet to see it, but there had to be a back door somewhere. Hopefully it was as well greased as the massive slab that served as the front entrance.

She bumped into the wall, then edged along until she found the door. Without the later additions to the castle, there really wasn’t much to the back of it, and it was disturbing that the passages through which she’d been creeping with Lorraine and Loretta had disappeared completely.

Days ago?

One day in the tomb. One day out. Two then. Ages…

The back door was well greased. Too bad someone was waiting for her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A hand came down over Jilly’s mouth while another held the back of her head. She didn’t scream, however. It would only make him angrier if she tried.

Only it wasn’t Montgomery who held her.

The outline of a large shaggy mane glowed with moonlight and she was both glad and disappointed it was Ewan standing there. For Heaven’s sake, did she want to get caught?  Having Monty’s hands on her did give her a bit of a thrill, however. As loveable as Ewan was, he did nothing to make her heart race.

Except for grabbing her in the dark.

She tapped his hand over her mouth and he released her completely.

“Jillian MacKay, what took ye so bloody long?”

“Wha...what?  Are you crazy?  How did you know I was sneaking out?”

“Ye have a bit of business to do, do ye no’?” he dropped his head closer to her face. “And ye canna get to it hiding inside the keep.”

If Ewan had anticipated this move, then Monty would as well, wouldn’t he?

She put that question to the shaggy man.

“Nay. He’s muddled for the now. Trusts that ye’ll stay put.”

She’d never broken such a trust before. Did it matter that it came from a man who would be ashes and dust when she was finished here?  Apparently it did, if the burning in her stomach was any indication.

“I’m sorry—”

“Ach, dinna fash yersel’. ‘Tis his own fault for not listening to ye, ye ken?”

He suddenly pushed her back against the door and pressed himself against her, lowering his head to her ear.

“Someone is coming. Put yer arm about me neck so they won’t wish to interrupt.”

Jilly stuck her arm over his shoulder and wrapped it awkwardly around his neck. She only heard a low chuckling as someone passed them, and a moment later she was breathing fresher, less rumpled air.

“Come. Ye’ll want to be speaking with Morna, will ye no’?”

Jilly stumbled along in shock as Ewan pulled her along through the main gate and around and between cottages in the outer bailey. The willy-nilly placement of the homes gave the impression that someone had tossed a rock behind his head and wherever it landed, they’d erect the next house.

At last some windows burned bright with welcoming light and Ewan led her to the door. He cleared his throat, waited a moment, then let himself and Jilly inside.

“Morna Ross...er Gordon, Jillian Rose Mac-eye.” Ewan pointed to a woman sitting on the edge of a bed, then at Jillian.

“That’s MacKay,” she couldn’t help but correct.

“’Tisn’t.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Ewan, leave the lass be.”

The last came from Morna and when Jilly watched her rise and walk toward her with a regal bearing any queen would envy, she had the overwhelming urge to curtsy.

Must be the dress. She never wore dresses, except to church, and the only thing she remembered praying for was that her grandmother would not feel like attending, and if she did, that the old woman wouldn’t offend anyone too badly. It was such a chore running around the meetings, smoothing feathers ruffled by her grandmother’s too-honest comments.

“Isn’t honesty what a church is for?” the old woman would argue.

Dresses and Sundays were miserable memories.

“Are ye a witch, then?”

She was tempted to tell Morna that if she were looking for witches she might try the Muir household, but that information was probably told in confidence. Logic told her pissing off a witch, let alone two, was not the wisest move.

“I’m no witch, but I did come to get you and Ivar back together. That is, if you’re interested.”

The only show of the woman’s emotion had been the sudden clutch of a chair when Jilly had carelessly dropped Ivar’s name into the room.

The silence that followed was deafening, and then just as quickly, forgotten.

“I’m interested in anything a visitor has to say, of course.”

The lilt in Morna’s speech reminded Jilly of the woman who had shown her the back route into the Great Hall where she could catch up with the tour group, and where she’d first met Montgomery. Ish. All her sentences sounded like questions.

“I’m sorry. I should have put it more delicately. It is a long story, how I came here. Maybe I should start at the beginning.”

“Please.” Morna pulled out the chair she’d been clutching. “Sit.”

Jilly sat while Ewan stood and peeked out the window every few minutes, undermining his confidence that Monty would not also predict this move on her part.

“I’m well aware of the prophecy, Jillian. I have lost the three people I love and the prophecy is the only thing that keeps me from complete despair.” Morna pulled a stool close to her and sat.

And if Jilly hadn’t come?  Would it have turned out like the Shakespearean play, with two bodies together only in death?  Would they have been driven to that?  And how long would they have waited?

“Have ye a man?” Morna looked so frankly into her eyes, Jilly had to turn away.

She studied her fingers. The only man who popped into her head was this woman’s brother. She supposed it was possible what kept her from remembering anyone in her own time with much clarity was that she was presently not present in it.

The more likely possibility was that she was lying. There had been no one. A few crushes. A few dates here and there, but those had ended when Grandma got sick.

“Someday I will,” she declared, both to Morna and to herself. She would not be alone. Not like poor Monty was going to be.

“That’s a fine spirit, Jillian. Ivar is my man. My only man. Of course I have a husband, but if ye’re here to break that bond, I’ll love ye doubly.”

Jilly smiled and nodded. If she took Isobelle into her own century Cinead Gordon would be long dead. Even in the sight of Grandma’s God, she assumed that would be acceptable.

Morna swallowed hard. Her hands were shaking as she clasped them over and over again in her lap. Ending her marriage must have been weighing heavily on her mind.

“You were telling me about Ivar.” Jilly tried to sound cheerful.

A deep breath and a smile changed the other’s appearance into the young woman she must be.

“Oh, Ivar. Ivar. Ye’ll have to forgive me. I haven’t said his name in the presence of another in so long, it sounds odd to me ears.” Morna sat forward and took Jilly’s hand in both of hers. They had stopped shaking, for the most part. “It has been a long year for the both of us, aye?”

“Has he written to you much?”

“Oh, no. I’ve not heard a word since Montgomery took me to the Gordons. ‘Struth, I’ve not heard his voice since Monty caught us at The Burn and sent Ivar home with a bloody leg and no horse. On my weddin’ day, Ewan told me that Ivar was recoverin’ fine. ‘Twas a wonderful gift.”

Holy crap. Morna had no idea whether Ivar still wanted her or not. What Jilly wouldn’t give for an old- fashioned telephone system right then. Or even a town gossip from West Burnshire.

How in the world am I going to find out if Ivar is interested?

The gasp from Morna scared Jilly for a second before she realized she had spoken that last out loud.

“Jillian Rose Mac-eye!”

“That’s MacKay.”

“Jillian. Ivar is waitin’. I know it as sure as ye’re sitting there.”

Jilly didn’t have the heart to tell the woman just how good the chances were that she was, indeed, not sitting there at all. Just wait until she told her they’d be taking a less than scenic route into the future and the reason why she would be able to marry Ivar was because her husband would be deceased—doornail style.

“Ye don’t understand love. Not yet.” Morna gave a curt nod, like Grandma used to do when she meant, “and that’s that.”

Jilly had no idea she would miss the old woman so intensely. In every situation, she knew what the old woman would think or say, or else Jilly would wish Grandma could have been there to see this or that.

“I loved my grandmother, more than I realized, but I’m sure that doesn’t count.”

“Oh, Jillian, of course it counts. I think the time we’re allowed in Heaven will be the same amount of time we’ve spent loving others.”

“If that were true, my grandmother has already been kicked out, I’m afraid.” Jilly tried to laugh, but couldn’t.

“Doona say such things, lass.” Morna gave her a very motherly frown in spite of obviously being younger than she, then she clasped a small pouch that hung from a tether around her neck and murmured something.

Jilly had forgotten what a superstitious people she was dealing with.

“Sorry.”

“Not at all, lass. Not at all.” The pouch disappeared behind Morna’s own plaid bib. “Meantime, the love I referred to is the kind of love ye’ll find with yer own young man, if ye be as fortunate as I have been.” Morna turned to look into the fire. Her voice changed, turning almost...reverent. “The kind of love that tells ye that his heart still beats because ye feel it a’ thumpin’ in yer own chest. Ye know his thoughts upon ye as ye lie down to sleep, his hands on ye—through the power of his dreams alone.”

This was far too personal. Had the woman no pride?  She was going to get such an education in the future. She hoped the 21st century Juliet would still find her Romeo appealing.

“If I were to die, he’d ken it. When he is anguished, I ken it. I look at the moon and feel the glow of it on his face. I remember the sweat of him sometimes and it makes me weep with hunger to smell him, to taste him again.”

The fire crackled obnoxiously. Ewan cleared his throat.

“When we were together, I wanted to press myself into him so deeply that I’d come out the other side. That’s what it is like, to be one. It’s not the bedding of a wife that binds a husband to her. That is nothing. Nothing.” She frowned for a moment, but her eyes still stared, unblinking, still seeing far beyond the flames. “Do ye know what makes me very sad for the rest of the world?” She turned back to Jilly. “For Monty especially?”

Jilly shook her head.

“It’s that true love is so rare a creature that it is fierce hard to find when ye’re looking for it. When ye don’t believe in it at all, it could lie down at yer feet and ye’d walk right o’er it.”

Morna’s knowing gaze sent chills up and down her spine like a pinball shot back and forth between two bumpers. Did she see Jilly as that woman who would be walked over?

Jilly shifted in her seat.

“Ivar MacKay is the blood in my veins, and without the promise of ye, I would not have lasted long without him.” Morna looked at her hands. “Who knows if we’d have lasted until winter had ye not come now.”

And just like that, all four Muir sisters were forgiven. And Montgomery Ross could go to Hell.

“So I take it you’re interested, then?” Jillian asked in her best Mrs. Doubtfire brogue.

Morna laughed like a drunkard. Jillian smiled and cried in harmony. And when they were finished, they turned as one to look at Ewan.

It was rather nice for a change, to be on the giving end of the stick. The VMC, The Victims of Muirs Club, was about to get a new member.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Montgomery was finally getting some needed sleep. Amazingly enough, he’d been able to push aside his frustration of having Jillian in his bed without him, trust the MacKay assassin into Ivar’s hands, and leave the rest of the night’s deeds for Ewan to tend.

The man acted masterfully when Monty would have stumbled right upon them at the rear of the keep. Too masterfully. Monty had played the part of a passer-by, but he’d let the bastard know with his low laugh that Ewan would pay dearly for his too-clever improvisation.

“She vexes me as well,” he’d said. Ewan did not yet know the meaning of the word. As soon as he could rouse himself in the morning, he was going to vex his cousin with his fists.

And with a smile on his face, Montgomery took a deep breath and let sleep take him, trusting the lass would be where she was supposed to be in the morning. If all went as planned, she’d be trusting Ewan to make arrangements to have Morna and Ivar meet with her in a pair of weeks.

#  #  #

At the rate she was going, Jilly would end up an adrenaline junkie. Amazing really. Breaking out of Castle Ross gave a bigger rush than breaking in.

She felt powerful, Oprah-ish even.

“He tells me where I should be in the morning?  I don’t think so.”

At the moment, Ewan was riding West for MacKay lands. She felt terrible asking him to go in the middle of the night, but he had to be back before the sun rose in the morning to set the next piece of the plan into motion.

If you wanted a crack at the cheese, you had to get the cat out of the kitchen.

Jillian made her way to the stables as stealthily as possible, dragging along a cloak that could have been tailor-made for a New York Giant.

Funny how horses in the fifteenth century smelled exactly the same as in the twenty-first. The hay smelled the same, crackled the same under her boots, and for a moment, Jilly stood still, daring to close her eyes for a few seconds and imagine she was home. Wyoming. Janna’s barn. Hurrying to saddle their horses before her friend’s mother could think of another chore for them to do.

There would have been the smell of fresh milk squirted on the floor for the kittens to lick up. There would have been the sound of a powerhose as Ed, Janna’s uncle, washed down the milking stalls. In fact, there would be little beneath her feet that wasn’t concrete; you couldn’t strip-mine germs from dirt.

This is better.

The sweet-but-dusty scent of hay was backed by the taste of heather in the air. The bare earth was...well, earthier. There was nothing of bleach in this barn, no thick plastic gloves necessary to protect one’s hands from harsh chemicals. When a horse stretched out to pee, it frothed and bubbled into the earth. As natural as dust to dust.

And speaking of dust to dust, if she didn’t hurry, she may just miss Ivar MacKay, and her own bones would turn to powder right along with the rest of these folks.

Along with Montgomery Constantine Ross, whom she’d recently wished to Hell.

Jilly’s gut clenched. It was silly, of course. Here, in his time, he was as alive as she had been in hers. The fact that he would remain just a figure in history wouldn’t mean his life would not be full. Not enjoying the longevity of her time wouldn’t mean he’d feel cheated. Dying in some silly feud with the MacKays would be the real crime. If she removed the major player in that little battle, at least the laird would get the long life he was supposed to get.

Her gut relaxed, but just a sgoash. That had been Grandma’s favorite measurement. A sgoash. And just now, Jilly missed her much more than a sgoash. If the old gal were there, she’d talk Jilly right out of any feeling of sympathy for a Scot, let alone a Ross.

Conniving hooligan, she’d call him. Can’t throw him, can’t trust him. But Jilly couldn’t make herself believe as her grandmother had. There were plenty of secrets hidden behind those gorgeous coffee-colored eyes, but she also believed there was something in those eyes just for her.

She brought out something in him. She couldn’t fathom it. No one had ever looked at her as if she were special and she was often tempted to look behind her, to see at whom he was looking. A few times, she had turned, but there was no one there, no other woman, no ghost making his eyes sparkle with interest. Only her.

Tears prickled her nose at the suspicion that no one else would see her that way again.

And so, with that heavy thought in her chest, Jilly rode out through the portcullis in the very wee hours of the morning with the Gordon plaid wrapped over her head, hoping the slump in her shoulders would convince the guards she was forlorn Lady Morna and would let her pass.

What the devil was wrong with her?  This was Scotland of old, laid out before her eyes, ancient but fresh air to fill her lungs. Before her was the light at the end of the tunnel. She was about to finish what she’d come to do, and all she could think about was how much she missed the inside of her prison. Had she gone over the edge?  Contracted some syndrome that made her fall in love with her captor?

Holy crap.

There went her gut again. Clenching. Unclenching. Clenching again. Adrenaline ebbed and flowed in her blood as she alternately accepted, then denied, then accepted again the probability that she could indeed be whipped on Montgomery Ross.

Holy crap. Holy crap.

She felt warm inside, like she’d slipped on fuzzy slippers that formed to her feet.

It didn’t matter, though. There was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t take him back with her. She’d screw up that Michael J. Fox rule. Montgomery Ross lived to a ripe, albeit lonely, old age. His cousin, Ewan, would be the great-twenty-some-odd-grandfather of the future version of Montgomery. The Original had improvements to make on that castle of his. If he didn’t, if he didn’t go on, handing down that tale of Morna, Ivar, and Isobelle, the town of East Burnshire, Scotland would not survive off the revenue from the telly-folk.

The image of Jock, scrubbing away at that over-polished bar, planted itself firmly in her mind and it brought with it all the weight of responsibility the modern Montgomery must feel.

Correction: would feel.

It wasn’t just Morna and Ivar, Loretta and Lorraine, or their medieval counterparts who needed Jilly to finish her task; an entire generation of East Burnshire-ites needed her to do so without messing with their lives. Jilly could not stand to let down any one person, let alone a small population.

Falling in love with Montgomery was a notion she could not entertain now. Later, maybe, after being back home for a few months, she would let herself think about him, would allow herself a good cry over him, over what might have been. But she couldn’t afford such an indulgence now.

Later, when it was safe, she would think about him all the time.

Jilly never remembered guiding her horse; the animal must have gone that way regularly, or else there were no other roads to take. North, South, East or West. How simple this life would be. Leave your home and you had only four choices. She traveled East.

#  #  #

Damn her.

How on earth had she done it?  After years of kinship and friendship, after naming the bastard his successor should anything happen to him before he had grown sons to replace him, Ewan had turned traitor—

—in favor of an Englishwoman.

He had to give his cousin due respect for his playing, however. If he weren’t so good at it himself, he would never have guessed Ewan was lying through his whiskers.

“I’m sore sorry, Monty. I canna believe I fell to sleep while I was supposed to be a watchin’. It’s no’ too late, though. Ye can catch her by sundown, sure.” Ewan was talkin’ so fast, Monty had to ask him to repeat himself three times already. “Ye can have the whole of the Scottish sky to bed down under. With her. If’n ye catch her.”

Monty rubbed his chin thoughtfully. What could she have said to the man to get him to help her?  How could she possibly pay Ewan enough to turn colors?

“If ye’d rather I went after the lass, Monty, I’ll do it. I don’t want to risk her wee neck by bringin’ her back in the dark, ye ken, but I’ll keep my hands to meself.” Ewan turned toward the stables.

“Hold, Ewan.” Bastard. If ye touched the lass, ye’ll be dead come morning. “I’ll go after her.”

Monty’s stomach lurched. Betrayal for breakfast never sat well. He’d eaten that meal before.

“Dinna trust that she rides poorly, Monty. A lass like that is capable of anythin’. I’d bend yer head and ride hard, I would, once it’s clear she’s headed East.”

It was small comfort Ewan looked sick while he spouted his lies. Ill now; pain later.

When Monty emerged from the stable on horseback, he was surprised to find Ewan still standing where he’d left him.

“Laird Ross.” Ewan waved him over. “Monty, I want ye to keep yer eyes upon me while I’m talkin’ to ye. Ye ken?”

“I ken.” Monty’s heart lifted. He couldn’t do it. Ewan couldn’t lie to him.

“Yer sister watches us now, from the tower room. Dinna look.”

“I won’t look, Ewan.”

“The lass is waitin’ at the auld abbey for ye to pass, then she’ll be comin’ back, ye ken?”

“I do.”

“I ask that ye not kill Ivar MacKay, nor punish Morna. After all, ‘tis not their faults the faery has come, is it now?” Ewan waved his hands like he was encouraging Monty to ride fast and hard. “’Twas not their faults they fell in love, or that they cling to any hope of happiness. Mind that.”

“I’ll mind it, my friend.” Monty turned toward the gates.

“Mind also that I’m yer friend first and last.” Ewan whispered the last, but Monty heard it.

Thank God someone is.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Jilly made one last sweep of her temporary bedroom and came running down the steps, pointed boots flying. Grandma would have made her go back upstairs and calmly come down again, to prove some restraint.

She’d pulled her jeans and boots back on for the “ride” home, but had left the plaid dress on for a bit of a souvenir. She looked ridiculous, but she didn’t care.

“I think they’re here.” She skidded into the hall and the stone dais stopped the slide of her boots with a nice clean ‘thwack!’  Better than breaks on skates.

Standing in the center of the Great Hall Morna laughed at the sound, but then dropped the smile and stood stock-still. To an uninformed observer, she looked calm, patiently waiting, and in that moment, Jilly realized that Morna never cried. Even while sharing all her feelings about Ivar, Montgomery, and Isobelle during their late night tete-a-tete, Morna hadn’t given up a tear. Juliet, it seemed, was one tough broad.

How many times had Montgomery mentioned how much Morna “greeted” over her separation from Ivar?  Just what constituted Montgomery Ross’s version of crying, anyway?  Good thing she’d be going back to the 21st century before PMS had a chance to strike. The man probably couldn’t have handled what the moon did to Jillian MacKay.

Ewan had told how Morna had swooned into his arms when Jilly’s voice came from the tomb, and in the 21st century, women just didn’t swoon over anything. In Jilly’s eyes, that had made Morna a wuss. However, Jilly conceded, she herself had never been faced with what she truly believed was a ghost. Yet. Who knew what this modern day Wyoming gal would do then?

Probably pee my lucky jeans and squeal like a pig.

The woman standing before her now was no wuss, leading Jilly to believe Morna had been just as regal while in her Gordon home. She could not imagine the woman whining—or whingin’, as Montgomery called it—day in and day out. Nor crying so much the Gordons would welcome a break from her. More likely, they needed a break from having a goddess among them who could do nothing but make them feel unworthy.

Yes. Here stood the woman Quinn Ross had described. “Juliet knew her duty, and did it.” Her own happiness be damned for the good of the clan.

A cloaked and hooded man walked out of the arched doorway beside the dais, followed by Ewan.

Jilly’s heart lurched. It couldn’t be Montgomery. It couldn’t!

She hadn’t dared imagine what might happen to her if he were to catch her elbow-deep in the cookie jar. If she were truly in danger, could she sprint to the dungeon and get up into the tomb before he could catch her?

Not a chance.

The towering man quickly disposed of both hood and cloak, flinging the dark covering onto the Ross chair. His mane was as black and straight as Jilly’s, his arms perversely swollen with muscles, his build as intimidating as that of the man she had mistaken him for.

Both laughter and tears bubbled up from her chest, but she forced them back down. She was relieved, yes. But she also felt a blast of guilt for imagining Montgomery might harm her. No matter what she’d done, or had to do, he would never pose a true danger to her.

What she really feared now was seeing the look on his face when he discovered her betrayal.

They had to get moving.

Ivar MacKay’s face beamed while at the same time tears streamed across cheeks and sparkled as they dangled from his slightly whiskered chin. He held out his arms and walked forward, not waiting for Morna to come to him, not giving her time to decide whether or not she wanted to. His strides were long, measured, confident.

How could the man know Morna’s feelings would not have changed after an entire year and that year spent married to another man?  How could he possibly know?  If he had merely been out of the country, or away at college, he should not have been able to count on a woman’s feelings to remain constant, especially when they hadn’t even spoken or written each other in all that time.

How did he know she hadn’t fallen in love with her own husband?  He shouldn’t know, but he did.

And he was right.

In the first display of weakness Jilly had seen from her, Morna drew the side of her wrist up to her mouth in a useless attempt to stifle a sob. A heartbeat later, she was in Ivar’s arms, wordlessly verifying the trust he had placed in her.

He turned her head and pressed her ear against his chest, gently, but powerfully crushing her to him, and Jilly yearned to be held so completely.

Ivar kissed the top of Morna’s head as if he’d been dreaming of doing so, closing his eyes as if savoring even the smell of her hair.

Morna nuzzled against his chest, but she could get no closer. Her arms wrapped and then rewrapped around his ribs, seeking a better hold, her grasp only to be shaken loose by her intermittent, but silent, sobbing.

Finally, he pushed her shoulders from him, his eyes roving every inch of her equally tear-drenched face. Her worshipping hand raised to trace his features as if he were made of the most fragile material.

Jilly felt shame wash over her, urging her to look away, not because the moment was so private, but that she was unworthy to observe such love, let alone wish for it.

Absently, she wondered why her shirt was wet, then felt a breeze cool her own soaked cheeks. Still she did not look away. She caught a hint of concern on Morna’s brow while the woman ran a delicate finger beneath one of Ivar’s shadowed eyes, but her smile remained.

Ivar looked down at Morna’s stomach, then back to her face, asking a silent question to which she shook her head in answer.

And just like that, he’d asked if she were pregnant, she’d told him she was not, and Jilly wondered just how much was being said between the two without a sound from either of them.

She felt better. One couldn’t be accused of eavesdropping when one couldn’t hear the conversation.

After a bit, they must have run out of things to say, or the sign language with which to say them. Their mouths came together for a different kind of communication, which this time, Jilly could not bear to watch.

This chat was definitely more brief than expected and Ivar’s chuckle brought Jilly’s attention back from the floor.

“Alright, Faery. What must we do?”

“Ye must get your MacKay hands off Cinead Gordon’s woman,” Montgomery growled as he emerged from the passageway. “Then find a blade to hand.”

No!

Jillian’s blood raced back and forth, between her spinning thoughts and her bursting heart. Perhaps this was the way a woman felt right before swooning—overwhelmed, desperate, hopeless, stupid, and heartbroken all in one breath. But stress was no mystery to a woman like her.

Then the idea struck.

Before Monty’s blade ever cleared its sheath, she did what any intelligent wuss would do when she couldn’t bear to see disappointment in the eyes of the man she loved.

She swooned.

She was reasonably sure she was just pretending, but she felt terribly relaxed in spite of the thumping her head had taken in her first attempt at method acting.

Be the swooning damsel. I am the swooning damsel.

Perhaps it was not unlike the time the bald hypnotist had come to her high school. One eye had been shaded bright blue and the other green. His smoking jacket had glittered where sequins still clung to old-fashioned polyester. The man had been daring indeed to wear such shocking fashion—complete with one gypsy-sized earring—in a small town in Wyoming.

But the performer had known his stuff. In spite of considering herself too intelligent to ever be hypnotized, Jilly had crumpled like the rest of the audience into complete relaxation. There had even been proof: a photo of her sprawled out across the gorgeous knees of one Gavin Bowden, high school super jock. The picture had only made it into the yearbook because Gavin had been in it, and his smile had been breathtaking as he laughed his head off at the pile of bones on his lap.

That was how Jilly felt, lying there memorized by the pounding in her head that matched the beating of her heart. If she’d hypnotized herself into swooning, there would be no one to give her the magic words to bring her alert once again.

“Jillian. Mavournin’, I’ll not leave this spot until ye open those beautiful, irritating eyes of yers,” Monty’s voice grumbled far above her. “Stand up and face the consequences.”

Well, it wasn’t a simple ‘popcorn’ or ‘peanuts,’ but those words were magic enough.

She blinked her eyes open and tried to look confused.

Her acting sucked.

He laughed.

She shot up to a seated position and tipped her head back, only to be slammed by an invisible shovel where the stone floor had hit the back of her head. She groaned and delicately pressed a hand to her skull.

“Serves ye justice, woman. Ye don’t swoon.”

“I’m not so sure I didn’t,” she grumbled.

“Next time fall forward if ye wish to be believed.”

His hands were behind his back. So much for chivalry.

Another man’s hand, Ivar’s, opened in front of her and all the air was sucked out of the hall, right through Monty’s teeth.

“Touch her and ye will die whimpering, Mac-Eye.”

She looked up to see Ivar shaking his head at The Ross, but he did not remove the hand. There was no way Jilly was going to take it now, however, and she pushed herself to her feet awkwardly. There was a reason no one wore long skirts anymore.

“Thank you just the same, Ivar. He doesn’t need extra reasons to be angry.” She turned to Monty. “It’s my fault. I brought him here. Don’t blame anyone else, please.”

As she spoke she reached out a hand to lay it on his chest, but he eyed it as if she were a leper, so she pulled it back.

It would have hurt less had he struck her.

The most awful pain shot from the pit of her stomach up her chest and exploded into tears that demanded to be released, but she held her breath and refused to turn them loose—not with him watching. She could never let him know how easily he’d hurt her. If he knew he had such power, he could crush her, and even Deano at The Body Shop could never get the dents out.

Her eyes filled anyway. She turned her head to the side just in case.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be out of your hair now. I think I can find the way by myself.” It was amazing she could find her voice at all, when she so badly needed to bend over, clutch her stomach, and cry. “Come on,” she called, hoping Ivar and Morna would understand she was talking to them. If she had to speak another word, a whisper was all she had left.

“What do ye mean about my hair?” Monty asked, stopping her with his voice alone.

She wouldn’t face him. She wouldn’t allow him to see the tears splashing off her eyelashes like a water fountain out of control.

“What did ye mean, ‘out of yer hair’?”

There was only curiosity in his voice, not concern. Good.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Later was always the best time to cry.

“We’ll be out of your way, won’t be in your hair, we won’t bother you anymore.”

“And how do propose to summon such a miracle?”

She could tell the word miracle had left a bad taste in his mouth. Surely he knew the source of miracles in his home. It was about 15 feet away from him.

“I’ll take them back with me. That is the way Isobelle intended it, I think. I’m sure you can stop worrying about the faeries after this.”

Monty concentrated on breathing in and out. He wanted to hurt someone, everyone. He wanted to shake this MacKay woman and send her scurrying from his life.

He wanted to do everything in his power to keep her near.

How dare she talk of taking his sister away, letting that MacKay have what he wanted, and just leaving him like this?

He snatched up his sword and headed for Ivar, who was at the very least clever enough to back away, looking for a weapon. The man finally understood the danger he’d been in since he’d crossed The Ross/Mackay Burn. It mattered not who had invited him.

If he killed Ivar, there would be no need for either woman to go back through the witch’s hole, but unfortunately the deed would likely run them both off.

As his blade shattered the stool his foe had used for a shield, and at the same instant he realized it wasn’t so much his sister’s departure that disturbed him. She would be off to the Gordon clan on the morrow; he’d see her rarely, as before. But the thought of missing the MacKay wench was far different. When Isobelle had gone away, his heart had ached. The thought of Jillian leaving ripped the organ from his chest and burst it against the wall.

Her betrayal, he could understand. She’d been plain about her purpose. Honesty need never be punished, his father had taught him. Hell, the man had taught the same to his sisters. ‘Twas likely why the two spoke their opinions rather freely, for women. His parents would have liked Jillian. Would have been pleased Monty had chosen to keep such a woman. But could he keep her?

If he allowed Ivar and Morna to be together now, he could have the lass, but there would be many made to suffer. The Cock of the North took personal insults none too lightly. A slight against his runt would cause war.

Better they all just went back to the way things were, Rosses and MacKays fearing the mixing of their blood lest prophecy and witchcraft be their reward. Ivar to the west, Morna to the North, and Jillian with nowhere to go at all.

Good enough.

He dropped the tip of his sword and stepped back.

Morna cried out her relief, and as MacKay held open his arms to her, she ran straight for him, damn her.

He turned toward the fire and acted as though he cared not what they did.

“Come on,” Jillian said, but she didn’t move. She was waiting, but for what?  Him?  Did she want him to fall to his knees and plead with her not to go?

Never. Montgomery Ross would not beg. Besides, she was playing right into his hands.

#  #  #

Stealthily following the trio through the maze of tunnels below the hall was simple enough. He knew where they were going. Jillian only made a wrong turn once and he had to backtrack quickly to keep from being seen.

She led them, although Ivar had spent half his life here and knew the tunnels as well as Monty did himself. Morna was caught against Ivar’s side and kept her eyes upon his face, her hands upon his arms, obviously caring not where they went. Jillian carried a torch and walked as if her feet were made of stone. If she didn’t walk faster, they might all topple over from lack of speed.

She really didn’t wish to go, Monty realized, and he was so pleased he nearly laughed aloud. Or mayhap his frown had wounded her deeply, when he’d only wished to show her how much her defiance had displeased him. Next time, he would wait until they were alone and then tell her. Later, when this was all over.

There was no time now. He only had a moment to compose himself. They were nearly to the workroom.

Someone sniffed.

A few paces later, she sniffed again. It was Jillian; she was crying. His heart plummeted. What an ogre he was to put her through this. And he was not yet finished acting like one.

“This is it. This way,” she said in the smallest of voices. Surrounded by rock, they all heard her clearly. No doubt all that sniffling could have gone undetected as well had they been anywhere else.

He wished they were anywhere else. Jillian standing so near the door which led to the witch’s hole made him panic. Suddenly the smell of earth was overwhelming, as if he were being buried alive. He might well wish to be if she made it up into the tomb hole before he stopped her.

“Hold,” he growled. “That is not the way.”

Jillian spun around in a swirl of dust and skirts. Her eyes were lit with a combination of hope and the dancing flame of the torch she held. For a moment, he savored and memorized her face this way. His next actions would erase that look for some time to come.

“To yer left, MacKay. Ye know the way. Take them both along.”

He finally looked at the two he’d been ignoring. Morna’s shock turned to outrage. Ivar’s smirk told them all he was not surprised in the least. He stood aside and gestured for Jillian to go before him.

“The new Montgomery never ceases to disappoint,” MacKay said.

No matter. Let him talk, so long as he moved along without fighting. Although, if Monty did have to kill him in defense, the women may forgive him sooner.

They worked their way down into the bowels of Castle Ross, past the cistern and deeper still until the light ahead stopped abruptly. She’d seen it, then.

Montgomery moved forward, pushing MacKay before him, fully prepared for the man to come to his senses and fight his way out. But he didn’t; with one hand firmly anchored around one of Morna’s, he seemed content to embrace his fate, whatever it may be.

Jillian was reluctant to release the torch, but a stern stare led her to reconsider and she took a step back from him. The hope, he could see, had truly left her eyes. He wanted to chide her, tell her she was foolish not to trust him, but he could not. He had to look away lest he lose his purpose.

“In ye go. Ladies to the right. MacKays to the left.”

Jillian looked confused.

“All ladies, MacKay and otherwise, to the right, please.”

She shuffled her feet into a cell that was blessedly empty. She looked at the floor and swallowed hard.

Could he really go through with this?  Was she wondering the same?   Were they all?  No matter.

“Get on with ye Morna Gordon.”

“Bastard,” Morna screamed and ran at him. He dropped the torch and grabbed one of her clawed hands and spun her around, unwilling to drop his sword to get hold of her other hand. For a wee moment he savored holding his sister in his grasp, hugging her back to his chest, wishing he could be the one to comfort her, wishing he weren’t the reason she needed comfort. Again.

“Morna, join Jillian if ye please.”

She straightened, leaned out of his embrace then stepped away. Before he could stop her, however, she fled into Ivar’s arms, who reached out and pulled his barred door closed.

Monty walked down the tunnel and came back with keys.

“For pity’s sake, Mr. Ross, let them alone.”

Jillian’s voice was stronger now, but cold. Menacing. When all of this was over it would take time for her to forgive him. He knew just how he’d begin to warm her. But for now, he had to worry about getting Ivar back on MacKay soil and keeping Morna put until the Runt arrived on the morrow.

“Her husband will arrive come morning. If she bides the night with Ivar MacKay, The Gordon will start a war. Men will die. Do ye know death, Jillian?  In yer world, do ye know what it is to have families starve because their menfolk are killed in wars they had no hand in?  Do ye ken wars, Jillian Rose MacKay?”

Her chin came up, bless her. She hadn’t given up yet. Thank God.

“My world knows plenty about war, Mr. Ross. More men than are alive today will die in a single war. Families will starve for much less reason than their men dying.”

He could not help but step up to her, to take every advantage.

“Why would ye wish to return to such a place, lass?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked, without hesitation.

Dear God, she was asking him for a reason, but he could not give it now. These men in her wars were not men from her clan, from her home, from her family. She would not drag a man’s body off the field and to his door, not be there to hear the first soul-wrenching screams of his widow.

He could only smile and turn away before she realized what a sad smile it was. He had to leave before her pain became as unbearable as the widows in his memory. It was for the would-be widows of the future that he had sought the alliance with the Gordons. He would not undo it for the approval of any two women.

Once again he took the keys toward Ivar’s cell on the opposite side of the room.

“I said leave them be. The Gordons need never know.”

This time Jillian’s voice was angry, but she knew little of anger. Once she’d been betrayed by someone, she’d look back on this day and understand.

“Consider this, Ross,” came Ivar’s voice. “If she grows heavy with child, The Runt can claim the honors.”

Morna pulled away from MacKay and reached a pleading hand toward Monty.

“Brother, if ye ever loved me half so much as ye loved our Isobelle, let me have this night.”

Half so much?  “Are ye mad?  I never loved her best.”

How could she think such a thing?

“Oh, Monty, ye never would have mourned me so.” Morna’s pleading hand dropped to her side.

“Not so. I mourned the loss of ye the day I found ye and yer traitor at The Burn.” Not a soul in the dungeon wanted to relive that day. He could not believe he’d mentioned it now. A year ago they’d agreed upon one fact; they disagreed about all of it.

“Ye mourned me by punishing me. Ye mourned Isobelle by building her a shrine in yer own hall.”

“Ye’re speaking madness. Had the churchmen come for ye, to burn ye for yer sins, I’d have done no less. And if it were ye inside, would I not also have lost my sanity worrying we may not reach ye in time?  I swear upon my soul I would. Ye are both as dear to me as the other.”

Morna frowned. He must not have explained it well enough.

“She didn’t know,” Jillian said behind him.

His chest lurched, as always, with the sound of Jillian’s voice, but he dared not look upon her lest some strong wall inside him crumble.

“She didn’t know what?” he asked the floor.

“Morna didn’t know until just now that Isobelle is alive. I’m sure it’s wonderful news, but Ivar, you’d better catch her.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Already at her side, Ivar lowered Morna to the ground and wrapped both arms about her shoulders before he turned his stunned face toward his old friend.

For the next hour, the four sat amiably enough while Monty related every detail about their plan to get Isobelle away without so much as singeing her hair.

Morna finally found her voice.

“Ye owe me dearly, brother, for not telling me sooner. Do ye know how I’ve worn out my own throat over the death of my sister?”

“That was a convenience, I think, to keep The Runt away from ye.”

Morna had the grace to blush in the orange flame-light.

“Yes, it was,” she confessed, “but the convenience was not worth the breaking of my heart, believing I was the cause of her death.”

The room went eerily still. Even the torch seemed to burn in rigid silence. Hairs raised on the back of Monty’s neck.

“It is late. For once in the past sennight, I will sleep undisturbed in my own bed.”

He finally looked to Jillian as he stood. Her head bowed over her knees. She ignored him until he picked up the light and moved it, which made her start.

“I’ll not leave ye in the darkness, Jillian MacKay.”

Moving about the room, he touched the torch to three others.

“In a few hours I’ll be back for my sister. Don’t make plans, MacKay. Ye’ll not be able to stop me from sending her back.”

No argument came from the shadows but movement receded far into the dark cell and he gave up trying to distinguish shapes, knowing there would be only one now as the lovers clung to each other. As he would like Jillian to cling to him one day soon.

Now the difficult part.

Reluctantly, he turned to find Jillian also moving deeper into her cell. If he took her with him, she’d not only demonstrate how much she loathed him but she’d find a way to come back to free Ivar and Morna before morning.

And they’d try to escape through the witch’s hole.

Slowly, painfully, he shut Jillian’s barred door. He imagined her flinching, though he could not see her, and his soul flinched with her.

One last task before he could stretch out on his big bed and sleep with both eyes closed for a change.

#  #  #

It had sickened Monty to see Jillian so near the workroom but a wee while ago. Now however, standing inside, alone under the gaping hole, Monty admitted he relished the thought of quitting the place.

The sealing stone lay in pieces below the hole. For his clumsiness, Ewan was going to have to fashion another. Tonight, however, it was convenient not to need to remove the heavy thing with but the hands of one man.

Rolling a cask under the dark maw, Monty was able to reach into the tomb where he set his torch. Swinging himself up into the light was accomplished easily enough. At one end of the oblong space, in a small nook made naturally by a difference in the thickness of the stones, sat Isobelle’s necklace.

“Forgive me, Isobelle. This cannot be left here, where she might use it.”

He lifted the necklace in his hands, but he could not see it well for the light was below it. No matter. He would examine it another day, when the menace was gone.

When Jillian would never wish to leave him again.

He opened his sporran and lowered it in, then lowered himself just as gently onto the barrel. When he reached back inside to collect his torch, he saw something shiny on the wall.

Strange, but he was sure there was naught else but the torque in the tomb. Had Jillian left something behind when she had been inside?

Once more, he swung up into the torch’s light and stood. There, in the same alcove, was the cursed necklace.

The hairs on the backs of his hands rose with every other hair on his body. The prickling around his ears made him want to run howling from his own home, but he remained.

Quickly, he lifted the flap of his sporran. Monty was logical enough to know the necklace would not be inside, but foolish enough to be surprised when it was not.

It may have been his imagination, but if he listened closely he could hear the twin laughter of a couple of sisters. He chose not to listen that closely.

A Ross was not that easily defeated. Perhaps one merely needed to show the thing that it was, indeed, not in charge of its own fate.

Once again, he lifted the oddity from its perch, but this time he held it in his hand. Securely. He carefully lowered himself on to the barrel then reached back inside for the torch. With the aid of his light, he looked at his left fist.

His empty fist.

He had never released the thing, and yet he could not say when it had left his grasp. He had it in his fingers as he was lowering his feet to the barrel, and by the time he lowered his hand, it had vanished.

Just as Jillian would vanish, he heard himself think even as he fought against that image.

Fine then. Ewan would begin working on the stone at first light, and he would not stop until the hole was sealed, the workroom filled to overflowing with the heaviest items he could find...and the door guarded by no less than a wolf.

He couldn’t possibly let her out of that cell until it was done.

A wee while later, Monty tossed and turned, stretched and sighed until he admitted he could not enjoy his rest. Though he sought to fill his mind with other, more pleasant images, he could not manage to lock out the sight of Jillian huddled in the darkness, under his home.

What if the torch did not last?  Was it so much she asked of him?  Air. Light. And water.

Dear Lord, he’d left her no water!

#  #  #

“Jillian?” came Ivar’s whisper from across the dungeon. “Lass, are ye awake?”

Jillian had tried to give the sweethearts a bit of privacy...by humming. She’d never been much of a voyeur; it had always been too painful to watch lovers kissing or wrapping themselves around each other when she’d never had anyone of her own. The difference now was that she imagined herself doing such things with Montgomery Ross and the frustration was infinitely worse.

She didn’t know if the two would take advantage of what may well be their only time together, but she’d hummed as long as she could. When her voice had finally given out, it had been blessedly quiet.

“Jillian.”

“I’m here. I’m awake.”

“We need to make a plan, lass, before The Ross returns.”

Only one torch remained lit. Funny how, in her wallowing, Jilly had not noticed before how imminent was the arrival of complete darkness. Perhaps it was because she was not totally alone that the fear was held at bay. Perhaps it was because she could imagine worse things, like failing her task.

Or maybe she feared completing it.

“We won’t be able to get to the hole this time. Not with Monty guarding it like he is. We will have to try another day, when he doesn’t know we’re all together.”

“You’re probably right, Ivar. But it took so much to get you both here. I’m afraid we’ll never pull it off again.”

“She’s right, mavournin’,” came Morna’s strong voice. Jilly could only imagine what a strong woman her older sister Isobelle had been. “In but another sennight, the clan will be allowed back inside the hall. Monty will have decided what he is going to do with Jilly by then. After that, I doona like our chances.”

The subject didn’t care for the sound of that. She wanted to know what Morna suspected her brother capable of, but she dared not ask. But there was something else. Something Morna had said earlier.

“What does ‘mavournin’’ mean?”

Morna laughed. “It means ‘my dearest one.’”

Jilly had suspected something of the sort, but knowing he’d called her his dearest one didn’t mean she’d ever be able to get around his pride. For it had to be pride holding him back. Monty would never admit he was wrong. Even if she bashed him on the head.

Now there was an idea.

“You can’t just overpower him, Ivar?  Tie him up, or something?” She tried not to think about what things she’d like to do to him while he was thusly incapacitated. Just a few hard kisses before they left—

“I cannot best him, lass. I never have. I’d have to have help.”

“What about Ewan?” Morna chimed in.

Something moved down the hall leading from the dungeon and all of them went silent.

The silence stretched out with no further disruption. “Don’t worry, ladies,” Ivar murmured. “The rats will stay away from the light.”

Before the echo of his voice had finished bouncing around the stone room, the orange glow faded to black.

“Are ye all right, Jillian?”

Oh how she wished it were Monty’s voice she’d heard.

“Yes, Ivar. I’m fine.” She hoped she would be. “Maybe if we keep talking, it will keep them away.” He probably thought she was talking about rats; but she was referring to new nightmares—ones about leaving a certain Scottish laird in the past.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

By naming his youngest and smallest son Cinead, no doubt the “Cock of the North,” Laird of the Mighty Gordon Clan, hoped most Scots would see something in his runt resembling the First Scottish King, Cinead Mac Alpin, or at the very least, something noble. But not even the Gordons could summon up such a vision.

Standing just tall enough to suckle at the breast of a typical Scottish lass, The Runt looked like a child as he stomped and paced before The Ross’s Castle steps, waiting for his beautiful but weepy bride to be brought to him.

Monty, looking down upon the miniature man, wondered how he’d ever forced his sister into such a marriage. Perhaps he’d not been thinking clearly a year ago. Perhaps he’d not been seeing clearly, or perhaps it was just the height of his steps that made the man seem so much smaller than before.

He descended slowly, hoping against hope that Cinead would grow before his eyes. But if anything, the man looked to be even smaller. And with his wee tantrum barely contained, Monty had the urge to take this child over his knee and correct his character.

“Where is she?” the mite demanded.

Monty could not trust himself to speak. He just turned to Ewan, who still stood at the top of the steps, and gestured for his cousin to fetch Morna, who pouted just inside the door. She wouldn’t come out for her brother, but she wouldn’t harry Ewan.

Just as predicted, she came willingly enough and carefully descended the narrow steps. Ignoring both Montgomery and her husband, she walked, head held high, to the riderless horse beside Cinead’s and waited for Ewan to lift her onto the saddle. When he handed her the reins, she turned her mount and urged it majestically through the portcullis as if she were unaware of anyone else being out of doors that day.

Ewan’s smile did not falter as he gestured to the little Gordon prince his offer for a leg up, but the latter ignored him, climbing up a clever series of stirrups and onto his enormous horse’s back. As Cinead rode away, Monty noticed the smug smile on his face and realized, as her husband must have, that Morna was no longer weeping.

Good Lord. Even though he knew full well what the trio had planned the night before, The Runt may have a hand in things after all. Three days, and three nights, was a very long time indeed.

#  #  #

Jilly stood next to Ivar in front of the laird’s chair where Ewan had deposited them. Monty stared at Ivar; Jilly stared at a scratch in the wood near Monty’s booted feet. Looking at his actual boot would be far too painful.

When the silence continued, she finally raised her gaze to Monty’s face. He was still staring at his former friend, assessing the man like he was conducting a silent interview. Ivar stared back as they both waited for the verdict.

Surely none of them would get a death sentence. Surely.

But when the confidence in that thought wavered, Jilly’s knees faltered in their duty and she began to sink to the floor.

“There ye are, Jillybean. Stay with me.” Ivar pulled her up against his side and did not release her even when her knees returned from their coffee break. “The man won’t harm ye. And he willna harm me, either.”

She wasn’t so sure. Monty looked murderous at the moment. Apparently he didn’t care for anything close to swooning from her. She would have to toughen up.

“What did ye call her?” The monster’s voice was deceptively smooth.

The stupid MacKay man smiled for a drawn out moment before answering.

“Jillybean. ‘Tis what her friends call her betimes. Where she comes from, there is a sweet food called jelly beans. I suppose it means she’s a sweet lass...”

“Get yer hands off her, Ivar.”

He hadn’t called him MacKay. He hadn’t called him MacKay!  Was the man softening?

“Ye. Up to my chamber with ye.” He looked at her. “Now.”

No softening there. She dared not disobey him. Not yet.

She laid a hand on Ivar’s arm but they’d said everything before Ewan had taken Morna from the dungeon a little while ago. This was not goodbye, but she had to make Monty believe it was.

“Take care of yourself, Ivar.”

“And ye as well, Jillybean.”

A popping sound came from the vicinity of the laird’s jaw and she hurried out of the room. After making some half-hearted footfalls on the steps, she crept back to eavesdrop, again thanking her grandmother’s foresight in teaching her Gaelic.

Monty laughed. “Dinna be daft.”

Laughing was good. Well, usually, unless it sounded like it was coming through nearly-clenched teeth...like that.

“Of course I haven’t changed my mind,” the laird continued. “I was just waiting a bit for The Ru...Cinead Gordon to get over the ridge before I have ye escorted to the MacKay side of The Burn.”

Now Ivar laughed.

“’Tis good to know ye also call him The Runt. I was worried ye had lost yer sight as well as yer mind last year.”

Come on, Ivar. Don’t make things worse by pissing him off.

“Mmmm. I wonder...”

Montgomery’s teasing tone and unsteady moods reminded her of Mufasa on the Lion King. She hoped Ivar recognized the danger crouching on the Ross chair before him.

“I wonder if maybe we should now call him The Rut if the look on his face meant what I believe it meant.”

“What say ye?” Ivar hissed.

Fine, two lions then. There would be blood soon, she was sure of it. But if she tried to get between them, the blood would be hers.

Jilly’s chest heaved. Ivar’s cool confidence in their plan was her bastion of hope. His upset set off her own. What could have happened to shake him?  He’d always seemed so composed, even in the face of an angry Montgomery. What she wouldn’t give to have been watching from the window when Morna’s husband came for her.

“Morna left happily enough, is what I say.”

Ross was enunciating every word, moving in for the kill while sitting perfectly still. Or so Jilly imagined; she dared not watch but pushed her back flush against the wall behind her.

“I can only imagine what the pair of ye did through the night—with poor Jillian only paces away—but Morna was fair transformed. And The Rut noticed it as well.”

The crash resounding in the hall made it impossible for Jilly to keep from taking a quick peek. She glimpsed the laird’s chair on its back with its laird still seated in it like a skybound ride at an amusement park. Montgomery even chuckled with glee in spite of the fact he rubbed his jaw while Ivar stood nearby rubbing the knuckles on his right hand.

“Aye,” the laird continued, happily speaking to the rafters, “if yer seed doesn’t take, I’m sure his will soon enough, and I’ll have no need of wedding the Gordon lass.”

Jilly’s heart was bouncing around in her chest with no sense of direction. Ivar was the one looking murderous now. He’d never bested Monty, he’d said, but had he ever been this angry?  Surely he’d wanted to kill Monty last year when Morna was taken from him. Why had he not?

But Monty said he now had no need to marry the Gordon lass. Did that mean he didn’t have to marry at all?  In the future, the Muirs had said this laird had never married, had never had children. The modern laird had descended from Ewan, the cousin. If Montgomery Ross married someone—like, say Jillian Rose MacKay—would that mean they would have no children?  Could she live without having children of her own?  And if she did have them, wouldn’t that mess up history?

A text to Michael J. Fox was what she really needed.

Jilly’s heart landed in her stomach with a splash. What did it matter if he were free to marry her, even if he wished to?  There was no freedom to be had for her until Ivar and Morna were safely tucked away in the 21st century. Even if she wanted to return to him and live in such a hard place, she could just imagine lying in a dark tomb, waiting in vain for some unknown hand to push rewind on time itself.

After all, even that Superman guy died in the time travel movie, waiting for just that.

“Where is this plaid ye wish me to wear, ye bastard?”

Ivar’s words had her inching toward the stair. What if Laird Ross ran to fetch one from his room?

“Take this one. Ewan is waiting in the stables. Make sure ye keep to the West road so he doesn’t have to hurt ye. He hasn’t killed anyone for a time and he’s like as not to make a mess of ye.”

The swish of fabric nearly made Jilly take another peek. But for Morna’s sake, she didn’t. It wasn’t Ivar’s nude form she was interested in seeing, anyway.

“Either get yer mind out of the gutter, or crawl right in,” her grandmother would say. “Hot or cold. The Lord spits out the ones in-between.”

That had been her religion, growing up. A string of quotes, twisted around and presented sideways. You went to church and repeated what you’d been told by your elders. Heaven help kids with bad memories.

It was a wonder she still believed in God, in her own eternal soul. Even though it was her DNA, her Immediate Blood that had brought her here, something a bit less scientific had come alive in her the moment she touched down in the fifteenth century. More accurately, the moment she’d jumped into the arms of Montgomery Constantine Ross.

If there was one thing she’d learned being raised by Grandma, it was that even though God was constant, Fate was a twisted beyotch.

Hopefully, that beyotch could be twisted back by a small crew of two MacKays, a Gordon, a couple of Muirs, and Ewan—the future laird of Clan Gordon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The next three days were a wonderful mix of torture and happiness. Perhaps it was the happiness that caused the torture for Monty, but he wouldn’t give up the one to avoid the other.

He had three days to spend alone with Jillian, excepting the occasional interruption from Ewan. But in those three days, he had to keep from revealing his knowledge of her planned rendezvous with Morna and Ivar. Not an easy thing to do when all he wanted was to speak to her, listen to her voice, and of course, bed her.

The latter was not such a keen idea, for as he had learned with Widow Murray, he was wont to be a bit free with his tongue when in the throes of passion. Either that or the widow was canny enough to know just when to press him for answers. ‘Twas the worst time for declaring he had no intentions to marry the woman beneath him, to say the least.

The first day got off to a grand start.

Monty watched from his bedchamber window until Ivar and Ewan were out of sight. He admitted that had he not known where he was standing at that moment, he, too, would think he was riding out with his cousin. Ewan, they had agreed, would stay away until dark so few would notice his laird did not return with him.

That left the rest of the day to be alone with Jillian.

The problem was it left the rest of the day to be alone with Jillian.

At the moment, she was sitting at the head of his bed with her odd skin coat wrapped tightly about her. This day she wore the woolen skirt instead of her trews and struggled to keep her legs covered while eyeing him as if she knew just what he was thinking.

How dare she assume!  But then again, he wished to do exactly what she assumed he wished to do, and no doubt it showed on his face.

Best he prove her wrong, then.

Walking out the door without a word was the first of many difficult tasks he saw looming before him. Trying to busy himself cleaning the ashes from the hearth, without seeming to care what Jillian did, was the next. He imagined her through the stone walls, the wooden floors, sitting on the bed wondering if he were going to return and force himself upon her, driving herself to distraction waiting for just that, then finally not being able to keep herself from seeking him out.

Just as he was finishing his task and brushing the soot from his clothes and hands, cursing himself for a fool for thinking she had any thoughts for him at all, he heard the light click and scrape of her boots in the stairwell. She was trying to be stealthy but those silly boots gave her away.

He timed it so he was just walking out the hall door, ash bucket in hand, when she stepped into the hall.

He took his time with his chore, carrying the bucket to the outer bailey, pausing to ask old Mickey Ross which part of the man’s garden could use the ashes, then pausing for a bit of tongue waggin’. The auld mon’s back was hunched from years of leaning close and cursing the weeds that threatened his food, sure the weeds understood and would flee from his ire.

“How goes the war with the weeds, sir?” Monty squatted down to pull a few impertinent vines from between his dusty boots, but more so the man could look at him without trying to straighten his back.

And well the auld mon kenned it, if the twinkle in his eye were any indication.

“Oh, foin. Foin, yer lairdship. ‘Tis the time of season for another uprising, o’ course, so I’m takin’ a bit o’ a breather, ye ken, until the fightin’ starts.”

“O’ course. O’ course.” Monty had no idea how he had been fighting his own brogue for the last week while he tried to be more easily understood for a certain MacKay woman. “Mickey Ross kens best, I always say.”

“Just as Laird Ross kens best how to deal with the shade of his own kin, says I.”

Monty nodded appreciatively, but said nothing. What did he suppose his people were discussing while they were banned from the hall?  Harvest?

“I see it mustn’t have been ye that rode out o’ here with Ewan but a wee while ago,” Mickey said casually.

Monty froze, silently cursed himself, then laughed. Of course the whole clan would know by now that it was Ivar with Ewan. They’d watched the man grow up. They knew how he moved. They likely knew the slight differences between Ivar and himself. There had been no need for him to put a Ross plaid on the man. It only gave his people more gossip with which to flavor their suppers.

Mayhap it was the ruse of keeping Ewan away that had given him the idea.

“Ewan’s takin’ him back to his clan, Mickey Ross. He spent the night in my dungeon, lest anyone worry after my sister. She is the Gordon’s woman and well she kens it. I’d like the rest to understand that.”

“I’ll take care they know it, yer lairdship.”

“I’m beholden to ye.”

“Nay, yer lairdship. Ye hold nothing on any of us. And so ye ken it, none thinks less o’ ye, young Ross, for pullin’ those two apart and givin’ her o’er to the Gordon Ru...the Gordon’s son. ‘Twas best for the clan.” Mickey picked at his teeth, or rather where a pair of teeth used to be, then took a deep breath. “She’s a wonderous woman, yer sister, to give up true love for us. ‘Tis we who are beholden to her. No matter that it was a quickly arranged marriage, and there being no get from it as yet.” The man squinted off into the distance, as far, at least, as he was able to raise his head to see. “Don’t think on’t, Laird. The Gordons are a foin ally to have, whatever the price.”

Monty’s tongue formed the answer he’d given for a year now, that the alliance and betrothal were arranged before Ivar and Morna ever set their minds on each other, but he said nothing.

He’d listened to Ivar and Morna tell Jillian their very different version of last year’s events from just outside the dungeon the night before, and it disturbed him to hear how the pair truly seemed to believe the lies.

He didn’t feel like arguing today. Apparently, what his clan believed had never been in his control.

Good Lord, did they also know about Isobelle?

Not wanting to know the answer to that, he rose and nodded to Mickey, who smiled innocently and bobbed his head.

“Do ye expect to re-open the hall in six days’ time, young Ross?” Mickey called out. “Or do ye think the lass’s ghostie will be gone afore then?”

Without turning around, Monty answered the entire crowd who no doubt had their ears cocked to hear him.

“Six days, Mickey Ross. My orders stand. I’ll open the hall in six days.”

When he opened the great door, a lovely aroma met his nose and an even lovelier one met his gaze.

Jillian was fussing over the table. Lord knew how she’d moved that heavy Ross chair by her wee self, but it had been placed at the head of the table with a stool to its right. Two silver platters had been removed from the mantle and dusted, and a platter piled with food sat between them. The lass took one look at him and blushed before gesturing for him to take a seat.

It was a fairly long walk with his sporran knocking against that part of him that always responded to a blushing woman, but he wondered if any other lass would ever affect him so again. Letting this one get away from him seemed like a ridiculous idea, so he chose not to think about it at all.

He took his seat.

“Wait just a minute,” she blurted as she fled to the hearth.

He dared not move.

When she returned, she held up a small bit of cloth in her hands, water dripping around her wrists and under her arms, disappearing into her odd shift, partially hidden by the wool.

His own face heated while she scrubbed at his brow and cheeks, remembering his mother doing the same when he was a wee lad. He’d been thinking of the woman more than a wee bit lately. How he wished he could lay his head upon his mother’s lap and work out his problems, as he used to do when a boy. She would always listen patiently then ask him questions that led him to his own answers.

Wise woman.

He wondered what she’d say about keeping Jillian. What would be the cost to keep her?  What does yer heart push ye to do?

Damn, but the answers to those questions led him in two different directions.

Jillian giggled as she scrubbed at the side of his nose. He must have worn half the ashes on his face for all the rubbing it took to get them off. When she began washing his hands, it was the most arousing thing ever done to him and he pulled away and finished the job himself.

“Thank ye.” His voice wavered and he cleared his throat. “And what do we have here?”

Suddenly reminded of her favorite activity—eating—she hurried onto her seat and began piling food onto his platter. “Do you say Grace here?” she asked.

“What?  Who is Grace?”

She laughed. Lord how he loved her laugh.

“No, silly. Do you give a blessing on the food before you eat it?”

His father used to. He now wished he’d followed that tradition.

“I haven’t done so for a long time, lass. Would ye like me to give it a go?”

“That’s all right,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

She proceeded to give gratitude for the food and ask a blessing for the hands that had prepared it—

“Wait a moment.” Interrupting a prayer was ill-mannered, but he couldn’t help it. His chest throbbed with foreboding and he grabbed Jillian’s forearm. “Where did ye get the food, lass?  Ye’ve not had time to prepare it, and none of this was here to prepare.”

“Someone brought it for us...well, for you anyway. The hall door cracked open and the large platter slid inside. Then the door closed. I assumed Ewan arranged to have someone bring you lunch since he wouldn’t be around to get it.”

They both looked at the food.

“Two loaves of bread. Two hens.”

“Maybe they thought you were a big eater?” Jillian’s teeth worried at her bottom lip.

“Eating more than one’s share leaves less for someone else.” It was common understanding amongst his kin. None would have given two portions unless he or she knew there were two mouths to feed, and even Mickey Ross, with his eyes on the ground, kenned well enough that Ewan was not to home.

Jilly looked longingly at the food, as if she suspected she would not be allowed to eat it. She was right.

Monty stood and pushed meat and bread back onto the platter between them.

“Wait. Maybe they brought enough for you and Ewan.”

“When Ewan would have told them he wouldna be here?  Think lass. Someone kens ye are here. Mayhap the whole clan kens it. But we both know well enough that someone is trying to kill one or the pair of us. Are ye really so hungry to risk yer life for a meal?”

She hung her head and then shook it.

“There’s a good lass. I’ll go get ye more than enough to fill yer gullet.”

If there weren’t the end of the table between them, he was sure she would have kissed him, so happy was she for not needing to miss a meal. She silently clapped her wee fingers together as if saying many prayers rapidly.

She was an odd lass, but he loved her.

The warmth from that realization pushed aside the feeling of foreboding he’d had, until she filled her mug with wine from an unfamiliar skin.

“Where did ye get the wine, Jillian?”

She huffed, corked the skin and set it aside.

“It came with the food,” she mumbled.

He picked up her mug and swirled the contents before smelling it, and even though he suspected poison, he winced when he smelled hemlock. His assassin must have been hoping the flavor of the food would hide the odor, but he’d been to the Muir’s cottage enough, chasing his sister to ground, that he was sure he could smell it from across the room.

“Hemlock.” He looked at Jillian. Did she understand?  All he could manage was to repeat it. “Hemlock.”

Jillian understood. Her eyes flew wide and she stumbled to her feet, backing away from the table.

“Hemlock hemlock?  Or some other kind of hemlock?  Shakespeare’s Hemlock?  Poison?” She looked at her hands like they were on fire and ran to the hearth once more. “Come here!” she demanded.

She used hot water near to boiling to wash her own hands, then his, and then hers again. Like a wild woman she scurried to the table, snatched up the food and flung it into the fire.

“It was likely just in the wine, lass. The food was probably untainted.”

She turned on him.

“You want to take that chance?  Are you out of your mind?” She dropped both mugs in the pot of hot water, then tilted the pot to pour some on the now empty platters. “Don’t you understand?  Someone is trying to kill you!”

Not me, not us. She’d said you. This wonderful starving woman loved him, whether she realized it or not, and he’d be sure to spend the next two days making sure she kenned it, too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

That night, Jillian watched over him while he slept, as much as he was able to sleep with her tucking the blankets around him on a warm summer’s night mumbling her conviction that had she not come into his life, he’d live to the impossible age of seventy and four.

Every time he stirred, she’d ask what he needed, until finally he turned his back to her and wrapped a plaid around his ears. Only then had he taken a final deep breath and surrendered to Morpheus.

Jillian hadn’t slept at all. In the morning, he awakened to find dark smudges beneath her still-opened eyes, and after allowing her some privacy, he’d tucked her in bed, shuttered the morning light from the window and ordered her to sleep. When he’d come up the steps to check on her for the third time, she told him to get out and she’d come down to the hall when she was bloody good and ready, wrapped the plaid around her own ears, and slept an entire precious day away.

No one had seen anyone taking food to the hall the night before. With the excuse of wanting to thank the generous cook, he’d spent part of the morning asking about. Although he watched for a guilty glance, or the curious look from the gossips, he found only the clansmen he loved carrying on life as they always had.

Life did indeed go on outside the walls of his hall.

Inside that keep, however, he was left alone with his thoughts. Every now and again, he would stand at the foot of the stairwell, for he knew not how long, wishing for any sound of stirring from above. Once he was rewarded with the most unladylike snort and one would think he’d been given the greatest of gifts. He smiled and whistled until he realized that in reality he had been given such a gift; Jillian’s love.

It was funny how a silly thing like love could change everything. Faeries and witchcraft, Curses and MacKays, sanity and the lack of it, even the threat of war with the Gordons were but a list of worries he felt strong enough to deal with. The one important thing was that he’d decided to keep her.

He grinned broader and whistled louder.

When Ewan walked in on his personal celebration, he shooed the man outside.

“I canna be responsible for sewing yer head back on yer shoulders if ye happen to wake the lass. She’s right mean when she hasn’t slept, ye ken,” Monty had whispered.

“Ye’re in there whistling loud enough to overtake a piper and ye’re afraid I’ll wake her?”

“Was I whistling, then?”

“Aye, ye were. Folks are gonna think ye barmy, Monty.”

He hadn’t whistled for years and now he didn’t know if he could stop, but he’d try.

“I’ll put a quit to the whistling. Just ye rummage up some fine food by suppertime, man.”

The pair of them eased to their usual place at the top of the keep steps, reinforcing the appearance that all was normal. They lowered their voices to share their own events of the day.

“Any idea who brought the meal and the wine?” Ewan asked.

The impulse to whistle whithered.

“No. I’ve none. Whoever wants me dead will show his face eventually. I only hope I’ll recognize that face as my enemy.”

#  #  #

Jillian woke at gloaming and realized why Scotland would require a more romantic name for dusk. The sun had set but the sky was still lit with low orange clouds, which in turn lit the tips of heather on the hillside with an ethereal glow as they bent to a gentle breeze.

When the breeze blew in her own small town, one either got the fumes from the stockyard, where livestock waited for an East or Westbound train, or the smells from the sugar beet plant when the wind blew south. Worst of all was a Northbound breeze when the garbage dump was warm and pungent.

The city planners had apparently never expected the city’s population to grow past a thousand, which meant the dump and stockyards were determined the day the railroad came through. No use moving them now when all they had to do was wait for a Westbound wind which carried the lure of better, less offensive places to live.

Like Scotland.

Once she was home again, or rather, once she decided where her home would be, she’d have to harass the local florist into ordering heather for her. Scottish heather. She’d have a basket of it in every room.

In about two days, she’d at least be in her home century, if all went as expected. How many days after that would she be unlocking the apartment door...and eating her heart out?

Jilly smelled food, and not just roasted meat and vegetables. There were spices in the air and they tickled her nose like invisible fingers all the way down the stairs until her eyes got a delight of their own.

Torches hung at intervals on every side of the hall. The fire was modest, the table pulled into the middle of the room, although she nearly didn’t recognize it with all its dressing. A fine red cloth ran down the center with silver candelabras decked out in vines and leaves. The silver platters had been polished much better than she’d done the day before. And covered dishes were scattered about the end of the table nearest the laird’s chair, the back of which was also draped in red.

Left of his chair was only one other, a high-backed seat she recognized from a room above. It, too, was draped in red, and behind it stood a man with his own bit of spit and polish.

Laird Ross, for what else could she call him decked out in his formal regalia, lifted his chin proudly above his decadent white ruffles. A brighter plaid draped across his left, and finally covered, shoulder. A shiny broach held it in place. He stepped back and pulled the chair out for her, showing off highly polished boots beneath his kilt. The only flesh showing was on his face, his nearly ruffle-covered hands, and her very favorite set of knees.

She would have thought the man incapable of improving his looks with clothes. She couldn’t be more wrong. She had gotten used to seeing a great deal of bare skin, but this was impressive.

And although she’d taken full advantage of the bath she’d found waiting when she woke, she was hardly dressed well enough to sit next to this man.

“Excuse me.” She turned and fled up a few stairs, then back down again. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Then she turned and fled again to the tune of Montgomery Constantine Ross’s delightful laughter.

Nearly a half hour later, after exhausting every trunk, Jilly felt half-worthy to go to dinner. She walked as Morna-like and composed as possible, considering the yardage around her ankles, even though she was braced for a good lecture about making the man wait for so long.

He stood exactly where she’d left him, holding onto her chair, smiling appreciatively.

“Worth every minute, lass.” He cleared his throat. “Jillian.”

“Laird Ross.” It took a moment to start moving toward him, wanting to remember this moment for the rest of her life.

“Although ye’d look just as lovely without the gown.”

She pretended not to read too much into that, but Ewan barked with laughter as he emerged from the rear doorway.

“Stop that, Ewan. I know exactly what he meant.”

The laird scooted her chair beneath her and bent close to her ear. Her neck rose with goose bumps when his warm breath passed across it.

“Are ye quite sure of that, Jillian?”

Holy crap.

Holy crap, holy crap.

“Here now.” Ewan looked around the edges of the table. “Where’s that stool was just here, then?”

The Ross’s eyebrows rose, then puckered.

“Oh, I believe it is outside, cousin.” He winked at Jilly. “In fact, I’m sure it is. And I’m sure there is food on it as well. If there isn’t enough, mayhap ye could go a beggin’ from Mickey’s table, aye?”

Ewan frowned at Jilly, then back at his laird.

“What, do ye think I can be seduced by mere turnips?”

Holy crap, holy crap.

“I’m sure the man has a cask ye can help him open.”

The cousins were glaring at each other and she was sure her face was as red as the men’s, only they were angry, she was mortified.

“I’ll not open for just anyone, though, Monty, darlin’. Nor do I suggest it for anyone else.”

Holy crap. He couldn’t possibly mean—

He was looking right at her.

“Get out.” The laird still had a hold of the back of her chair with one hand, his knuckles white, and for a moment she thought he might throw it at his cousin—with or without her on it.

“I’ll go, cousin, but I’ll have a promise from ye first.”

“No promises, Ewan. This is none of yer concern.”

“Ah, but it is. I’ll have it from ye that no matter what our Jillian may do to anger ye, ye’ll not lose yer temper and harm the lass.”

Laird Ross inhaled sharply.

“Ewan?  What say ye?  Ye think me a monster as weel?  Ye?” In all his deflated glory, the laird collapsed in his own chair and stared off at the fire. “If ye believe me capable of harming a woman, then I must be that monster, mustn’t I?”

Jilly looked to Ewan and with her eyes begged him to take it back. The man would suffer too much as it was.

Ewan looked at her, then back at Laird Ross.

Say it, Ewan. Say it. Take it back and make him believe it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“Monty. Monty, I was wrong.”

Monty the Monster heard, but felt nothing. He was numb. He’d been slapped about so much since the day Jillian arrived that at last he could feel no more.

But perhaps he’d needed slapping.

He thought about what he’d heard in the tunnels, how convincing Ivar and his sister had sounded, as if they truly believed he had offered Morna’s hand to the Gordons in a fit of anger and jealousy.

And for the first time since those days, he thought it all wanted examining.

He’d not harmed a lass in his life, and yet both his sisters had suffered the worst of heartaches. And sitting here, with a wondrous woman he may not be able to keep, he no longer believed heartache such a minor woman’s weakness.

He looked to Jillian. Was that more than pity in her eyes?

“Monty.” She took his hand. “Monty, you must listen to Ewan. Mavournin’, please.”

His toes tingled. She’d called him Monty. She’d called him mavournin’. He knew, from his role as a dungeon rat, that she knew full well it was an endearment.

He smiled. He should act the martyr more often if it granted him this kind of boon.

“Ye can’t take it back now.” He looked at his cousin. “Tell her she can’t take it back. She’s called me mavournin’ and one can never take that back. Tell her Ewan.”

“He’s right, lass.” Ewan grinned. “None can take back a mavournin’.” He cleared his throat. “And I can see all feelings are mutual and so I’m not needed here, by either of ye.” He turned back as he reached the door. “But if ye need a bit of help, Monty...”

A dinner knife embedded in the door was answer enough and Ewan left without another word.

At his request the lass began uncovering their meal and if her reaction was sincere, she was mightily pleased. She ate daintily and he tried earnestly not to laugh. When he failed, he tried to cover his lapse with a cough into his ruffled sleeve. She pretended not to notice.

They spoke of his childhood days with Ivar, his memories of his parents. He avoided speaking about his sisters as much as possible, since he missed them so terribly and suspected that to speak of them tonight would end with him greetin’ on Jillian’s shoulder.

She spoke sparingly of her grandmother, that she’d had no other family and had been trying to track down possible relatives when she’d met a couple of Muir twins. Bad luck, that. But she was glad she’d gotten to meet him, in spite of everything.

One by one the candles gutted, the torches failed, until only one still bore a flame. What food could be saved to break their fast she covered and set aside.

“We’ll clean this up on the morrow, lass. ‘Tis time for bed.”

Walking up the stairs, Jilly felt like she was marching to the guillotine. She tried not to drag her feet, and his steadying grasp on her arm was a bit too firm as she used both her hands to hold up her skirts.

She moved into the bedchamber and stood aside when he held the torch to her candle. He then handed her the light and knelt, in his finery, to lay a fire for her.

“No. That’s all right. I don’t need a fire tonight, I don’t think.”

“Ye’ve not been awake long, lass. I daresay you won’t find sleep for a while yet, and I won’t have you lying in the dark.”

He stood and took the torch from her, his fingers brushing hers for a moment before he turned away.

Holy crap. Maybe she could do this after all.

Fires flared. Everywhere.

He hung the torch near the door and came back to her.

“Goodnight, Jillian.”

His arm went around her and he pulled her to him, cradling her between biceps that strained at his billowy sleeves. She looked up into black sleepy eyes and could almost feel sleepy herself.

“Wish me a good night, Jillian.”

“Goodni—”

Okay then. Apparently “goodnight” means “kiss me.”

He pulled away far too soon, so she tested this vocabulary lesson and again said, “Goodnigh—”

It worked. Hallelujah, it worked. And he got the hint too, not pulling away nearly as quickly.

His lips were firm and smooth, the kind you could kiss for hours and...

He pulled back again, stupid man.

“Goodnight.” She leaned forward and got only a kiss on the forehead and a chuckle.

“Goodnight.” Monty, or so she could call him now, backed away from her. “I have to leave now, lass, or we’ll neither one be able to face my cousin on the morrow.”

Is he kidding?

“Are you kidding?” She put her hands on her hips. “I thought you got over that.”

“Ye canna take back knowledge, lass.”

Whatever the hell that meant. She was left standing alone watching the swing of his kilt disappear around the corner.

Jilly spent a very long night thinking of all kinds of ways to punish both men in the morning. She had two days left with her very own, although rented, Highlander—make that two days and one night—and she was determined to get her money’s worth, so to speak.

#  #  #

“I’m leaving tomorrow, Jillian.”

Monty had heard her coming down the stairs, though without her boots. He’d also heard her stop at his words, so he turned to face her anger, but if she were frowning at him, he would never have noticed.

Ewan came in behind her and promptly dropped a mug of fresh milk.

Jillian stood before them swathed in a small length of plaid that covered only above her...well, below the pits of her arms to just below her...or rather quite far above her knees.

“That milk will sour if you don’t clean it up, Ewan.” She pointed to his spill. “Would you like me to do it?”

“Thank ye,” Ewan said at the same time Monty shouted, “No!”

He could just imagine how high that wool might go if she were to bend over to clean a spill.

He cleared his throat.

He cleared it again.

“Uh, lass. Jillian. What kind of garment did ye suppose that was?” He blinked. He blinked again.

She looked down at the cloth she thankfully held tightly with one hand.

“I thought it was a towel. You see, I usually bathe every day and when I had that bath yesterday it felt so good I decided I can’t do without.” She walked to the hearth and dipped her fingers in the water, but she’d bent over to do it and if either man had been standing to the right of the mantle... “Did you sleep well, Monty?”

“Sorry?”

“I asked if you slept well.” She turned a smile on Ewan. “You see, we didn’t sleep together, or do anything else together, just in case you were wondering.”

“I...I, uh, I.”

“Yes, he was wondering.” Monty glared at him, but the man was not looking his way, damn him. “And he was a goin’ to do his chores, isn’t that right, Ewan?”

Ewan looked at him as if he knew his laird not at all.

“Monty?  What?  Chores. Oh, aye. I’ll see to the ashes first, shall I?”

Ewan took one step.

“Don’t bloody move!”

His cousin froze, but could only shrug his shoulders as if to say he couldn’t help himself.

“Could one of you start a fire?  I’d like a couple of kettles of boiling water to mix with cold, so if you’ll start it going, I’ll come back down and check on it.”

The two watched her head to the staircase and both bolted after her. Monty got to the arch first and turned to bar the way for his cousin. If the man would have passed him, he’d have died.

“Ye fetch water, Ewan. I’ll start the fire.”

The way the two of them hopped about, one would think the bloody king was coming to visit. Eventually, there was nothing else with which to fidget and he and Ewan pulled stools beneath their backsides and sat.

His archway had never been so interesting.

For what seemed hours, he and his cousin watched it. Every time Monty ordered his cousin out of the hall, the impudent man chuckled and shook his head.

In spite of his assurance that he would bring her the water once it boiled, she’d been down to check its progress twice. When she returned to the steps, they’d raced to the archway.

Twice.

It was also the number of times Ewan had cheated death.

#  #  #

Jilly stuffed her “towel” against her face and laughed her ass off. Were all men this gullible?  She couldn’t wait to get home and try some things on modern-day males.

Actually, she could wait.

What had he said?  He was leaving in the morning?

Not. Bloody. Likely.

She moved to the sword propped in the corner of the room he’d apparently slept in the night before. She’d been confused when he hadn’t had it with him, but maybe he hadn’t slept all that well last night either.

She didn’t dare test the edge; it looked deadly. She scurried back down the hall where her lovely bath was already beginning to cool and bid a less than fond farewell to her infrequently lucky jeans.

But their luck was about to change.

CHAPTER THIRTY

While playing out scenarios in her head the night before, searching for the most poetic justice possible, she remembered what her friend Janna had once asked her.

“What cowboy could ever resist a cute girl in cowboy boots, a tank top, and cut-off jeans?”

Although the cut-off length of 2011 was probably short enough to give a Highlander—or two—a heart attack, she was sure the conservative length she’d chosen would serve her the justice she thirsted for. These men weren’t ever publicly exposed to naked thighs, so it shouldn’t take much to get their attention.

For a moment, when she hit the bottom of the stairs, she thought she may have been wrong about that because both men glanced at her and then turned back to their tasks. When she actually heard them swallow, she knew she had before her two handfuls of putty.

“Sorry about the shorts, but I was hot all night. Still am.” She pinched the front of her desecrated Swagger shirt and fanned herself with it. “May I ask what you guys are doing?”

Both men’s heads turned to her, skimmed her up and down then turned back to what was held in their hands. They squirmed just a little on two stools which had made their way back inside the hall.

“We’re making toys. For the children.”

Monty’s voice broke on the word children. She really should have lied to him and told him he’d have many sons.

Don’t you get soft on him. Not today.

Ewan held up a piece to inspect it, but he made a brief inspection of her as he did it.

“Look here. Have I got the ears straight?” He handed the piece to Monty, who also turned a bit toward her while he compared the ears on the carved piece to who-knows-what on her person.

“The ears are fine.”

Jillian sat down in the laird’s chair and both men gasped.

Slowly, both men turned and looked at her bare, crossed legs. She hoped they couldn’t see the stubble from this distance, but if she’d tried to shave with that sword, she’d have lost everything below the knee.

“Is something wrong?”

“Nay.” Ewan shook his head. “Nay.”

“It’s just that none usually sit in the Ross chair, but The Ross.” Monty looked at his cousin. “Isn’t that right, Ewan?”

“Aye.”

Both had forgotten the children entirely.

“I’m sorry. I should sit somewhere else.”

“Nay. Stay. Stay where ye are.” Monty turned to Ewan. “Cousin, ye should go see to yer sister now.”

Ewan started shaking his head before Monty finished.

“Cousin, ye will go and see to yer sister. Now.”

At the end of a one-on-one basketball game, when the onlookers were whooping and hollering, there was a sound that could be heard in spite of the rest; the sound of the opponents breathing very hard.

Watching these two argue, without words, was kind of like that. Jillian could stand it no longer.

“Excuse me for a minute.” She hurried toward the stairs and scurried to her room, searching for that towel again. Unfortunately searching with both hands over her mouth was hardly efficient and her laughter burst out around her fingers.

She bent and peaked over the shallow copper tub which had made her feel like a giant baby while using it—and heard a gasp.

When she straightened so quickly, hands still over her mouth, she lost her balance and landed arse-first in very cold water.

Her squeal was probably heard by the MacKays.

Monty’s chest was heaving. His finger pointed at her, his mouth opened and shut a couple of times before his voice showed up.

“Ye did it a purpose.”

Wasn’t he standing there?  Didn’t he see her fall in?

“Of course I didn’t. The water is freaking cold. Even you would have squealed.”

“I’m not talking about the squealin’, Jillian.” He stepped tentatively over to the tub and peaked past her knees. “I’m talking about the skin ye’ve been parading around for my cousin to see.”

Okay, she was busted. But really, it had taken him far too long to catch on, hadn’t it?

“For Ewan to see?” Jilly crossed her legs. “You mean you never looked?  Because I promise I did it for you both. I didn’t sleep at all last night and it was both your faults.”

The water showed no intention of warming, so she uncrossed her legs and held up a hand in a silent request for help.

Monty shook his head.

“But Ewan has no right to look on yer legs—yer entire legs, mind ye.”

But Monty did?  It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever not said to her.

“Nor yer shoulders, yer back, or whatever may have peeked out from yer towel this morn.” His voice had gotten a bit louder at that last bit.

He looked down into the water again and Jilly thanked God for the inspiration to cut the jeans just a bit more 1980ish in length.

Jilly wondered if her blush might be enough to bring the water around her to a swift boil.

“Wait a minute.” She pulled hair out of her face and tucked it behind one ear so he wouldn’t miss her frown. “Nothing peeked out from under my towel!”

“Are ye certain?” He lifted his brow.

“Let me up and I’ll show you.”

Monty froze. Hah, let him live in fear.

He finally blinked, offered her hand, and pulled her up. She quickly kicked off her boots so they didn’t get wetter, then stood in a puddle, unbuttoned her jeans, and slid the zipper down a few inches.

When she reached into her pants, the man staggered backward and sat on the bed but never took his eyes from her hands.

“Nothing peeked out from under that towel, Monty, because I was also wearing these.” She pulled the edge of her pink cotton panties up far enough for him to get a good look. “See?  Before you saw anything else, you would have seen these.”

Monty watched her hands as she refastened her shorts.

He took a deep breath. “Take them off, lass.”

Jilly froze. Well, her butt was already frozen, but the rest of her didn’t move either. She wasn’t sure she was breathing.

“I beg your pardon?”

Monty stood and closed the distance, slowly. He lifted her chin and lowered those wonderful lips onto hers and she stood there, clutching the top of her jeans, not daring to let go.

When another perfectly good kiss ended far too soon, he clutched at her shoulders and looked into the depths of her eyes.

“Take them off, Jillian,” he whispered. “They’re wet.”

He spun her around, smacked her on the bum, and pushed her onto the bed before she ever got her hands in front of her, plowing her face into the blankets.

His laughter filled the room, then the hall, then the stairwell, damn him.

#  #  #

Monty had sensed every step she’d taken into the hall. Now he turned to find her only an arm’s length away.

“I don’t want you to go.” Jilly looked at her hands.

So, she had heard him, then. Ewan clearly hadn’t, or if he had, his mind had been emptied by a MacKay in nothing but a towel.

“I’m sorry, lass. I must.” He stood back and looked over her finally appropriate clothing. “A fine improvement, I’d say. I’ll be able to look ye in the eye when ye speak.”

“Um hm.” She looked at him beseechingly. “But can’t you put it off for a couple of days?  Maybe go after you’ve reopened the hall?”

“Sorry lass, I canna. I have a clan to feed, aye?  Every year I meet with other lairds to plan the harvest exchange, and I must go.”

She and Ewan need not know he’d already sent one of the elders to the gathering in his stead.

The poor thing was going to cry and he nearly pitied her, but not quite. She’d won Ewan’s loyalty long before the towel incident, and he was still wincing from that. Making them pay for another two days should be enough to satisfy him.

“Look around ye, lass. This is not Scotland, it’s the cold inside of a single castle. Life goes on outside, amongst people, in the fields, in the dirt, in the rain, even.” He checked the water level of her eyes. Not quite there, but if he pushed her much harder, he’d be greetin’ alongside her.

He wished he’d never said he was going. What if his plans went awry?  What if this truly was their last chance to be together?  What if he was handed what he deserved, to give up Jillian as penance for what he’d done to Morna and Ivar?  What if he’d never be able to share with her the magic of Scotland in the fields, and dirt, and rain?

Hold. Breathe. Dear God, breathe.

He raised his brows and tried to smile.

“We’ve had a lovely time of it, Jillian, but we canna hide here forever. Once the hall is open, and we introduce ye as our English cousin—”

“What?  Cousin?  What?” She backed away from him with her eyes drying rapidly. “You know why I’m here, Laird Ross—”

“I thought ye were going to call me Monty.”

“—and as soon as I’m done, I’ll be gone.”

“Oh, that.” He casually walked over to his chair and sat. “I’ve already sent Morna and Ivar to their very separate lives, Jillian. It’s over.”

She was bursting to tell him, the way she was dancing about, waving her hands while her lips held in her secrets, her frustrations.

She stopped suddenly to look at him, a look that promised some form of pain, for them both.

“When my task is finished here, whether I succeed or fail, I will be going home. I will not be around to be introduced to your clan as your cousin or anything else.” She crossed her arms covered in a pale yellow bliaut and cocked a hip, thankfully concealed by a long full tunic. “Now, do you still want to go?  Or do you want to stick around for what may be our last day together?”

She’d hate herself when she realized how much she’d given away. But ever the talented player, Monty pretended a slow wit.

“Marry me, Jillian. Marry me and stay. I no longer care if ye’re daft, I daresay I saw no faery’s wings on yer near-to-bare back, I have enough of an alliance with the Gordons to ease my mind, and we won’t have to tell anyone ye’re a MacKay, and—”

“And?”

“—and I want ye to stay away from the witch’s hole while I’m gone.”

She looked away as the tide rose and spilled down her cheeks in waves. His work here was finished. She’d defy him, of course, but she’d be miserable doing so. And once it was finished, they’d have a good laugh.

“I’ll be leaving in the wee hours, love, so let us make the most of what is left to us. I’ll return to open the hall three days from now.”

The rest of the day raced by even though Jilly tried to slow it with long drawn out silences. They spoke of his grandfather and father and the table Monty had watched them build together. She told him of some of the renovations he would do and he admitted the ideas had never occurred to him. The garderobe improvements spun his mind.

Ewan brought food, but never ate with them. Monty told him his plans to leave in the morning and Ewan agreed that it was best that Monty attend the gathering in person. The shaggy man was somber and said very little, likely due to his concession to defy his laird to help her with Ivar and Morna. The last time she saw him he was helping Monty cover the high windows when darkness fell, then her reluctant conspirator disappeared into the shadows.

“Jillian, stop.” Monty shook his head when she tried to add more wood to the dying fire. “I must at least sleep a wee while before I go, else I’ll fall from me horse.”

She could only nod. This daft man had no idea this was the last time they would be together, even though she’d nearly told him her entire plan that morning. What part of “I won’t be here when you get back” didn’t he understand?

He pulled her along behind him all the way to her bedroom; she dragged her feet as she had when the Muir sisters were escorting her out of the pub.

When she realized he didn’t even plan to kiss her goodnight, she threw herself into his arms and took control, sincerely wishing she hadn’t stopped kissing him since the day she’d arrived. Maybe by now they would have moved on to other things.

He wrapped an arm about her waist and snaked that wonderful hand up through her hair to hold her in place, then he did some controlling of his own. He kissed her eyes, her nose, and kissed a trail down her cheek to her chin, as if trying to memorize her face.

As if he were thinking, “Just in case.”

And suddenly, when his lips met hers again, she began to sob. How could a kiss break her heart?

That was it. It had to be. There was no apt explanation for the crush she felt in her chest. Her heart was breaking, truly.

So unfair. So ripped off. The thrill of being in love should come with a minimum time allotment, with a clear expiration date stamped on the bugger’s forehead so she knew how long she had.

He turned her head then and pressed her ear to his heart, holding her as completely as she’d ever wished to be held in her life. And then it was over. She was the wall, blank but for the flickering light of her pathetic candle.

She brought her arms down and looked at the open doorway, but that kilt had long since disappeared around the corner.

Silly man. They’d be finished when she said they were finished.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Montgomery lay on his side and wept. He was a stupid, stupid man for frittering away that last few days. As he’d kissed Jillian’s face, he had a horrifying image of himself, sitting alone in his hall, with no wife and no bairns, not caring that his kinfolk were calling Ewan “yer lairdship.”

Was this akin to the nightmares he had visited upon Ivar, Morna, and likely Isobelle as well?  If so, it was a good thing he’d already decided to remedy it.

The night before had been long in coming. He’d forced his mind back to the day when he’d found Ivar and Morna at the burn. Considering the two were in the throes of passion when he’d found them, he’d tried to push the images from his mind, but he’d pushed away other details as well.

He remembered climbing up into his usual tree, planning on surprising Ivar by arriving early. The man had promised Monty a bit of news if he’d meet him at the nooning hour, and Monty had not been able to hold his curiosity in check.

He’d heard their noisy lovemaking before he saw them, but his amusement died when he caught sight of Morna’s face. Realizing they’d been keeping secrets from him, wondering how long they’d been doing so, drove him mad. How could they both betray him?

Pain. The memory brought so much pain, and not just because of the betrayal.

He’d attacked his friend, wounding him badly without even giving him the chance to dress or defend himself. More pain.

He’d called his sister horrible things while binding her to her horse, things he knew weren’t true, to hurt her as he was hurting. More and more pain.

He forbid his bleeding friend from ever crossing The Burn again. The pain turned his heart inside out when he saw the horror on Morna’s face, when he declared she’d be given in marriage to the Gordon’s runt-of-a-son if it were the last thing he accomplished in this life.

And the meanness overtook him, growing over his wounds like a rough, ugly scar. And he began to forget that day, remembering only that he was betrayed, that Ivar MacKay was to blame.

Even when his sister was being led inside her tomb, he blamed his old friend. When Ossian took her from his life, it was Ivar’s doing. How, then, had Ivar survived so long?

Was it because somewhere around those scars there was some hint at the truth beneath?  And when Jillian came and threatened to expose him he hadn’t been able to silence her as he had vowed to do. Was it because he wanted her to find the truth and exonerate his friend? Or was it just because he wanted to prove to the wife of his dreams that he could discard the monster and be a man again?

Perhaps both.

And as Jillian’s arms snaked around him in his bed and soothed him toward sleep, he hoped that in two days’ time, she’d see him as that man again.

#  #  #

Near the massive bulk of the Gordon keep, the North Sea slammed itself against rocks raised by God himself to keep the sea from eating at Scotland. The surf was loud and angry, like the rantings of a fanatic priest at a wicked man’s door. The receding waves dragged any lose debris hungrily into the deadly blue water of a hellish maw.

At the headland, a fair walk away from the keep, Morna stripped off her Gordon plaid, took down her hair, and used the strip of leather to tie her Gordon’s ring to the tartan. The slippers from her feet went sailing over the edge to land on the rocks below, one of them landing just out of the reach of the waves that clawed and climbed over each other to get at it.

Shading her eyes, she looked back at the shadow that had been her home for nearly a year, then turned fearlessly to the ledge and jumped over.

At least that is what it would look like to the man watching her.

Ewan was just about to cast off his skiff when a heavy boot landed on the bow. He would know the boot, but the blond man refused to look up at the wearer, likely sick unto death at what he would suppose Monty was thinking.

“Hold on, now.” Monty shoved the boat off the sand and hopped inside. “Do ye mind, cousin, if I come along?  ‘Tis a mean sea this day and ye may need another pair o’ hands, aye?”

Ewan clutched at both sides of the vessel which moved at the will of the water until the man was able to clap shut his own maw and take up the oars.

“What plan ye to do?” Ewan’s long oars dug deep into the waters of the only cove for miles. “Banish me?”

Monty smiled. There was no need to make the man suffer; he had obviously been torturing himself for days.

“Nay, cousin. Let us merely say that I have come to put the monster out to sea.” He met the other man’s eyes. “For good, let’s say.”

“Aye, let’s say.” Ewan grinned. “But ye’ll be stayin’ in the boat?”

“Aye, if ye doona push me over.”

Ewan frowned. “I’ll not be pushin ye, but I canna speak for Morna, aye?  There she be.” Ewan pointed to the woman clad only in her bliaut, clutching rocks that hung over a temporarily tame surge.

A moment later, the boat held steady beneath her.

“Jump, lass.” Monty held out his arms, to catch her like a babe. “I’ll catch ye.”

Morna looked doubtful.

“Aye, but after ye’ve caught me, Montgomery Ross, what will ye do with me?”

“What I should have done a year past, sister. I’ll take ye to Ivar MacKay and pity him the rest of his days.”

“Holdin’ this skiff in one place is not the easiest task for a landman, Morna.” Ewan cursed and turned the boat around. “Now get yer arse in here before we all end up in Norway.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Gone.

He was still gone. He hadn’t reconsidered and returned. Jilly would never see Montgomery Constantine Ross again—at least not in human form—there was still that statue.

She’d stalled long enough. Her knee-jerk reaction had been to wait, postpone, but when would this chance come again? Where would they hide Morna from the Gordons? Certainly not there—the clan would be allowed back in the castle soon.

It all seemed meant to be. There would be no other chance for Ivar and Morna. This was it. Besides, they'd waited long enough, hadn't they? And it wasn't like those two had only known each other for a couple of weeks. It wasn’t as if Jilly’s fresh feelings for Monty could trump a love affair like that.

Romeo and Juliet, together again. That's why she'd come. Meeting Monty and realizing her heart worked just as well as everyone else's was the bonus—the payoff—for coming.

Jilly slapped the wood of the pathetic door, welcoming the sting in her hand, a change from the sting in her chest.

Who was she kidding? She was going to die. She'd never love again. And she couldn't blame the Muirs or anyone else. Her fault. She should have stayed away from him.

Actually, she could share the blame with a certain writer back in her time—Mayhue—the one who made those Highlanders so romantic, so magical.

Mr. Magic was gone now, off somewhere, shopping for groceries for a few hundred people. A year's supply.

When he returned, what would he think?

Would he be saddened not to see her again? Glad she was off his hands? Pissed she'd taken her sister away? Or relieved he would no longer have to watch for the fairy?

Please, God. Let him be a little sad.

What she needed was a few hours in the sun, but that couldn’t happen there, in spite of the rare sunny day outside. She’d have to wait until she was home. That was the ticket. If she was a good girl and finished her chore, she’d reward herself with a nice bright dose of Vitamin D when she got back to real time.

She took the stairs one by one, dragging her fingers along stones that would be missing the next time she saw them. Everything she needed was in her pockets. A small knife was hidden in her sock, in case she needed to chisel her way out of the tomb once they were home. Of course she wasn't stylish, but one didn't dress up to climb back into the dark. She had her boots, the long plaid jumper over her Swagger tee, and her leather jacket. Who really cared if she mixed centuries?

At the bottom of the chiseled steps, her heart jumped. Mhairi and Margot grabbed her. A hand slapped over her mouth.

"Wheesht!"

"Sorcha's inside."

"Find yer way to the workroom, beneath the hole. We'll distract her and then come for ye. Whatever ye do, stay out of the tomb!"

The combined shove from both sisters had Jilly running to get her feet back beneath her. Adrenaline kept her from thinking at all. She just fled. But as she rounded the corner leading to the lower stairs, she ran nose-first into a man. She recognized the kilt.

"Ivar!" she whispered and raised her eyes.

He wasn't Ivar.

The dude now holding her upper arms in a painful grip could have qualified for a very handsome bugger if not for the sneer on his face and the chill in his blue eyes. His long hair was dark and greasy. He smelled like pine and sweat, but it was a sour sweat, like he'd been wearing his lucky underwear and was near the end of a very successful season.

She turned her head to gasp less potent air.

He glared. "Sorry to offend yer delicate nose."

His Gaelic was just as easy to understand as Monty's.

"Who are you?'

"I’m Luthias, a cousin to Ivar. He's sent me to get ye."

That didn’t make sense. Ivar was coming there.

His grip on her arms slackened. Was he trying to win her trust?

An alarm screeched in her head—Grandma's warnings and her self-defense instructor's voice combined into one loud siren.

She took a deep breath. She'd been in this situation before, when she'd first tried to get away from Monty. This time she would not be the cop without back-up, giving the perp an ultimatum.

"Where are we going?"

"To the burn. Ivar will meet us there. What he wants to do after that, I’ve no ken. He just couldn't risk coming. Monty said Ivar will die if he crosses the water again." He produced a cloak and put it over her head while she tried to appear cooperative.

Monty's threat hadn't stopped Ivar before, which meant this guy underestimated his cousin. The thought gave her hope. And the Muir sisters, they were around somewhere. They could tell Ivar where she was being taken, if this Luthias was telling the truth.

And she always had the knife in her sock...

They paused inside the back door.

“There will be a distraction, then we go.” Luthias looked over her shoulder as another man came up behind her. “Where are the other two?”

“Chasin’ a pair of old women. They’ll find their own way.” The man reached for Jilly’s arm, but Luthias shook his head and the other pulled back. She pretended as if she hadn’t noticed.

“The Muir sisters, I’ll wager. They won’t be a problem. No one listens to them.” Luthias looked at the door without seeing it, as if listening.

A noise cut through the wood, but it seemed very far away. A woman was screaming.

“That’s it. Let’s away.” He pulled the door open and the three of them crossed the open space and began weaving behind and between buildings. Dozens of people were hustling toward the castle as if late for a parade. No one noticed three cloaked figures moving in the opposite direction.

Jilly missed a step when she recognized the name on everyone’s lips and realized she, too, recognized the screams.

Sorcha.

Was someone hurting her, or was she in on it? Maybe she was crying wolf—or ghost, rather—in front of the giant wood door. If it helped get another woman away from Monty, Jilly would have been more than willing to pull a stunt like that. If she belonged here, of course. Which she didn’t.

But Jilly would never have helped in a kidnapping.

She didn’t even want to think about Monty’s reaction when someone presented him with a ransom demand for someone as...inconvenient...as she was.

She caught herself trudging along a bit too willingly when she remembered why it was she needed to escape—Morna and Ivar needed her. Even if Monty didn’t.

She tried to put on the breaks, to lean back and dig in her heals, but almost without noticing her resistance, Luthias pulled her along with his forearm in her armpit and his hand on her wrist. So insistent. So strong. The image of the knife in her sock popped up in front of her eyes with a little ruler next to it on which were written the words, actual size. It looked pretty comparable to the pinkie finger wrapped around her arm.

She was screwed. And if the Muirs were being chased by his thugs, they wouldn’t have heard where she was being taken.

Holy. Freaking. Crap.

#  #  #

Ivar was waiting in the hall when Morna and her escort arrived. Monty would forever remember his old friend’s reaction when he and Ewan took the hoods from their heads—Ivar stumbled and fell on his arse.

Morna laughed, and her sweetheart looked at her suspiciously. “If ye’re laughin’, lass, it canna be yer brother standin’ there.”

Morna came over to Monty, bless her, and wrapped an arm around him—without a thought to helping her lover from the floor.

“He’s cleared his head and remembered things aright. And soon as Jillian appears, we’re going to all decide what’s to be done.” Morna kissed Monty on the cheek and moved to Ivar whose lazy arse was still embracing the floor. “I’ll not be going back, Ivar. It all worked as we planned; they’ll believe I’ve thrown myself into the sea.”

Ivar stood and strode purposefully toward him. If the man struck him, Monty’d not fight back. He deserved everything but this man’s forgiveness, for laying all his sins at this man’s feet.

Ivar’s fists flew around him, not at him, and Monty was the recipient of the fiercest hug a man had ever endured. When Ivar released his hold and stepped back, Monty’s smile was nearly erased by a perfectly placed blow to the cheek.

Jillian needed to be here, to notice he’d turned the other cheek, that the monster was gone at last.

Monty looked behind Ivar, then at his face.

“Where is Jillian?”

“She’s no’ with me, mon.” He held out his arms no doubt to show she was not hiding under one. “Hell and damnation, ye didna leave her in the dungeon and forget about it, did ye now?”

Ignore Ivar or throw him to the floor? A hard choice.

“Ewan, see if she’s above stairs,” he said, deciding on the former. He was in too fine a mood to spill blood. Jillian was going to be pleased he’d decided to help with her plans, but would be even happier when he told her his idea for keeping her with him.

When his sister eyed him suspiciously he determined too much must be showing on his face and promptly thought of duller things, such as why the gray was missing from the stables. No doubt a lad had taken her out for exercise. Heaven knew, as laird, he’d not been out and about enough to know what was going on in his own clan. That would change soon enough. His kith and kin would be milling about his hall again in but a day’s time. He was surprised to realize he hadn’t missed anyone, not while he’d had Jillian to keep him company.

After far too long, Ewan popped through the archway with a frown. “Monty, she’s no’ up there.”

Surely she wouldn’t go down in the dungeons, and the three of them had come through the back rooms but a moment before. His stomach lurched at the impossible image of her being sucked into the hole and taken away from them. From him.

Without a word, Ivar and Morna headed out the back, their own brows worried.

“I already checked the battlements.” Ewan rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, a familiar sign of worry. “She’s got to be here somewhere.” He sawed harder. He didn’t believe it.

Monty didn’t dare move. If he stayed put, she’d come in the hall door with wind in her hair and contrition in her eyes, claiming she hadn’t been able to refrain from doing something or other. She’d beg him to forgive her for arranging for Ivar and Morna to come back, then plead for him to understand why the two should be together.

He’d hear her out and let her endear herself to him for a wee while before he told her his plan. She’d be thrilled, of course, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his in unabashed joy.

If he only stood very still. And waited.

“Where could she be?” asked Ewan, his arm finally too tired to continue worrying his neck.

“Why don’t ye ask Ivar?” The sultry voice had come from behind.

Sorcha Murray stepped out from the shadows of the tomb, her hands on her hips where they were always wont to be. If Monty didn’t know better, he’d suspect there were groves worn into her skin where each finger perched, day after day.

Ivar and Morna stepped back into the room, out of breath, but still joined at the hands.

“Ask me what?” Ivar said.

“Ask him where the MacKay woman is.” Sorcha tilted her chin up, her eyes glittering and wide. “She is a MacKay, is she not?  Yer wee plaything?  The whore ye’ve been holed up with for a dozen days—and nights?”

Sorcha’s head whipped to the side in anticipation of a hand no one had seen Morna raise, but the latter lowered it carefully.

“We’ve none of us the right to use such a word, Sorcha Murray.” Morna hung her head. “None of us.”

Ivar came from behind and grabbed his lover’s shoulders, pulling Morna back against him and Monty realized he’d done this. He’d made sinners of them all. He’d brought shame to a pair whose love had once been pure.

He’d see it made right, though. As soon as Jillian came out from hiding. Did she believe he’d be angry?

“Don’t ye wish to know what he’s done with her?  The wee bitch?” Sorcha laughed when Morna took a step toward her, only to be pulled back against Ivar’s chest yet again. “Ivar sent a man to fetch her, to meet him at the MacKay/Ross burn. No doubt ye’ll find her body near there.”

“How do ye ken of this man, Sorcha?” he asked softly.

“I was here. Waiting for ye. How was I to know ye’d been betraying me?” Her eyes sparkled anew.

“We had no understandin’, ye and I. There was no betrayal. If things had gone as planned, I’d have been with another woman all these days, only she would have been my wife.” Montgomery moved ever so slowly toward the widow. Ivar would never do anything to Jillian. He believed she was his only hope for staying with Morna, but the widow didn’t know that.

At last, here was the face of his enemy. Thank the Lord he recognized it as such this time.

“Betrayal is the only thing ye do know, Montgomery Ross. And now ye see Ivar MacKay shares yer talent.” Sorcha’s eyes narrowed at him, her nose curled to one side as if she smelled something foul. “A MacKay?  Ye preferred a MacKay to me?”

“Sorcha, who came for the lass?” he asked.

She blinked. A hard blink meant Sorcha was preparing an untruth, just as Ewan rubbing his neck meant the man was worried. Monty knew her too well for her to lie to him and succeed.

“I only recognized the set of his plaid. He said Ivar sent him, and she trusted him enough to go along. What does that tell ye?” She shrugged. “It’s too late, I’m sure. If ye but rid yerself of this one, ye can clean our hall of all MacKays once and for all. Then we can allow our people back inside.”

Sorcha put her hands behind her and swung her hips back and forth. He’d been so oblivious to her little rituals before, but never again.

“I suppose ye’re right.” He had her attention now and moved to the woman’s left. She turned toward him as he went, so slowly she didn’t seem to notice her own movement.

Without any hesitation, and from years of fighting side by side, Ivar moved silently out from behind Morna and behind the widow as she turned.

“And I suppose ye’ll be needing me on the odd night, now that she’s gone. Harvest is a comin’, ye ken.”

“I ken.”

Sorcha smiled in satisfaction and he realized how often he’d mistaken that smile before. Revolted, he looked away from her.

He shouldn’t have.

She spun to look where Ivar had been, the glint of steel peeking out from behind her back. Before she could consider wielding her weapon, however, she was firmly in Ivar’s grasp.

“He’s got me, Monty!  Don’t let him kill me too!”

Monty couldn’t help himself. His blade was at her throat from one pained heartbeat to the next.

“She is not dead!” he roared.

Morna was pulling gently on his sleeve, but he couldn’t risk taking his eyes from Sorcha again. Surely her eyes would tell him what he needed to know—that Jillian was alive. He refused to look away until he saw it.

“Monty,” he heard his sister croon. “Monty, do ye want to stand here all day and argue, or did ye want to go find yer Jillian?  Wherever she is, brother, she needs ye to hurry.”

Thank God for forgiving sisters. She was right, of course. Jillian needed him.

He dropped his arm and backed away.

“How could ye do it, Sorcha?  Did ye have no care for my happiness, then?” He knew the answer, but needed the woman to break down, to tell him with whom she was conspiring. “Did he make ye promises I couldn’t make ye?”

“He promised to kill ye,” she hissed. “Did ye think ye could just forget I lived?  Ah, no. Ye will cease to exist for me. For everyone.”

“Ivar’s man, Luthias. He has yer lass.” The Muir sisters in all their blue glory peeped down from the gallery and for the first time in his life, Monty was glad to see them. Perhaps shooing the pair from his home was a ritual he could dispense with.

“There is a trap for ye at The Burn, Laird Ross. He is holding her in an empty cottage just to the South and West of there. He hopes to kill Ivar as well.”

“But why?” Ivar’s voice was strained, high. Betrayal was always painful. “What have we done to the mon?”

Sorcha tipped her head back to look curiously at him.

“Did ye really never know, then?  Could ye actually have been so in love that the two of ye never noticed what yer man and Isobelle did whilst they gave ye yer privacy?” Sorcha snorted. “Love makes ye blind, then, to the rest of the world.” To Monty she said, “Luthias was just as smitten with Isobelle and because of the pair of ye, his love is dead. He will see ye suffer as he has suffered, I think. He’d have killed Morna too, if he could have gotten his hands on her.”

Sorcha looked at Morna and frowned, but her mouth stretched into that smile once again...then she twisted and lunged from Ivar’s hold.

Monty jumped in front of his sister and sunk his dagger into the widow’s breast at the same time Ivar’s blade pierced her heart from behind. As they both stepped back, her body sagged to the side. Even in death, one of her hands made its way home to her hip. Her sightless eyes sparkled only with a square reflection of light from the high window while a dark red carpet of blood spread beneath her odd pose.

Ivar stepped around it to gather Morna into his arms.

“Laird Ross?” One of the Muirs broke the silence, her voice echoing about in the arched ceiling.

“Yes?”

“How did she give herself away?”

Monty shrugged. “I realized she was spending time with a MacKay.”

“How?” Ivar and Morna asked in unison.

“She called it The MacKay/Ross Burn. Only a MacKay does that.” He waited for the Muirs to make their way down to the hall. “I assume ye were sneaking around my keep, ladies, and overheard Luthias and Sorcha making plans.”

“Auch, nay, yer lairdship. We only came to warn the lass that Sorcha was on the prowl. We’d have never intruded if we didn’t believe ye’d welcome it.”

“No doubt ye often use the same reasoning.” Monty looked back and forth between the two.

Matching sets of brows rose in mock innocence.

“A pair of ne’er-do-wells, at the bidding of Luthias, were foolish enough to chase us away.” Margot grinned.

“Tell it true, sister. ‘Twas more like they followed where we led them.” Mhairi’s eyes twinkled.

Margot nodded. “True, sister. True. Though they’re paying dearly for being so bald and bold.”

“Aye. Bald as a newborn bairn.” Mhairi snorted.

“I see,” said Monty. “And they confessed while ye were...shaving...them?”

“Oh, they confessed. But we never shaved them. More like their hair just fell out.”

“Of its own desire, if ye believe it.”

“Bald and bold, they chose to be. Their doin’, not ours.”

“Sisters, please. No more. I beg ye.”

Margot and Mhairi looked at each other, then back at Monty. “That’s just what those men said.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“Luthias, good God, mon, I’m happy ye’re here.”

If he weren’t so sick with worry for his wee lass, Monty would enjoy watching his old friend playing cat and mouse with Jillian’s captor. Crouching in the MacKay trees to Luthias’s back, he could see the face of Ivar, but not their prey.

“Montgomery will be here any moment. He thinks I have his new woman.” Ivar grasped his cousin’s arms and shook him, effectively shaking the man’s sword from his grasp. “She’s here somewhere near The Burn and ye’ve got to help me get to her before Monty does. The bastard has to pay for what he’s done, and she’s just the bait I need to make that happen.”

The man was brilliant. He’d scooped up Luthias’ sword and turned with it, as if he were protecting Luthias from the coming threat.

When the bastard pulled another sword from beneath the log upon which he’d been sitting, the “zing” had Ivar turning back to him in surprise.

“Bravo, Ivar. Ye should travel with players. So entertaining.”

The two squared off, and Monty headed to his friend’s aid.

“Come join us, Laird Ross.” Luthias turned his head to one side. “I do so hate to strain my voice so ye can hear me. Don’t worry. The men behind ye willna harm ye. Yet.”

Monty turned to find two men grinning at him just beyond the reach of his sword. They were armed, of course, but made no move to attack. Slowly, he seated his sword in his tabard, since they had not taken it from him, and moved to join Ivar. They were either fools, or very clever, and he worried that their appearances were deceiving. Was the filth on their faces put there a purpose to cover their expressions and make it harder to guess their next move? Or were they the pigs they appeared to be?

“Really, Monty, did ye not think I would know yer tactics?” Luthias sneered and motioned Monty closer to Ivar. “I’ve been at yer elbow for years.”

A small fire burned between them, but it was midday, and a warm day at that. There were no fowl, no rabbits on a spit, just the fire. No remnants of a meal, no smells lingering in the air other than the strong pine taste to the smoke curling around them.

“I see ye’ve noticed my fire. I’ll explain it in a moment, but first, allow my new friends to tie ye both to that tree. It is a tree ye are rather fond of, are ye not, Laird Ross?  I rather expected to find ye in it, enjoying yer favorite perch, but no matter. Today ye will sit beneath it, if ye please. That is, if ye want to know where yer MacKay lass is.”

“And if we don’t care?” Monty intended to hold his ground. He couldn’t find Jillian if he were tied to a bloody tree.

“Oh, ye care.” Luthias’ laughter was sickening. “And what is more, the wee bitch cares for ye, enough to do whatever I wished.”

One blade was at Monty’s throat and another against his chest before he could reach Luthias and cut his heart out for suggesting that he’d touched Jillian.

He shrugged the blades away and stepped back, unsheathing his sword. Ivar stepped back with him and lifted his own blade.

“Luthias, ye are a fool. We’ve already been to the cottage and the woman has escaped.” He’d been waiting for just the right moment to say those words, to watch Luthias lose his composure and strike out.

But he didn’t. He laughed an annoyingly satisfied laugh.

“Did ye really think I would trust the widow to keep her mouth shut?  She adored ye, aye? I’m sure a bit of tenderness is all it took to break her. She does melt for a word of kindness, does she not?”

Luthias merely knew how to make him doubt himself, that was all. They’d practiced the tactic on their foes, but Ivar’s cousin had studied a bit on his own, it seemed.

Monty hoped that would be the last time he underestimated the man.

“Now, ye’ll be submittin’ to the tether or ye’ll never know where she is—what danger she is in—and I assure ye, she is in danger, me dear auld comrades.”

There was still one last bit of leverage to try. He risked everything in the telling of it, but Jillian’s life meant more than his honor.

“Luthias,” he said in a low voice. “Isobelle lives.”

The man before them transformed into a rabid, snarling animal baring its teeth and screaming in rage.

“How dare ye speak of her to me!  Ye try to appease me with such a tale?” He seemed to double in size with the strength of his fury. “Murderer!”  Then he whispered it. “Murderer.”

“Listen to him, Luthias. He tells the truth.” Ivar lowered his blade, inviting the other to believe him, but was ignored. “They carved away the stone beneath the tomb and got yer lass out in time. Ossian took her far away, where she’ll be safe. Ye can go and prove it with yer very eyes, mon.”

“Tie them to the tree. If they resist, make them bleed, but don’t kill them yet.”

Monty was so surprised by Luthias’ distrust he was caught up in ropes before he could think to fight. The realization that this former fellow in arms had been trying to kill him was still settling into his mind. But in an instant, he understood.

“Ye loved her as I love Jillian. I understand that now. I take full blame for yer torture.” Confessions had cleared Monty’s path of late. Mayhap it would work again. “Had I known ye loved her, I would have sent ye with her instead of—”

One side of his face slammed into the rough bark of the tree while the opposite side stung from Luthias’s blow.

“Does yer woman know Isobelle is alive?” his tormentor demanded.

“Yes. She knows,” Monty said. “She has seen inside the tomb, from the hole we dug to get Isobelle out.”

“Liar!”

The stinging side of his face now crashed into the bark from an even more powerful blow. If Luthias hit him again, he may just wake up dead.

“If yer woman believed Isobelle was alive, why would she not have said as much, to save herself?”

Monty froze. He no longer felt his face. No longer felt the ropes that bit into his arms. No longer heard anything but those words, why would she not have said so, to save herself?

“Is she dead?” he whispered, unable to demand the answer he dreaded hearing, but needing to know so he could tell his heart to stop its beating.

“Ah, already I am enjoying myself.” Luthias rubbed his hands together. “Did I kill her?  Or how did I kill her?”

“Bastard.”

“Auch, now. Be a good laird and ask the right question and I just may answer ye.”

It was going to be a pleasure to rip this man’s limbs from him before he lost consciousness.

“Did ye kill her?” he growled, preparing himself for the answer, but the answer never came.

Luthias started humming, walking around the tree at a safe distance from Monty and Ivar’s legs.

“How did ye kill her?” Ivar demanded.

Monty didn’t know if he could have asked that.

Still Luthias hummed but moved to circle his fire.

Uneasy with their leader’s ever-changing moods, Luthias’s three filthy friends moved apart, likely to avoid the humming man’s nasty notice.

“Are ye going to kill her?” An easier question, Monty thought, because if he answered yes, Jillian was still alive.

“Yes, yes. Go on,” Luthias invited.

The fire. He was hinting about the fire. He was going to kill Jillian with fire. But would it be better to let the madman tell them, or send him into another rage?  Mayhap if he came close to strike him again, Monty could pull him down with his legs.

“So, ye’re going to burn her as a witch, as Isobelle would have died.”

The true monster whipped around, but did not strike. He took a deep breath, then another, then smiled.

Not enough?

“As Isobelle would have died had I not suggested the tomb so I could dig her out and get her out of Scotland?”

Luthias laughed. “Ye will have a bit of time contemplating yer sins, Ross. Ye will be buried alive as Isobelle was. But that is not all ye’ll be thinking about.” Again, he circled the fire and reached for a bow Monty had not noticed before. He pulled an arrow from his boot, the tip of which was covered in a black cloth.

“Ye already checked the cottage, did ye?” he asked.

“Aye, we did,” Ivar said.

“Did ye notice the bed in the corner?”

“Aye.”

Monty was grateful Ivar could answer. Dread stole up Monty’s chest, wrapped its fingers around his heart like a fast-growing vine, then reached up to choke him.

“After the two of ye left the cottage, my other friends would have brought—Jillian, was it—would have brought Jillian out of the trees and tied her to that bed.” Luthias leaned down and touched the bandaged tip of the arrow to the fire and the flamed leapt free from the wood to land upon it. “If ye watch between the sections of that split tree, ye can just see the thatched roof of that very cottage. It’s a very dry roof this year. Here, let me show ye.”

“No!” Monty heard himself shout. “Isobelle is alive, but I’ll not tell ye where unless Jillian is alive and well and standing before me.”

“Don’t worry, I’m a fine marksman, if ye remember. Ye’ll be able to see just fine. Perhaps ye’ll be able to hear her as well.”

And true to his word and his aim, the fiery arrow landed in the center of a distant roof that welcomed the flame into its dry arms.

Monty felt a tugging on the ropes, but he knew Ivar was struggling in vain. All he could do was watch the fire spread, knowing the rains would not appear to save the love of his life, hoping she had been mercifully strangled as Isobelle would have been had they insisted on burning her.

He was grateful for each second he heard no screaming, hoping she lost consciousness before the flames reached her.

But then it came.

Sharp and desperate, the wailing cut through the smoke like the angry cry of a mountain cat before it ricocheted off the trees, making it sound like two women were screaming, not one.

He blinked the tears from his eyes in time to see the cottage door fly open and two figures—two masculine figures—stumble out of the blackness billowing behind them.

“Would you mind getting off your arse?” The mocking voice of Jillian Rose MacKay tickled his ear. “I’d like to get the hell out of here.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Although impatient to have Jillian tucked safely inside his home, Monty calmly led the troupe the long way around the keep to the back entrance. Thankfully, darkness had fallen, but one never knew who might be watching the front steps for a bit of entertainment those days.

He blessed the grandmother, far in the future, who would insist Jillian take Way Chee lessons, whatever they were. From fragments of conversation not stolen by the whipping wind as they pushed their horses home, he had understood these lessons to have spared the life of the woman he loved. Well, lessons and a wee knife.

Jillian tripped in the uneven turf, bringing his mind home and his heart to a sharp stop. The poor organ couldn’t have been more abused if Luthias, having somehow recovered his head, jumped up before them for another go.

When had he ever felt so desperate?  Either time had mellowed his memory, or losing his best friend and two sisters had been a minor disappointment compared to how he now felt. Every bit of his flesh ached, both with joy that Jillian had been returned to him and the agony of what he was about to allow to happen. He had to breathe carefully through his nose; if he opened his mouth for any reason, he could well envision himself screaming for the entire clan to take up arms and man the walls in defense against the invisible army he felt was now gathering on the hillside.

He longed to clutch the lass to his side as they walked but dared not give anyone reason to wonder who might be beneath the hooded cloaks making their way through the bailey. The bright green toes of her odd boots popped out from hiding as she walked and he pictured them flung into the corner of his chamber, a fire’s light painting the walls a charming orange, and Jillian warming his linens.

Dear Lord, her boots.

A few long strides brought him in front of Jillian and he signaled for the others to surround her before proceeding. Dark or not, her toes fairly glowed in the dark and the last thing he needed this night was for someone to cry witchcraft. Of course no one would dare. Not after last year. But a whisper would go just as far.

Finally, they rounded the corner and made for the door. Only steps away now. Don’t run.

Once inside, Monty’s heart stopped and refused to resume its beating until Ewan casually closed the door and placed a beam across it. When he heard the others sigh around him, he realized he had not been alone in his trepidation.

Suddenly he was pushed roughly against the wall and a body slammed into him.

Jillian wrapped her arms around his middle and held firm.

He laughed.

She sobbed, although silently.

Ewan fumbled about and was able to strike flint to a torch and the three of them found Ivar laughing over the head of an equally emotional Morna.

Ewan strode to a bench and sat, his elbows resting on his knees and his chin resting on his fists.

For a moment, everyone was content to merely breathe.

“Ewan,” Monty said softly.

His friend jumped back to his feet. Such a friend he did not deserve. Neither did he deserve Jillian, but he could not help himself.

“Fetch Father MacRae.”

Morna turned out of Ivar’s arms, but did not let go of him.

“I canna marry Ivar, Monty, and well ye know.” She straightened and took a deep breath. “Not until—”

“—not until ye are away from here. Where ye will go, ye will be a widow. I understand.” And oh, how he understood everything.

Jillian stiffened and pulled away but he could not meet her gaze. Not yet.

“Ewan, go.”

A curious but obedient Ewan hurried back out into the night. Thank goodness the priest stayed close to hand; if Ewan fetched him quickly, they wouldn’t return to find his laird sobbing like a child on the floor.

“When?” Jillian shook her head. “When did you finally believe I was from the future?”

“Perhaps it was when I realized there is not a soul even in Normandy who would fashion such hideous boots.”

Not even a smile.

“Try again.” She looked too upset yet to be teased.

Dear Lord, a rainstorm was still brewing in her liquid green eyes. No doubt he’d be flooding his own face before she left off.

“Or perhaps it was when ye fell out of a sealed tomb and into my arms. I had a dream, ye see, and I thought that somehow ye were my daughter—”

“Your daughter?”

“Aye.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“Thanks to God.”

“And the priest?” Ivar interrupted.

Ivar and Morna had to get out of there before Father MacRae arrived. They’d gone to a bit of trouble to lead the Gordon’s astray, but it would be for naught if the priest saw his sister now.

“He’s my concern. Get the two of ye up the steps and out of hearing before he sees ye.”

“Yer concern?  What mean ye to do, brother?”

Monty took a deep breath. By not admitting the true depth of his love for Jillian he thought perhaps he could avoid what the fates had in store for him, the pain that would come when she ripped out his heart and disappeared with it. In his mind, the invisible army was now poised for attack, but oddly it was awaiting a signal from him. How he wished he could somehow not give it, but there he was, on the wall, raising his arm...

And bidding them come.

Jillian watched the many faces of Montgomery parade across his features while they all stood waiting for his answer. She saw his fierceness of the first day when he was willing to fight her for the sake of her last name. She saw the sly smile of a boy who thought he could have everything he wished if he played his cards right, as he had when flirting with the widow. Then she was privy to his sorrow, as if his heart, like hers, were on the verge of shattering beyond the repair of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.

And when he finally turned and looked into her soul, she felt the first tremors and the scream of glass as pressure etched the lines where it would divide and conquer.

“I’ll let ye leave. To spare my soul, as ye insist on doing, I’ll let ye go. To spare the souls of the other two, I’ll let them go as well. I had no ken what a religious man I was, aye?” He took her hands. “Only God would have known the perfect woman to drive the monster away.” He turned his face to the fire. “In the morning, ye may climb into the tomb and test its ability to take ye away from here. From me.”

His voice broke. Dare she hope it was the loss of Jillian Rose—a MacKay—that broke it?

“But I will have this one night with Jillian,” he finished, looking back at her.

He demanded it, yet she knew he gave her the choice. He was trying to say so much in the slight lift of his eyebrows, the gentle pucker on his forehead. She just wished she knew the language. Why couldn’t he just speak?

Of course she wanted to grasp any and all memories she could make with this sad warrior with whom she would leave her entire heart in the morning. She only hoped everything that had happened today meant he felt something genuine for her as well.

“I’m afraid I cannot allow it, Monty.” Ivar’s voice rang like a cold bell through the dimly lit room.

Why hadn’t they run off to hide yet?  Why couldn’t he mind his own business?  Ivar had already committed adultery, how dare he decide whether or not she could have sex with an equally single man?  It should be her decision. Not his, not Grandma’s, not this wall of a man’s she would miss for the rest of her life.

She wanted Monty and she was going to have him. The realization made her quite weak in the knees. Of course she’d fantasized about him since they met, but Grandma’s morality kept her from giving in. Until now.

Now she could stand here and wonder what she really believed about Heaven or Hell, or she could grasp a bit of the former while it was still in her reach. The latter would no doubt come tomorrow.

Knowledge washed over her like a warm shower. Montgomery Constantine Ross loved her. Not because he needed her, or wanted her, though both were probably true. He would die the same death she would when they parted in the morning because he loved her. He sent Ewan for the priest because...

“Don’t worry, Ivar,” she said, smiling into Monty’s beautiful expectant face. “He’s going to marry me first.”

And there it was. Relief. It was like a link opened between their minds and no more needed to be said. She’d harass him for his notion of a proposal, but she wouldn’t waste the time. They would have this night, and this night only. The fact that tomorrow she’d be as much a widow as Morna was a reality she would face when she must and not a moment sooner.

Where the devil was that priest?

Ever clever Ewan cleared his throat outside the door and spoke to, presumably, Father MacRae.

When Jilly looked for them, Ivar and Morna had gone, thankfully. She could just imagine having an argument about sex in front of a priest with a man who was forbidden to be there and a woman who would soon be reported dead.

The door opened and Ewan stuck his head in and had a long look around before backing out of the way.

“Forgive me manners, Father. Go on inside, then.”

A tall man in simple brown robes shuffled around the door. His hair was light and wispy above his head and looked like he’d not run a comb or even fingers through it for days. His eyes were wide, his brows high. Then Jilly remembered the clan had been sent outside because of a ghost and this was the first person allowed inside since then.

“Is someone hurt, yer lairdship?” he asked.

“Nay, Father. Come in.” Monty grabbed the man’s forearm and pulled him over into the torchlight. His grip and an intense stare prevented the man from having a good look around, or a close look at Jillian. The fact that Monty seemed to feel the need to hurry made her blush so profusely she was grateful for the poor lighting and the lack of attention on her.

Except for Ewan. The man frowned her way for a moment, but must have realized what was happening when he broke into what Grandma would call ‘a shit-eating-grin.’  He rubbed his hands together and bounced on his toes, no doubt anxious to give Monty a hard time, like a typical Best Man.

“Father, I’ll have a vow from ye now, if ye please,” her husband-to-be was saying.

The father nodded dutifully.

“I’ll not have anyone ken what happens here this night.”

“As ye say, yer lairdship.”

“I’ll not have it written anywhere. Not in a bible, not on a parchment buried in a tomb. No one will know. Ever. Do ye understand?”

The older man had blanched when the word “tomb” was mentioned. No doubt, if he knew Monty well, he suspected his laird was planning to put someone in the tomb and seal them away. He’d threatened to do it often enough. Maybe the holy man anticipated the request for a blessing so the new victim’s ghost wouldn’t come back to haunt them.

“What is it, Laird Ross?” Father MacRae swallowed. “What is it ye mean to do?”

Poor man. The book in his hands was shaking and no one would have known had its enlarged shadow not been bouncing on the wall.

“I mean to marry this lass, Father. She’s leaving in morning to return to the English and she will leave here my wife.”

“The English?  But surely the English would not take just her word—”

“Nay, father. No one will know. Ewan can be the only witness and that’s the end of it. We will still be marrit in the eyes of God, will we no’?  Even without ye writin’ it down?”

“Aye. Of course in the eyes of God—”

“Good enough for us, then. Let’s get it done and ye can hie home.” Monty swung the priest to face her.

The man’s smile was genuine as he watched his laird walk over and take her hand. “I suppose this is one way to get a lass to marry ye and not worry about Isobelle’s spirit chasing her away,” the priest said, still in Gaelic. “It may prove a wee bit difficult to have children.”

Montgomery cleared his throat.

Her wedding ceremony was a soup of Gaelic, English and Latin. At least she understood when he asked Jilly her name.

“Jillian Rose MacKay.”

Ewan seemed to be expecting a violent reaction to her pronouncement because when the priest collapsed on his right side, the Best Man was there to pull him up level again.

“Yes, Father. MacKay,” said their shaggy friend. “It will be fine, Father, go on.”

The ring Montgomery produced from his sporran was likely intended for a Gordon woman, but Jillian tried not to care. Her thoughts, however, must have shown on her face.

“It was my mother’s, Jillian.”

Oh, much better. But she wondered if it traveled well through time.

Dear God, they didn’t have much time. Hours only.

Montgomery laughed and she realized she was gripping his hands so he couldn’t put the ring on her finger.

“It’s all right, lass. We’ll take all the time we need. I never said what time tomorrow, did I, then?”

Was she so easy to read?  If so, perhaps he could see it on her face that she was a virgin and just a wee bit petrified, although determined, to move on to the next item on the agenda.

Maybe he had already read it. Maybe that was what he was talking about when he said they’d take their time.

He slid the ring on her finger and she wondered if the tip of it was as bright pink as the rest of her must be.

Kiss the bride?  Oh, please do.

But he didn’t. He let go of her hand and moved away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“Thank ye, Father MacRae. Ye can go now.”

There was an edge to her new husband’s voice that Jilly didn’t like at all. In fact, she instantly doubted everything she’d seen and heard since she jumped down out of that damned tomb. Whatever was going on here, she suspected she was about to find out. She just hoped that when he’d sent Ivar out of hearing range, her ancient kinsmen had not gone so far he wouldn’t hear her scream.

“But yer lairship, will ye no’ kiss yer bride?”

Observant priest. Could he also observe she was mortified?  If someone were playing a joke, at least she could take comfort that not everyone was in on it.

“Ewan, see the father home safe, if ye will.”

“Oh, aye, Monty. I will.” There was a spark in Ewan’s eye and the grin was still stretching his whiskers until they bunched around what must be dimples. “Just as soon as I get a kiss from Lady Ross.”

A growl announced the return of the old Montgomery.

“No one will be kissing Lady Ross but for me, ye blackheart.”

“Oh?  Why don’t ye then?  She’s about to lose her pucker waitin’ on ye?”

Jilly pulled her lips between her teeth. She had not been puckering—not that Monty deigned to even look. Damn the lot of them. She’d just collect her friends upstairs and be on her way.

She had only slightly lifted her foot to take a step when Monty’s hand shot out and grabbed her forearm, just as he had the priest’s, but he still did not turn to look at her. Did she look that bad?

“Father MacRae, I am trying to spare ye, man. Go. Drag Ewan’s pathetic, witless arse out of that door with ye, because,” he dragged in a ragged breath, “when I start kissin’ this woman I will not be stopping for quite some time. If I should happen to consummate my own marriage on this very floor I would assume a man of the cloth would not care to witness it.”

The last was said to the back of two men’s heads as they bounced off each other, fumbling for the door.

Jilly could not help but laugh, more than a little relieved she had not stepped into some Twilight Zone when she’d said, “I do.”

The look he turned on her snuffed out her laughter like a candle submerged.

Monty led his new bride up the stairs, toward his chamber. When new steps had been added to this part of his home, he had no notion, but he was sure there were at least twice as many as ever before.

Jillian’s hand was warm in his, despite their late night ride from The Burn, and despite the horror she’d been through that day. He only prayed that when she looked upon her wedding day she had better memories to mark it. He’d do his best to make sure of it.

Candles were lit on the mantle. A fire had been laid and lit, but its light and heat were nothing compared to the burn in his chest. White-hot pain overlaid a warm knowledge that this, at least, was the right thing to do. It had been so long since he’d been this sure of his actions.

The shutters were already secured against the night and for once in nearly two weeks of wanting it, he would have Jillian in his arms without a soul to disturb them.

He turned to face her, grateful to find a happy smile, and he tried to return the same.

There was nothing to say, and everything. He took her face in both hands and looked into the depths of her eyes, willing her to know how completely he loved her, only to find she was willing him to know the same.

He lowered his mouth to hers, gently, then not so gently when the need came to meld her mouth to his own.

Perfection. The taste, the plump resistance. Dear Lord, the taste!

And he had to break away, choking on a sob. To know her taste would be to torture himself with the memory of it and he knew with a certainty he would not survive more torture.

Fearing what she must be thinking, he turned back to find tears streaming down her cheeks. Were they of such a similar mind then?

He opened his mouth to speak, but she covered his lips with her fingers and shook her head once. He had no idea what he might have said but he kissed her fingers and sighed. He could still taste her, but it was not so painful. All was not lost.

Silently, they helped each other out of their clothing and stood warm flesh to unashamed warm flesh until Monty felt the passing of time was getting away from them.

He carried her to the bed.

The sound of her breathing was a reminder that he must not smother her, otherwise he would have pulled her completely into his chest until she was trapped inside his own ribs, his arms wrapped about himself, never to let her go.

Flesh matched flesh and they melded into one body, one soul. Their hearts touched, then buried themselves into one another. Surely they would die from the perfection. Surely the world could not contain the love of Laird Montgomery Ross and his bride.

He showed her a heaven that would cease to be without her and together they brought a drop of it home to pulse through their veins for the rest of their days. When their souls shattered into fragments around them, there was no longer a way to identify and separate them. They would both need be content to share. It was possible, if they held tight until morning, someone would find a single body tangled and lifeless in the sheets that vaguely resembled them both.

He was loath for the night to end, to let it cross the line and become a memory.

The shame was this memory could not include long kisses or looking into each other’s eyes. Such indulgences were sharp as new blades in clumsy hands. Neither could survive them. None of their kisses would ever be repeated, practiced, or perfected, and they were far too poignant to be borne.

After all sense of time had fled, Monty lovingly dressed his wife in the near darkness. While he dressed himself, she looked on like a lost puppy and he wouldn’t have been at all surprised to hear her whimper.

He couldn’t help himself; he kissed her again, hoping against hope that it would be easier now, but it was not. Every kiss said fare thee well, and with but one tender press of his lips he pushed them both back to tears.

Jillian, his Jillian, cried in his embrace while a heavy-hearted moon mourned across the sky, pulling time behind it with leaden, but steady steps, until the sobbing subsided.

He suspected Jilly had not noticed the tremors that wracked his body in unison with hers. If they could barely survive coupling, how would they ever survive parting?

He lied down upon the bed once more, pulling her back against him, wrapping his arms securely around her to wait for the coming of the dawn. But like a bucket of cold water, the truth jolted him. And he realized he truly would survive the morrow, knowing now what he must do.

When he was sure she slumbered, he tucked a plaid under her chin. “I’m sorry wife,” he whispered, “but an army could not take ye from me now.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Slipping out of her husband’s arms was the most painful experience Jillian could ever imagine living through, not that she cared to live through it.

She’d heard him the night before, when he mistakenly thought she’d fallen asleep. How could he think she would snooze away the few hours she’d have in his arms?  And how could he expect her to react any way other than cutting and running before she had a fight on her hands?

Did he not think it was hard enough to leave him behind?

Her leather jacket was half-buried beneath his shoulder and leaving it was just as essential as leaving the man lying on it.

The day before, after Ivar and Montgomery had decided Luthias was far too dangerous to allow to live—let alone turn loose to go looking for Isobelle—Monty had executed the man before Jillian realized they were serious. Mercifully, they’d thought to block her view.

And God bless movie violence that made it possible for her to pretend the man would miraculously recover. She told herself it wouldn’t be long before she’d see him playing a similar role in the next medieval epic, in a theater near her.

The king’s justice, they’d called it. As the head of Clan Ross, it had been within Monty’s right to sentence the man for the crimes he’d committed, and with a MacKay there as witness, it had apparently been legal.

“Executing a friend is hard business,” Ivar said after tying Luthias across his horse. “I thank ye, Monty, for doin’ the deed.”

“Not only had Luthias fought at our backs for many a long day, I now ken all too well what drove him to it.” Monty had looked over at Jillian when he’d said it.

She’d wanted to crawl under a rock and crow at the same time. To discover she held such power over the brawny man was heady indeed. And the warmth in his look told her just what kind of power he’d like to hold over her.

“If I believed ye’d killed my Morna, I’d have done the same, Monty. Ye know I would have,” Ivar had said.

“And if Jillian would have been in that cottage…”  Monty ran one wide hand over his eyes, then down his cheeks to grasp his chin. “I’d have killed him far slower than he planned to kill me.”

Jillian had made herself as invisible as possible back in the bushes so the MacKays wouldn’t see her, and just as predicted, a mob of her ancestors came a’ running to find the source of the smoke.

Ivar then told the MacKays he’d been trying to find Montgomery’s would-be assassin for weeks, and he’d discovered Luthias to be that man. No mention had been made of her, no mention of the men that got away. No one recognized the burned bodies whom Ivar and Montgomery had put out of their misery, and since they were accused of aiding Luthias, were to be buried where they’d fallen.

One man stepped forward and asked if it were true, what he’d heard about Ivar leaving the clan.

“I’ve had a rough time of it, Jonas. I need to make a new life for myself, and there are MacKays a’ plenty to fill any holes I leave when I go.”

When it looked as if the man might argue, Monty stepped forward.

“I’ve ill-served my friend, and I’ll not begrudge him findin’ happiness where ‘ere he can. If ye have sore feelings for him leaving, it is my fault ye feel them.” He had everyone’s attention. “I beg forgiveness of the MacKays and invite the end of the feud.”

“Well said, young Ross,” called an old woman who moved to the front of the crowd. “We’ll tell the tale, but don’t be courtin’ none of ours, sir. The minglin’ of MacKay and Ross bloods may still produce a witch, and no woman would invite such a child to her womb.”

Even from the bushes fifteen paces away, Jilly’s attention was caught by the crone’s single front tooth that, when no rival was found for the space, had centered itself in her smile. If this were the Clan MacKay’s midwife, babies would be scared back into their mothers’ wombs and need to be dragged out by their heels.

Jillian would rather believe the woman was so worried about witches because she was regularly called down to the local kirk to be put in a witch line-up.

The dead men were buried in no time and when Monty came to help Jilly from her hiding place, her thighs were so weak from crouching, she couldn’t stand. He pushed her onto her back and forced her legs straight, then rolled her over in the leaves and pine needles and began massaging the backs of her legs through her skirt.

She couldn’t help but moan when the stiffness melted faster than Frosty in a hot house, but the sound must have frightened him because his hands froze.

“Don’t stop. Please,” she asked as nicely as she could. After being tied up, tied to a tree, dragged into the cottage and nearly tied to a soon-to-be-burning bed, she was dying to feel something other than ropes. And Monty’s warm strong hands made her forget the burning sores on her wrists and ankles.

But then she realized his thumbs were between her thighs and the rest of his hands were wrapped around her legs only about four inches or so from her backside. And the worst part was that fifteenth century people weren’t familiar with professional body massage and for her to beg him not to stop probably made her an instant floozie.

She rolled over and away from his grasp, but before she could retract her earlier plea, he fell on top of her, having lost his balance when she rolled. At least that is what she blamed it on. “It” being a face plant into her stomach.

When he finally got his hands under him and pushed himself high enough to hover over her, neither of them had a word to say.

Then she saw it. That tiny sparkle in the corner of his eye that preceded his laughter.

And laugh they did. They laughed until they cried. He’d sit up and take a deep breath, only to be sucked back under the waves of hysteria that engulfed them both. It was a mix of silliness, surrendering to the inevitable, and relief they were both alive. By the time Ivar stomped over to find out what could be so funny, they were exhausted, Monty on his back with Jilly’s head on his belly.

“If the pair of ye are finished with ye’re ticklin’, then, we’d best head back before Ewan finds battle gear for the whole of Clan Ross.”

Jilly would have liked to walk her horse and drag her feet, if it weren’t for Ivar being hell-bent for leather. Monty had worried aloud that the Gordon s might be coming along any moment to tell him of his sister’s death, and he hoped Morna didn’t open the door to them before she thought better of it.

With that worry Ivar hadn’t even needed a horse, he looked that capable of flying to Castle Ross without one.

Obviously feeling guilty for scaring his friend, Montgomery had suggested that Ivar and Morna could marry and remain in Scotland if something unfortunate were to happen to the Gordon Runt. And on the heels of watching him slay Luthias, it took no effort for Jilly to believe he’d do it.

If I don’t take Morna and Ivar away, Montgomery will sell his own soul trying to make amends.

It would have been so easy to look the other way while the man she loved removed the reason for leaving him, but the cost was one man’s life and another man’s soul. How could she let that happen?  How could she live happily ever after in a charming old castle with her own personal Romeo if she were busy trying to wash the blood from her hands?

“Out, out damned spot,” was not written about a woman with OCD, after all.

And so Jilly found herself with no option that morning but to sneak into Morna’s bedchamber unannounced. She turned her head to the side, just in case, but found them both dressed. Ivar was seated on a chair with Morna sitting across his lap tucking his hair behind his ear. The look they exchanged was so close to the one Montgomery had given her when they’d reached his bedchamber, Jilly had to steel her heart against those memories.

For now.

She’d relive every moment after she was home again. Funny, how the word “home” stirred the fragrances of heather, peat moss, and cold stones through her mind. She’d never be home again.

“I hate to interrupt,” Jilly whispered, “but I’m worried Montgomery’s changed his mind about letting us leave. We need to try before he’s awake. You see, I don’t think I can go through with it if he tries to stop us.”

Why weren’t they moving?  Didn’t they understand?

“Jillian Ross, why are ye doing this for us when it is plain ye wish to stay?” Ivar stroked Morna’s arm with his thumb, showing her his happiness had little to do with Jilly’s decision. “We’ll not be parted now, sin or no.”

Jillian Ross. That’s who she was now. If she stayed... She shook her head.

“If we stay, Montgomery will find a way to kill Morna’s husband, to make the way easier for you. He wants to make things up to you and he’d lose his soul to do it.” She felt that steel begin to warm and start to give, but she threw some cold water on it. “And besides, there are a couple of old ladies who just might be accused of my murder if I don’t show up again. I wouldn’t wish those two on other inmates.”

“I dinna understand—” Ivar started to say.

“The Muir sisters. Lorraine and Loretta, if I remember rightly.”

Jilly spun to find the fifteenth century version of the sisters having sneaked in behind her. Thankfully, they’d appreciated the need for stealth.

“We’d best move this discussion to the tunnels, do ye not suppose?” asked either Margot or Mhairi.

An hour and some pulled muscles later, the hole beneath the tomb was once again open. Montgomery, and likely Ewan, had gone to a bit of trouble to discourage anyone from trying to reach it. But with the five of them, they’d been able to make a path in short time with little noise. Thank goodness these Muirs were as wiry as their descendants.

Standing next the barrel they left as a stepping stool, Jilly went over what she knew.

“I had some time to go over what happened before, and I’m pretty sure anything attached to me would have come with me. My clothes came through time, so I’m hoping if the two of you hang on to me really tight, we can go through together.”

All heads nodded in agreement.

“Also, I think I came through as soon as I put on the torque, right when I laid it on my neck.”

“No.” The Muirs were smiling and shaking their heads. What a surprise. “It has naught to do with the necklace, dearie,” one chided.

“She’s right,” said the other. “Isobelle wanted to be sure the torque stayed in the tomb, so we enchanted it; it couldn’t leave. The power to remain is the only power it has.”

Jillian stood still for a moment, waiting for her brain to catch up; it was obviously still upstairs and it took a long minute to make the journey down all those steps.

“If the necklace wasn’t what brought me here, then how the bloody hell did I get here?”

Jilly’s voice had risen with every word, but she couldn’t help it. She needed to do one noble thing here—leave—so she could live with a clear conscience, and they weren’t telling her that the flight was cancelled, they were saying planes could never fly.

“Settle ye down, dearie.” The one to cut the crap had to have been Mhairi. “Ye will still get where ye are going.”

Oh great. Airplanes don’t really fly, but apparently the buses do.

She could hear her grandma’s sarcastic voice asking, “Just how much is this free weekend going to cost me?”

“Ye’ll get there the same way ye came. It’s the tomb, ye know. And it wasn’t Muirs that wrought it. It was Laird Ross himself.”

“Oh, we had a wee hand, sister. Dinna forget the prophecy. Not worth more than a pile of stones without the prophecy.”

“There is no time for this,” Jilly hissed. “Just tell me what to do.”

The sisters looked disappointed. No kidding, they both stuck out their bottom lips.

“Sorry. Go on.”

Bottom lips disappeared.

“Well, it’s not every day we get to tell it, ye ken?” Excitement was good. Excitement made them talk faster. “The tomb was wrought with Love and Sacrifice. Simple as that.”

“Yes, ye see ye only need Love and Sacrifice to make it work for ye.” Mhairi, possibly, gave her a pitying look. “Unfortunately, ye are the one to make the sacrifice, both last time and this.”

“The first time,” the other chimed back in, “ye had a fear of closed spaces, and yet ye went in the tomb to try to help people ye had never met. A lovely sacrifice.”

“And I believe it was the hope of reuniting Ivar and Morna’s love that was the other element,” Margot said.

“This time, their love will be that same element, but the sacrifice ye make will be quite different, we think.”

As knowing as these two seemed to be, they couldn’t possibly understand what Jilly was giving up or why.

She turned to the couple.

“I think you two should go in ahead of me. If I go first, I may be gone before you get inside. If you grab me as soon as I’m through, I shouldn’t leave without you.”

Ivar nodded and hopped onto the barrel and into the hole. Morna climbed onto the barrel and Jilly handed her the water, axe, and candle she’d thought to bring along.

Once Morna was inside, Jilly leaned on the barrel but couldn’t manage to lift her leg.

Dear Lord, this was it. She was really going. Would she be able to come back?  If the Muirs were correct, there would need to be some sort of sacrifice, and hers would be all used up. Coming back would be for selfish reasons alone. What would she be sacrificing?  Toilet paper and flushing toilets?

Not too noble.

“We need ye to give this Lorraine and Loretta a message, Jillian. Can ye do that for us?”

Mhairi and her sister were looking rather smug. When they neared eighty, Jilly knew just how they’d look. Like Muir rats.

“What’s the message?” Getting away from those two made scrambling for the hole a lot easier.

“Tell them they’re not quite finished yet,” one said.

“They’ll understand,” sang the other.

As Ivar pulled Jillian into the darkness, Morna’s hands gripped on to one of her arms like an insta-vice.

From below, the voices of the Muir twins murmured together in what sounded like a chant but there was another noise. Someone large and angry was clamboring down the passage toward the room.

“Get ye gone, Jillian. He’s coming!”

Jillian closed her eyes and prayed that she would be gone before Montgomery could order her to come out. She’d not be able to defy him to his face and fearing the resulting damage to his soul, it would kill her to stand by and watch.

God was watching. He had to be. She believed in the worth of Montgomery’s soul more than anything she’d ever believed in before, and God would make it right. She couldn’t continue to breathe and believe otherwise.

The workroom door crashed into pieces.

Forward. Home. Lorraine. Loretta. Please!

The air shifted around her. And if not for Morna’s hold on her, Jilly’s very soul would have leapt free from her body in answer to the receding echo of an anguished roar...from very, very far away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The lit hole at their feet went dark. No one moved.

Breathing. Morna and Ivar were breathing at least. Jillian never wanted to let out that final fifteenth century bit of air. If she did, she’d die.

Loud, pounding heartbeats later, it came out with an unholy howl. When it was gone, she dropped to the floor like a sack of Idaho potatoes and waited for the black fire in her veins to burn her up.

Like a witch.

Oh, that was good. A fitting finish. “Go ahead,” she whispered to God, “finish me then.”

Breathing. Nothing more. No one seemed inclined to speak while Jillian waited for God’s response. Hours could have gone by while she waited, thinking nothing at all. Just waiting. Until...

Ivar was pounding on the wood that plugged the modern day floor, but it sounded odd. She knew they had arrived in her own time; she could smell the dust and decay that had been missing those long hours she’d been entombed, waiting for Montgomery—

No, she wouldn’t do that now. She wouldn’t go there now. Later was always a better time to cry.

She stiffly shifted to her feet and realized it wasn’t Ivar pounding on the floor. He and Morna were still breathing, somewhere in the darkness, and very close to each other. The pounding was from the outside.

“Jillian dear!  Are you there?” The muffled squeak of a woman’s voice was familiar enough to make out the words.

Wonderful. A Muir welcoming committee.

“Step off the door, dear. Pull it up inside.”

Ah, yes. She remembered how this worked.

Her mind and body seemed to be functioning well enough while her soul hemorrhaged. They must not have read the memo yet, the one about her will-to-live account maxing out its overdraft.

She found the edges of the contraption and got her fingers beneath it. Ivar was there helping her lift it away.

Lorraine and Loretta were below, fluffing dust out of their blue hair.

“Did you bring anyone with you, dear?  Any luck—” A blue veined right hand—Loretta’s then—froze mid-fluff.

Ivar’s blond head popping into the hole must have been answer enough, and Jillian felt a gleeful sense of vengeance when both Muir’s swooned into a blue, decidedly unlady-like heap.

#  #  #

Walking into the Great Hall once more, without the smells of food and pine-flavored wood smoke, Jilly was cold, no matter what the temperature. She’d never feel warm again and it was not all due to the fact she’d left her leather jacket in the past.

She stepped around the space that had once been filled with the worn wood table Monty had stroked so solemnly while he told her about watching his father and grandfather build it with their own wonderful hands. All things that had once been a part of living here and breathing this giant cube of air were now encased in glass and velvet, unmoving, beyond her reach.

She stepped closer to the great cabinet opposite the hearth. The light danced off the corners of silver weapons, gold leafed trinkets, and Windexed glass.

Bones. She was staring at the bones of lives gone by. And she could only wonder where Monty's bones now lay. She felt like she should lie down with them. With him.

Awareness pricked the back of her neck. She knew without looking that Quinn stood just inside the doorway behind her, watching and waiting with a patience his ancestor wouldn't have shown.

But that wasn't it.

He wasn't the one whispering from her immediate left. No one was there, of course, unless one looked at the wall. Remembering what waited for her attention, she hesitated, not sure she could handle looking at it once again, knowing what she knew.

She turned and glanced past it, a bit further left, at the tomb from which she'd just been taken. Odd how much one could hate an innate pile of stones, but she did. Such a guilty monstrosity!  She wished she had the heart to wrench every rock from its place to make sure it ruined no more lives.

That was it. That was just the boost of hard emotion she needed to steel herself before looking just six feet to the right of the tomb.

Amid the ricochets of bright morning light, her eyes sought and found that face she'd left in the past, with her jacket. Although the sculpture had gone from smooth, pale gray to a mottled, pocked slate, the image stood out clearly.

To the sides of the torso, the stone had been chipped away, but the lower body of the kilted man was still held fast in time, his plaid suspended mid-flutter, and she wondered if a good blast on Highland pipes might break the spell. Hands on hips, Monty seemed to be leaning ever so slightly forward, as if his determination alone would free his lower half. A slightly irritated brow was the only hint the man was not pleased to be posing for such a statue.

Jillian laughed at him.

But the statue did not turn toward her and join her in the joke. Maybe if she laughed harder...

By the time Morna and Ivar joined her, she was hysterical. They took her away to the manor house, bathed her, choked her with enough food to get some down a throat clogged with tears, and tucked her into bed.

She watched it all with amusement, detached, like a spirit hovering in the rafters.

It was full-on night when she once again looked through her own eyes, and he was once again before her; her grey Montgomery, slightly irritated, but in good humor, the flashlight accentuating the deep grooves of his smile.

How could he be so flippant when she was in such a state—pieces of Jillian Rose...Ross, broken into small chunks, loosely contained in her borrowed nightgown?

How could he possibly be so oblivious to her presence when he'd called her back to him?

He had called her back to him, so loud and clear it had wakened her from a nap that had gone from late morning into the dark of night.

It had been easy enough to get in. The door broken by the Muir Sisters had not been completely repaired yet. And she knew the path to the Great Hall well enough once she was through the more recent additions.

"I brought you some water, and a candle, just in case,” she told Stone Monty. “Don't know if you can figure out the flashlight, even if you do get your huge hands free."

"What are ye about, Jilly?"

She turned to find Quinn standing near the dais, one boot resting upon the edge, his left hand braced against his bent knee, his right holding a flashlight trained on the floor near her feet.

"Oh, hello," she said and turned back to Monty.

"Good even," said Quinn.

"I'm leaving him some water. And some light. I don't suppose air would do him any good."

"But the other things will?"

"He'd do it for me.” That was the best she could explain. "Once I'm gone...once I'm gone, I'd appreciate it if you could make sure he has them. Light and water, that is."

"Are ye goin' home, then?  To America?” His tone was cautious, like a cop trying to talk someone away from a cliff. He had no idea she’d already flung herself off the edge. “Ye might consider taking some time to...recover first."

Recover? She thought about the meaning: to get something back. "No, I don't think so."

"Lass...Jillian—"

"Don't!"  Fire erupted in her belly and she bent over. "Don't ever call me that. Please," she begged her bare feet, begged the stone beneath them.

A heartbeat later, she was hoisted into the arms of Quinn and she buried her nose against his chest to keep from looking at his face. She would never look at his face. If she found some hint there of the other man, who knew what would happen.

"Don't touch me. Let me down. He doesn't want anyone to touch me!"

She heard her own words being analyzed in her head, but she didn't care. He wasn't dead. She wasn't a widow. Somewhere, stored in the airwaves, bouncing around the hall, was the image of a very much alive Montgomery Constantine Ross. If she just held very still, she may catch a glimpse. Maybe the voice that woke her up consisted of some very old sounds still vibrating through that same magical air.

Then she looked around at the cold dark hall that held not even a sparkle of dust for the beam of her powerful flashlight. There was no magic here.

"Let's get ye up to the manor, then. Ye're cold as ice, ye are."

"I was there, you know. I really was there."

"Of course ye were there, lass.” Quinn grunted. “Did ye think we suspected ye of hiring players for the parts of Ivar and Morna?  They're real enough, and sure as it rains in Scotland, they didna come through by their own.”

He paused for a moment, after they’d stepped out of the Great Hall then changed directions, heading down into the depths once more. Maybe he was going to have her try the tomb again, but it wouldn't work. No sacrifice.

He passed the workroom and went deeper still, two flashlight beams gliding across uneven rocks lit the way, swinging to the rhythm of his gait. When they were both standing in the dungeon, it looked eerily like it had before, without the doors of course.

"Wait here."

She watched his back as he fumbled around at the rear of what was once her own cell. When he returned the handle of his light was in his mouth, his arms gripping both sides of a large chunk of stone, which he lowered to her feet.

He took the light from between his teeth.

"This is why ye looked so familiar to me that first day on the tour, aye?"

He illuminated the bust of a woman whose head was the only thing protruding a few inches from the rock. It looked eerily like her.

"This was the green fairy. The old Montgomery couldn't tempt the original artist to come back from the warmth of Italy, so he hired another to do this. It didn't hold up nearly as well as the one in the hall. Different stone and all that.”

Quinn shifted his light to her face for a moment and then back at the stone.

"Sometimes folks tell of the green fairy, or the fairy with the green feet. Down at the pub, ye can buy a drink called the Green-Toed Faery. Most tourists think it was named after a frog, not a faery with green toes. I should have suspected something when ye were wearing those ridiculously colored boots. I should have remembered this stone."

Tears were rolling down her cheeks now. She had been there. She hadn’t lost her mind. Now, if she could only convince herself she was here.

“So aye, I ken ye were there lass. I ken just what it is like to live without yer heart.”

“Without your soul,” she whispered. Perhaps she wasn’t as alone in her pain as she felt.

“Aye, lass. Without yer soul.” He set the rock against the wall and came back to her. “Carry the torch, Jilly. And ye and I will help each other up out of this tomb we find ourselves wanting to remain in, aye?”

Jilly forced herself to look up into his face and was both relieved and disappointed to find little of her husband there. She had to admit, however, that he was a handsome bugger.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

That was it. She was all packed.

As she sat at the end of the far-too-comfortable bed in her far-too-lovely bedchamber in Quinn Ross’s manor, she remembered the morning she left for Scotland with the Muirs.

If she'd fallen asleep the night before, she hadn't been able to tell, she'd been so excited. Her thoughts had been a whirlwind from imagining what might happen to her here, from her foot bursting into flames as it touched upon Scottish asphalt, to being arrested when her passport was closely examined, all thanks to her grandmother's warnings about the country.

She'd had her own fantasies, of course, of finding a young man who thought her a-line haircut anything but Wyoming-ish. He would take a vacation from his medical schooling to trail her and the Muirs around the countryside, trying to win her affection. When it was time for her to leave, he would profess his undying love and beg her to stay in spite of the inheritance she would forfeit by doing so.

The reality of what happened had been a mixture of the two. She hadn't been arrested, but she had been locked in a tomb and later, a dungeon. The young man had been closer to 30 than 20. Not a medical student, but from a prominent family, who owned a castle, no less. He had hardly followed her about like a puppy, but had professed his undying love in a mute kind of way. The anguished cry she'd heard at the end would certainly qualify for ‘begging her to stay.’  And finally, it hadn't been her foot, but her heart that had burst into flame...and now was little more than a Christmas lump of coal making itself a nuisance in her chest.

She now knew two things—Grandma had been right, and she wouldn't have missed it. Even with as devastated as she would be for the rest of her life, she wouldn't have missed seeing that face in the flesh, wrapping her arms around the non-stone version of her husband.

This morning was the first time she had started to feel like a widow, waking alone, knowing she would always wake alone.

She glanced at the carved clock on the mantle. She'd have to wait a whole hour before it was time to leave. Jilly considered spending 60 more minutes with the statue over in the Great Hall, but she'd said goodbye to those gray unmoving features the night before. If she had to do it again, she'd probably have to be committed.

There was a small apartment with 1980's blue carpet waiting for her at the end of the day. The landlady, Mrs. Martin, would have taken the boxes to the Salvation Army, revealing more of the teal-ish blue floor that she had very recently wished would be physically impossible for her to ever see again.

If she'd stayed behind...

Someone knocked softly on her door, then swung it open. It was Maggie, Quinn’s sister. She'd been silently pampering Jilly since she'd returned.

"Looks to be a grand day, it does.” She looked around the door as if worried Jilly might throw something at her and she'd need the door as a shield.

"Good morning."

"And ye're all packed and at the ready, I see. I'll have one of the lads come and fetch yer things. Will ye come down for a bit of eggs and kippers?"

The ends of the woman's sentences still rose at the end, like questions. It was good to know some things didn't change.

"I don't think so, Maggie.” She looked around the room, for some reason not to leave it, but could find nothing. She could only shrug her shoulders.

Maggie frowned at her for a moment, then stepped inside and closed the door. As if the woman didn't own the bed, she raised an eyebrow and glanced at the coverlet.

"Sure, sit down," Jilly said.

"Got a bit of a spoon at the back of yer throat with Morna and her man about?"

At least she thought it was a question.

"I don't understand.” Dear Lord, surely the Scotswoman couldn't read minds.

"Gagging, don't ye know?  Watching those two mooning over one another, as if they invented love and don't think the rest of us would understand."

"Ah, so I'm not the only one, thank goodness." Having Quinn empathize with her was uncomfortable. Having another woman understand her feelings was a relief.

It was impossible not to resent Ivar and Morna now. If they'd been so in love, why had they allowed someone to part them?  If they'd just run off together—

If they'd have run off together, Jilly wouldn't have ever been needed here.

Even admitting that, she would not go downstairs and watch them staring into each other's eyes for the next hour. Every sly glance, every brush of flesh between them raked on her nerves. She should be grateful, though; it made it easier to get the hell out of here.

"Never alone, Miss MacKay.” Maggie's hand flew to her mouth. "I meant to say, Mrs. Ross. Oh dear, I didna wish to step my foot in the muck here."

Jillian smiled and patted the woman's shoulder, grateful to not be the one patted for a change. Her shoulders should be bruised now after ten days of "there, there’s.”

"I'm afraid my husband and I do the same thing to my cousin, Quinn. He lost his wife just after the two of us married, and it was near impossible for him to remain in the same room with the pair of us. If it weren't for his love of Castle Ross, he'd have moved away, I reckon, just to keep from—”

"From always finding a spoon at the back of his throat?” Jilly was pleased to be catching on to the odd phrases that colored the speech of the Scots. "I'm probably guilty of gagging him a little myself. I've been acting like the only person in the world who's ever lost someone. I need to apologize before I go."

"Ye need do no such thing, lass. He's done the same, ye ken. Only he's carried on for years now. It has probably been good for him to see what mournin' looks like from the outside, don't ye know. He seems to be a different man this morning, a bit of excitement in him. Perhaps that's what's done it, then."

Jilly suspected that once you had Christmas coal in your chest, it could never beat again, but she was glad for Maggie. She seemed relieved for Quinn’s sake.

After a moment of silent smiling, Maggie cleared her throat.

"So, do ye think ye might come back, then, when yer next year is up?"

"Maybe.” Though she now believed she'd never step foot out of the United States again. "Did the Muirs tell you about it?"

"Aye, they did. We had them about for two weeks, so we did a fair amount of visitin'.” Maggie frowned. "Do ye mind them tellin'?"

"No, I don't mind."

"Well 'tis fair strange, if ye don't mind me saying, tellin' a lass she can only have her inheritance if she never comes to Scotland."

"But she worded it all wrong, didn't she?" Jilly laughed. "For all the money she spent on lawyers, they should have warned her about the wording.”

"Giving ye a sum for every year ye didn't go to Scotland."

"So, since I hadn't gone to Scotland for my first 21 years, I got 21 years' worth right off."

"And when ye need more, all ye need to do is spend 365 days between visits.” Maggie sobered just a bit. "What could have happened to yer grandmother to make her hate us so?"

Jilly shrugged. Grandma had never said. Even in those last days when she knew she wouldn't last much longer, she hadn't given anything up.

"'Tis almost as if she knew what would happen to ye. Like she had the sight and would have spared ye the pain of it, aye?"

"Yes.”

And here they were, full circle, back to the pain. Perhaps there was still a bit of heat deep in the center of her Christmas Coal.

She'd go back, but not home; calling Wyoming home seemed odd now. She'd pack up what she had and find another state in which to start a life. Washington, perhaps, where there were pines. She would get a house with a fireplace, buy pine logs, and remember.

"And they acted fair oddly when I said as much to them." Maggie was still talking.

Jilly was confused. She'd zoned out of the conversation.

"Who acted oddly?" she asked, focusing once again on Maggie's puzzled expression.

"The sisters. The Muirs. When I said it was almost as if yer grandmother knew what ye would go through if ye came to Scotland. They both shivered as if someone was walking over their graves, they did. Then they skeedaddled."

"Ahh. So you know it?  The smell of a Muir rat?"

Maggie nodded slowly, then more vigorously.

"I'd say that was pinnin' the bastard to the wall," she said. She leaned a little closer. "I also didna care for the look that passed between them when Morna gave them a message from their ancestors. Not done yet, they'd said. I'd like to know what they meant by it."

Jilly shook her head.

"Don't ask the Muirs anything. Their answers only lead to trouble.” Jilly gave Maggie a half-hearted smile. "I'm sorry to just leave them behind, but they can get home all right without me. And whatever else they have planned, they can do it without me, too."

Maggie looked uncomfortable.

“As to that, I suppose I should tell ye, so ye’re not taken too much by surprise...”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Sitting in his great Ross chair, Montgomery marveled at the strength, the physical effort, needed to do nothing. He’d paced a foot of ground from the tunnel floors below. He’d worn grooves into the stone steps, he was sure. Every time he felt no eyes upon him, he’d gone to the witch’s hole—just to check on things—then returned before any knew he’d been gone.

In the midst of his merry-making clan, surrounded by firelight and smoke from roasting meat, Monty was alone. When he was deep in the ground, he was not. Somehow, she was down there—would be down there. And how he prayed for some magic to let him live hundreds of years to come around a corner one day to find her standing there.

To sit here in pain was madness. To pace to the dungeon and back, sanity. But tonight, sanity would need wear the guise of strong drink, if his belly could stand it.

Ewan shoved meat in his gullet every time he opened his mouth. He’d wake every morning to a cheerful lass who would assure him she’d be beaten if he did not eat what she brought him. If Monty did not know his cousin better, he’d accuse Ewan of fattening him for some sacrifice. But he couldn’t be sacrificed; he needed to live for a verra verra long time.

Amid the lilting of dancers kicking up their heels before the dais, a slithering movement caught his eye.

Ewan was sidling along the wall in the direction of the great door. If the man needed to piss, he’d be going out the back, and if he didn’t need to piss, by God he’d stay and suffer through this celebration as well.

“Ewan.” Monty smiled when the man jumped from his skin. Guilty bastard. “Come talk with me, cousin.”

For the barest moment, it looked as if Ewan would actually like to defy him in front of their kin, but the set of his lips softened and he walked the long way round the dancers.

“What would ye care to speak about, yer lairdship?” Ewan’s voice boomed out as the music ended and the pipes groaned out a last honk of air.

“How long?” Monty asked pleasantly, sipping his drink while he waited for heads to turn away.

“How long fer what, Laird?”

“For the cailie to end. How long do ye plan to celebrate the disappearance of...of my sister’s ghost?” Dear Lord, his voice nearly broke. Still, after a sennight, he didn’t have a hold on himself.

Would he ever?

“We’ll have no animals left for the winter, man. I’m going to put a stop to it.” Monty rubbed his temples. “Don’t make me ban the pipes for want of a wee bit of peace.”

Ewan eyed him like the next carcass for the spit.

“Ye’re done with yer greetin’, then?  Ye’re ready to take down the blasted thing?”

Monty was the one to jump this time. No choice for it. He’d been guarding the door from Jilly’s world all these days and now Ewan suggested he destroy it?

His cousin was mad.

“Ewan, see reason.” He felt the wildness in his eyes and forced a few deep breaths of whiskey-heated air into his lungs.

How could he sound calm and reasonable and still make the man understand?  How could Ewan ever understand his grief?  He’d never lost his heart and soul to a woman, had never watched in torment while she took both from his life—without looking back.

Reason. Reason.

“Ewan. Cousin.” Monty spoke softly, while his legs crossed and re-crossed each other. His grip on the chair’s arms threatened to crush the wood, but with his eyes, he held Ewan’s attention. “If we took down the tomb, we’d have an audience, aye?  And how would we explain Isobelle’s missing bones?  How would we explain the hole?”

Ewan saw reason, but he didn’t care for it. The curl to his nose said he was disgusted with either Monty’s argument, or with something he’d just bitten into.

“Fine,” he said at last. “We canna bring it down, but sure as there’s heather in Scotland, we can find a way to seal it up.” Ewan folded his arms and stood his ground.

“I see yer in a fine mood, cousin.” Monty, ever the player, showed no signs of the fear Ewan just struck inside his gullet. “Perhaps we could discuss that as well if the celebratin’ ever ends.”

#  #  #

Monty hadn’t slept well.

To prove he was past the point of continually checking the tunnels, he’d bid his cousin a good rest and gone to his bed. Unfortunately, staying there had been much harder than he’d expected. Mayhap he’d gone mad after all.

Every hour he’d flung his coverings aside and jumped from the bed without a thought as to where he was going. Only when his hand touched the door did he stop and drag himself back, forcing his body to lie still. It had been about as easy as willingly lying down to die.

But he would not die. He had a tomb to guard. And he worried what drastic means Ewan might use if Monty were not capable of at least pretending he was going to recover.

That morning he’d feigned sleep as some lass brought him a tray of food and drink. Finally, none had coerced him into eating; he’d only drunk the mulled wine, and even that did not sit well in his sleep-starved stomach.

The door swung open.

Ewan stood with his hands on his hips, looking from the uneaten food to the cup in Monty’s fist.

“Ye canna make me eat, mon. It’ll no’ stay down.” Monty set the cup on the tray and turned his attention to his boots that seemed to move away from him even as he reached out to pluck them up. “I canna be sure the wine will stay down either. Ye’d best step back.”

Ewan grunted and picked up the boots, then opened his mouth to speak, but clapped it shut again.

“What is it, Ewan?  Are ye ill as well, then?”

“Monty.”

That was all?  Just his name?  Fine.

“Ewan.”

“Monty...”

“Ewan. As ye can see, I’m no’ runnin’ off. I’ll be here when ye remember what it is ye wanted to say.”

His eyes had gone dry but he was finding it hard to blink them wet again. Ewan was putting on his boots for him, but he hadn’t noticed when the big man had taken a knee.

“Ye’re going to be needin’ these on, Monty.”

“I am.” He was?  Just when he believed he might be ready for a fine long rest, Ewan wanted him to go somewhere?  “And just where would I be goin’ in me boots, cousin?”

Ewan finished and stood. Watching him stand made Monty dizzy enough to drop his torso back to the bed.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell ye, Monty.” Ewan’s hands were back on his hips. “Ye’re not yerself, ye ken?  Ye can no’ lead yer clan the way ye’re actin’.”

Monty sat up quickly, reaching for a sword he couldn’t see clearly. Finally, he realized it wasn’t in the corner where he’d left it.

“This is about the tomb.” Panic welled in his veins only to boil with the wine in his belly and splash up inside his chest. “We cannot tear it down, Ewan. Ye know that.”

“And we won’t tear it down. We won’t.”

Ewan, bless him, wouldn’t let him down. Unlike Luthias, Ewan would never turn on him. They’d been as brothers all their lives.

“But Monty, ye need to be free of this place. Free of the ghosties and memories. Far enough away so ye can’t imagine yer Jillian is calling for ye.”

It wasn’t panic, but anger now that cleared his muddled mind.

“Ye wish to rule the clan.” He nodded. “I see.”

And he’d thought nothing in this life could cut him deeper than he’d already been cut.

“Ye see nothing, ye great arse.” Ewan flung the tray from the table, food flying against the wall. He then pulled the table over in front of Monty and sat upon it. “I’ve never been so ambitious, ye witless bastard, and ye ken it well enough. I know ye’re thinking of how Luthias turned on ye and for what ye once believed of Ivar, and ye must stop.”

Breathe?  Vomit?  Cry?  Just what was Monty supposed to do here?  For the life of him, he couldn’t decide for himself. His belly threatened to take the choice out of his hands.

“Ye’ll go away, Monty. Ye’ll get yer mind right again. And when ye come back—”

“The Gordons will let me rot.”

“Ye daft mon.” Ewan grumbled for a bit. “Ye think I don’t ken that?”

“Ye can no’ send me to the MacKays. The Gordons would treat me as a king compared to the MacKays.”

Oh, how he wished to sleep, but sleeping wasn’t wise when his fate danced in the palm of someone else’s hand.

“Monty, ye’ll be goin’ to the Muirs.” Ewan held up a hand. “Now, now, then. It won’t be as bad as all that. They’ll see to ye. They’ll keep their tongues tied in a trusty knot. And they’re keen healers, aye?  Maybe they can help hasten yer heartwounds to closing.”

Ewan stood and moved the table back. Out of reach. Not a good sign, that.

“And?” Monty took a deep breath, but it only served to relax him more. Sitting up was no longer convenient, but he barely felt his shoulders bounce against his bedding. Ah. That was it, then. “My bastard cousin has drugged me.”

Ewan’s head swam above him, shaggy blond hair reaching down toward his face. His greasy beard stayed well away, praise God.

“Aye, laddie. I did. And when ye return, the tunnels will be sealed.”

Monty could do nothing, move nothing. He couldn’t stop the tears from filling his eyes or overflowing their swollen banks.

“Ewan, ye must leave her some air...and light...and water.”

CHAPTER FORTY

“No.”

“Now Jillian, I can certainly understand how ye’ve no intention of ever again following a suggestion of the Muir sisters, but I tell ye it was Quinn’s idea to bid ye fare-thee-well in the Great Hall.”

Maggie had her back against the bedroom door, but Jillian couldn’t believe the woman would actually try to stop her if she didn’t go to a no-longer-a-surprise farewell party.

“I tell ye my brother hasn’t been this animated in a great long while. Can ye not do it for him, lass?” The woman moved aside and opened the door. “Ye have no idea the sacrifice he’s makin’ for ye.”

Oh, now tears were a bit over the top. What had the man sacrificed?  A morning of tourist fees?

Maybe tourist fees actually were that important.

“I’ll go. But I won’t miss my flight.”

“Dinna fash about that, lass. Ye’ve a good hour before ye’ll need to leave here. I’ll make sure yer bags are down and yer taxi waitin’.” Maggie’s smile faded. “And whatever will make my brother happy, will make us happy enough for him.”

The woman was sobbing before she made it very far down the hall. No doubt about it, Castle Ross was a sad place for a lot of people.

No one had ever thrown Jillian a surprise party before, but one thing she assumed was that she would walk into a quiet room and people would say, “Surprise!”  Apparently the UK version of such a party was to have all the guests milling about having a good time, and the surprised should just walk in and start mingling.

The hall was not quiet. In fact, the party would have gone on just fine without her. She decided to find Quinn, give him a thanks and good-bye, then slip out the front door and wait outside for her cab.

“Jillian!  Oh, there she is. Jillian!”

Right veiny hand holding lemon punch—Loretta.

“Jillian I would like you to meet someone.” She turned to a very handsome man with black hair and green eyes. “Wickham, this is our Jillian. She’s the one you came here to see.” Loretta looked behind him. “Where’s your ladyfriend gone off to?”

“I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.” Wickham turned to Jillian. “How do ye do?” He shook her hand, looked her up and down, and whistled.

Jilly couldn’t help but laugh.

Maggie turned up at Loretta’s elbow and said something in Gaelic Jillian must have misunderstood. Maybe her ears were still tuned to a medieval Gaelic station. She thought Maggie said, “The toilet might contain Jillian’s grandmother.” Then Maggie ran back out of the Hall.

Lorraine showed up and exchanged a nervous look with her sister, then gave Wickham an elbow usually reserved for her sister.

Wickham noticed Jilly noticing.

“Oh, don’t worry about Lorraine. She’s my sister and she throws her elbows around no matter what decade she’s in.”

“Sister?” Jillian started counting fingers. “Are you kidding me?”

This time the old woman looked like she was going to strangle him, but he just grinned at her.

“Ye see, Jillian, I’m trying to impress my new gal by bringing her here to meet ye, the one who ended the Ross curse. Ye know, the prophesy.” He looked behind him. “We’re actually from the 50’s, see?  The nineteen fifties.”

Lorraine tried to grab him by the ear, but he ducked like he’d ducked that move all his life.

“Relax, Lorraine. If anyone understands time-travel, don’t ye think Jillian would?” He turned back to her. “In fact, my brother and I came up with a right genius way to travel—yeouch!”

Lorraine had his ear then. He looked around twenty-five, but an elder is still an elder, Jilly supposed.

“It’s time to go, Wickham. It was wonderful to see you, but you’re messing in our nest, here. You really are.” Lorraine looked anxiously behind her. “As soon as she comes back, you need to go.”

“But Ivy needs to meet Jillian. Then we will go.”

Lorraine’s face was a thundercloud when she turned back to him.

“Wickham. Listen to me. Ivy must not meet Jillian. I know you don’t understand, but you’ll have to trust me.”

Wickham nodded. “Okay, okay. We’ll go.” He threw his arms around Lorraine. “It was good to see ye, sis. I always told ye ye’d live to be a hundred.”

Lorraine whacked him on the head.

“A violently beautiful hundred.” He grinned, then turned to Loretta. “Try to teach her kindness, Retta. It’s never too late, ye know.”

Lorraine came forward and pulled Jillian aside.

“What time is your flight, dear?  Wouldn’t you like a nice cup of tea before you go?”

Beware of Mormons pushing tea. If it wasn’t on a t-shirt somewhere, it ought to be. Something was up, and if the Muirs wanted Jilly gone, she wasn’t going anywhere. Last act of defiance, and all that.

Jillian gave Lorraine her most brilliant smile then removed the old woman’s hand from her shoulder before looking deep in those glassy blue irises.

“Not on your sweet aunt’s fanny.”

A young woman, dressed, well...in a dress, came running through the archway into the hall. Her bell-shaped green skirt came just past her knees and she teetered on a matching pair of very old-fashioned pump heels. She wore a pair of honest-to-goodness cat-eye glasses as a head band and clutched a small beaded purse in her white-gloved hands. She tossed her head around until she saw Wickham.

Suddenly the man’s clothing made sense. His jeans were what Grandma had called high-waters; tight against his leg and not long enough to get wet while walking through large puddles. His hair was smoothed away from his face and he wore a bomber jacket that looked as if it he’d gotten it off a real pilot.

Jilly suddenly believed every word he’d said. They had to be from the nineteen fifties, or else this was all staged by the Muir sisters. She’d reserve judgment for as long as she could.

“Come on, Ivy. We’ve got to run, now.” He held out a hand to her.

“Wickham, you’ve got to help me.” She grabbed his lapels and pulled him close. “Those people! I heard them plotting to kill someone. We can’t just leave, we have to stop them.”

Wickham dropped his smile.

Lorraine grabbed Jilly’s arm and turned her toward the archway, but Jilly kept turning until she was again facing Wickham and the girl. In an impressively smooth move, she also got her arm free. In a heartbeat, she was running toward Wickham, to put the young man between herself and Lorraine.

And as she stood there, one hand on Wickham, the other on Ivy, it struck her.

“The toilet contains my grandmother...my grandmother is in the toilet,” she said aloud, turning to Ivy. “My grandfather wasn’t wicked, he was Wickham.”

Lorraine winced and stopped trying to get to her through the couple. She then looked at Jilly. “You should have trusted me, missy,” she said softly.

“Wickham, who is this woman, and why is she running from your sister?” Ivy clutched Jilly’s grandfather a bit closer.

“Ivy, this is the woman we came to see. Her name is Jillian.” He put a steadying arm around Jilly’s grandmother and turned her to face Jillian properly. “Jillian, this is Ivy MacKay.”

Ivy reached out the hand not twisted in Wickham’s jacket and grabbed Jilly’s fingers. “Jillian is the name of the woman they plan to kill, Wickham!”

Loretta walked up behind Lorraine. “That’s why we couldn’t find any record. We thought MacKay was her married name.”

Jillian took stock of her grandmother. Ivy MacKay was standing in front of her once again. It was a miraculous chance to tell her grandmother everything she’d never dared say before. True closure. A foot away.

But in Ivy’s eyes she saw fear, not meanness, and that fear was for Jilly. Maybe it always had been.

What this woman deserved was some hope, but how much could she bear to hear at her young age?  Then Jilly remembered what a tough old bird Ivy MacKay had turn out to be.

“Ivy, honey, I’m going to be your granddaughter, and you are going to own oil wells and make an embarrassing amount of money.” She left out the part about living alone and lonely except for an awkward, quiet granddaughter who was headed toward a similar destiny.

Whether from heartbreak or shock, Jilly’s remaining energy spilled out of her boots and she wobbled as she patted her young grandmother’s hand.

“And if you think someone around here is going to kill me, you’ve misunderstood. I’m already dead.”

Wickham freed himself from Ivy just in time to catch Jilly as her knees gave out. He pulled her up against him.

“Nice catch, Grandpa.” She searched his face for some likeness of herself and found it in his eyes. “You don’t look very surprised. You could at least admit you didn’t know I was your granddaughter when we were introduced.”

“Aye, lass. I admit it. I’m pleased to know ye, but I’m even more pleased Ivy and I will be grandparents together.” He made sure Jilly could stand, then stepped back to Ivy. “But ye know my sisters. If ye were a brother of theirs, could anything truly surprise ye?”

Lorraine laid a hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about the lass, Ivy. My sister and I have things in hand. You have to trust sometimes.”

Loretta walked to the Great Hall door and pulled it open. “You have to go, brother, before any more secrets slip.”

Behind Lorraine, Quinn finally entered with a returning Maggie on his arm.

“It’s them!” Ivy cried out and pointed. “They were the ones!  Jillian, run!”

Everyone turned to Quinn, who lifted his brows and shrugged, his hands open in innocence. Wickham tried to calm Ivy while glaring daggers at Laird Ross. Lorraine calmly ushered them out the door and eventually, Ivy’s complaints stopped.

Oh yeah, Ivy MacKay was not going to like that.

“I don’t know what she was talking about,” Quinn said behind her.

“Jillian, dear?” Lorraine stood with her arms crossed. The first tears Jilly had ever seen from the woman were coursing down her cheeks. Loretta joined her and gave her a squeeze and Jilly suddenly understood.

“You didn’t get to say good-bye.” Jilly wrung her hands. It was her fault Wickham and Ivy had been hurried away. “I’m so sorry.”

Lorraine wiped her face with her trusty handkerchief while Loretta clung to her, staring at the floor.

“Are you worried he’ll go back and tell you about the tomb?”

“No. He won’t. He never makes it back.” Loretta cleared her throat and pulled out her own hankie.

Yes, Castle Ross sucked.

“Jillian, dear.” Lorraine had her control back. “It was a wonderful treat to see our Wickham again. You can stop feeling sorry about it. However,” she raised her brows at Loretta, then the rest. Quinn, Maggie, and the rest of the family gave her their full attention. As did Jilly. “If you were Ivy MacKay,” she continued, “and you’d just seen what she has, what do you suppose she’ll do when she’s presented with a granddaughter named Jillian?”

Of course. “I’d do whatever I could to keep her away from Scotland.”

Her head spun with memories—of warnings, of paranoia, of the sadness lurking in her grandmother’s eyes at the mention of her wicked grandfather.

Quinn stepped forward. “One mystery solved, then. But there is a new one. I have a little going away present for ye.” He took Jilly’s arm securely in his grasp. “Now, it’s inside the tomb, but ye’ll want to see it.”

She shook her head and tried to pull away. Maybe her grandmother had heard something sinister after all.

“Jilly. Trust me. I believe it’s a message from yer husband.”

Halfway to the workroom, with a plethora of flashlights and a contingent of Muirs and Rosses in tow, Jilly followed Quinn and his sister like a soldier’s wife hurrying to the mailbox. Then suddenly, she stopped.

“Holy crap.” She began turning in a circle while realization dawned. “Holy crap!”

“What is it, Jillian, dear?”

Hoooly crap!

“Do you have something you’d care to share with the rest of the class, dear?” Lorraine stopped her with a gentle hand.

She noticed Quinn and Maggie never said a word. The Muirs, for all their years, were not a patient bunch.

“Holy crap.” She turned and looked at the rats who, she’d just realized, were now her great aunts. “I’m a bloody Muir.”

Their smiles beamed blue in the odd light.

“Perhaps we could help you find your sister, Jillian, dear.”

“I’ve a feeling she has one, sister. The talented ones are always born in pairs.”

Jilly “holy crapped” all the way to the workroom.

#  #  #

“Only Jillian and I, if ye don’t mind, ladies.” Quinn hugged his sister and put her aside.

Boy was he in a good mood.

Once inside, he reached down for her, but she hesitated.

“Is he not worth it, Jilly?”

A second later, she was lifted up into the near-darkness.

“What is it?  I bet I know. He tried to leave me air, and light, and water, didn’t he?”

Quinn turned and took the torque from its home. She couldn’t resist touching it again.

“There is more than one tale told about the necklace,” he said.

“It won’t work. It’s not the necklace.” Jilly let her hand drop from the silver crescent. “The necklace is only charmed to stay put. It can’t be removed from the tomb, even if you tried.”

“I know, lass. I tried, as all the lairds of Ross have likely tried before me.” He still held it out to her. “It does have magic. It took ye away before my very eyes, lass. It must work again.”

She grimaced, hating to say words she knew would bring tears to her eyes, but knowing he wouldn’t let up until she did.

“The torque’s only magic is that it stays put. It’s the tomb that took me back, the tomb that is magic. Wrought by love and sacrifice, it only works when both love and sacrifice are present. Both times, it worked because of the love of Morna and Ivar. I was the sacrifice. First, I sacrificed my fear of tight spaces, I suppose. Or I was willing to risk putting on a creepy necklace in hopes of helping two strangers.” Her tears were lining up for a parade down her cheeks. “When we came back, though, I was sacrificing my chance to be with...him.”

Finally, the man turned and put the torque in its place. When he turned back to her, however, he was grinning.

“Well, that settles it, then. We’re going back.” He grabbed on to Jilly’s upper arms and held firmly. “I will sacrifice the luxury of the 21st century and my family to trade places with Montgomery Constantine Ross.”

Jilly didn’t breath. Surely it wouldn’t work. Surely he couldn’t mean to give up everything to live in medieval times.

“But...but you have family. How can you give them up?  How could you leave them?”

“My family wants me happy, lass. And I can’t be happy here.” He cleared his throat. “I will be much happier in a time where the love of my life has not yet been born, rather than after she’s already passed, aye?”

Nothing was happening, but the silly man went back to grinning.

“Jilly, I think now would be a good time to tell me whom ye love.”

“Whom I...I love Montgomery Constantine Ross, Laird of Clan Ross in the year 1495.” Maybe they would write that on her tombstone.

Nothing happened. The flashlight did not go out; it was still stuck in Quinn’s waistband. In fact, there was quite a bit hanging from the man’s belt:  a couple of water bottles, a hatchet—what she wouldn’t have given for that—, a second flashlight, and a first aid kit. Poor man, he thought this would make a fun camping trip.

But they’d gone nowhere.

“Sorry, Quinn. You tried.”

“Jilly?” He still kept his hands on her arms, but now they were lifting her slightly, as if he thought she was about to swoon. “Jilly, I want ye to look down.”

Oh, my hell, he’s not going to take this well.

She’d humor him until he caught on, then it would be her trying to hold him up, and how she’d manage that, she had no idea. The best she could promise was to keep him from hitting his head on the rocks. Maybe.

That’s funny. She thought they’d left the hole open.

Where the large hole had been, there was now a tree trunk plugging the hole. Not the carefully custom-fitted plug, but thankfully, not a two foot wide stone, either.

She looked up at Quinn. He was sobering a bit, thank goodness.

She looked down at the tree trunk. Ewan hadn’t even cleaned all the leaves off. They were still green, but dry.

At least she hoped it had been Ewan.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it had been Ewan!

“Quinn?”

“Yes, Jillian?  I mean, Jilly?”

“I hope you won’t miss your family too badly.”

“I hope it as well. Have we arrived already, then?”

“Aye, yer lairdship. I believe we have.” Jilly had a wicked thought. “Would you mind plugging your ears?”

He smiled and cupped his hands against his head.

“Away!” she hollered. A minute later, she hollered again. “And if that doesn’t bring them running, we can use the hatchet.”

“Oh, look here.” Quinn shined his light in the corner. “Looks like a bucket of water, a dozen or so candles, and a chisel of some sort.”

“Water, light, and air, to be precise.” Jilly was so sick of tears, but she allowed them free access to her cheeks. After all, they were a different flavor of tears now. None of them bitter. All of them sweet.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The drugged wine in Monty’s mouth had gone nauseatingly warm, but he held on until the woman closed the curtain between them before spitting it silently in the piss pot. He’d be damned if he would spend another night here with these Muir lunatics. Never had his wishes been so ignored, except for Jillian of course; she hadn’t harkened to him much either.

Dear Jillian. The last he remembered, Ewan was promising to seal the tunnels to the tomb, and if his well-meaning cousin had done as he’d planned, Monty had to hurry.

When Morna had told him, that day in the boat, how she could feel Ivar’s feelings, imagine just where he was and what he was thinking, Monty had thought her silly. But now, even across centuries, he could feel such a connection with Jillian.

Of course, he had no way of discovering the accuracy of his feelings, but if there was truth to it, if he could truly sense Jillian’s emotions or thoughts, then she was on her way back to him. If it wasn’t just wishful madness on his part, she’d find herself buried again, even if she made it out of the tomb.

“Laird Ross,” sang a voice from the other side of the curtain. “Ye’d best be on yer way if ye’re going to save yer lass, do ye not think?  And there was nothing in that last bit of wine. Ye wasted good drink, ye did.”

Never, even with centuries of trying, would anyone understand the mind of a Muir.

#  #  #

“Monty. Laird Ross. What are ye doing here?” Ewan was very surprised to see him. Very surprised indeed, from the speed of his speech. “How do ye feel, auld mon?  Would ye care to sit on the stoop and greet some of the clan?  I’ll bring ye out something for yer gullet, and something for yer parched throat.”

What was the man hiding?  Or did he hope his laird was not angry about the tunnels being sealed?  If so, he hoped in vain.

“I believe, Ewan, that I have yet to thank ye for the last bit of wine ye served me.” He walked toward his cousin, who was backing away, although grudgingly. “Out!” he shouted, and the rest of the hall cleared.

“Now Monty, I only did what I had to do, mon. Ye’d plum lost yer wits and needed a wee rest.”

“Oh, I rested, Ewan. For all the days from then to this, I’ve rested.” Monty stalked the man toward the stone dais. “Now it’s yer turn, cousin.”

Ewan braced himself, saw it coming, and still the power of Monty’s blow took him by surprise. At least his brows were high on his forehead as he spun to the floor to lie in a shaggy heap.

Monty looked about his empty hall and smiled. He would have a bit of privacy at least while he cleared the tunnels.

“Away!”

Monty turned toward the tomb. If it was someone wishing to tease him, he’d see his or her head on a pike. Did he dare hope it was Jillian?  Could he stand it if it weren’t?  Was the sound just a bit of Muir-spiced wine rising from a corner of his belly to possess him again?

“Away!”

He ran from the hall as he had a year before, only this time he did not worry that Isobelle or Jillian would be dead before he got to them. His thighs made quick work of the steps in spite of disuse. When they ended, however, he ran knees first into a barrel. Only it wasn’t just a barrel; it was dozens of them. The corridor was filled with them, and if the smell was any indication of the contents, Ewan had had the cunning to combine the task of sealing the tunnels with the practicality of sealing them with something useful.

Whisky.

An hour later a grumpy Monty pushed the last barrel out of the way so he could move a great tree trunk from the witch’s hole. In his haste, he had not thought to brace himself for who might be falling from the sky. Last time it had been Jillian, or who he thought was his daughter.

This time, it was...himself.

“The whisky fumes are potent,” he told himself.

“Aye, they are,” himself agreed.

“I’ve lost my mind, have I not?  Or am I still in a bed amongst the Muirs?”

His other self laughed.

“Please, don’t say ‘Muirs’ before ye’ve poured me a drink of yer wares, Laird Ross.”

Well, then, at least his other self showed proper respect.

“Excuse me.” The man turned his attention back to the hole. “Jilly, he’s here. Jump down.”

Monty couldn’t breathe. Was his other self just teasing him?  Was Jillian up there?  The man stood beneath the hole and when Monty blinked, Jillian fell into his arms.

Into his arms?

“I’ll thank ye to put her down, mon.”

His image did so, but a bit too slowly.

Monty didn’t dare look at Jillian. If it were some trick he couldn’t bear it. For as long as he didn’t look at her, there was a chance she had returned. He wanted to drag out his hope a bit longer. It was too sweet, and too rare to let get through his fingers.

“Are ye by chance another Laird Ross?” He tapped the man’s shoulder.

“I am that.” The man smiled.

“And are ye the man who put Jillian in the tomb and let slip my wee secret about Isobelle?”

“Oh, I see.” The man took a deep breath. “Aye, but not a purpose.”

“No matter.”

For the second time that day, Monty had the great satisfaction of striking a surprising blow to a large jaw. With the pain glancing about inside his fist, he hoped it would be the last of the day.

Finally he turned.

The lass was wearing plaid boots, the pointy kind she’d worn before. Her trews were in the same sorry condition, but she’d had the wit to cover her shift with at least another shift.

“I believe I left my leather jacket behind. Have you seen it?”

There was his Jillian. His breath was sucked away by her smile. His heart soared with one twinkle from her wet green eyes.

“Is that all ye came back for, Lady Ross?”

The bastard had ruined her jacket. Handsome, wonderful bastard, but still...

Her well-worn, well-loved, second-hand leather she’d sought for years, had treasured more than any possession and had babied like a pet, was reduced to the size, shape and utility of a sporran. The arms had been turned into a 15th century version of leg warmers with ties that criss-crossed up his sculpted calves. He might have considered keeping a memento of her near his heart, but not this.

“What have you done, husband?” Jilly pointed at his crotch where he hung his guilt for all to see. “Do you know how long I waited for that jacket?”

While she stood staring into the smoldering eyes of the man she loved, Jilly realized she was finally, for the first time in her life, exactly where she wanted to be.

Monty—her real live, warm, non-stone Monty—grinned.

“Tis good to see ye remember ye’re married, wife. Do ye know how long I waited for ye?”

#  #  #

Laird Montgomery Constantine Ross took to giving tours as a Scotsman takes to plaid. Only now, the tours at Castle Ross, outside the town of East Burnshire, Scotland, take twice as long.

THE END

Dreaming again...

It was dark, just like always.

His head fell forward, his black hair made it hard to see his face. When he moved, she would see just a little curve of his cheek, a reflection of light from his eyes. She wanted to reach out and push that hair behind his ears, but she didn’t. Why didn’t she?

At least she could hear him breathing and feel his arms as they came around her. So warm. So soft. So hard.

“Stay with me,” he begged.

“I will. I promise.”

“Stay with me, just until the end. Then you may go.”

“‘Til the end of what?”

“‘Til the end, lass. You’ll know when it’s over.”

Frantic desperation hung in the air all around them.

“I’m not who you think I am,” he said.

That was what she was supposed to say.

“Neither am I,” she confessed.

He pulled her closer, but there was something between them, again. She needed to get closer, to feel his hard chest against her cheek, to know, just for a minute, that she was safe.

But something was stopping her.

NOT WITHOUT JULIET

PROLOGUE

Gordon Land, Scotland, 1496

~

They rose from the heather like dead men rising to complain of their bumpy purple graves, and Quinn knew by the sneers on their faces, he was the dead one.

“Greetin’s, Laird Ross.” A long-legged man sporting an ill-fitting Gordon plaid offered a mocking bow, not bothering to knock the dirt from his body. “Ye be a long drink from home this day, but we heard ye’re no longer sensible of boundaries, since summer last.”

Quinn wished he could have called the survey folk to come spray-paint the bloody borders of Ross land, but he couldn’t have afforded the extra charges to bring them all the way back to the fifteenth century. And oh, how he hated being babysat by young boys who knew from birth where Ross land ended and Gordon land began.

“I beg pardon, sir.” Quinn nodded. “I trusted my horse to keep me on home ground. I’ll be sure to punish him accordingly.”

He laid the reins against the scapegoat’s neck to turn back South, but when more Gordons blocked his way, he turned again to Long Legs and awaited the filthy man’s pleasure. If they killed him, at least he wouldn’t be around to watch Ewan’s eyes roll back in his head when he learned of yet another of Quinn’s foolish mistakes. All that rolling surely gave the new laird migraines.

“I be ridin’ the horse, yer lairdship. And you be walking.”

“I’ve no doubt you ken I’m no longer laird of the Rosses,” Quinn said clearly so they all would hear and maybe reconsider harassing him.

“We do,” said Long Legs. “But once a laird, always a laird. Ye were a shrewd mon to give yer clan over to Ewan Ross though.” He pulled Quinn from the saddle, not caring whether or not he landed on his feet. “If ye hadn’t, they’d be leaderless this night, I reckon.”

Long Legs shoved, but Quinn stood his ground easily enough. The man snorted at him and mounted. He motioned another Gordon forward who tied Quinn’s hands before him, then handed up the slack. Quinn felt the comforting weight of the knife in his boot and decided to bide his time. No sense taking on the lot of them at once when it might not be necessary.

The sound of approaching hooves turned all attention to the meager road. A horse was coming fast, seemingly riderless but for the two wee legs flapping at its sides.

Dear Lord! It was Orie, the smithy’s son.

Quinn turned to Long Legs.

“Hold your men. You will not harm this child.” He spoke quickly while he held the man’s gaze. “Do what you will to me, but if this boy is not allowed to return home without so much as a scratch, I will call upon the devil himself to see you and your posterity swept from the face of the earth.” He glanced over his shoulder. Orie was closing. “You remember my sister, Isobelle, was a witch. Do you doubt I can do it?” Quinn stepped close so no others could hear him. “Satan himself came with Isobelle in summer last, to dance with her upon her own tomb. Did no one tell you?”

Long Legs’ eyes were wide as he raised a hand, freezing his men where they stood. Orie and his horse kept coming, and he’d soon see the ties around Quinn’s wrists!  It would be too late!

“Is that what drove ye mad, Laird Ross?” The man swallowed. “Did the devil take yer wits?  They say—”

“Laird Ross, sir!” Orie waved one hand and slowed his horse. “You forgot your sword, sir. And you forgot me.” The boy looked around at the Gordons spread about the field of heather.

“‘Tis all right, Orie.” Quinn looked to Long Legs, who nodded and discreetly cut the ropes from his hands.

“If ye touch yer sword, the ladboy dies no matter,” the man whispered.

Quinn nodded and turned to the boy, who looked him over, his small brow furrowed. A patch of dirt-colored hair poked up from the back of the lad’s head and a well-defined line ran all the way around his small face showing he’d at least tried to wash up. Grime stayed to one side of the line, pink skin to the other, like he was peering out through the only clean spot of a filthy window. The next chance Quinn got, if he got one, he’d toss the boy into some good clean water.

“No worries. We are but cutting flowers.” He gestured to the Gordons who then looked for a nod from Long Legs before bending and using their bare blades to chop at the blossom-covered branches. Tiny purple balls began flying. “We’re taking them to Morna’s grave. I will have no use for my heavy blade this day. The Gordon lads will see to my safety, will you not?” He turned to Long Legs.

“Aye. We will, that.” The Gordon man grinned.

“Laird, why does he sit yer horse?” Orie pointed, as if Quinn hadn’t noticed. All the Gordons stopped cutting flowers and waited. Quinn could feel them all itching to get their hands on the child.

“Twisted his foot is all.” He waved away Orie’s concern. “I’m sorry I did not wait for you, but I couldn’t take such an important lad all the way to the Gordon Keep. Go home now. Have the stable master take my sword to my chambers, and I’ll see you when I return.” He dared not step closer to the boy and the sword, but bent instead to gather the heather another man had cut, holding his breath and praying for obedience.

Thankfully, the boy was quick to follow orders, and Quinn continued his acting until the sound of Orie’s retreat faded to nothing.

Long Legs’ sudden burst of laughter sent a chill up his spine.

“A grand idea, that. Ye’ll be carrying the flowers, but they’ll be for yer own grave, not yer sister’s.”

Quinn was content with the irony that Morna was neither dead, nor his sister, but was living happily ever after in the twenty-first century. A year before, Morna had faked her death and then been taken into the future, along with the real Montgomery Ross. Quinn had volunteered to switch places with him, due to the plain fact Montgomery had the love of a fine woman to live for, and Quinn had naught.

And if Isobelle, Morna’s sister, danced, it wasn’t with the devil as she, too, was alive and well, though it was uncertain where she hid. It was a fine trick the Rosses had played on their neighbors, and all for the health and happiness of their women.

Ultimately, if Quinn was about to die, history would play out as it should, and no one would know the Gordons would be killing the wrong man.

CHAPTER ONE

Something dripped on Juliet’s head.

“I swear, if it rains on me one more friggin’ time...” She looked up and watched a squirrel disappear against the trunk of a pine tree. The small branch he’d run across still bounced, flinging little drops of moisture from its needles. “Damned rodent.”

She was sure he’d done it on purpose, but she wasn’t going anywhere. He’d just have to deal with having his forest invaded for a while longer.

She stood among the trees on a hillside that ran along the west and north sides of Castle Ross, close enough to keep an eye on the place while she worked up her courage. She’d been working it up for two days, arguing with the same stupid squirrel. At least, she thought it was the same one.

Using her voice had felt good. She couldn’t remember the last person she’d had an actual conversation with that wasn’t a waitress or something. But that was about to change. As soon as the gray Hummer returned to the castle grounds, she was going to suck it up, march down there, and say what she’d come to say. It wasn’t her fault that woman was always taking off with her husband every time Jules was ready to confront her. Even getting up early that morning hadn’t helped, either. The Hummer was already gone.

What were they doing? Shopping their brains out? Trying to spend all the money?

The thought of all that money disappearing made her nauseous.

No way, she told herself. No way could they spend even half of it in the year since that woman had inherited it, even if they bought a real life Scottish castle—which she knew they hadn’t—it belonged to the husband’s family. And a whole fleet of Hummers wouldn’t make a dent.

“It’s okay,” she told the squirrel. “Half is all I want.” She looked back at the castle. “And I’m not leaving here without it.”

She rolled her shoulders and worked out the kinks from sleeping, folded up, in the front seat of a car for two miserable nights in a row. She’d have stretched out a little in the back seat, but if someone caught up with her, she needed to be behind the wheel.

Sticking earbuds in her ears was a luxury she couldn’t risk, no matter how frightening it was to sleep alone in the woods at night. And thanks to her wild imagination, she’d imagined all kinds of animals breathing on the car windows every time she closed her eyes.

The only thing she should really worry about was the FBI catching up with her or one of Gabby Skedros’ men. But even that concern was second on her list. Her biggest fear was what kept her on that hillside—the probability that that woman and her big Highlander would decide that they weren’t going to give her what was hers.

She’d dreamt of him again last night. Exactly the same dream she’d been having for the last six months. Only this time she knew who he was...

It was dark, just like always.

His head fell forward, his black hair made it hard to see his face. When he moved, she would see just a little curve of his cheek, a little reflection of light from his eyes. She wanted to reach out and push that hair behind his ears, but she didn’t. Why didn’t she?

At least she could hear him breathing and feel his arms as they came around her. So warm. So soft. So hard.

“Stay with me,” he begged.

“I will. I promise.”

“Stay with me, just until the end. Then you may go.”

“‘Til the end of what?”

“‘Til the end, lass. You’ll know when it’s over.”

Frantic desperation hung in the air all around them.

“I’m not who you think I am,” he said.

That was what she was supposed to say.

“Neither am I,” she confessed.

He pulled her closer, but there was something between them, again. She needed to get closer, to feel his hard chest against her cheek, to know, just for a minute, that she was safe.

But something was stopping her.

Finally knowing he was a living breathing man, and not some guy her subconscious had conjured up?

Good news.

Realizing he was married, and to whom he was married?

Bad news. Bad, bad news.

Wondering how the hell her mind knew about a man across the ocean, six months before she’d ever seen him?

Freaking insane.

Water dripped on her head again. At least she hoped it was water. She didn’t look up because she really didn’t want to know. If the little thing had peed on her, she had no place to wash her hair anyway. Not until she got her money.

She wished she had her gun...if only to kill her a friggin’ squirrel.

“I hear you taste like chicken,” she said, still not looking up.

It was time to resume the position.

She felt the ground. Thankfully, it was no more damp than before. Not much of the last little rainstorm had made it through the thick branches. She was on a little plateau, so she stretched out on her belly, propped her elbows up, and looked through the old field glasses she’d bought in a second-hand store, in a little town just outside Glasgow. She wasn’t about to go shopping in East Burnshire, the village down the road. Running into that woman in a public place was not the plan. And if the FBI figured out where she was headed, they’d be watching East Burnshire for any sign of one Juliet Bell.

She’d tried not to get her hopes up about the Rosses helping her, considering what she planned to say to the new lady of the manor. The big Scot seemed so...courteous...from afar, she tried to keep worst case scenarios out of her head. She only wished she could say the same about her fantasies. The guy was just too gorgeous.

Just one more reason to dislike his wife.

Below her, Castle Ross protruded out of an ancient hill, a massive wreck resisting its lush green grave. The main body of the castle was about three stories tall. The towers, on the corners, looked more like arms reaching for the sky. Just a few fingers left on each hand.

As she studied the place for the thousandth time, a stone tumbled away from the west wall that was painted liberally with the orange light of the setting sun. She raised her field glasses to see what might have shaken loose a building block placed hundreds of years ago.

A couple of blue-grey figures stood on the battlements. Of course she didn’t believe in ghosts, but there was something about Scotland that made you believe you weren’t in the real world anyway.

She rolled the focus.

Two old ladies—identical in every way—were fighting over a pair of binoculars. Jules would lay odds on the one on the right since the strap was around her neck. Every time the one on the left pulled at the prize, her twin was pulled forward.

Jules couldn’t help laughing.

Nothing to worry about. Even if they’d been a couple of ghosts, they couldn’t scare her off. The only thing capable of raising her heart rate now was a sexy Highlander or someone with the power to stop her—like the people she’d just escaped. The FBI was staffed by a bunch of mean sons-o-bitches who didn’t take too kindly to sole eye-witnesses squirming out from under their thumb. And if she could get away from them, a couple of Scottish ghosts shouldn’t even raise her heart rate.

She moved back into a thick cluster of pines, hoping against hope that the fighting sisters had poor eyesight too. She steadied the boughs bouncing around her and hoped her black leather jacket and new dye job would blend into the shadows. Then she looked through the binoculars again.

The old women weren’t fighting anymore, and the one on the left was gesturing over her shoulder with her thumb, toward the North. Jules was just relieved the old girl wasn’t pointing her way. The other one took the strap from around her neck and handed over the binoculars, then she looked over her sister’s shoulder while that one turned and aimed the lenses up at the road running along the ridge behind Castle Ross.

Whatever it was, the sisters found it fascinating. But when the sisters suddenly ducked down behind the wall, Jules swung her own binoculars to the North to see what had scared her would-be ghosts.

The trees were in the way. She had to inch out a bit, but kept well below the boughs that would give away her progress. A prickly branch reached out and snagged her coat, as if it would hold her back. She unhooked a sticky pinecone from her precious coat, rubbed her thumb over the scratch it had made in the smooth leather, then crawled forward, grateful for the lengthening and deepening of the evening shadows around her.

At first, all she could see was a car tire with a shiny hubcap. She kept losing track of it between branches heavy with pine cones and dense green needles. When she pulled the glasses aside to get a natural perspective, she realized the car was well off the road, intentionally hidden.

Like hers.

Through the binoculars, once again, Juliet followed the hill as it sloped away from the car. Spindly black legs stood on a visible patch of grass. A tripod. Then, a man’s knees as he squatted behind it.

“Shit!” Her voice sounded like a gunshot in her ears. She clamped her lips between her teeth and held her breath until she realized she was too far away for him to have heard her.

A Skedros. It had to be. If he were FBI, agents would have been skulking around the castle, hiding on the roof and taking over the big manor house where human beings actually lived. They wouldn’t care about disrupting lives while they waited for her to show up.

She tried to calm the panic ringing in her ears, telling her to run, reminding her that every second she waited lessened her chances of getting away. But she didn’t want to run. It had taken her days to get psyched up to confront that woman. If she ran, she’d never get that chance again. And no one could be expected to run away from all that money, let alone the chance to look into that man’s face just once.

She tried to think rationally, to keep her heart from jumping through her ribs.

Maybe the guy was a photographer. Castle Ross probably smiled for a couple dozen cameras a day. Maybe the North side was its good side. Maybe the FBI had decided to give her what she’d asked for—just a little time to take care of some personal business. Maybe the Skedros family had no clue she’d left the country. Maybe she was just being paranoid.

Yeah, and maybe Gabby Skedros hadn’t murdered Nikkos right before her eyes. “You’re like a son to me,” he’d told the kid, just before he shot him. And how many times had he told Jules she was like a daughter? Yeah, she could live without that kind of family affection. She was better off as she’d always been. On her own.

Paranoid? Yeah, right. Paranoid was a way to stay alive. And she wasn’t the only one freaking out. Those old sisters had disappeared fast, as if their footing had given way.

No. They were hiding. And Jules wasn’t hiding well enough. Even though she was well hidden beneath branches and shadows, she wanted to inch back into the trees, but she couldn’t move. Her arm and legs were frozen with fear, as they had that night when Nikkos fell to the floor. She hadn’t moved then either. She’d blended in. Gabby hadn’t even looked around to see if any of his restaurant employees might have been working late. Freezing in place had saved her then. Apparently her body thought it was a good enough plan to try again.

Great.

She took a deep breath, then another. She just had to relax. It was just like the bears she imagined outside her car windows. They weren’t real. Maybe the danger she felt wasn’t real either. She just had to be brave enough to look.

From the corner of her eye, she saw movement to her right. There were now two blue forms at the entrance of the castle grounds, jumping up and down. Weren’t they a little too old for that?

Thankfully, she found her arms willing to move once more, and she raised her glasses for a better look at the pair of lunatics.

At the bottom of her hill was a road and beyond that, a wide parking lot. Between it and the crumbling outer wall of the castle was a bridge of land the width of a car. Once upon a time, there would have been a moat and drawbridge, she figured. Where the wall began, there was also a large gate that opened inward. Next to this gate bounced the blue sisters.

Juliet realized three things. First, the sisters were looking right at her. Second, they weren’t doing jumping jacks; they were flapping around trying to get her attention. And third, the man on the North hill couldn’t see them.

Or so she hoped. She swung the glasses in his direction to be sure.

The tripod hadn’t moved. The knees were gone, but as she scanned the area, she found a man’s torso. When he ducked to take a bite of something in his hand, she saw him.

Sunglasses. It was already too dark for those. The sun was nearly down. Dark shadows had already started creeping up the side of Castle Ross. It was too late for a good shot—at least with a camera.

The man straightened and moved. She watched patiently for a better glimpse of him.

“Don’t be Greek. Don’t be Greek,” she chanted.

Finally, she saw his head. It was covered with long orange curls. For a minute, she thought it was just the trick of the sunset, until she realized the bright hair was all natural. Not a Skedros, then.

Not a photographer. Not a Skedros. Either a hired hitter, or the FBI. FBI agents tried to blend in. This guy, with his lion’s mane of bright hair, wouldn’t blend in anywhere—maybe not even Scotland.

A hitman then.

She was dead. Her chances for survival just rolled away, down the hill, out of reach. The smart thing to do would be to get in her car and drive away. Act as casually as possible as the road would either take her down the hill and past the castle, right where he was watching, or up and back the way she’d come, about twenty feet from where his car was parked. Maybe he wouldn’t consider she’d blackened her hair and wouldn’t give her a second look. Once she was out of sight, she would have to high-tail it to Edinburg, turn herself in to the police and hope the FBI could come and save her. It was her only choice.

Fire or frying pan?

She was out of money. Nearly out of gas. And if she didn’t think of something quick, she’d be out of hope.

She looked back to the sisters. They’d seen the man. They’d seen her, and yet they were still waving. She had absolutely no idea what they could have deduced from that, but they seemed to be beckoning her inside the grounds. Did they sense her danger, or were they out of their minds? Why would they want to help her when they had no clue who she was?

Maybe they’d seen the man’s gun and freaked out. But she couldn’t just run down there and let them help her. She’d be putting them in danger. A hitter wouldn’t think twice about collateral damage.

But with no gas money, what choice did she have?

For just a second, Jules allowed herself to imagine the large dark Highlander, coming up the hill to rescue her, kilt and sword swinging as they had the previous day for his crowd of tourists. But the “see us tomorrow” sign had already been hung, the parking lot chained off for the night. And his Hummer was still gone.

The sisters waved limply, their arms at their sides now, no longer over their heads, but it didn’t look like they planned to give up. If they didn’t get out of there, there was a good chance they’d get shot. Maybe it was her Christian duty to make them go hide.

Jules waved her hand, then gave them a thumbs-up.

They stopped their antics and one grabbed the field glasses from the other to take a good look.

Again, Jules gave a thumbs-up.

She received two very broad grins in return—smiles that in other circumstances would have made her think twice about taking shelter at Castle Ross. They looked a little too pleased. Like they might have a pot of stew on the fire and were waiting for a bit of meat.

A chill went through her. She figured it was just adrenaline overload.

The jagged tips of the ramparts let go of the sunset and the famous Scottish gloaming settled over the glen with an almost audible sigh.

The car hadn’t moved. The tripod hadn’t moved.

Jules took a deep breath, appreciating for the moment that she was still breathing at all. She turned to look north again, to check the hitter’s location one last time and found herself staring into the guy’s small binoculars, aimed right at her.

Air locked in her chest and expanded, like whipped cream from a thoroughly shaken can. She couldn’t look away, couldn’t drop her glasses and hope not to be seen. It was too important to know what he would do!  Did he already have a gun in hand?  Had he already seen her and was looking to see if she was alone?

Time froze.

He only stared.

She didn’t dare hope he mistook her for anything or anyone else. They conversed silently.

Ah, there you are.

I can’t believe you found me.

Believe it, baby.

Now what?

You make the first move. Then I kill you.

It seemed like whole minutes ticked by without him twitching a muscle. That mean square jaw never softened, those lips never curved in satisfaction. A long orange curl swayed in a breeze that never reached her side of the crescent hill.

Calmly, in a less-than-dramatic act of defiance, she raised her left hand next to her binoculars...and flipped him off.

His head snapped back as he laughed—and she heard it, faintly. But the break in eye contact, such as it was, was all it took to shake her into action. She jumped to her feet and looked down at the gate. Blue. Still there.

She judged the distance to her car. He was much closer to his. He could drive over to her car before she could make her way up to it. If she ran flat out for the gate, she’d be an open target, but a moving one. If he tried to come after her, she’d reach the castle before he could drive to it, considering how the road twisted and turned down the mountain. He could drive like James Friggin’ Bond and never reach her in time.

But whom would she endanger?

She faltered. Would he take out everyone here?  There were children in the manor, or at least there had been yesterday. The more modern home was a good football field away from the castle, but could she honestly expect to take shelter in the old structure and not endanger the people in the new one?

She recalled photos on the website depicting ancient weapons in the great hall. Maybe she could defend herself without any Highlanders needing to come to her rescue.

The start of the man’s car startled her like a shot fired. Her legs took all decision from her and propelled her down the hill. She made a bee-line for the parking lot since he couldn’t be trying to draw a bead on her and drive at the same time. He was coming after her, then. Maybe Gabby Skedros was in the area and wanted to do the deed himself.

And maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t get the chance.

Her cowboy boots slid on the moist grass like skis on snow, so she braced herself and let them slide. One heel hit a stone and she rolled. How she got down the hill didn’t matter—down was down. On her feet again, she cleared a gauntlet of shrubbery she never could have named then jumped a hedge of purple heather before touching down on the solidly packed road.

Cowboy boots weren’t designed for running, and her sprint wasn’t pretty. She tripped but she didn’t go down. Two steps later, she realized she’d lost a boot in the gravel of the parking lot, but she didn’t slow. The roaring engine of a sports car gave her an added shot of adrenaline and she flew across the lot, then the land-bridge, and past the gate before the car ever made the last turn out of the woods.

She slowed, looking for a bit of blue. It was there at the back corner of the castle. Both sisters were waving her on and she obliged, limping, cursing her lost boot until she’d rounded the corner, out of sight of the road.

The sisters clutched at her, pulling her toward an open door, ignoring her resistance and her need to catch her breath. After they’d taken a dozen steps into the dark castle, she heard a strangled sound, as if a certain small car were four-wheeling from road to rocks, by-passing the chains, then barreling across the bridge and toward the back of the castle.

“Those people in the manor house!” She grabbed a boney forearm and forced one woman to stop. “He’ll kill them!  Can you call them?  Tell them to run and hide?”

“No one is at home, dear. They’ve all gone to the city. How else would we have been able to break in?”

Juliet shook her head. Her relief was a tidal wave, but not complete.

“You have to hide,” she told them. “I need a weapon...from the great hall...and you two need to hide!”

A flashlight materialized and the sisters led the way, silently. After a couple of turns, Juliet didn’t know up from down.

“Hang on. Did you understand me?  You two need to hide—”

A door crashed open behind them.

“No use for it, sister. We’ll have to put her in the hole.” The light was dimmed against a blue sweater, but two nodding heads were still visible.

“You want to hide me in a hole?  And where are you going to hide?” Juliet whispered, but the man stomping around in the dark castle wouldn’t have been able to hear much.

“Juliet Bell!” The hitter’s voice echoed around them, but he seemed to be coming no closer. “I know ye’re in here, lass!  I found your boot in the car park, all but pointin’ the way!”

Great. Skedros had hired a local. No wonder he’d had red hair. If he’d have worn a kilt and hung around the ruins, she might have walked right up to him!

One sister grabbed her hand and pulled her along. They finally came to a staircase and Juliet got a funny feeling. Deja vu, maybe. Not really a foreboding, but...yeah, a foreboding. She’d gotten them often enough, she should have recognized it for what it was.

When she’d tried to explain it to Nikkos once, she’d told him it was like playing the Hot & Cold game. Only something in her gut would tell her whether she was getting closer to something important, or moving further away. She’d felt like she was getting warmer the second she’d touched down in Scotland. Now she was burning up.

Either the hitter had stopped stomping around, or they were moving so far underground they couldn’t hear him anymore. After the hallway made a hairpin turn, the lead sister took the flashlight away from her sweater and shined it on the ground. A minute later, they hurried into a small room with a single large barrel in the center.

“Up on the barrel, dear, if ye please.” One sister offered a hand for support, but in this light, with shadows playing in the deep wrinkles of their faces, the pair looked too old to support their own measly weight, let alone hers.

The other shined her light on the odd ceiling. A large slab of stone capped the room, and in the center of it, a hole had been carved but was now plugged with a perfectly fitting block of wood.

“Just push up on the wood, dear. I assure ye there are no bodies inside the tomb.”

“A tomb? Are you friggin’ kidding me?” Jules couldn’t have whispered if she’d tried. That foreboding had turned into a loud clown orchestra with bells and whistles and all kinds of alarms going off.

“Shh.” A cool boney hand clamped down on her mouth, but Jules carefully removed it before glaring a warning at its owner.

“That’s the hole we’re going to hide in?” She had lowered her voice and tried to sound calm considering the noise in her head.

Both sisters shook their heads.

“We’re not allowed inside, dear—”

“We gave our word.”

Jules didn’t get it. “Then where will the two of you hide? This guy isn’t messing around. He’s going to kill me, and he’s going to kill you if he knows you’re here.”

“Oh, don’t worry about us,” said one. “There is a place for us just on down the hall, but ye’ll be safe here.”

“Yes, it won’t take us a moment to hide. But we’ll see ye safe first.”

Great. She’d come to save them and they ended up saving her.

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s move.”

Jules did as ordered—they were a bossy pair—and pulled herself up into the hole. She couldn’t think of it as a tomb and still crawl inside. Once she was out of it, she’d ask questions.

She stuck her head out and watched the pair turn for the door.

“Wait a sec,” she said.

“What is it, dear?” asked one.

“You’re not ghosts, are you?” She pretended she was joking.

They both chuckled. One of them winked in the light from the flashlight shining on her wrinkled face. “Not yet, dear. Not just yet. And don’t forget to plug the hole.”

When she’d first stuck her head inside, Jules had seen a stash of flashlights and candles against one wall. She felt for them now, praying at least one would have live batteries. The first one she tested worked. Then she did what the old chick had done and put the bright end against her shirt. If the guy came looking and found the little room, the last thing she wanted him to see was light shining down through the ceiling.

Oh, she was in a tomb all right, and it took a lot more courage than she thought she had to nudge the plug into the hole with her foot.

But which is better, dead or just temporarily buried?

A room—she’d just think of it as a stone room.

It was oblong. Its walls were black stones of all shapes and sizes that fit perfectly, like a puzzle. The ceiling was high enough to let her stand, as if the guy who built it expected a tall crowd inside.

Jules had read every word on the website, but hadn’t paid much attention to the fairy tale crap. She’d been more interested in the current Lady of Clan Ross, not the marketing aimed at the tourists. Now she wished she’d read it more carefully.

She ran one hand along the wall. The mortar and cobwebs felt old and genuine, not like a recent set design. The air smelled dusty and stale and she hoped it had nothing to do with the decomposed body of some Ross woman who’d been buried alive by her brother. At least the body had been removed. A ghost she could handle. A skeleton?  Not so much.

“Joooliet! Come out, come out, wherever ye are.”

The hitter’s sing-song words were muffled and came from her left. He must have been standing in the great hall. No way did he know she was inside unless light was finding its way out some crack, but there was no way she would turn off the flashlight now. What if it didn’t turn back on? Then, he’d know exactly where she was because she’d be out of her friggin’ mind and screaming her head off.

Just the thought of it pushed her heart rate up. Freaking out wasn’t far off, so she bit her lip and breathed through her nose, not trusting herself to keep quiet. Any little sound and he’d start blowing holes in the walls.

The sneeze came upon her so fast she couldn’t do much more than try and muffle it with the sleeve of her jacket. Still, the sharp whisper echoed around her before settling.

Shit!

There was movement against the wall, like rats running up and down it. He’d heard the noise and was looking for a way in!  She could imagine him clearly as he felt every stone for weakness. He was thorough, right to left, top to bottom, in sections, twice around the tomb. Rougher sounds followed and she imagined him trying to pry the stones apart. Then she heard the slide of his body on the roof.

He cursed and she braced herself for the blast that would soon follow. Scrunched down in the far end, she shut her eyes and willed herself to become invisible.

But the blast never came. The noises stopped altogether. A hitter wouldn’t just give up, though. He’d go looking for a basement. He would have realized it was the only way she could have gotten in.

Well, if he was coming from below, she’d just try to get out through the stone wall. There’d been a crowbar among the flashlights. She exchanged it for the flashlight in her hand, but left the light shining on the floor. Next, she took a big two-handed swing at the wall, hoping a big chunk would break away, but it was like banging against concrete. The force got absorbed into the bones of her arms and she nearly dropped the bar. But there was no time to recover. She had to move fast.

She jammed the sharp end under the lip of a stone and pushed down. The edge of the stone broke off. The mortar hardly gave up any dust.

She tried the same spot again, struck the mortar to get under the stone a little better, but the stuff wouldn’t give. She turned around. Found another shadowy spot. Jammed the crowbar into it, but nothing held. The only thing the crowbar was good for was making noise. She would have pounded on the wall in frustration, but pain still ricocheted in her arms from that first blow.

I’m such a wuss.

But no. The crowbar couldn’t damage the wall, but it could damage something else!

She toed the flashlight so it was up against the stones. The light made a little circle that only stretched about six inches up the wall, but it was enough to keep her from freaking. Then she lifted the curved part of the bar over her right shoulder and held on with both hands, like a golf club. Whether it was a gun or a head that lifted up the plug, she was ready to swing.

CHAPTER TWO

Jules waited forever.

Maybe the guy was lost in the dark.

She considered climbing out, but she couldn’t risk dropping into the killer’s arms. And there weren’t any other places to hide. If there’d been room for her down the hall, the old broads wouldn’t have made her climb into the tomb. If she stayed, it was just a matter of time.

She closed her eyes and prayed, like she hadn’t prayed for years.

“Dear God, I’d even give up my revenge if you could just get me out of this.” And since who knew when she’d ever get the chance to pray again, she added, “And I’d give just about anything for a lovely Highlander, just like that Ross guy. Amen.” Too bad the last part would have been an easier miracle to pull off than the first.

Jules opened her eyes and realized the flashlight had died. Before she could start feeling around for another one, there was movement. Someone was in the room below her. Orange light filtered around the edges of the wooden plug. Apparently it hadn’t fit as snugly as she’d thought. There was a heavy thump. The barrel? Or a body? She would peak through a gap, but a bullet in the face would be just too painful.

The man’s voice made her jump.

“God...or Jillian...if either of ye can hear me,” called the man from below. “I’m in sore need of a miracle if either of you have one to hand.”

Except for a florist in Queens, Jules hadn’t had anyone to speak Gaelic with since her mom had died. She assumed she’d forgotten most of it, but when the man had spoken, it was as if a file had opened on the computer screen of her mind. It was all there, just as she’d left it. Every word, every note of it, was tied to a memory of her mother. And if it weren’t for Jillian, her mother would still be alive.

But this was no time to turn up the flame under that particular pot. She would have plenty of time to deal with her Jillian issues when, or if, she survived the day. She mentally hit rewind and listened to the man’s words again.

It didn’t sound like something a hitter would say. Or an FBI agent.

Jules got down on the floor to take a peek. She hesitantly moved her head over the gap, still half-expecting to find herself staring down the barrel of a gun. Sitting on the keg below the hole, however, was a large blond guy with a heavy beard. His folded hands were empty, his head was tilted back, and his eyes were closed.

Oh, man! The hitter would be there any second!

“Hide!” she hollered at him, the front of her tongue shaping easily to the Scot’s language. A muscle memory. “A hitman is coming!  He’ll kill us both. Now hide!”

The blond jumped to his feet but didn’t go anywhere. In fact, he peed his pants—or he would have, if he’d been wearing any. From Juliet’s viewpoint she could only see the man’s kilt and the puddle beneath him expanding. Thank goodness for a dirt floor. His boots got it, though—probably because he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the hole.

“Sorry I scared you,” she called. “But you need to hide. You don’t want this guy to find you. He’s a killer. Go!”

The man didn’t budge. “Jillian?”

Jules was temporarily frozen by the fact that he’d mistaken her for that woman, but she shook it off.

“No, I’m not Jillian. It’s God. Now go!”

The man burst out laughing. “Oh, Jillian. I’ve missed ye. Come down and give us a kiss before Monty can stop it.”

“I tried to warn you, you idiot. Not my fault if you won’t hide.”

Juliet didn’t want to see this strange Scot or anyone else get killed because of her. Maybe if she removed the plug she could drop down on the hitter and knock his weapon away. Or maybe it wasn’t too late for the big lug to climb up inside with her. The hole might not be big enough for him, but they could at least try.

She tried to move the plug, but it only wobbled, even when she used the crowbar. She needed light, so she felt around for the little pile of supplies. It had to be there somewhere, but she kept missing it. She was so turned around she couldn’t remember which direction she’d been facing before the sneeze, but the flashlights were gone—even the one that had died.

Which is impossible.

Finally, she found a handle. It turned out to be a hammer. Then she found a small tin cup, a couple of candles, a leather bag with a cork in it, but nothing she remembered seeing when she’d had a flashlight. The hammer wouldn’t get the plug out of the hole any better than the crowbar, but at least it was another weapon.

The little room lightened and she turned back to the plug, to find that it had been removed. She was so surprised she nearly fell through the hole.

The light from below jumped and flared like firelight and the big blond stood directly beneath her, where the barrel had been, with his arms held out like he was planning on catching her. A large tree trunk was tipped against the wall behind him, next to the barrel. The end of it looked like it was just the right size to plug the hole. Maybe it was the source of the original plug.

The foaming puddle of urine was now only a shadow on the floor.

And still, the hitter hadn’t come.

She whispered, in case he was listening just outside the room. “When he comes in, I’ll jump on him and bash him with this hammer. Just don’t look up!”

The blond man’s face fell.

“No one is comin’, lass. Daniel’s guardin’ the steps. Ye’re safe, ye are. Now come down and give us a hug.” Again, he raised his arms.

Great. They were both going to die. Why couldn’t she have just backed up into the trees and waited Gabby’s man out?  She had enough chocolate in her pockets to keep from starving, and she’d left a couple bottles of water against that stupid squirrel’s tree. She should have crawled back...but no, she’d frozen. She’d let fear cripple her and now she and at least two others would die for it—this one, and whoever Daniel was. Unless she could prove herself one last time and take the hitter down.

“I dinna ken what’s running through that head of yers, Jillian,” said the man. “But since you dinna seem to be goin’ anywhere else, ye may as well come doon.”

She’d never get the drop on the hitter with this big bear staring at her, and since it didn’t look as if he was going to listen to a word she said, she gave up.

“I’m not Jillian, by the way.” She dropped her legs through the hole and was caught against a large chest, then lowered to the ground. She stood on one foot, refusing to lower her stockinged foot to the ground until she had hopped side-ways away from the dark circle. Then she discreetly wiped one boot on the drier dirt.

“I don’t suppose ye brought along Monty darlin’?”

“No, I’m alone,” she said.

“And ye say ye’re not Jillian. Then just what are ye doin’ in the witch’s hole, wearing Jillian’s own face?”

Jules huffed out a breath and summoned up the courage to answer.

“I’m the sister, the sister she conveniently doesn’t remember she has.”

She’d been practicing that line for a while, only she’d hoped to say it to Jillian’s face. Now she’d never get the chance. That was, unless the hitter was so stupid he couldn’t find the basement. If she hurried, maybe she could get out of the castle without being caught, but she wasn’t about to run away and let these people take a bullet meant for her.

Then she got an idea.

She grabbed the barrel and started tugging.

“Please, Mister,” she said. “Do me a favor and climb up into the hole. Just for a few minutes. I wasn’t kidding—a killer is gunning for me, and he can’t know you’re in here. There’s nothing you can do for me, so you may as well save yourself.”

She stopped trying to move the barrel. The guy was shaking his head, standing there with his arms crossed like she’d said something to piss him off.

“I’ll never stick so much as me nose in that tomb, lass. And no man is coming. Daniel would have made a great clattering if someone tried to get past him.”

Great. Well, at least she’d given it a shot. It wasn’t like she could force him into the friggin’ ceiling. Although...

She still had the hammer in her hand. It didn’t feel very heavy, so she’d have to put her weight behind it. And she’d have to get him to turn around.

“Give me that, Jillian.” He pulled the hammer out of her hands as if she wasn’t resisting at all.

Considering the look he was giving her, like he wanted to tell her that little girls shouldn’t play with such things, she thought it would be no use asking him to reach into the hole to get the crowbar for her. Since she’d been in New York, working alongside a lot of Greek men with the same attitudes, she knew better than to beat her head against the wall trying to convince this guy she could take care of herself.

“I’m hurt, I am, that ye’d think of clouting me with it,” he said. “I’m Ewan. Do ye not remember me, lass?” His bottom lip, plump and pink, was suddenly visible in the middle of all that hair on his face.

“Oh, don’t go getting your feelings hurt. It wasn’t your head I was thinking about bashing,” she lied. “And I told you, I’m not Jillian. My name’s Jules.”

“And ye left Jillian back there?” The guy kept looking up into the dark hole above their heads.

“Back where?” she asked.

“Back in the twenty-first century.” He looked at her and frowned, like he wasn’t buying the sister act and thought she was just Jillian, messing with him. And now he was messing with her.

What the hell. Life was short and getting shorter by the second. She’d play along.

“Oh?” she said. “Have I left the twenty-first century?”

“Aye, lass. Ye have. Welcome to the Year of Our Lord, fourteen hundred and ninety-six.”

Well, if that were true, if the big Scot wasn’t out of his gourd, that would explain why the hitter hadn’t ever made it to the basement. And she wouldn’t be responsible for anybody’s death today. Not even her own. Too bad it couldn’t have been true.

Then again, she had prayed for a miracle. Did that mean she might find a nice Highland warrior for sale too?

She laughed. Too bad all she had tucked in her bra was a Visa, and there were about eleven dollars left before it was maxed.

“Fourteen ninety-six?” she asked.

“Aye, lass.”

Well, he certainly smells like a medieval Scot should. She snorted. And he’d peed on the floor without so much as blinking.

She looked at the dark outline in the dirt.

And the floor hadn’t been dirt before.

She tried to remember. Maybe it had. It’d been pretty dark.

There was a torch hanging on the wall, for hell sakes.

Since she knew nothing about torches, that meant nothing.

And there had been that foreboding...

No. The warnings in her head were due to the fact that a hitter was minutes away from taking her out.

But the flashlights had disappeared.

Trying to think in a straight line was taking the fight right out of her and she wondered how long she’d be able to stay on her feet. Gabby’s hitter would burst into the room any second, and she wouldn’t be able to put up any kind of fight. How pathetic.

Wuss!

As her head grew lighter and she started to collapse, she prayed the blond would keep her from landing where he’d peed.

CHAPTER THREE

Hell hath no fury like a Gordon scorned.

When Quinn Ross exchanged places with Montgomery Ross, so the second man could live with his twenty-first century bride, in the future—without leaving a gaping hole in the past—he’d been amazed by the civilization of fifteenth century Scotland. That was, until he’d been taken prisoner by the mighty Clan Gordon. At that point, he realized that civilization related more to the people than to the modern conveniences he had so long associated with the word. Just because they didn’t have indoor plumbing didn’t mean they lived a mean life.

Except for the Gordons.

For all the clan’s grandeur in size and strength, both of land and men, they were sorely lacking in the finer things of life. A washed bit of table, for one. An absence of foul odors, for another.

Dogs lived better, cleaner lives. In fact, every time the great door opened, the beasts would make a run for the outdoors, as if they had risked their very lives to come scrounge for food beneath the long tables, and had since thought better of it.

Quinn had been placed in the corner furthest from the fire and forced to kneel upon filthy rushes. He tried not to wonder at the sharp and pointy bits that pressed into his knees. His arms remained tied behind him and mere children had been placed as his guards, each one of the four possessing a finely sharpened short-sword, the tips of which were held to his neck, his back, and both shoulders. If he flinched away from one biting blade, he’d push himself against its opposite, and it took only a few painful slices into his skin to inspire him to remain as absolutely still as possible. If he stood and tried to bully past them, he was afraid of what those blades would accomplish when only waist-high.

The children laughed and waited for him to relax his posture once more, but he wouldn’t give the little monsters the satisfaction. He marveled at the patience of ones so young. They took to their duty as if their suppers depended on it, which they may well have. When night fell and food started piling on the tables, only then were the monsters distracted from their bloody play.

The door banged open and a horde of ragged people poured through the opening.  The last to enter, and casually, was a broad man with a red tinge to his gray beard that grew up the sides of his balding head. He looked immediately at the corner and locked gazes with Quinn.

Act as if you know him, Quinn reminded himself. Monty would have spoken with the man at least a dozen times, and it was still important for The Gordon to continue believing him to be Montgomery Ross.

“The Mighty Ross no longer resembles his statue, aye?” Laird Gordon, the Cock o’ the North, swaggered over for a closer look. He sounded as if he had rocks in his throat. “Are ye ailin’ mon?  Is that why ye gave up yer clan to that cousin o’ yers?” He bent low, looking into Quinn’s eyes, then looked down at his neck and dabbed a dirty finger on the blood he’d found there. “Have our bairns been playing roughly with ye, Laird Ross?”

The Gordon had spoken carefully, as if to a child, or an elder that might no longer be right in the head. Is that what they all thought?  That he’d lost his senses a year ago, when the switch had taken place?  That could prove useful. In the old days, people with mental illness were given a wide berth. Oh, aye, and burned as witches, he recalled.

“Laird Gordon, is it?” He blinked a few times. “I know you, don’t I?” Witch or no, he was likely about to die anyway. What harm could it do to mess with their heads?

“You used to know me, Ross.” Still The Gordon used a kind tone.

“Yes. Before Isobelle’s spirit came. You don’t suppose she followed me here, do you?”

The hall fell silent. A moment passed before The Gordon threw his head back and laughed.

“Ye’re a sly one, Montgomery Ross. That ye are. You’ve made a fine foe for many the long day. You’d have made a fine son-of-the-law if your sisters wouldna ruint it.” And with that, the man turned and made his way to the high table. “Come. Enjoy yer last meal if ye can, with me bairns watchin’ o’er ye.”

The blades were drawn back, but the little monsters followed his every move as he straightened, stretched his legs then tested their ability to walk a straight line to the laird’s table.

Once he was seated, the devil’s wee army set up camp around his feet, aiming their blades in four directions as before. It was the North blade that worried him the most. The Gordon had known his business when he’d said, “Enjoy your meal if you can.”

The meat was greasy. The trencher of bread looked as if a few meals had been served from it before, but Quinn couldn’t be picky. His hands were cut loose and he ate whatever looked edible and even a few things that didn’t, but he managed to keep it all down. The Gordon was famous for his dungeons and if the man wanted to give him a grand tour for a week or two before he died of hunger and thirst, Quinn would be wishing he could have this disgusting meal back again.

I should just stand and fight. Die with my boots on. Wasn’t that the whole reason for trading Monty places? To put an end to my own suffering?

He’d expected to die from grief, after losing his wife, Libby. If he died now, he’d be with her all the sooner. Why drag it out?  He’d been trying to picture her in his mind all evening, anticipating their ethereal reunion, but her image was never clear. Even remembering her photos wasn’t working.

It had to be the stress. If he could relax, he’d remember every detail.

“I’ll show ye the dungeon when ye’re finished, Ross. Ye’ll be impressed, ye will.”

This was it. The chance to stand and die. He might be able to wrench a nice sharp blade from the boy in front of him, slit the throat of The Gordon, then be quickly skewered by his numerous full grown sons glaring at him from the other side of the table. And it would all be over.

Why did he hesitate?

Did he truly want to live?  After years of mourning, was he ready to live again?  How cruel was Fate if that were true, taking away his life just as he’d decided to embrace it?

His tense muscles relaxed with one deep, accepting breath. He would go where he was bid and no doubt use every last moment mourning the years he’d wasted. When he met her in Heaven, he was sure Libby would have a few choice words for him as well.

The thought of his wife brought to mind the wife Montgomery Ross would have had a year ago if his wedding hadn’t been interrupted by a charming lass from Quinn’s own century.

“How fares yer daughter, Gordon?  Any chance—”

“Silence!  Ye’ll nay lay eyes upon the lass, let alone anything else.” Gordon glanced at Quinn’s crotch. “Ye had yer chance.”

The laird ate faster then, more anxious to show off his dungeons, no doubt.

“I can honestly say, Laird, that I’m not the man you knew a year ago. I’m a kinder man. A forgiving man, even.”

“Aye. ‘Tis best ye left yer clan into Ewan Ross’ hands, then. A laird canna lead with kindness and live long.” Gordon eyed his sons, as if he expected one of them to attack him before the enemy at his side might do so. Six men, including Long Legs, glared back as they chewed, as if they were considering doing just that as soon as the food was gone.

Someone was missing.

“Hey, now,” Quinn said. “Where’s my brother of the law, then?  Where’s Cinead?”

The laird choked, then took a long pull of wine from his tankard. When he set the drink aside, Quinn realized the man was furious, but trying to control himself. Oh, he was going to end up in the dungeons all right. But at least there wouldn’t be small boys cutting his flesh to ribbons there. Or so he hoped.

Finally, the other man spoke.

“Ye’ve no brother of the law here, Ross. When yer sister chose Neptune’s arms over Cinead’s, the marriage was nulled.” The Gordon took a deep breath and the redness that had been climbing up his neck receded. “The man is above stairs, with his bride.”

“Ah yes, I remember now.” Quinn couldn’t contain his excitement as histories began to bubble up in his mind.

Gordon frowned and leaned forward. “Ye remember what?”

“Morna’s husband, Cinead, took a second wife and had nearly a dozen children, one of whom ruled the Gordon Clan after...you...died.”

Oops.

Judging from the fury on the faces of Cinead’s brothers, Quinn had hit a sore spot. But their anger wasn’t directed at him, but at their father, as if they’d just had some suspicion verified. The fact that Quinn had been telling fortunes hadn’t seemed to impress them at all.

The older man growled at the pack of wolves rising to their feet and Quinn realized the rocks in the man’s voice was likely due to a lifetime of making that same noise.

“The man’s no witch, ye dolts. He’s tryin’ to stir ye up so he can get away in the confusion.” The Gordon turned a wild eye on Quinn. “Ye’ve not The Sight, Montgomery Ross. Otherwise ye would have known what yer sister Morna would do, and ye would have stopped her!”

Quinn snorted. “I knew enough of what would happen here that I gave Ewan the Clan, did I not?”

The Gordon snorted and banged his tankard for a refill.

What else?  What else could he remember to make them think twice about keeping him prisoner?  There had to be something. Something that happened near the year 1496!

“The grandson of the current King James will be handed the crown of England.” They needn’t know it would be given by an English woman.

“What do we care of English politics a hundred years from now?” Gordon snorted again. His sons’ hackles were back down and they were now laughing at their father’s comment like he was the king and they were pretending to kiss his arse.

“One day a man will walk on the moon,” Quinn offered, sure that would give them pause.

Gordon’s nose curled to one side. “I care more who walks onto Gordon lands, and today, someone did.”

Another sore subject then.

“What would you like to ken of the future, Laird Gordon?  I will trade any information for my freedom. I’m more surprised than anyone to find that I’d prefer to live.”

“Ach, now. Bad timing that,” said a strange voice very near his ear. He turned to see a small man, who had to be Cinead Gordon, forcefully lowering a club to his head.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Jillian. I beg ye to cease yer teasin’.”

Jules was still sitting against the wall where the big man must have propped her up after she’d passed out, clearly due to a lack of food. She should have shoved a chocolate bar in her mouth before running down the side of the mountain. With no calories to burn, her body must have burned some brain cells instead, because nothing made sense. The hitter still hadn’t found the room, hadn’t shown up at the door, and hadn’t shot his way into the tomb. He sure as hell wouldn’t have given up.

Unless too many people had suddenly showed up for an evening tour...

Maybe he’d retreated and planned to come search for her later. If so, she wasn’t going to wait around for him. But she couldn’t seem to rouse herself. Maybe that chocolate would help. Better late than never.

She pulled a bar from her pocket and ate it quickly.

Mm. Better.

“Jillian,” the big man said again.

Jules pointed to herself. “Jules. Okay? Jules. You call me Jillian again, and I’m going to have to hurt you.”

“Bah!” He turned away, then turned back. “If ye be Jillian’s sister, why did the lass never mention ye, let alone a sister who looks just like her?”

“I don’t know if she knows about me, actually. I mean, it would be an obvious excuse for her to use, but it’s not like she wouldn’t remember me, right? I mean, I remember her just fine. And if we’re identical, her memory should be just as good as mine.”

“She may not ken? Surely, when she saw yer face she realized—”

“She hasn’t seen me yet.” Jules held up a hand in the universal request of help me up.

It took him a second to take the hint, but then he pulled her to her feet.

“Hasna seen ye? And how did ye come to be in the witch’s hole then? I was of a mind Jillian and Monty would be guarding it a bit close, aye?”

It was a little embarrassing to admit to breaking and entering, but she’d had good reason.

“Two old women showed me how to get up inside, to hide. You know, from the guy who’s going to be coming through that door any second now?” She moved over to the wall behind the door and tried to flatten herself against it.

He just stood there in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips like he still didn’t believe there was any danger. But he looked none too pleased.

“Old women?” he asked. “Twins?”

Oops. They’d probably saved her life, or at least postponed her murder, and she’d ratted them out.

“Yes, twins. Like eighty or ninety years old, going on a hundred? They said they had another place they could hide, but the hole was my only option. You obviously know them, so that shoots your little fifteenth century story to hell.”

He was nodding his head, but not like he was agreeing with her.

“Muirs, and no mistake. Far too many twins among them. Every century has them, it seems.”

“Every century. Right,” she said and rolled her eyes.

He looked at her sideways. “If I didna ken that Jillian was both a MacKay and a Ross, I’d have worried that the pair of ye might be Muir witches as well, aye?” Then he just waited, like he was expecting a confession.

“Witches? Now I know you’re messing with me.”

“Messing? I doona understand.”

“Oh, give it up, would you?” She almost wished the hitter would come and get it over with. She was tired of arguing with Bushy-head.

He tossed his hands in the air. “Ye’ll see, soon enough I reckon. Whenever the hole’s been opened, the Muirs ken it. Somehow.” He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Too bad yer set of Muirs didna think to trick Monty back into the hole. I could use his aid. I’m right desperate for it.”

“And Monty is Montgomery?”

Ewan frowned as if by not knowing Monty she’d spouted some sort of blasphemy. “Jillian’s husband. The former laird of Clan Ross and my cousin. I’d be ever so happy to see his gob, but e’en more so, now that I’ve...” He grimaced, reached for the torch, then turned to the door.

“You’ve what?”

He sighed and raised the light higher. His shadow swung around on the wall behind him as he turned back to her.

“I’ve lost his great nephew.”

Jules shook her head. “I don’t understand. His great nephew? How could you have lost someone that can’t possibly have been born?”

“Jules, is it?  I told you plain. ‘Tis the year fourteen hundred and ninety-seven, and so it is. Monty is from this century. The nephew is from yours.”

The wall wasn’t much to hold onto, so she leaned sideways onto a stack of smaller barrels. She started shaking her head but then couldn’t seem to stop. If she hadn’t eaten the chocolate, she probably would have been passing out again.

“So I’ve somehow gone through time? This tomb is like some kind of tardis?” She’d watched only a couple of episodes of Dr. Who, but apparently it was a couple too many. She wouldn’t have even known the word tardis if the bookkeeper at the restaurant and one of the waiters hadn’t been big Dr. Who geeks.

“I dinna ken the word tardis, lass. But they go inside, they doona come out. ‘Tis all I’ve seen. I’ll not try it myself, mind ye.”

“You’re Montgomery’s cousin? He’s from...here? No wonder.” Then she realized what this Ewan had been trying to tell her. “And a little boy is missing?”

“The lad’s name is Quinn. But he’s no wee laddie.”

She was so relieved. The thought of a little kid—from the twenty-first century—getting lost out there in Medieval times, was just too sickening to think about. If, of course, she believed that Medieval Scotland was truly out there.

“Quinn’s a man grown. Looks to be Monty’s own spit, he does. So when Monty needed to go to your time, to be with Jillian, Quinn came back here, to take Monty’s place. And now, The Gordon has ‘im.”

No friggin’ way! There was another Highlander, just like Jillian’s husband. Just like him.

Maybe, just maybe, I should say my prayers more often.

Above their heads, there was movement. Not from the great hall, but from the tomb.

“Where the devil are ye?” a man muttered.

The hitter!

How the hell had he gotten inside the tomb without going through the bottom, like she had? No way could he have broken through the wall, or she’d have heard it!

Her missing boot fell through the hole and landed on unholy wet ground.

Holy shit!

Jules snatched the boot up and put a finger over her lips, then motioned for Ewan to hurry out of the room with her. Thankfully, he followed without argument, bringing the torch with him. The door opened outward and Jules shut it behind her, then leaned against it.

“Can we block this door?” she whispered. “That’s the man who’s after me. He’s got a gun. I’m sure he’ll kill anyone who gets in his way.”

The Scot nodded, handed her the torch, then rolled yet another barrel out of the dark and in front of the door.

“This should hold him for a mite,” he said. “But your only way back home is through that tomb, lass. If ye and Jillian are to meet, ye must face this man first, and no mistake. Sooner or later.”

“Later sounds good to me.”

The hitter beat on the door, having found his way out of the tomb with little light to help him.

“Juliet Bell! When I get my hands on ye... Listen, lass. If ye let me out now, it will go much smoother for ye. Ye have my word. No harm will come to ye.”

She could hear him breathing against the door. He was probably listening to her breathe too. After a few seconds, he went back to beating on the door.

“He’ll just blow the hinges off,” she warned the Scot.

“Truly?” The big man rolled his eyes in the torchlight. “Perhaps you underestimate the quality of a Scotsman’s carpentry, or the strength of a full barrel of whisky. He’ll not get out so easily. Now come up into the light. Let me get a good look at you, and I’ll decide the message I wish you to give to Monty, once ye’ve got the courage to go back, of course. But tell me, why does yer pursuer call ye Juliet Bell?”

“Bell is a long story. And I don’t let anyone call me Juliet.”

The door seemed to be holding up well to the pounding, so they moved away. Ewan took back his torch and led her along the dirt-floored hallways. She was so turned around, she had no choice but to trust him.

Dirt floors. God, help me. I’ve lost my mind.

“But mayhap you could find your courage sooner, rather than later,” Ewan said. “As Quinn may not live long enough for Monty to be of any help. I would send others to bring his wandering hide back to Ross lands, but none else kens who the lad truly is. I fear a close look by our own lads might give the game away. We’ve been careful to keep the clan from getting too close. I imagine word of an imposter would be the type of tale to pass through the generations, aye? And Jillian was ever one to go on and on about the dangers of changing history.”

Jules snorted. “Yeah, I’ll bet she was.”

Ewan stopped and looked at her. “What do ye mean, lass?”

“She’s got the world at her feet. Why would she wish anything different? She’s probably thrilled with the way things have turned out. Changing the past would screw up her little fairy tale, right?”

And just like that, Jules was glad she’d gone back in time. Maybe there was a reason she was there. Maybe she could fix all kinds of things. Screw Jillian’s rules about changing history.

“Lass,” said Ewan. “Jillian has a kind and gentle soul. If she believes that changing history will ruin lives, I have no doubt it is not her life for which she fears. She loves Monty, and yet she was willing to give him up so that Morna and Ivar could be together. You’ll find no selfishness in Jillian’s heart.”

“I hope so,” she said. It was the nicest thing she could think of to say since Ewan was clearly on Team Jillian.

Finally, he stopped yakking and started moving again.

But inside, there was a giant scrapbook of pain, and it had Jillian’s name written on the front in big jagged letters.

CHAPTER FIVE

Quinn woke to a painful throb at the back of his head. He was lying on a cold dirt floor, in the dark.

For a moment, he thought he was still stuck in his dream and waited for the softness of his mattress to register, but it didn’t. Then, as he had hundreds of times in the last year, he remembered which century he was in. But this was the first time he’d awakened on the ground.

And it was still night?

His last memory was of going stir crazy inside the castle, of sneaking away without his young escort... And then he remembered the heather. He could still feel the scratches on his arms from gathering the branches. Then he remembered the scratches from sharp little knives.

“Shite.”

He rolled to his side to take the pressure off the back of his broken skull, and every muscle in his body complained. At first, he wondered if they’d beaten him, after he’d lost consciousness, but then he remembered all those hours of kneeling at attention to keep those blades from breaking his skin. The pain from a beating wouldn’t have gone quite so deep.

A smell wafted around him when he moved—the smell of a tomb where a body would have rotted away for years. The smell of stale urine was a pleasant relief—he only hoped the urine wasn’t his.

No. His kilt was dry. Thank goodness the ground below him was dry as well. The blade was gone from his boot.

So, this was the famous Gordon dungeons. They were so close to the sea, he expected it to be damper—not that he was complaining. But if he was going to die here, he could wish for harsher conditions that might speed along his demise.

And even as the thought presented itself, his stomach tightened.

He remembered now. That moment at Gordon’s table, when he realized he wanted to live. Lord help him, when had that happened?

Quinn sat up and searched the darkness, straining to capture even the smallest hint of a reflection. He needed to know what surrounded him, but he would not go feeling about. He could only wait for someone to come with a light. Of course, he might be able to persuade them to come sooner...

“Gordon! Gordon! You can either grant me some light or I shall have the devil call up a fire, here, beneath your home. Which do you prefer?”

There was movement, but he had no idea how far away it had been. Were there other’s sharing his dark hotel?

“Who’s there?” he said.

When there was no answer, he tried again in Scots. Still no answer.

The pain in his head bid him lie down again, and he did so, but gently. As he was just about to drift off to sleep, the room grew lighter. Someone must have heard him after all.

He suppressed a groan as he pushed against the floor and forced himself up to sit. There was nothing in his ten-by-ten cell to sit upon, so he stayed put. A young lad with bulging eyes carried a torch to light the way for a tall, thin man. At the entrance to the dungeon, about thirty feet off to the left, an old man took a seat. Considering the bandages across his eyes, Quinn guessed he was blind—a natural babysitter for a prisoner kept in the dark. He must have been the one to carry his message to The Gordon.

Quinn was also pleased when he recognized his visitor, Long Legs.

“Why Long Legs! What a pleasant surprise ye make.”

The thin man laughed.” Ah, but ye were not so pleased at our first meeting, were ye, Laird Ross?”

“Mmm. No. I can’t say as I was,” he admitted, wishing now he had taken his stand back in the heather and perhaps gotten away before Orie could have come along.

“You were bellerin’ for something?” Long Legs raised a patient brow and folded his arms.

“Yes,” Quinn said cheerfully. “The Gordon promised me a tour of his dungeons and I had no light by which to see it.”

“Well, then, look yer fill. I suggest you be quick about it.” Long Legs turned to go.

Desperate for a few more minutes of light, Quinn looked about him, searching for some topic of conversation. His eyes caught the white reflection of bare bone in the next cell.

“Perhaps ye could pass on a request to The Gordon,” he said.

It worked. The man came back, and his light-bearer with him.

“Aye, sure. What would ye like, yer lairdship? New straw fer yer mattress no doubt? A better wine with yer supper?”

Quinn gestured to his left, to the only other cell between his and the entrance. “A bit of housekeeping is in order, aye? Seems this one’s overdue for a grave. Was his crime the same as mine? Stepping on Gordon soil?”

Long Legs expanded as he filled himself with a deep breath. His eyes, in the shadows, flickered with some emotion Quinn could not identify. If it were possible, the young man grew taller and looked down upon him as a hawk about to rip apart the mouse in its grip. And Quinn found himself grateful for the bars between them. Otherwise, he might be forced to kill the man in defense of himself—that was, if he somehow found the strength to get to his feet. It had been a mighty mean blow he’d taken to the head.

The light moved as the small lad stepped to the side and raised the torch. Shadows quivered as the boy took in the sight of a skeleton wearing meager rags and even less flesh. It sat at the back of the cell with its arm raised, its wrist dangling from a ring in the wall.

Long Legs, Quinn noticed, turned his head away, but slightly. And though he refused to look at the body, it seemed as if he were concentrating on it just the same.

Quinn could not resist prodding. There was a story here. He would hear it.

“Would you look at that?” he said. “He’s thin enough now to free his hand, and yet he willna flee. Perhaps he has come to love The Gordon’s famous dungeons and prefers to stay.”

Long Legs swallowed. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with emotion, though he tried for nonchalance.

“Famous? My father’s dungeons are famous?”

So. Long Legs was a son. And here was yet another chance to mess with a Gordon’s head. Besides, the damned prophecy, the one that had shaped his life, might make the difference for him. If they believed he had real power, they might free him in the end. He needed only plant enough seeds of unease. And if they wanted to be rid of the unease, they’d need to be rid of him. He only hoped they would believe it was safer to release him, than to burn him.

And Long Legs had already proven that he was a sucker for rumors.

“Aye. Famous. Five hundred years from now, folks will still speak of these dungeons by the sea. Tell me of this fellow,” he pointed to the skeleton. “Perhaps he is also famous. Or will be.”

The light quivered harder than before. Apparently he’d done a better job of scaring the young one than an emaciated corpse had done.

Long Legs stood for a moment, staring into Quinn’s eyes. He opened his mouth once, but thought better of it, Quinn supposed, because he soon turned and walked away.

“Come,” he said to the torchbearer.

The lad backed away, as if he was too frightened to turn his back on Quinn.

“Leave the light, Son of Gordon. I care to stay awake for a wee while. And I meant what I said, about getting firelight from the devil if I must.”

Long Legs snorted and spun around. “It is my leave to deal with you as I will. You are my prisoner, not my father’s. So I will leave you the light—if you answer my question with the truth.”

“Ask it,” Quinn said, pleased a seed was already taking root.

Long Legs nodded to the lad who walked to the wall and dropped the torch into a loop, then he shooed him to the entrance and the lad hurried up the steps and away. “Leave us,” he said to the old man, who followed, albeit slowly, after the boy.

Long Legs walked back to the cell but stood away from the bars as if Quinn might jump to his feet and get a hold of him. Quinn tried not to smile.

“You want to know if what I said was true, if the Runt’s child ends up ruling your clan.”

Long Legs shook his head.

“Truly?” Quinn was surprised. The sons of clan chieftains often fought wars over their father’s power. Why would the Gordon’s sons, of all people, be different? “What do you wish to know?”

Long Legs shook a dismissive hand. “Cinead is an ambitious bastard. He has much to prove, as ye well ken. I was not surprised to hear his seed would one day rule the clan, but I would know how ye ken this is to be. And do not think me daft. I will hear the truth of it, not silly tales of the devil whispering in yer ear. For if the devil is all the threat ye have, ye’ll get nothing, including yon torch. The devil will be easier to appease than my father.”

So much for playing on the man’s superstitions. But there was a weakness there, to be sure. If he told this man the truth, would he win an ally?

Suddenly he was struck with an idea.

“What is your name?” he demanded.

“Percy.”

“Percy Gordon, I will tell you the truth, if you think you can bear it?”

The man smirked. Close enough.

The only sound was that of the fire, fighting itself at the end of the torch. Percy was as quiet as the guest in the next cell. Quinn felt the urge to cross himself against the blackness at his back, lest the devil feel he’d been invited, but he could not show such weakness.

“My name is Quinn Ross. I am from the future, from the year twenty-twelve. Muir witches brought me here, to stand in the stead of Montgomery Ross.”

“And they changed yer face to look like the laird?” Long Legs looked unimpressed. He’d have to do better.

“There was no need to change my face. I am Montgomery’s great nephew twenty times over. I carry his...looks.” He’d almost said DNA.

Long Legs weighed the information for a minute. Indeed, a year ago, it took Quinn days to digest it all when Jillian MacKay disappeared in front of him, when she’d first slipped back in time to fulfill the prophecy. The fact they’d been standing in the tomb when it happened, had not made it any easier to believe.

“Even if this is true, how can you be of any use to me?” Percy stepped closer.

The man may not believe him, but if there was something in it for Percy, he would at least be hopeful Quinn was telling the truth. It might be enough to win the Gordon’s son to his side.

“Because I have the ability to move between the future and the past. I can change the future. Because I know what will happen, I can change it from happening.”

Okay, that wasn’t quite true and wasn’t the most logical argument, but it was all Quinn could think of at the moment considering the bump on his head and the pain in his skull. His best chance of rescue might be from within Clan Gordon itself. And what better reason could Long Legs appreciate than to have Quinn change the future so that Percy Gordon ended up with the Gordon scepter?

“You think me simple.” Percy shook his head and backed away. “I can change the future, simply enough, by slittiin’ Cinead’s throat before he has his offspring.”

Quinn wasn’t about to point out the man’s new bride might already be pregnant. He wasn’t going to be the reason behind the murder of an innocent woman.

Or was it already too late?

He’d broken one of Jillian’s sacred rules. He’d told the Gordon brothers who their enemy was, and now Long Legs was considering killing his brother to change the future. Quinn had promised Jillian a hundred times over that he would be cautious. She was going to kill him unless he thought of a reason why Long Legs and his brothers should keep their hands off The Runt.

Then he had it. God and Ewan might damn the Muir witches, but they were often the answer to his problems.

“There is one thing you should know, Percy,” he said gravely, “about the man who kills Cinead Gordon.”

Percy took a deep breath and waited.

Quinn stared him in the eyes. “It’s part of the prophecy.”

Percy rolled his eyes. “What prophecy?”

“Oh, come now. Even the Gordons ken about the prophecy given by Isobelle before she died.”

Percy nodded once. “I’ve heard a bit. Tell me the whole of it, then.”

Oh, but that was the easiest request Quinn had ever heard.

He’d been an attorney, back in the real world of the twenty-first century, but after Libby died, he’d walked away from it, gone back home. And for all the years since his wife’s death, Quinn’s role at Castle Ross was to tell the tourists all about the prophecy. It was almost a relief to get to tell it again, even though he’d told it a thousand times before. It had been over a year since he’d done it last, and he was eager to see if he remembered the script. Of course he could not tell it verbatim. Percy Gordon would not know of Shakespeare and the tale of Romeo and Juliet.

“I will tell you first how the prophecy came to be.” Quinn moved to the side of the cell to lean his back against the bars there.

Percy walked toward the stairs and returned with the chair used by the blind man. He sat at an angle and Quinn got the impression the man did so to avoid the sight of the dead man more than to face Quinn head on.

“In the year 1494, the duty to one’s clan was far more important than any notion of love.”

Percy snorted.

“I must tell in the manner it was taught to me. You must bear with me if you would hear the whole of it.”

Percy nodded and waved impatiently.

“...far more important that any notion of love,” he repeated, getting a run at it. “Clan meant survival. Allegiances meant survival. And when our fair Morna’s hand was the price we had to pay for aligning ourselves with the powerful Gordons, Morna did her duty. Her true love, Ivar MacKay, understood. By the way, Ivar and Morna were not so understanding after all, but I’ll explain that later.”

Quinn returned to the script, to the part that always excited the crowds.

“Isobelle Ross was a witch...and Morna’s sister. And even though she was a strange and opinionated woman for those times, Isobelle loved her sister dearly. She would have changed places with Morna, but the Gordons would not consider a union with the wilder sibling who was already suspected of not being right in the head. But Isobelle couldn’t bear to see Morna suffer over the loss of her Ivar, so she placed an enchantment on a simple torque.”

Back in his day, Quinn would have pointed to a copy of the necklace they displayed upon a bed of black velvet. The crowd would have leaned in. Aye, but he missed the crowds.

“Isobelle promised Morna that one day soon a faery would claim this bit of silver, a faery bearing the Immediate Blood of both the MacKay and the Ross clans, one who would have the power to reunite our Morna with her Ivar. They needed only be patient.”

At that point in the show, he would have paused for a drink of water. He only hoped his little story would earn him the same when it was over.

“Unfortunately, innocent women were burned as witches, let alone strange sisters who spewed prophecy. Instead of Isobelle’s plan easing her sister’s aching heart, it broke the organ entirely. Word spread like the plague, and The Kirk came to put Isobelle to the witch’s test.

“Montgomery was laird and as such held some power. But there was no power to equal that of The Kirk in those times, or rather, in your times, Percy. Thus Laird Ross, my great uncle twenty-one times removed, was unable to spare his sister from condemnation. He was, however, able to change the manner in which she was to die.”

“The oddly shaped construction on the stone dais is truly Isobelle’s tomb, built by Montgomery for both his sister and the accursed torque, built there so she would always be near him. Isobelle was spared from a stranglin’ and a burnin’, but she could not escape her death sentence. Before the last stones were set, his very-much-alive sister and her offensive creation were sealed inside the wall by her brother’s hand.”

Quinn hoped that speaking of Montgomery as someone other than himself might help Percy come to picture them as two separate men. He struggled with the twist of his gut that reminded him that he’d promised never to tell the tale. But he wasn’t about to tell the most important secret of all. That secret would have to accompany him to his grave. He only hoped that grave was not destined to be a pile of ashes tossed into the North Sea, at the hands of a Gordon.

“Montgomery thought only to spare his sister the horror of being burned,” Quinn continued. “He had no idea that he’d sentenced them both to madness. Day after day he sat next to the tomb, listening for any sound from his sister within, tormenting himself, regretting his interference. But The Kirk would not allow him to take back the bargain he’d struck. And during that time, Montgomery would cross and re-cross that invisible line into lunacy, thrilling over every little sound Isobelle made, only to cry to God to end her suffering. More than once, he tried to tear down the stones to put her out of her misery, only to be halted by The Kirk’s henchmen who stood guard until the witch was clearly dead. After ten and two days, the little sounds ceased...and the haunting began.”

At this point in the presentation, the crowd would have been startled by the squawk of bagpipes starting up a melancholy set. The next part of the story involved himself.

“My family, in the future, will be caretakers of Castle Ross. It will be my duty to see that the history of Montgomery and his sisters is retold.”

Percy laughed. “Aye. I can see where ye have the gift for spinning tales, Laird Ross. But I heard no mention of my brother Cinead, as yet.”

“Ah, but I’m not finished with the telling. For one day, in my time—over five hundred years from now, mind—a lass comes to Castle Ross with the Immediate Blood of both Ross and MacKay clans runnin’ through her veins. With the help of a pair of Muir Witches—for there are Muirs in my time as well—we helped the lass into the tomb, gave her the torque to wear, and sent her back here, to save Morna and Ivar.”

He wasn’t about to tell The Gordon’s son that Jillian had actually reunited the couple and taken them back to the twenty-first century, since the Gordons believed that Morna threw herself into the sea. Nothing good could come from telling a mighty and prideful man that he’d been fooled by a neighboring clan, let alone a woman.

It was a cowardly thing he’d done, to tell Percy his own secret in hopes of saving himself, but his tongue and his wits were the only weapons left to him.

“And she failed, this woman from the future.” Percy snorted, but Quinn could tell the man was eager to hear the rest.

“Aye, her good intentions went terribly wrong. Even Isobelle came back from the grave to try and sort things out. Her ghost cried out from the tomb on the day Montgomery was to marry yer sister, as ye may recall.”

“I heard of it. I was not there.”

The sad note in Percy’s voice made Quinn look up.

The man was staring into the next cell. After a moment, he shook himself and turned his attention back to Quinn, who pretended not to have noticed.

“After Morna was brought back here,” he said, “ye ken what she did.”

Percy turned angry, but Quinn couldn’t guess why.

“Then the prophecy was not fulfilled after all,” the man snarled and got to his feet. “And whatever prophecy there might have been for the one who kills Cinead is worthless as well.”

Quinn shook his head calmly.

“Nay. As soon as Ivar heard the news, he came to Castle Ross and threw himself from the northeast tower. They were united. In death. Had the woman not come, they might have gone on, pining away for each other for the rest of their lives. The prophecy said nothing about reuniting them in life. Only that they would be reunited. And the rest of the prophecy states clearly that as compensation to Cinead Gordon for the loss of Morna—for he was destined to lose her, one way or another—a curse was placed on the head of the one who would spill his blood.”

“Pah!” Percy paced for a moment, then settled back on his short stool. “Tell me this curse.”

Biggest fear. Biggest fear. What did every man fear? What would make this man frightened enough to—

“Impotence.” Quinn even managed to say it with a straight face.

“What mean you?”

“The man who kills Cinead Gordon will be impotent for the rest of his days. He will have no power. Over anything.” When it looked as though the word had little meaning to the man, he realized he must elaborate. “Neither will be able to bed a woman. Ever again.”

Percy’s eyes widened and he stood and walked away. He was buying it. The only risk, which Quinn realized too late, was whether or not Percy was interested in bedding women. One never knew.

Percy paced, which stirred up the smell from the poor man in the next cell. He seemed to notice it too, for his nose curled and he stopped pacing. A moment later, he nodded, as if he’d come to some conclusion, then he walked to the torch and removed it from its ring. Instead of coming back to let Quinn out, which was too much to have hoped for anyway, he headed for the archway.

“Wait a moment,” Quinn called. “I answered your question. We had a bargain.”

“Nay, Ross,” he called, without turning back or slowing his step, “I have yet to decide whether or not I believe ye.”

Quinn was once again left in the dark.

He tried to remember the details of his cell and crawled to his right, putting as much distance between himself and the rotting corpse as possible. In truth, he was getting used to the smell unless someone stirred the air.

He rested his back again to alleviate the soreness of his stomach muscles. He was thirsty, but alive, and if all went well, his little prophecy would keep Cinead alive long enough for history to unfold as it was supposed to. And hopefully, he’d planted enough fantasy in Percy’s brain that the man would be coming back to place a request for the future—hopefully before Quinn was thin enough to slip through the bars, but too dead to do so.

He closed his eyes, content to sleep for a while.

***

Quinn hadn’t quite drifted off before the inside of his eyelids turned red, then orange. Someone was coming.

Only it wasn’t Percy. It was the violent little man, Cinead.

Shite!

Two large guards entered Quinn’s cell and took him by the arms.

“I’ve just saved your life, you know.” Quinn needed the future head of Clan Gordon to think kinder, gentler thoughts about him. The fact that the man had come so closely on the heels of his younger brother gave Quinn hope he might have overheard the end of their conversation. The rough handling by the guards took that hope away.

The small man seemed none too proud to carry his own torch and held it aloft while Quinn was brought before him.

“I’m aware of that,” he said. His voice was quite normal, though Quinn didn’t know what he’d been expecting. “Percy willna be killing me in me sleep, but that willna keep the others from killing me in the bright light o’ day, will it?”

So. The man had heard the conversation after all.

As Cinead stuffed a rag into Quinn’s mouth, he noticed swelling across the smaller man’s face. There was a good chance the curve of his nose was new.

Quinn nodded, accepting the blame for the other man’s beating. He just hoped Percy might share the prophecy with the rest of his brothers. Of course, if he hoped his brothers would become impotent in all things...

Shite!

“It’s time to meet yer maker, Laird Ross, be he god or devil.” Cinead led the way out of the dungeon, and as relieved as Quinn was to get away from the smell, he’d gladly go back and wait for Percy to come ‘round.

The little parade proceeded out of the castle proper, past the inner bailey, and into the wider outer bailey where a makeshift gallows had been erected in the moonlight. Next to the gallows, a pole rose out of a stack of wood and Quinn had seen the drawings of enough such constructions to know it was meant for the burning of a witch.

And witch burning seemed all the more barbaric when one found himself to be the witch in question. He should have kept his mouth shut. The Gordon hadn’t been impressed by his fortune telling but he’d recognized a grand opportunity to rid himself of an enemy. But why send Cinead to do the deed in the middle of the night? Or was it only that the little man wanted his own revenge and would take it out from under the old man’s nose?

Perhaps there was good reason Cinead Gordon would end up leading his clan.

The future laird looked up into his face and grinned.

“I know what ye think, Laird Ross,” he said. “But if we doona allow you to speak, you canna call the devil to your rescue, aye?” He stopped just below the noose and jumped up to swat at it, like he was proving he was tall enough to reach it.

But he wasn’t.

The noose hung perfectly still. The men holding Quinn stifled their laughter.

“Get on with it,” Cinead hissed. “Someone’s coming,”

Quinn tried to turn, to see if maybe Percy had finally decided to act, but the guards pushed him forward. One had a fist full of hair at the back of his head that kept Quinn from seeing anything but the closing proximity of his head to the noose. With his arms tied behind his back once again, there was only so much bucking he could do. His only hope was to bob and weave to keep that noose off his head. And pray for a miracle, of course.

A forceful blow stunned him for a wee second, but it was enough. The rough rope fell on his collar bone, then tightened against his neck as he plowed his body into one of the guards. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong guard. It was the second man who held the tail end of the rope, and he pulled down hard to bring Quinn to heel. The abrasive rope cut into the delicate skin below his jaw. The growth of two days’ beard did little to protect him.

“Climb up there,” The Runt demanded, pointing to a short stool.

Quinn just glared down at him, wishing with his eyes that the brothers would have beaten him to death and damn the future consequences.

“Just a moment, brother!” A woman’s voice came from behind, from the direction of the castle. “As his former fiancée, I would have words with the bastard before ye kill ‘im.”

Oh, jolly.

At least his death wouldn’t be in vain; the Gordon lass would have some closure. And while he waited for the woman to appear, he wondered what he might have requested for a last meal, had they offered him one.

A deep fried Twinkie sounded just the ticket.

CHAPTER SIX

Jules followed the blond and the torch up out of the cellars and into the light. At the top of the steps, another man turned. He looked her up and down but showed no reaction. She tried to do the same and not stare at his plaid costume.

“Daniel,” said Ewan. “This is Jules. Guard her with yer life. She’s kin.”

Kin?

The statement sent a little chill through her chest, even though it was an exaggeration.

Daniel gave a quick bow. Then, while he looked past them, down the steps, he pulled a tiny pouch from around his neck, kissed it, then tucked it back into his poorly fitting shirt.

“Dinna be daft, Daniel,” said Ewan. “Have ye seen the Muirs anywhere about?”

“Nay, yer lairdship.”

Jules jumped when she heard footsteps behind her and turned, ready to launch herself at Gabby’s man since she had nothing she could use for a weapon—Ewan still held the hammer. She only hoped a tumble back down the steps would break the hitter’s neck and not hers.

But it wasn’t a man at all. It was a matching set of women in long dresses, dresses that looked more like medieval costumes. Like Daniel’s.

Holy shit! Was it really 1496?

Maybe the hitter really had entered the tomb the same way she had—from another century. Maybe she really wasn’t dreaming. Maybe she was going to be sick.

As the look-alikes climbed the stairs, she realized the women were much younger than the ones who had put her in the tomb. Fiftyish. Long, straight, strawberry blond hair that was turning gray in all the same places. They even held onto their skirts the same way. It was like watching a woman walk up the steps while someone held a mirror next to her.

Very freaky.

There was something unnerving about their matching smiles, though. Jules didn’t trust them for a second.

Ewan let out a deep sigh and she couldn’t tell whether he was glad to see them or really disappointed.

“Speak of the sisters and they’ll appear,” he muttered. “Ye’ll see I spoke the truth about them.”

The women in question reached the landing. One of them looked surprised to see Jules. The other one kept her eyes on Ewan and gave him a little bow.

“Laird Ross,” she said. “Ye’ve a busy cellar this day it seems.”

Ewan shook his head slightly. “Hopefully, ye’re the last to come out of it. Won’t the pair of ye sup with us this e’en?” The last sentence came out through his teeth.

The second woman gave him a sly nod. “Such a kind laird ye are, Ewan. We’d like nothing more than to sit and have a grand chat with Jillian.”

The way the woman was eyeing her, Jules knew she understood perfectly well she wasn’t Jillian. Was she hoping for an introduction? Or did she expect Jules to lie about who she was? She had to admit, it was a little intriguing to know that her sister had known these people. She just wondered why Jillian had come to be there in the first place.

Jules had been about nine when she’d demanded to know why her grandmother had stolen Jillian and disappeared. They’d been searching for six years and the only explanation her parents had given was, “Ivy MacKay is mentally ill.” But at nine, Jules wasn’t buying it anymore. Finally, they’d told her what the paranoia was all about, that the old woman was certain there were people in Scotland who would try to kill Jillian, who would try to bury her alive. The crazy part was that Grandmother claimed that she’d traveled to the future and been there when those murderers were planning it.

Since Jules’ mother couldn’t believe her, the old woman had taken Jillian away, to protect her. And back in the days of no internet, it was much harder to find someone who didn’t want to be found.

Now that Jules realized she, too, had been convinced to climb into that Scottish tomb—and apparently traveled through time—she was beginning to think her grandmother wasn’t as paranoid or crazy as her parents had believed.

But even if she hadn’t been, that didn’t excuse her for the hell she’d made of their lives. No amount of money could make up for that. And half a fortune wasn’t going to excuse Jillian for not trying to come home.

No. She wasn’t Jillian. She’d never be Jillian.

Jules put her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “My name is Jules. I’m not Jillian.”

“Of course ye’re not Jillian.” The woman winked. “How silly of me. I can see the difference now.”

Jules resisted the urge to ask what the woman saw that made her so different. She never wanted to look like Jillian, of course, but she didn’t care for the feeling that she was lacking in some way. She wasn’t jealous.

Well, maybe just a little envious—it didn’t help that Jillian was married to the mouth-watering Highlander that had started to haunt her dreams for no reason whatsoever. The website for Castle Ross Tours said the man was Quinn Ross, but it must have been the name he used for tourists. Jillian’s husband was Montgomery Ross, or Monty, as Ewan called him.

In her dreams, she’d never known his name, only that they had to stay together or...something bad would happen. And she’d always been pretty sure it would be bad for them both. Pretty melodramatic for a dream with a stranger, but anyone who’d laid eyes on Montgomery Ross wouldn’t laugh. Even the shot of him on the website took her breath away and made her heart stutter—and this from a girl who never got breathy over anything but a great dessert.

Every night, when she’d fallen asleep, she’d willed herself back into that dark dream. She’d make it there, too, but only every couple of weeks when she went to bed early. Maybe their dreams only linked up when they were both asleep, and time-zone-wise, that meant earlier in New York.

Holy shit. What if the guy was really dreaming about her too? What if he might be sharing the whole emotional ride?

Jules shook her head and sighed. It wouldn’t make any difference if he was—he’d just think it was a dream about his own wife. And that thought made her instantly sad.

She dragged along next to Ewan, hoping he’d take her somewhere quiet where she could sit down and shut her eyes for a minute. What she really needed was to just confront her sister and get the hell away from her, and her husband, but the woman was even farther out of her reach than before. Over five hundred years away. And the only short cut back was through that tomb, now inconveniently guarded by Jules’ personal Angel of Death.

It was just so surreal. What had it been, an hour since she’d started running down that hill? She couldn’t have made it into another time zone, and yet she’d traveled centuries? What a crock. Maybe, after she’d rested a bit, she could figure out another explanation. And it was a great plan...

...until they rounded a corner.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Since she’d come through the back entrance to the castle, Jules had never seen the great hall except in a photo gallery on the internet. But this was no polished museum. It was a madhouse. Tables filled every corner except for the raised dais where three large items were the only decoration. The tomb—the one she had to have been inside. A giant carved throne which looked a little too imposing to sit in. And a massive statue of Jillian’s husband, in his kilt. It looked so much like him—or at least what he looked like through binoculars—that she expected him to walk right off the stage.

But the most shocking part, and the thing making her nauseous again, was the crowd.

They were all dressed in medieval garb. Every last one of them. Women, children—even the dogs looked a little barbaric.

She turned back to Ewan and took a good look at his clothes. His kilt was nothing like any kilt she’d ever seen in real life. In the movies, yes. But modern day Scotsmen did not dress this way, not even for their Highland Games and Scottish Festivals. She knew. Her parents had taken her to them every year. They’d always been searching the crowds for some reason. When she was big enough, she realized they were searching for Jillian.

Always Jillian. Their lives had centered on finding Jillian. If her parents hadn’t been driving across that long stretch of Wyoming highway, hunting down one more lead, they would have still been alive. But they’d been sure they were going to find her that time, just like every other time, and Jules had refused to go along. She found a friend whose parents would let her sleep over for a few days. She hadn’t even told them goodbye.

Of course, if she’d have gone along, she’d be dead too. No one could have survived, even with seat belts. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But she’d been pretty damn sure how she felt about Jillian.

Out of habit, and a sort of homage to her parents, she’d kept going to the festivals. She’d even looked for Jillian, but her reasons were different. She wanted her sister to know she was responsible for their deaths, responsible for how they’d wasted the short lives they’d had—looking for a girl who never looked back.

Watching the Scots gathering around for their evening meal, all the anger came flooding back, swirling in her nearly empty stomach like the ghost of a rotten meal—anger so sharp it brought tears to her eyes. She nearly turned around and headed back to the cellar, ready to confront her sister, mad enough to rip off the hitter’s head and spit down the hole. But she’d never get past him. Not without a gun. And she wasn’t sure these people even knew what a gun was.

She let out a harsh breath. It was no use fighting it. She really was Dr. Who, and there was a monster inhabiting her tardis. She had to figure out a way to capture that monster so the friggin’ episode could end—so she could turn off the nightmare.

Or maybe the Monster would go back the way he’d come, see Jillian, and kill her instead, mistaking her for Jules.

One of the Muir sisters gasped, as if she’d read her thoughts. Then she frowned at Jules and shook her head. What was with her?

“Mind your own business, Witchy Poo,” she snarled.

I didn’t say I wanted it to happen, she thought, and she thought it hard, just in case someone was listening in. And she’d be damned if the woman didn’t nod.

Holy shit. I’m not in Kansas anymore.

She and the sisters were led toward the dais. She couldn’t tell which disturbed the people more, the Muirs or the fact Jules wasn’t wearing a dress like all the other women. Ewan gestured for them to sit at his round table, just in front of the dais where the giant chair, the tomb, and the statue stood like three pink elephants in the room that everyone pretended not to notice. The crowd quieted when Ewan took his seat. But they weren’t looking his way anymore. They were looking back at the doorway, the one that led to the kitchens—and the cellar—where a very angry, though slightly confused hitman stood with his forearms braced against the walls to either side of him. In one hand, he held a shiny black gun. His black leather coat and blue jeans stood out as badly as her own. It took three seconds for him to locate her.

Ewan reached out and squeezed her hand. Under his breath he said, “Stay calm, Jules. We’ll catch him and cage him. Just ye stay calm.”

Calm? He didn’t know what he was talking about.

A baby cried off to her right. She noticed a toddler on his father’s knee. From behind layers of her mother’s skirts, peeked a little girl. Jules couldn’t let these people get hurt because of her. But if she surrendered, she was dead.

Ewan stood and Daniel fell in step beside him as they ambled toward the red-headed stranger. The man laughed as he tucked his gun behind him, then rubbed his hands together and egged them on. The fact that he hadn’t shot them was a damned good sign.

She’d have only a minute or two, so she’d just have to move fast. And going back to the cellar, back into the tomb, was not an option at the moment. Her only chance to get him away from these people was to run.

She was a great runner. She’d dragged the FBI babysitters around by the nose, insisting they let her run or she wouldn’t testify. It was the best way to pretend she was free of them. Eventually, they realized she was dead-set on testifying no matter what they did, so they’d stopped dancing to her tune. They’d made her settle for a treadmill. Still, over the months, she’d become quite the long distance runner. All she needed was a little head start.

Ewan growled and attacked. Men jumped up all around her, suddenly ready to fight. The crowd blended quickly and in a matter of seconds, all those men were standing in the center of the room with the women and children to their backs and their enemy before them. The women were shuffling along the wall and taking the children with them, out a half-hidden doorway near the statue of Montgomery.  It was like a dance they’d danced before, or a fire drill.

Ewan had flung his arms around the enemy’s stomach and plowed him into the side of the archway, but the big man just laughed. When he noticed the small army waiting their turn for a piece of him, he laughed harder.

Jules had to move. Now.

She hustled to the giant wood door that stood open to the night air, then paused. It was covered with metal and rivets and looked like a shield for a giant. It was probably part of that Scottish carpentry that Ewan was talking about. But that’s not what made her stop.

She realized if she slipped away, Gabby’s man would keep searching for her there, among all those innocents. They might be slaughtered. She needed to go, but she needed the hitter to follow.

Jules searched the back of the room for those long red curls.

“Hoo hoo!” she hollored. “Hey! Red!”

The red head popped up and he scanned the crowd until he saw her. He looked none too happy to be pulled away from a good time, like he was in the middle of a neighborhood basketball game and she’d told him he had to come home for lunch. He really was enormous. Ewan looked like a kid hanging on his back with one arm around his neck. The hitter was all but grinning. Ewan, on the other hand, looked furious.

“I’m going now,” she called, as if she were popping out to the store. “Give me a few minutes’ head start, Laird Ross. Would you?”

Ewan sputtered like a fish.

“Bell! Don’t do it!” The hitter’s voice died in her wake. And she made damn sure she left a wake. Dogs scattered. She pulled a pile of wooden buckets over next to a wagon, making sure a mess pointed the way out of the torch-lit inner bailey, through the opening where the old Muir sisters had been waving at her.

She was standing on the bridge before she remembered about the moat. But it was no land bridge, just a wide, sturdy piece of construction built across a large creek. The cheerful gurgle of water over rocks was not the toxic water full of vicious creatures she’d always imagined a moat to be.

Once she was on the other side of the bridge, she realized that old crumbling curtain wall was now perfectly intact, probably two stories tall, and caging her in. And more importantly, caging in a hitman among a clan’s worth of collateral damage.

She kept moving.

Little buildings were scattered around the edges of an expansive outer bailey that had once been, or rather, would one day be, a huge parking lot. Light glowed orange from behind a window here and there, but for the most part, the structures were random gray shapes in the blackness. The air was cool against her face and the combined smells of grass and manure reminded her of Wyoming, but she pushed the memories away—not out of pain this time, but from necessity. She had to stay alert.

Thanks to torches lit on either side, she could see where the massive main gate was closed up for the night. It stood where, not long ago, the chain had hung between two modern posts with the little sign that read, “See Us Tomorrow.”

The long stone battlements had torches burning every fifty yards or so. Some of them moved back and forth—probably carried by guards. Above the gate, the torches held still while men moved back and forth just below them.

Jules hurried toward that gate, past the buildings and out into a dark stretch of ground that seemed to move in waves. She walked right into something short, nearly toppling onto her face. When her hands shot out to steady herself, she felt something soft—and mobile.

Sheep.

The wool-covered creatures bumped around her for a second or two, then moved away when they realized she wasn’t one of them. She said a little prayer, grateful they’d stayed quiet, then she got moving again, bracing herself to step in sheep dung.

The wall was gigantic. She couldn’t believe there wouldn’t be more of it left in five hundred years. Something that big couldn’t just erode away. People would have to tear it down and carry the stones away. But why?

She moved more carefully as she neared the light of the gate torches, but the two guards manning the wall there were facing outward. A grid covered the wide opening, and on the inside, giant doors stood open. Apparently, they weren’t expecting an attack. Too bad they didn’t realize it was going to come from within.

Off to the left, there was a staircase that led to the top of the wall. What could she do, climb up there and explain things, then ask them to lift the gate and let her out? Oh, and leave it open until the killer left too? Wouldn’t they be a little suspicious when she described the guy as being dressed just like her? Jeans and black coat?

Yeah, she needed a better plan. And she couldn’t just wait around for something to come to her. She moved silently until she was next to the stairs, then plastered herself flat against it, in the shadows, while she figured out what to do.

Come on, Jules. Think!

If it had been the twenty-first century, she could just pass herself off as Lady Ross, and they’d do what she told them.

A woman’s scream rang out from the inner bailey, maybe the castle itself. Had the hitter gotten free? Had he killed someone?

“Go!” a man shouted from somewhere above her. Then fast footsteps on the stairs. Then more muffled strides as a man struck out across the dirt and grass toward the castle.

One man left. Or at least, she thought it was only one.

Her only hope was to sway one man into helping her. She just hoped she had a good idea by the time she got up the steps because she couldn’t waste any more time.

She ran to the end of the staircase and started up. The stairs were suddenly well-lit. The problem was, a man was standing at the top holding a torch, looking right at her. He glanced in the direction of the other guard, probably wondering if he should call him back, so she distracted him.

“Hello!” She smiled and gave a little wave.

He didn’t wave back, but she had his attention. She knew the moment he realized she was wearing pants, because he caught his breath. As she made her way up the stairs and stepped onto the wall walk, he moved back and rested his butt against the battlements. She figured he didn’t think a woman—even a woman in pants—was much of a threat. He set the torch in a ring, folded his arms and smirked at her, like some club bouncer who wasn’t going to let her in.

“And just where do ye suppose ye’re goin’, lass?”

“I’m just coming to pay my penalty,” she said, hoping her accent wasn’t too horrible. But Ewan hadn’t had any trouble understanding her.

“Oh, aye? And what penalty might that be?”

She looked out over the wall, to gage how far she’d have to run to reach her precious hillside, but she saw only darkness. She would have the distance of at least a road before the beginning of the slope. The man followed her gaze and tensed, pushing himself away from the wall.

“Who be ye?” He looked toward the castle, then back at her.

“I’m just visiting. With the Muir sisters,” she said coyly.

He froze and his eyes bulged for a second.

“Oh, I’m not one of them,” she said, and he looked relieved to hear it. “But I did lose a wager. And my penalty is to find a guard and give him a Glasgow Kiss.”

By the guy’s reaction, she could tell he didn’t know what she meant, that he assumed a kiss was just a kiss. She looked down the wall walk, to where another torch was perched against the stone. She saw no guard there. Maybe all of them weren’t manned. The sentry followed her line of sight.

She gave her best impression of a pout. “But if you’d like me to find another man, I can—”

He was already shaking his head. “Och, nay. There’s none on this wall with me tonight that would be worth the kissin’, lassie. Ye’re right lucky ye found me first.”

He stepped up to her. She looked behind her, to make sure she wasn’t too close to the edge, since there was no railing of any kind. The man grabbed her arm gently, like he was promising to keep her from falling.

She blinked a lot, trying to look innocent. Hopefully, he thought she was a harmless idiot.

“If you’re sure,” she said. “You’re such a tall one. You’ll have to bend down a little.” He didn’t resist when she put her hands on his furry cheeks and angled his head down. “And I think we’re supposed to close our eyes.”

She closed hers for a couple of seconds, then peeked to make sure he’d fallen for it. Then she reared back and gave her first Glasgow Kiss ever, putting her weight behind it to make sure she got it right. A half-hearted head-butt would only get him mad.

The impact surprised her, but she was most surprised by the fact she was still able to stand. Everyone in the castle had to have heard it, like someone hitting a coconut with a hammer. She was just grateful her head got to be the hammer. Her forehead was numb, but at least she wasn’t falling to the ground, like the sentry was.

Unfortunately, he crumpled forward without time for any reaction whatsoever. She had to ignore the gong sounding in her own head while she broke his fall without them both pitching over the side, onto the steps. It wasn’t easy getting out from under him.

She’d been trying to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the hitter, and Kissy-face was going to be the last crumb. His body, with his arm dangling over the edge of the walkway, was well lit. Anyone looking toward the gate would see it.

Perfect.

She walked carefully to the center of the gatehouse—carefully, because she was pretty sure she’d just given herself a concussion—and found the mechanism for raising the metal gate. It was much easier than she thought it would be to turn the gears to bring the thing up. Unfortunately, she couldn’t figure out how to keep it suspended if she let go. In the end, she jammed the handle of a torch between cogs and it held.

It had taken so long, she was expecting the hitter to meet her at the bottom of the steps, but he wasn’t there. Of course, there was a chance Ewan had managed to get the man locked up again, but she couldn’t risk going back to find out.

She ducked beneath the nasty-looking spikes along the gate’s bottom edge and started running. The hitter would have to have pretty poor eyesight to miss the fact that it was open, but it was the last bit of help she was going to give him. Once he was away from all those people, what he did was no longer on her head.

I’ve done what I could. Now I have to start protecting myself.

She knew the crescent hill pretty well after three days. She could think of a few places to hide. And when Gabby’s man got far enough away, she would run back to the castle and have Ewan help her get into the tomb. After that, she planned to click her heels as many times as it took, but that friggin’ tardis would take her home. If she didn’t return soon, she’d miss the trial. In a text, she’d warned the DA that she had some business to take care of, but she’d be back in time to testify. She’d be damned if she was going to miss it. They were idiots if they called it off.

Her FBI babysitters had drilled it into her head that she’d have to start a new life, that she’d have to leave her old one behind. She’d played along, of course. No use ranting and raving to deaf ears. But the world was just too small a place to hide in unless you had a helluva lot of money. Luckily for her, though, she knew where she could get more than she’d ever need. And it was rightfully hers.

There were just two people she had to deal with first—Gabby Skedros and Jillian Ross. As soon as she made the two of them pay, life was going to be good. But Jillian first. In ten days, it would be Gabby’s turn.

Ten days. Plenty of time.

And by the time she’d finished that thought, she was running up into the trees—or rather, where the trees should have been. In the starlight, all she could see were stumps, and dirt, and patches of grass.

The trees had been there only hours ago. Hours ago. She’d have given her last candy bar to see that stupid squirrel and his tree again.

She wanted to sink to the ground and convince herself she wasn’t going crazy, but it would have to wait. She had to put a lot of space between herself and that castle, and she had to be careful not to get lost while she did it. The trees had probably been cleared so the Scots could easily see their enemies approaching or something.

At the moment, it was more useful for a hitman to clearly see his target.

Jules turned and looked into the outer bailey/parking lot just in time to see a large dark figure run across the bridge and head for the gate.

She turned north and started running.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jillian was giddy on the way home from Edinburg. Quinn’s brother, and his wife, Maggie had decided to stay a few more days in the city, with their kids, so she and Montgomery would have the manor house to themselves. She would have to call the butler and tell him to give the staff a few extra days of vacation too.

Holiday, that was. Scots didn’t call it a vacation. She had to remember that so she didn’t sound completely American every time she opened her mouth.

She noticed her husband watching her instead of the darkening road and she raised a brow.

“Are ye finally thinkin’ what I’ve been thinkin’?” he asked.

“Aye,” she said in her best Scots accent. “I’m thinking we should have a grand barbeque and invite the staff... And their families, o’ course.”

“Truly?” His brow worried into a pucker.

“Wasn’t that what you were thinking?” She looked back at the road and tried to keep a straight face.

After a moment, she looked back at him. He was still speechless, though at least he was watching where he was driving. She took pity on him.

“Or maybe you were thinking they’d rather have a longer holiday.”

His head whipped around. His boyish smile made her heart flip. She really shouldn’t have teased him. Sarcasm was not as common in the fifteenth century.

“Of course that means we’ll have to take care of ourselves,” she warned. “Or maybe we could take care of each other. Would you like a bath?”

He laughed. “I thought ye far too generous with the servants, madam, but only because ye might mean to give yer attentions to them instead of me. I am relieved.”

“I thought you might be.” She held out her hand to him and he took it, pulled it up to his lips and kissed her knuckles. She was embarrassed her skin wasn’t smoother, but she’d become an obsessive compulsive lately and washed her hands constantly. There was this stuff her grandmother used to use on her hands when they got chapped doing chores around the farm. Cornhuskers Something-or-other. It looked like snot, but it worked. If they couldn’t get it here, she’d have to order some.

“Bitches!” He dropped her hand and grabbed the steering wheel with both of his.

In the beams from the Hummer, Jillian couldn’t see what might have spooked him. No sheep or anything else in the road. When it turned out not to be life-threatening, she laughed. He had taken up modern cursing like it was a sport, but he was still getting things a little mixed up.

“I believe you meant to say son of a bitch. And it’s not a nice thing to say, just so you know.”

He shook his head and instead of taking the upper road to the house, he drove a bit farther and turned into the castle’s parking lot. She thought maybe some tourists had ignored the closed sign again, but there were no other cars to be seen. When he stopped the car, she finally understood.

“I said witches, Jillian, not bitches. Though I suspect you were not far afield.”

She couldn’t argue with that.

The Muir sisters, Loretta and Lorraine, stood just beyond the reach of the headlights, at the corner of the crumbling inner wall. Jilly’s first thought was that the sisters were much too old to be running around at that hour. Then she remembered they were much too old to be doing any of the things they did, the time of day didn’t matter.

Muir twins were never good news, no matter what century they popped up in.

“Be nice, Montgomery. If it weren’t for them, we’d have never met. Remember that.” She was reminding herself as much as her husband.

“How do they always find their way into my castle, I’d like to ken. Some mornings they’re already inside when I unlock the bloody doors.”

“Maybe they’re not witches. Maybe they’re ghosts,” she joked as she got out of the car.

“Not ghosts yet, Jilly dear,” called Lorraine. “But funny you should use those words today.”

Jilly almost climbed back into the car. Monty was right. It was never good news when those two came around. And why did they have to pop up when she and Monty finally had a chance for some privacy—enough privacy to share her exciting news? She hadn’t quite told him the truth about their little shopping trip to the city, unless you could call it shopping when she was hunting for a trustworthy OB/GYN.

Loretta looked at her funny. Her eyes dropped to Jilly’s middle, then looked away. Jilly instinctively covered her stomach with both hands, then she forced them to her sides before anyone noticed.

“Why is it odd that she speaks of ghosts, ladies?” Monty left the lights on and walked to the middle of his hood, then leaned back against it, crossing his arms, bracing himself for bad news. Jilly shut her door and stood next to the front tire. She didn’t want to get between her husband and the women he considered his nemeses.

“Someone else thought we might be ghosts, just today if you can believe it.” Loretta gave Jilly a nervous look. Guilt? Pity?

“I’ll bite,” Jilly said, against her better judgment. “Who thought you were ghosts?”

“Would you like to sit down, Jilly dear?” Lorraine also stared at her middle.

“No. I don’t want to sit down. Spit it out so we can get out of here.” She would never forgive the sisters if they messed around and told Monty she was pregnant. How the hell did they know anyway?

“Fine, then. You remember we gave you a chance to sit down.”

Jilly glared at Lorraine, daring her to piss her off. Didn’t she know better than to mess with a pregnant woman?

“Your sister,” the old woman blurted.

“Morna?” Montgomery pushed away from the hood and unfolded his arms. He was alarmed as he always was just because Morna and Ivar lived too far away for him to be any protection. It hadn’t quite sunk into his head yet that dangers in the twenty-first century were very different. If they had problems, they would call.

“Not your sister, Laird Ross.” Lorraine paused and looked her in the eye. “Jillian’s.”

Jilly didn’t understand. She didn’t have a sister. But the thought of finding more family caught her breath.

“Yes, Jilly. Your sister. We met her today. Lovely thing, too. I’m sure you’ll agree—Montgomery, catch her!” Loretta ran forward.

Jilly was surprised to find that she was the her that needed catching. She hadn’t noticed before, but she was teetering to her left, sliding along the fender with little attention for the ground rising up to meet her. She ended on her bottom, in the gravel, with Monty kneeling beside her.

“Jillian! Ye will be fine.” It was definitely not a question, but an order. She’d gotten used to his fifteenth century, bullying ways, but she knew he was only bossy when he was worried. Unfortunately, he worried a lot.

“Yes. I’m fine. Of course I’m fine. I was just caught off guard. I forgot to breathe. I don’t have a sister, that’s all.” But deep down somewhere, it sounded true. Deep down, she wanted it to be true.

After her grandmother’s death, and the shock of her huge inheritance wore off, the first thing she’d done was go looking for more family. She’d started at the geneological library in Salt Lake City, but she hadn’t even started digging when these Muir sister’s had gotten her distracted by the Curse of Clan Ross. Of course, she couldn’t be angry with them now, in spite of all their conniving. If it weren’t for them, she’d have never slipped back in time to find the one and only love of her life.

She’d been waiting for the right time to tell her husband she wanted to start looking again, but the poor man hadn’t completely adjusted to the twenty-first century yet. She had to wait until he was comfortable with his own country before she exposed him to too many Americans.

But a sister? She’d been hoping for a cousin. A sister just seemed...greedy.

And if there was a sister she hadn’t been told about, who else might her grandmother have hidden from her?

She searched her memory for some image, for a time when it hadn’t been just her and Grandmother, but she found nothing. She remembered a doll she named Necklace. Seeing a bear at Yellowstone. Little else. There couldn’t have been a sister. Grandmother couldn’t have been that cruel.

“Yes, Jilly. You do have a sister. Didn’t we tell you we thought you might have a twin? In the tunnels. Remember?” Lorrain grinned down into her face as if she deemed her news to be the most wonderful surprise. But if it was a wonderful surprise—if Jilly truly had a sister, twin or not—then why did Loretta look like she had bad news?

Did Lorraine say twin?

“Twin? A twin s...sister?”

Jilly’s mind stuttered as badly as her mouth. She remembered just a flash. A feeling. Her own image, in a mirror, looking up and smiling at her. She’d always remembered what she looked like as a small child, but maybe it hadn’t been a mirror after all.

Then there was another memory. A white room with a low table in the middle. She and the girl with the smiling face. She was wearing a maroon jumper. They were wearing maroon jumpers? Little cups of water on the table, each holding a crayon. They were taking the papers off and soaking the bright sticks—trying to color the water. Then grandma came in and spanked her for ruining the crayons. She remembered that spanking, but she always remembered it as an observer, seeing herself being swatted on the butt. But it maybe it hadn’t been her butt.

Why hadn’t she remembered before? And why would her grandmother never have told her about a sister? And a twin? Why would she tell her nothing more than her parents died in a car wreck and there was no one else?

Jilly took a deep breath and let her anger with her grandmother wash away from her. She didn’t want to upset the little life inside her with the spite she felt for the old woman. She shook her head and held out her hands. She had to get up.

Montgomery pulled her to her feet.

“Where is she?” She brushed the rocks from her rear end, then the dirt from her hands. “When was she here? Is she still here? Are you sure she’s my sister? What was her name?”

She looked around the car park. No other cars. No cars parked up at the house either. Then she noticed Monty. He was glaring at the Muirs and taking deep breaths, like he was building up enough air to start yelling at them. And that never did any good. She put a hand on his arm and pulled him close, both to restrain him and for a bit of needed support.

“Juliet, I believe,” said Loretta, then she bit her lip.

Juliet? Juliet. Juliet.

Jilly said it a dozen times in her mind, but it didn’t ring any bells.

“Where is she?” she asked calmly. All happy thoughts vanished when she’d read their guilty faces.

“Dinna worry yerself, Jilly dear. She’s hale and healthy, we’re almost sure of it,” said Lorraine.

“Where?” Monty’s patience was gone.

“Well, the last we saw her was when we put her in the tomb. Then of course we had to hide ourselves, what with that man chasing her.” Loretta put an arm around her sister and patted her shoulder, as if they’d been through some terrible experience.

Jilly smelled a rat, like she usually did when those two started over-acting.

Montgomery squeezed her hand. “A man was chasing her?”

“Yes,” said Lorriane. “Now we don’t want to worry you, Jilly. Not in your condition. But the man was carrying a gun.”

“I wouldn’t call him a gunman, sister, just because he carried a gun,” Loretta offered.

Lorraine frowned. “I didn’t call him a gunman.”

Loretta waved away the argument. “Of course ye didn’t. I’m just saying I wouldn’t call him a gunman, that’s all. Some men just look the type. He didn’t look the type.”

“Heavens to Betsy, sister,” Lorraine chided. “Ye can’t expect Jillian to stay calm if ye go on spouting the word gunman.”

“Spouting? Why ye—” Loretta’s face turned red.

“Shut it!” Montgomery had pulled out his best Gordon Ramsay impersonation to get everyone’s attention, and it worked. Even the insects shut up. “Now then, the pair of ye will disappear for a moment whilst my wife explains this condition of hers.”

With bulging eyes and thin, tightly shut lips, the blue clad pair walked off, but stopped about ten feet away.

Jilly burst into silent tears as Monty’s arms came around her.

“Ye were about to tell me ye carry my son, were ye not?” he asked.

“I was not,” she said with a hiccup.

He pulled back. “Then I misunderstood?”

“I was going to tell you we’re going to have a baby. It might be a girl, you know.”

He laughed and lifted her into the air, then spun her around until she thought she was going to puke. He put her down immediately, smart man.

“But that doesn’t matter now,” she said.

“The hell it doesn’t.” He started pulling her toward the car door, but she pulled back.

“I mean, what matters right this minute is finding my sister.”

“Come, now, Jillian. Just because those two think some woman looked a bit like you, doesna mean she’s yer kin, does it? Once ye have a babe, perhaps it will put an end to yer search for more family. Ye’ll have me, and the babe. What more could ye need?”

Jilly struggled against his hold and he loosened his arms.

“It haunts me, Montgomery, not knowing anything about my family. And the idea that I have a sister just feels like there’s hope, like the haunting might stop. Besides, one day there will be a little girl, or boy, who asks about the American side of the family. And if I do have a sister, she might have those details.”

He pulled her tight again and tucked her head beneath his chin.

“Haunted, ye say? How can a man, even as braw and brave as I, fight a haunting, then?”

She smiled against his shirt. “Let’s go find my sister.”

“Oh, she’s gone, Jilly.” The Muirs were back. “We checked. She did not come out of the tomb.”

“She disappeared?” She was afraid of that. She’d done the same every time she’d been in the tomb.

“And the gunman—er, the man with the gun went in as well. He didn’t come out either.”

“And she is yer sister, Jilly dear. You look as much alike as Quinn and Laird Montgomery.”

For some reason, she resented the Muirs for meeting her sister before she could, and resented them even more for sending that precious woman into the tomb. No one ever wanders into a stranger’s cellar, sees a hole in the ceiling and says, Hm. I think I’ll climb up there and have a look around.

There was no doubt about it. They’d sent Juliet back in time on purpose, just like they’d sent Jillian a year before. The question was why?

The old sisters shrugged and looked away as if in answer.

Jilly tugged Montgomery toward the old castle. “We’ll just have to go after her.”

Monty stopped walking. “No. We won’t. Ye will go nowhere but home. Who knows what might happen to my child?” His eyes went wide. “Not to mention my wife. Nothing can happen to you, my Jillian. Nothing!”

Jilly shook her head. “If you think I’m going to let you go off to who-knows-where without me, you’re out of your mind. Where you go, I go.”

“But I see a need for haste, here,” Monty reasoned.

Jillian narrowed her eyes. “Agreed.”

Monty took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. “If I asked you kindly to stay and look after our child—a daughter even—would you—”

“Sure. You go. I’ll stay.” She shrugged.

He frowned. “Truly?”

He looked a little too pleased. She couldn’t wait to let him down.

“Only, be sure to get out of the tomb fast,” she said.

“Fast? You mean quickly? Why?”

She crooked a finger so he’d lean close. Then she whispered in his ear.

“Because Junior and I will be right behind you.”

He straightened quickly. “Son of a—”

“Don’t you dare.”

CHAPTER NINE

The pain is worse because I want to live.

The thought was already forming in his head before Quinn woke on the hard dirt ground. Again.

There was not so much as a moment’s confusion about where he was this time. His mind was alert—brought to attention by a hard, mean headache. That ache made it immediately clear that he yet lived. Either that, or hell was going to be a bit more hellish than he’d imagined.

He groaned if only to prove his ears worked. When he then heard the shuffling of feet, he supposed it was his blind babysitter going to alert the media that he was awake and ready for the next Gordon sibling to come have a go at him. Why not?

“Has no one ballocks enough to kill me thoroughly this time?” he complained, for even though he’d decided he wanted to live, the pain in his head was convincing him otherwise. What he wouldn’t give for some good old headache tablets and a bag of ice.

Someone shuffled in his direction and the darkness was pushed back a bit by the orange glow of single weak torch.

“Why nay, Laird Ross,” said a woman. “I haven’t ballocks at all. But I do mean to see ye dead. Unless...”

Quinn thought it only right that he sit up, though slowly, and show a bit of respect for anyone offering him but a dram of hope. He’d need something more promising to get him on his feet, however.

Etha Gordon stepped forward. A manservant stood beside her holding the light. The last face he’d seen, before losing consciousness at the gallows, had belonged to this lovely red-haired lass. Unfortunately, the backhand that had sent his abused head back into the darkness had also belonged to her. Either her brothers had taught her a thing or two about defending herself, or he was a soft, delicate man to have been laid low by such a soft, delicate lass. One more blow to the brain would be his last, no doubt. He was in no better shape than a prize fighter who’d lost one too many prizes. And he’d best start protecting himself or he didn’t deserve to survive.

Quinn knew two things: The Gordon had but one daughter, and Montgomery Ross had been about to marry the woman when his current wife, Jillian, materialized in the tomb and made such ghostly noises that everyone fled Castle Ross. All believed she’d been the ghost of Montgomery’s sister, Isobelle, come to protest the wedding. Obviously, Etha was not the forgive and forget type.

“Etha? Is that you?”

“My name is Betha, ye bastard. Ye were about to speak vows with me and ye failed to learn my name?” Her voice got louder as she went on. A sweet voice, turned a bit ugly at the end.

From what Quinn had heard, she was a quiet biddable lass. Or perhaps she had been, once. It was possible she’d been affected by Isobelle’s ghost arriving in time to ruin her wedding. The only thing Montgomery had done wrong was not to have learned her name. Quinn was certain both Monty and Ewan had told him it was Etha.

“Forgive me if I heard amiss, but did you say you’d see me dead unless? Unless what, Lady Betha?”

She stared at him for a moment, as if weighing the worth of his apology. She gave a nod, as if her mind was made up, then she offered a smile that made him shiver. He didn’t care much for the look in her pale eyes.

“Ye will lie with me, Montgomery Ross. I will at least have yer child, bastard or no.”

He was not about to explain that one night together had little chance of producing a child, not if keeping quiet meant he might be untied, conscious, and on the other side of those bars. The combination meant freedom.

“As you wish, my lady. Will you then see me free?”

“If ye please me, Ross. But only if ye please me.”

Was that her game? Was she only looking for a bit of pleasure, perhaps a taste of what she’d forfeited when she’d run from Castle Ross and a perfectly sound bridegroom? What might be wrong with the woman, other than her family’s manners, that kept her from finding another husband all this while?

Suddenly he was much more hopeful that Percy would come through for him. Pleasing Lady Betha sounded like a task he might not be man enough to accomplish. She was pretty enough. Beneath all her velvet and furs, she seemed petite, but in truth was probably an average size for the century. But lying with the daughter of the man who was supposedly his greatest enemy just didn’t seem like a wise move to make. If they were caught, he’d die on the spot, he was sure, and the idea of dying with a bare arse would make his martyrdom anything but noble.

He hoped his wife Libby was otherwise occupied in Heaven at the moment, and not looking down on his sorry state.

Since Percy showed no signs of coming to a quick decision, he felt it wise to try and buy the man some thinking time. But in order to do so, he would need food. His stomach had long since ceased to growl, turned outside-in as it was. He needed food, and water.

“Aye, my lady. I’d be happy to oblige you,” he said in his most seductive voice. She stepped closer, to be able to hear him. She lifted a pale hand to her face and he was certain she’d gotten a whiff of Skully, as he’d begun to think of the skeleton next door. “But I need my strength to do so, as you might understand. But mayhap a bit of sleep is all I need.”

“Boyd!”

At her call, a large man moved into the light.

“See to it this man has food—good food—then a bath. Tell no one. If my brothers ask what you are about, tell them to see me.”

“Aye, milady.” Boyd bowed before leading the woman away with his torch.

A moment later, Quinn was alone again, basking in the cheer of real hope—for food and a bath, at least. Hope for survival was close, but he didn’t dare reach for it. It might just disappear. And if he really thought he might live, he’d have to start thinking about what he was going to do with that life.

What in the world could he do? How could he tell Ewan that he’d had a change of heart and wanted to go home, to live the life he was meant to live instead of hiding in the past and mourning his wife in peace?

The image of the witch’s hole popped into his head. Of course he couldn’t go back. He had a role to play. A promise to keep. And if he went back, he’d be facing Jillian and her husband. He’d have to deal with his dreams of her.

That cursed dream! It made him want to live, then made the living unbearable.

God help him.

CHAPTER TEN

Chocolate did not make a good weapon when dealing with a hungry animal. When dealing with a hungry child, yes. Wolf, not so much.

Jules wasn’t a mace-and-pepper-spray kind of girl. She found that a few wisely chosen insults can hurt a thug’s feelings enough to make one back away when necessary. And in extreme cases, dropping Gabby’s name had been the only weapon she’d needed to carry. She knew he was considered a tough guy. But reputation and actions were two different things. Or so she’d thought. Turned out he was just a ruthless as people thought he was.

“I don’t suppose you’ll leave me alone just because I’m like a daughter to Gabby Skedros.”

The wolf showed its teeth and snarled conversationally.

“I didn’t think so.”

Why in the world couldn’t she have been a pepper-spray kind of girl! But no. She’d been a physics major, waiting tables at Gabby’s restaurant, Papa’s, in New York. And physics wasn’t a great weapon either.

Or was it?

The wolf was stalling. It was containing her. Probably waiting for the rest of its pack to arrive. She’d be ripped to pieces if that happened. Her best chance was against one wolf. And if Gabby’s man happened to find her now, even with his gun, chances were he’d let the wolves have her and save the bullet. Besides, he’d already told her she would regret locking him in that dark cellar.

So. One wolf. In no hurry to attack her. So she’d attack him. She could do it—she was so bat-shit scared there was enough adrenaline shooting through her veins she could jump ten feet in the air and land in a tree before the wolf thought to stop her. Of course she wasn’t willing to test it.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a long stick. It had little bark left, so it nearly glowed in the darkness, like a weapon sent from Zeus. And she wasn’t about to second guess Zeus.

She circled slowly. The wolf mirrored her steps. Another wolf howled—not so far away this time. The first wolf stepped closer.

“Aw, now, don’t jump the gun,” she cooed as she bent down for the weapon. It was far too light. There would be little strength in it. Her mind raced, searching for formulas, guessing at torque. If she could get the thing to bite down hard on the side of the stick, she could turn it quickly, maybe twist its neck. Scare the hell out of it.

Maybe. But it was a much more feasible plan than jumping up into a tree.

She refused to consider how surreal this moment was, that she was here, in these woods she’d wandered for days, without fearing wild animals. In the future, these woods had been a bit closer to society. But here, there was no society. The land was still wild.

This isn’t real, she thought, as she swung the stick like a baseball bat, wishing it was a crowbar. The wolf dodged away, then came back mad. Its growl could probably be heard a mile away and it promised that his friends were a lot more dangerous than hers.

She didn’t have a plan B, so she swung at it again. This time, the jaws clamped down on it in triumph. She tugged at it to make sure the wolf knew she would swing again if he let go—so it would hold tight. And it did. There was no give at all. Its fangs were sharp enough to sink into the wood like it was more like flesh than bone.

But they wouldn’t sink into her, damn it!

Twisting her arms as she went, she lunged forward, grabbing both ends of the stick in spite of the short end being so close to its mouth. Then she spun it, using her own body as leverage, putting all her strength into untwisting her arms.

Something snapped. She both heard it and felt it. The wolf jumped back, yipping. It glanced back at her, over and over, while it ran away, as if it feared she might come after it.

She looked down at her wimpy weapon. There, imbedded in the wood, was the wolf’s fang. Broken below the gum line. Red blood smeared across white wood.

She’d done it!

Before she had a chance to think better of it, she raised the staff over her head and whooped.

“That’s right,” she taunted in the direction the wolf had run. “Go tell your friends, baby. Don’t mess with a Physicist!”

And what if Gabby’s man might have heard her? She had no choice but to change direction again, just in case. She had a weapon now. Well, kind of. No chance she could get the hitter to sink his teeth into it, but it would give her a little false courage to get her out of the forest and to a road.

Surely, there would be a road. If not, she would climb a tree in the morning and get her bearings. If he’d gotten away from Ewan and the Rosses, Gabby’s man was in these woods too. If she gave up looking for a road and circled back, could she get to the tomb first?

If she did make it back, she would linger long enough to meet her sister, give her an earful, and get the woman to hand over her share of the inheritance. Then she’d tell the husband that his look-alike was missing and Ewan needed his help.

If she was lucky, Gabby’s man would be stuck here. He’d use up his bullets, in the darkness, on an angry wolf with only three fangs. Then, for the rest of his life, he’d have to pick fights the old fashioned way.

When the adrenaline wore off, she felt like she’d been hit by a truck. And she kept forgetting what she’d decided to do. Was she hoping to find a road? Was she hoping Castle Ross would be over the next hill? Although her legs moved just fine, she was having a hard time balancing the rest of her body on top of them, so she searched for a climbable tree. She’d never heard of a wolf climbing a tree and avoiding wolves was the only priority she could manage to hang on to.

Finally, in spite of the darkness, she found a good one. A tall thick pine tree with plenty of lifeless branches at the bottom of the trunk, then healthy ones about ten feet up that were dense with pine needles—a little camouflage after she twisted and squeezed her way up through the natural ladder. Every time she figured she’d gone high enough, she pushed herself up a little higher. The only things that could get to her then were squirrels and birds.

And hopefully, they were all asleep.

She picked a sturdy spot and sat down facing the trunk. She hoped the tilt of the branch would keep her from falling backward. Then she wrapped her knee over one branch and tucked the toe of her boot under the next. If she started to slip in her sleep, her leg should catch. The pain would wake her up and she’d be able to save herself. But there was no question about it, she would sleep. She was lucky she hadn’t collapsed already.

Her hair was the most convenient cushion to protect her cheek from the bark. She then hugged the trunk and laced her fingers. Her coat protected her skin. Once she realized she wasn’t at all uncomfortable, she tried to imagine her worries, one by one, falling to the ground like so many brown and crunchy pine needles. It was the last thing she remembered.

When she woke, Jules found that she hadn’t moved a muscle. The sky had a strange blue glow and mist swarmed like a shallow river against the forest floor. She could almost taste the pine sap in the moist air. She didn’t think it had rained. Surely she wouldn’t have slept through that.

A bird flapped its wings above her head, then settled again. Dawn wasn’t far away, and she was afraid Gabby’s man wasn’t either. If she was lucky, he had stopped to sleep too, and if she moved quickly, she could put a bit more distance between them. She would head east for a little longer, then turn south toward Castle Ross.

She made her way back to the ground feeling pretty refreshed considering she’d maybe only slept an hour or two. After walking about a mile to the east, she found a small track that could be called a road. The feeling of safety, of humanity, increased with each step on the rutted dirt. Someone had been there. Someone would be there again. Someone with two legs and no fangs.

“Woohoo,” she said, but only in her smallest voice, just in case. A moment later, she came around a bend and found herself in the dooryard of a little cottage. It looked almost lived in. Her first instinct was to move away, quietly, before she woke someone. She really didn’t need any help, after all. Of course she was starving, but she didn’t need anything quite so much as she needed to get back into that tomb.

But.

If someone inside knew a good wolf-less road that would lead her straight back to Castle Ross, she’d be a fool not to ask. Of course, when the sun came over the trees, she’d know which way was east. The problem was, she wasn’t quite so sure how long she’d actually gone north. She’d checked the North Star a couple of times, when she’d been able to see through the trees, but there was a chance she’d gone in circles. What if Castle Ross were due south?

Damnit.

All that wondering drained away her confidence and suddenly, she didn’t dare take another step without a little guidance. Of course, there was also a chance that no one lived in the little cottage, but she wasn’t going to wait until the sun came up to find out.

She walked to the door and knocked. “Hello?” She knocked again. “Anybody home?” Then she realized she needed to speak Gaelic and repeated herself.

The door creaked wide, but it was too dark to see who opened it. She stepped back so she wouldn’t seem too threatening.

“Oh, we’re home, lassie,” the man said as he stepped out into the yard. “It just doesna happen to be our home.”

The laughter of more men—many more men—came from inside, and Jules stepped back, but the first man hurried around behind her.

Hadn’t she just gone through the same thing with the wolves? Easier to escape one than the whole pack?

She had just decided to turn and rush the guy behind her, maybe knee him where it counts, when another man emerged and her chance was gone. This one was a lot taller and had to bend over to get through the opening. When he stood, long curly hair fell around his shoulders and in spite of the blue cast of the sky, she recognized his face. Laughing hazel eyes. Slashing brows.

Gabby’s man. Only now, he was wearing a kilt and looking a little too at home in the fifteenth century.

“Juliet Bell.” He tossed his head, to swing his wild mane out of his smug face. “You should have let me out.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ewan fidgeted in the great Ross Chair. He’d a bad feeling and it wasn’t due wholly to the fact that he didn’t belong in the chair, but that was part of it. Montgomery had obtained the clan’s blessing to put the Rosses into Ewan’s care over a year ago, but it didna make the chair or the mantle of leadership any the more comfortable.

None had known Monty was leaving and not coming back. And they still didn’t know, thanks to the fact that Quinn Ross had taken upon himself the role of former laird. If they’d not looked so similar, the switch would have never worked. And many a time, Ewan had wished Monty’s great nephew had never thought to make his sacrifice, for keeping the man home and hale was taking up far too much of Ewan’s time when he had a clan to care for.

Of course he was grateful. Had Monty disappeared a year past, the Gordons would have poured in from the North and taken over with no thought for the blood spilt. But with Quinn on hand, The Gordon was held in check whilst Ewan earned his title. Now, instead of holding off for fear of Isobelle’s ghost defending her brother and her clan, they held off for fear that Ewan Ross had an impressive hatred for all things Gordon and would lay to waste any who strayed South. There would be no more alliances between them.

It was also rumored that the Gordons had offered protection to Clan Muir, no doubt to counter the Ross Ghost with a witch or two. Ewan hoped the rumor proved false, though. The Muirs lived but on the far side of the hill to the east. And although he and Monty had been searching since they were wee laddies, they’d never been able to find the existence of the tunnel they suspected of running beneath that hill.

The Muir sisters were forever popping up out of the cellar, as if there were a leak in the floor and they a bit of sea water determined to get into the boat.

Nay, if the Gordons won over the Muirs, I would wake one night with Gordon’s boot on me throat.

Since Quinn knew so few names and faces, the clansmen had believed their laird had gone addlepated. They paid him every respect, but their glances were full of pity. Poor man. It was not the easiest way to live, with people speaking to him simply and slowly all the time.

But this day, he pitied Quinn Ross for another reason entirely. This day, the Ross Pretender was in the hands of Clan Gordon. The lad Orie hadn’t been taken, praise be, and had been able to ride home to tell Ewan where the wayward man could be found. And considering the many grudges The Gordon held in the name of Montgomery Ross, Quinn might find it a fine time indeed to deny that name, to tell The Gordon that he was not truly Montgomery Ross at all.

And if The Gordon was able to ferret out one secret, he might be able to ferret out the rest, that although Montgomery had buried his sister Isobelle in the tomb that stood inside the great Ross hall, Ewan and Ossian had tunneled beneath and freed her from it while Monty kept the bastards at bay with his rantings. The kirk’s henchmen believed she’d died inside, as the clergy had decreed. The priest had ordered the tomb be placed upon stone so such a rescue would be impossible. And it nearly had been. If they’d gotten to her only a few hours later, it would have been her grave in truth. If the kirk discovered the deception, the entire clan would be punished, cut off.

If The Gordon discovered their secret, Clan Ross was doomed. And a clan cut off from the kirk might be unhappy to have lost their souls in order to save the life of one lass. No matter that it had been their laird’s own sister.

If the Gordon were to squeeze the truth from Quinn...

Although Ewan blanched at the thought, even as he thought it, the notion came upon him that Quinn’s life might not be worth a clanful of resentful Scots, let alone souls—especially if Quinn had taken on his current role of Pretender in order to keep that secret.

Ewan took a long drink of aqua vitae before he allowed his thoughts to go farther, for strong drink might prove a fine scapegoat for the argument he saw coming.

Quinn Ross was no’ so keen on livin’ in any case. Hadn’t he said so many a time when he first arrived?

Before Ewan thought better of it, or had the chance to sober, he hollered for Daniel.

“Send Enos to me.”

Daniel swallowed, but his feet didna move. “Enos?”

“Have we more than one Enos among us?”

“Nay, praise be.” Daniel took the bag from around his neck and kissed it. A superstitious man was his second in command.

For the first time, Ewan wished he had such a talisman around his own neck.

“Then send Enos to me,” he said.

“Can we not call everyone to arms and go after our lost laird?”

Ewan shook his head. “Nay. Quinn Ross would tack me bloody hide to the curtain wall if I allowed one man to be harmed in his stead. He’s told me so a dozen times.”

The young man’s shoulders dropped as he left the hall, and inside, Ewan’s soul sagged as well. It was an unholy thing he must do. And as he waited, and drank, the weight of the great Ross Chair seemed to be upon him instead of beneath him.

He’d send Enos to the Gordons. Enos would dispatch Quinn Ross to Heaven, where selfless men like him were sure to go. And the secrets of Montgomery Ross would be safe, as Ewan had vowed to keep them, if indeed they hadn’t already been told.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jules walked along the road trying to enjoy the lovely day and ignore the hitman who held her upper arm in his grip. She needed to enjoy the fresh air—the breath she shouldn’t still be breathing. Why hadn’t he killed her already?

The smell of pines and birch trees warming in the sunlight reminded her of Star Valley, Wyoming, where she’d grown up. She could just imagine the smell of campfires from the hunters, the sound of gun shots ringing out, echoing through the Grand Tetons that had been her backyard. She would have killed to have a shotgun in her hand at that moment. But all she had was her lucky stick.

Why hadn’t he taken it away?

If the hitter wasn’t all dressed up for a Scottish festival, it would be easy to believe they were just walking through some woods in the twenty-first century. But there was a different kind of quiet there. Was it just because it was Scotland? Or because it was Ancient Scotland? Or maybe it was quiet because everything was lush and heavy with moisture?

The road was uneven and had been cut deeply by flooding rain. The wild growth was so brilliantly green, it looked Photo-Shopped. It was like God was making up for the fact the country was so wet.

Sorry about all the rain. Here, I’ll tweak the landscape a little. It’s on Me.

The last minutes of her life could have been spent somewhere much worse, but the anticipation was killing her. She didn’t really want to remind him to kill her, but she wanted to know who she should thank for her Stay of Execution.

“Why am I still alive?” She turned and watched his face, hoping she’d be able to tell if he lied to her. She didn’t trust her own judgment much anymore. Not since Gabby had gone from father-figure to cold-hearted killer in a split second.

The hitter was more handsome than a killer should be, to her way of thinking at least. His hair was gorgeous and wild even though he’d tied it together at the back of his head. The loose copper ringlets were almost painful to look at when the sun hit them.

She tripped, but he caught her and helped her get her balance back. She expected his hands to be cold for some reason, but they were nice and warm.

Nice? Gah!

“Why are ye still alive? That’s a fine question,” he said, implying that she was a klutz and was lucky to have survived as long as she had.

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?” He cocked a brow.

“Oh. I see. You’re going to pretend like you’re not a brutal son of a bitch who could snap my neck at the drop of a hat?”

He laughed. “Aye. I suppose I could at that. Though I’m only brutal when it’s called for.”

What was he trying to do? Get her to let her guard down? Get her to cooperate? Not a friggin’ chance.

“I know your kind. I know what you’re like,” she said.

“Oh, do ye now?” He snorted.

“I do.”

After the feds had taken her into custody, she’d begun to suspect the line between law and crime was as fine as that between love and hate, and some of the good guys weren’t on the side they thought they were on. In fact, Agent Dixon, on whose watch she’d escaped, had gotten pretty comfortable on that other side. He was willing to ignore all kinds of rules that were meant to keep her safe, especially if there was anything in it for him. He’d even teased her, said Gabby was probably pay a literal fortune to some agent willing to forget to lock a door and leave her long enough to get some take-out, like he’d done a dozen times already. But lucky for her, Gabby Skedros didn’t have the address. Yet.

She thought she’d been safe when she’d slept? She hadn’t been.

And the next time she and Dixon had been alone and the taunting resumed, she’d egged him on, told him just what she thought of him, gotten him all worked up. And when he’d lost control—grabbed her hair and even reached for his gun to prove how he held her life in his hands—she’d had all the excuse she needed to put a nice heavy pan to the side of his head. Then she’d used Dixon’s phone to send an email to the DA, promising she’d be back in time to testify. Then she’d slipped away.

She looked over at the hitter. Yeah, it hadn’t been just Gabby who’d taught her what a cold-blooded man was like.

The guy frowned. “Well, perhaps the Scottish version is no’ so bad as the American.”

She snorted. “Bullshit. A killer is a killer, even if he wears a badge.”

If she could have mustered up some saliva, she’d have spit at him. She really needed some water.

His eyes narrowed. He hadn’t liked being called a killer.

Well, too bad.

“I’d been warned ye’d be a difficult handful. I believe they might have underestimated ye, lassie. Ye’ve a hard heart, to be sure.”

“Hah! What do you know about hearts?”

She was on a roll. At least she’d be going out in a blaze of pithy glory.

“Ach, now, yer teeth are showin’. Why don’t ye tuck in your claws and we’ll have a nice wee stroll back to Castle Ross. Were ye aware how you’d gone in circles? Or did ye mean to do it? Did ye think ye could hie home to your witch’s tomb and leave me back here, in the past? Ye forget, I’m a local lad. It’s a bit easier for me to swallow what’s happened to us than it has been for ye. And I speak Scots too, only without the American accent, o’ course. Ye never had a chance. Those lads reported yer every footstep.

“I must admit, I’m a mite impressed by you scarin’ off the wolf as ye did. But now that we’ve had a chance to get to know each other a bit, I’m no’ surprised in the least. No doubt you could scare the whole pack away with but the venom in your sweet voice.”

She was tempted to let him have it with her stick.

“If I didna have a job to do,” he added, “I’d leave ye be, here in the woods. But I wouldna be so cruel to animals, aye?”

She ignored his joke, too busy asking herself, Why didn’t she let him have it with her stick?

He might not have considered it a weapon because she’d been using it as a walking stick. Or maybe it looked a little too brittle to cause any harm. If he hadn’t been the one to see her chase the wolf away, maybe he didn’t know she’d done so with her glorified toothpick.

She started thinking like a physicist again. Okay, so she’d only had one class, but still. It had worked with the wolf.

Weak stick. Big man. Weak spots.

They’d left the other men behind. Either McKiller was too cocky to think he needed help with her, or he couldn’t find anything in his pockets that might bribe them. So she only had to get away from one little man.

Okay, one big man.

The morning sun was up, lighting their wide, well-worn road. In the distance, a ridge had been stripped of trees. Stumps left behind looked like stubble on a giant jaw. It had to be the ridge that ran up behind Castle Ross. She was almost there! But then again, so was Gabby’s man. A footrace to the hole would only continue what they’d started. Once they were back outside, she’d be racing up the hill to her car. He’d beat her to it since his car was probably still parked at the castle, or behind it.

As much as she wanted to go back, it would be futile. She’d be handed over to Gabby for the ultimate betrayal. And that wasn’t going to happen.

She dragged her foot over a rock and tripped, then stopped to adjust her shoe. McKiller let go of her arm, but stood with his hands ready to grab her. She rolled her eyes and walked on, but as she did, she began to limp.

“Ye’re hurt?” He looked at her sideways, suspicious.

“Rock in my boot,” she said. Then she stopped in the middle of the road and pretended to remove said rock. While she pulled the boot back on, he looked behind them for the hundredth time. “Better be careful,” she teased. “Some FBI agent might have followed us through time. Might be hiding in the bushes.”

He snorted. “And that would frighten me, why?”

Her skinny piece of wood might not have had much mass, so thumping him on the head would have done nothing but break the stick. But if she added a bit of momentum and velocity to it...

She spun in a circle, holding her innocent stick away from her body, then pulling it in a little just before it smacked the cocky Scot across the nose. He’d ducked right into it. The stick broke, of course, but before it did, it gave the big man’s nose one hell of a whack. She was pretty sure it wasn’t just the stick that broke.

He cried out and stumbled back. His eyes were pinched tight. His hand reached for his gun at his back. It was too late to try to push him to the ground and wrestle him for it. She just had to run and hope there were some trees between them by the time he could see straight.

“Get back here, Bell! Ye’re a lot safer with me than ye are out there!”

Safe? With a killer? Hah!

Deep and deeper into birch trees she flew, her feet barely touching the ground. When the grasses gave way to rocks, she had no choice but to slow. She struck out east, hoping to avoid those men that had supposedly been tracking her every move before. McKiller kept hollering at her, but it didn’t sound like he’d even left the road yet. The first time she’d dared look back, he’d still been holding his nose and groping the air with his free hand.

“Juliet! I’ll not go back without ye. Do ye hear?  And ye’re going to stick out like a sore thumb. I’ll know exactly where to find ye. And this time, I’m going to truss ye up like a pig and hang ye from a pole! Do ye hear?”

“Thanks for the pointers,” she said softly as she ran. First thing on the wish list would be a change of clothes.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

After about an hour, Jules rested in a clearing full of tall grass and wildflowers. It was so tempting to lie down and sleep, but sleep wasn’t even close to the top of that list. Clothing had slipped to number three, after water and food. It was when she lifted her eyes from the tempting flower bed that she first saw the smoke. A nice, focused trail of it lifting into the sky.

“Civilization. Hallelujah.” She headed straight for it.

Sounds of industry reached her ears just as she noticed her feet were following a path through the trees. A lovely little stream came next, where she bent down and drank her fill. Soon, both water and path led her to a thatched house with a water wheel on its side. The wheel had little scoops on it, just a bit deeper than a paddle, more shallow than a bucket—about the size of frying pans. It might not be used for harnessing any energy at the moment, but it was doing a fine job lifting water from the stream and dumping it into a trough at the roofline of the house.

Somebody was thinkin’.

She wondered if the woman who lived in the little house might be a laundress considering the long lines of clothes at the other end of the house. Either that, or a few dozen people lived there among the little cluster of buildings. The yard was still in deep morning shadows, thanks to the giant oak trees that surrounded the place, so Jules felt brave enough to scurry to the clothes on the line, to see if they were dry, hoping her dark coat and jeans wouldn’t draw any attention.

She was grasping the hem of a plaid wool skirt when she realized she was being watched.

Shit!

A woman stood at the corner of the house, shaking her head. She wore a solid blue dress with a plaid pinafore over the top and an apron on the front. Catching someone about to steal from her clothesline didn’t seem to alarm her, but she was suggesting, rather strongly, that Jules not do it.

Jules put her hands behind her back.

The woman motioned for the would-be thief to follow her.

Why on earth would Jules follow her? Was this one of those centuries where thieves had their hands cut off?

But then again, why on earth shouldn’t she? The woman looked harmless enough. And it wasn’t as if she or her hands might end up as the meat in someone’s giant pot of stew.

Jules shook off the Hansel and Gretel images and followed the woman around the corner of the house where she stood with a door open, pointing inside while she scanned the yard. The fairy-tale-gone-bad images came roaring back until the woman gave her a wink. Evil, child-eating witches didn’t wink, right?

The air inside was heavy with steam. Small fires burned around the room, their smoke floating up into a funnel-like ceiling. That had to be the source of the smoke that had led Jules there. On top of the fires sat large copper cauldrons with clothing slopping around inside them. Long paddles sat propped on the edge. They looked like giant bowls of dark porridge with flat spoons at the ready.

A hand descended on her shoulder and Jules jumped. She still had that Hansel and Gretel scenario running through her head and if there were ever caldrons made to accommodate a human being, these were it. The woman was oblivious to the fact that Jules was freaking out. She just kept reaching for her until she finally got her fingers on the lightweight sweater Jules wore under her leather jacket. A pale blue t-shirt made up for the loose and see-through weave of the sweater, but the woman tisked and shook her head. She spoke, but Jules didn’t understand and asked her to repeat herself.

The woman did. She even spoke slowly, but it didn’t help at all. Whatever her dialect, Jules couldn’t understand it. She grimaced and shrugged, hoping the other woman would understand her dilemma. The latter smiled and nodded, then made a gesture that clearly meant Jules was supposed to take off her coat. The same gesture got her to take off the sweater, but the third time, the woman was looking at her jeans.

Jules shook her head.

The woman pointed at the wall behind her. Jules turned and saw a plaid pinafore hanging against the wall. Just a skirt, a square bib, and shoulder straps. It certainly looked like something the locals, in the local time zone, would wear. But before she dropped her drawers, she had to make sure the woman knew she couldn’t pay for it. Jules didn’t need to speak the language to know this chick couldn’t take a Visa.

She hoped the gesture of turning out one’s pockets was universal. Apparently it was. The woman waved an impatient hand and then picked up the sweater again. It so happened the gesture for ‘trade’ was also universal.

The laundress looked pretty pleased when Jules handed over her jeans, but it creeped her out just a little when the woman peeked over the folded denim to see what Jules was wearing underneath. Her blue lace-fringed panties made the woman laugh. Hard. Jules tried not to be offended and slipped the pinafore over her t-shirt.

The woman tisked again and gave her a simple yellow blouse to wear besides, and once Jillian was completely dressed, she realized she looked just like the laundress except for an apron and the pointed tips of her cowboy boots peeking out from under the ankle length skirt.

Sore thumb, eh?

The woman pushed her back outside, then took her over to another little house that shared the same yard. A square table took up most of the space in the center of a modest kitchen. No fridge. No sink. No dishwasher. No countertops. Just a stone fireplace, pots, and the table. Onions and turnips hung in baskets from the ceiling, along with things she couldn’t identify. And they still had a thick layer of dirt on them. Jules wondered if maybe that preserved them better, since the rest of the little room looked neat and tidy. She couldn’t imagine someone who liked things to be that clean would allow half a garden’s worth of dirt to come in with the crop.

She was pushed toward a chair, so she sat. If she was going to be used for stew meat, surely the woman would have conked her on the head before she had a chance to get dressed again.

She chuckled, but it was probably more from relief than from thinking anything was funny. Nine days. She still had nine days to stay alive and make it back to New York to testify. She’d already outrun McKiller, frightened off a wolf, slept in a tree without giving a thought to bears, and escaped McKiller again. And it hadn’t even been twenty four hours!

Now she had a disguise and was about to be fed, and both miracles due to the kindness of a stranger’s heart.

She re-evaluated the whole kindness part when she was served a bowl of mushy, tasteless...well, mush. She was pretty sure it would have the texture of throw up.

She couldn’t do it.

As grateful as she was, she just couldn’t sit there and pretend it was edible. Not for her anyway. Her gag reflex wasn’t something she could control. If she forced herself to swallow it, it would come right back up. But how did she explain?

The woman poured her a tankard of milk, then another for herself. Then she sat down opposite Jules as if she hadn’t noticed her dilemma.

“Um,” Jules said. She looked down into her bowl for courage. “Um,” she tried again.

The woman laughed. Then she laughed harder. Then, when she could speak again, she said something incoherent and laughed again.

In Gaelic, as clearly as she could, Jules said, “I’ve never been able to eat this...stuff. And believe me, I do want to eat it. I just can’t.”

The woman shook her head. “Life is hardly fair, is it?” She’d changed her dialect to match the one Jules used. “Me sisters all could eat it fine, but it took pride to get me through. God forgive me, I’m a proud woman. Try this.”

She sucked some milk into her mouth, then leaned her head back and dropped a spoonful of mush into the back of her throat. She swallowed it down without chewing.

“Sticks to yer ribs half the day. Ye’ll see.”

And so went their meal. Mush washed down with a swallow of milk and a lot of giggling. Jules had needed a second mug to get through it all. As their laughter died, the woman jumped to her feet in horror.

“Och, I’ll be boilin’ the colors clean out of their kilts. Their enemies willna recognize them.” She hurried to the door, then looked back with a smile that reminded Jules of the Muirs.

A couple hours and some pulled muscles later, the laundry was hung. Jules’ hands looked just like the hands of Debra, her mush instructor. They were red and raw and needed much more than just Corn Huskers Whatever-It-Is Lotion.

The woman might stir the clothes with large wooden paddles, but it seemed the only thing to wring the hot water from them, in those days, was a couple pair of hands. With one of them twisting each end of a length of plaid, Deb claimed her work went much quicker that day and together, they were able to sit on the edge of the stream and dangle their red arms in the cool water. Deb said it was a rare treat, that she was able to do it at night sometimes, but when she had to choose between dangling and sleep, sleep usually won.

Since the conversation had turned to Jules’ next concern, she asked— and was given—a safe place to sleep and a promise she would be awakened for supper.

How simple it would be, Jules thought as she nestled down in Debra’s soft clean bed, to just stay there. Live a simple life. Pretend she was a nature freak and leave civilization behind. But then she needed to pee and that put an end to that idea. It was no use, really. She was a city girl. She would always be a city girl. She just needed to get back to the city.

Returning to the bed after a trip to the necessary, she blocked out all thought of what had brought her to this place and what would take her away. Instead, she concentrated on the sound of her own breathing, on the scent of heather coming from the purple bundles hanging and drying next to the wall. She didn’t remember falling asleep.

And maybe she hadn’t.

He was there again—the big Highlander, the spirit that had finally tipped the scales and made her do anything necessary to come to Scotland. She’d used the excuse of finally confronting her sister and getting her hands on her share of their grandmother’s fortune, but it was him she’d come to find. How sad, really, that he’d turned out to be her sister’s husband. Jules had stayed in the hills above their home for days after that little shocker. But now she realized it wasn’t because she was afraid to face her sister, but afraid to face reality. As long as she didn’t verify who he was, she could still fantasize about him, without being a sicko, right?

And now he was back.

And if this was truly a dream, she didn’t want to wake up.

It was dark. It was always dark. The air around them seemed thick with more than just her anticipation. They were already standing close—toes to toes—and yet, she could not get close enough. His head fell forward, his hair made it difficult to see his face. But she could hear him breathing and feel his arms as they came around her. So warm. So soft. So hard.

“Stay with me,” he begged. His voice was edged with worry, ragged. Didn’t he know she’d stay?

In some dreams, he’d say it simply, like an invitation to lunch. This time it was different. He was feeling as desperate as she was.

“I will. I’ll stay,” she whispered. “I promise.”

How could she comfort him? It was driving her crazy.

“My own lass. Stay with me, just until the end,” he said, then whispered, “then ye may go.” He’d said it so softly she wondered if he hadn’t meant for her to hear, didn’t want her to worry too.

“I’m not going anywhere. And I won’t let go. I swear.” She was almost too afraid to ask, but she did. “‘Til the end of what?”

His hands gave a little squeeze. It was so real, she was sure she felt it, that he was really there with her, and she refused to open her eyes, to prove he wasn’t.

“Just ‘till the end, lass. You’ll know when it’s over.”

Sometimes the dream ended there, but she wouldn’t let it. This time, it was important that she figure it out. And she needed to hurry.

“I’m not who you think I am,” he said, when she was the one who should be saying those words.

“Neither am I,” she confessed, half hoping he hadn’t heard her. Of course he thought she was Jillian. If he knew she was only Jules, he wouldn’t be holding her like this, wouldn’t be cherishing her like this. It was going to kill her to tell him she’d been Jules all along, through all the months they’d been meeting like this, in her dreams.

He pulled her nearer and bent his head to kiss her. She could feel his hair brush her cheeks, felt his lips press ever so slightly against hers. She willed him to kiss her harder, give her a solid memory to hold onto in the light of day, but there was something between them, always between them. It was so frustrating. She wanted to get closer, to feel his hard chest against her cheek, to know, just for a minute, that she was safe. To pretend she was loved.

Whatever it was separating them was cold. Ice cold. Like bars. Like...a knife.

“Wake, lassie.” A man’s voice. “Ye be dreamin’. Wake before ye slit yer own throat with yer thrashing about.”

“Wake, my lady!” The desperation in Deb’s voice brought Jules fully alert.

A man stood over her holding a long dagger against her neck. She looked up his arm and into his face. She was going to remember that face because she was going to make him pay for interrupting her dream, from taking her away from her Highlander when she’d just promised not to leave him.

She was way too disoriented to see it any other way.

“Get up nice and slow-like, else Debra be punished on yer behalf. Ye understand me well enough, aye? Yer the lass that big ruddy bastard was hunting last eve. How did ye slip away from him? Mm?”

“Izatt,” Debra snarled, “you harm her or me and you’ll be boiled along with your kilt next time.” She elbowed a second man who held her. When he let go, she didn’t try to run. “Get up, lassie,” she said. “These two are harmless, and no mistake. But ye must do as they bid. She’ll need her boots and her mantle, lads.”

Jules didn’t know what Debra was talking about, but she was grateful to be given a chance to get her boots back on. To her, boots might mean the difference between escape and not. They also waited for her to put on her jacket.

Once she was on her feet, the taller one pointed to the door with that same dagger. “After ye, milady.”

Debra winked at her as she walked past, then slid behind her and blocked the doorway. “Run, lassie!”

Jules didn’t dare turn around to make sure the washerwoman was going to be okay. She hadn’t seemed particularly afraid of the men, so maybe she knew best. It killed her to leave her new friend in danger, but she didn’t want Debra’s sacrifice to go to waste, either.

She picked up her skirts and hit her stride as she went into a curve in the road, then ran face first into the neck of a horse.

“Mon Dieu!” a man shouted.

Jules landed on her butt and raised her arm in case the animal felt the need to defend itself. The poor thing might have been even more surprised than she was. But the rider was able to calm it. The screaming had stopped.

The swearing was only getting started.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Quinn was having that dream again, so he knew he was still alive. But the dream was so frustrating he simultaneously wished he would stop having it and wished it would never end. He’d been haunted by it for months upon months, but it was his own fault.

Ewan had ordered Mhairi and Margot to stay away from the witch’s hole, so when Quinn had caught the Muirs wandering up out of the cellar again he thought they should be punished. As usual, they’d had a better idea. They thought they should pay for their misdeeds in another way. For instance, how would he like a bit of potion to help him dream of his true love?

Of course, when he’d fallen for their little trick, he’d been hoping to revive his dreams of Libby, to remind himself how she’d looked, how she’d sounded. The memories had been fading since he’d left the modern world and he felt as though he was being punished for fooling with the natural order of things. He’d tried to convince himself that his memories were fading because they weren’t memories any longer; it was the fifteenth century, so Libby had yet to be born. But that knowledge didn’t take the soreness from his heart and he’d been desperate to get a tighter hold on those precious recollections.

And he’d played right into the Muir’s conniving, clever hands.

That night, he’d taken their potion, not knowing if he’d wake in the morning, not caring if he didn’t. And he’d dreamt, as they’d promised he would. Only it hadn’t been Libby in the dream, but Jillian, Monty’s wife! And oh, how he’d loved her in his dreams. His heart had wept at the sight of her, as if it had been Jillian who had died years before, only to return to him again in his hour of need. For in his dream, he’d been sick with desperation. Something was about to go horribly wrong. They wouldn’t have much time together.

Knowing this, they’d knelt on the floor, in the darkness, holding tight to each other, measuring the moments. But something was between them. He’d supposed it was the thought of betraying Monty, for the thought of doing so—if only in his dream—made him sick. Sick while he was dreaming and after he’d awakened as well.

This time, the dream was no different from that night he’d taken the potion, except for the fact he was finally able to kiss her! Always he fought the urge to betray his great uncle, but the urge to press his lips to hers had been too powerful. Nothing else mattered. When they were alone together, in his dream, this woman mended together the pieces of his soul, a soul that had been ripped and tattered by loss and loneliness. Of course he had to kiss her, possess her, make certain she knew she possessed him in turn.

If they could only move a little closer...

“Wake, Montgomery,” a woman whispered.

“Jillian?” he mumured.

“Who is Jillian?”

Quinn hid his anguish at being jarred from his dream and rolled onto his side.

Betha stood before his cell door with her man, Boyd, by her side. The man smirked. Betha, even from his sideways view, looked furious.

“I dinna ken,” he lied.

Betha considered for a moment, then nodded to Boyd. The man dropped his smile and moved to unlock the cell door.

“Hold!” The Runt himself moved out of the shadows and Quinn was strangely relieved.

After his dream, as disturbing as it was, he was loath to pretend affection for another woman. Of course he would show no affection for Jillian either—even if she weren’t more than five hundred years into the future.

Quinn rose from his fresh pallet. Thus far, he’d been allowed to bathe and eat a decent meal, but all within his cell. He supposed the pallet was merely to keep him clean until Betha was ready for him, for the lass couldn’t mean to lie with him in the dungeon. He’d seen yet another reason to get to his feet, however—no use lying about—he feared leaving his head within easy reach of the violent little man when it might take little to kill him.

“What do ye here, sister?” Cinead jeered as if he knew full well what was afoot.

The Runt was not alone. Another shadow, much larger, separated itself from the wall and joined them. Either it was The Gordon or else the man had a son that looked just like him.

“Father!” Betha sounded genuinely horrified, but Quinn had to give her credit for not cowering.

“Answer the question, daughter.” The man’s growl sent shivers up Quinn’s spine. It was the first time he’d seen the chieftain truly angry. How did Montgomery manage to survive so many years as this man’s enemy?

Quinn took a smooth and slow step backward. It was one of those primal instincts to avoid the attention of an angry animal. Out of all the times he’d had a visitor, since waking in the dungeon, he never felt closer to a noose than he did at that moment.

Other Gordon siblings slithered through the entrance carrying torches and fanned out. The place was lit up like they were about to have a party. Quinn just hoped it wasn’t a lynching party, but he was afraid he was wrong.

“I only came for my due, father.” Betha squared her shoulders. She was either very brave, or very stupid. Perhaps, she was just very Gordon, for she looked overmuch like her father as the pair stood facing each other with their hands on their hips.

“Yer due? Ye think ye’re due a romp in this man’s bed? Ye think ye have some right to his seed? Nay daughter. Ye’ve the right to a cell there next to him if ye’re as addlepated as to believe that.”

She glanced at the cell, at the remains hanging against the wall, and swallowed, but she didn’t back down. Once again, she faced the old man and raised her chin.

“Ye promised, Father.”

The runt frowned, but quickly smoothed his features. Quinn could understand why no one would wish to reveal their thoughts among such an emotional bunch. The rest of the brothers leaned forward, listening closely.

The Gordon’s nostrils flared. “I promised noth—”

“Ye did! Ye promised me that if I bore ye a grandson,” Betha pointed at Quinn. “A fine grandson that resembled him, that it would be my child to rule once ye’re gone.”

Her father barked with laughter. The sons didn’t seem to find humor in their sister’s words. Perhaps it had sounded like something their father would promise.

Finally, the old man stopped laughing when he noticed his sons’ faces.

“Ye daft wench,” the man spit. “Ye thought I’d place a bastard in my stead when I have sae many sons?” His voice boomed louder with each word. Betha finally took a step back, shaking her head, edging away from the bars as if she now believed she might end up on the other side of them. Then she stopped and lifted that chin again.

Was she crazy?

“He wouldn’t be a bastard...if I marry him.” Betha lifted a shrewd eyebrow, but her father never noticed, busy as he was, glaring at Quinn.

“He’s no longer laird of his clan. There is nothing noble about him, lass. Look ye. Look ye past his breeches and ye’ll see for yerself. He’s a broken man. Hardly worth the rope to hang him.” The Gordon leaned close to the bars. “And mark ye well, Ross. Ye’ve caused enough grief between me bairns. Make yer peace with God. Ye hang on the morrow.” Then he turned to make what was sure to be a grand exit.

Quinn lunged forward. If this was his last chance, he’d have his say.

“Why, you mewling warty bastard!” He spit through the bars.

That got the devil to turn at least. The siblings stood perfectly still, only their eyes followed their father as he retraced his steps.

“I pity you, Gordon,” Quinn jeered. “You have neither their love nor their respect. You have only their fear. But if that’s all you want in this world, you’ve got it. Do you know how history will remember you, Oh Mighty Cock O’ the North?”

Quinn had everyone’s attention and it was going to his head. He couldn’t have stopped had he wished to. Momentum was pushing him hard and fast, down a hill that might end at that scaffolding sooner than planned. But it was more than probable he was going to die. Today or tomorrow would make little difference.

The Gordon rolled his eyes, but there was interest there. He was still listening, waiting to hear about his legacy, even if he didn’t believe Quinn had The Sight.

“You will not be remembered,” Quinn announced. “The world will hear the name Cock o’ the North and have no idea what it means or who you were. In fact, lairds of Clan Gordon will use the nickname when it suits them. History will remember nothing of you.” It might not be true, but it might give the arrogant man pause.

The man’s face fell the tiniest bit, then recovered.

“Ye’re as daft as yer sisters,” he said. “What do I care about history?”

His wide shoulders turned away once more.

But Quinn had seen it, that spark of anger in the bastard’s eye and the set of his jaw when he heard that others would use his cocky nickname.

“That could all change, you know.”

It was a desperate promise, to get the man to turn back, to change his mind about hanging him tomorrow, but perhaps The Gordon had recognized it as such. After all, the man had seen no proof that Quinn was able to tell the future, and he wouldn’t be around to see if the Runt’s offspring took his place or not.

One by one, the Gordon siblings, including Betha, tossed a look over their shoulders before following their father out. The funny thing was, Quinn knew he wasn’t the one they’d been looking at. It had been his bone-thin companion in the next cell.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was morning again. As Jules and her kidnappers entered through the massive open gates, a whirlwind of emotions entered with them, nicely contained in her gut. First of all, she was relieved they had arrived anywhere at all. Her butt was sore and she was anxious to see if her legs would even work again. Secondly, she was intrigued by the sight of the huge castle perched on a plateau that hung over the sea, and it looked as if she was going to get to see inside. Next, she was pissed that she’d been taken so friggin’ far North, away from Castle Ross and her little escape hatch—so pissed she was going to make her new set of captors effing sorry they’d ever laid eyes on her!

And last but not least, she was nervous and excited to see what Fate had in store for her. For the last mile or so, she’d had the growing sensation that something very important was just ahead. It was like the foreboding she’d had before climbing up into the tomb, only this time it was a good foreboding. And since her premonitions were pretty reliable, she was almost giddy. But she wasn’t about to give these Bozos any points for escorting her there.

She threw an elbow into the ribs of the tall one sitting on the saddle behind her. “Get me off this friggin’ horse.”

He took a long deep breath, like he was trying to control his temper, and she realized she might be messing with the wrong guy. Just because she’d felt ten feet tall and bullet proof since she’d gotten away from the Feds, didn’t mean it was true. Besides, these guys didn’t use bullets, they used blades. And they all had at least one.

“Please,” she added.

The guy laughed and jumped to the ground. He was still smiling when he reached up for her, thank goodness.

When some ragamuffins ran forward for a good look at her, her captor told them she was a witch. The kids scattered. A few minutes later, there was a mob.

“We’re havin’ a hanging and a burnin’ in the morning, Cheval. We can easily add this one for kindling.” This news came from a grubby looking Scot with either a kilt that was too short or skinny legs that were too long. When he got close enough to see her face, he looked surprised. “Or perchance she’d be a poor choice for kindling after all.”

“Bonjour, Percy,” said the man she’d ridden with, apparently named Cheval.

“The fire might smell a mite better,” someone hollered.

Oh, hell. In what century did they burn people as witches?

She tried to think, tried to put years to movies she’d seen, then realized they probably burned witches in all of them. But they couldn’t burn her. She had a date with the New York District Attorney in eight days. And the only way to make that date was to convince these people she was worth more than a little firewood.

She laughed loud, to get everyone’s attention.

“Burn me? Are you kidding? There is a huge red-headed man near Castle Ross who would pay a fortune for me. And you want to burn me?”

She’d broken her stick on the redhead’s face, but thankfully she’d slipped off the wolf’s tooth first. It was the tooth, held tight in her hand, that kept her from worrying too much. She’d gotten out of a lot of tight spots in the last day. What was one more? Wolfproof. Bulletproof. Fireproof. It was all just the same delusion; she just needed to keep it up.

She was getting mixed looks from the crowd. The kids were slack jawed. Some adults looked worried, like they expected her to burst into flame on her own. But some of them just looked...hungry, and she got that stew meat feeling again.

She was pushed and pulled through a door built for yet another giant, but before she got a good look at the vaulted ceiling, she was shoved into a side passage that eventually led to a stairway.

Going down. Again.

Maybe these guys have their own witch’s hole.

She picked up the insults where she’d left off when the castle had come into sight. Cheval, the Frenchman who’d insisted she come to this party, had tried to dish them back, but his were all in French. When he’d get pleased with himself, she’d just laugh because she had no idea what he’d been saying. Eventually, he stopped talking to her. Why he never thought to gag her was a mystery.

Izatt was still a viable target, however.

“I hope, Mister Izatt, that when Debra boils your balls, you’ll be able to feel it, even in your shallow grave.” Jules spit the words over her shoulder as she was pushed through the mother-of-a-castle’s mother-of-a-cellar.

She wanted to make sure the man remembered Debra’s promise, that if he harmed Jules, he’d be boiled along with his clothes next time. After riding sidesaddle for hours the night before, then again that morning, she was a little cranky and wanted her captors to be as uncomfortable as she’d been.

She should have kept her jeans. In a skirt, she’d had no choice but to ride sideways or the inside of her legs would have been rubbed raw by horsehair. Now her right thigh was sore and her left butt cheek was in a knot from trying to grip the strange saddle. Walking straight was impossible. Add a hump to her back and she’d make a great character for a horror film.

She was lucky the floors were flat since her eyes were having a hard time adjusting back to torch light after all that bright sunshine. After a few minutes, she wondered if her vision was stuck.

They went down another stairway, then came out into an actual dungeon.

Jail cells? Basement of a castle?

Yep. Dungeon.

“Percy Gordon wants this one locked up,” Cheval announced.

An old man came out of nowhere and juggled his keys, though he didn’t look at them. Cheval gave her a gentle shove, telling her to follow the guy. After the key man managed to open a cell that looked far too shiny to be medieval, he turned a sad smile in her direction. His pupils were white.

“I’m sorry, miss,” he said, as Izatt pushed her through the opening.

She reached out and gave the old man’s arm a squeeze. “Don’t you worry about me.”

Izatt grunted. “I thought you was blind, Martin Woolsey.”

“I am. Dinna tell me ye canna smell how pretty she is.”

Izatt slammed the gate shut behind her. She was sure he stole a little whiff in her direction before he released the bars and headed for the stairs.

“I smell naught,” he muttered.

“Maybe you should wash more than your kilt, Izatt,” she jeered.

Then she remembered, in Scotland, they didn’t call them balls, they called them—

“Ballocks! I meant ballocks! When Debra boils your ballocks, I hope you feel it! Every bubble!”

Izatt groaned on his way out. Jules started to laugh until she realized he was taking the last torch with him.

“God have mercy, let me be dreaming!” The anguished shout came from behind her and she spun around and backed against the cell door. She could see nothing in the dark.

“Who’s there?” She still had a voice, but the bravado had fled with the light.

“Jillian? Tell me ‘tis not you!” The man’s voice was deep, the brogue Scottish, but he spoke English. The chills it produced danced against her skin like musical notes.

It was him. It had to be.

Then her heart sank. She was dreaming again. But in her dreams, it had never been pitch black. She needed to see his face!

His breath was ragged, like he’d just returned from a run. He was waiting for her to say something.

“Mister Ross?” she whispered.

His breath caught, then he moaned. “Jillian! Tell me it’s not you, lass. Make me believe it!”

“Okay. I’m not Jillian.”

There. The truth was out there. The fact that she’d been flippant and he wouldn’t believe her wasn’t her fault, right?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Castle Ross, 1496

Ewan Ross, laird of Clan Ross, groaned into his hands. “Oh, God!”

Jilly looked at Monty and shrugged. “After being gone a year, that’s not the reception I was expecting.”

Monty looked a bit disappointed too. “I’m no’ here to ask for the chair back, if that’s what ye’re worrit o’er.”

Ewan shook his head and tried to stand, then thought better of it, but his butt missed the seat and he slid down the front of the Great Ross Chair. She averted her eyes when his sporran and kilt started to rise along with his knees as he sank to the floor.

“I’ve been drinkin’. Quite a bit, as a matter of information.” The shaggy man peered around the dim hall. “Looks like they all ran away, the cowards.”

No fires were lit. There were only the torches that Monty had lit when they’d come into the hall. Jillian had tucked her little flashlight into her sock for safekeeping. The last time she’d come back to the fifteenth century she’d realized the only things that traveled with her were the things she was touching, so she was careful to keep it in hand. But now they were out of the cellar, she had to keep it out of sight. She had no intention of being burned as a witch.

“Who ran away?” asked Monty as he approached the dais.

“My clan. No, yer clan. The whole bloody lot of them.”

Jilly laughed. “It sounds like they’re having their supper outside.”

Ewan perked up. “Aye? Well, then. That’s fine. Hello, Monty,” he said, like he’d just noticed his arrival. “Did you see? Jillian has come back to kill me.”

This time it was Monty’s turn to laugh as he helped his cousin lift his backside onto his chair.

“And why would harmless little Jillian wish ye dead, cousin?”

Ewan leaned toward Monty’s shoulder. “Because I’ve lost her sister is why.”

His whisper was loud enough he might have been heard outside. Why did men always go deaf when they drank?

She tried not to panic. After all, Juliet was her age; it wasn’t as if she were a child wandering aimlessly around a jousting tournament without enough to sense to stay clear of the horses.

“I’m sorry you’ve lost her.” She tried not to sound worried. “Do you remember where you lost her?” For all she knew, the woman was outside having supper with the rest. She could hardly trust what Ewan said, as drunk as he was.

“I lost her out the hall door,” he gasped, as if the hall door were the gate to Hell. “That ruddy bastard got away from us and went after her, but he didn’t get her either. Do you ken why?”

Okay, the gunman didn’t get her. It was a start.

Monty gave her a wink and put both hands on the arms of the chair, demanding Ewan’s full attention.

“That’s fine, cousin,” he said. “So how do you ken the ruddy bastard didn’t find her?”

“Because I’ve men watchin’ the Gordon Keep. They came upon Gordon allies who were taking the lass with them. They’d have taken her back had they knows she was ours.” Ewan turned a little green, but swallowed hard. A few seconds later, he looked at Monty again. “So the ruddy bastard didna get her. But alas, the Gordon bastards did.”

Ewan started slipping again. Monty stood back and let him pour into a puddle on the floor.

“By way of information, Monty darlin’,” Ewan said, “did I tell ye that I’ve lost your great nephew?”

Jilly took a deep breath and looked at her husband. It was their worst fear...

She’d lived a wildly exciting and wonderful year as the wife of Montgomery Ross, made doubly so by the fact that she’d gotten the best of both worlds, or both centuries at least. He was bold and beautiful and unrepentant. He saw things clearly, simply, like an old cowboy. He loved and never analyzed why he loved. He judged only himself. The dangerous life he’d come from made him enjoy every minute he had. Nothing was wasted, especially not a chance for a nap together—or whatever else they could think of.

And she’d been able to enjoy the gloriousness that was Montgomery Ross in the comfort of the twentieth century. She didn’t have to worry about losing him to infection or disease. She had toilets and hot showers and fast food. The winters would not threaten the lives of their children. Neither of them would have to break their backs to put food on the table, or keep a sword close by to defend that table.

But her double blessings had come at a price, and it was Quinn who had paid it. Willingly. Eagerly.

The most she and Montgomery had paid was the worry. Was Quinn safe? Was he happy? Was he regretting the choice he’d made? Should they go back and ask him? History hadn’t changed at all. They had no record of what had become of him.

Of course Jilly hadn’t been nearly as worried as Montgomery was—not that they talked about it much—because her husband knew the world in which they’d left the man. He knew much more about the dangers than she’d learned in history books. And every time she’d seen a shadow cross Monty’s face, she suspected he was thinking about Quinn, or Ewan, or Isobelle—the ones they’d left behind.

Of course, they couldn’t have brought through the tomb everyone Monty had ever cared about. Ewan had a clan to run, Quinn had asked to go back, and Isobelle was lost to them. It just wasn’t possible to make the world the way they wanted it, even with the help of a passageway through time.

The look on her husband’s face when Ewan announced Quinn was lost? It was that same old shadow of worry, but multiplied by a hundred. Beneath that quite surface, she imagined the ground was crumbling.

She knelt next to Ewan and pushed his knee down and straightened his kilt.

“Ewan? Where did you lose Quinn?” She asked it so Monty wouldn’t have to.

Ewan shook his head slowly. “Poor bastard. Can’t remember where our land leaves off. Doesn’t pay close mind to much, that one.”

“Does he live?” whispered Monty.

Ewan nodded carefully. “For the moment, cousin, but nae for long.”

“What do you mean?” her husband demanded. “Where is he?”

“He’s in The Gordon’s dungeon. And now Jules is there as well.” Ewan peeked at Jilly, then looked away quickly. “Dinna let her hurt me, cousin.”

Jules? Her sister’s name was Jules, not Juliet?

The sound of it made her stomach do strange things. Or was it the baby? She thought she was going to be one of those lucky women who didn’t get morning sickness, but maybe not.

She looked at Monty. Just the sight of him always seemed to calm her.

He stared at Ewan and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He certainly didn’t look like he was freaking out. It was enough to give her hope. Things must not be as bad as she’d thought they were. Monty would know just what to do, just like he always did.

“Och, Ewan,” he said. “No one is going to hurt ye. It’ll be ever so convenient to collect them both at the same time. Ye’ve done well, cousin. In the morning, we can have this entire conversation again, aye?” Monty pulled the big man up, then hefted him over his back. “We’ll just put ye to bed first. It’s a fine way to hurry tomorrow along.”

Jilly numbly followed as Monty headed for the archway and the stairs beyond.

Ewan grunted. “I doona wish the morrow to hurry along, Monty darlin’. ‘Tis the day your great nephew is to die. If not by Gordon’s hand, then by mine.”

Jilly’s heart stopped.

Monty halted and tipped forward, dumping his big cousin off his back and onto the floor. Then he fetched a pitcher of water from the high table and headed back for Ewan with murder in his eyes.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Quinn swallowed hard. As much as he wished Jillian away from that place, he couldn’t help but be thrilled to see her again. He’d never imagined his dream took place in a dungeon, but then again, he never thought his dream would become reality either.

“Come here, lass. Let me touch ye, just enough to know that ye’re real, that I haven’t conjured ye to comfort me in the dark.” He shouldn’t have said it. He couldn’t have not.

Of course he had no intention of dishonoring his great uncle, but just like in those dreams, he seemed to have little control over his need for her. And now, awake, the need was much more intense. If it was the last thing he’d ever do—which it very well might be—he was going to hold her close and press his lips to hers. Just one perfect kiss. It was all he wanted.

It was all.

She moved along the bars. He could hear her hands bumping each one as she came slowly toward him. The anticipation twisted his chest and made him want to groan with the exquisite frustration of it. There, in the dark, she was merely the woman from his dream, not Jillian, his friend.

“Montgomery Ross?”

Her whispered question cut through his fantasy, sobering him.

“Nay. I cannot pretend that I am Monty. It is I, Quinn. Has my homely uncle returned as well?”

She stopped moving. Her small gasp came from only an arm’s length away. He wanted to reach out and pull her to him, to give her no choice in the matter. But surely she would come to him, even as a friend, Jillian would come. They’d comforted each other before, when they’d been in the depths of despair—he still mourning Libby, and she rent in twain after leaving Montgomery in the past. Now, tossed in the enemy’s dungeon, she would need a bit of comfort again. Why did she hesitate?

Why, oh, why couldn’t he have let her believe he was Monty, if only for a few moments?

“Quinn?” Her voice broke, as if on a sob. “Quinn Ross? The one on the website? I thought Quinn and Montgomery were the same man.”

He suddenly felt as confused as she sounded.

“Jillian. Dear Jilly. Have ye lost yer senses? Do ye not remember me? We spent the better part of two weeks together, greetin’ over the loss of our loved ones. Do you remember none of it, then?”

“I’m...I’m not Jillian. I’m not Jillian. I swear to you, I’m not Jillian.” She laughed, but it only served to worry him more.

He’d never been so desperate for light.

“Martin! Martin, can ye give us a wee bit o’ candle? Just a quick bit of light, aye? Martin,” he whispered as loud as he dared. “Can ye hear me?”

There was movement near the door. A few minutes later, the old man approached.

“Trusting a blind man with fire is terrible foolish,” said Martin. “But lucky for ye, they’re a foolish lot. But ye mustn’t risk more than a moment or two before ye must douse it.”

“Don’t move,” Quinn told the woman. He pressed himself against the cell door with his hands outstretched and clicked his fingers. He could not wait to prove this angel from his dream was not Montgomery Ross’s wife.

An eternity passed, then a box crashed into his hands. He took it, gave Martin’s hand a squeeze, then opened the box. He located the flint, the tinder, and a short nub of a candle only two inches long.

“God bless ye, Martin,” he said, but the man was already shuffling away.

“I’d stay to have a peek at her, but I doona wish to interfere,” Martin said, then laughed.

After a lifetime of tries, the candle took. By the time it did, he was worried that he’d imagined it all and there would be none but Skully in the adjoining cell.

His hands shook as he put a protective hand around the flame and turned. Each step he took gripped his heart tighter...

Tighter...

Tighter still.

There was a bit of shine to the woman’s coat. Leather, like Jillian wore the first time she set foot in the Ross hall. A plaid dress, like the one Jillian was wearing when she brought Morna and Ivar through the tomb and into the twenty-first century.

His stomach dropped when he noticed the Western cowboy boots. How could she not be Jillian? Dare he hope the way she was dressed was but coincidence?

When he finally stood before the dimly lit form beyond the bars, he removed the hand that blocked the light from her face.

His own face fell. He could not help it from doing so, he was that disappointed. The only thing different about her was that her hair looked a bit darker than before, but it might only be the lack of proper lighting.

“Jillian.” He wanted to demand why she would have lied to him, but it was hard enough to just say her name. He wanted to take her by the arms and shake her, to make her understand how her pretense had hurt him.

“I’m not Jillian. I’m her sister, Juliet. I go by Jules. Apparently, we’re twins.”

He shook his head. How could she tease him like this? Especially now, when he might actually hang in the morning.

“Ah, Jilly. Surely ye didn’t find your way in here only to tease me.” He held out the candle. “Here. You take it.”

The thing was small. She tried to take it from his fingers, but couldn’t do so without them losing the light altogether.

“Forget it,” she said sharply and turned away, leaving him holding he candle up to empty space. “And I’m not Jillian, asshole.”

He stood there in stunned silence. Was she telling the truth?

Then, with no more warning than a low keening to precede it, a painful scream shot through his ears and head and ricocheted through the dungeon. Jillian’s scream. When he finally thought to shield his eyes from the candle, he found her, whimpering with her back against her cell door. She was staring at the corpse.

“I’m sorry, lass. I should have warned ye. I call him Skully.”

The pet name was no help. She didn’t seem to be listening on any account.

“He’s harmless, lass. Look at me.”

She took a few deep breaths, then turned her face. Eventually, her eyes turned too.

“And by the way,” he said. “I believe ye’re not Jillian after all.”

“Oh yeah?” She took a deep breath and choked, then she pulled up a t-shirt from under her blouse and covered her face. It muffled her voice. “Why? Don’t I scream like her?”

“I don’t ken about that,” he said. “But I do know she would have never called me an arsehole. Ever.”

CHAPTER  EIGHTEEN

The replica of Montgomery Ross, the man she’d prayed for, the man she recognized in the core of her being, reached through the bars again, his hands open, palms up. The candle was perched on one.

“Take the candle, lass, but for pity sakes, look at me, not Skully.”

“Who is he?” She couldn’t seem to let go of the bars behind her. She’d seen her parents in their caskets, but she didn’t remember it clearly, only that they didn’t feel real anymore. Other than that, she’d never been around a dead body before. Except for Nikkos, she reminded herself. But Nikkos had still been bleeding.

“It doesn’t matter,” the Quinn said. “Just pretend he’s but a decoration for Samhain.”

“Samhain? Oh, right. Halloween. Decoration. Got it.” She still couldn’t stop staring.

“Look at me, lass. Am I so disgusting you canna stand to glance this way?”

She heard him talking, but all she could do was shake her head. Disgusting? Hardly. But it was hard to face him when just a moment ago, looking at her face had somehow disappointed him. That Muir sister had noticed something that made her different from Jillian. Apparently, he noticed it too. Maybe Jillian was a real beauty or something.

“I don’t believe you,” Quinn said. “I must be repulsive indeed.”

Him? Repulsive? Yeah, right.

She’d only gotten a quick look so far, but repulsive he was not. He was obviously just being nice, trying to distract her. Calling him an asshole had been a little harsh—maybe—but being mistaken for someone else was new to her and damn hard to get used to. The fact that he’d been disappointed when he’d looked at her just added insult to injury.

You idiot, said the voice in her head. He was disappointed when he thought you were Jillian!

Oh my gosh! That’s true, she answered back.

She smiled and turned. He grinned and held the candle up in front of his face. She was finally able to release her grip and move closer to the side bars to look her fill. He did look just like the picture on the website, and she told him so.

“Oh, that.” He sounded a little disappointed. “Yes, that was me. A long while ago, I’m afraid.”

She caught herself licking her lips and she turned away, mortified. Why didn’t she just reach over and start running her fingers through his hair? Just because she was so intimate with the man in her dreams, didn’t mean she could jump on this guy. But there, in the darkness, it was hard to believe it wasn’t that dreamland where they already knew each other. She was just going to have to try harder to put that dream aside.

“Tut! Doona do it, lass. Just a decoration.”

She nodded and brought her attention back to him, reluctantly. She’d almost forgotten about being scared shitless.

“Just a decoration,” she said. “No biggy.”

He nodded. “Happy Halloween, aye?”

Other than his build and his coloring, he really didn’t look that much like Jillian’s husband—at least the face she’d stared at through binoculars.  There was something a little more intense about him. His cheekbones were a little higher. Or maybe it was just the darkness. Shadows do funny things to a face. She could look into his smoldering eyes forever, especially while he was staring into hers...

She realized he was waiting for her to say something. What had he been talking about?

“Right. Halloween,” she said. “So, who is he?”

“A stubborn man, or so Martin told me.” It wasn’t the casual way he’d said it, or the slightly higher pitch that gave him away, but the pause before he’d spoken.

“You thought I wouldn’t want to know he was stubborn? I doubt that. What aren’t you telling me?”

He sighed. “He was a son to The Gordon.”

She turned to look at the skeleton again. No way could she think of it as just a Halloween decoration anymore. He had been someone. This castle had been his home. And his father had let him die here, chained to the wall, in the dark.

A shiver went up her spine. No matter how cold-hearted a murderer Gabby was, he could have never been so cruel. Or could he? Poor Nikkos. Like a son. How his heart must have broken in that millisecond between Gabby pointing the gun and firing. But how many times, while he waited to die, had this Skully’s heart broken? A bullet would have been kinder.

“Lass.” Quinn Ross waved a hand to catch her eye.

She turned back to him. He shook his hair out of his eyes and looked into her soul again and she couldn’t help but smile. She was like the candle, coming to life under his attention. It made her feel warm in a creepy dungeon that had no warmth. Too bad he was just a nice guy, trying to keep her calm.

“You didn’t want me to know that the man—into whose dungeon we’ve been tossed—is ruthless enough to leave his son in this same dungeon to rot. Is that it?”

He smiled. His eyes crinkled and he winked at her. “Aye. That’s just it.”

That wink sent chills to all the places she’d felt warm just a second ago. Winks, she realized, were highly under-rated.

She was afraid her knees might just give out if she didn’t look away. Unfortunately, Skully was the only thing to look at.

“What a very, very sad Halloween decoration.”

“Aye, lass. Now, let’s not waste what time we have left to us.”

She could get used to being called lass. It beat being called Jillian any day. She took a deep breath and turned back to him, trying to think of something to say, to keep him talking.

“Why do you say that? You always say that.”

She gasped when she realized it was true. He’d always said that—but in the dream!

How had her subconscious known she would end up there, having that exact conversation? How could she have dreamed about a man she’d never laid eyes on yet? She’d never even known about Jillian when the dreams had started, let alone the Castle Ross website where she’d found his picture.

Quinn’s picture.

Gah! He must have thought she was so stupid. He wouldn’t have any idea what she was talking about. But, holy crap! Quinn Ross—not Montgomery Ross—haunting her dreams?

It had been a shocker, running across that picture and recognizing him when he shouldn’t have existed. She’d obsessed about him 24/7, for weeks, making herself sick until she’d turned her attention to escaping from her federal babysitters.

But he was real. And he wasn’t Monty. And now he was going to think she was certifiable.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, waiting for the ceiling to fall on her head.

He laughed. Then he stopped short. Then he laughed again, and all without her looking up. He was delighted about something, and after a few seconds, she couldn’t stand it anymore and opened her eyes.

He reached out with his free hand and took hold of her fingers, pulling her up tight against the bars, and suddenly, she felt like they were in his cell and not hers. The heat coming through the empty gaps was more than enough to make up for the cold bars pressed against her. He studied her face for a minute and didn’t seem to find anything unpleasant, even though she hadn’t seen a shower or a brush for two days and been dragged halfway across Scotland by Cheval. The last time she’d cleaned up had been at Debra’s.

“I always say that?” he whispered. “We’ve only met, lass. When did I say it? And what did I say?”

She looked down, embarrassed. He’d been laughing at her after all.

“Speak to me, lass. I must know. Tell me the truth of it, if ye please.”

It was charming, the way he begged.

She took a deep breath, stalling, wanting to wait just a minute longer before saying anything that might make him want to let go of her.

“You’re going to think it’s silly.”

“Never.” He lifted her chin with a knuckle, and then the contact was gone. She very nearly lowered her head again, just to feel that knuckle a second time. It felt wonderful, like her chin had been starved for attention.

How pathetic.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ve had this recurring dream, see. It was about you—probably because of that picture on the website. But then I got to Scotland and saw Montgomery and I thought I was lusting after Jillian’s husband. I was sick about it, actually.”

“Lusting, ye say?”

She tried to pull away, but then she remembered how badly she wanted to not be in that cell with Skully, so she let him pull her close again, grateful that he still wanted to, considering how silly she was acting.

“I ask, Juliet, because I’ve shared this dream.”

Oh, great.

“Uh huh,” she said. “Sure you have.”

No way was she going to stand there and make a fool out of her. But if she put up much of a struggle, the candle would go out and she would freak out.

She took a careful step back, but he only pulled her tighter. The light wobbled and she froze.

He shook his head. “You don’t believe me. I understand why you wouldn’t. I do. But I’m not playing with you. Hear me out, aye? In this dream, is it always dark?”

“Lucky guess.”

“And is there always something between us, keeping us apart?”

She gave him one nod. No way would he guess anything else.

“And perhaps we only have a few stolen moments together because I’m supposed to die in the morning?”

Oh my hell! How does he know?

“What? Wait! What?”

He sighed. “Perhaps that wasn’t technically part of our dream then. But I always supposed what kept us apart was the impression that you were Jillian and the love of Monty’s life, and not a wall of bars.”

“Wait. Just wait a minute. What about you dying in the morning? Was that a dream, or is it real?” She found her fingers digging into his skin, trying to pull him closer, but he didn’t seem to mind, which was lucky, because she couldn’t seem to stop. She felt so desperate, just like she always did, clinging to him like she was. It was exquisite torture, wanting to hold onto the dream, not wanting to wake up, but at the same time hoping she wasn’t dreaming at all.

“The Gordon has decreed it,” he said casually, like, “It’s supposed to rain in the morning.”

She stared at his broad chest and the neck just above it. Hang him? How could they? Were they blind? Then she remembered Skully.

“The Gordon is the bastard who left his son to die, right?”

“Right you are,” Quinn said, but she had the impression, from the way he was staring at her, that he wasn’t paying a lot of attention to their conversation. His eyes kept moving around her face, like it was a puzzle he was trying to solve. If someone handed him a pen, he might draw a little path from her brows, to her ears, back to her nose, then around to her chin. Her mouth was apparently the end game.

Please, let my mouth be the end game.

He looked back at her eyes and smiled.

She took a deep breath and sighed. “Then, we’ve just got to get you out of here.”

She knew full well she was stepping back on the delusion train, but she didn’t care. This was no time to be realistic. Wolfproof, bulletproof, and fireproof. Well, the last part she wouldn’t have to wonder about if she managed to escape with him.

He laughed. “You have a grand plan, do ye?”

“Aye. I do.” She couldn’t help but mock his sexy Scottish brogue.

“Complicated, is it?” He tucked her hair back behind one ear. She was losing his attention again.

“No, not really.” She tried to imitate his sexy smile too, to get him to look at her lips again, but she’d done better with the accent.

He raised one brow. No way could she copy that.

“Truly? Then I must hear this plan.”

She grinned and wished she could wink, but she was afraid she’d look anything but sexy doing it.

“We scream,” she said, “until they come to shut us up, then we overpower them and get away.”

He laughed. Hard. It started to sound a little hysterical.

“Hey, don’t knock it. I’ll have you know every plan I’ve had lately has worked. For a while anyway. Obviously, this dungeon was not in my plans.”

“And just how many plans have you needed lately, sweet Juliet?”

She was just about to correct him, to tell him that no one calls her Juliet, but she realized the chills currently shooting through her were due to the way he’d said her name—again, with that lovely brogue.

While she watched his lips, waiting to hear her name again, she told him how she’d gotten from point a to point b—from shaking the feds to stalking her sister with binoculars, from outrunning the Gabby’s hitman to ending up in Gordon’s dungeon. It sounded more like a list of people, and an animal, whose heads she’d damaged in one manner or another. The head butt she’d given the guard at the Castle Ross’s gate made her sound downright violent, even when she called it a Glasgow Kiss.

He looked more than a little doubtful, and she was almost relieved he didn’t think she could be so dangerous. Then she remembered the wolf’s tooth and pulled it out of her sock.

“See? Proof.” When he had no comment, she got nervous and started to ramble. “You probably thought I was making it all up—”

He dropped the candle and reached for her. His lips were on hers before the light sputtered out.

Just like her dream. And who knew? Maybe she was dreaming again. Her eyes were shut, his lips felt the same as they always did. She reached up and held onto his hard biceps as well as she could. They were huge.

The bars kept her from moving closer, but she raised her hands to his neck and was able to hang on better.

He pulled back enough to break the kiss.

“Stay with me,” he whispered.

“You always say that.”

“I mean here. Right here. Stay with me here, until morning.”

“You usually say, until it’s over.”

“I thought I’d change it up a bit. Keep you on yer toes.”

“I’m already on my toes.”

“Well, then, I’ve got ye where I want ye.”

And he kept her where he wanted her for a good long while. Finally, she had to ask for a time-out because the bars were bruising her face.

“You know,” she said as they slid to the floor, still clutching each other. “If anyone studies the angle of the bruises on your face and compares them to the ones on mine, they’re going to know what we’ve been doing.”

“Well, here’s our first test then. Looks as if someone is coming.”

She looked over her shoulder and sure enough, the passageway was turning orange.

“Get ye back, lass. Cling to the far corner. If they believe we care for one another, they’ll use it against us. Quick now!”

She crawled away like she was told, staying as far away from the Halloween decoration as possible.

“Juliet,” Quinn whispered.

“What?”

“Your cellmate stinks to Heaven.”

She smothered a giggle, then smothered another when she thought about how silly it was to be giggling in such a place, especially if she considered what might happen in the morning. But for the moment, the man from her dreams was smiling at her, knowing full well she was not Jillian.

Their visitors, when they stopped at her cell door, were not smiling.

CHAPTER NINTEEN

“Ye’ve been summoned by Himself, madam. Best get on yer feet,” said the man with the torch. Two burley dudes who could have bounced for Gabby any day, stood to either side of the door while Martin fiddled with the keys. She wondered if he was fumbling on purpose.

She looked over at Quinn. He was leaning casually against the far bars, but his eyes didn’t miss a thing—not a thing about her, anyway. With more than just a candle’s worth of light, it was hard for her to take her eyes off him too, until he gave a slight shake of his head, then looked at the visitors.

“The mighty Gordon has taken to harassing women now?” He smirked. “I canna wait to see what the neighbors think.”

The guard closest to him kicked at his bars. “Quiet Ross. You willna be about long enough to discover what the neighbors think of anything.”

Quinn just grinned. “No, I won’t be around, but you will. I hope they are kind to you men when the castle is overrun.”

“Don’t mind him. Watch her,” said the other. “Her husband says she’s a slippery one.”

Jules looked at Quinn and shook her head. Then she looked back at the goons.

“Husband?” she said. “I have no husband.”

They laughed at her while they watched Martin fumbling with the keys. One reached out, like he was going to take the ring away from the blind man, but Martin slapped it away. The guard narrowed his eyes, then waved a hand in front of Martin’s face, only to be slapped again.

“Ye think I canna smell yer oxter each time ye lift that arm? Now back away. Ye’ve made me lose my count. I must start from the beginning all over again.”

Her stomach was tied in knots but she didn’t dare look at Quinn for comfort. She was absolutely petrified of who might be coming to claim her as a wife. Maybe someone along the road, maybe one of Cheval’s friends, had taken a fancy to her and meant to cart her off to who-knows-where. If they did, who was going to help Quinn get away? And if Quinn didn’t get away, there wouldn’t be anyone coming to her rescue either.

Of course there was also the hope that Ewan had come looking for her. She’d just have to make sure they took Quinn with them. But the thing she was most afraid of was that the precious dream was over, that she’d never see Quinn again.

Was that what the dream had been—a warning to make the most of their few moments together?

Jules shook her head. That couldn’t be it. It couldn’t be all they would have. She wouldn’t allow it. That dream was going to end the way she wanted it to end, and heaven help whoever got in her way!

Martin sighed and slipped a key in the lock. Her time was up. Quinn had dropped the casual pose and was gripping his own cell door, growling in frustration. She was glad she wasn’t the only one.

But she couldn’t give up hope. Maybe he’d find a way to escape after all. Maybe he could somehow help her. But just in case someone was there to haul her away, Quinn would need some clue as to where she’d been taken. If it was Ewan, then Quinn would know the Calvary was near.

“What’s this husband’s name?” she demanded as they dragged her from her cell. They had to pry her fingers off the swinging bars, but she didn’t make it easy. “Just tell me his name and I’ll go quietly.”

“She will not. ‘Tis a trick,” said one.

“No! I promise! Just tell me, right now, who it is who thinks I’m his wife.” They had to say the name while Quinn could hear it. She was terrified she’d just disappear, never to be heard from again. Medieval times. Scotland. She had no idea what the rules were, but she suspected that men could just claim a woman and haul her away. Probably not by the hair, though. Hopefully they’d progressed a bit beyond cavemen.

“Bond, something,” said one man.

Bond? That wasn’t even a Scottish name, was it?

She held her ground and rolled her eyes. “You don’t remember his name?”

“Here, I do,” said the other. “His name was silly. Said it was Bond James Bond he did. Now you promised to come peaceful-like.” The bigger of the two men stepped back and waited for her to comply.

But how could she comply?

Bond, James Bond? It had to be Gabby’s man. It had to! And if he was allowed to take her away, she couldn’t help Quinn! She’d be dragged back to the twenty-first century and handed over to Gabby. Then they’d both be dead.

A little image surfaced in her mind of Quinn and her reuniting in the clouds.

No way! No effing way! She’d finally gotten her hands on him. It was like God had granted her exactly what she’d asked for, and now He was taking it back.

What had she promised? To give up her revenge on Jillian if she could just have a Highlander of her own. Well, she was going to make sure God stuck to his bargain. She just didn’t know how she was going to do it.

She spun around and looked at Quinn, but he seemed as alarmed as she was. Of course, he was from the future and would recognize the name of Bond, James Bond. The taunt was clear. McKiller had tracked her down, gotten the ear of Laird Gordon, and they’d made a deal.

Maybe she wasn’t bulletproof after all.

A guard tugged on her arm. “Come now, lass. There are witnesses and ye gave us yer word.”

“All right. Just let me say goodbye to—” Wait! She was supposed to act like she didn’t know him, or at least she was supposed to act like she didn’t care. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

“Ross. Mister Ross. At your service, milady.” He gave her a little bow, but his eyes never left her face.

“Oh, here now, Laird Ross,” said the bigger guard. “Don’t go about propositionin’ a marrit woman. There now. Hold fast to her arms, just in case she bolts. With such a big bounder for a husband, it’s understandable her being a mite skittish.”

The guards laughed at her all the way up the steps and into a huge common room. All the while, Jules was aching to return to the dungeon. It was ridiculous, but she felt like every step she took was a betrayal of Quinn, that she shouldn’t ever leave his side. She’d promised. She was supposed to stay until the end.

She had to go back. No matter what she was offered, she’d have to make sure they took her back to the dungeon.

***

The guards deposited Jules in the middle of the hall and let go. Their arms were poised to grab her again if need be. She rolled her eyes and ignored them.

One look at the men lining the room and Jules realized this would be like a practice run for the trial in seven days—the trial she hoped was still scheduled because she still intended to be there to testify. It had taken her three days to get into this mess. Even if it took her as long to get out, she’d still have time to make a flight to New York.

Yeah, it was like a practice run, but instead of just one cold-blooded murderer at the front of the room, there were two. The Dungeon Master and McKiller.

As the big redhead turned, she braced herself for the sneer she expected on his face. But she was wrong. He was frowning.

Still mad, huh?

He stood off to the left of a rough-looking throne in which sat a large balding man. The straggly strands of hair growing out the sides of that one’s head were orange on the end. Once upon a time, he probably had hair just like his visitor.

McKiller stepped forward. “Are ye harmed, Juliet?”

He was an incredible actor. For a second, she could almost believe he was worried. But why should he care how she’d been treated? As long as he was able to take her back to Gabby, a bruise here and there didn’t matter.

He held out his arms and briefly narrowed his eyes, like a warning to play along.

She shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t know you, pal. Nice try though.”

She turned around to go back to the dungeon, but Moe and Curly blocked her path. Finally, when her dirtiest look didn’t affect them, she turned back to McKiller.

The redhead took a step toward her, but the one on the throne, presumably Laird Gordon, held out an arm, as if his reach were so vast he could hold the man back while sitting six feet away. He was draped in furs in spite of the summer weather. She wondered if they were the symbol of his power, somehow.

“Nay, Bond,” Gordon said. “As ye so kindly pointed out, me hostage’s wellbeing is me duty to protect. I canna have the likes of ye stomp into me hall and claim any woman ye like.”

McKiller looked the laird over like he was trying to decide the least messy way to take him out, or the best angle from which he might break the old man’s neck. His would-be victim gave him a look that screamed, “Go ahead, idiot. Make my day.”

Finally, McKiller looked back at Jules.

“My men saw her taken by Cheval,” he said. “Cheval agreed, with a bit of persuasion, to tell us where he’d left her. How else would I have known where to find my wife?”

He shifted his weight, to take another step, but thought better of it. He finally settled for glaring at Gordon. No one in the room seemed worried enough to defend the older man if the younger one attacked. Maybe they didn’t care.

“How indeed?” said Gordon. “But can you explain why the lass would deny yer claim, then? She looks of sound mind to me.”

Juliet smiled at the awful man and tried to forget, for the moment, that he’d let his own son rot in the basement.

She gave a little curtsy. “Thank you, sir. My mind is just fine.”

Gordon lost his smile when she spoke. She guessed her accent sucked.

“Juliet, darlin’,” said McKiller, smirking. “Didn’t I say you’d stick out like a sore thumb?”

She lifted her chin. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was feeling very Scarlet O’Hara at the moment. Maybe all women felt that way when men were fighting over them, but since it was yet another experience that was new to her, she could only guess.

McKiller’s face turned a shade of red that clashed with his hair, and he lowered his head like a bull getting ready to charge. She couldn’t fight her instincts on this one and took a step back.

“Laird Gordon,” the man’s voice boomed through the room that was slowly filling with an audience. “Clearly, someone among you has seduced my woman away from me. Who is it? Who of yer clan has shared private speech with my wife? I demand satisfaction.”

As it happened, McKiller towered head and shoulders over just about everyone in the castle. Quinn Ross was the only man she’d seen in the last two days who might come close. That big mane of red hair made him look like the king of the lions demanding his dinner, and she’d be damned if every Gordon clansmen didn’t take a half-step back too. Their laird called a man to him who leaned close to have a private conversation, clearly not interested in whether the lion got fed or not.

But what was McKiller trying to do? Get someone to fight him? No one knew her there. And no one in their right mind would want to fight the guy for her. Was he hoping Laird Gordon would give her over because no one had the guts to oppose him?

Damn it! She was not going to leave with him!

She put her hands on her hips. “You want someone to fight for me, is that it, Bond?”

He and the old man both looked at her like she was no more than a fly buzzing around their heads. The latter went back to his conversation. McKiller went back to puffing out his chest and glaring at anyone who didn’t look away fast enough.

She decided she needed to make herself look a little more significant, so she marched over to a young kid and pushed him off his stool, then she climbed up on it.

“Can you hear me better now?” she hollered.

McKiller rolled his eyes. Laird Gordon looked at her like she’d sprouted an extra nose and he couldn’t see it as clearly as he’d like. When the guy Gordon had been conversing with finally turned to look at her, he gasped. Gordon shoved him away with disgust.

“If anybody’s going to fight for me,” she paused for dramatic effect. “It’s going to be me!”

Some laughed along with McKiller. Most sighed and turned away from her like they were disappointed she hadn’t done or said something more exciting. Gordon turned slightly to say something to her so-called husband, but she had the feeling his was the only attention she had.

Well, if they wanted excitement, they were going to get it.

She hopped off the stool and grabbed a tankard out of a man’s hand. Then she spun around and lent a little momentum to the most important pitch of her life. She had hoped to catch McKiller off guard, but he deflected the heavy cup. When it flew to the right and dinged Laird Gordon on the head, she suspected he’d done it on purpose.

Fifty people gasped before the tankard stopped spinning on the floor.

She tried bravado first.

“Softball pitcher. High school.”

Bond just grinned.

She tried defense.

“I told you I was going to fight for myself.”

Laird Gordon stood up. His head was so red she was worried it would explode and McKiller would grab her and flee in the confusion.

She tried distraction. She was good at distraction.

“Come on, Bond. Let’s see what you’ve got. Let’s say if I can knock you to the ground, just once, you have to go away and leave me alone.”

The big man turned to the laird. “You see? She clearly protects someone. I demand to ken the man’s name.”

Well, something worked; Gordon sat back down.

“Who is it, woman?” the old man asked. “One of me sons?” His eyes sparkled. He had sons that he hadn’t killed yet? And so many he could afford to lose one in a fight with McKiller?

Jules shook her head in disgust. “No. The only one of your sons that I’ve spent any time with...is the one in your dungeon.”

Someone roared, but it wasn’t Laird Gordon. It was someone standing behind her. She ducked sideways, expecting to be attacked. But it was Percy, the one with long legs and a short kilt. He stood with his hands fisted and his face as red as his father’s.

McKiller. He might be able to get away, or something. “How dare you,” he hissed at her. Then he gave her a look that turned her blood cold—a look that said she’d pay. She’d been in plenty of danger in the last three days, but this time she didn’t have shock to numb her. This time, she believed she was screwed.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. Of course she’d been insensitive to the father. She hadn’t meant to hurt the son.

“Father,” he called out. “She is protecting your prisoner, Laird Ross. They’ve had hours of...private speech...since she arrived. She’s spoken to none else.”

No! Quinn was in no shape to fight anyone. He’d told her he was already suffering from a serious concussion!

Low murmurs filled the hall. Laird Gordon laughed at his tall visitor. McKiller glared at her, but she could tell by the lifted corner of his mouth he was pretty pleased with himself; the glare was just part of his act.

Laird Gordon gestured wide with one arm. “Oh, by all means, Mister Bond. Have yer revenge. Here, in the hall for all to enjoy. Be warned, he used to be a grand fighter. But of late, he’s gone soft in the mind and likely the middle.” He looked over her shoulder. “Percy! Return the hellcat to the dungeon. Bring up the old Ross laird. Perhaps we can dispense with the hanging and go straight to the burnin’.”

Holy shit. It was Quinn they had planned to burn as a witch? Hang him? Burn him? Beat him to death?  He had to get out of there!

Jules ran forward. She had to do something, to say something that would make them listen to her.

“Bond! I’ll do whatever you ask! I’ll go along quietly, I swear. Just don’t hurt him!”

“Come,” Percy barked behind her and grabbed her arm.

With one hand on her elbow, he bent her arm up behind her and steered her in a circle, then headed her back the way she’d come. She had no choice. She’d never taken a self-defense class that might help her get out of the hold he had on her. She tried to move faster, to gain a little slack, but he stayed right on her.

“Why can’t I stay and watch?” Jules whined as loud as she dared. There was no way Gordon missed it, but he ignored her and hollered to someone to bring him a drink. If she provoked him, she might just end up chained next to his son. Then she wondered if it was that threat that kept the rest of his clan in line.

Once they were in the side passage, Percy took her wrist and released the painful hold on her arm. Only when the pain subsided did she realize how much it had hurt.

“Come,” said Percy again, almost gently.

Had he already forgiven her? Was he regretting his outburst?

“Please,” she said softly. “Don’t let them kill him.”

Percy didn’t even blink.

She let him lead her to the stairs instead of trying to make a break for it. That had been the goal, after all, to return to the dungeons to be with Quinn. But they wouldn’t be together for long. As much as she didn’t want to be left down there in the dark, however, she held on to a little morsel of hope that Quinn might beat McKiller. Hi might be able to get away, or something.

Something. Please, God, anything.

She could worry about herself later. After all, in a place where so little was expected of a woman, she could surely catch someone off guard and get away. But would it be in time to do any good? And would she and Quinn ever have the chance to finish that dream the way she wanted it finished?

CHAPTER TWENTY

At the first landing, Percy handed her off to the tall guard, then followed them down the steps. Jules felt the others hesitate just a fraction of a second, just as she had, when the smell of a rotting body hit them. Continuing on, everyone walked a little slower, in no rush to be immersed completely in that invisible cloud.

Had Skully been the only one to die there? Probably not. And his bones looked far too bare for him to have died recently.

She shook her head to keep from imagining of what other atrocities the laird of Clan Gordon might be capable of. That head shaking put her off-balance, however, and she tripped. Percy, strangely enough, helped steady her.

The big guard returned her rather roughly to her cell. She felt rather than saw Quinn stiffen in the shadows. She took his lead and didn’t rush to the bars like she wanted to. They were back together, but it would be short-lived. And she didn’t want Percy to imagine more than he already had.

Or had he imagined anything at all? Maybe he’d been there, in the shadows around the arch, listening to their conversations. Maybe he’d known about the kiss. Maybe when he’d offered up Quinn as a punishment for her cruel mention of his brother, he’d known precisely how much it might hurt her in the end.

And if that was so, ignoring Quinn now would be wasting her last chance to speak with him, because she knew, in the pit of her stomach, that no matter how this all ended, she’d never be granted that dream again. This was it. All those practice runs were over.

This time, she was going to have to say goodbye.

She pushed her tears back. There would be plenty of time to cry later, once she was alone.

She turned to face the cell door and stole a look at Quinn. His worry was plain, though he tried to mask it. Her insides begin to melt and those tears threatened to defy her. It had been so very long since anyone had worried about her. If she let herself cry, though, he’d only worry more, and he was going to need his head in the game. Especially if he’d gone soft, as Gordon said he had. Quinn was the one they should be worrying about.

“I have good news and bad news,” she said cheerfully, ignoring the finalistic clang of her prison door. “Good news is I’m back.”

Quinn glanced at Percy, then shrugged his shoulders and leaned against the far bars. He folded his arms, like he was bored.

She sighed. “By the way, I’m pretty sure Percy speaks English.”

Percy didn’t flinch as he took the keys from Martin in exchange for the torch. Then he moved the old man’s arm to show him where the light must be held.

Still watching Percy, she said, “Notice how he wasn’t even curious when his name was mentioned?”

“Is that the bad news?” Quinn had sounded casual, but his fingers were digging into his own arms.

Percy began trying the keys in the door of Quinn’s cell.

“Not all of it,” she said. “The other bad news is the guy who claims to be my husband is Gabby’s hitman. When I insisted I didn’t know him, he started ranting about needing satisfaction from whoever had been turning my head.”

She knew she was wasting time, but how did she tell him he might be about to die.

“And then?”

Quinn was no longer leaning. His hands were on his hips and he was looking right at her. He still stood on the far side of his cell, though. She got the impression he’d already guessed what came next.

“Percy told him it was you. You were right. He knows that I care about you and he used it against me. I don’t think he planned to, but he was angry because I mentioned...Skully.”

Quinn nodded slightly, but didn’t move any closer.

Jules couldn’t take it anymore and grabbed the bars that separated them. They were out of time.

“He already knows, Quinn. He already knows.”

A heartbeat later he was pressed against the bars, pulling her tight. She was so relieved she could have laughed. Percy and Martin disappeared in the background. It was only them. Together again. He was kissing her all over her face, missing her mouth in spite of her trying to help him find it.

“Your chances of escaping are much better above ground, right?” she whispered, since her mouth was currently not in use. “I still think my stand-by plan is better than nothing—bash him on the head and fight your way out. His nose might be broken, so I’d try to hit him there first.”

Quinn kissed both eyes, then pulled back a little. By the look on his face, he wasn’t any more impressed with her plan that he was the first time she’d shared it. Then dread struck her in the chest like a boxing glove.

“You do know how to fight, don’t you?”

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Of course I ken how to fight. Am I not a Scot? We’re taught in Primary School. Now, go back to the part where you were lusting after the man in yer dreams, aye?”

A key clicked in the lock and they froze. Percy rattled it, but it did not turn. He tried the next key. For a dungeon with only two cells, there were a helluva lot of keys on that ring. But one of them was going to fit.

Their hearts were pounding like horses’ hooves. She could hear her pulse in her ear where his hand covered it. She could feel his heart beating in his neck.

It was time. This was it. That last chance for a kiss. And if he kissed her like a damned butterfly, she was going to rip the bars apart and make him do it better.

“Kiss me, damn it,” she whispered.

He smiled at her and winked, his eyes sparkling in the light from the torch that Martin silently held.

Obviously, Percy was too impatient to wait for a blind man to find the right key, but even Martin didn’t take so long to unlock the doors.

She popped up on her toes and stretched her neck at the same time Quinn’s mouth came down firmly on hers. He seemed to understand that she wasn’t looking for butterflies. And except for bumping into the bars a few times, they managed to make more than their jailers disappear. His short whiskers were a soft brushed against her chin. His hand moved across her cheek and into her hair, like he needed to know the texture of it as badly as she’d needed to know the feel of his lips. When she finally had to stop to catch her breath and give her toes a break, she didn’t back away, but leaned her forehead against his chest, and for the first time since she’d landed in Scotland, she didn’t envy her sister.

Well, much anyway. At least Jillian would still have her Highlander tomorrow. Jules didn’t know what she’d have beyond this memory.

He smelled good for having been in a dungeon for days. And his shirt was a little too tight, like it wasn’t meant for him, but it was clean. She reached through the bars and ran her hands up his arms.

“Please tell me you can protect yourself.”

“I can protect myself,” he murmured.

“Really? Because Bond James Bond is in pretty good shape. He’s probably planning to open up a can of karate on your cute arse, you know?”

“Cute arse?” He let go of her and turned, so they could both get a better view.

Him trying to get a good look at his own ass was going to be mental snapshot she would never forget.

“Very nice,” she said. “Now please don’t let him damage it.”

He grabbed the bars again, just a few inches above her own hands and she realized what he was trying to do. Letting go of each other would have been painful and he’d ripped that bandage off before she had a chance to think about it.

“No worries,” he said.

The haze from their kiss was fading, but the compulsion to renew it was as strong as ever. All she wanted was to kiss him again, but there was so much to say.

“If you can get away, go,” she said. “Promise me you’ll go. I won’t be far behind. I have that plan, you see.”

“Aye, a fine plan,” he said.

She noticed he promised her nothing. She wasn’t going to waste precious time arguing.

Metal clicked against metal. It felt like someone had just locked her heart.

The gate swung open behind him. His hands were still on the bars, but she dared not touch him again. She put on a smile and let her hands drop to her sides.

“Forget about me,” she said. “Just concentrate on winning the fight. Don’t let him hit you in the head.”

A hand landed on his shoulder and he took a step back.

“Did Gordon say what I get if I win?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Me, I guess.”

“Well, then. I cannot lose.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The guard held Quinn’s arm while Percy tied his hands together behind his back.

“What’s the harm in leaving her a bit of light, Percy?” Quinn asked.

The thin man said nothing, then left him to the guard and preceded them up the steps.

Their steps echoed in the stone stairwell.

“So,” Quinn said. “I see you’ve made your decision then. You don’t believe me.”

Percy glanced over his shoulder. “Not just yet. We’ll see how yer luck holds out with her husband.” Then he snorted. “Ye manage to keep from dying by his hand or hanging on the morrow, and then I’ll believe ye can change the future. For I’m certain the only thing yer future holds is a bit of dirt—or ash, o’course.”

They entered the hall to a mixture of applause and whistles. A wet bit of something struck him on the neck as he was led forward to face The Gordon. The smell that followed told him it had been an apple. He was simply grateful to have something pleasant to breathe for a change. He was also pleased to note the laird’s throne was not nearly as grand as the Great Ross Chair made by Monty’s grandfather.

Percy made a slight bow to his father and moved away. The guard remained at Quinn’s back. An impressively tall man with an equally impressive mane of red hair stood to the old man’s left. He glared at Quinn, sized him up, then gave him a wink.

The Gordon’s spawn laughed. They were queued up along the wall to his left as if they were waiting in line to kick him as soon as he was down. So brave.

No wonder The Runt will be able to take the reins here once the father is gone.

He tried to be as hopeful and fearless as Juliet. She seemed to see no complication so great that it couldn’t be faced, bashed, then run from.

He laughed just thinking about the stories she’d told. If only half of them were true, he might have a sporting chance against the red beast if he but kept to her daft excuse for a plan. The only thing she hadn’t considered was that he could never flee and leave her behind. Or perhaps she had considered it just before she asked for that promise—a promise he could not make.

Better get on, then. If he could best the man, he would at least have one more night in the dark with Juliet. Perhaps, once his date with the hangman was over, she’d be able to cajole her way out of the Gordon keep since she’d no longer be burdened with saving his hide.

He faced the laird of the clan.

“I’ve been told I’ll be fighting this day,” he said.

“Aye, ye will be.” The Gordon leaned to one side of his large chair and grinned.

Quinn tried to think of something that might douse the old man’s mood.

“Are you certain?” he asked. “What if I refuse the play?”

It worked. The Cock o’ the North sat forward and frowned.

“Then the woman below will be sent home with her husband.” He pointed to the tall one. “And ye will meet yer maker on the morn, as I’ve said. I suspected ye’d rather leave this world fightin’, but if ye’d rather leave it like a woman, then so be it.”

The redhead met his gaze, but he couldn’t guess what the man was thinking. It was a fact, the man was trying to say something with his brows, but only the devil could know.

Quinn turned back to his host. “And if I beat this man?”

The Gordon grinned. “‘Tis...unlikely.”

The hall erupted in laughter.

“‘Tis possible,” Quinn shouted to be heard.

The laird lifted a hand and the hall went silent.

“I’m ever a man of me word, Montgomery Ross. I promised ye a hanging in the mornin’, and if yer still alive when the sun shows itself, I’ll not fail ye. If he kills ye, then ye’ll be spared the hangin’ is all. But you were the one to claimed to have The Sight. We’ll still burn ye; we’ll do it proper or not at all.”

Quinn grinned. “I prefer not at all, of course.”

“Noted.” The Gordon sat back and relaxed.

Quinn couldn’t leave it at that. “But surely I’ll deserve a proper reward?”

Gordon frowned, then smiled knowingly. “Ye want the lass in yer cell for yer final night, is that it?”

The redhead’s mouth dropped open. He looked fairly irritated at the turn of the conversation. Either he didn’t care to hear that he might not win the battle—which meant he thought quite highly of himself—or he didn’t care for the idea of Quinn having the lass alone in the dark. And that didn’t make sense unless the bastard had similar intentions for Juliet.

Something was amiss with this one. Perhaps his journey through the tomb had left his brains a bit foosty.

Quinn shook his head and answered Gordon.

“Not at all. I want her released. I want her returned to Castle Ross and protected from him.” He pointed at the hitman.

“Well, if he’s dead, then she’ll have no need to fear him, aye?”

Everyone within earshot seemed to appreciate Gordon’s joke.

“I won’t kill him,” Quinn said. “I’ll fight him. I might even beat him. But I’ll not kill him. And I’ll have your word the woman will be returned to Castle Ross, unharmed.”

Gordon waived an impatient hand. “Fair enough. Ye have me word. But I’ll wager Bond James, here, will be taking his wife home this night.”

And so the betting began.

Quinn stripped off his constricting shirt and heard a gasp to his left. Betha was suddenly pushed behind one of her brothers. He got only a brief glimpse of her wide eyes before they disappeared behind the shoulders of two Gordons.

Too little, too late, he thought. She shouldn’t have taken her time about freeing him. No matter. He was destined to be in the Gordon’s dungeon when Juliet was brought in. He understood that now. Fate had been planning their encounter for a good while. He only hoped Fate had something in mind for he and the lass that involved a great deal of time together.

That was worth fighting for.

Quinn took the excess plaid from his ancient kilt and twisted it, then wrapped it about his waist and tucked in the end. A length of cloth over his shoulder would just prove a convenient hand hold for his enemy, or so Ewan had taught him. The more Quinn had trained in the plaid, the more he understood why old soldiers preferred to fight without any clothing at all. Of course, if he attempted to fight in the Gordon’s hall, in his altogether, he might find himself missing a vital part or two, all thanks to the armed audience in Gordon colors.

The big man noted how he’d wrapped his plaid and followed suit. Then he made a spectacle of giving up all his hidden blades.

Quinn met the man’s gaze and lifted a brow. The man had a gun hidden somewhere, but it would be wise for Quinn to insist he set the weapon aside. What the Gordons would think of the gun, he could not say. But he could at least make sure the man couldn’t use that gun on Juliet, whether to harm her or compel her to leave with him.

The man raised a brow as well.

Quinn made his hand into a pretend gun—a sign that would mean nothing to the onlookers.

The redhead frowned briefly, then gave his head a slight shake.

Quinn understood it to mean that he was supposed to keep his mouth shut about the gun. But why would he? Was this man not the enemy?

“Battle!” cried Laird Gordon, and suddenly any further discussion was ended.

The big man ran at him, threw his long arms around him and clamped his fingers together behind Quinn’s neck. Then he pressed his forehead to Quinn’s own.

“Quinn Ross,” he whispered. “You haven’t got any more sense than Juliet. Did the name James Bond tell you nothing?”

Quinn pushed him off, but ran back at him again, anxious to keep the man from calling him Quinn again. But how did he know? Ewan wouldn’t have told him. Not if he’d come chasing after Juliet, to eventually see her eliminated. Ewan would have guarded the Ross secrets with his life.

Quinn was surprised, actually, that Ewan hadn’t sent a marksman after him, worried The Gordon might torture those golden secrets off his tongue. After all, one man’s life was hardly worth the price the clan would pay if the truth got out. And they’d pay that price for generations.

“Who told you my name?” He ground the question out through his teeth while he held his arm around the other man’s neck. Getting behind the bastard hadn’t been easy.

“Ewan Ross told me,” the man grunted, then held tight to Quinn’s arm and flipped him over his wide back and onto the floor.

The filthy rushes were a fine inducement to get on his feet again, and they began circling each other. The crowd made accommodations.

“Liar,” Quinn said. “Ewan Ross would have taken my name to the grave. He’d tell no hitman—”

“You idiot!” the big man roared as he rushed him.

He wrapped his arms around Quinn’s entire body, trapping his arms to his sides. Their faces were inches apart.

“Bond. James Bond. I’m MI6. Not some bleedin’ hitman. The FBI lost her at the airport. I was sent to watch her sister’s house. When Juliet ran from me, every time she ran from me, she never gave me a chance to explain.”

Quinn gave the bastard a Glasgow kiss and heard the satisfying crunch of another man’s bones. The redhead stumbled back, one hand on his nose, the other flung wide in search of support. Two Gordon brothers were knocked on their arses, as was Betha. She was lost under the pile, but they heard her screeching clearly enough.

“I don’t believe you.” Quinn spit at the man. “How long does it take to say I’m MI6?”

He moved back and gave the man room to get up. He also needed time to recover. That head-butt was the worst thing he could have done to himself. The world was spinning around him, slightly off axis. The crowd watched closely and he could tell which men had bet against him by the frowns on their faces.

Percy, surprisingly enough, was smiling.

Bond wiped a bloody hand across his chest as he stood.

Quinn smiled. At least he’d drawn first blood.

The man hurried forward, and as prepared as Quinn believed he was, he still was unable to avoid the big man’s fist.

He spun around once and though his face was numb and his neck burned, he was pleased to find himself still on his feet. That was, until he realized that the other man was holding him up with a flat hand against his chest. Disappointing, that.

Bond’s big fist pulled back and held. Quinn was pretty sure he could drop like a sack of wheat just before contact.

“I was warned she’d fight me,” said the taller man. “that she didn’t want protection. I thought she understood who I was.”

Quinn couldn’t afford to listen. If that fist connected, it might just kill him. The man had no knowledge of the beating Quinn’s skull had already taken thanks to Gordon hospitality. He might kill Quinn whether or not he meant to.

The fist came slowly. Quinn dropped his butt toward the ground, and when he found himself sitting on it, he also found his head was still attached.

Lucky thing, that.

Bond grabbed his hair in one hand and pulled him to his feet. Standing behind Quinn, he leaned close and spoke low.

“Now quickly, I need you to act like you’ve passed out. I’m going to cut you. You’re going to play dead.”

“Kiss my arse,” Quinn said, then spit blood on the floor.

The crowd laughed.

“Play dead, Quinn. Ewan’s waitin’ with horses. I’ll insist on taking your body back to Ewan.”

Bond pushed him away and Quinn spun to face him. They danced in a circle again.

“MI6? Truly?”

“MI6, ye dense bastard.” The man rushed him and put his hands around his neck.

Quinn bore down to turn his face red, but he couldn’t resist complaining.

“It’s a bit too Romeo and Juliet, don’t you think? My playing dead?”

“Well, just be glad you get to play the part of Romeo. I, for one, wouldn’t touch her with a ten meter pole.”

Quinn went limp, then was glad the man tossed him onto his face so those watching wouldn’t notice any twitching.

“Here. Finish him,” came Gordon’s voice. “Through the heart, Bond James. I’ll not have him rousing while he’s roasting on the spit. The women doona appreciate it.”

“I can imagine,” said Bond. “Will you have my wife brought?”

“Aye. Percy. Fetch her.”

Someone knelt on Quinn’s back. “Sorry about this,” the man said.

Hot fire sliced his back. There was no telling how deeply the blade had gone. He could only pray he’d put his trust in a true MI6 agent and not some lunatic whose mind was bent by a wee jaunt through time.

He dared not move, even when warm blood puddled on his back and tickled his side on its way toward the floor. If Bond James Bond wasn’t MI6, Quinn was going to take him apart. Slice by slice.

He concentrated on breathing as slowly as possible—not easy when his mind was reeling. He only needed to think calming thoughts. Immediately, his mind went to Juliet and the panic dissolved.

His lungs were still working. Neither of them punctured, thankfully. His sweat was drying quickly on his face.

The murmurs of the crowd turned to chatter. A dog trotted over and started licking his face. He fought his facial muscles, forcing them to relax when the beasts tongue slipped past his lips.

He hoped the thing wouldn’t start licking up his blood, and even the thought of it pushed him over the edge—he couldn’t help it when his entire body shivered in revulsion.

“There now, there’s a death rattle for ye,” said Gordon. “Ah, here comes yer wife now. Let her see that her lover is dead and she should look to you now.”

Dear Lord! Juliet! How could he just lie there and let her believe him dead? She didn’t know yet that Bond was an agent. She would fight him. And how would she react when she thought she had sent Quinn to his death?

He couldn’t stand it another second. He had to stand up and fight their way out. Use the fall back plan. Bash, fight, and run.

A boot came down hard on his back.

“Here, wife. Come. There is no reason for you to pretend. Tell Laird Gordon I’m your rightful husband.”

He felt her coming, heard her slow steps, how she choked back a sob.

“I’ll kill you for this,” she whispered. “You’ve just removed any leverage you might have had over me. I would have done anything to have him spared. Anything. Now you’re the dead man.”

There was only silence while his heart beat loud in his ears. He couldn’t help but be touched by the passion in her voice and be thrilled that her feelings for him might equal his for her. The pressure on his back never let up and he was lucky it didn’t. He needed the reminder to keep his breathing slow in spite of his urge to shout for joy.

When Juliet spoke again, her voice had changed.

“Forgive me, Laird Gordon. We’ll get out of your way now. I’m sorry we bothered you with our personal problems. Come, husband. We really don’t need witnesses.” Her voice was sticky sweet. Her accent wasn’t pretty.

“Hold a moment, Lady Bond,” the agent said. “We’ll go when I’m ready. Laird Gordon, allow me to return Laird Ross to his cousin. Ewan will wish to seal him in the tomb with his sister witch. Ye can hardly wish to have the likes of him haunting yer home.”

There was a drawn out silence. The only thing Quinn heard was the sound of the crowd’s breathing.

“Why would ye do such a thing, Bond James? Do ye not believe the more pressing need is to meet out the woman’s punishment and set yer house to rights? Perhaps there is something ye mean to hide from me?”

The agent laughed. “Nothing to hide. Ye’ve been right generous with me. I’ll be the same. ‘Tis the truth, Ewan Ross has something I need. I mean to trade the body of Montgomery Ross for it. I also meant what I said about Laird Ross’s ghost. It is only my opinion that a man’s ghost will likely be more bothersome than that of a woman, but I might be mistaken. Perhaps ye have a priest about who might have better advice?”

In the silence that followed, Quinn could imagine dry wood being added around the pole in the outer bailey. If his enemy remained unmoved, how in the bloody hell was he going to escape that?

“Devil take ye,” Gordon snarled. “Away with ye, then. Take Montgomery Ross. And someone clean his blood from my hall. I won’t have him coming back for it on Samhain!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Juliet Ross, brace yerself,” the redhead whispered in her ear.

She was seated on his horse, basically in his lap, while Quinn’s body was strapped over the horse her supposed husband had brought along for her. The head and arms of her supposed lover hung down the side nearest them. She tried not to stare at the large bloodstain on the rough sack cloth in which they’d wrapped the body.

“Quinn’s not dead,” the man behind her said carefully.

“Just what is your name?” she blurted. “I can’t keep thinking of you as Gabby’s hitman.”

He didn’t answer, so she turned to look at his face. It was located a bit higher than expected, so she tipped her head back. His mouth was hanging open.

“Your name?”

“James, actually. Did you not hear what I said?”

She faced forward. “Yes. I know.”

“You know?” Quinn’s words were muffled, but intelligible just the same. His carcass didn’t move. The hands still hung limp.

“You’re doing a fine job, Quinn. You still look dead.” She knew if she was the one who had to play dead for miles and miles, she’d appreciate a little encouragement.

James gave a rude laugh. She decided to ignore him.

“How did you know?” came Quinn’s voice again.

“I’m not an idiot,” she said. “I figured it out while I was still in the dungeon.”

“You did not,” whispered James.

Jules shrugged. “You’d be amazed how much clearer things seem in the dark.”

“Bull. Shite.”

His breath on her ear made her shiver.

She shook her head and gave him a frown. “That tickles my ear.”

“What?” Quinn demanded. If he wasn’t careful, their distant escort might hear him.

“Hush,” she hissed.

When she realized James had been tormenting Quinn on purpose, she glared over her shoulder. James grinned back.

She rolled her eyes and spoke loud enough for Quinn to hear.

“It was something Martin, the blind guard, said. That you didn’t sound like a monster to him. That made me consider what else you might be. And I remembered you’d never actually come out and said you were going to kill me or deliver me to Gabby.

“There were only two possibilities when you chased me into Castle Ross. Hitman or cop. If you were a British babysitter—I mean agent—then you wouldn’t be beating my boyfriend to death. Then there was the small detail of you winking at me every chance you got.”

Quinn grunted.

James laughed. “Shut up, man. Twenty minutes and I’ll let you sit.” He then gave her a little squeeze around the middle. He was enjoying himself. For a few quiet minutes they were lulled by the clap of horses’ hooves on wet mud. Finally, Quinn’s voice interrupted again.

“Did she say boyfriend?”

James laughed. “She did.”

Jules was mortified. The man was at least ten years older than her, and she’d called him her boyfriend.

Gah!

Somewhere, under all that burlap, he was probably rolling his eyes, wondering how he was ever going to get rid of her.

She’d plunged into a special kind of hell when she’d seen Quinn lying on the floor and for that second or two afterwards—until she’d convinced herself it was a hoax. She would have thrown herself across his body and started checking for vital signs if it hadn’t been for the slow twitch of James’ eye. Then, she was able to do a little method acting of her own. But had it been enough? Was someone suspecting, even now? Would Gordon send men after them?

Jules turned in the saddle. “Can’t this horse go any faster?”

James gave her a little smile. “Oh, aye. But it will jostle our package to death in truth. We only need to get over that ridge. Just keep watching the ridge.”

She realized his arm had inched up a bit from her waist. Then she felt his long fingers twitch. Maybe he was enjoying himself just a little too much.

“You can let go of me now. I promise this Wyoming girl can keep her butt in the saddle. And it’s not like I’m going to run off, right?”

“Oh, right ye are. I beg pardon.” He pulled his arm away.

He still sat too close, and she could feel his breath against the top of her head, but she was done complaining.

“James?”

“Aye?”

“Are you married?”

“Uh uh.”

Quinn mumbled something she didn’t understand, but James must have. He scooted his rump back behind the saddle, until their bodies were no longer touching.

***

As it turned out, they had to leave Quinn across the saddle for a lot longer than planned because at the top of the ridge, there were a dozen Gordons guarding the border. All of them watched James and her like they were suspected pick-pockets leaving a jewelry store. She could feel their stares while they headed down the other side of the ridge with their package in tow.

When the ground leveled out again, James finally turned off the road and into the woods. Remembering the wolf she’d faced, she didn’t know if it was time to relax, or time to worry harder.

“This is the straightest shot toward Ross lands. They would expect us to leave the road here,” he said.

As her eyes adjusted to the shadows, she realized they were on a well-worn trail. A minute later, the hairs rose at the back of her head and on her forearms. They were no longer alone. She frantically looked around for a stick and discovered they weren’t surrounded by wolves, but by Highlanders all decked out in blue paint like they were headed for a Colt’s game. Then she remembered. War Paint.

Shit.

They didn’t have time for this. They needed to get Quinn off the horse and treat his wound, not defend themselves again.

She took a deep breath and prepared to pull out her best bravado, when James gave her a little squeeze. He’d scooted close again.

“Don’t move,” James said clearly, and she knew his warning was for Quinn too.

The biggest painted man urged his horse forward until he was in their faces. He held a heavy sword in one hand, reins in the other. He glanced from James to her and back again. His expression told her nothing.

“Hello again, ye ruddy bastard,” he said.

James laughed. “Ewan, is that you? Only my own grandda calls me that.”

“More like he’s the only one to say it to yer face.” Ewan suddenly grinned and his paint cracked around his lips. His beard looked like he’d cleaned the blue off his fingers with it.

To Jules, he looked beautiful. And only when her body relaxed did she realize how tightly she’d been wound. She nearly fell off the horse, shaming the state of Wyoming.

Ewan looked at the other horse. He had to know whose body it was.

“And where’s me cousin, then?” he asked anyway.

Quinn groaned.

Ewan nearly jumped off his horse. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”

“He’s not dead,” James announced, like he should get credit for that.

“But I am bleeding,” Quinn mumbled.

James had promised that as he was tying Quinn’s body to the horse, he’d been sure to place pressure over the wound in his back, promised that pressure was the only thing they could do for him until they met up with Ewan. He’d also promised the hole wasn’t deep, but that didn’t keep Jules from worrying.

Frankly, she was surprised he hadn’t passed out, hanging over a horse, all that blood going to his head.

Jules swung a leg over her horse’s head and jumped down, but when she ducked beneath its chin to get to Quinn, a big man was blocking her way. She tried to step around him, but he was already lifting Quinn’s body off the horse and onto his shoulder.

“Quinn!” It was pitiful, really, but she had to let him know she gave a damn that he was bleeding.

The big man turned to look at her and she tried to read his expression through the slashes of paint. He looked an awful lot like—

And he looked just as shocked as she was.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. She could feel herself blush, for all the things she’d fantasized about this man in spite of the fact he was technically her brother in law.

“Juliet, is it? We’ve come to bring ye safely home, lass. To the arms of yer family.”

And just like that, her insides started falling apart, like she was a human sized pastry that had just had all its filling sucked out. Pieces of her broke away like crust, including the words she’d intended to say to this man once she got up the courage to knock on his door, the words she’d laid out in her mind to make damn sure his wife suffered enough in five minutes to make them even. If they were going to be nice to her... If they were going to be nice to her, she was doomed. None of the mental weapons she’d prepared would be effective against nice.

She fought the urge to turn and run, not sure her legs would cooperate and damned sure she didn’t want to leave Quinn.

“Monty Ross,” came Quinn’s muffled voice. “Keep yer bloody arms to yerself. She’s mine.”

The big man put Quinn’s feet on the ground and steadied him, then began unwrapping him, carefully, frowning at the wide bloodstain as he pulled it away. Quinn grasped at the plaid at his waist when the unwrapping might have gone too far. Jules couldn’t have looked away if she’d tried. His back was a bloody mess, but the hole looked small. And she was relieved to see he’d stopped bleeding for the moment.

“I’ve yet to touch her, Nephew.” Montgomery laughed. “And I can’t tell ye how pleased I am to find yer still alive.”

Quinn ignored him and turned to face her. The way his eyes crinkled, she figured he was pleased to find her so near. She gave him the same smile, but what pleased her was the fact that he’d claimed her.

Too bad it was only for the moment.

Leaving him behind was going to suck. If she was smart, she’d start preparing herself now. But she didn’t want to waste what time they had left.

Who was she kidding? It was already sucking. The reality that they would never see each other again, after she climbed back in that tomb, made her feel hot and sick on the inside. The cool air of shadows surrounded her. A few deep breaths of it helped.

When he reached for her, she stepped up to him quickly, ecstatic there were no longer any bars between them. And as he pulled her to his bare chest, her fingers started tingling. She couldn’t tell if that tingling was due to the fact her fingers were finally getting a little oxygen or if they were anticipating the touch of Quinn’s chest.

His breath caught.

She pushed him back to look at his face. He smiled and gave her a wink, but she could tell he was in a great deal of pain.

“You can hold me later,” she said and tried to step back.

He held her fast. “I believe I’ll hold you later as well,” he said, then bent down to kiss her. It was a glorious kiss with no bars pressing into their faces. “You promised,” he whispered. “‘Till the end, aye. ‘Tisn’t the end yet.”

He kissed her again and she heard the chuckle of more than one man, then the gasp of a woman.

“Montgomery! He’s bleeding!”

The woman’s voice sounded a little too familiar. Jules hadn’t considered that her twin would sound like her too.

Quinn looked down into her face. He was worried.

“Ready or not, aye?”

Tears welled in her eyes, but not because she was afraid. She was just so relieved he understood her so well.

“I’m a coward,” she whispered. “Who knew?”

Quinn laughed. “I suppose you could bash her on the head and try to fight your way out.”

She sighed. “Yeah, but that plan’s getting a little old.”

Quinn nodded.  “Will you let me handle this?”

Jules smiled, grateful, and got a wink as a reward. He pushed her hair back behind her ears, straightened her coat, then pivoted so they both faced the woman waiting behind him.

Binoculars hadn’t done the woman justice. And she’d been right. Jillian Ross was a beauty—like a Photo-Shopped version of the chick Jules saw in the mirror each morning.

“Holy shit,” she said at the same time Jillian said, “Holy crap.”

No one laughed.

“Jilly?” Quinn gave the woman a little bow. “This is my... This is Juliet. She’s mine. I’m certain the pair of you will find the time to get to know one another, but just now, I need you to tend to my back, aye?”

Jillian’s pale face stared at her. It was like looking at a ghost. Jules was frozen in place.

“I’m bleeding, Jilly. Remember?” Quinn lowered his head to get the woman’s attention.

Jilly noticed him again, nodded, then hurried away to one of the horses. When she came back, she was carrying a first aid kit.

Jules suddenly felt...extra, like she’d been holding someone’s place in the world and now that someone was there to take it back. She was nothing more than a seat-filler, and the appropriate thing for her to do at the moment was to get the hell out of the picture.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

For a half hour, James paced around their little group while Quinn was cleaned and sewn up by her sister.  The woman seemed to know what she was doing, so Jules let her at it. But she couldn’t bear to stand near her.

Quinn seemed to understand. At least he didn’t complain about her not holding his hand while a needle was poked in and out of him.

They still hadn’t spoken. Quinn had needed all of Jillian’s attention. But the woman kept glancing over at her. She paced about twenty feet away, between two trees, feeling like an orphan looking through the dining room window at a real family sitting down for Thanksgiving.

She felt a heavy arm descend over her shoulders and glanced up, sure she would see James there, trying to make Quinn jealous. But it was Montgomery.

“Ye see, Jillian?” the man called to his wife. “I’ve got her. She’s not going anywhere.” In a lower voice he said, “For the love of God, don’t go anywhere.”

Jules laughed.

Quinn’s head snapped around. He looked at Montgomery, then at her. There was a question in his eyes and she knew just what he was asking. Was she remembering the dream? Imagining it was Montgomery on the other side of the bars? The fact that he would worry made her tear up.

She looked intently into Quinn’s eyes and shook her head slowly, clearly.

He smiled and nodded. Then she looked from him to Jillian and back, asking him the same silent question. He laughed and shook his head.

“What the bloody hell was that about?” Montgomery asked it none too quietly.

“Private joke,” she said.

“Ah. And just how much privacy did you and my nephew enjoy?” He’d sounded like a protective father, not a brother in law.

“Oh, we didn’t enjoy it.”

Quinn frowned, then called out. “The hell we didn’t.”

Jillian made Quinn lift one arm, pushed it up a little higher, then gave him a good frown. Then she bent back to her stitching. A second later, Quinn cried out.

Montgomery laughed. Jillian slapped her patient on the shoulder, like it was his own fault he’d gotten hurt.

Quinn held very still, but spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

“I’d be better able to concentrate, Jillian, if a certain great uncle of mine would just remove his hands from my woman.”

Jillian straightened and dropped the bloody rag she’d been holding. She glanced in Jules’ direction, but not up at her face. Tears poured from her eyes and she walked away, in the opposite direction, into the trees.

Montgomery’s arm disappeared from Jules’ shoulders and he ran after his wife. She didn’t go far, though, and collapsed at the bottom of a tree, bawling into her hands.

“Jillian! You will be all right, do you hear?”

“No. No, I won’t,” she sobbed quietly, but her voice carried in the moist air.

“Is it the babe? Do you wish to lie down?”

“No. The baby’s fine. But...” She was crying too hard to finish.

She was pregnant?

Well, hormonal or not, Jules knew the crying was her fault. If she were anyone else, she might have been able to run up to the woman who was supposedly her sister, throw her arms around her, and start celebrating. But she just wasn’t like that.

Jillian Ross wasn’t just a stranger; she’d been the bane of Jules’ existence. And she couldn’t just pretend it wasn’t true. She had to show a little loyalty to herself, to remember what she’d come here to do. She was finally close enough to speak to the chick. It was time to suck it up and do it. After all, Jillian was already crying—she couldn’t make it much worse.

Her pounding heart propelled her across the clearing and she didn’t stop walking until she was standing in front of her sister. Montgomery was squatting beside his wife, drying her tears with her own hair. He stood and gave Jules a grateful smile, then started to walk away.

“Wait. You probably don’t want to leave her,” she warned. “Not when you hear what I’ve come to say.”

Monty’s brows rose, but he looked more curious than worried. He shared a glance with Jillian, then leaned against the tree. Within comforting distance maybe.

“First of all,” Jules began, “I want to thank you for taking care of Quinn. I don’t know anything about stitching wounds. I’m probably a lot better at inflicting them. I’m sure you’ll agree in a minute.”

Jillian put a hand on the ground and got to her feet. “I guess if you plan to hurt me, I shouldn’t take it sitting down,” she said. Then she wiped a sleeve across her face and lifted her chin.

It was all too painful to watch, like Jules was seeing herself move, hearing something she might have said under the same circumstances. But she shook off the empathetic impressions and got back to the script she’d practiced on the hillside.

“My parents... Our parents died in a car crash...” She couldn’t go on. After all this rehearsing, she couldn’t tell this ghostly version of herself that it was her fault her parents died. Maybe, now that she wasn’t alone anymore, she could see through that red, angry fog and admit that it hadn’t been Jillian’s fault. All the fault should be laid at their grandmother’s feet.

“My grandmother,” Jillian began. “Our grandmother told me my parents died in a car wreck. She never said anything about a sister. She said we had no other family. I’ve known about you for about thirty-six hours.”

Her sister swallowed, then gave a little smile, but it didn’t stay long. She must have read something on Jules’ face that told her not to start celebrating. It must have been the shock. When Jules was able to speak again, she couldn’t seem to turn up the volume enough to hear herself clearly. What she did hear clearly was her heart pounding against the wall of her chest.

“You don’t remember me?” She didn’t know if she was more hurt or outraged. She’d considered the possibility, but it hadn’t seemed possible that Jillian’s memory would be worse than her own. The second time she spoke, she was nice and clear. “You’re claiming you don’t remember me?”

When her voice bounced around the trees and back into her face, she glanced over at Montgomery, to see if he was going to come to his wife’s defense, but he was gone. Jillian followed her gaze.

About twenty feet away, the missing husband had his arms over the shoulders of Quinn and Ewan and the three of them were sneaking quickly away into the mist. James, who now stood guard over the horses, seemed to realize he’d been abandoned. He turned aside and whistled softly.

“Cowards,” she and Jillian said in unison.

Neither of them laughed.

“To answer your question,” Jillian said, “no, I didn’t remember you. Since the Muir sisters told me we were twins, I’ve remembered just a few things. Little, stupid things. I didn’t even remember your name, although Jules sounded a lot more familiar than Juliet. I should have been able to remember your name. I’m so sorry.”

“I would have given anything to forget yours,” Jules mumbled.

Jillian’s mouth opened like she’d just been punched in the stomach, but she recovered quickly for someone who’d just been bawling her head off.

“First blood goes to you,” said her sister. “Fine. So I’ll tell you what’s been bothering me for the last day and a half. If you’ve known about me, remembered me, why the hell didn’t you come looking for me before now?”

Jules’ mouth opened with an indignant grunt. “Are you kidding me? I spent my life looking for you! You stupid, self-centered bitch! You never looked back! You never looked for us!”

To her horror, that little outburst opened a floodgate of her own wild emotions. She couldn’t catch her next breath and was at the mercy of her own contorting body. The only way to breathe was to bawl.

Quinn came out of nowhere, but it wasn’t his arms that came around her, it was Jillian’s.

“Get out of here,” her sister barked at him.

Jules was grateful he went. Even her hand spread wide couldn’t hide her gaping, howling mouth, and she turned toward her sister and buried her face against her so no one else could see the ugliness. There was just too much pain for her to handle on her own. For once, just this once, she’d lean on Jillian, but just until the tide in her chest turned.

Jules hadn’t noticed when they’d made it to the ground, but as her surroundings crept back into her awareness, she realized they were seated right hip to right hip facing opposite directions, with their heads on each other’s right shoulders. Jillian flipped a small square of plaid over her arm and Jules hurried to blow her nose on it before anyone told her it was meant for something else. Scots were funny about their plaids, weren’t they?

Jillian let go of her and pulled back to look in her face.

“You said, You never came looking for us.” She took a deep breath. “Who is us?”

Jules wasn’t sure she could talk, but she tried.

“Mom and Dad,” she said.

Jillian frowned. “But they died, when we were three.”

“No. They died when just before our tenth birthday. We looked for you for six years. It’s what we did. Then, after I was old enough to drive, I was always looking for you too. By then I was pretty mad and wanted to take it out on somebody. It wasn’t until I was snooping in an FBI agent’s stuff that I found the file they had on me. They’d known about you, and about grandmother. Suddenly I knew right where to find you.”

Jillian was shaking her head and tearing up again. “I don’t understand. Why would Grandmother have lied to me? Why would she keep me from my parents? Were they abusive?”

“No! No, they were wonderful.” Jules realized she’d been so angry for so long she’d forgotten how lucky she’d been. “It was Grandmother,” she said. “She was crazy. Mother refused to believe her conspiracy theories so Grandmother took you away. Supposedly, she was protecting you from something that was supposed to happen in the future. Now that I know about the tomb, I’m not so sure she was crazy. But how did she know?”

“It’s a long story. Let’s just say, she misunderstood something she heard. I’ll tell you all about it another time. And you can tell me what our parents were like.”

“Deal,” Jules said.

Jillian leaned back on her hands and looked at the toes of her green boots.

“I remember a little girl who I thought was just my reflection in a mirror,” she said. “And a bear named Necklace.”

“White bear with purple legs and arms?”

“And head.”

Jules shook her head. “It wasn’t Necklace. It was Jewels. Your bear was Jules. Mine was Jillybean. They’re in a box, somewhere.”

“Grandmother called me Jillybean.”

“So did I.” Jules swallowed back a wave of tears rising in her throat.

Jillian smiled. “I can’t believe you kept them all this time.”

“Yeah. Neither can I.”

They sat in silence for a minute. It was a comfortable silence. Jules could almost imagine she heard her sister’s thoughts.

Someone cleared his throat on the far side of the tree. “Does this mean you two are ready to—”

“Go away!” they shouted together, and this time they laughed.

The guy was gone so fast Jules didn’t know if it had been Quinn or Monty who’d tried to interrupt them.

“So. Is there anything else you wanted to get off your chest?” Jillian asked. “You know, in case we need to cry some more before I finish stitching up Quinn?”

“No. I think—well, at least I hope—I’m done being mean to you.”

Jillian laughed.

They heard a scuffle, then a strange thunk, then silence.

“Jillian! I’m bleedin’,” Monty called.

Jillian shook her head and didn’t move.

“Then stop fighting with Ewan,” she called back.

They giggled, then waited.

A few minutes later, there was another plea for attention.

“Quinn’s bleedin’ again!”

That time, it sounded like Quinn’s voice, but they both jumped to their feet and went hurrying around the tree. Monty and Ewan didn’t look too happy to see them. They both passed a coin to first Quinn, then James.

“How much did you lose, husband?” Jillian walked over and prodded Monty’s arm with a sharp fingernail and he winced.

“Naught,” he said.

“But I saw you pass coins,” she argued.

Monty looked at Quinn and grimaced. Quinn shook his head so slightly Jules wondered if she’d imagined it—if it weren’t for the guilty way he avoided eye contact when he reached for her.

“What did you bet on?” she asked him.

“Nothing of import,” Monty claimed.

“What did you bet on, husband?” Jillian ran her dangerous fingernails up Monty’s chest and by the time she reached his neck, his defenses were forgotten.

“The first wager was determined by which was made of sterner stuff and wouldna greet first.” He cleared his throat. “Knowin’ ye fer the strong woman ye are, I bet on ye, wife.” He grinned like he expected a reward.

Jules figured greet meant cry. Well, at least Quinn had bet on her. He’d lost, but he’d bet on her. She made a mental note to reward him later, but saw nothing wrong with hugging him tight right then.

“And the second wager was whose blood would bring ye runnin’,” Monty continued. “I must admit to being a wee disappointed in ye, mavournin’.”

“Be disappointed later, uncle,” said Quinn. “For I meant what I said. I am bleeding again.”

***

Jules resumed her pacing between the same two trees while she waited for Jillian to finish with Quinn. He’d already pulled out a stitch, and didn’t mind getting poked again, but something about it bothered Jules and while she paced, she realized what it was.

What if he got an infection? Here. Now.

Could she convince him to go back to the real world with her? Was she wrong to even think it? Wrong to ask him?

But there was something else bothering her too. Something more immediate. Another foreboding.

She spun on her heel and met her sister’s gaze. She suspected the frown on Jillian’s face matched her own. Whatever the foreboding was, her sister felt it too.

“Montgomery,” Jillian called. “We need to leave. Now.”

She said something to Quinn. He nodded. Then Jillian shoved her supplies in her little first aid kit and headed for her horse. Jules could only think to go to Quinn. He raised an arm and waved her to him, smiling, oblivious to whatever it was she and Jillian were feeling.

She took two steps through the pine needles when she was stopped by James’ bellow—the alarm she’d been dreading to hear for months.

“Gun!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

A dozen thoughts flew through Jules’ mind while she ran and lunged for Quinn.

Would she hurt him when they collided? Could she protect his head? Had the Gordon’s been watching and decided to perform their own execution? Or had a hitman been following her after all? It wasn’t impossible to think a Skedros might have tagged along, might have jumped into the parade line through the car park and into the tomb. It didn’t matter that it was fourteen hundred something and guns might not have been invented yet—James was there, and James had one. Therefore, it was possible someone else did too.

Jules had spent far too many months in close quarters with FBI agents not to react as she did. With all the false alarms and dry runs, she was programmed to hit the ground when anyone yelled gun. But Quinn was another story. Maybe his twenty-first century senses had dulled over the past year. Of course he still knew what a gun was, but he might not react so quickly. Not to mention he’d been sitting on that ancient log with a hand in the air like he was just asking to be someone’s target.

Just as Quinn reached for Jules-The-Flying-Squirrel, something pinched her in the waist. Hard. The impact of her body slamming into Quinn’s hardly registered at all. But when she landed on top of him on the far side of the log, she felt it.

Below her, Quinn gasped for air. The wind must have been knocked out of his lungs, so she needed to get off him so he could breathe, but she couldn’t seem to move.

“Let me up,” she panted. “You can’t breathe.”

He shook his head and held her close. “Dinna move, love. We’re pinned. An arrow, I’m certain.”

She put her chin down but couldn’t see anything. If the arrow went into her waist, then into him, it could have hit just about anything depending on the angle.

“Dinna panic, lass,” he whispered. “And be still. He’s still out there, aye?”

“Enos!” Ewan bellowed the name over and over. “The threat has passed, Enos. Stand ye doon!”

“Ewan?” A different man’s voice then. “How the hell was I to recognize ye with all that paint?”

“How do ye think, ye big bastard?” Ewan’s voice again. “Ever seen the Ross tartan afore?”

Jules and Quinn only looked at each other while they listened to a short fist fight. Only when it ended with a satisfying thunk, did she dare speak.

“Enough!”

“Sounds like Monty,” Quinn said.

“Sounds like you,” she whispered, then gave him a peck on the lips when it looked like her comment hadn’t pleased him. “You’re going to be fine,” she added, ignoring how bossy she sounded.

He was even more handsome than he’d been in dungeons or dreams. She could have stared at him all day, but he would need stitching again. She supposed she would too. And without anything to numb her!

Her head fit nicely against his collarbone. At least the arrow hadn’t gone through either of their hearts because they were both beating hard up against each other.

“Is anyone hurt?” James this time.

“Will ye stay with me, lass?” Quinn’s question brought back all the dreams and all the emotions in them. It was a little painful, but she reached up and pushed his hair out of his eyes. For once, she was going to look into them while they had their conversation.

“Until it’s over?” Jules shuddered as the dream echoed in her ears and sharper pain shot through her shoulder— like lightning, branching off in mean directions. She could see it doing the same to Quinn.

“Nay, lass. This will never be over. You and I will never be over. We’re meant.”

Monty peeked over the log and laughed. “Ah, here they are. Moonin’— Dear God! Juliet’s been hit!”

***

Other than the day Jillian and her grandmother had gone missing—and granted, she didn’t remember much more than her mother bawling and ranting and pulling on her own hair—this day had been the most emotional of Jule’s life. And considering she’d also witnessed the murder of a dear friend that was saying a lot.

As it turned out, the man who’d shot her had been ordered, by Ewan, to kill Quinn. Ewan had tried to explain why, but Jules seemed to be the only one in the bunch that didn’t understand.

“Mayhap ye’d have a better understanding after ye’ve spent more time in my century, aye?” said Ewan, standing over her where she leaned against an equally traumatized and bleeding Quinn. Jillian had done what she could. The little round holes were clean. The arrow had been removed. And she was certain that nothing organ-ish had been affected in either of them. They’d been extremely lucky.

She shook her head. “Spend more time here? No way am I sticking around until it all makes sense. You people will never make sense.”

Quinn tensed and she realized what her little statement would have sounded like to him. She looked over, ready to explain, but he was watching a long lanky man walk toward them. A bow was slung over his bare and bony shoulder. She tried not to stare at the creature-like tufts of hair that filled his armpits.

“Jules,” Ewan said, “this is Enos.”

Enos, the man who had nailed both her and Quinn with one shot, gave her a little bow and mumbled something she didn’t understand. An apology, she assumed.

She gave him a little smile and a nod, having no problem forgiving him for following orders. If Quinn would have died, however, she was pretty sure she would have exacted all kinds of vengeance on his ass.

The man moved on to Quinn, gave him a fierce-looking frown, snatched up the two pieces of arrow that had been pulled from their bodies, then walked away into the trees. She wasn’t too comfortable with him being out there, somewhere, with that frown still on his face, but Ewan and Montgomery didn’t have a problem with it, and they knew the strange man best.

Ewan had decided that since she probably wasn’t going to forgive him, he should be the one to stop her bleeding. She didn’t understand what he was talking about until he came at her with a glowing red knife. She understood perfectly when she woke up to the smell of burned flesh.

It was then that she realized Jillian was a mess. Her sister had serious bed head, like she’d been trying to pull her hair out. Her eyes had thick red rings around them, and her nose didn’t look much better. She’d insisted then and there that if Jules died she’d die too, which Jules found very touching in revenge-free kind of way.

Unfortunately, that made Montgomery freak out and he scooped up his wife and disappeared for a while. When they’d returned, Jillian was noticeably recovered, although she was wearing half of the paint from her husband’s face, and it was Montgomery whose eyes and nose were red.

Jules thought she’d cheer everyone up by announcing that she was determined to live, but she didn’t hold out much hope for Ewan.

Quinn suggested Ewan start spending more time at prayers.

***

Never before had Castle Ross looked as much like a home to Quinn. But never before had he ridden toward it with a lass in his arms who made him want to live and love and laugh again. Well, at least not on horseback. And not for a very long time.

“We have a wee problem,” Ewan pointed out as they started down into the glen where Castle Ross stood waiting for them. The ridge was covered with wildflowers of blue and yellow, waving slowly in the breeze above the pink heather, calling to question the chance that anyone could have a problem on such a lovely summer day in the Highlands.

“What problem, Ewan?” Quinn asked.

“Weel. We’re returnin’ with two living Montgomerys and two green-toed faeries. How do we explain it?”

“Green-toed faeries?” Jules turned to her sister.

Jillian pulled up her skirt to reveal her green ostrich boots she’d been wearing when she first traveled back to the fifteenth century.

Juliet grinned, then pulled up her own skirts. Her boots were grey, but they, too, were ostrich. They were a close match, all but the more intense black of Juliet’s hair.

They’d been crying off and on for hours, with very little said between them, and Quinn wondered if they were somehow speaking in each other’s minds. It was hard to explain it otherwise.

Jillian had insisted on stopping as soon as they reached Ross land, so they could have a chat and the wounded could rest. Then they’d walked into a wee clearing, stood toe to toe, and said nothing at all. Their arms had flown round each other and none of them had been dry since—the rain notwithstanding. Neither had he received much attention from his wee lass. Of course, she was also injured, but he could have used a query or two concerning his own health.

Just then, Juliet twisted the seat before him and looked up.

“Are you okay?” Her hand came up to pat the bandage that covered the hole the arrow had made.

“‘Tis a scratch,” he said, mollified.

He pushed her black hair behind an ear so he could see more of her lovely face. How could he ever have believed she was Jillian?

“And how do you fare, my Juliet?”

A pink shadow rose beneath her smooth cheeks.

“It doesn’t hurt like I thought it would.” She laid her cheek against his chest and sighed as if she were truly happy, in spite of her wounds.

“We must get you seen to. As much as I appreciate Jillian’s forethought when bringing a Primary Aid Kit with her, you still need doctoring. And you’ll not be leaving my side. I won’t stand for it.”

She turned forward and nestled back against him. He preferred to think of it as a sign of agreement.

“You have a bigger problem than that,” James said as he spurred his horse even with Quinn’s.  He nodded toward the woman in his arms. “I’m not leaving this place without Juliet Bell.”

Quinn’s spine stretched in spite of the pain it caused.

“I’ll not allow her out of my sight,” he announced to anyone wanting to know.

Jillian’s horse appeared to his right.

“Well,” she said. “I’m certainly not leaving her here.” Then she turned in the saddle and gave Monty a look that demanded he say something. The look also suggested it be something that would please her.

The big man gave a nod and moved his horse up next to his wife’s.

“And I’ll not be leaving without Jillian, no matter how confusing it might be for our clansmen.” Monty tried not to smile, but failed. Then he laughed and pulled Jillian from her saddle and across his lap. “Was that heroic enough for you, love?”

Jillian rolled her eyes but appeared to be pleased with her new seating arrangement.

“I almost forgot!” she cried suddenly. “Two months ago, I got a package from Grandmother’s attorney.” She turned to Montgomery. “Remember?”

He only shrugged.

“He said he’d tried to find the woman it was meant for, but she’d disappeared. Since it was his last duty as executor, he was passing it on to me for safekeeping. He said if a Ms. Bell ever showed up asking about Grandmother, I was to give the package to her. He also said it was up to me whether or not I opened it, but that’s all he said. I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist taking a peek, so I put it in a safe deposit box in Edinburg. Too far away to tempt me, you know?”

She turned to Juliet.

“I never realized you had a different last name. I’d have remembered sooner. Maybe, whatever she wrote to you, will better explain why she took me. I still can’t believe she didn’t tell me about you, or our parents. I can’t believe I never remembered.” Jillian reached over the empty saddle of her own horse and squeezed Juliet’s hand. “We’ll go to Edinburg just as soon as we’re home.”

Home.

Quinn’s chest tightened and felt a bit hemmed in. He couldn’t help feeling like a greedy bastard, but he was tired of everyone trying to take his woman from him, if indeed she wished to be his.

He pulled back on the reins and his horse stopped, then began backing. “Give us a moment, if you please,” he said to the rest who had begun to slow their mounts.

He guided his horse off the road and close to a stand of birch trees, hoping the rustle of their silver leaves would somewhat mask their conversation and give them a sense of privacy.  Monty raised a brow that warned the distance would have to do. It was irritating to have the man take on the role of Juliet’s protector when Quinn was completely capable of filling that role himself.

Juliet turned in the saddle, looked about at the trees, then up at him. “What now?”

Quinn smiled at the way she’d braced herself, like she was ready to defend them both at the drop of a hat. There was also a small flame of fear in her eyes, as if she worried he was about to shoo her from his saddle.

“Ah, my love. Tell me what you’re thinking. None of us seems to be able to give you up, but it is you who must decide where you will go and with whom, aye?”

Of course he had little choice. The Gordons believed he was dead and if word reached Laird Gordon that he’d been tricked, that the man he believed was Montgomery Ross yet lived, there would be all out war between the clans. Blood would be shed. Lives would be lost. And there was no need, thanks to a certain enchanted tomb that could take Quinn away.

But he wasn’t about to point it out to Juliet. She needed to decide if she wanted him with her after they reached the other side of time itself. He would not force her to change her life to accommodate him if he wasn’t truly the man she wanted.

“Tell me what you want, lass. And don’t think to spare me.”

She nodded, then hung her head. She fiddled with her fingers, but he doubted she was paying them much heed. When he forced her to lift her chin, her eyes were full of tears, and it frightened him.

“What is it, lass?”

Finally, she spoke.

“They all act like I’m so special. I’m not used to that. The Feds only treated me well because I have something they need. My parents always treated me like I was the consolation prize, not the prize. And Gabby only... Only...”

“Gabby what? I’ve heard ye say he’s like a father to ye. Do ye miss him that much, lass?”

“No. I don’t miss him. I miss who I thought he was, but that was just a fantasy. I hate him for taking that fantasy away, I guess. I hate him for killing Nikkos. In that second, after the shot, I realized I’d lost a brother and a father. How can I forgive him for that?”

“It is the same sometimes, with Libby.”

“Your wife?”

“Aye. Sometimes I can’t forgive her for leaving me.”

Jules looked down again. “Plane crash, right?”

“Right. But even though it wasna her fault, I’m still angry that she’s gone.”

She scrubbed at her fingers. “You want to hear something sappy?”

“Sappy?” He didn’t understand.

“Yeah. You know, corny?”

“Perhaps you should just tell me. I’ll brace myself, just in case.”

She nodded. “Okay. Well.” She took a breath and looked up. “I feel...less angry when... When I’m with you. See? I warned you it was sappy.”

He smoothed a fingertip along the side of her face, scared that she might dissolve if he pressed too hard. What had God seen in him, to deem him worthy of such a lass?

“Ah, love. I feel less angry within your presence as well, but that’s not the reason I must stay near you.”

She took a deep breath and sighed. Then she waited.

“I stay near ye, lass, because in my dream, it’s all I wanted. And when I woke from the dream, only to find ye there, in the dark with me, you were all I wanted still. And the feeling only grows stronger each time I touch you, or look at you, or hear your voice. It was not just a dream, lass. It was the telling of our future. The question is, do you want to share that future?”

She was crying again, but this time he had a cure for it. A hundred soft kisses across the whole of her face would fix her up fine.

“Give us a moment, he says.” Ewan laughed. “Ye’ve had yer moment. Has she decided then?”

“Another moment if ye don’t mind,” he called back. He ignored the groans of the others and looked into Juliet’s eyes. “What do ye say, lass. In which century are we to reside? For it was no exaggeration. I go where you go, if you’ll allow me.”

She shook her head and his heart stuttered.

“I have to go back. I have to testify. Gabby’s a murderer. If I can stop him, I will. If I stay here, with you, who knows how many people will die because I didn’t show up on the stand? I’d end up like Lady Macbeth, wandering around the castle trying to remove blood from my hands—blood only I can see. Can you understand?”

“Aye. I do. But do you wish me to go with you, lass?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I thought it would be too selfish of me to ask. It would kill me to leave you behind. Please, come with me. Please.” She leaned up and kissed him, not giving him a chance to reply.

In truth, he couldn’t be more pleased. He’d often believed that he’d done what he was supposed to do for history’s sake. He’d helped the Rosses transition from one laird to the next. He was only filling space now.

But since meeting Juliet in spirit, and then in person, he’d realized that filling space was no longer enough for him. And if she were consulted, Libby would agree. He had much to give, and just because he mourned Libby still, it did not justify turning his back on the rest of his life.

“Aye, lass. I’ll come.” Then he covered her one ear and held the other to his chest so he could shout. “Jillian! Just how many people to you reckon we can fit in Isobelle’s tomb?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

One week later...

Jules had choked down a dry biscuit breakfast with absolutely no coffee for washing it down. She was thrilled to be going back to civilization before lunch.

If Quinn wouldn’t have agreed to come along, she suspected she would have stayed behind with him. She would have had to learn to live with herself for not putting a stop to Gabby, but she couldn’t have forgiven herself for leaving her Highlander behind. Besides, Gabby’s sins were not her own. Neither were her grandmother’s.

And like Jillian said, the tomb wasn’t the most reliable mode of transportation. There was no guarantee she could have come back for him later.

Her sister led the way to the workroom where they would begin their journey back to the world of caffeine.

“I’m sorry, Ewan,” she said. “We’d stay longer but we need to get these two to a doctor, just to be safe.”

Ewan squeezed Jillian. “Never ye mind, lass. I’m sure we couldna stand to feed ye, and that was before you starting carrying Monty’s child about.

“Children,” interjected one of the Muir sisters.

Montgomery blanched. Jillian bit her lip. The Muirs just laughed.

Jules could never remember the sisters’ names. It spooked the hell out of her that there were Muir twins everywhere. And standing there in the cellar, with Jillian, Quinn and Monty, and the Muirs, it looked like a reunion that excluded anyone who wasn’t genetically duplicated. James and Ewan stood off to the side, looking nothing alike.

The last time she’d been in that room, she’d been filled with bitterness, disagreeing with Ewan over the sainthood of Jillian Ross. But the second Jules had let go of that bitterness, something else had flooded in and filled the gaps. If she liked sappy, she’d say it was love. But she wasn’t sappy. Okay, not too sappy. If she had to put it into a single word, she’d call it...home.

Into the arms of yer family.

Montgomery’s words were still stuck in her head and she had no wish to unstick them.

Now, they were safely ensconced in Castle Ross. The tomb’s entrance was waiting patiently. The prying eyes of Clan Ross had been swept from the building and a state of mourning had commenced in honor of Laird Montgomery Ross who had died of battle wounds at the hands of the Gordons.

Quinn had once again assumed the role of the dead body and had been led through the streets of East Burnshire. The real Montgomery had ridden with his plaid over his hair and blue paint re-applied to his face. A few people noticed Jules and her sister and murmured “Muirs!”  Jules figured it was as good a disguise as any.

All of them standing in the workroom had been moved by the respect shown for Montgomery Ross by hundreds of clanspeople who’d had to stand in the pouring rain to do so. Although, if Ewan shed a tear, it wouldn’t have been distinguishable from the rain pouring down his upturned face as he led the procession.

The emotions wrung from Jules that day had been emotions she didn’t believe herself capable of feeling. And no one had even died.

What a wuss.

She looked at Jillian and couldn’t help but see her now as the little girl on the other side of the table, soaking crayons, thinking the same things she thought. She remembered a lot of laughing.

The importance of that day, long ago, when the laughing had stopped, was fading.

In the morning, Clan Ross would bury a box that Ewan and Quinn had built and filled with stones. The Muirs had suggested it might be bad luck for Montgomery to have a hand in it.

No one had argued.

During the course of the past week, she’d even forgiven Ewan. She’d had no choice.

For some strange reason, Quinn had insisted that Daniel try his hand at sculpting Jules’ face. Apparently, the young man had a talent for it. Quinn had even found a stone for the guy to use, insisting that he’d do as fine a job as the Italian had done on the likeness of Monty. Ewan had moped around in front of her the entire time she was forced to hold her pose. Finally, she’d forgiven him just to get him to leave her alone.

Jillian and Quinn had acted freaky every time they’d checked on Daniel’s progress. Jules had started getting jealous of them excluding her from some inside joke, but Quinn promised he’d share their little secret as soon as they got back home.

While they’d waited for Daniel to finish, their wounds had healed nicely. She was going to have to get a tattoo to cover up the scars made by Ewan’s cauterizing job, but they would be a permanent reminder of the way she and Quinn had met. It had been a pretty hellish vacation from reality, but she didn’t want to forget it.

Also, while she’d posed for Daniel, she and Jillian had talked about their lives. Now she knew the old wives tale about twins was true, that Jillian’s pain caused her pain and vice versa. And even if there wasn’t that supernatural connection, she couldn’t bring herself to break her sister’s heart. For all Jillian would ever know, their parents had simply died in a car wreck. She would never know they’d been on their way to check out another lead on their missing daughter and her lunatic grandmother.

They’d had plenty of chances to giggle like sisters since Daniel’s new bride, Annie, kept sneaking into the hall to lure Daniel away. They had giggled about Quinn, about Monty, and giggled a helluva lot about the comparisons between Quinn and Monty. When Daniel had swaggered back into the hall, they’d giggled about him too. It was like they’d been making up for all the years they’d had no one to laugh with.

And now Daniel’s sculpture—which he called The Green-Toed Fairy, even though it was Jillian’s boots she’d been wearing half the time—was finished. Ewan was forgiven. And there was nothing left in the fifteenth century left undone.

It was time to go home.

“All right then, get ye gone.” Ewan turned to Monty. “I’ll miss ye, cousin. Perhaps when ye’re needin’ some peace from all yer bairns, you’ll come here. I’ll keep a barrel below the hole. Always. And the next time ye come visit, I’ll tell ye all about yer grand funeral.”

Monty shook his head. “No, my friend. Carry on as we’d already decided. The Ross lairds must keep their course, so everything stays right for the future. Guard our secrets. The clan is all.”

“Aye, cousin. The clan is all.” Ewan gave Monty a knock on the shoulder. “Up with yer sorry arse, then.”

Monty hefted himself up into the hole where Jillian waited for him.

James gave Jules a wink, then followed Monty. “Oh, aye. Plenty of room still. Come on, Juliet.”

She shook her head. “Quinn first. I’m not taking a chance on this elevator leaving before he can get in.”

Quinn laughed and jumped on the barrel, then he looked over her shoulder in horror. Monty and James already had a hold of his arms and were lifting him up.

“Wait! Stop! Let go!” he shouted.

Jules didn’t know what terrifying creature might be behind her, but she lunged for the far side of the barrel where the Muirs and Ewan stood, sure the adrenaline shooting through her would help her fly. But hands grabbed her from behind. She struggled until she saw the flash of a blade, then felt it pressed against her throat. She’d felt such an edge before, when she’d awakened in Debra’s bed.

Back on the barrel, Quinn held out his hands. “Percy! Percy, don’t hurt her. You can have whatever you want. Just don’t hurt my lass.”

“Just what a man likes to hear,” the young man snarled in her ear. “In truth, I’ve come to tell ye I’ve made me decision. I’ve decided to believe ye, that ye are able to change history. When the big red bastard turned aside to stab yer heart, so no one could see how deep the blade went, I kenned ye’d cheated death yet again. It’s a charmed life ye live, aye?”

“History is written by the folks that write it,” Quinn said. “I can write whatever history you wish. Is it your ambition to replace yer father, then? Or make certain the Gordon clan will be ruled by your children? Whatever you wish. Just let her go.”

Quinn had slowly lowered his body until he was squatting on the top of the barrel. He started to lower a leg to the ground, but pulled it back when Percy hissed.

The knife bit into her skin but she didn’t dare make a sound, afraid Quinn might attack to save her, afraid Percy might feel threatened enough to start slicing and dicing. Besides, with his injuries, Quinn might not be able to move as quickly as he’d expected to, just as she hadn’t been able to get to the other side of the barrel as fast as she thought she could.

“I’m no’ daft, Quinn Ross,” said Percy. “I’ll not take yer promise and let ye flee. Besides, it’s no’ the future I wish to change, but the past.”

Quinn frowned. “I canna change the past, Percy. What’s done is done.”

The man behind her grunted, maybe even sobbed. Jules almost felt sorry for him. She reached up and laid a hand on his elbow. He jerked away from her touch, but luckily, not with the hand holding the knife.

He stiffened.

She thought she was screwed.

“I don’t believe ye,” he spat. “If ye can change the future, ye can change the past. And for yer sake, ye’d best think of a way to do it. Or for her sake, that is.”

She could hear Monty and James shuffling around inside the hole. They were probably going out of their minds not being able to come out and fight. But Quinn was in their way, and he couldn’t move without pissing off Percy.

She needed to distract him.

“What is it, Percy?” she asked calmly. “What is it you want to change?”

She could feel his chest at her back, shaking as he tried to compose himself to speak.

“It’s all right, Percy. Take your time,” she said.

Quinn nodded. “This is about your brother.”

Percy sucked in a breath and held it. When he let the air go, it came out in a rush.

“William. His name is William. We’re forbidden to say his name. William,” he said again, like it was a relief to say it. He sobbed, sucked in another breath. “He’ll never be allowed to leave the dungeon. My father’s no better than Montgomery Ross, refusing to bury his dead. Keeping them close. Killing us all.”

He was losing it. She had to help his focus.

“You want to bury your brother?” she asked.

She didn’t know if she was trying to distract him or help him.

Percy grabbed her hair and yanked her closer to him. He pushed the blade up against her skin, obviously no longer caring if she got cut.

“Eegit,” he hissed. “I want him to never go into the dungeon in the first place! I want Quinn Ross to stop it from happening. Six years ago. Ye’ll find him six years ago. I’ve been here for days, listening. I heard enough from ye all to ken ye can move from one year to the next. So ye must go back. Go back and stop me father. Bring William to...now. Hang a plaid from yer battlements when ye have him, and I’ll return yer woman. Fail to save him by Samhain, and that day she begins to die—the same death me brother suffered, alone and with nothing. In an oubliette. Ye’ll ken not where.”

Jules was pulled back off her feet, then carried out of the little room. Percy paused to slam the door shut, then held her with an arm crushing her neck while he jammed something against the door.

“Percy. Please. Don’t do this.”

“Enough!”

He dragged her down the corridor, in the wrong direction, barely allowing enough space in the crook of his elbow for her to breathe. Arguing further was impossible. In his other hand, instead of the dagger, he held a large torch that dripped fire with every step. At least, when they hit a dead end and had to return, there was a chance the others would have made it out—a chance they could save her.

He stopped.

Here is the end. We’ll have to go back.

But then she heard metal bang against wood, like a ring handle on a door. The giant door in the great hall had that type of ancient handle. She’d held onto it while she’d teased James into following her away from the keep.

A moist breeze brushed past her face in the wake of a small round door. It looked like the end of a wooden barrel. She strained to the side, but saw only darkness beyond.

A tunnel?

Was this where the modern Muirs had hidden from James once they’d sent her up into the tomb?

Percy reached through the opening and set the torch in the wall so he could drag her through. The threshold was high and she struggled to keep her feet beneath her while he pulled her to the other side. Percy released her neck and grabbed her wrist. She tried to wrench it free while he pulled the round door shut. He hardly noticed.

“Those Muirs came sneaking down the hall while I searched for the entrance to yer enchanted tomb. They had to have come from somewhere, and I knew if I waited long enough, they’d lead me to their secret. Let’s hope the torch lasts long enough to reach the other end, aye?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Once they broke through the door, Quinn followed closely on Ewan’s heels. Montgomery brought the second torch and led the women.

Daniel turned from his post at the top of the stairs just as Annie’s blue skirts swished around the corner.

“Why did you not come to let us out, when he got past you?” Ewan shoved at the man, nearly knocking him over.

Daniel shook his head. “No one’s passed me, laird.”

“Oh? And how would ye know if yer tongue was down Annie’s throat and yer eyes were shut tight?”

Daniel straightened his spine and lifted a haughty nose. “She but came to ask how long before I’d be home, yer lairdships. Not a soul has come up those stairs since the lot of ye went down them, may God strike me dead if they did.”

“All’s right, Daniel. All’s right.” Ewan turned to face his following. “Did he get lost, do ye suppose?”

“The dungeons,” Quinn said. It was the only other place they could be. The cellar twisted a bit, but didn’t go much past the workroom beneath the tomb. Even in the future.

Montgomery led the way. The Muirs brought up the rear, too stubborn to leave off, Quinn supposed. When it was clear that no one had been in the dungeons for a good while, one of the Muirs, Margot he thought, began to wail, which was odd; they never carried on. Oh, they were difficult to best in an argument, but he’d never seen one shed a tear, not in either century.

Montgomery and the rest looked about the dusty hallway, waiting for someone to explain the matter with the woman. Mhairi wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders, then turned a look on Quinn that scared him to the bone.

“What?” he asked. “What is it? What do you know?”

Mhairi shook her head. “He must have found the tunnel. Mayhap there will be footprints, so we’ll ken for sure.”

“What tunnel?” he asked, then turned to Monty. “Is there a tunnel?”

“None that we could ever find.” Monty nodded to Mhairi. “Show us.”

She gave Margot one last pat, then Mhairi took Monty’s torch and started back up the passage. They all followed close on her heels. Margot had recovered enough to keep up. Soon they were passing the broken door of the workroom. Then beyond.

At the end of the tunnel, where the walls had been shored up with odd bits of barrels, beams, and planks, Mhairi reached out a hand and pulled on a metal ring attached to a barrelhead.

Much to his surprise, and apparently to the surprise of all, the barrelhead swung open on silent hinges. A tunnel gaped beyond.

Quinn moved forward, but Mhairi fairly jumped into his path, her arms spread wide. Margot moved around behind her and did the same.

Mhairi shook her head. “Ye cannot enter, Quinn Ross. None of ye can enter here. The tunnel is cursed. We’ve only showed it to ye so ye can see if Percy took Juliet this way.”

Quinn tried to push around her, but she blocked him again.

“Mhairi, I care not for faery tales, or ghosties. I’m going in. Look there.” He pointed to the dirt floor beneath the hole. Their footprints, clear as day. Juliet is draggin’ her feet, smart lass. Now let me pass.”

Mhairi shook her head again. Margot moved closer behind her sister, as if she truly believed that together they could stop him.

“The tunnel taketh and giveth,” said Margot, over her sister’s shoulder. “As Percy and Juliet travel beneath the hillock, the tunnel is taking from them. It takes all.”

Quinn froze at the last, not because he was afraid to enter, but afraid of what the cursed tunnel was doing to his brave Juliet.

Monty had hold of another torch and held it high, peering at the sisters as if he thought they might not be real. The firelight reflected off twin streams of tears—one running down Mhairi’s right cheek, the other running down the left cheek of her sister.

Muirs did not cry.

Quinn swallowed the bile rising in his throat and turned to Monty. “Do ye understand a word of this?”

Monty shook his head and looked behind him, to Jillian. His wife hurried forward and slipped beneath his arm.

“Mhairi,” she said. “Please. Help us understand. What is the tunnel taking?”

The woman nodded, her graying hair swung forward and back. But she looked for a nod from her sister before she answered.

“Age.”

The word hung in the air.

Jillian frowned, as did they all. “Age? Do you mean that the tunnel will make them younger?”

Mhairi sighed, then nodded.

Margot came around her sister’s shoulder and together they dropped their arms.

“Takes the years, dries the tears,” they chanted in unison. “Quiets laughter, lulls the fears.”

Tears poured a fresh trail down Mhairi’s right cheek. Her sister tried to console her while keeping a steady eye on Quinn.

“They’ll lose ten years by the time they reach the other side,” she said. “But it takes the memories of those ten years as well. Young Percy will be younger still. He won’t remember his purpose, so your lady fair will be in little danger. But I’m afraid young Juliet won’t remember... Well. You.” She patted him on the arm, then stepped back to guard the tunnel once more.

Quinn listed to his left as his heart turned heavy like a stone. Monty left his wife’s side to shore him up.

Jillian stepped up to the sisters. “What if we can stop them from getting to the other side?”

Mhairi shook her head. “I doubt Percy would come back just because ye ask him, nicely or no. Besides, the tunnel is not so long. They are well beyond halfway.”

No. That couldn’t be. It couldn’t be too late!

Quinn’s strength rallied with the silent denial.

“No!” He pushed his way toward the opening. He was right; even three women were no match for him. Someone grabbed hold of his waist but he was progressing. His fingers were but an inch or two from the frame when a gentle hand came to rest on his outstretched arm.

“Quinn.”

It was Jillian.

“Quinn, if you go, you’ll forget too. Think of the memories you’ll lose.” She shook her head. “You’ll lose Libby.”

As quick as a lightning bolt, he lost all the strength in his arm and it dropped.

Libby!

James was suddenly at his side, but Quinn noticed little else as he conjured Libby’s face in his mind. All those memories had become so clear since he’d met Juliet. He remembered all the little creases around Libby’s eyes, the dip below her nose. The sound of her laughter.

Trouble was, he remembered the same of Juliet.

Tears filled his throat and rose behind his eyes as he realized he would give up the past, even the memory of it, if he might save his Juliet even a little horror.

“Goodbye, Libby,” he whispered and lunged.

A large hairy arm rose between himself and the road to his woman. And worse, it held fast.

“Quinn,” James said calmly, as if holding him back was taking no effort at all. “Don’t give up on her. She’s slippery, that girl. She might get away from him and head back.”

James was right. She always had that back-up plan. Any moment she might come running back into the light, having bashed poor Percy up the side of the head.

“If she does,” Mhairi said, “the tunnel giveth the same. It will give ten years from stem to stern, but it gives naught more. She’ll gain the age she lost, but the memories will not be restored. ‘Tis a wicked curse. One meant to protect Clan Muir. What foe cannot be bested as a child? What better punishment for a fleeing enemy than to age him quickly without the benefit of wisdom?”

Margot pushed past his body and put her hand through the middle of the opening. She rubbed her fingers as if testing the texture of the darkness.

Chills assaulted Quinn’s spine and spread beneath his hair. He tasted metal on his tongue.

“‘Tis finished,” Margot said. “They are through.”

Quinn refused to believe it all. Of course they’d always called them Muir witches, but they’d never done anything so ridiculous before. They were just trying to keep him from following after Juliet. But why?

“Quinn Ross, how can ye be so unbelieving when ye’ve traveled from yer time to ours?” Mhairi was behind him, shaking her head.

“Come,” Monty barked. “We can cut them off if Percy tries to take her north.  Younger or not, he might think to take her back to Gordon land.”

He halted before his wife. “Jillian, my love. Ye’ll stay home, and ye’ll keep away from that tunnel. Mhairi, Margot? I trust ye to see to it. Doona fail me. Someone stay here, in case Juliet comes back this way.”

“Aye, yer lairdship. We’ll watch her like our own.”

Monty had taken half a dozen steps, but stopped short. Quinn nearly plowed through him.

“I expect the pair of you to do better than that,” Monty shouted. “Remember she carries my child.”

***

Jillian should have followed the men out of the cellar. The Muirs dried their faces and turned their clever smiles upon her. When they wrapped their arms around her shoulders, the feeling of deja vu should have sent her running, and praying, all the way to the twenty-first century, but she could never leave Montgomery behind. She’d done it once. She would never do it again.

“Jillian, dear. We have a great deal to talk about,” said Margot.

“Aye,” added her sister. “And not much time.”

***

Monty was about to lead them all out the kitchen door when Ewan put a hand up to stop the thing from opening.

“Monty, ye’re dead,” Ewan said. “No one can lay eyes on ye who doesna ken the truth. And neither can Quinn be seen. The funeral’s in the mornin’. I doubt the clan will believe that Montgomery Ross is dead while two men walk about who look just like him, aye? Our clansmen are no’ blind. Nor are they daft.”

Five minutes later, in ridiculous disguises, he and Monty waited by the door for Ewan and James to bring round the horses.

“She’s a fine lass, Quinn,” said his uncle. “Almost as fine as my Jillian.”

Quinn realized he’d been chewing off his fingernails and stopped.

“Oh? I admit your wife is a fine woman. There was a time I wished I would have been worthy of her myself.”

Monty’s smile dropped.

Quinn held up a hand to discourage the other man from swinging at him. His head had only begun to heal from all the pounding of the week before.

“But Jillian was never for me, Monty. She was always as a sister, though in my dreams I believed myself to be falling in love with her. But when I laid eyes on Juliet, I realized she was the one I’d been dreaming of. The Muirs had a hand in that dream, but I cannot begrudge them for it. Which reminds me, if that tunnel is as cursed as they claim, it should be destroyed. I find it hard to believe that danger has lain below our feet all these years.”

“Och, aye, nephew. We’ll see to it as soon as Juliet is safe.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Quinn allowed Ewan and Monty to take the lead. He was a poor hand at finding his way beyond Ross lands, but it was more than that. As desperate as he was to have Juliet safely in his arms, he was afraid of what they might find. He hoped someone else might catch sight of her and Percy before he did, so he might have some kind of warning. It was cowardly, he knew, but allowing the love of his life to be buried had almost killed him once. He was certain he couldn’t survive doing it again.

How unworthy he was.

They’d been together for nigh a week and he’d never even asked her age. He had no idea how old the lass would be if she’d truly had ten years removed. If she’d been thirty to begin with... But she hadn’t. He was sure of it. And what teenager would want a thirty-five year old man waiting about for her to grow up and fall in love with him?

She wouldn’t.

Then he realized the answer rode before him.

“Monty! How old is Jillian?”

His uncle turned but did not slow his horse. “Doona think it, man. Just keep prayin’, aye?”

“Easy for you to say,” Quinn mumbled.

“Twenty-three,” said James. “The yanks forwarded her file, aye?”

Quinn gave the agent a curt nod in thanks.

That would make her thirteen.

Oh, God!

He could not wrap his mind around it. He could not conjure an image of her at thirteen, but hopefully, Monty could, so they’d know what kind of lass to be looking for.

Blasted Muirs! Blasted tunnel.

But wait!

If Juliet was now thirteen, he’d just have to go through the tunnel as well—and twice! He’d make Monty promise to pick him up and send him through again. He’d be fifteen.

Perfect.

But would he remember to fall in love with her? Aye, there was the rub. If he weren’t going to end up with Juliet by his side for the rest of his days, would he take that chance? Was he willing to live the horror of being a teenager—again—for the chance of winning Juliet’s heart?

“Please, God. Help me.”

He whispered the same prayer a dozen times while they came ‘round the northern tip of the wee mountain. Ewan dropped to the road and peered closely at every hoofprint.

“Nothing fresh. They’ve not come through yet.” Ewan remounted and headed southeast.

None but Muirs from that point until they crossed back into Ross land. It was an odd bit of land that jutted from the sea to the hill that separated their clan homes. As if Fate had decreed the witches have access to Ross lives. They certainly had enough to do with their history, and their legends. But in modern times, Muirs had become a sept of Clan Gordon.

How he hoped he wouldn’t be around to see that bit of history unfold. He could almost pity the formidable Gordons.

As the road turned due south and slowly filled with people, Quinn began searching faces. A boy there. A young lass there. The Muirs were a friendly lot, smiling and nodding as the four horsemen cut their way into their home ground.

An old man stepped back to give them a wider path. He looked at Quinn, then Montgomery, and back again, then slid a finger along the side of his nose as if it meant something. A heartbeat later, Quinn noticed the man again, only on the other side of the road, touching his nose in the same manner.

James leaned closer.

“Twins,” he said. “There are many.”

Quinn was relieved he wasn’t losing his mind, but the presence of more Muir twins in their midst left him unsettled. Again, he tasted metal and wondered if it was new or just the phantom of the time before.

The taste was gone. Memory then.

A young lass with black hair turned away from her mother to watch their passing. Quinn looked closely, to see if her eyes were green. The lass smiled and shook her head as if she’d read his thoughts.

Another chill ran up his spine when he noticed something else. He glanced at James to find the man staring at him with eyes wide.

“It’s quiet,” Quinn told him. “Why do they not speak?”

But he was afraid he knew the answer.

James shivered. “‘Tisn’t possible.”

Monty, being Monty, pulled his sword from behind his saddle. The Muirs stopped making eye contact and wandered their way off the road. A hundred yards later, the four horsemen were alone and Quinn was grateful for it.

Monty and Ewan fell back until they were four abreast.

“We will go slowly now,” Monty said, “to be sure we doona pass them in haste. I think ye should prepare yerself, nephew. I believe Margot and Mhairi might have been telling the truth. If anyone could devise the devil’s own tunnel, it would be these people, or their ancestors, aye?”

Quinn had been coming to the same conclusion.

Ewan laughed. “He’s been to Muirsglen before, aye?”

Monty grunted and faced forward with an unkind stare.

“I drugged him a year ago, when Jillian took Morna and Ivar into the future and left him behind. I thought he would kill himself with grievin’, wear himself out walking the path from the Great Ross Chair, to the witch’s hole and back again. More than a dozen times a day, mind. And he wouldna eat. So I drugged his drink. Had him taken to the Muirs to keep him away while I had the cellar filled in. Turned out for the best that I only filled it with barrels of whisky, because the lass came back for ‘im.”

James laughed, then laughed harder when Monty glared at him. As they rode on, the rest of Morna and Ivar’s story came out including a few details that had never been included in his script for the tourists of Castle Ross. Monty also explained how they’d gotten Isobelle out of the tomb.

A few minutes later, Monty and Ewan shared a horrified look, and Quinn knew just what they were thinking.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told them. James here will keep the secret like the rest of us. Who would believe him anyhow? When he starts telling someone that he’s spent time in the fifteenth century, they’ll stop listening.”

James frowned. “But what about Isobelle? Only a wee while ago, we were all ready to go back into the tomb and never return, and no one made mention of her. Did she die?”

Monty turned away, silent.

Quinn didn’t feel as though it was his place to speak of Isobelle.

Ewan shifted in his saddle, then finally, he spoke.

“We dinna ken where she is, James. Our man Ossian went with her, to get her safely settled. We received word from him once, that he and his travelling companion had decided to make a go of things in Spain. We sent a letter there, only to have it returned. A note had been written upon it, claiming the pair had disappeared in the night. We’ve heard nothing since.”

James shifted in his saddle. “And she wasn’t a witch, ye say?”

“Nay,” said Ewan. “Bewitching to be sure. Red hair, like yers, but nary so many curls. Turned men’s heads since the day she was born. Always causin’ trouble.”

James turned to Monty. “Allow me find her for you, Laird Ross.”

Monty wiped an arm across his face before he turned back.

“Why would you say such a thing? This is not yer time. You canna locate her on the internet. She could be anywhere in the wide world—a world that is not so small as you might think at this point in history.”

James grinned. “To tell the truth, I’m not quite ready to go back yet. If this is the only chance I have, I’d like to see more of your time. I may as well see Spain and look around for your sister while I’m at it, aye?”

Monty shook his head. His brow was a threatening thundercloud.

“It willna matter,” he said. “The tomb’s a bit touchy. Only seems to work with Jillian and now, with Juliet. A Muir creation and not to be trusted. For all we ken, we’re stuck here for the rest of our days,” he turned and looked at the Muir clansmen who were once again making use of the road. “Here, among so many Muirs. A tomb. A tunnel. Only God kens what else. We’ll none of us be safe.”

James let the subject drop.

No matter what Monty had said, Quinn had the feeling the man was just touchy about anyone getting a look at, or getting their hands on, his sister. Even if it meant he might see her again. After all, hadn’t he become immediately protective of Juliet? It seemed it was just Monty’s nature.

He hoped Jillian’s baby was a boy, or boys rather, because he pitied the lad who came to court any daughter of Montgomery Ross.

They reached the glen and headed for the side of the hill where a couple of youths might have emerged and perhaps had their presence noted.

“Keep a sharp eye. A young lass and a younger laddie,” said Monty. “I’ve no ken how old Percy was, only that he was a mite younger than our lasses.”

Quinn nodded. He was also hoping that since these Muirs seemed to read their minds, there might be some among them to lead them in the right direction.

Juliet, sweet. I’m coming.

The village spread much further than expected. From a distance, it hadn’t looked like much. As they came nearer, a small city unfolded like a wild rose in bloom. Patches of mist clung to it like morning dew in defiance of the midday sun. Would the mist ever lift completely from a place that sheltered witches?

A tall fort stood at the Eastern edge of town and Quinn wondered if perhaps it hid a good sized castle behind the wooden facade. At one point, they passed through the gates of an ancient wall that likely contained the entire settlement in decades past. Into his mind popped a fanciful image of a city wall that might hide everything and everyone within it from the eyes of their enemies standing ten feet away.

He shuddered.

Ridiculous. He needed to find a handle on his imagination.

An entire clan of witches? Nonsense.

They split up. Monty took James and followed the edge of the hillside. Quinn and Ewan dismounted and led their horses into the village, following the flow of its citizens who seemed much too busy to stop and read the minds of strangers. He was relieved to hear the rather normal hum of voices and laughter.

Eventually, they followed a curve and through a light cloud, they saw a well at the top of the street. Two dozen women stood in line awaiting a turn with the bucket. While they waited, they were all turned their attention to a young woman who stooped before a youngster while she washed his face. The lad was seated on a low stone wall beside a large white-washed cottage.

Quinn froze.

The woman wore Juliet’s leather coat over her plaid gown. The mist made the colors unclear. Her hair was not nearly so neat as Juliet’s had been, and the color was dark, but again, unclear. When she turned to the side, to take a bucket of water from another woman, she didn’t look a day less than twenty.

“But that can’t be!” Quinn’s voice stretched across the distance between them, daring her to turn and prove him wrong. But she didn’t turn.

The boy might have been Percy. He looked like a lad of ten wearing his father’s clothes. His sleeves hung nearly a foot past the bend of his wrist. For once, his plaid covered his knees. When the lad turned and noticed Quinn, there was no hint of recognition. His attention returned to the woman washing his face. She took a handful of his hair to hold him still while she scrubbed.

Turn. Please, turn.

And yet he dreaded her turning. What if she looked at him, as Percy had done, and she would see a stranger. If she, too, turned away from him, what then? Who might stand beside him for the rest of his life and remind him to breathe in, and then out again? Because he would need reminding.

But if he couldn’t find the strength to move his bloody feet, he would never know.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Juliet laughed at something the lad said and for Quinn it was magic enough. Just enough.

He kicked a foot forward, then the other one, as if he were kicking his way out of his own grave. His boots stomped loudly on the packed earth of the street. With no attention to spare his horse, he dropped the leads as he went, determined to face Juliet again, no matter what reaction he might see there.

“Juliet!” he cried as he strode, feeling like a man walking into a wall of spears aimed at his heart. If he stayed back, he’d be safe—he’d never know if she’d forgotten him. But what would it matter? He’d win her heart all over again, even if he had to enlist the aid of a Muir witch to slip him back into her dreams. Even if he had to bide his time while she grew a half-dozen years.

The lad pointed at him. Juliet turned, her eyes following the small filthy finger. Then she straightened and waved to Quinn, waving off that wall of spears.

She knows me!

When he heard Ewan laugh, only then did he realize his distant cousin was still at his side.

“Quinn,” she called, and in her smile, he saw the reflection of all the relief he felt himself.

No one would need to bid him breathe again.

“Quinn! Ewan! Come and meet this young man. His name is Percy. He’s a terribly brave boy who saved me. I was lost in a cave, and he saved me.”

“Jillian Ross!” Montgomery’s bellow filled the misty air.

Quinn turned in the direction of the sound and saw Jillian running from the road to the right, toward her sister. The Mhairi and Margot appeared next. Montgomery, on horse, was headed up the street behind them. James followed.

Jillian and Juliet embraced as the older sisters slowed and stopped behind them. Quinn was a little disappointed she had yet to throw herself into his arms. He closed the distance to make it easier for her to do so, but she only winked at him and turned back to her sister.

After a flurry of conversation that was too fast for Quinn to understand, Juliet stood speechless while Jillian moved over to the little wall and bent to speak with Percy. The Muirs patted Juliet on the shoulders and laughed.

Quinn prepared to shoo them away just as soon as Juliet gave him permission to do it, but it looked as if Montgomery wanted that pleasure all to himself.

“Mhairi Muir,” he shouted as he dismounted. “Ye’re done for, do ye hear? That goes for yer sister too. But ye’ll be placed in separate dungeons. Mayhap even separate centuries.”

The very pale laird pushed the twins aside to get to his wife, then physically wrenched her attention from young Percy—he took her by the shoulders and gave the slightest shake. “Why would you risk such a thing, Jillian? Why?”

Though Quinn was thrilled to find Juliet untouched by the tunnel’s curse, he, too, was shocked by the risk Jilly had taken.

The woman smiled and patted Monty’s chest. “There was no danger, husband. Because the tunnel holds no curse for Muirs. My grandfather Wickham was a Muir if you remember. Just a drop of Muir blood is enough, so the children were never in danger either.”

Monty suddenly looked around, then sat abruptly on the short wall next to Percy. It took him a moment to catch his breath.

“Children, ye say? Ye ken it for certain?” He smiled, but he still looked a little sick. “That’s grand, aye? But Muirs?”

The last bit he whispered to Jillian but everyone in the vicinity of the well heard it and laughed.

Jillian shook her head. “Only a little bit.”

Monty moaned. Percy offered him a filthy wet cloth and the man took it and pressed it to his head.

The look Jilly then turned on Quinn made him wonder if there was more room on the wall, next to the lad.

“Quinn,” she said. “I’ve just broken the news to Juliet that our grandfather was a Muir. It’s the reason the tunnel had no effect on her. But I think she might need a little consoling too.”

Juliet stood just out of reach looking a mite green, but he couldn’t seem to cover the distance. His knees had dissolved—his legs just didn’t know it yet. Any second, he was going to be a lifeless pile of pudding in the dirt. He could only look at her, helpless.

Finally, Juliet stepped up to him and took his hand, and just in time too. At least he was still standing—that was, until James pounded him on the back.

“She might be a Muir,” he said, laughing, “but she doesna look too young to me, laddy.”

Quinn’s mind sputtered.

A Muir? He was in love with a Muir twin? And possibly a Muir witch?

His feet bid him run. His heart bid him stay. His body made the decision and leaned toward her.

No. I am but in love with a lass...

He gathered her into his arms and the world around them quieted. Her leather sleeves were cool against his neck as she wrapped her fingers in his hair and pulled him close. When their lips were separated by only a breath, she spoke.

“Are you sure you want to kiss a Muir?”

He pulled back an inch and gave her a frown.

“Do you suppose we could discuss your lineage another time?”

She shook her head. “No, actually. I’m not going to fall in love with a guy who thinks I’m some kind of jinx.”

Her fingers started slipping away, so he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her, to encourage her to hold on a bit tighter.

She squeaked.

His heart tripped but his legs held up fine.

“First of all,” he said, “it’s far too late for that. You’re already in love with me.”

“Oh?” She raised a brow, but her eyes were still locked on his lips. A good sign, that.

He ignored her interruption and went on.

“Secondly, how can I curse your Muir blood when it brought you to me? And now that same blood has seen you safely through the accursed tunnel? Fine blood indeed.”

Juliet studied him for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay. You can kiss me then.”

He reluctantly lowered her to her feet and bent to kiss her, but pulled back and searched her face.

“No arguments?” he asked.

“No arguments.”

She gave a little grunt of frustration as she was poised on her toes for that kiss.

“Swear it.”

She frowned and lowered back onto her heels, suspicious.

“Just what am I swearing to?”

Ewan poked his nose between them. They both recoiled a bit from the man’s beard.

“He wants yer vow, lass,” he said. “That ye love ‘im. Ye made no argument when he claimed that ye’ve fallen in love with ‘im, aye?”

Quinn glared at Ewan until the man backed away with his hands raised. Then he turned to Juliet, lifted her hand, and gave the back of it a long gentle kiss. He stared into her eyes and willed her to know that he’d prefer to be kissing her lips.

“No arguments?” he murmured.

She shook her head and bit her lip. “You won’t want me.”

“Too late for that as well, Juliet.”

“But what if I already had a child?” she asked. “Would that make a difference?”

His brows rose. There was no stopping them.

“I’m surprised to hear it,” he admitted. “But only because you’ve never mentioned a child before now. But no, it would make no difference.”

He dropped down on one knee, never more sure that he should do so. Ewan snorted off to his right. Quinn would have taken a moment to gather his courage, but he needed none. It was the simplest thing he’d done since he’d agreed to change places with Monty a year ago.

“Marry me, Juliet.”

She sucked in a breath and held it for a moment. Her consent was already written on her face, dancing in her eyes. But then she sobered enough to give him pause.

“But how would you feel,” she paused, “about raising a boy that wasn’t your own?”

Quinn grinned. That was her only worry?

“He’s mine already. Now take pity, so we can get around to that kiss.”

She looked to the ground and bit her bottom lip again.

So, there is more?

“And what if he were a Gordon?” she said. “Could you find it in your heart to love a Gordon?”

She’d whispered the last, as if fearful someone might hear her words and be offended by them. Then he understood.

He leaned to the left and peered around her hip at the childlike version of Percy Gordon. He looked quite the orphan in his ill-fitting garments. The problem was, the child was no orphan, and even if he’d forgotten the past ten years of his life, he would still remember who he was and the fact that his father was laird of the mighty Gordon clan.

Quinn pushed up off his knee and pulled Juliet aside so none could hear their conversation but the odd Muir witch or two that might be eavesdropping on his thoughts.

One of the sisters, likely Margot, laughed loudly and led her sister over to the well.

Quinn tasted metal, but it no longer frightened him, knowing the cause. He only wished it would go away before Juliet tasted it from his own lips. First, he had to explain why she couldn’t simply claim Percy Gordon as her own.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it.

“I’m not sending him back to that bastard,” she said. “And I’m not going to tell him that his beloved William wasted away in that dungeon. If he goes back, he’ll have to suffer that loss all over again. And they’re not going to believe who he is—they’ll probably burn him as a witch like they were going to do to you!”

“Juliet. Sweet. We’re going to have to send him back through the tunnel. When he gets to the other side, we’ll explain to him what’s happened, help him all we can before we’re on our way.”

She stepped back from him then, horrified. Slowly, her head began to shake.

“No,” she said. “He’s a child. You send him back through that tunnel, and he’ll be a child in a man’s body. And he’ll have to learn it all again, including what his father did to William. I won’t let you do it.”

He thought it best to hold his tongue for a bit. The village square was no place to discuss such things, even though anyone with the Muir name likely knew about the tunnel and its workings.

He turned to James.

“Would you mind rounding up the horses?”

James grinned and headed down the street.

“Quinn Ross!”

The gathering crowd parted and an ancient man made his way forward with an equally ancient walking stick that must have weighed thirty pounds. Patches of white hair covered less than half of the hundred-year-old skull. Each time the stick lifted seemed a miracle. Each step he took seemed a victory over death itself.

“Quinn Ross,” he said again, with the strong voice of a much younger man. “This lad’s fate is out of yer hands and now into mine.”

Juliet was suddenly at Quinn’s side again, clutching his arm like he was her personal walking stick—or the stick she planned to use to beat back an old man if he was foolish enough to get in her way.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

The old man looked her over, then stared into her eyes. His own glittered as if he were quickly reading over a document, and yet those cloudy orbs never moved. Quinn had to suppress the urge to push Juliet behind his back, for he knew she wouldn’t appreciate his protective instincts when her own instincts were demanding she protect Percy.

“I’m laird here,” said the ancient one. “And any who come through the tunnel must be weighed and measured.”

“Are you kidding me?” Juliet’s volume made it clear she’d misunderstood.

Quinn would have laughed at her, but he didn’t care for the idea of the old man making any sort of judgment concerning his woman, let alone young Percy. He glanced behind him and was pleased to see that Monty was up off his arse and ready to fight. The lad was tucked in behind him and Jillian. Monty gave Quinn a slight nod. Ewan stood at the ready with the old Muir sisters behind him, as if they belonged to Clan Ross and not in the midst of these mind-reading strangers.

When Quinn once again faced forward, the old man was watching him closely, his head tilted slightly to one side as if he were somehow weighing and measuring Quinn. Or maybe the heaviest rock in the old one’s head had shaken loose and rolled to one side.

“Our land. Our rules, Quinn Ross,” he said.

Quinn leaned forward. “Stand back, laird. We’ll be taking ours and going.”

Although he never noticed the movement, the clansmen had shuffled around to form a tight circle, shoulder to shoulder, in front of them. There was nothing threatening in their eyes, just as there is nothing threatening about the pawns on a chessboard. But there was no doubt, they’d been moved into position.

Quinn’s hand went to his sword, but the weapon would not release its sheath. One look at Monty and Ewan told him they suffered the same problem. The fact they’d tried to arm themselves didn’t seem to concern the crowd, or their leader. They only waited and watched, pleased with the entertainment.

Margot moved around Ewan and came forward. She stepped in front of the old man and gave a little bow.

“Father,” she said. “These young women are of Muir blood. Surely they can be allowed to go on their way.”

“Our ways, Margot.” A gnarly finger raised and pointed at Juliet. “That one’s been in the tunnels. Even my auld nose can smell it on her, aye? And the lad as well.”

Quinn resisted the urge to give Juliet a sniff. If they’d ever gotten around to that kiss, she might have tasted of metal. But he didn’t care if she had liquid silver running through her veins; she was his.

“And mayhap it’s me yer smelling, father. I was there, on the far end of the tunnel. I ken this lass was forced inside. Surely, she shouldna be punished for it?”

The old man smiled and nodded. “As you say, daughter.” He looked at Juliet. “Come forward, Juliet. And bring yer sister.”

Quinn tried to reach for Juliet’s arm as she stepped forward, but his hand never rose. Jilly moved forward to stand next to her. Monty strained behind his wife, but couldn’t stop her either. A fizzy chill ran up Quinn’s spine and poured fresh metal into his mouth.

“Haud yer wheesht,” he heard whispered into his mind.

“Granddaughters to be sure,” the old man greeted, taking one of each lass’s hands. “I’ll allow ye to go, and take yer mighty warriors with ye, but ken that ye’ll always find a home here, and shelter, and protection. As will yer sons,” he told Jilly. “No matter the century, aye?”

He gave Juliet some sort of blessing, then turned and did the same to Jillian, pulling each low so he could end his benediction with a kiss on the forehead. When he was finished, he dropped their hands and took a step to the side, then craned his neck to see Percy.

Monty stood at frustrated attention when the boy stumbled around him as if being pulled by some invisible rope. Quinn, on the other hand, was able to move just fine and so he did. He rushed forward and planted his body between Percy and the old laird.

The latter tipped his head back on a wrinkled neck and looked Quinn in the eye.

“What foe cannot be bested as a child?” he said, echoing Mhairi’s words from earlier that day. Only now, that foe was no longer a concept, but a physical child! Quinn was horrified that the Muirs, a clan that had just proven how easily they could control an enemy, would conceive of such a curse—a curse that would end with the slaughter of children! It made no difference that those children might have been full-grown sword-wielding soldiers a half an hour before!

They were mad! All of them. Perhaps Margot and Mhairi were the sanest of the lot!

Mhairi!

Quinn looked in Ewan’s direction and found the old woman meeting his eye.

Please, Mhairi. Help us!

Mhairi, bless her, nodded.

A heartbeat later, he held both Juliet’s hand and Percy’s, and they were pushing quickly through an unresisting crowd. There was no time to wonder whether or not Mhairi was responsible.

They burst down the street with Monty, Jillian, and Ewan on their heels. The Muir sisters remained somewhere inside the mob. James waited at the bottom of the slope with horses ready.

Thank you!

He sent the thought to God, and to Mhairi and Margot, and hoped they all heard, somehow.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It was dark when Ewan led his strangely disguised guests back into Castle Ross. He sent James on some errand and led the rest of them into the big hall, then went to work starting a small fire in the hearth. Thank heavens he’d sent everyone from the building until after the funeral—the funeral where, thank goodness, there would be no body in the coffin.

Jules was just grateful they were all accounted for, including Percy. It was easy to admit she was in love with Quinn and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him—when he’d gone down on one knee, she’d been so thrilled she could hardly breathe. But she couldn’t live with herself, or anyone else, if she couldn’t find a way to end that little boy’s suffering. The funny thing was, she’d decided to help him however she could before he’d ever become that little boy.

When he’d taken her from the workroom beneath the tomb entrance, when he’d said his brother’s name and sobbed, she’d been backed up against his chest. She’d felt that sob rack her own bones, but she’d also felt it in her soul. His heartbreak had become hers. And she knew she had to fix it somehow.

All that business about the oubliette was just a bluff. He’d have never hurt her in the end. It was almost like she’d been able to read his mind—

Okay. There was no way she was going to follow that thought to the end. No way. No matter what the old man had said, she wasn’t one of those freaks on the other end of the tunnel.

As they all settled around the hall, she peeked at her sister and was kind of relieved that Jillian wasn’t looking her way, thinking the same thing. She turned away quickly though, just in case, and stared at Percy who was staring up at the sculpture of Montgomery.  With ten years of memories wiped away, he wouldn’t remember anything about the statue or the tomb standing close by, or even the entrance to the tunnel.

Once she and Percy had taken a dozen steps into the tunnel, he’d forgotten she was his hostage and let her go. He’d wanted to know why they were in a cave. She could have suggested they turn around and go back to the round door, but she’d had an indescribable impression that they should keep going, that whatever they’d begun had to be finished. After that, and about every twenty paces, he’d ask who she was and where they were. By the time she’d given him some kind of story, he’d start asking all over again. By halfway, she realized he’d been shrinking. It had scared the shit out of her, but she couldn’t let him know. He was so scared. So confused. So trusting.

The last time he’d asked who she was, she’d seen the light ahead. She’d told him they were in a cave, that she’d been lost and he’d come along and saved her. Once in the sunlight, she’d asked him his name and where he was from. He knew he was Percy Gordon and that he lived by the sea. He didn’t remember much else. No mother was waiting for him. He had brothers much older, but he didn’t like any of them.

That was the moment Jules had recognized as her chance to end his heartache. If he didn’t remember loving William yet, then losing his brother wouldn’t break his heart. And if she took Percy with her...

She suddenly realized why she’d been so set on saving the boy.

Deep down, she’d felt like erasing his father’s betrayal would somehow make up for Gabby’s betrayal of Nikkos. But it wouldn’t. Nothing was bringing Nikkos back. And nothing could erase what had happened to William Gordon. All she could do was keep Percy from reliving the loss. She only wished she could have done the same for Nikkos.

She thought of William’s body still waiting in Gordon’s dungeon and wondered if he knew she would be preventing Percy from ever loving him again. But if he knew that, he’d also know that Percy would be spared, wouldn’t he?

“Sorry, William,” she muttered. “I hope you understand.”

“What was that?” Quinn whispered in her ear.

Jules was sitting on a bench with Quinn standing behind her like he thought that hundred-year-old man might run through the door any second and drag her away.

“I said I’m not leaving without Percy,” she whispered back.

“Well, of course we’re not leaving without him,” he said. “Who knows what those blood-thirsty Muirs might do if they ever got their hands on him?”

She jumped to her feet and faced him, then grinned like an idiot, trying to show him how grateful she was.

“Does this mean I can have that kiss now?” He pulled her close and barked his shin on the bench. “Why is there ever something between us, Juliet?”

She climbed over the stupid bench and stepped up close. Just as Quinn’s mouth touched hers, Monty cleared his throat nearby. They ignored him and kissed like they’d been waiting all day for a chance to do it. Her lips were going to be bruised.

Thank goodness!

The second time Monty cleared his throat, he was a foot away.

Quinn pulled back. “What is it, Uncle? I ken she looks a great deal like yours, but this one’s mine. Yours is over there.” Then he pulled her close again.

This time, their lips didn’t even touch before she and Quinn were pushed apart. His hands slipped out of her reach.

“I beg pardon, nephew,” Monty said cheerfully, “but as Juliet’s brother of the law, she is mine until such time as I hand her to ye, aye? And I doona see a priest about.”

“In truth,” said Ewan as he squatted before the hearth poking at the flames of his fire, “James has gone to fetch Father McRae, just in case mind ye.”

Jillian started laughing. “Poor man! He’s going to think he’s marrying us again, Montgomery.”

Monty didn’t seem to hear because he and Quinn were locked in some kind of staring contest, like they were summing each other up. Was Monty daring Quinn to back out? Maybe run away before the priest showed up?

Jules felt the smile slip off her face when the word marrying finally registered. She heard a whimper and realized it had come from her own throat.

Quinn noticed her distress and pushed Monty out of the way to come to her. He hugged her to him, then ran his fingers along her hair.

“Don’t listen to them, lass,” he crooned. “We’ll marry when you’re ready and not before. I’ve more family who will want to be in attendance, aye?”

More family? The idea was shocking enough to get her mind off a rushed wedding.

What a difference a week made. No family, no ties. Now plenty of family with more waiting in the wings? It seemed like a pretty picture, but with one, unwanted face looming on the back row.

Gabby. The father figure. Smiling for the camera.

It was one tie she needed to sever before she’d be ready to tether herself to this family of Scots.

“We need to go, Quinn. I have to get back to New York in the next thirty-six hours, or I’ll have to hide for the rest of my life. None of you will be safe if Gabby comes looking for me. I have to make sure he gets put away.”

The color drained from Quinn’s face.

“You will be safe,” he demanded. It sounded a lot like the time Monty had shouted at Jillian that she would be fine, when she’d been crying beneath the tree.

“Here we are!” James led in a priest wearing a floor length robe. The man looked a little nervous, like he thought Satan might rear his head out of the giant mass of curls on James’ head.

“Face the wall, Father McRae, if ye please.” Monty’s voice boomed around the room.

The priest did as he was asked, like he was invited to face the wall on a regular basis. Then he fainted dead away.

Everyone looked at Monty because it had to have been his voice that scared the man.

Ewan laughed.

“Och, forgive me,” he said. “The man’s likely been planning the words to say o’er yer grave, and here ye are, orderin’ him about.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Standing in the tomb once more, just to the side of the hole and surrounded by all those who were supposedly traveling with her to the twenty-first century, Jules lowered the necklace onto her collarbone, just as Jillian had done a minute before.

Again, nothing happened.

The torchlight still rose through the hole. Ewan still gawked up from barrel below.

Jules huffed. “I don’t know why I need to do this. I wasn’t wearing the necklace when I came through the first time. Neither was James.”

She didn’t mean to sound cranky, but the six of them had been standing there for a while, and with five hands clamped on her arms, for fear she’d leave without them, she was feeling more than a little claustrophobic.

Quinn’s arm, wrapped securely around her waist, gave her a little squeeze. When she looked at him, he winked.

Percy was squished between them with one hand on Juliet’s arm and one wrapped around Quinn’s wrist. The poor kid was scared to death.

“Each time I’ve done it,” Jillian said, “it happened right when the silver was lowered onto my skin.”

“Perhaps there are too many people,” James suggested. “I can stay behind—”

“No,” Monty growled.

There was something going on there that Juliet didn’t know about.

Jillian perked up. “I know what it is! The Muirs. There were always Muir twins nearby.”

Everyone turned to stare at her. No one bothered to say it out loud, that there were Muir twins already inside. Jillian wrinkled her nose and shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, we’re not old,” she said.

“By Muir standards, we’re far from old ourselves,” came the voice of one of the sisters. It was hard enough for Jules to tell them apart when she could see them. It was impossible to tell anything from their voices.

“Mhairi, Margot. We’re ever so glad to see ye,” said Monty to the hole in the floor. “What have we forgotten, ladies? We’re all hangin’ on to Juliet for dear sweet life. She’s wearing the torque, as Jillian has already tried, but it doesna seem to be working.”

“Och, Laird Montgomery, haven’t we said it had naught to do with the torque?”

“Aye. Ye did. I remember now. But there must be something more.”

“Aye, laird. There’s more. But we must have yer promise before we help ye on yer way.”

Everyone’s eyes bugged out a little, all but Percy’s. They all suspected that making a promise to the Muirs might not be the wisest move. But Jules was desperate. She was going to lose her effing mind if she didn’t get out of there.

“What is it?” she hollered. “What’s the promise?”

“The tunnel. You must all promise that no one will ken of it.”

“An easy promise to keep,” said Quinn.

“But ye must all vow, and Ewan as well, that the tunnel will never be destroyed.”

Monty was already shaking his head.

Jillian bent and looked through the hole. “Why, ladies? Why can’t we destroy it? What if our children wander inside?”

“They would need to be shown the way. If ye keep the first promise, ye’ll have naught to fear.”

“Why?” Jules had the feeling they weren’t telling them everything. “Why can’t we get rid of it?”

There was a long pause. No one moved. No one let go of her.

“Someone else moves within the tunnel. Cursed. And yet there is hope, as long as the tunnel remains.”

There hadn’t been anyone inside the tunnel but Percy and her. Or had there? They’d been watching their feet the entire way.

A shiver rose through her and she looked at Jillian. Her sister felt it too. The tunnel shouldn’t be destroyed.

“We promise,” they said in unison, then laughed. No one else in their little circle seemed to think it was funny. Under the circumstances, Jules resisted the urge to call out, “Jinx!”

“We need to go now, ladies,” Quinn called out. “What is it we’ve forgotten?”

“Wrought with love and sacrifice, Quinn Ross. Love. And sacrifice.”

One of the sisters laughed. “And shame upon ye, fer thinkin’ we’re a blood-thirsty bunch. The lad would never have been harmed—but what better way to make ye determined to take him along than to forbid ye?”

Quinn stiffened at her side.

Jules gave him a little squeeze. When he met her gaze, she gave him a wink.

“Enough love in here to choke a horse, I’d say.” She turned back to her sister. “What about the sacrifice?”

The seconds ticked away. No one spoke, though it was clear by their frowns they were all thinking. Then suddenly, James laughed.

“Sorry, Monty, lad. I ken ye dinna trust me near Isobelle for some reason, but it seems there’s no other choice.” James looked Jules in the eye. “Give ‘em hell, Juliet Bell.”

One hand loosened its grip on her arm, then disappeared, and with it, the light from below. She was standing in the darkness with the echo of James’ laughter fading from memory. Monty and Jillian released her. Quinn and Percy still held tight. A second later, a flashlight came on. Monty held it in one hand, his other was locked around Jillian’s forearm in a deathgrip.

There was an empty gap in their little circle, where James had stood.

“Son of a bitch.” Monty glared at the empty space.

Jillian laughed. “Well, at least your cursing is improving.”

“Jillian, dear!” came a sweet shaky voice from below. It had to be one of the old Muir sisters who’d first sent Jules into the tomb.

“I guess we’ve arrived,” she said.

It was a little shocking that she’d felt nothing at all. Inhaling in the fifteenth century, exhaling in the twenty-first.

Quinn finally let go of her wrist and tapped Percy on the shoulder.

“You can let go now, lad.”

“Jillian? Did ye find yer sister?”

“Yes, I did,” Jillian said with a smile.

“Well, then, there are a couple of surly gentlemen who suggest that she comes out with her hands where they might readily see them.”

***

Up at the manor house, Jules the Prisoner, was held in the upstairs bathroom—or rather, the upstairs loo—for two reasons. First, no one trusted her not to escape before things were settled, and secondly, Quinn refused to let anyone lay a hand on her, let alone allow two agents to hold her by the elbows. The loo, with its small transom window through which no adult human could escape, became the only option.

She didn’t know what those good old boys from New York had told them about her, but the men sent to apprehend her treated Juliet Bell like she was trouble. The fact that James hadn’t turned up with the rest of them hadn’t helped. What did they think, that she was a cop-killer. A bobby-killer?

It wasn’t funny, but you know, it kinda was.

“James would have thought it was funny,” she mumbled.

The bathroom door whipped open and Jules had to back up against the side of the toilet to allow enough room for Quinn and Monty to squeeze inside and shut the door behind them.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I made a few calls,” Quinn said. “They are British Secret Service. One of them is James’ supervisor. He had no problem believing that James would take a leave of absence and head to Spain after making sure we were home safely. A couple blokes climbed into the tomb, but came back out again, thankfully.”

“Aye, thankfully,” said Monty. “Get on with it then,” he said to Quinn.

“Get on with what?” she asked.

Quinn’s face reddened. “Och, my uncle here doesn’t believe you mean to wed me.”

Monty snorted. “That’s a fact. I doona believe it.”

Jules didn’t know whether to be offended or not. Of course Monty didn’t know her well, but did he really believe that she’d take the money and run?

“It doesn’t matter what he believes, though, does it? It matters what you believe,” she said to Quinn. It kind of hurt that he doubted her, after all they’d been through.

“Och, now, Juliet. Of course I believe you. I just want Monty to shut his gob and stop his teasin’. If you’ll just tell him...”

“Wait.” Monty pulled out a plaid scarf he’d had dangling from his waistband. “If she’s going to make a promise, she’ll need to bind it. Hold up her hand.”

Quinn inched around to the far side of the toilet and took her hand right hand in his right hand, then lifted it up. Monty stepped forward and started wrapping their hands together. Jules was just glad the toilet lid was down.

“What in the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

“Binding yer promise,” Monty said simply, like she was stupid to have asked. “Ye canna break a promise that’s been bound, lass.”

Quinn just smiled at her and shrugged like it was the most natural thing in the world to be holding hands over a toilet asking her to promise that she would marry him.

“Of course I’m going to marry you,” she said, “but only if you don’t make a habit of doing silly shit like this.”

Quinn looked at Monty. “Yes, I pledge to marry the lovely foul-mouthed lass. Will that do?”

Monty frowned, then nodded. “I bear witness to it.”

Jules rolled her eyes.

The scarf was pulled away and Monty stuck only his head out the door.

“I think you should kiss me, lass.” Quinn leaned forward.

She shook her head. “I am not kissing you over a toilet.”

He huffed and stuck out his lovely bottom lip. She was incredibly tempted to reconsider.

Monty laughed quietly. “Stop yer moonin’ and come on. We’re not supposed to be in here. Juliet, ye’ll stay put.”

Quinn gave her a wink and then backed out of the room, grinning, pulling the door shut behind him.

She hurried to the door and pressed her ear against the thick white paint. She thought she heard men giggling on the stairs.

Men.

She shook her head and climbed into the footed bathtub. If they were going to make her wait, she was going to sleep and it wasn’t going to be on the toilet.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The bathroom door burst open.

“She’s gone!” a man shouted.

“No, I’m not,” she hollered and sat up in the tub.

An agent jumped sideways with a gun pointed at her.

“Nevermind,” he hollered toward the door. “She’s here.”

He kept his gun trained on her while she stretched her shoulders—the tub was far too short for her to have slept comfortably.

Then she laughed as the pins and needles worked themselves out of her muscles. Out of all the things that had frightened her in the last ten days, the guy with the gun was the least frightening of all.

“He’s awake,” another man said from the hallway. “He says it wasn’t her.”

The agent sneered at her but holstered his gun. Then he went out and shut the door.

“What?” she called over the side of the tub. “No apology?”

About five minutes later, the door opened again.

The squatty one must have picked the short straw. He stood back with his feet braced apart like he thought she was going to rush him. He looked so nervous, she hoped they didn’t allow him to keep real bullets in his gun. Thankfully, he hadn’t drawn that weapon, yet.

She climbed out of the tub and stretched.

Squatty nodded the direction she was supposed to go. She wanted to yell boo! at him as she passed, but she was afraid she’d get shot for it. Some laughs just aren’t worth dying for, but she couldn’t help holding up her hands and shaking them.

“Uh, oh. Where’d my handcuffs go?”

Squatty’s eyes bulged and she thought he was going to pee himself. Then he frowned. He must have remembered she hadn’t been cuffed in the first place.

She chuckled while he nudged her down the wide hallway and into a large study. The very handsome middle-aged man in the suit sat behind the desk and smiled. He’d been the same man who’d been sitting in the great hall when they’d all been escorted out of the cellar.

She smiled back.

Behind her right foot, something snorted, and she jumped. But it wasn’t an animal—it was Quinn. He was lying on his stomach with his hands cuffed behind him. His head was up, though, and he winked.

She was thrilled to see him and worried about the handcuffs, but with as nervous as everyone seemed to be, she didn’t dare kneel next to him. Since their little conversation in the bathroom, he’d taken the time to change into jeans, but he still had on the loose yellow shirt he’d been wearing since they’d returned from Muirsglen. And he was barefoot.

Nice jeans, she thought, but she’d have to study them later.

She turned back to the suit. “What did he do?”

The man’s smile turned into a grin. She didn’t trust him worth spit.

“Assaulted one of my men,” he said.

“Allegedly,” Quinn said cheerfully.

“Well, I’m not about to disbelieve my own agent, Mr. Ross. And I doubt he bloodied his own nose.”

Quinn laughed. “Is he certain it was me?”

A man walked in from the hallway with a small bag of ice held to his face.

“Oh, I’m quite certain it was you,” he said, and drew back a foot, just a little, to kick Quinn, but stopped when Jules pointedly cleared her throat. He stepped away from her and moved to the window like he thought she might sully his suit. But she would have done more than that if he’d have finished that kick.

Montgomery barged in behind the injured man, ignoring the policeman hanging around his neck. Someone from the hallway hollered for a stun gun. The policeman jumped down and backed out the door.

“What the devil have ye done to me nephew?” Monty took Quinn by the shoulders and helped him to his feet. “Well?” He turned a threatening frown toward the suit.

The suit just grinned. “Just one moment, sir, while Chambers here gets a good look at you. Perhaps he’s not so certain who struck him after all.”

Chambers looked from Ross to Ross and back again.

“Shit,” he said, then stormed out.

The suit nodded to another man who stepped forward to take off Quinn’s cuffs.

Quinn smiled. “Thank you, uncle.”

“Not at all. But be quick about this, if ye can. We’re waitin’ that special supper on ye.” Monty threw Jules a wink, then left.

Someone in the hallway shouted, “Halt!”

Another shouted, “Tase ‘im!”

“Shite!” shouted a masculine, but high voice.

There was a loud thud, then a knocking.

After a second or two of silence, they heard Monty’s laughter moving away.

The Suit rolled his eyes and mumbled something about hoping someone got it in the ass.

“Please, Ms. Bell, take a seat,” he said. “Let’s get on with it so I can save the remainder of my men from well-meaning Highlanders.”

Jules plopped into one of the two chairs facing the desk. She thought Quinn would take the other one, but he came to stand behind her instead. She was surprised how glad she was to feel him so near. Then it hit her—she wasn’t alone. And if she played her cards right, if she tried to be as nice to these Scots as they were to her, she might not ever be alone again.

“It’s not Bell. It’s Ross,” Quinn said. “Juliet Ross. My wife.”

Jules bit her lip. She couldn’t believe he was lying to a government agent.

The suit raised a brow and brought his fingers together. His elbows rested on the arms of the large red leather chair.

“Married?” he said. “We have no record of it. Let me guess. This wedding was rather recent?”

“We’re handfasted,” Quinn replied. “You understand handfasting, Lord Dunbar?”

This guy is a Lord? And what the hell is handfasting?

Dunbar threw his head back and laughed. “You know that won’t matter.”

“It matters to me.” Quinn bent down and whispered in her ear. “That business we conducted in the loo, lass, was Scottish marriage the old way. Yer mine now.”

All Jules got out of it was loo and marriage. He’d married her in the bathroom? Was he effing kidding?

There was no time to find out.

“And I’m certain,” Quinn addressed Dunbar again, “the legality of handfasting would have to be addressed, as would any extradition of a British citizen, would take a wee while to sort out.”

She really didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. She wanted to go back to the states. And she needed to go now.

“Look,” she said. “I have to get to New York, to testify. If we don’t get moving, it will be too late.”

If anyone could get her there in time, it should be these guys.

Dunbar stopped playing with his fingers and leaned forward. “I’m afraid your testimony is no longer necessary. The defendant was murdered.”

“Defendant? You mean Gabby?” Her heart sped up. It was all she could hear.

Gabby was dead? Her Gabby?

“Gabby Skedros is dead?” She was finally able to ask it out loud. “You’re sure?”

“I’m afraid so.” Dunbar watched her closely. “He was poisoned. Of course you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? You’ve been in Scotland since you landed nearly two weeks ago?”

He’d said it, but he didn’t believe it. His condescending tone made her nauseous. He was no different than the Feds she’d dealt with for months, trying to make her feel like a guilty prisoner, instead of the witness they were supposed to be protecting. But with Gabby dead, she wouldn’t need protecting anymore.

“I didn’t want Gabby dead,” she said. “I wanted to look him in the eye when I testified. I wanted to tell him what a coward he was for shooting a defenseless boy. I wanted to assure him that Nikkos would have hated him in those seconds before he died. I wanted to show him he would never get the chance to betray me like that. I was going to betray him. For Nikkos.”

Quinn’s hand rested on her shoulder and she reached up and touched his fingers. She wanted to double over and puke out the hate she’d been carrying around for a man that was already dead. She didn’t need to hold onto it anymore. She could let it go. And she did. In a flood of silent tears.

She didn’t care who saw, or what they thought. She had to let it out.

She had Quinn. And she didn’t want that stored up hate anywhere near him.

Jules thought of Percy and the fact that he would never have to taste that intense hatred of his father. And she wouldn’t either. She was done. It was over. She and Percy would move on.

Quinn cleared his throat. “If her testimony is no longer required, why the need to restrain her?”

Dunbar’s smile helped her get a grip. She could almost hear the rattle of his snake’s tale.

“Assault of a Federal Officer is a serious charge,” he said pleasantly. “An FBI agent by the name of Dixon is demanding her head, or at the very least, her extradition.”

Quinn laughed. “What did she do, bash him on the head?”

Jules laughed as she wiped away her tears. How well he knew her already.

Dunbar opened up a laptop and turned it to face her. Agent Dixon’s mug flashed up in a Skype frame.

She stopped laughing, but didn’t lose her smile.

“Hello, Dickie,” she chirped.

The man’s face turned red. It was always red. Easiest man in the world to goad. She couldn’t believe the FBI took him on.

“Yes, Lord Dunbar,” Dickie said. “That’s her. Be careful. She’s very dangerous. I’d suggest a full set of chains and perhaps a muzzle for transport.”

Quinn reached over and spun the laptop away from her. “Lord Dunbar? May I have just a moment’s time to defend my wife?”

Dunbar smiled and nodded. “You may have five minutes. Then we’ll take her and go in spite of your handfasting. If you want to spend that five minutes defending her, be my guest, but—”

Quinn was already gone.

She could hear him running down the hall and then...nothing.

Well, at least he was hurrying. Maybe he’d even get back in time for some macking before they hauled her out. And she needed to remind him that he would be in charge of taking care of Percy while she was gone. She just hoped she wasn’t going away for a very long time.

She refused to panic. She’d gone from witness to defendant so fast her head was spinning. They were going to have to give her some time before they could expect her to take them seriously.

But if she really was going to face charges, it would be Dickie’s word against hers. She’d only been defending herself from the slime ball. Surely the ass had treated other witnesses like he’d treated her. She just had to insist the FBI look into that. But it might take some time. She just hoped Quinn’s and Percy’s lives wouldn’t move on before she could make it back.

Of course, she’d have plenty of money for the ticket, but that hardly raised her heart rate anymore. Money was everything ten days ago. Now there were so many more things in line ahead of it.

Well, not things—people.

Quinn came back in the room breathing hard. He gave her a wink, but didn’t come to her for some quality goodbyes. He walked around the desk and shared a very private whisper with Lord Dunbar.

Lord Dunbar cleared his throat, like he was trying to cover up the fact that he’d almost laughed. Then he nodded and turned forward.

“Proceed, Mr. Ross,” he said.

Quinn spun the laptop to face her again, then stood beside her.

“Agent Dixon, are you there?” he asked, even though the man’s face was filling the screen.

“Yes, I’m here,” he said, like he was doing everyone a favor by squeezing this conference call into his schedule.

“Is this the woman who assaulted you, sir?”

He took Juliet’s head and moved it until it was up close to the monitor.

“Yes. That’s her.”

“You’re certain?” Quinn’s hands wouldn’t let her sit back in her chair and she was dying to ask him what he was doing. Dunbar had one hand over his mouth and he was turning as red as Dickie.

Suddenly, Quinn let go of her head.

“Just one more moment, if you please, Agent Dixon.” He spun the laptop away again, then went to the doorway and pulled Jillian into the room. He gestured for Jules to get her ass out of the chair, then sat Jillian in her spot. He wiped the smile off his face and spun the laptop back.

“Hello, Dickie,” Jillian said.

The agent’s face darkened again. “What is this?”

“Just tell us what you see, Agent Dixon,” Quinn said.

Jules backed up against a bookcase to make sure she wasn’t part of the picture. She’d needed something to lean on anyway.

“I see the face of my assailant. How many times do I have to say it?”

Quinn butted in front of Jillian and grinned into Dickie’s face. “That should do it, I think.” He spun the laptop back to face Lord Dunbar. “My lord?”

Dunbar cleared his throat and sat forward in his crisp expensive suit to address the screen.

“Agent Dixon. You have just positively identified two different females, and I refuse to extradite a handful of British citizens just so you can take your pick. I strongly suggest you drop the charges against Juliet Bell—that is, Juliet Bell Ross—and if you feel we have erred, please invite your American superiors to contact me personally. I, for one, am certain they will find today’s events to be quite amusing.”

Lord Dunbar snapped the laptop shut and gave Jules a wink. Then he turned to Quinn.

“You might have made an entertaining barrister, Mr. Ross.”

“Once upon a time, my lord, I was.”

Dunbar laughed. “With a wife like yours, that experience should come in handy.”

Quinn gave a little bow.

“And Mr. Ross?” Dunbar got up from the desk and gestured for his men to leave the room ahead of him. “I’d make it legal before Dickie there comes to call.”

Quinn tilted his head back and gave Jules a look through narrowed eyes.

“Oh, I intend to, my lord. I intend to.”

Quinn reached out a hand and drew her away from the bookshelf and over to the window. Jillian joined them and together they watched eight cars fill with suits and policemen before moving down the drive toward the remnants of Castle Ross.

“They’ve prepared a little wedding supper for us, Mrs. Ross,” he murmured as he nuzzled her behind the ear.

Chills flooded her body, but it wasn’t quite enough to make her forget.

“Mrs. Ross? You must be talking to Jillian because I sure as hell didn’t just get married in a bathroom.”

Quinn cleared his throat. Then cleared it again.

“Don’t worry, sister,” said Jillian. “We’ll make sure he gets it right.” She walked to the door, then paused. “Don’t take too long with your apology, Quinn. Supper’s still waiting. And my sons and I are starved.” She patted her stomach. “Tomorrow, we can run to the city and get that package from Grandmother’s lawyer.”

Jules nodded, but food and a mysterious package weren’t enough to get her attention when she was about to be left alone with her very own Highlander, and there were no bars or benches between them.

The door snapped shut, but Quinn took two long strides and opened it again.

“Pity, Jillian!” His voice boomed in the hallway. He sounded way too much like Montgomery for comfort. “Have pity! Eat without us!” Then he stepped back and slammed the door.

Jules laughed. “You watch. Monty will be up here before I can forgive you enough to kiss you.”

Quinn walked back to her slowly, freezing her with a look that made running away impossible...and unthinkable. She also found it hard to breathe.

“Don’t believe it,” he said. “That man was a witness to our ceremony. He gave you to me. I’ve already explained, you’re mine now.”

He gathered her into his arms and her hands found their way around his neck. His thick black hair caressed the backs of her fingers, inviting them to play. His face turned deadly serious as he lowered his forehead to hers.

“Pity, Juliet. Have pity.” He smiled then. “My uncle will be busy fighting Jillian for a small share of supper. Have you ever seen your sister eat?”

They laughed and sighed, then they got down to apologizing and forgiving. The apologizing was quick and sincere. The forgiving took a very, very long time.

THE END

COLLECTING ISOBELLE

PROLOGUE

Scotland, Castle Ross’s dungeon, 1496

In an out-of-place workroom, hidden among the twisting and turning caverns below Castle Ross, James Ferguson—until recently, an MI6 agent—stood between two Muir witches and stared at Laird Ewan Ross across the top of a large barrel. The bulky, shaggy-maned, fifteenth century man stood perfectly still with a torch raised in one hand, his head cocked to one side.

“Do ye suppose they’re gone?” James finally asked when he’d heard nary a whisper for some time.

“Aye,” said the witch to his left. “They are far from here, though they’ve been gone only a moment.”

James eyed the hole in the ceiling that led to the inside of the tomb of yet another witch, Isobelle, a tomb that had become a portal in time. It was true, he’d come through that very tomb from the twenty-first century and into the fifteenth, but it now seemed as if the future was but a dream.

He tried not to dwell on the fact that, only moments before, he’d had a chance to join the others as they tried to travel through time in the opposite direction. But he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that his place was still here, in the past. There was so much to see of history as it was being made. How could he give up the chance to witness a bit of it? Even if it meant he might never return to the amenities of the future. After all, there was no one special waiting for him, wondering where he’d disappeared to, other than a few fellow agents at MI6.

While standing inside that tomb a few moments ago, contemplating the lures of both the future and the past, James had known in his bones he should stay. But he’d needed a more tangible reason to bow out, and a search for Montgomery Ross’s sister was the best excuse he could pull from the air on short notice. Finding this Isobelle would remain his first priority, of course, but there was no hurry. She was in another country, for one thing, so he couldn’t very well walk up to her, toss a bag over her head, and carry her back to Castle Ross.

When he did find her, as he’d vowed to do, he’d need to convince her he was no madman. She’d been buried alive at one point and he was going to suggest she not only return to Scotland where she would be in danger, but that she climb back into her tomb. What reasonable woman would believe his assurance that this tomb would spirit her away to a strange land where her brother and sister awaited, along with their new spouses, for their family circle to be complete?

He would simply hold out hope that Isobelle Ross was not overly reasonable.

James sighed and turned to Ewan. “Montgomery said ye’ve received a letter from Ossian, that he and Isobelle had been staying in Spain. Do ye ken the city? Spain’s hardly a wee place, aye?”

Ewan’s hoary brows rose toward the thin, long hair on the top of his head. He opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted.

“They are no longer in Spain.” A bony hand wrapped itself around James’ arm. The frail sister witch frowned up at him. “East,” she said.

“Yes, East,” said the other. “An island. Perhaps an island city.”

“Venice?” James glanced at the sisters, then at Ewan. The big man’s eyes were wide as saucers as he too looked from one sister to the other. He then met James’ gaze, shook his head, and shrugged.

A great help he was.

“Venice,” the sisters said in unison.

James peered closely at the one holding his arm. Her confidence shined back at him in the reflection of the torchlight. Not a wrinkle wavered.

“Fine, then. Venice.”

CHAPTER ONE

Porto di Lido, Venice 1496

Ossian Ross stood near the bow of the Spanish carrack and growled.

Where the bloody hell is she?

He would worry for Isobelle’s safety if it weren’t for the fact that every man on the ship, including the rowers, believed she was his wife, a Highlander’s wife—and believed they would die if they so much as stared overlong in her direction. In spite of the fear Ossian engendered with his braw form and his tendency to carry a blade in his hand at all times, however, there was always a chance a weak man might succumb to temptation. But then, Ossian would have heard screamin’. Not Isobelle’s screamin’, of course, but that of any man who dared lay a hand upon her. For his bonny cousin was nearly as dangerous as himself—he’d seen to that—and Isobelle had a temper to match her impressive red mane. By instinct alone, men aboard the carrack had backed away from the pair of them since they’d first boarded the ship. It was a pity the Spaniards and Moors of Segorbe had not shared that instinct, or he and Izzy might have found peace on the Spanish coast.

Ossian stared at the young Italian lass, Sophia, standing on the quarter deck wearing Isobelle’s best dress, a dress for which he’d paid far too much for it to be handed off to a spoilt child. The green velvet puddled at the lassie’s feet, and she repeatedly pushed the over-large sleeves off her hands so she might better hold onto Trucchio, the young man beside her. Anyone with eyes could see the dress belonged to someone else. Everyone who’d traveled with them knew who that someone was.

Isobelle.

But if the lass wore Isobelle’s finest, the very dress his cousin planned to wear as she greeted her new city, what was Isobelle wearing?

The ship had arrived a day ahead of schedule, so they’d been ordered to stand at anchor just inside the Port of Lido until a dock was free. If they hurried, he and Isobelle could find room in one of the small lancha boats and not be forced to wait.

Ossian turned away from the young lovers and went in search of a mass of red hair, since he had no ken how his Scottish cousin would be dressed. Young Sophia was headed for the Franciscan abbey, so it was understandable she’d want to look pretty for Trucchio while they spent their last few hours together. But Isobelle was mistaken if she expected Ossian to stand about waiting patiently for the lass to finish with the dress.

Izzy was not on deck, damn her.

Another lancha was lowered away from the ship and his patience fled.

What the devil was she about?

He stomped the entire distance to the ladder, then lowered himself into the cargo hold where he and his bonny cousin had separated themselves from as many of the passengers and crew as possible. Isobelle’s hair never failed to cause problems; she refused to cut it, and the hair itself refused to be controlled beneath caps of any kind, so it was best Isobelle’s entire person was kept from sight as much as possible.

None of their meager belongings remained, nor the hammocks they’d slept in.

Ossian started stringing together some choice words for the moment he found her. But by the time he finished scouring every corner below decks, they were all but forgotten. A tiny seed of worry began to sprout in his belly, but he ignored it and planned to drown it as soon as they found a public house.

Assuming his and Izzy’s paths had crossed while he’d been searching, he returned topside. A quick glance around proved the last of the lanchas was gone, damn it anyway. He sighed and meandered to the railing. There was no hurry now. He would leave it to Izzy to find him.

Ossian maneuvered his elbows between ropes and spindles and leaned on the wood rail. A twist and a stretch, this way and that, loosened the muscles in his back. It would be good to sleep in a real bed for a change. Isobelle would feel the same after sleeping in a hammock. She might be dreading the task of settling in a new city, but she was as anxious as he to get off the carrack. He was surprised his cousin wasn’t the first over the rail when they reached the harbor.

He frowned down upon that last lancha moving away from the ship. It was full of black-veiled nuns in brown tunics with a uniformed guard at each end. In the center of the boat sat Sophia, the new addition to their order. She was dressed in brown as well, but with only a white veil. By the time Ossian had a glimpse of her, the girl’s face was but a pink circle in the center of her wimple as she looked back at the ship. The veil seemed terribly large for her size, as if her hair were standing on end beneath it.

He knew the spoilt lass didn’t wish to join the convent, but she’d been promised to the abbey by parents who could better afford a dowry to the church than a dowry to a husband.

A horrible possibility suddenly occurred to him, and Ossian’s gullet started climbing up his throat. He couldn’t manage to swallow or breathe. He pushed away from the rail and spun on his heel. Up on the quarter deck, the green dress remained, as did Sophia, standing in the circle of Trucchio’s arms. She was all teeth and tears as she watched the small boat move farther away. Trucchio looked over at Ossian and lifted his chin.

The highlander hoped the fury on his face expressed even half of the contempt he had for the wee bratling’s. When the boy finally lowered his chin and blushed, Ossian was mollified, but only for the moment. He would follow the pair, of course. He would need to know where to find Sophia in case the nuns tried to keep Isobelle.

Heaven help them if they did.

CHAPTER TWO

Gaspar stood in the chancel behind an iron lattice. The screen, with its intricate spiral pattern, was a bit grandioso considering the abbey housed a Franciscan cloister, but it was not for him to judge. No. His judgment was reserved for more important matters.

Discretion was necessary for another moment or two while he gave the Bishop Gallo time to leave the grounds. There was no need for the man to know he’d been spied upon. An anonymous report claimed the man enjoyed a questionable relationship with one of the abbey’s nuns, and since Gallo was a bit enthusiastic about serving those particular sisters, the report warranted a closer look. Gaspar had been sent by The Patriarch of Venice to observe the forty year old bishop, but as it turned out, one of the cloister was a blood sister to the bishop, nothing more. It would be a rare treat to be able to report that all was well, and he was almost eager to make it.

But he was equally eager to leave the abbey grounds for the simple fact the place was filled with women and therefore no place for a man like him—not that there were others like him. He’d made a vow twelve years ago that he would forswear the company of women and dedicate his life to serving God however he could, a vow easily honored if he kept his distance from any and all females. And though he was often called upon to judge a woman, he was determined to remain as detached as possible, especially if she could not be helped.

And after twelve years of distance, it was difficult to linger in their presence, nun or no, holy ground or no.

A few minutes, but no more. A few minutes to prove to God that I am able to withstand the temptations of the flesh. To prove I am able to stand in a nave full of nuns and virgins and come away with unsullied thoughts.

Of course, after a dozen years of discipline, he hardly noticed temptation anymore.

The narthex doors flew open and banged against the stone walls interrupting his thoughts. The nuns were still about then. He’d been wise to remain concealed.

Gaspar Dragotti, sometimes called God’s Dragon—though typically not to his face—was Special Investigator to His Beatitude, The Patriarch of Venice. He was an Inquisitor, sometimes a judge, and when the circumstances demanded, an executioner. He was not Italian by birth, but had come to the church states to be closer to those who could speak to God. He’d taken the name Gaspar to replace that uglier name, the one women had called him by long ago, the name he’d all but forgotten. It was no longer a part of him.

Gaspar was no priest, of course, but his position made him a powerful man among the clergy. Though his missions were usually grave and secretive, everyone knew their nature. Therefore he was given a wide berth by the people of Venice and the rest of the church states, for to have God’s Dragon knock upon one’s door could sometimes stop a man’s heart in his chest. Especially if that man suffered a guilty conscience.

Women simply fled. Well…after pausing a moment to stare.

Nuns were different, however. His business rarely involved the sisters more than it had that day, so for the most part they flitted around him like excited birds that imagined themselves immune to his dragon’s fire, exempt from his adjudication. Their fearlessness made him uneasy.

Through the streams of sunlight and dust motes, he watched four guards usher a novice inside the narthex and then hurry back out the doors and bang them closed once more. The woman stared at the blocked exit for only a moment before her shoulders began to shake.

What was this? A novice being handled so by guards? And worse yet, the chapel used to cage her? What irreverence!

The woman’s voice broke into pieces, but she was not weeping as he’d supposed, she was laughing. And the unholy sound winged into the rafters on sharp feathers and chased away Gaspar’s concern for her treatment.

Is she inebriated ?

The laughter died with a sigh, and the novice turned and walked up the far aisle. Her gait was light and animated and she turned this way and that, walking sideways at times as her attention was drawn to the nave’s architecture and not where her feet fell. The silhouette of her veil swelled out behind her head as if she were hiding a satchel there, and the odd thought made it impossible for him to look away.

When she reached the transept, she turned and walked to the center, her head bowed, her hands lifting to her veil. She pulled off the head cover and flung it toward a bench as if it meant nothing. Then she raised her hands again to her wimple.

Gaspar wrenched his head to the side, refusing to look upon her, refusing to feed his own curiosity. He turned bodily toward the small door at his back, no longer content to stand behind the rood screen and wait for others to go along their ways. If someone noticed him, so be it. His observations were complete. There was no true need for secrecy. Besides, the young woman would answer to God for her irreverence, not to Gaspar. He had a vow to keep, after all.

“Damn you!”

The curse struck Gaspar as if he’d taken a blow to the stomach, and he turned back to the screen, his reaction no longer his to control. Avoiding the woman was no longer possible. He could not walk away and leave her free to further desecrate God’s house. But he hoped a brief bit of instruction would be enough to put an end to her thoughtlessness.

He stomped to the screen and raised his hands to the gate, but they stilled in the air before reaching the latch, his attention caught on the sight unfolding in a glorious stream of late afternoon sunshine. And he the only witness.

A thick, decadent mane of red hair poured around the woman’s shoulders while she struggled to remove the wimple from her face. Dark red hair that looked far too familiar, though it could not belong to one of the ghosts from his sinful youth. How could it be anything other than a test from the Almighty Himself?

Chaos galloped and kicked in his breast like a mad horse in a confined space. He could not bring order to his thoughts, though in the back of his mind, he suspected he was being punished for believing himself above temptation. He immediately prayed for forgiveness, his mouth shaping the words easily and silently, but he should have closed his eyes to do it, for the prayer was forgotten as he watched the woman struggle with the wimple. A long copper strand wrapped itself around the white cloth like a living vine.

Perhaps God means to strangle her.

A preposterous thought, considering that in all Gaspar’s years engaged in the patriarch’s business, he had yet to see such direct intervention from Heaven.

The woman took a firm hold on the wimple with both hands and braced her feet apart as if preparing to rip the hair from her very head. Gaspar’s gasp betrayed him and the woman stilled. For a long moment, neither of them moved. But the silence was broken when the large doors opened once again. The woman released the worrisome cloth and glanced in his direction before turning to the back of the church.

The manly-sized abbess glided into the nave with six nuns behind her, seven faces lit with a combination of determination and excitement, all hands tucked modestly inside their sleeves. They moved in such uniformity, they might have been a company of soldiers.

The woman in the transept pushed aside her wayward hair to watch the newcomers, but still Gaspar could not see her face clearly. He was pleased she hadn’t damaged her head, then chided himself for wasting his concern. Was he not prepared to reprimand the woman for defiling the chapel only a moment ago?

That hair. It was all the fault of that hair. A mane of red, marking her for the devil, some would say. So perhaps it was the devil who had sent her to tempt God’s Dragon and not God reminding him of the weakness of his past. But if so, the devil had underestimated him. A simple head of red hair was not enough to erase twelve years of discipline.

“Young woman,” the abbess hissed in Italian. “You will be silent in God’s house. God’s Dragon may still be lurking about, and I won’t have him bothered by the likes of you.”

Ah. So. Someone had noticed him after all, but no one cast a glance at the screen.

“I doona understand ye,” came the woman’s muffled voice. “I’d be much obliged if ye’d help me. I tried to tell them it wouldna fit over me hair. Now it’s tryin’ to strangle me, aye?”

Scottish!

Gaspar exhaled carefully, wishing he could expel the woman from his sight so easily. And so silently. The chaos increased in his chest, but with stark fear added, Gaspar felt true pain and clutched his tunic. The face and form of a different red-haired Scotswoman tried to rise from his memory, but he forbade it. At any moment, he might be forced to cry out just to keep all his old demons at bay. He only hoped the nuns would take their charge and depart before that happened. Leaving one hand clutched over his heart, he released his tunic with the other and clamped it firmly over his mouth, just in case.

“You don’t speak Italian?” the abbess asked in English while she untangled the red lock of hair, then placed her hands on her hips. “Any Latin?”

“Latin?” The young woman straightened. Her hair fell away from her face and Gaspar’s breath grew cold in his chest.

Perhaps it was he who had underestimated the devil, for she was a beauty. As beautiful as he’d once been himself, he admitted, before he’d removed that curse.

“Some Latin,” she said. “Me brother is a Highland Chieftain. We were educated—or more like, he was educated and me sister and I spied in most days.”

“So. You are not Sophia Pedrotti,” the abbess said, though she could not have suspected the woman to be Italian once she’d opened her mouth.

The redhead gave a wide smile. “Alas. I am not.” She reached for the rope at her waist and began picking at the knot.

The abbess gave a dainty shrug of her shoulders. “Pity. But you’ll do.”

The Scotswoman stilled. “I’ll do what?”

The abbess shook her head and smiled. “You’ll do in her stead. You intended to take her place, certainly, if you donned her habit and allowed our order to remove you from the ship without a word of protest.” She nodded at the nuns behind her. “Gag her and bring her along. We’ve got to get her hidden before that dragon pokes his head in the church.”

“Oooh, no,” said the woman. “Me...me husband won’t take kindly to me takin’ the veil, I assure ye.” A couple of brave nuns took her by the arms while another peered closely at the discarded wimple, then at the woman’s mouth. Surely they didn’t expect to shove all that cloth between her teeth.

Gaspar considered that mouth for a moment. Pink, plump. The lower lip a bit fuller than the other, as if the woman pouted too often. There was nothing more to observe, and yet he could not stop staring. It was so rare that he considered a woman’s mouth. He rarely looked at women at all, and rarer still did he look them in the eye, let alone study their faces.

The chaos had settled. The dread had ebbed away while he’d watched and listened. This woman would not be his downfall, nor had she managed to unearth his demons enough to be a threat to him. He turned his head aside again to break the spell, for a spell it must be if she was able to distract him as she had. It would be best if he slipped away and left the woman in the abbess’s capable hands. It was no business of his how the large woman ran her abbey—unless an order from the patriarch instructed him otherwise.

A scuffle, a yelp and a grunt, brought his attention back around to find the two women who had been holding the Scotswoman lying on the floor. The third, the one who’d been holding the wimple, pulled one corner of that large white cloth from her own mouth while the final three sisters advanced to finish what the first three had started.

The devil’s temptress grabbed the fumbling nun before her, spun her around, and pulled the teetering woman back against her like a shield. Then she turned her head and looked through the screen as if it weren’t there. Bright green eyes stared into Gaspar’s own as she mouthed the words, “Help me.”

Gaspar was suddenly affixed to the stone floor upon which he stood. The fear that had ebbed away returned and washed over him like a baptistery poured over his head.

CHAPTER THREE

A great roar erupted outside the church. If Gaspar wasn’t mistaken, and if his memory served, they’d just heard a Scottish war cry. His Gaelic was a bit rusty. He couldn’t understand a word of it. But an entire clan of Scotsmen might well be surrounding the church and preparing to attack it.

The nuns needed warning and possibly protecting. So for the second time, he raised his hands to the gate intent on taking charge of the situation. But the doors crashed open again, and he paused to assess the danger, to determine if his position might give him the advantage of surprise after an enemy entered. But surely, even a hoard of Scots wouldn’t defile a church…

Then again, hadn’t their countrywoman already done so?

One of the church guards flew, prone, through the opening and slid to a stop at the baptismal font. His fellow fell just inside the narthex. A single man entered afterward, stepped over the second man, then put his hands on his hips and glared toward the front of the church. But it wasn’t the abbess at whom he glared. It was the Scotswoman.

“Isobelle Ross,” he snarled. “It would serve ye rightly to leave ye here. I dare ye to tell me I am wrong.”

“Ye’re wrong, husband,” she said, stressing the last word.

Scots spoke so oddly, Gaspar could not say for certain whether or not she was trying to give the man a signal of some sort—possibly to tell him the role he must play before the nuns. Was she not married in truth?

He ignored the small thrill caused by the question.

The Scotsman started up the aisle nearest Gaspar, in no rush, as if his thoughts were impeding his progress.

“I’m nay so sure, Izzy,” he said, halfway to the transept. “Ye’re nothing but trouble. It makes no mind where we go. Perhaps yer antics and meddlin’ have finally brought ye to a safe place, aye?”

He spoke to her as if they were the only two in the room and Gaspar felt as if he were eavesdropping where he had no right to do so. But he determined to wait and see if these two were married in truth. The abbess might have a new initiate after all. And it was only right that he should observe in case his opinion were requested in the matter. It had nothing at all to do with the woman’s devil hair or her interesting mouth, or the way she seemed to soften when the man called her Izzy.

Gaspar was tempted to test the name on his own tongue, but pushed the thought aside. It was simply a strange affair inviting strange thoughts, not his youthful weaknesses rising again in his blood. After all, he was standing on holy ground; the devil could not truly touch them there. Could he? If he were a priest, he’d know.

“Ossian,” she called the Scotsman. “I couldna just stand aside and watch another tragedy. Surely, ye ken that. I’d be haunted, I would, if I let another lass be torn from the arms of the lad she loves. Or would ye have me try to fix Sophia and Trucchio with some witch’s spell? Must I be buried alive again?”

Another one!

The nuns gasped and crossed themselves. Gaspar could not resist doing the same.

Could the woman be a witch? A true witch? Even after all the women he’d had arrested, he’d never reported one. Guilt wasn’t a judgment he relished making. And on those rare occasions when he’d been ordered to judge a woman’s guilt, he’d never believed one to be guilty of witchcraft. Guilty of other sins, yes. But never witchcraft.

Scotland was an odd place, filled with more than its share of odd people. Clever people. A place where the word witch might not cause others to cross themselves. A word that was used for a good many characteristics. And the way the woman used the term in God’s house made him suspect she had no notion of the danger witch engendered.

No. He would not report it. But neither would he be surprised to be called back to the abbey in a day or two to investigate a report of a witch, even if the Scotsman managed to remove her. It was still uncertain whether or not the pair of them were truly wed.

The man stopped ten feet from where the redhead still held the nun as a shield.

“I do understand, Izzy. You couldna stand by. I must admit young Sophia is shrewd for her age. She kenned just how to win ye to her side. Whether or not she exaggerated her feelings for the boy, I canna say. He was the only young laddie available to her—”

“Ossian!” The woman shook her head, horrified by the man’s words for some reason. “Just because no man can truly love me, that doesna mean I doona ken real love when I see it, aye?”

The man sighed and gave her a pitying look, and Gaspar wondered what might make such a beauty unappealing.

“Let the nun go, Izzy.” The Scot gestured for her to come to him. “Let us be away from here and hope we’re nay tossed from Venice before we’ve tried the place.”

Again, the redhead looked at the screen, frowning.

Gaspar took a step backward into the shadows just as the Scotsman began to follow her gaze.

Suddenly, she released the nun. “Beg yer pardon,” she said sweetly, though sincerely. Then she bent forward, took hold of the bottom of her brown robe, and pulled it up and over her head before Gaspar had a chance to avoid the sight. But instead of the woman standing nude before them all, she was clothed like a man, in hose and a tunic.

While the nuns stood in shock, the man took his countrywoman’s hand, and together they ran to the near aisle and raced the abbess to the doors. Gaspar didn’t know who he hoped would win until the last locks of red hair disappeared from sight and his gut clenched. The abbess stopped at the last pew and sat, breathing furiously.

Damn, he thought, and in a church too.

~ ~ ~

Isobelle’s heart beat like the hooves of a heavy horse across a thin wood bridge. The little stone house was everything their home in Spain had not been. This one had windows in all three rooms, and better still, sunlight shining through them. In Spain, the windows had been small, the single room dark and smelling of the parade of people who had come before. She and her cousin had been forced to leave Spain quickly, however, before she’d been able to do much about the smell. She ought to feel contrite about it all, but she did not.

Her cousin, Ossian, had done an admirable job of caring for her since they’d left Castle Ross nearly two years ago. He’d promised Monty, her brother and laird of the Ross clan in the Highlands, that he’d see her settled and happy somewhere. It was no fault of hers if they were still looking for a place where both those needs might be met. And Ossian had all but given up ever going home again. She should regret that too. But the idea of being left behind while Ossian returned to their home and their clan was unbearable.

She had no ear for languages. Hadn’t she tried to learn Spanish? So close to French, but not close enough to make her feel as if she could remain there alone when neither the Spaniards nor Moors could understand her. If Ossian had left her there, she’d have been dead in a week if only from frustration. The men were the worst, choosing to believe Isobelle was flirting with them, making up their own interpretations to fit their moods. It was no wonder their wives were so suspicious.

And before Spain, it had been France. Before that, Denmark. She’d refused to freeze in Norway. Now she wished she would have tried harder to convince Ossian to try Ireland from the first. At least she might have been able to look out over the Irish Sea for a glimpse of home. But Ireland wasn’t far enough, he’d said. And one familiar face might mean her destruction.

But the farther they travelled, the more danger she faced from simple differences. Her cousin had jested once that in Mesopotamia, her hair could cause war.

Venice might well be her last hope. And standing in front of the cheery cottage, in spite of the light and fresh breeze blowing from the lagoon nearby, she felt the weight of the moment. There was a tender balance beneath her feet and the slightest disturbance might destroy it. Her last chance. A promising chance, but still her last.

The choice was at hand. Did she want this life? If Venice was her last prospect and then something went wrong, would Ossian give up trying and take her home? And if home meant death for her? Would she rather go home to die than live a half-life here?

A hundred times, she’d wondered what the difference might have been between water and spirits. If, when she’d escaped the tomb in which she was supposed to die, Ossian and Ewan had given her water to sooth her twelve-day thirst instead of heady spirits, would she have argued against leaving Scotland? Would she have taken a moment or two and decided for herself? Or could it be that she’d been fighting happiness all this time simply because leaving home had been someone else’s decision?

She thought of all the places they’d lain their heads since that choice was made. If she’d wanted to find happiness, could she have found it long ago? If she wanted it now, was it hers?

Isobelle inhaled slowly. Her chest expanded with excitement. It was time to decide, but she didn’t want to rush. She would consider first, then the choice would be hers. Not Ossian’s. Not Ewan’s. Not Montgomery’s.

Venice was a busy city with little space between houses and waterways, let alone people. Not like the Highlands. Even Edinburgh sprawled like a stretching beast compared to this place. But the people smiled. The sun shined. And perhaps the sea would give up a rain storm every now and again to help a lass feel at home. She would never see snow again, surely.

And she could keep her hair covered if she wished to. She hated plaits, but she could get used to them. At night, she could close up her shutters and let her hair do what it willed. Perhaps she could convince Ossian to take up farming, or raising chickens, or anything that might keep him close to hand. Everywhere they’d lived, the trouble began only because Ossian found work with his sword arm. A man-at-arms was rarely at home. But he’d promised things would be different here, and there had been a surety in his voice that she hadn’t heard before. She only hoped this sunny house was the first of many differences.

As she stepped outside into the sunshine, leaving her cousin inside to negotiate with the owner, she realized her decision was already made. Life. She would choose life. And when she lifted her face to the Mediterranean sun, the warmth and glow of it sunk into her very bones.

Ossian emerged with a frown marring his handsome face, and Isobelle couldn’t stop the tears from collecting behind her eyes. The house had been so perfect. Would they be able to find another so fine as this?

Her cousin came to stand before her and toed the dirt at her feet. “The house is yours,” he muttered, then looked up and grinned.

Isobelle jumped forward and nearly knocked him off his feet when she hugged him. “Oh, Ossian! I’m going to love it here. I know it. We’ll both love it.”

He cleared his throat and took hold of her waist, setting her back a bit. Still grinning, he shook his head. “I’m glad ye think so, Izzy. But it matters not how I feel about it.”

“What do ye mean? Ye’ll have to stay at least long enough for me to learn the language, will ye not?” But they both knew she wouldn’t learn quickly.

He raised his brows. “Perhaps a husband can teach ye.”

She put a hand over his mouth and looked up and down the little street to see if anyone had overheard. They were thankfully alone for the moment.

“Wheesht!” she hissed. “All must believe ye are my husband, aye?”

He winked at her and pulled her hand from his mouth. “Nay this time, lass.”

Emerging from the house was the old woman who owned it. She sent Ossian a wink, then headed down the lane from whence she’d come.

“What do ye mean, cousin?” She tried not to grin. The reason he always played the husband was so she wouldn’t be bothered while he was away. If he was going to come home every night, he could go back to being her cousin. “Are ye done with livin’ by the sword, then? Will ye raise chickens? Please tell me ye’re not going to come home every night smellin’ like fish.”

Ossian grimaced. “Nay, lassie. I doona plan to smell much like fish.”

“What then?” She released him and stepped back. Then she folded her arms and mustered the sternest look she could. For the first time she could remember, he returned the stare.

“Isobelle.”

A bad sign, that. He only ever called her Izzy, even when they were children.

He took a big breath and huffed it out, then tilted his head back as if preparing to take a blow on the chin. She fisted her hands to oblige him if needed. “After the trouble at the convent, how close ye’d come to marrying God and all, I started to thinkin’.”

“Ossian,” she warned.

“Ye need to marry. The men will never leave ye be until ye are.”

She shook her head. “It never matters where we are. The men never leave me be when they thought ye were my husband. The lie was folly. I see that now.”

“Aye. The lie was folly. In time, men came to realize it was a lie. I told the old woman ye’re me cousin, that we’re hoping ye find a good man to marry—”

She swung with all her might, but Ossian caught her wrist. She cried out from the pain of it.

“Ye’ll marry, Isobelle.” He shook her fist until her hand relaxed. “Ye’ll marry, and I… I’ll be returnin’ home, Izzy. To Scotland. I’ve never once caused trouble. And I’m finished with coddlin’ ye. Monty himself would ask no more of me.”

She shook her head quickly. “But ye promised!”

“I promised to see ye settled.”

“And happy.”

“Weel, since I’ve already tried and failed at that, I’ll let yer husband worry about the happiness bit. Signora Crescento will see that only the kindest of men are allowed to court ye. Men who will be patient with ye while ye learn the language.”

Ignoring the pain of her breaking heart and bruised wrist, Isobelle put her hands on her hips and gave her cousin a murderous look.

“I’ll not marry without love, Ossian. And the only way a man can believe he loves me is if ye sew me lips together. Ye’ve said so all our lives. Deny it if ye can.”

Her cousin closed his eyes and shook his head in denial, but it was more likely he was denying he could hear anything at all.

“We were all witness to the love between Ivar and Morna. Ye canna expect me to marry a man that canna love me completely and to be reminded every day that my life is lacking.”

“Signora Crescento will find a kind man—”

“I’ll drive a kind man to do unkind things. Ye’ve said that as well.”

Ossian snorted, but though he couldn’t deny her arguments, he didn’t appear to be relenting.

“And ye canna leave me in the old woman’s hands, Ossian. She doesna speak English or Scots!”

“I am sorry, lass. This house costs a fair piece, aye? I’m off to find work on a merchant ship. The Turks are a menace these days, and I hear tell a man with a keen sword arm can make a fine livin’; but a man with a crossbow can make four times that. Since I can wield both, I reckon I’m worth me weight in gold, eventually. I’d be given a share of the captain’s quarters as well. Does that not sound like Paradise?”

“Nay, Ossian,” she said, bowing her head. “The only thing that sounds like Paradise is Scotland.”

“Isobelle, mauvournin’. For ye, there is no Scotland. All of Clan Ross, save yer brother and Cousin Ewan, believe yer still inside that tomb. If others learn ye escaped, it will be yer head in a noose and the three of us hangin’ beside ye. Would ye wish that?”

Isobelle shook her head and walked away. With no better ideas for swaying her cousin, she headed toward the end of the street and the wall and sea beyond. She’d have to allow her sadness to ebb away before she’d set a slipper inside the sunny little house. If not, it would be no better than the tomb she’d once escaped.

A husband? A Venetian for a husband? An unloving husband of any sort was a curse to be avoided. But a husband whom she could not understand? Ridiculous.

She smiled at a little girl who looked up from her collection of shells and rocks to see who had brought a shadow to her wall. The rocks were rough but warm beneath Isobelle’s hands and she bid their peace and silence to ease her mind. And there, in the warmth of the southern sun, an idea began to sprout.

If a man wanted to marry her, he would just have to learn her language. And if she proved to be a poor teacher? Could she be blamed?

Aye, she could do worse things than live out her life alone.

~ ~ ~

The little Greek, Icarus, pushed himself away from the shadows of the little cottage and headed down the path, certain he’d not been noticed. If his master, God’s Dragon, were any other man, Icarus would suspect he was smitten with the beauty. But if the rumor was to be believed, the same sword that created the frightening scar across Gaspar Dragotti’s face had done much more frightening things to other parts of his body. So it was doubtful his master had any personal interest in the woman, but had been ordered to investigate her and her companion—a man who was not her husband after all.

Icarus smiled as he picked his way down the road, knowing his master would be well pleased with the details he’d learned. And Icarus was pleased God’s Dragon had chosen to spend the night in the city, for it meant no rowing out to the man’s private island to fix his supper, or rowing back, as Icarus did each night.

He rolled his shoulders in anticipation of a painless evening.

CHAPTER FOUR

Gaspar sat on a simple wood bench at the rear of the gardens absently watching the Augustinian friars collecting food in their aprons. Dressed in black and sitting silently in the summer shade like the shadow of a true dragon, he made them nervous, he knew. But he preferred to sleep on hallowed ground, when not at home, and as Special Investigator to The Patriarch of Venice, he could go wherever he willed. And he willed to sit in a peaceful garden—where Satan had no reach—while he waited for Icarus to bring him news.

He had no interest in the woman. It was only the inflection in her speech he wished to understand. As a student of many languages, he was frustrated when he misunderstood someone speaking one of those languages. And English, as his native tongue, never troubled him. But Gaelic was a problem. He’d hoped to never hear it again, in truth. But he was determined to know why the woman had used that inflection when calling the man husband.

It was the only reason he’d sent Icarus to find them. He wanted his curiosity settled. It was as simple and as sinless as that.

The friars, finished with their gathering, scurried away, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the echo in his head of their shuffling feet. Or was it the echo of the woman’s feet as she meandered up the aisle of the church?

Was she a venefica? A witch? Had he finally happened upon one in truth?

If she were executed, she could tempt me no more.

Gaspar shook the voice from his head because it was wrong. Not only was he not tempted, it would be a sin, surely, to punish a woman for her beauty. Of course men tried to do just that on many occasions. Husbands, jealous and suspicious, would run to the church and accuse their wives of witchcraft, to rid themselves of their own weaknesses. And it would surprise him not at all to learn that most investigators, excluding himself, would believe the men in most occasions.

Gaspar had naught in common with those men. He had a gift. He could read the guilt on the faces of most men as if they’d opened their mouths and confessed. He always knew when a man was lying, even if the man had convinced himself otherwise.

A gate squeaked open and he turned toward the sound, hoping to see Icarus. It was only a friar, returning for a knife he’d left lying among the plants. He gave Gaspar a smile and a slight bow, then returned from whence he’d come.

Gaspar took a deep breath and settled into his thoughts.

Yes. He could tell if a man was lying, and the knowledge turned his stomach. He could tell when a man was lying, and this time, it was himself. The truth was Gaspar Dragotti was tempted by the Scotswoman. The vision of her hair, her face, her lips—they all haunted him each time he closed his eyes. And though he ignored the stirrings of his body in response to that vision, he could not wipe it from his memory.

Of course he would never consider the woman for himself. He had vowed never to marry. But it would help him, somehow, to know she was the wife of another. If she was married to the Scotsman, he could stop thinking of her, let her go.

Let her go! As if he were holding onto her. With both hands. Trying not to forget her, even now.

His chest tightened and he looked skyward for relief, but found only the pale, full moon looking down from a blue sky, too anxious to be about its business to wait for the coming night.

Let her go, he told the moon.

I cannot, it seemed to reply.

“It seems,” he murmured aloud, “neither can I.”

~ ~ ~

Icarus found him just after Vespers. Gaspar did not attend with the friars, but he appreciated the stolid murmur of voices coming from the chapel washing over him like baptismal waters, replacing the sound of the Scotswoman’s lilting tongue with the steady, comforting voice of the devoted.

“My lord! I have interesting news.”

“Tell me.” With his own low tone, he warned the servant to lower his voice.

“The man is not her husband,” Icarus whispered with excitement. “He is her cousin. A warrior hoping to find work as a crossbowman. He told an old Venetian woman he plans to man a ship and leave his pretty cousin in the old woman’s keeping, to find a husband that can take her in hand, but can also make her happy. He was quite forceful about her being happy, in the end. He offered the old woman compensation if she found the right man. And more for keeping the wrong men away from her. The old one will have even more compensation if the pretty one makes trouble. Or rather, when she makes trouble. He expects it, I think.”

Gaspar was grateful the little Greek had so much to report since he was momentarily unable to speak. Something powerful rose inside him at the first news—the man is not her husband. He struggled to understand the rest of the details while he fought for calm. And for air.

“Will the Scotswoman be living with this old woman?” he was finally able to ask.

“No, my lord. The old one has provided her with a cottage. Perhaps I can show you tomorrow—”

“Tonight,” he snapped. He would see her again tonight. And perhaps she would not be as pretty as his memory insisted she’d been. “You will show me tonight.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The parade of possible suitors began the next afternoon.

Isobelle knelt before a wee plot of soil she was softening for a garden at the side of the house. The morning sun had shone upon the patch, but by the nooning hour, the next building blocked the overwarm heat of the day and the temperature was far too pleasant to warrant going inside. She was determined to grow something—anything—that might remind her of the lush gardens of home, even if she only grew a fine thistle or two.

She looked up from her work at the sound of a man whistling as he passed. A minute later, the same man returned up the slope whistling the same tune, but a bit louder. She smiled, realizing he was determined to get her attention, then laughed to herself when he pretended to notice her for the first time. He made a great show of sweeping the hat from his balding head and bowing deeply. Then he grinned and came toward her, apparently confident he’d done all that was necessary to earn a conversation with her. When he opened his mouth to speak, she raised a single imperious brow. Duly warned against such boldness, he fidgeted with his hat and bowed silently. Then he scraped his heels while backing into the lane and going along his way, his attention on the path before him.

It was not five minutes later that Signora Crescento appeared, hands on hips, with her own arrogant brow cocked.

Isobelle rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“No?” The old woman seemed properly shocked.

“No.” At least that word translated well.

A short while later, the next suitor marched purposely toward her and began speaking.

She stared at him for a moment, then bent back to her empty garden and resumed turning the dirt. If the man had spoken with Signora Crescento, he would know Isobelle did not speak Italian. Or perhaps, the old woman had not approved him for courtship and thus gave him no warning.

She stifled a laugh as the man stomped away. She wanted no enemies here, at least until she could understand them. When the old woman never came for her report, Isobelle surmised the man hadn’t been a suitor after all.

The third man she tried to ignore, but failed. He walked up the lane, then up again. It wasn’t until he started up the rise for the third time that she concluded he must be walking in a circle instead of simply walking back and forth on her little street. This one was just as old and bald as the first had been, but to his credit, he was extremely polite. He introduced himself as Signore Pesce. Pesce she knew to mean fish, thanks to her time on ships, so perhaps he’d simply called himself a fisherman. Either way, she nodded politely. When he looked at her expectantly, she could only say, “No, grazie.”

It was a full ten minutes later when Signora Crescento returned with a knowing smile. As soon as that brow rose, Isobelle repeated, “No, grazie.”

The signora huffed and walked away, ranting and gesturing wildly with her hands as she headed back down the lane. Isobelle thought perhaps, if the woman were so easily frustrated, she’d find someone to translate for her. But she was wrong.

Instead of waiting for Ossian to arrive to help communicate with Isobelle, the old woman found a wider variety of men, presumably to discover what Isobelle was looking for. In one hour, she was presented with an extremely tall man who looked fearful of being chosen, a fat one in fine blue velvet whom she assumed was wealthy, and a man who was five shades prettier than Isobelle herself. They no longer paraded down her street but each arrived arm in arm with Signora Crescento. The last man was forced to open his mouth and show his strong white teeth, most of which were in their original positions. He was nearly as outraged as the old woman when Isobelle gave her standard answer. But she ignored his blustering while she stood and stretched, then brushed the dirt from her skirt—Ossian had threatened her life if she were caught wearing breeches again.

The pair spat and sputtered at her even after she’d entered the cottage and closed the door in their faces. They argued at her nonsensically, each through a different window, until she closed the shutters on them. She dared not light a candle as it might encourage them and so sat in the darkness until the voices, now consoling, moved off and away.

The following day, she was grateful to be left alone with her little patch of turned earth and sunshine until after Sext, the midday prayers. Apparently, all the men who did not labor in the mornings had been presented the day before. The rest joined a steady parade on Calle di Isobelle—the street of Isobelle—after the nooning meal.

A man would wander past, and if she ignored him, he would continue down the lane only to come back again and again until she happened to look up from a garden she hoped would not always be imaginary. She tried not to notice the men until at least the third pass. After all, some gave up after she ignored them twice. She rewarded those who persevered by glancing up, as if to note the position of the sun, then allowing her eyes to wander to the passersby. Even an unpleasant-looking man deserved the chance to introduce himself. But if any man tried to argue beyond No, grazie, Isobelle was happy to give a detailed explanation in Gaelic, which in no way resembled the romantic languages and usually frightened away even the sternest Venetian.

The fact that Signora Crescento never came looking for her opinion led Isobelle to believe the woman had worn herself out the day before and waited for some lucky man to report his success. It became so amusing Isobelle could not bear to go inside, even though she could do no more to prepare the soil for the seeds Ossian promised to bring her.

It had been two days since Ossian found her the cottage. He had yet to find work, and the old woman was sure to run out of prospective husbands for her or else be reduced to sending along either married men, priests, or wait for a new generation to grow up. To Isobelle’s way of thinking, Venice might prove to be the perfect home after all.

A disgruntled man of obvious worth stomped away and while Isobelle listened for a curse word she might understand, she heard a child laughing. She stood and brushed the dirt from her apron while she tried to discover the direction of the laughter.

Finally, she looked up at the tall building next door and found a young girl grinning down at her with her forearms resting on the window sill, her chin resting on her entwined fingers. It was the same child she’d seen playing with shells by the sea wall.

Isobelle grinned back and waved for the girl to come down.

The imp needed no more encouragement and disappeared, only to reappear in front of Isobelle as fast as she might have by jumping from the high window.

The child spoke no English, nor French. Isobelle spoke no Italian, but she was determined to communicate.

“Signora Crescento?” Isobelle asked, hoping the child would have some opinion of the woman.

The lass giggled and shook her head. “Troppo grasso,” she said and held her arms in a circle to mimic the old woman’s round belly.

“Fat?” Isobelle made the same gesture, but puffed out her cheeks as well.

“Si.” The lass nodded. “Grasso.”

Isobelle repeated the word. The child nodded again.

Isobelle pointed to herself. “My name is Isobelle.”

“Isabella?”

“No. Isobelle.”

“Ah. Il mio nome è Britta.”

“Britta?”

“Si.”

They shook hands and the lassie giggled.

The thought of another suitor strolling by gave Isobelle an idea, and with Britta’s help, she was able to learn a few choice words that would go far toward helping her communicate with the old woman using more than just head shakes and shrugs.

Britta returned to her perch in the window. Isobelle returned to her little rectangle of dirt. She began to wonder if Signora Crescento had run out of possibilities and feared she’d learned a bit of Italian for no reason at all. It had been that long since the last one. But soon the sound of footfalls returned, and Isobelle made no pretense; she looked up right away, assuming that the sooner the man was on his way, the sooner the old woman would come.

But it was not a single man walking past her cottage. It was half a dozen. And herding them from behind like a well-trained collie, was Signora Crescento.

Isobelle stood and faced her visitors, all men she’d seen before. Each one of them looked far too eager for her peace of mind. They eyed her hair, her clothes, and one looked a bit greedily at the cottage. He stumbled forward with a wee bit of firm encouragement from the old woman, bobbed his head, then lifted his chin as if he were on display in some sort of slave market.

Isobelle swallowed a chortle that would have proven to all and sundry she was not a strictly sober woman.

Signora Crescento said something unintelligible, but considering her tone and the hand on her hip, meant something to the effect of, “What is so wrong with this one?”

Isobelle rubbed her face to hide her grin until she had it under control. She didn’t bother to hide her Scottish brogue, for she was fair to certain she had the words right.

“Troppo breve,” she said. Too short.

The man’s brows shot up, as did Signora Crescento’s. But while the short man appeared insulted, the old woman looked quite pleased. She pushed the first man out of her way, then shoved the next man forward. He frowned over his shoulder, clearly unappreciative of the old woman’s roughness.

“E questo?” the old woman asked.

“Troppo...fiero.” Too fierce. At least she thought that was what it meant. She’d simply glared at the girl to get the right word. For all she knew, it meant angry or frightening.

To Isobelle’s surprise, the man nodded, put his hat on his head, then offered both her and Signora Crescento a slight bow before walking away with his head held high.

Undaunted, the old woman pushed the next one forward. He was timid as a mouse, only glancing at Isobelle and briefly holding her gaze before looking at his feet. He’d been much braver without the audience, poor man.

“Troppo grasso,” she said quietly, so as not to hurt the thin man’s feelings any more than was necessary.

He grinned and walked away. A dozen paces later, he laughed quietly.

The next one was a bit too bold. He leered at her, winked at her. She could hear his labored breathing that she feared had nothing to do with the incline of the lane. It was this man she would have in mind when she barred the door every night.

“Troppo...” She had no Italian word for him. There was a limit to what she and Britta could devise with only a bit of mimicking. “No,” she finally said. “Just, no.”

The man continued to leer, unwilling to be dismissed with no reason. Since she’d left Scotland and the protection of her brother and his high station in their clan, she’d come across many of his sort. If she shied away from him, he would pursue her.

She stepped forward abruptly and did not stop until there was but a hand’s breadth between them. The man’s nostrils flared and he took in the details of her hair, her apron, her lips. He grinned to one side of his mouth.

Though it turned her stomach to do so, she leaned toward him. Narrowing her eyes, she repeated, “No. Absolutely no.”

His own eyes narrowed, then he huffed and walked away, pausing long enough to spit in her little yard before moving off. A new enemy? Certainly. But she would not want him on her side, or behind her, in any battle.

Much to Isobelle’s surprise, Signora Crescento spouted a string of Italian that sounded very much like an apology. Isobelle shrugged and stepped over to her stoop before turning back to the rest. She spread her feet wide and folded her arms, waiting.

The fourth man stepped forward before the old woman could push him. Isobelle laughed, then the others joined in. Though the man was no taller than the first three, Isobelle pronounced him, “Troppo alto.” Too tall. She’d had no alternative since her arsenal had run out of Italian words. For a moment, the man frowned, then he burst out laughing. She did the same, relieved he hadn’t been insulted.

The signora stepped next to the fifth man and simply pointed to him.

“Troppo...” Isobelle shrugged.

“Troppo brutto!” Britta shouted from her window.

While the others looked for the interloper, Isobelle studied the man in question. She was fair to certain brutto meant ugly. The man was blessed with a beak of a nose when combined with the dark circles below his eyes gave him the appearance of a scavenger bird.

Signore Brutto simply shrugged and walked away with a wave, his shoulders bunched high like folded wings.

That left the sixth and last man. His face was handsome enough, though a deep shade of red as he waited for Isobelle to announce why he was unfit to court her. But he raised his chin at the last and waited.

Isobelle could not be cruel. She did not know this man, could not judge him as fit or unfit for marriage or anything else. But neither could she encourage him. She would not be marrying a Venetian or anyone. It was she who was unfit for him. And then she realized she knew another Italian word that would suit. She’d heard it and whispered it just that morning, inside her wee cottage.

“Troppo...perfetto.” Too perfect. She shrugged and waited.

Though the man remained as red as before, his mouth stretched into a wide grin. He bobbed, muttered something to himself, then he bobbed again. And in his excitement, he stepped forward, took Isobelle’s hand, and kissed the back of it. Then he carefully returned her hand to her side before backing away.

He waved every ten steps or so until he was out of sight.

Isobelle turned back to Signora Crescento, expecting her to be cross, but the old woman surprised her.

“No Italiano, eh?” she said. “Troppo, breve, fiero, grasso, alto, brutto, e perfetto.” With each word, she touched a finger, then held up those seven fingers when she was finished. “Sette parole Italiane. Sette più domani.” Then in English, “Seven words Italian. Seven more tomorrow.”

While Isobelle stood in shock at the crafty woman’s sudden ability to speak English, the old woman looked up at Britta. A frown turned her pleasant features into a deeply furrowed field and she shook her finger at the lass and chastised her with such a battering of Italian, Isobelle would never be able to understand it all if she had a proper teacher and a dozen years to learn the words.

Poor Britta stepped back from the window and still the woman ranted.

Isobelle considered ducking inside her cottage while Signora Crescento’s attention was elsewhere, but before she reached for the handle behind her, the woman’s attention dropped away from the window. A smile tugged at her wrinkly cheek and she winked at Isobelle before turning down the lane toward her own house.

Britta appeared at the window again, and she and Isobelle exchanged worried looks, just before they broke into laughter.

The child held up seven fingers, as the old woman had, and enunciated slowly. “Seven…more…tomorrow.”

Seven more words? Or seven more men?

CHAPTER SIX

If Isobelle was any judge, Ossian was a wee nervous when he returned to the cottage that night. He wasn’t shaking, but his eyes couldn’t seem to land on anything for long. While he waited for supper to cook itself through, the table seemed to interest him for a bit. Then something outside the window. He headed for the door and claimed he wished to take a gander at the garden spot, but he took his fine time returning. Isobelle finally gave up and went outside herself, to see if the man had wandered off in his distracted state. But he stood to the side of the house, his toes on the edge of the prepared plot of dirt, staring at the stone of the cottage wall.

“What do ye see there, Ossian? A hole that needs a patch? Perhaps ye should take a good look around at the place before ye go searching for a fancy berth on a ship, aye?”

“I’ve already looked, Izzy.”

The air was too heavy in her chest. It would move neither out, nor in. Finally, she forced herself to take a deep breath to help clean out the old air.

“Oh? Ye’ve looked?” She kept her tone light. “No luck, I suppose?”

Ossian pulled his attention from the wall and finally looked at her. “I thought I’d found some luck. A ship headed to England, even. A merchant who deals in long bows made from English Oak. He was right pleased to have me...or so he was this morn. Then he sent a man to find me, to tell me he’d been mistaken, that there was no room.”

Isobelle’s spirits took wing. Ossian wouldn’t be leaving so soon after all. Usually, when he couldn’t look her in the eye, it was because he was trying to find the courage to tell her he was leaving her alone for a while. And sometimes, the whiles were months long. Neither of them would admit it, but each time he left, there was a chance they’d never see each other again, what with one bit of trouble and another. And most of it caused by her hair and the men who felt the need to touch it. But they couldn’t very well pay a man to protect her—it would take all Ossian’s wages to do so. And if Ossian did the protecting, there would be no wages earned. She was simply far too much trouble for one man to handle. Even plaited, her hair found a way to escape. But if she could see fit to cut her hair, so she could keep it covered always, she might be fine enough on her own.

She just couldn’t seem to do it.

“I’m sorry ye were disappointed, cousin.” She would not say she was sorry he was staying with her.

“Oh, aye. I was.” He took a deep breath, then another. “But then I happened upon another man who offered me a position on an island in the Laguna Viva, on one of the octagonal islands, where they gather to defend against the Turkish ships. A pretty price, he was willing to pay me, seasoned warrior that I am. I thought I might finally be able to hire a guard or two to see ye safe, that ye’d need not marry if ye didna care to.”

Isobelle said nothing, hoping the strange tone in his voice meant he’d reconsidered that proposition as well.

“But as soon as we’d parted ways, another man came to me and told the same tale, that the captain had decided not to trust a Scot. Can ye believe it? Not to trust a Scot?”

“Oh, Ossian.” She shook her head. “What could they be thinking? Yer obviously more able than most. But why not trust a Scot?”

There was a familiar niggling in the back of her mind, wondering if someone’s distrust of anyone Scottish had something to do with her. But the only trouble she’d caused since arriving in Venice was to anger a bunch of nuns. And if they were cloistered, how could they have aught to do with seamen? Or men of war?

The only unkindness she’d done since then was to send six men away—only one of whom might have been disgruntled enough to cause trouble for her. But if he had set his sights on her, why would he not wish for Ossian to leave the city?

Her cousin shook his head. “All I can imagine,” he said, “is that some other Scotsman has ruined our reputation in one way or ‘tother.”

Isobelle nodded. That made as much sense as anything else. But as much as she wanted her cousin close, she would not have him insulted. Ossian was a braw, brave man who commanded respect. He was fair and honorable. And considering his talent with most weapons, his loyalty was a boon beyond price.

She felt righteous indignation filling her gullet and wished she could champion her cousin’s cause in some way. It was the least she could do, after the man had put his life aside to help save hers. And he’d risked that same life for her a dozen times over since they’d left their beloved Scotland.

“What can I do, Ossian? Who are these cowards who would imagine ye to be untrustworthy? Surely there is someone who would give ye the chance to prove yerself. That is all ye need, mavournin’. One chance to earn their fine opinion.”

Ossian smiled at her then, and she felt as if she’d finally done something to make the man happy. Had she never told him before how proud she was to call him cousin? Or husband? Whichever the moment required?

“Auch, but I’m pleased to hear ye say such a thing, Izzy. For ‘tis true I was beginning to think ye a selfish woman to want me with ye forever more.”

Isobelle gave him a shove and he nearly stepped on her precious garden of dirt.

“Yer a fine man, Ossian,” she said. “Even if ye are daft as a pike. Did I not tell ye? Signora Crescento has already been draggin’ every male in Venice past me door for inspection. I’ll have yer arse replaced in but a day or two.” She didn’t plan to tell him she’d rejected every one of them, or that she would continue to reject all suitors.

Ossian walked around her and headed for the door and his supper. “Glad I am to hear it, Izzy. For I did find a man who wishes to give me that chance to prove me worth. In fact, he has such faith in me, he’s already paid me a reward for signing on. I dinna think he’ll be reconsidering like the others. And since we leave tonight, with the tide, he won’t have much of a chance to do so, aye?”

She took a handful of his shirt and jerked her cousin backward. He moved quickly, but was unable to stop himself from landing on that arse she was just referring to.

“Yer a daft, daft man, Ossian Ross. Just because I said it, doesna mean I meant it.”

“Weel,” he said with a shrug. “As long as I’m already down here, I may as well tell ye the rest of it. Save ye the need to knock me doon again.”

Isobelle closed her eyes for a moment, putting off the inevitable. But what could possibly be worse news than Ossian leaving her at the mercy of Venetians while he danced about on a ship waiting for attacks that rarely came?

He rested his arms on his knees and waited.

“Out with it then, cousin,” she spat.

He gave a nod. “The ship is leaving for the New World of Columbus, Isobelle. I dinna ken when I’ll be back, aye?”

She let the news sweep through her, taking her breath and leaving its mark on her heart. The day she’d been dreading had arrived, the day Ossian would leave her for good. She’d overheard enough on their latest voyage to know that hundreds of men and entire ships failed to return from the New World, which meant danger—which meant her fearless cousin wouldn’t be able to resist it. She only wondered how long he’d been hoping for just such an opportunity. If he hadn’t been bound to her, he likely would have left Scotland for such an adventure.

Finally, she nodded and backed toward the front of the house. “Me supper’s getting cold.”

He puffed out his chest. “And what of my supper?”

“I suggest ye go find some foosty pesce and stuff yerself.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gaspar was at war.

He was certain it was the devil with whom he warred, though anyone watching closely could easily misunderstand what drove him. They would see a beautiful woman and assume he was driven by his baser urges. But they would be wrong. He had simply devised an original strategy for fighting Satan. And since he was a man of few words, beholden to few, he set his plans in motion without the need to explain himself to others. He was God’s Dragon, a powerful, mythical thing driven by his need to serve God. There was no reason he could not do it all.

Prove himself.

Save the woman.

And defeat Satan. All at the same time.

His man, Icarus, knew some of his plans, out of necessity, but it was likely he had no notion as to his master’s reasons for them. The little man simply moved about Venice unnoticed, doing Gaspar’s bidding. If he wondered at his master’s motives, he would have his curiosity settled soon enough.

As God’s Dragon, Gaspar had acquired enough wealth over his thirty-two years to rival the treasure of that legendary beast for which he was named. So it was not surprising when his preparations could be ready in a matter of days instead of months.

The iron worker, Ferro, had been quick to do Gaspar’s bidding. He and his men had taken an elaborate rood screen commissioned for the new St. Mark’s church and with it, were able to fill Gaspar’s requirements immediately. The new church was still under construction and there was time enough for another screen to be fabricated. The second screen would still be an original, since the first would be changed to fit Gaspar’s requirements. Only the artwork would be similar. And few souls would ever lay eyes upon the first screen, let alone complain.

Oh, there would be complaining, but not about the design. He imagined a fiery-haired Scotswoman would have plenty to complain about the moment she laid eyes upon the screen.

As Gaspar finished his simple supper, the famous iron worker knocked upon the door of his stanza privata. Gaspar bid him enter, then gestured for the man to speak.

Ferro’s eyes were drawn to the white scar and froze there. “It is finished, Signore Dragotti.”

Gaspar nodded, but said nothing, for fear his excitement might reveal too much to the workman.

“So,” the man said, as if searching for a topic that might engage Gaspar in conversation. He forced himself to look away from the scar, but his attention quickly returned.

God’s Dragon frowned. “You have been paid.”

It was not a question.

The man’s head bobbed. “Si, mio signore.”

“Paid enough to forget the screen ever existed.”

“Si, mio signore.”

“I suggest, Signore Ferro, you do not allow the devil to tempt you to remember.”

“Si! Si, mio signore!”

Gaspar turned his attention back to the parchment before him. After a moment, Ferro began backing toward the door, though as far as the man knew, God’s Dragon had already forgotten he existed. And if he were waiting for praise, well… Gaspar was not foolish enough to examine the creation while standing beside a worker who might question its purpose.

Icarus shuffled into the room and waited. Gaspar waved a hand for the man to take his tray away. He’d been too distracted with his plans to eat, and yet he was not hungry. Another victory over the temptations of the flesh, he thought, without any effort at all.

“You remember your orders for tomorrow?” he asked the little man.

“Si, mio signore. I will have the second boat ready. Just where you said.”

“Fine, then. You may go.”

In his usual exercise in self-control, he waited one hour, then another, before he allowed himself to go inspect the work. First, he chose to prove to the devil—if he were watching—that Gaspar Dragotti was no slave to desire. Second, he would not give the iron workers the satisfaction of seeing the window light up at the top of the tower the moment their boat was away. If he showed any pleasure in their fabrication, they would no doubt tell others of their custom work for The Patriarch’s Investigator. And the last thing he wanted was for someone to come to his private island unannounced, expecting to have a good look at the work in question.

It would be best for everyone if the iron workers put this commission behind them and looked toward the next—a feat no artist could manage if they might find praise in a work already completed. Had he not seen the same in Michelangelo?

Another hour passed before Gaspar took a single candle up the tower steps. Each stair built the excitement in his breast until, when he reached the landing and opened the door, he thought his heart might burst.

He should have paid Ferro more.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Isobelle sat abruptly in her bed.

Had someone knocked upon her door, or had it been a dream? Was it only an echo in her sleepy mind of the knocking two nights before?

That night, before she and her cousin had time for a proper fare thee well, a lad had come to the door to collect Ossian, to help carry his weapons and such to the ship. She could not follow along and wave at the dock—it would hardly be safe for her to head for home alone, in the darkness. But perhaps a quick farewell was for the best. At least she’d been able to shed her tears without getting her cousin wet.

The pounding came again. Not by a small hand.

“Signorina Ross,” came the old woman’s wavering voice. “Signorina!” The rest was Italian. She couldn’t possibly expect Isobelle to understand her. But why would she come so early in the morning to spout nonsense?

Grudgingly, Isobelle got to her feet, wrapped her Ross plaid around her night clothes, and went to the door. Through the wood, she heard a man speak low. Signora Crescento answered.

Isobelle whipped the door open and stood in the opening with her hands on her hips.

“Signora. This is no hour to start yer wee parade...” Isobelle’s rant was cut short by a sudden loss of wind in her sails. A striking man, far and above more handsome than the likes of the previous four days’ procession, stood head, shoulders, and chest above the old woman. His hair was dark, but a warm color, not the black of many Italians. The length of it disappeared against the sober darkness of his tunic. His shoulders were broad enough to block her small doorway if he took another step forward. A long scar across his features suggested he was no stranger to battle. The white brand ran from his left brow, across his nose and cheek, then hooked around the edge of his right jaw in an angry pucker.

A fine scar indeed. But the face beneath it was even finer. The chin was square, not unlike that of her brother Monty. The planes of his cheeks were flat and on the hollow side, topped with high, wide cheekbones. His brows formed a dark ridge. His black-brown eyes peered into her soul. They dropped briefly to note her state of dress, including the Ross plaid, then returned her gaze once more. Whether he liked what he saw was a mystery. Not even his lips moved.

Four guards in black and yellow uniforms stood at his back with pikes. Four bees holding their stingers at the ready, she thought. An important man, then.

Isobelle did not yet know how to say, “Too important,” in Italian, but the word she did know was more accurate in any case.

“Troppo perfetto,” she said, stepped back, and shut the door before the man’s gaze persuaded her to reconsider.

Her heart raced with an odd sort of panic, as if the man on the other side of the door might just be handsome enough to weaken her resolve. But she mustn’t give in to temptation. She had to hold strong and hope that one day the suitors would give up hope. She would not marry, no matter what a man’s station, no matter how pretty. And it might be wiser not to learn their language after all. If she couldn’t understand them, they could not impress her, seduce her, or change her mind.

Neither would she teach any of them English, let alone Gaelic. The sound of her own language from the mouth of that handsome man at her door might mean her doom.

The wood shook behind her as the pounding resumed.

She sighed, supposing it might not be so painful to look upon the man one last time, but only once. After all, she’d hardly been gracious. And since he was likely unaware of the men Signora Crescento had previously brought to her door, he would think her quite rude indeed. A pity he didn’t speak English, or she would explain.

But then again, he was no commoner. Perhaps he did speak English.

She whisked the door open once again and offered the little company a smile, despite their frowns. The old woman appeared downright frightened, crushing the skirt of her apron to her heart, her eyes wide and wild. Was she frightened for herself, or for Isobelle? Was it the man’s temper she feared? If he were a tyrant, he would find no welcome from her.

“Signore,” she began. “Do you perhaps speak English?”

The man nodded once, then gestured for her to come forward.

Isobelle left her feet where they were, tipped her head to one side and raised a brow.

Signora Crescento began spouting in Italian again, until a sharp look from the gentleman stopped her mid-sentence. She nodded, bowed, and took a step back.

So. He was a tyrant. Turranos, in Latin. The man had to know his Latin.

“Signore Turranos,” she said, “I am not in want of a husband just the now. I appreciate that ye’ve risen so early to see me this morn, but I assure ye—”

“Silence,” he said, and though he’d not raised it, his deep voice cut through the pale dawn.

His audacity so surprised her, she complied without intending to. But to compensate for lack of speech, she stepped back and took hold of the door once again, prepared to shut it on the man’s nose if need be. But he put a foot forward, over her threshold, to prevent just that.

“Go away,” she demanded.

“Signorina Ross,” he barked loudly, even though they were only an arm’s length apart. He then said something in Italian, no doubt for the sake of anyone who was awake at that hour and of a mind to listen. He took a breath, then lowered his chin and his voice. “Isobella Ross, you are under arrest. In the name and holy office of his Beatitude, The Patriarch of Venice, you are accused of witchcraft and are to be removed for examination and interrogation. I advise you to come willingly, for your actions here and now will be taken into consideration.”

Witchcraft!

Panic flooded her chest and made breathing impossible, but after glancing at a pale and hysterical Signora Crescento, Isobelle resolved not to show her fear. Her actions were being considered? Then she refused to act guilty in front of the tyrant who had apparently not come to consider her for marriage. Witchcraft was an ugly word that had nearly gotten her killed before. She had no idea how they dealt with witches in Italy, but such a religious state would surely treat her no better than her own kirk had.

She forced a smile and laughed. “Witchcraft? Yer jesting, of course. ‘Tis hardly me own fault, this red hair. It vexes me something awful, so I assure ye, I pay dearly for bearing it. But a reasonable man like yerself would not think to punish a woman for the color of hair God Himself granted her.”

The man glanced briefly at her hair, then back at her face. In his eyes she saw some soft thought, then regret, but that was quickly replaced by something harder.

“This has naught to do with your hair,” he said. A soldier behind him frowned and Isobelle supposed it was likely no one else spoke English but her and the handsome one.

“Please, sir.” She kept her voice steady so no one might suspect she was begging. “What can I say to help you believe me? I am not a witch. I’ve known real witches in Scotland and I assure ye, I am not one of them. I have no knowledge of medicines, herbs, or the like. And I’ve been here for six days, no more. Who could possibly know me well enough to accuse me of such a thing?”

She suddenly remembered the abbess, who could not have been pleased with her. Then there was a ship full of oarsmen and passengers who’d avoided her. But she’d supposed that was only because Ossian had hovered over her like an angry wolf. Sophia could not have been displeased with her, after what Isobelle had done to ensure the young woman’s freedom, to run away with the young man she loved. And the only mention of witches, since she’d left Scotland, had been between herself and Ossian, and then only in private—

Or that once, in the abbey, when none had spoken English...

She took another step back, deeper into her house. The guards started, but made no move to come after her. She looked into the tall man’s dark eyes and imagined a rood screen before him.

“It was you,” she whispered. “In the abbey. Behind the screen.”

The man’s eyes widened in alarm, but recovered quickly. “Will you come willingly, Venafica?” His voice poured over her like warm, trickling water. The word venefica might have been an endearment if it had not been for the rest of their conversation.

“Venefica?” she queried.

The old woman crossed herself and whimpered. That alone told her what she needed to know. But he answered her in any case.

“Witch.”

CHAPTER NINE

Through her frighteningly calm interpreter, Isobelle was promised Signora Crescento would care for the cottage and Isobelle’s things. The tyrant relayed the message as if there was actually a chance she would be returning, and she was grateful for the small comfort it gave her, even though she knew he didn’t believe it. She was unable to think clearly at the moment, so a little false comfort was enough to keep her calmer than she truly felt.

The man walked into the lane and the guards took positions around her as she followed after him. They’d allowed her a precious pair of boots—with her little dagger thankfully hidden inside—and the length of Ross plaid she kept wrapped around her shoulders, but the man hadn’t allowed her enough privacy to change into a gown. Anyone watching would recognize her voluminous folds as her nightdress. And if she never returned for it, it seemed the green gown had never been destined to be hers after all. Ossian should have allowed young Sophia to keep it.

One guard before her, a man to each side, and a man behind. Back at Castle Ross, when they’d escorted her to her tomb, to be buried alive, the kirk’s henchmen had surrounded her the same way. But she’d been allowed no plaid, no comfort. And in those twelve days that followed, while she’d shivered and waited for her brother to dig her out, she’d wished a thousand times that she would have tried to escape that escort. If she didn’t try now, she’d never be able to forgive herself—or at least, for as long as she was allowed to live.

And she did wish to live.

She might be miserable to be so far from Scotland, but it did not mean she did not hope for a happy life. There was no clear future for her, yet, but she intended to be around to discover it. She would not go along quietly. She would not!

The road turned left ahead. On the right, there was a break between two buildings. Beyond that break would be the small wall and then the sea. At the turn, the gap widened between the man at her side and the man behind, and she bolted between them. The quick fingers of the last man clutched her plaid, but she slipped free of it and fled. She prayed she would reach the small alley before the men had their legs under them.

Seven steps and she entered the alley. Another six and the alley was behind her.

The wall! Just a few steps more!

Something hit her leg and screamed at her feet. It was a pig, and her piglets squealed in response. Isobelle had to dance through them carefully. The guards closed the distance. The tyrant pushed one of them aside to pass.

Isobelle spun back toward the wall. The path was clear. One step, then a jump, and she was over the stack of stones. Her boots sank in the sand, then were slowed by wet mud. Her only consolation was that the same would hinder her pursuers!

She fought on. The tide had gone and left the beach stretched before her. So much ground between herself and freedom. She had to keep running. She would not repeat the past. She would not be buried alive again. Would not allow these fools to drown her, burn her, or whatever Italians did to witches.

And so she ran.

The water was a dozen strides away. Heaven help her, but she would never get a chance to get her feet wet! Surely they were upon her, but she dared not turn to look.

Pat-pat, pat-pat, said her boots. But she heard no others. Still, she would not look back.

She reached the water, felt the shock of the cold lagoon fill her boots and reach through her sleeping gown. Fighting the folds of wet cloth, she pressed forward into the sea. The enormous lagoon was dotted with fishing boats. All she need do was reach one of them and plead to be taken aboard. She would be free!

There was no splashing behind her. No shouts for her to come back, in any language. And just as the water reached her chin, she twisted the toes of her boots into the sea floor and turned, to know why they’d stopped chasing her.

The dark tyrant stood on the sand with his arms folded, two guards to each side of him. He appeared quite calm as if he were certain she’d return on her own. Did he not suppose a woman could swim?

Fool.

The guards, however, were nodding and pointing out to sea, hopefully at a vessel or two that might be her salvation. The dark one suddenly unfolded his arms and started toward her, the cape on his tunic billowing behind him as he began to run. Grey sand flew from the back of his boots with every stride.

She turned her shoulders and looked behind her, but the triangles cutting through the waves were not the sails of small boats. They were the fins of sharks. Half a dozen, at least.

Calm. Stay calm, she told herself as she backed toward the beach, her toes barely able to find purchase on the sandy sea floor. Nothing to fear. Nothing to fear.

The guards fanned out and began shouting at the sharks as if they were puppies to be called home. For a moment, Isobelle panicked, thinking they meant to taunt the sharks in her direction. But her breathing eased when the fins moved to the side, the sharks reacting to those taunts instead of coming for her.

Then, as if they’d reconsidered, or sensed her fear, those fins turned as one in her direction.

She was still waist deep.

She jumped back, but her skirt was beneath her feet and she stumbled, landing on her backside. The water swamped her shoulders, then her face. She took hold of her skirts and pulled them higher. Her boots found the sand, and she stood once more.

One fin sliced between two others and sped forward.

Isobelle ran backward, but again, her skirts washed beneath her steps and tripped her again. Her head remained above water this time, but it was too late. She turned to the side, hoping to save her face from the attack. But strong hands gripped her beneath her arms and hauled her water-laden body into the air. The world spun away from her, her boots escaped the pull of the water, and she landed on her bottom once more, only this time, it was on wet sand. A pair of legs supported her back and remained even after the hands disappeared from beneath her arms.

She was surrounded by four excited Italians who spoke slowly and dramatically to her as if they thought she might understand their language more easily if they did so. She could only laugh. Eventually, that was all anyone was doing, except for the man at her back.

Once the guards sobered, the dark one stepped away from her. She leaned forward quickly, lest he think her too weak to sit on her own. Then she wondered if simpering like a frightened maiden might have suited her better. It was clear the guards thought her a lucky woman to have escaped the sharks all of a piece, but what was also clear was their change in attitude toward her. If she swooned, would the dark one then treat her differently too? Would he consider her less apt to be a witch if she were a more delicate lass?

Somehow, she doubted it—even if she thought he might soften toward her, it was unlikely she could simper in a believable manner. Then her stomach turned on a thought.

Perhaps coming out of the sea, neither drowned nor damaged, has just sealed my fate.

CHAPTER TEN

Gaspar worried his heart might never return to its original rhythm or its original location in his chest. He’d not removed the woman more than a furlong from her house and his body was already crying peace. He’d first been stunned the moment she’d opened the door. All disheveled and defiant, standing in little more than her shift, wrapped in her Scottish heritage, she’d been even more breathtaking upon closer inspection than she had in the dimly lit abbey.

He’d been caught unawares when she’d called him too perfect. For a moment, he’d believed her far too perfect as well. He’d soon realized, however, she was a clever enchantress who would say anything to distract him, to see to her own ends.

She’d led him to believe she would come along willingly, even though she denied the charges against her. Then she’d fled. If she was the devil’s own, she could have summoned those sharks in order to win the sympathies of both him and the guards. Luckily, it had only worked on the guards.

She’d plunged herself into the water, knowing when she emerged her wet gown would cling to her form and tempt the most righteous of men. And since he was far from the most righteous… Yes, he was tempted. And he’d looked. And he would pay dearly for it, would be tormented by the memory of her lying on the sand at his feet, struggling for breath.

Perhaps not the devil’s enchantress, but an enchantress just the same.

The guards loaded her into the small boat, far too small for more than Gaspar, Icarus, and their charge. Then the four had stood and watched the dingy head into the open lagoon. For all they knew, he and Icarus were rowing her out into the sea to toss her overboard. Now that her hands and feet were tied, she’d not be able to swim. It would mean certain death if she were to jump, but he doubted the woman would take her own life, even though she had to understand that the charge of witchcraft brought a sentence of death. But he’d noted how quickly she’d retreated from the sharks, determined to live, to survive. It was a good sign.

No. This woman would not be jumping into the Laguna Viva. She would fight…until he taught her fighting was futile.

~ ~ ~

Isobelle was grateful for the warm morning sun that quickly dried her nightdress and warmed her bones. Her plaid had been draped over her shoulders after her hands had been tied and she hadn’t imagined the young man’s quick pat of comfort before he’d snatched his hands away. All four of the guards had been so relieved she’d escaped the sharks that they’d softened toward her. If they were travelling far, at least one of them could be persuaded to turn a blind eye and allow her to escape. She knew it.

But they’d simply travelled a little farther down the beach, to a man gripping the rope to a small dingy that couldn’t possibly hold them all. As the tyrant gave the men orders, she knew without the need for an interpreter he was leaving the four behind! And when he caught her staring, open mouthed, she knew he’d read her thoughts—he knew the guards had softened. He also knew full well he was crushing her hopes.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t gloat. But he knew.

Isobelle thanked the two men who helped her into the boat. A third man climbed in and bent over her feet. He mumbled, “Mi perdoni,” and began tying her ankles together.

The feel of the rope brought her more alert than she’d been those first hours inside her tomb. It was truly happening! She was truly going to die for witchcraft! And no matter how powerless she’d felt in the past two years, unable to return home, or write to Monty or Morna, she’d never felt as vulnerable as she did with her boots secured together. If she were tossed into the water, she would sink like a heavy rock. There would be no one to fight. Nothing to struggle against but the sea.

The guard avoided looking her in the eye until just a heartbeat before he stepped out of the boat. He tried to give her an encouraging smile, but failed. He’d asked her forgiveness, she was sure. But she could only hope the men could understand her poorly pronounced Latin when she offered her pardon to them all.

“Et dimittam te,” she said, smiling at each one in turn. Then she sat as regally as possible and looked out at the sea.

The tyrant took his place at the bow and the little man who’d waited with the boat jumped in after they were afloat, then took up the oars. The dark one frowned toward the shore. Isobelle lifted her chin and watched the activity in the lagoon beyond his shoulder as if she were enjoying the ride and the morning sun. But on the inside, she was crumbling like a poorly stacked wall.

She hoped she’d be well and goodly drowned by the time the sharks found her.

They’d travelled into the heart of the immense lagoon when the oars swung up and into the boat, bringing her attention with them. Breathing hard, the little man tucked both oars safely into their cradles, then rolled his shoulders. Isobelle braced herself and looked at the water, wondering what made this spot appropriate for drowning witches. She could see no fins in the waves and gave a little prayer of thanks for it. When she opened her eyes again, she found the little man shaking his head and staring at her with his brows knit together in worry, but he made no move toward her. Perhaps his master wished to do the honors himself.

She pulled in a shaky breath and forced herself to look at the tyrant.

The little man muttered something over his shoulder.

The big man frowned. “He worries you will jump overboard, Isobella Ross.” And from his frown, she suddenly realized both men shared that worry.

She shook her head. “Would it lessen yer pleasure if I did it meself, then?”

His eyes widened. “It would give me no pleasure to pull you from the water again, my lady. But be assured, I would if necessary. If you supposed I meant to drown you, you supposed wrong. I told you before, you’re to be examined and interrogated. That is all.” He looked behind him over the bow, then faced her again. “Do you see the small island off my right shoulder?” He gestured with his head.

A small black triangle sat in the lagoon nearly three times as far from the boat as the boat was now from shore. And though the little man had stowed the oars, the boat was clipping along steadily in the direction of the triangle. They were caught in a channel.

She looked at her captor and lifted a brow.

“That is our destination,” he said. “When we arrive, you will be allowed to rest and break your fast before we begin your examination.”

Isobelle refused to show her relief. She refused to hope. But with all the emotions warring inside her like a current of her own, she couldn’t keep from venting her spleen.

With great exaggeration, she glanced down at herself and ran her fingers down the front of her gown her plaid no longer covered. Then she sneered, “I would think I’ve been examined quite enough by now, do ye not suppose?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Gaspar thought only to show the woman his distain and glanced at her clothes that were nearly dry from the sun’s warmth and the sea breeze. The plaid wool had parted almost as soon as young Oberto had placed it so gently around her shoulders, and all that remained between her flesh and the wide world was a damp bit of white cloth. Perhaps two layers of it, but still, not enough to keep his thoughts innocent. But by the time he returned his attention to her face, she was blushing, and he feared he was as well. He was grateful Icarus’ back was to him so the little man wouldn’t know just how mortal was the dragon.

Belatedly, the woman raised her tied wrists to block his view and turned her head away. Gaspar released a long-held breath and tried to steer his thoughts inward. He would have to give some thought to his plans and take better precautions against temptation. Already, she sensed weakness in him. But perhaps she would forget this little boat ride once they arrived at his island and she saw Ferro’s work.

And though he had already ensured he could never put hands on her, he would need to be as prudent with his eyes.

He lowered his gaze to the water moving alongside the boat and allowed the slap and swirl to soothe his senses. He pulled the moist morning air into his body and willed it to take away his tortured thoughts. Instead, the image of the woman’s cottage presented itself behind his eyelids. Not the look of it that morning, but of three evenings past when he’d stood in the shadows of the alley across the way staring at the little blue door. That was his first mistake, to have stood for hours willing her to come outside, straining his ears for the sound of her voice or the low murmur of her cousin. It nearly drove him mad contemplating the ordinary little tasks that might have occupied her. And then a treacherous thought had slipped to the fore—an image of him as a simpler man coming home to his wife, a beauty from Scotland whose gaze would rest on him—only on him—when he walked through that little blue door.

Much like she’d looked upon him that very morning.

That single treacherous idea had been invited by a dozen other, seemingly innocent thoughts and a curiosity that compelled him to her door that first time. So he would need to stay mindful—that his curiosity could bring him to his knees. Because the most frightening realization of all was the way that thought had made him feel. Or rather the way it had not made him feel. He’d expected guilt and revulsion, but experienced neither.

Frightening indeed.

~ ~ ~

Isobelle could have dissolved to tears when the little man carefully cut the rope binding her feet. But she wouldn’t show any more weakness than she already had.

The dark one stood on the dock and waited for her to climb out of the boat, then he turned and led the way toward the single towered structure that covered half the wee island. The stones were enormous and gray, and the keep itself appeared to be so much shadow dredged up from the depths of the lagoon and stretched to the sky. The wind and waves pushed and pulled at its edges, as if to say go back from whence you came, you don’t belong in the sun. But the tower stood quiet and oblivious, not unlike the man.

Isobelle followed the tyrant and the little man followed her, but there was little need. As they’d approached the island, she’d seen how small it was, and how isolated, and there was simply nowhere for her to go. The boat was small but too heavy for her to manage on her own since all her time on the sea, in all manner of vessels, she’d never been reduced to rowing. Thus, she would have little chance of mastering the oars while being pursued.

There was a narrow strip of beach at the end of the dock, followed by patches of long, wind-blown grasses. A long pebbled path cut through the patches and up to a large arched entrance. The wide doors were banded with dark metal and spikes, but the details were old and worn as if it had once been a small fortress, but its enemies had long ceased visiting.

The dark one flung the doors wide and marched inside. She glanced into small, modestly furnished rooms—a solar on one side and a kitchen on the other—as she followed the fellow to the rear wall where a spiral staircase began. He turned back to her then with a small blade in his hand, then gestured to her wrists that were still bound.

“You’ll need your balance,” he murmured. Then he cut the rope and tossed it away before starting up the stairs.

She clutched her skirts and pulled them high, vowing not to trip on them again. Rest and food, she reminded herself. He’d promised her rest and food. And beyond that, she would not worry until she had to. She would have a bit of peace before they began, but she refused to fash over what they would be beginning.

One mystery at a time.

One danger at a time.

And a little peace between.

~ ~ ~

Gaspar led the way up the winding tower steps that hugged the round wall. There was no banister. If strict attention was not paid and a person tripped, they would fall all the way to the hard floor below. From the top of the tower, the woman could easily try to harm herself by jumping off the edge, but she’d already proven her desire to live. He would trust that for now.

He was well pleased with his little island, which he’d acquired for privacy and to remove himself from the worldly temptations of the night. Perhaps God had inspired him to purchase it, since it had turned out to be the perfect place to keep the woman safe. And he was anxious for the moment she would understand just that.

Not long now. A few steps more. The door came into view.

Closer still.

He reached a hand and pulled the latch open. Would she notice, as she entered, there was no lock on the door? No bar on the outside.

He entered the tower room first, then turned to watch the woman’s face. A hundred times in the past few days, he’d imagined her reaction and guessed what she might say, but now that the moment was upon him, he was anxious for her. But there was no time to explain. She was on the threshold, waiting for some signal perhaps, so he held a hand out to her. She looked briefly at the latch while pretending to lift her hair from her face. Clever girl. She’d noticed.

Hesitantly, she put her fingers into his glove but then held tight. There was a tremor in the delicate bones as he guided her into the room. Perhaps she was duly frightened of the stairwell. Over his shoulder, he nodded at Icarus to leave them. This occasion was too momentous for an audience.

The sun beamed through the barred window and she shielded her eyes against it briefly. A moment later, she dropped her hand away and looked at the structure before her. The intricately decorated wall of iron. The iron curtain hanging above it. The open gate.

The scream of a furious animal flew from her mouth, and she spun for the doorway, but Gaspar lunged and was there to stop her. His immediate concern was the thirty foot drop off the landing’s edge. It was dangerous even when one was calm and careful. He thought she’d realized that. But apparently, her carefully designed cell frightened her even more.

“Calm yourself, Isobella,” he implored. “You are only in danger of falling to the bottom of the tower. I vow it!”

There was no sign she’d heard his voice. She continued to fight for escape as if the room at her back held the most frightening of beasts. Was she mad? Or could she simply not trust him?

“Isobella, you must hear me. I’ve brought you here for your own protection.”

She screamed and spun away, only to fly back toward the door again. He blocked the opening with his body and anchored his hand on the wall. She grabbed his arm and wrenched on it with all her might, but it did not move. When she tried to duck beneath it, he swayed to fill the void. She gave another shrill scream and threw her body at him. If he’d been a smaller man, they might have tumbled to their deaths together. But he stood his ground for both their sakes.

Her plaid dropped to the floor, forgotten. Her face was a study in abject fear and desperation as her fists turned to claws, and it sickened him to know he was the cause of it. She tried to grab handfuls of flesh from his chest, but ended with a mass of cloth that did her little good, even when she used it to pull him to the side. When she turned and put her shoulder into his middle, he worried she’d either forgotten the danger, or no longer cared for her safety.

Had she given up on living so quickly then? He would have asked her just that, but she was senseless.

She planted her feet and pushed him. First left, then right. Then backward. When all that failed, she started again, shrieking and grunting, then pausing for half a breath before beginning once more. He imagined her stubborn enough to continue until she collapsed, until all her strength was spent. But he couldn’t allow it, not if there was a chance she might catch him unawares and fall.

He’d been right—the cell was the safest place for her, even if it took time for her to understand.

She lunged to her right and pulled his hip out of her way, spinning him easily since he was braced to be pushed in the opposite direction. He was forced to release the wall and wrap his arms around her or the clever minx might have succeeded!

He pulled her close, forcing her elbows up and away, limiting her ability to gain momentum against him.

She screamed up into his face. “Nooo!”

He was but grateful she had returned to human language.

Her lungs pumped like billows against him and he realized he was also struggling for breath. She was so much stronger than he’d believe her capable.

And so much softer, damn her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

With one arm wrapped about her waist and the other across her back, he slowly moved his hand up beneath her glorious tresses, but only for a more secure hold, not to enjoy the feel of the heavy strands against the flesh of his hand.

Yes, he knew better than to touch her. But her safety had to come before all else or his preparations were for naught.

She struggled against him, but beneath her grunts of frustration he felt her barely concealed sobs, and he suddenly understood. She would rather fight to the death than allow him to see her weakness.

He almost laughed in relief but knew the woman would take insult.

Pride.

Her pride had very nearly killed them both. And perhaps her pride was the source of her previous woes as well. But Gaspar took heart, for pride was an affliction he could cure. He only needed to get her safely inside her cell, and he could begin.

He pressed the side of his face to hers and whispered in her ear. “My lady, do you wish to live?”

She lifted a boot and kicked his shin in answer.

He reached up and put his hand at the back of her head, then spun with her and crushed her body against the wall, knocking the wind from her and pressing so firmly she was unable to breathe deeply. She panted in his ear while he waited for her to appreciate the power he held over her. If nothing else, she wouldn’t have the strength to fight her way out.

He tried not to dwell upon what any other man would do with that power, especially with a woman who felt as if she were designed to fit perfectly against him. To say nothing of the taste of her. He had no need to put his lips to her in order to know the flavor of her. Just the smell of her hair woke his senses more easily than any woman from his youth. If he were ever to taste her in earnest, his soul would be lost to the devil in the blinking of an eye. The knowledge was as certain as the scar across his face.

Isobelle Ross was the embodiment of his salvation. It was one of the two reasons he’d brought her to his island. But the body he was pressed against could just as easily be his destruction. So he would need to tread carefully—just as carefully as he tread those steps beyond the door.

“Please…” she whispered.

He stopped pressing, but did not step back. “You wish to live?” he asked into her ear.

“Aye.” Her word was little more than breath, and chills raced up his back and into his hair where that breath had burrowed itself.

“I wish you to live as well, woman. So I suggest you trust me.” He leaned back to look her in the eye.

She shook her head. “Trust is earned, not freely given for any who would demand it.”

He sighed. “You must step inside your…room.”

Her head shook faster.

“Hear me, my lady. This was fashioned for your safety. Can you not look upon it as such?”

“I canna,” she whispered. “Ye doona mean to keep me safe, but only to keep me. And when ye’ve wearied of me, ye’ll make a fire at me feet.”

Her fingers moved slightly between his hands and the wall against which he still pressed them, and he realized it would be much easier for her to trust him if he weren’t poised to ravish her. So, still holding her hands, he lowered them, warily, while looking into her eyes, willing her not to fear him.

“I vow, Isobelle Ross, I’ve brought you to this tower to save you from such fires.”

Her gaze dropped to his lips. He licked them without thinking, and her eyes widened. Without realizing it, he’d begun to lean toward her, and her panic threatened to return. He straightened and released her hands, then turned so his body remained between her and the door.

He smiled and gestured to the open gate. “Perhaps, then, you can think of it as the only place you will be safe…from me.”

She straightened away from the wall and when he tensed, she very nearly smiled. “Aye, my lord. I will try to see it as a sanctuary, but only if I alone hold the key.”

Gaspar shook his head. “Perhaps we can begin again.” He bowed slightly. “Welcome to my island and to my home. This room has been prepared especially for your visit.”

One of her brows rose sardonically. “Only a visit, then? Such implies ye dinna expect me to stay long.”

He smiled. “We shall see.”

She gave a single nod, then turned to examine the ironwork. Her next step faltered and she glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide.

“My, my,” she breathed. “Does the Pope come to visit much? I expect you allow him his key.” She stepped forward and caressed the intricate pattern in the screen that was worthy of any artist in Venice. Small fleur de lis covered the lower three quarters of the screen, while the top quarter was arrayed with holes in the same pattern. Here and there, one of the small symbols was turned on its head, drawing the observer forward, drawing in the eye, demanding attention as one tried to discern the true pattern. The closer one moved, the more brilliant the pattern. Not unlike the woman herself.

Gaspar resisted the draw of the screen and forced his eyes to remain upon his new guest. Her eyes scanned the room even as she closely examined the screen. She’d missed nothing. Not the fact that the screen ran down the middle of the floor and turned at an angle near the end, creating a cell from the far half of the stone room to the front. The screen was anchored to walls and floor, as were the bars to each side of a section of screen that acted as a gate. Another solid section of screen hung from the ceiling and attached to the top of the more intricate section. For the prisoner, there would be no escaping over the metal walls. Neither could there come any threat from outside them.

Of course, there was no such threat. Gaspar himself would be the only person to see her, and he would be no threat, though she would not believe it now. But he’d made special arrangements for her to be perfectly safe from himself, even if he were tempted to touch her a second time, which could never happen.

It might seem unfortunate that the little holes allowed only a modicum of light to pass through them, thus leaving the inner half of the room in shadow, but Gaspar had designed the room with just that in mind, so he might watch her at times without her knowledge, to assess her progress.

Curious as a child, but still wary, she stood to the side of the gate and peeked into the cell. She would have noted the narrow bed and stool. The chamber pot. The small table and single candle.

“More than they allowed me in my tomb,” she murmured.

The sudden wave of sympathy caught him off guard. She was lying, of course. He needed to remember to trust nothing she said. Nothing. But it would explain why she was so terrified of being locked away.

He resisted the urge to order her inside and bit his tongue while he waited for her first step inside the gate. But he thought it best to keep his post until the gate was securely closed. Isobelle Ross was no simpleton, and he had to remain on his guard lest she think of a clever way past him.

She paused and glanced back at him, noting his stance. “Ye demand me trust, but ye canna seem to give it in return, aye?”

He laughed. “You, my lady, are far too clever to trust. I admit it freely.”

She snorted delicately and walked to the window. He was certain she was taking the tower’s measure, guessing her chances of escaping.

“Dare I ask,” she said, still looking out the window, “the true reason ye’ve brought me to yer little paradise? Ye’ve promised no fire. And if ye would see me drowned, ye could have left me to the sharks. So. Do tell.”

He waited for her to face him before he answered, hoping to witness her perfect understanding when it finally came.

“My lady, I have brought you here to save your soul, to take you back from Satan’s ranks.”

“Oh, is that all?” She grinned. “Then I should be back in my cottage by breakfast, I reckon.”

He allowed himself to smile at her jest, though inside he was disappointed indeed. She did not understand anything. Yet. But he was going to help her, even if it killed him to do it.

She kept her gaze on the blue waters outside the window and started only slightly when he swung the gate shut. The click of the lock was both satisfying and sad, knowing she was finally in his care, but that there would ever be a solid wall between them.

She would need a few moments alone to allow her new situation to settle in her mind, and then they could begin. But first, he needed to refresh himself…

…with the coldest water he could find.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Isobelle stood at the window and waited for her escort to leave. She would not dissolve into tears while he watched, though it was plain to see he was waiting for her to do just that.

A swish of fabric behind her. Footfalls moving out the door and down the steps. She was alone, though the feel of him lingered in the room.

How could one man raise so many emotions in her in only a morning?

His eyes were beguiling. To spend any length of time looking into them would be any woman’s downfall. And to have the man pressed against her… She shivered. It would be folly to dwell over long on the memory of it. In fact, it would be wiser to allow her thoughts to simmer and steep into a fine hatred of the man instead.

Man? Hah! A monster. No different than the pious jack-n-apes who’d forced Montgomery to bury her alive. Oh, how she wished she could visit that wicked bastard in his sleep.

She noticed her hands first, her fingers shaking over the edge of the window. But it wasn’t just her hands shaking. The vibrations moved up her arms, into her shoulders. The back of her head shook where his fingers had held her, had protected her head from knocking against the rough wall. She pulled her shoulders up to still the movement. Then she heard the shake of her breath, felt the floor move beneath her as her knees joined in. A hundred times, the shaking had overtaken her while she waited inside her would-be tomb, waiting for her brother to rescue her, not knowing if it was possible for him to break through the thick stone floor upon which her tomb had been erected.

She forced her eyes to remain open and searched the distance for sunlight dancing on the waves.

“Ye see?” she whispered to herself. “Outside. I’m outside.” She stretched her shaking limbs between the bars, rustled her fingers together. “Air. Sunshine. Sea.”

Outside.

Eventually, the shaking ebbed away. And the tears began.

~ ~ ~

A while later, there came slow footsteps in the stairwell. More than just her captor. A few more steps. A pause. More steps.

Isobelle’s curiosity could be contained no longer and she turned. Was she to be a sacrifice? Would a true monster be coming to collect her as his dinner? There had been a dragon carved into the wood above the arched doors, and a dragon carved on a pylon next to the dock. Was there a dragon living within her very tower?

She marveled that her tears and tremors had ceased, that the memory of her tomb and the fear of another such sentence was more frightening to her than the fear of a scaled beast that might be coming for her. Perhaps it was due to the fact that such a beast would kill her swiftly—a merciful death—while men who once sat in judgment of her had no mercy at all.

But this time, she’d been arrested, imprisoned—albeit an unusual prison—and yet she could not say for certain her captor lacked compassion. There had been something in the way he looked at her, almost pitying, that made him different from the priest who had so gleefully sentenced her to death in Scotland.

This man, with his painfully beautiful face, had already plucked her from an unfriendly sea, had stood at her back while she recovered herself, had allowed her to take her plaid. He’d even given her hope that she might return again to her little cottage—though she could never return in truth, for Signora Crescento now feared her to be a witch. And even if she returned there on the morrow, the suspicion would grow and spread like a fire on a dry moor. She would be forced to move on, forced to leave no word for Ossian, for if she left a trail, those who sought out witches would be able to follow.

Without Ossian to stop her, she’d likely go home, even if it meant her death.

Thus, her captor may not be a monster, but he had surely ruined her new life in Venice. At least it was reason enough to hate the man. It was not much, but if she protected that little seed of hatred, it would keep her from looking too deeply into his eyes…

The servant he’d called Icarus shuffled into the room backward, carrying the ponderous end of a long wooden bench. The man’s face was dark red and his cheeks pumped like billows as he walked beyond her vision into the shadowed side of the room on the far side of her decorative cage. Carrying the other end of the bench was her tall tyrant who looked only mildly uncomfortable with his load. His tunic and cape were gone. His white under-tunic hung against his lean stomach. At the shoulders were tied full white sleeves that billowed around his arms, giving her no sense of his strength if not for the ease with which he’d thwarted her escape.

He gave her barely a glance before turning away, disappearing through the door. His servant limped along behind, one hand pressed to his back. The door remained open. Their descending footsteps were easily heard.

Why the bench? What purpose would it serve? Would she be expected to entertain an audience? Would a jury of the kirk’s men sit before her and wait for a confession? Or did they hope to see some madness overtake her, to compel her to do something only a witch would do?

Well. They would be sorely disappointed on both counts.

She stood on the bed and peered through the little holes that decorated the upper edge of the iron wall. The bench was a stretch of brown shadow. No markings. No notches carved into it. No curve to the wood. With nothing to hint at its purpose, she was left wondering. The possibility of an audience left her a bit wounded, betrayed by her captor.

Her handsome captor.

What could he be thinking, to bring her here? To a remote island, away from the city, away from the church and its leaders? An inconvenience for any who might be brought to see her. Or…

Or is he hiding me from them?

A flash of hope caught in her chest. It made no sense to hide a witch, unless… Unless he thought she might be of use to him.

“Hah!” Would that she were a witch, for the first charm she would attempt would be something to get her free again.

Was it only this morning she had awakened in her own cottage, free from the interference of any man? Left on her own. Abandoned by Ossian. The first day of a life she alone would determine?

Only that morning?

What heinous thing had she done that God would see her penalized yet again in a stone room? What sin had she committed this time?

“Why must I be punished?” she shouted to the ceiling and to God beyond.

When the echoes of her voice were gone from the room and from her head, she caught movement by the door. She stepped off the bed and moved to the gate so she could see her captor clearly. Dressed the same as before, he stood with arms folded, his shoulder resting against the frame. He didn’t smile, but there was some form of excitement just below the surface. It might have been just the reflection from the window, but some type of light danced in his dark eyes.

“Not punished, Signorina.” His voice was deep, almost caressing. “Saved.”

He searched her face for a moment, and when he didn’t seem to find what he was looking for, he spun back out of sight. She listened carefully, to be sure he was really gone before she sat on the bed…and wondered if she dared take heart in a word like that.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Gaspar pulled a fine gray tunic over his head and chided himself for having entered her chamber without proper garments. The woman had reacted no differently than the rest of her sex, raking her gaze over him, assessing his body. He was usually immune to such attention, but for some reason, this woman’s assessment had caused him a moment’s pause.

Bah! She’d been inside his home for little more than an hour and already vanity had sunk its teeth in him. But no more. Never again would she have reason to look closely at him. There was simply nothing he could do about his visage. He refused to walk about with a mask, and he certainly wasn’t about to torture her with a dark sack over her head. But wiser clothing could keep her from appreciating his body, at least.

The memory of that morning swamped him like an unexpected tide. She’d called him perfetto. She’d looked him in the face and seen nothing of the scars he’d created there. Unlike anyone he’d encountered since coming to Venice, her gaze had not been frightened away from the silver gash. In fact, she seemed not to mind the damaged flesh at all.

Perfetto. His memory strained to hear it again, exactly as she’d said it. Perfetto.

He’d grown to hate the word in his youth. And for the first time in his life, it had sounded like an endearment.

He imagined pressing her against the wall again, commanding her to repeat it. Heaven help him!

Vanity invaded his chest, threatened to make camp within him, but he refused to let it stay. She could not think him perfect now. No doubt he was a monster in her eyes, the beast who had watched her from the shadows at the abbey, who’d turned her words against her. Who had locked her in a cage and shown no compassion for what might have happened to her in the past.

Every man and woman of the church states could view him as God’s Dragon and it bothered him not a pip. But now, in his own home, with a woman who reminded him of simpler days, when he’d been a simpler man, the title grated him.

But did he truly wish her to see him as just a man?

He’d faltered in the boat, believing he could look her person over and keep his thoughts chaste. Then he’d touched her as he’d vowed not to do. If he’d simply closed the door and held tight, he’d have had no reason to hold her. He’d pressed her against the wall when he could so easily have forced her in the other direction, into the cell, and closed the gate, putting cold iron safely between them.

He should have anticipated. He should have known himself better.

He should have never sent Icarus to find her in the first place.

~ ~ ~

When they’d arrived at the island, Isobelle had watched her captor so intently, she’d noticed little more about the island than the dragon carvings. And now that she’d seen all there was to observe out her window, she was curious what lay behind her little tower, on the south. Would there be a garden flourishing in the warm Italian sun?

Perhaps she was about to find out, for someone was ascending the stairs once again. She hoped he’d reconsidered, that he might be coming to offer her a look around the island and a moment or two to sit near the water. But one thing was certain, if he let her out, she’d never enter the tower again unless she was well and truly dead.

Considering the confident cadence, she expected her captor to be the one coming to call. And she was right. She turned her back to the window, but moved no further. The precious opening on the outside world was her salvation at the moment. To remove her from it would cost someone a great deal of effort, and pain. Unless, of course, she was given her freedom.

If the tower room were the face of a clock, the solid iron wall ran, like the long hand, from just south of center to the twelve and was attached to the wall there. The window sat at the nine. The bottom section of that clock was cut off by the only straight wall that ran from the eight to the four and kept the room from being perfectly round. The door was located at the four. On the other side of that straight wall was the staircase with a small landing at the top. The short hand of the clock would be represented by the gate with all its artful holes. It ran from the southern end of the wall, off on an angle, toward the seven.

Her visitor stepped in the door at the four o’clock mark.

Now dressed in grey that made his eyes seem darker still, her captor stepped to the gate holding a small black chest with bright silver fittings. Just the right size for her head to fit in, but not so big as to hold all her hair. In Scotland, however, it was the men who were hung and quartered, decapitated. Not the women. Perhaps it was the same in Venice.

She looked from the chest to the handsome face, but would not give him the satisfaction of asking what was inside.

He peered closely, perhaps looking for proof of tears. Then he released a dramatic breath and produced a small table from behind him, which he must have brought along, and upon which he set the chest.

She would not step closer. From a distance, it was easier to see the whole of him through the gate’s design.

The chest opened silently and the pungent smell of cedar filled the room.

If he withdrew a pair of sheers, he would need to kill her with them, for she refused to part with her hair. However, when he lifted his hand, it was clutching cloth. As the garment unfurled, it became a draping gown of white. It moved and fluttered as if a light breeze were toying with its soft folds. Though the cloth was as fine and costly as the trunk from which it sprung, she recognized the long narrow cuffs.

“I will not wear it,” she hissed and backed closer to the window.

He was taken aback for a moment. His brows lowered and he looked closely at the gown. He pondered the floor for a bit, peered closely at her face again, then his brow smoothed.

“Ah. Perhaps you imagine this is a gift, that I would ask for some favor in return. I assure you, this is nothing of the sort. Your own gown must be crusted with salt from your brief swim this morning. I only thought to give you something clean to wear. But I fear this is the only female garment on the island.”

She shook her head. “Ye doona suppose I have seen such a thing before? I assure ye, I have. I was given such a gown on the day I was entombed, though not nearly as fine. I shall never wear one again. Nay!”

Rage flickered back and forth across his features, alternating with horror. His eyes grew fierce and his nostrils flared, though she had the oddest notion he was not angry with her, but rather, for her.

“You are no ghost,” he whispered as if trying to convince himself of that fact.

She chuckled. “Nay. At least, nay yet. I was quite alive when me brother was forced to seal me inside me tomb. And still alive, happily, when I was rescued from it some twelve days later.”

“Twelve days.” His voice was hoarse as if he’d been inside that tomb with her, crying out for mercy, calling out in madness. He eyed the gown in his hands as if it were a serpent come to life. “I shall find you something else.”

Then he was gone.

Isobelle stood bemused. What a strange creature her captor was.

Indeed, her gown was crusted with salt. She’d been worrying at the cloth scratching her neck only moments ago. And now, she could nearly feel the cool softness of the white gown as it moved down the stairs, away from her.

“Wait!” she called. “Come back!”

She strained to hear. Were his footsteps returning?

He appeared again, the gown balled in his fist, his breathing slightly labored. He said nothing.

“Do you mean this gown to be my death shroud?” Her fingers were itching to see if it felt nearly as glorious as it looked, like a bed of fresh white heather, like a cloth made of breeze and misty breath on a chilly Highland morning.

His brows dipped in earnest before he thought to school his expression. Then he shook his head once, then again.

“Then I’d be pleased to have it, while my other things might be washed, aye?”

He stepped forward and offered her the ball of white. His smile was a grimace, an apology.

“A fine gown. I thank ye.” She took it and laid it across the bed. Then she turned back to the gate. “Would ye be willing to tell me, milord, why ye’ve brought me here? Ye doona seem prepared to burn me at the stake today. But tomorrow perhaps?”

That rage still simmered within his eyes, but it no longer made her nervous.

“No,” he said and walked away before she could determine which question he’d answered.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Gaspar’s chest was a riot of warring emotions. He was offended she still did not trust him, though he’d done nothing, truly, to earn it. She continued to worry she’d be burned at the stake? Impossible!

One day, she would understand him better and trust him completely. He vowed it!

He was also pleased. Too pleased in fact. Her appreciation for the gown should not be so gratifying, and yet it was. Perhaps it was the relief he’d experienced at finding his gift was not as loathsome an offering as it first appeared. She need not know it was a gift, of course. She could not know how much consideration had gone into the purchase, but she did seem to appreciate the fine material.

There was no doubt she was a noblewoman, even though her forthrightness proved a lack of proper instruction. But Scottish lasses were a stubborn, willful bunch. No wonder so many red-headed women were accused of witchcraft.

Bah! The word, even unspoken, left a foul taste in his mouth. He was disgusted with himself for ever considering this woman might be the first real proof of witchcraft, but she’d spoken so confidently of spells…

“Bah!” There were no such creatures. And there never had been. But his employer could not know he felt the way he did. Out of necessity, Gaspar had been forced to play along with superstitious clergymen for the most part, so they would never suspect that God’s Dragon was determined to save the very women they had already condemned. He had to be clever. He had to be creative. And sometimes, he had to allow a woman to perish—in as painless a manner as possible—so he might keep his powerful position, to save another woman on another day.

And now, that day was upon him. Every role he’d played had brought him to this point. And now he was untouchable. He would save this woman from her own loose tongue, and no one could stop him from doing so. When he stood before God for judgment, he would have this one act of compassion to prove he was not an evil man.

Isobella Ross was going to be his salvation. And he would be her earthly savior.

~ ~ ~

The smell of bread reached Isobelle before she ever heard footsteps. Her stomach complained loudly and she pressed her hands to her middle to try and muffle the noise. It would do her no good to remind the man of her dependency upon him, so she would show no weakness if she could help it. Until she understood his intentions clearly, any information about her, even something as human as hunger, would be a weapon he could use against her. Even now, she regretted taking the luxurious gown from him.

There was more than one set of steps. He was not alone. Was Icarus with him? Or would there be others?

She sat calmly on the end of the bed so he might not remember how she’d clung to the window before.

Save her from herself? She had heard that before, a dozen times at least, from Ossian’s mouth, and earlier still, from her brother’s. They implied that Isobelle, being Isobelle, speaking and living and breathing like Isobelle, was somehow unwise. That she would suffer if she did not change.

Well, be damned with them all. She would not crawl along the walls like a titmouse, hoping to draw no notice. She would not cut her hair and disappear beneath a covering, as if it were her own fault that weak men were drawn to her. She bared no skin to tempt them. She was no seductress. And wasn’t their advice the very type of thing a harlot would hear—a wish that she could be saved from herself?

But this man should be concerned more with his own welfare—if he did not release her soon, he would be wishing to be saved from her.

Her captor entered along with his servant, but there were no others. She released the breath she’d been holding in anticipation.

“Stand at the window, if you please,” the tyrant said. “Icarus, here, will place the tray on your table while you hold to the bars. I will not have him fearing an attack.”

She folded her arms and remained seated even though she feared to do so might cost her a meal. “Who are you?”

He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Hold to the bars.”

“Who are you?” She had to make this stand. Now. She had no choice. To crumble now in order to simply fill her stomach would be his first step toward victory over her.

“My name is Dragotti.” He smiled. “Hold to the bars, please. I will give no quarter where Icarus is concerned.”

A compromise. Surprising. Appreciated. She stood and walked to the window and placed her hands high on the bars so both men might be able to see them clearly.

The gate opened with no complaint. Fabric rustled. The air shifted behind her, grew instantly warmer, and she realized with surprise that Dragotti stood at her back. She squeezed the bars, refusing to panic. Hairs rose at the nape of her neck and on the backs of her arms, but those were hidden by the generous white sleeves. She realized her skean duh, her small Scottish dagger, was hidden beneath her pallet while she waited for her boots and hose to be returned to her. Her feet were bare. She was defenseless but for the hard bones of her elbows she might use to strike out with.

He came no closer, made no move to touch her while the little man shuffled into the cell and shuffled out once again. And still, Dragotti lingered.

“Dragotti?” She released the bars and began to turn. The man stepped quickly back, then rounded the gate as if he were as wary of her touch as she’d been of his. She pretended not to notice. “Meaning, dragon?”

He frowned. “Gaspar Dragotti,” he said with an Italian lilt.

It was her turn to frown. “But you’re English.”

He stared into her eyes for a moment, as if he wished her to pay close attention. “I was English. Now I am Dragotti, Special Investigator to The Patriarch of Venice.”

“A priest?”

“No. But I have substantial authority.” It was a statement, not a boast.

Not a priest, but powerful. An investigator for the patriarch? He might as well be the right hand of The Pope. As an investigator, an inquisitor, he likely held the power of life and death in the palm of his hand. The murderer of witches—most of them wrongly accused.

While he’d been eavesdropping in the abbey, she’d all but confessed to being one, admitted that she’d already been found guilty. He’d heard her ask Ossian if she might need to cast a spell to keep Sophia and Trucchio together.

She looked up to find his face twisted with fury and she realized she’d spoken at least one word aloud...

Murderer.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Gaspar sucked in a breath to cool the fire in his breast. With one soft word, she’d ruined everything he’d wished to do this first day. Destroyed it.

“One hour,” he growled. “When we return for the tray, you will stand at the window.”

He cleared his mind of all thoughts as he made his way down the darkening stairwell, thinking of nothing, nothing, nothing. But once he was outside, he could not contain his frustration and howled like a wounded, angry animal. When the sound settled back to the ground, he allowed himself the perverse wish that she’d heard it—that she’d heard it and worried.

He took a deep breath. Then another. Then a bright and shining emotion washed ashore before his very eyes and he recognized it instantly.

He was alive again!

The waves roared, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

He laughed, and it felt like absolution. He was suddenly Lazarus, raised from the dead.

And it hadn’t happened all of a moment, either. It had started when God urged him to hide behind a rood screen and then reminded him what it had once been like to have a beating heart. And since then, how his heart had pounded.

How long had it been since he’d been swamped by some emotion other than fear? For a decade at least, he’d known only fear on behalf of those wrongly condemned, and disgust for those guilty ones who were wrongly exonerated. Of course, he’d also been fearful for his own soul and well-motivated to tend to it. But the highest emotion he’d enjoyed, for as long as he’d labored in The Republic, had been an abeyance of that fear. No joy. No peace. Just fear, or lack of fear. Disgust and lack of disgust.

But no more. His spirits tumbled and laughed in the waves, no longer afraid of drowning. And he would not bid them cease.

She is already my salvation!

The least he could do in return, was to be hers. And the first step toward that end was to win her trust. He was able to do good things with trust. His superiors trusted him to go out among the people and judge them, trusting that his judgment reflected their own. But he was able to see guilt where it truly lay. His superiors were not always given a clear view of such things.

She’d condemned him for his office, but she did not understand it. Not yet. But so be it. It had no bearing. He would still save her, whether or not she wished to be saved.

He composed himself, hid his giddy heart under a familiar sober façade, and headed back inside.

~ ~ ~

The hour refused to pass by more than one minute at a time, which was just as well, for it allowed Gaspar’s excitement to quiet. He was unable to calm his breathing when they entered her chamber, but he hoped she would attribute his breathlessness to the climb of so many steps.

For a moment, she rebelliously sat upon the bed. He simply waited for her to move to the window, neither chiding her nor urging her to comply before she was ready. He was the picture of patience.

Finally, she huffed out a breath and did as she was expected. He tried not to breathe too heavily in her ear as he stood behind her and waited for Icarus to remove the tray. But the servant was forgotten while the sunset caressed the left side of her hair bringing the dark red to life in a brilliant show of orange and yellow. And his heart pounded like the heavy tail of a contented puppy when he realized the event would repeat itself each evening while she remained in his care. He would make note of the sunset before coming to collect her tray.

Impatient feet shuffled near the door, drawing his attention from the woman standing before him. Icarus would be anxious to head for home, and it was hardly fair to make the little man wait while he stood listening to the woman breathe in and out and watched the orange light fade.

He wrenched himself away and locked the gate behind him, and without a word, he followed Icarus down the steps. At the bottom, the man turned.

“Mio signore, am I still to take the key home with me?”

Gaspar frowned. “You suppose I have changed my mind simply because the woman is beautiful?”

Icarus blushed and shook his head nervously. “No, signore. I… I…”

Gaspar smiled, which made the little man even more nervous than before. “Be at ease, Icarus. My plans are the same. The woman tries my patience, but I expected as much.” He took the key from his pocket and put the string around Icarus’ neck. “This key must never be left on the island at night. I will not leave such destructive power lying about for Satan’s use. Is that understood?”

Icarus relaxed. “Si, mio signore. Si.”

Gaspar waited another hour before he took a candle up the stairs, stopping to light other candles placed in small alcoves that were once meant to store weapons. As he climbed, he looked out the small arrow slits and glimpsed the first of the night’s stars taking up their places in the sky. He was glad he’d allowed the woman an aperture, especially after he’d come to believe she had, indeed, been sealed in a tomb for twelve days. It was cruel to lock her up now, with or without a window, but he feared it was too dangerous not to do so. Once she understood, perhaps she would forgive him.

He knocked on the open door, not wanting to interrupt her ablutions.

She made him wait, but that was no surprise. Eventually, she bid him come.

He’d already spent far too much time gazing upon her that day, so after he handed her the candle, he sat on the bench, content to sit in the near darkness. He watched the little fleur de lis dance along with the flame on her side of the wall.

“You wish to know what will happen while you are here,” he said softly. “I’ve come three times to explain. Perhaps this time I can do so before I…” He shrugged.

“Before I provoke you again?”

He smiled. “Precisely.”

“Weel, dinna let me stop ye then. I’ll just bite my tongue, shall I?”

“It may help.” He cleared his throat and made an attempt to sound more sober. “As you know, I overheard your conversation with your cousin in the abbey.”

She made no comment. Perhaps she truly was biting her tongue.

“And in my office, as you can imagine, I have investigated many a headstrong woman who could not manage to watch her words.”

“So. You dinna believe I’m a witch, then?”

“I do not. But I believe you will burn as a witch in any case.” He paused, waiting for his words to be not only heard, but believed. “Unless you learn how to tread carefully, how to school your thoughts, and thereby school your tongue.”

The sound she made could have been deemed a growl, and it worried him.

“Please. Heed me,” he cautioned. “Have you been told of Joan of Arc?”

“Aye.”

“Joan failed to consider before she spoke. She insulted powerful men. She frightened the simple of mind. She gave her critics the very stake on which to burn her. And I cannot stand by and allow you to do the same. I have smelt the burning flesh of too many a woman who might have been saved if they’d only known, and understood—”

“Their place? If they’d understood their place? Beneath all men’s boots?” She began pacing from wall to gate and back again. It would not surprise him to learn that someone in her life had already tried to help her. But whomever it was, they’d failed.

He kept a soothing voice. “There is more than learning your place, Isobella.”

She laughed, but continued to pace.

He watched her shadow grow and fade on the ceiling in relation to her distance from the candle. “You need not believe your place is beneath a man’s boot, but you must make men believe you believe.”

She stopped pacing and stepped up onto the bed. The little holes looked like a mask across her eyes as she stared at him. “But in order for a man to believe that I believe my place is beneath his boot, I must crawl beneath his boot!”

He stared into her eyes and leaned forward slightly. “Yes.”

Her fingers curled around the top of the wall. She shook it, but the wall didn’t so much as rattle. “So either way, I find myself beneath boots. Nothing is different between me and the woman who submits and cowers.”

Gaspar couldn’t help but be pleased with her reasoning, even if they disagreed. It had been far too long since he’d had a spirited conversation with a woman who didn’t fear him.

“There is a difference,” he said. “You will know the truth, just as Joan of Arc would have known the truth and lived, had she been more clever. I believe you to be clever enough, Isobella. But are you too proud to confine your rebellion to your heart?”

“Truth be told, I am proud.”

He smiled. “The truth is a fine place to start.”

“Start?”

“It is getting late. But if you care to, we can practice for a moment.”

Her breathing quickened. “And just what is it we’ll be practicin’?”

His blood jumped at the image of his body pressing her against the wall and tasting her lips, over and over again, until he kissed her perfectly.

He took a deep breath and cleared his throat, but there were no words at the ready. After a few more such breaths, he’d chased the image away.

She was ready to begin, which was encouraging. He’d all but given up hope that he’d accomplish any change in her this first day. But the idea of her improving quickly also brought a ring of sadness. Having her near made him feel alive, but if she were ready to leave him too soon, would that feeling depart with her?

“A short practice, then. We’ll begin in earnest in the morning.” He frowned up at her. “We’ll carry out a harmless conversation. You will attempt to remain submissive, do you understand? Remember your place. And if you cannot remember your place, at least try to remember where I, as a man, believe your place to be.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a quick game of chess?”

He shook his head, frowned harder, then took on a harsh tone. “God would have you submissive.”

She bit her lip, trying not to laugh, no doubt. “No. Men would have me submissive. Surely, if God Himself wished a woman to hold her tongue, he’d have never given her one.”

A clever tongue had God endowed her with, but it would not serve her.

“Why, then,” he argued, “would God give man dominion over women?”

Through the little holes, he thought he saw her brows rise.

“Hah! Did he, now?”

He sat forward. “Do not blaspheme again. I warn you.”

“Pah! I know men, good men, who do not seek dominion over their women. I believe God is well-pleased with these men, and that those who would rule over women do so to satisfy their own hunger for power. And it doesna take a witch to foretell that one day, women will rise up and take that dominion back.”

He jumped to his feet. “Enough. Enough.”

“What I say frightens ye?”

He moved to the gate so she could more clearly read the concern on his face. She stepped off the bed and moved to the gate as well. There was but two feet and a few iron bars between them. He could barely see her features what with the candle behind her.

“Of course it frightens me,” he said. “I fear what will happen to you if you cannot control yourself. Men will not stand idly by while you guess what pleases God. You could be easily condemned and burned for the arguments you so freely give. If you believe you can speak what you think, simply because you truly believe what you say, then you must change your thinking. For your own survival.”

She stared at him in silence. And he stared back, hoping she at least believed that he believed where her true danger lay.

She gave a half-hearted smile and shrugged. “Well, ye’re not the first to say so, if that gives ye comfort.”

He wished he could reach through the bars and shake those shoulders, and he gave thanks for the wise plan to send the key away with Icarus, or he would have had his hands upon her again. But all that was left to him was to try shaking her with his words.

“And of those who have warned you, woman, who among them remains at your side? Who among them was able to remain standing in spite of the winds that come so forcefully from your mouth?”

She wrapped her arms around herself, and with her eyes on the floor, she shook her head, sending her hair swaying, then settling again. Answer enough.

“Look to me,” he said softly.

She shook her head again.

“Look to me, Isobella. Please. You are not alone. I am here. Still here. Still willing to help you.”

She looked up, frowning. “Why? I am a stranger to ye. Why do ye insist on changing me?”

“Because, my Isobella, I have seen so many others like you and could do nothing. They, too, would not curb their tongues, refused to hide their thoughts, would not submit to the will of…men. So many preferred to die a tortured death rather than bow their heads.”

“Ah, then ye do understand. Finally.” Her eyes lit from within. He was unable to look away.

He stepped closer to the bars, wishing she would do the same. “What is it you think I understand?”

She leaned slightly forward. “That I would rather die a tortured death, than change.”

He was afraid that he did, indeed, understand. And the comprehension burst something inside him, something hot and dangerous, like the lava from a volcano, bubbling and expanding, threatening to consume anything in its path.

With more calm than he felt, Gaspar straightened and took a step back. He breathed in and out until his breath no longer shook. Only then did he dare speak.

“Perhaps,” he growled, “now you will understand why I brought you here.” He moved to the doorway and turned back. “And why I cannot allow you to leave.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Isobelle held her smile until the angry tyrant was gone. She’d seen too much of his softer insides for her to be frightened. The dragon had a man’s emotions. He had blood in his veins. And he had a weakness for her beauty, a fascination with her hair, though he fought to hide it. One day soon, he would let her leave. He would soften, and he would let her go. And though it was not in her nature to do so, she would be patient.

Considering her imprisonment, Isobelle was relieved to find that her bed was comfortable. Not nearly as comfortable as the one in her new cottage, but much preferred over sleeping in a hammock and rocking all night to the progress of a ship. Her emotions were spent, and with her new confidence that she would indeed leave this prison, her worries faded away with the sounds of the waves patting against the shore below her window. And she slept without dreams, unknowing, unseeing, unhearing.

Until someone began shouting at her.

She lifted her head, but her eyes refused to give up the darkness. A man’s voice. Not Ossian’s. Then she remembered where she’d laid her head to sleep and her eyes flew wide. She leapt from the bed and braced herself for some sort of attack. She pulled up her right leg, to free her small blade, but her foot was bare. No sock. No knife. Had he taken it?

The gate was closed. He had not yet come inside. Where, then, was her knife?

She eyed the mattress to her left, remembered slipping it beneath. She reached for it, but stilled her hands when his words finally reached past her panic.

“Isobella! Rouse yourself, I say.”

Candles lit up the other side of the wall where the bench was placed. She could see the man’s shadow pacing the length of it, stopping short of the gate. She relaxed, knowing he was not watching her through the latticework.

“What do you want from me?” Her body begged her to crawl back onto the bed, but she could not bear to do so until the man left the room. So she rested her back against the round, outer wall, and waited for him to answer.

“You shall celebrate the hours, Isobella, much as you would have done had you been forced to remain at the abbey. Matins begins at midnight. Lauds at sunrise, then the six hours of the day, ending with Compline, at nightfall.”

“I doona ken what ye mean,” she said, though she did indeed know. He might suppose she came from a barbaric Highland clan that had little dealings with the church, and if that would make his task harder for him, all the better.

She heard a faint sigh of exasperation and grinned.

“Come to the gate,” he barked.

She tucked away her smile and slowly swayed to the other end of her cell, rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child, peering at him from half-closed lids.

“Take this,” he said, overloud, no doubt trying to frighten her more alert. He opened a small silver box with a dark lining and pulled a string of beads from inside.

“What is it?” she asked. She raised her brows as if they might lift her eyelids a wee bit more.

“A rosary. Take it.” He pushed a loop of the beads through a large triangular gap in the gate’s decoration and waited.

She blinked her eyes wide and recoiled. “No! I’ll nay touch it!”

“Isobella. Do not be foolish. I know you are not, in fact, a witch. Touching the beads will cause you no discomfort. We both know it.”

She was so tired, she wished only to fall back onto her bed and escape back into slumber, but she could not resist toying with the man further.

“I was allowed to take nothing inside the tomb with me,” she whispered, “save a bewitched torque and a rosary. I vowed I would never touch one again.”

He stared at her for a moment, as if waiting for her to say more. When she did not, he rolled his eyes. “Stop your nonsense, Isobella. Take the rosary. If you want to be left in peace, to sleep until sunrise, you will pray the rosary.”

She frowned, stepped up and drew the things through the hole, not at all happy he’d taken no pity on her.

“It is true,” she mumbled.

“I do not doubt it,” he said, his handsome smile showing his pleasure and chasing away her sleepiness, damn him. “I am relieved a mere necklace does not truly frighten you. However, if you had given that little performance before any other audience, you might have been tried on the spot. Surely you realize that.”

It was her turn to roll her eyes.

“Proceed, Isobella. And if you lose count, you will begin again.”

She marched back to the far wall and ungraciously lowered herself to the floor. “Our Father,” she began. And while she recited the prayer, she watched his shadow move back toward the bench. She was three quarters of the way finished, when she paused, to see if he was still listening.

“Yes, Isobella. I am still listening. And counting.”

She smiled and resumed praying. Toying with Gaspar, the dragon, would not be dull work.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The next day, to Gaspar’s relief, Isobella gave no protest and prayed when she was expected to pray. Each time she acted as if she were an unschooled waif, he would laugh as if she were simply trying to amuse him. Then he would carry on with his instruction. They practiced arguing, at which she demonstrated just how keen was her mind, and at other times, she simply turned away from him and ignored him until he left the room. She was as clever as she was stubborn. He simply needed to show her that she need not give up the former if she ceased the latter.

The next day of prayers passed without any reminders from him. She knew her prayers like any lady of nobility would know. And she seemed to harbor no real resentment toward the church as a whole, only toward the exact men who had sent her to her grave in Scotland. It was a tremendous relief he would not have the task of rehabilitating her views toward a quarter of the men on the face of the earth.

He also realized, with a measurable amount of dread, she could learn so quickly he might not have the pleasure of her company for long if she applied herself.

What he planned next was justified, even though it might upset her enough to reverse some of her progress, but he refused to imagine he might be sabotaging her progress on purpose. He did want to be able to allow her to leave his island—he wanted it equally as much as he wished for his own salvation. For were the two not linked?

But he also had to admit his curiosity, a weakness he tried not to indulge often. He found it impossible to believe there were, in fact, real witches roaming the world, so he was anxious to hear more about these witches Isobella claimed to know. And it was necessary to discuss it with her, if only to show her why she should wipe any witchly experiences from her memory, to never admit them again, so she might not suffer from her association with them.

So, that night, after Vespers, he lingered. She noticed and backed away from him, wary. He’d been training her up to be distrustful, had he not? So her close attention was good for the most part. But at the moment, he wished she would trust him.

“Isobella,” he began.

“‘Tis Isobelle,” she snapped.

“In truth?”

“Aye.”

“Why did you not tell me before?” He was almost hurt by the omission, like she’d been lying to him.

“My name was the only thing I still had that was mine alone.” She faced the window and clutched the bars. “I shouldn’t have told ye.” The last, he imagined she had not intended to say aloud.

“Forgive me, Isobelle.” He took the edge of his long bench and dragged it toward him, then swung it around to face the gate. He gestured toward the end of her bed. “Sit. Please. Let us converse for a while. Night is a while away yet. Will you pass the time with me?”

She cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes. Eventually, she gave a single nod, then she moved to the far end of her bed and sat sideways, facing him. He tried not to dwell on the arrangement of her legs beneath the white skirts. She caught him raising his eyes from those skirts and gave a slight shake of her head in warning. There might not be another soul on the island of Venice who would suspect him capable of carnal thoughts, but she did. Of course she could not have heard the rumors that he himself had started, that he was unable to perform as other men. But it was only a rumor, and a rumor he doubted she would have believed, especially after the look they’d exchanged in the boat, and those moments against the wall.

There was also a chance she had a talent for seeing people as clearly as he did, that she might also know when others were lying.

Such a talent would prove useful once she left the tower. She would need to know how to recognize those who might prove dangerous to her, so she could watch her tongue. But there was absolutely no one around whom she should not guard her words, even when she was alone. For if she’d been that careful before, he would have never heard the words witch or spell tumble from her lips at the abbey.

That was all he sought to teach her, in the end. To stay her tongue, to control her temper, and to play the fool so no one would see her as a danger that wanted removing. But that was a discussion for tomorrow. Today, he wanted to hear her tale.

“Tell me of your home.” He folded his arms and waited, wondering if she would tell him anything at all. And if she did, he may or may not believe what she said.

She tilted her head and considered him with narrow eyes. He could almost hear the debate in her head. Was her home something else she might hold tight to her? To keep him from knowing all there was to know about her?

“The Highlands of Scotland.” She shook her head. “I’d rather not specify, aye?”

He nodded. She had no reason to trust him with the lives of people she loved after what he’d already done to her.

“My brother is the laird of a clan. Monty, we call him.”

“Is he one of these good men of whom you speak, the kind who have no need to have dominion over women?”

She smiled. “Auch, nay. Monty dominates all other women in the clan.”

“Just not his sister?”

Her smile fled. “Just this sister. He managed to force Morna into an unwanted marriage.”

“Ah. Not uncommon for a leader to need alliances.”

She sat forward. “It was not needed. It was a punishment.”

Gaspar propped an elbow on a crossbar in the gate, then rested his chin in his palm. “Tell me.”

Isobelle sat back again, rested against the wall behind her, then pulled her blanket into her lap. She took a deep breath, then huffed it out.

“Morna fell in love with Monty’s bosom friend, Ivar. He was from Clan—” She caught herself before completing the name. “From a clan to the west, say. They were close as brothers. And one day, Monty found Morna and Ivar together. It broke his heart. He banned Ivar from our lands and sent Morna to marry the son of another chieftain. But Ivar and Morna were made for one another, like a rock broken in twain, then brought back together again. They fit perfectly in every manner, aye?”

He nodded, understanding too well how two people could fit together so well it made one wonder what God intended.

“I was desperate to aid them, aye? So I went to the witches for help.”

He could see the regret contorting her face and wished he could think of the perfect words to comfort her, but before he could, the regret was gone. Her chin rose, and when she looked his way again, there was a hardness in her eyes—a determined hardness—and he wondered if she were simply too proud to believe she’d made a mistake. It was a look he was getting used to, a look she would need to learn away before she could safely be released back into the world again.

“I went to Mhairi and Margot,” she continued. “Their clan is steeped in witches, aye? But mostly when they come in pairs. Sometimes not. But those old sisters visited our clan more often than my brother would like, and I was nay afraid of them.” She smiled. “They were pleased as puddin’ to help me. Said I needed only to create a token, a necklace or a brooch of metal, affixed with a bone from our clan and a bone from Ivar’s. I had the smithy’s young son help me and we ended with a torque. I spoke of it to no one else. There was no danger.”

Gaspar bit his tongue. Obviously, there had been danger, but to point it out would be to disrupt the moment.

Isobelle glanced at the window and closed her eyes and he couldn’t resist doing the same, to listen for a moment to the tide rolling onto his modest shore. Sometimes he felt a bit guilty for enjoying the sound as much as he did. He tried to disregard the fact that Isobelle’s voice was equally as pleasurable.

“I took the torque to the sisters.” Her eyes were open again, her voice dreamy—an indulgence to which he would limit himself. “They cast a spell on it, that one day a faery would come and claim the piece, and this faery would bring Morna and Ivar together again. I only hope it comes soon, aye? While they’re still young and… and can enjoy…” She shrugged and took great interest in her fingers and after a long silence, he worried she had decided to end the tale there.

“How did the clergy discover you?” he asked. “Did your sister tell them? And were the old sisters tried as well?”

She shook her head. “Auch. Nay. Morna was glad for a bit of hope. As was Ivar. They’d have never said a word before it became a common tale. It was the smithy’s son. He couldna sleep for the guilt he felt, so he went to the kirk, to confess. Only it wasn’t our Father MacRae who was there to accept his confession that day. It was another. Someone who had no ken of the clan. Our Father MacRae would have known I was not a witch, knowing the sisters as he does. He would never have reported me to others. O’ course I canna blame the wee lad. I should have never sought his help. I only thought he might like a bit of excitement, ‘tis all.”

“So, what happened at the trial?”

“The bastard that came to try me only asked the boy to repeat his story. No one was allowed to speak for me. Then the jack-n-apes conferred with the two priests he’d brought along with him. They found me guilty and pronounced a sentence of death.”

“I must admit, I’ve never heard of a witch being buried alive. Is this something they do regularly in Scotland?”

“Nay. Nay. That was Monty’s doin’. He’s got a fine temper for a man with no red to his hair. And he would not allow the kirk to kill his sister, even if she was the troublesome sort most days. So he took advantage of the fact the bastard had only sentenced me to death, and announced to one and all that it would be up to him, as laird, to decide how I would die. He chose to bury me alive, for he thought he could dig up underneath the cairn and get me out.

“But the church’s bastard was not a stupid man. He agreed to allow the burial, but he insisted the tomb be built upon stone. He was right pleased with himself. Thought we’d all be marchin’ up to the quarry, to bury me in the rocks there. But he hadn’t noticed the dais in the great hall. There was stone floor aplenty there. And even though it meant the hall would become a graveyard, Monty avowed my tomb would be built there, and that he would do the building himself.”

She laughed and leaned forward with a devilish grin.

“Ye should have seen the bastard’s face when he realized he’d been outplayed. Purple as a turnip, he was.”

“Does the man know Monty got you out?”

“Heaven forefend!” She fell back again. “If he knew, he’d have been trailing behind me more than half-and-a-year now. But no. I was told he hadn’t stayed more than a week, watching Monty all the while, waitin’ for the mortar to set the stones. And when he went, he left his guardsmen behind to make certain no one broke into or out of the tomb until it was clear I was dead. When Ossian took me away, the bastards were still standing in the great hall, waitin’.”

“But how did Monty get you out if the priest was watching him for a week?”

“The moment the last stone was set in place, Ossian and Ewan, our other cousin, began chiseling from beneath the dais. The stone was more than a foot thick. It took the pair of them twelve days. And all the while, Monty kept up a commotion in the hall, so the kirk’s henchmen couldna hear the pounding.”

“And all you had for comfort was a torque and a rosary?”

“Oh, aye. The torque is still inside.” She grinned. “But I’m afraid the rosary didna last long. I suppose it was the second or third day the beads went flying this way and that. I regretted it, of course, every time I stepped on one. And eventually, I ate them just to save me feet.”

Gaspar laughed in spite of himself. And Isobelle laughed with him.

The candle sputtered against the wall, reminding him of the coming night. If he were going to convince her there were no true witches in the world, the time was at hand. However, though he tried half a dozen times to order his words, he couldn’t think of a way to say them that wouldn’t offend. Finally, he admitted that he didn’t want to deny her the belief that her sister and her lover would be reunited in some way. She had suffered horribly in a tomb made by the hand of her own kin, suffered for the superstitious nonsense of two old women, and he hadn’t the heart to tell her she’d suffered for nothing.

That she still suffered for nothing.

Heaven help him, but he was not ready to end that suffering.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The following day, their arguing practice went well. Too well.

He’d baited her with unreasonable statements; she hadn’t so much as sniffed at the bait. In fact, she’d responded as Gaspar would expect a circumspect mouse to respond.

He’d twisted his Latin to prove that God had placed women on earth to reproduce men, and that they were a beast not to be trusted; she’d cheerfully bowed to his better knowledge of the language and his interpretation of the scriptures, for her small mind would never accommodate such immense thoughts.

He’d ordered her to celebrate the hours while lying prone on the cold floor. She’d thanked him for helping her appreciate how soft and warm she would find her bed if he saw fit to allow her to sleep in it.

He’d been furious!

“You cannot have learned so quickly,” he said, after Icarus had left for the night.

“Of course, my lord,” she said meekly. “As a woman, I must try yer patience sorely. But I can only promise to apply meself better tomorrow.”

“Stop it!”

She wrapped her plaid tighter around her shoulders and pulled a fold of it up to cover her hair. “What is it ye wish me to stop, my lord? Forgive me if ye’ve already explained it and I’ve forgotten.”

“Isobelle!”

She flinched away from his voice and hurried to the far end of her bed where she whimpered and cowered.

There was a tiny fear hovering in the back of his mind that told him he had performed his duty too efficiently, that Isobelle Ross was indeed, prepared to survive in a world of angry men. Prepared to leave him. But he refused to believe it.

Still she cowered. Her single candle cast a shadow beneath her head covering and he couldn’t see her face, but her hand shook more steadily than she could have pretended.

Had he broken her? Had he ruined her?!

“Isobelle,” he whispered. “Stop this. It sickens me. Please, stop.”

She shrieked once and tried to muffle the sound with the plaid.

“You laugh at me!” He was angry at being mocked. He was horrified by her talent to fool him, if only for a moment. But he thanked God he hadn’t broken the precious doll he’d been given.

She straightened, instantly sober, but remained at the back wall as if she wished to stay as far from him as possible.

“Yes, I was laughing,” she scoffed. “It was either laugh like an eegit or choke on the prattle ye would have me speak. I’ll tell ye true, Dragon. I’ll go mad, and quickly, if ye doona give up changin’ me. For if ye change a part of me, ye change the rest.” She waved to the window. “If you wish to keep a submissive woman about, I trust ye’ll find them aplenty on the streets of Venice. Find a large lazy one who would like nothing more than have her meals served by Icarus and have a lovely man come tell her she’s not worthy to have her own thoughts.” She dropped her arm. “Find another. I beg ye. I am not the woman to please ye.”

Gaspar stared at her a moment, waiting for her to come closer. But she didn’t. So he turned and left the tower. Then he paced happily along the southern side of the island, unable to worry what the morrow might bring because he was too happy by half.

She thought he was lovely.

~ ~ ~

Isobelle woke to the smell of cooked chicken eggs.

Gaspar hadn’t come to rouse her for prayers, and she hadn’t risen on her own. She hadn’t slept well until the blue cast of dawn told her she was running out of time to do so. No one spoke when Icarus brought her meal. And when she’d finished eating it, she’d still been weary, so she’d crawled back on her bed. When next she woke, the tray was gone. And still, Gaspar had not demanded the hours.

Icarus brought her the next meal alone. He glanced nervously at the window. She hurried to her station and held the bars high until she heard the slide of her tray on the floor and the click of the locking gate.

“Dragon?” she asked.

Icarus walked slowly back to the gate and looked at her.

“Signore Dragon?” she asked again.

He shook his head. “Venecia.” Then he frowned. “Regatta.” Then he put his hands together as if in prayer, but pulled his thumbs apart and wiggled his hands like a fish cutting through water.

She assumed he was referring to the boat races, and nodded.

He looked over his shoulder, then turned back to her and held up three fingers.

She nodded and smiled and let the nervous man leave without further questions. They’d apparently exhausted their common ground in any case. She was left to wonder whether or not Gaspar Dragotti had three boats in the race, or if he wouldn’t be back for three days. Or was it three weeks?

Three weeks! Poor Icarus would never live that long. If she were forced to remain there in silence, she would go mad in a matter of days. And she would bring to pass the little man’s worst fear—an angry Scotswoman with a sharp blade in her hands.

But why could she not frighten the key away from the little man tonight and get away with the dragon gone?

She ran to the window with her heart pounding. The water was blue, the waves were calm, but the only thing bobbing on the water next to the dock was an albatross!

She spent the rest of her day imagining her escape and the problems she might face. When her next meal arrived that evening, she learned Icarus hadn’t meant three days or three weeks—he’d meant three hours.

Gaspar entered with a scowl on his face and a rich green tunic she’d never seen him wear before. He’d glanced away each time she looked his direction, and then he was gone with Icarus scurrying behind. The two spoke rapidly as they’d descended the steps, but she hadn’t understood a word of it.

She’d been so surprised by the dragon’s appearance, she’d completely forgotten that only moments ago she’d been preparing herself to pounce on the little man and take his key. She’d dressed in her own clothes, tightened her boots to her feet, and tucked the skean duh in a pocket she’d made of the plaid.

She chided herself. What a coward she was to think she could not fight her way past the dragon. He was clearly distracted. He’d paid her little attention. Perhaps, when they come for the tray, I can still escape.

She prepared herself again, only this time, she imagined spinning out of Gaspar’s reach before getting her hands on Icarus. The man cared for his servant and would surely exchange the key for his safety. Or perhaps she could avoid Gaspar altogether if she were on the bed and they believed her to be asleep. Icarus would take the tray from the table—she could roll off the bed and have her arm around his neck in a heartbeat!

She stretched out on the blanket and practiced rolling off, found the best position from which to start, then settled in to wait. The waves below her window grew louder. Her heart beat harder. And tears rolled unchecked down her face, but she could not understand why. It wasn’t as if she would miss the tyrant. She certainly wouldn’t miss her frighteningly secure cell.

She’d already cried her tears for Ossian. She’d cried for her little cottage, for the knowledge she would never see little Britta again. Even for Signora Crescento and her motley parade of men. Were they tears of joy, then? Once she was away from there and beyond the dragon’s reach, would she truly head for home?

At the moment, she wanted to do nothing more than cry on her sister’s shoulder and have Monty assure her that he would make it all right again. He’d tell her Gaspar Dragotti was a monster fit for killing, let alone escaping. She should be happy to leave him behind.

Warm tears joined with the cooled ones and she couldn’t lie to herself any longer. She’d grown to enjoy and crave his company as much as, or more than, she’d first enjoyed and craved the look of him. And even though he was her captor, he believed he was saving her, and she could at least forgive him for trying.

Neither man came to collect her tray. As far as she knew, Gaspar never came to sleep on the other side of the iron wall, as he usually did. Neither did he whisper those strange words, as he had each night after he thought she slumbered. She worried she might not be able to sleep until she heard them.

Say agga po poli. One day, she would discover what they meant.

Eventually, the tears dried and the sound of the waves faded as she fell into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The following day, there were only meals. No lectures. No arguments. And there was no chance for escape. The gate would not open until she’d moved to the windows, and Gaspar had stood so close to her, nearly pressing her to the window bars, and holding firmly to her waist! Since she’d entered the cell, he’d never touched her. Why would he suddenly do so—unless he knew of her knife and suspected her plans?

Her heart bounced hard in her chest when another thought presented itself. No lessons. No lectures. No prayers. Perhaps he has given up on me. Perhaps he was touching her while he still could…

That evening, the gate opened, and again, Gaspar stood close and put his hands on her. There was pressure enough to tell her he expected something. She moved slightly, to test him, and his grip tightened. He pulled her back against him as if in warning, and then he was gone.

Isobelle turned away from the window just as Gaspar was disappearing through the door.

“Wait. Gaspar. Will you sit with me, until nightfall? No use going below stairs when you’ll just have to climb them again, for Compline, aye?”

She thought he would decline her invitation, he took such a long time to answer. Slowly, he walked to the gate without looking at her, pulled his bench before it, and wearily sat down.

“What shall we discuss tonight, Isobelle? How to resist temptation?”

She tried to overlook how intriguing that discussion might be, for it would only lead her thoughts to temptations, and not resisting them.

“Please. Let us speak of pleasanter things than the likelihood I’ll be burned as soon as I step foot off this island.”

Still distracted, he nodded and shrugged. “What then?”

“I told ye what drove me from my home. Perhaps ye will tell me what drove ye from England?”

He snorted. “I thought you wished to speak of pleasanter things.”

“My tale was none too pleasant. I doona suppose yers will be either, for I cannot imagine staying away from home if ye’re not forced away. And yet, ye do.”

“Ah. Well, it is not possible for me to return to England any more than you can return to the Highlands.”

Isobelle pulled her stool over to the gate and sat down opposite him. The way he clenched his jaw led her to believe her proximity bothered him, so she scooted it back a foot. “So. Ye would like to return, but canna?”

“No. I wouldn’t return, even if I could.” His nose curled to one side. “The thought of returning sickens me.”

“Did ye commit some crime then?”

He laughed. “No, my lady. Not crimes. Though a great crime was committed against me.” He shook his head and rose to his feet. “I have business to attend.”

He waved toward the doorway, but his feet remained where they were, and Isobelle understood he didn’t really want to leave. Perhaps he was hungry for a little company too.

“Dinna go, my lord. This tower has been far too quiet of late. Even if ye simply breathe loudly, I’d welcome the sound.”

He grimaced, then nodded in understanding.

“How went the Regatta?”

He started, then frowned at the empty doorway.

“Now, dinna be that way,” she said. “Yer man didna wish to tell me anything at all, but relented. He said only the one word. We haven’t a common language, aye?”

Begrudgingly, he nodded. She hoped the little man wouldn’t be beaten for speaking to her, even if it was only a word. But she couldn’t believe this man would beat a servant he worried over.

Once the man relaxed, they talked about the tides. He told her how his island altered, albeit slightly, when the seasons changed. They skirted around the possibility of her still being in the tower when the next change occurred. Perhaps he suspected she would rather die before she’d stayed much longer, and he wouldn’t want to hear her say it.

After a while, there were no safe subjects that would not upset one or the both of them. So she had nothing to lose.

“Tell me of this crime, Gaspar. Did ye seek revenge?”

He smirked and pointed to his scar. “This is my revenge.”

She shook her head. “I canna understand. Who, besides yerself, would suffer from yer wound?”

His smile widened. “My mother.”

Isobelle’s mouth dropped open and remained that way, waiting for his smile to make sense, but it didn’t. She simply waited for him to explain. He glanced at the doorway again as if he regretted saying anything at all.

“Tell me,” she reached through the bars and took hold of his hand.

He stared at her fingers for a moment, and when he spoke again, he spoke to their hands.

“My parents were—are—nobles. When I was sixteen, they presented me at court.” His fingers tightened slightly, but she didn’t mind. “When my mother noticed how her rivals looked at me…” He cleared his throat and swallowed as if the very words were hindering his speech. “She realized she had something they wanted, so she made me…available to them. For a heavy price, of course. My father stopped looking me in the eye. Stopped speaking to me altogether.”

Isobelle was horrified. “Gaspar!” She pulled her seat closer, then placed her other arm through the bars, to help hold his hand tighter.

He shook his head. “Oh, I grew in talent over the years, of course. Quite a weapon, you might say. Then one day, I was ordered to do something even a… Well, who knew there was a line I would not cross?”

Isobelle held her tongue and simply squeezed, wishing she could wrap her arms around his shoulders instead.

Gaspar gave her a little smile. “She wanted me to ruin an innocent, but I wouldn’t do it. My parents fought. I drank myself into oblivion and woke in a church. A fire burned…” He looked into the dark corner, unseeing. “I buried the poker in the hot coals and waited. And an inconceivable peace overtook me. I knew I was doing the right thing, taking my mother’s weapon away so she couldn’t hurt people anymore.” He raised his hand in demonstration, an invisible poker in his closed fist. “I laid it to my face and pulled it across.” He blinked and dropped his arm. “There was a moment where I felt nothing at all. And then Hell erupted in my head, and I fainted. A priest found me and cared for my wound before I woke again. I stayed in his care for a sennight, confessing all the while. When I had nothing more to tell, he suggested I devote the rest of my life to God. I simply could not do that in England.”

Gaspar rolled his shoulders and blinked some image from his vision.

“This noble scar was my own doing. Whenever it started healing too cleanly, I would tear it open again. After I nearly died from a fever, I stopped. The result is this.”

He touched the brand awkwardly, as if he rarely allowed himself to feel it. Then his hand fell away.

“I was far from worthy to speak to God, but I thought to come to the church states, to be near men who were. Eventually, the patriarch found a need for me. I serve him. He serves God. Thereby, I serve God.” Though he smiled, he had not lessened his hold.

She nodded and won his full attention. “Battle scars are fine, noble things. But nowhere does it say that the battle cannot be with yerself. Ye had a long fight. Ye should wear yer scars with pride, for fighting on. As for yer mother, she is the unworthy one. She has lost the right to call ye son. As has yer father. Ye are an orphan now. Like me.”

His right cheek curled in half a smile. “You Scottish are an odd lot. You see battle as honorable. All battle? What about battles you could have avoided?”

“Could ye have avoided this battle and still found a worthy purpose for your life? Perhaps God allowed the one so ye could find the other.”

He peered at her closely, looked back and forth, from one eye to the other. Then into her soul. “Isobelle. Can you not give up your unnecessary battles and look for something more worthy? Can you pretend meekness? Can you not threaten men who are certain to be threatened by you?”

She pulled her hands back, seeing that he no longer wanted comfort as much as he wished to repeat his lectures. “How am I to ken which men will be threatened by me?”

“Precisely!” He stood. “You cannot. You must assume all men are unlike your Highlanders who treat their women with such care. Assume every man you meet will be threatened by your intelligence, by your clever tongue, by your ability to see them for who they are.”

His voice had reached such a volume she pushed her stool away and stood to gain a bit of distance for the sake of her ears. Standing beside the bed, she turned to face him. She thought to keep her voice low, hoping he would do the same, even though there was no one else to hear them.

“Ye ask me to be distrustful of every man I meet?”

“Yes!” His voice boomed with excitement, as if she’d suddenly understood something important. He shook his fists in the air. “With God Almighty as my witness, I am asking you to suspect everyone. Man and woman alike.” He pointed at the top of her head. “Your hair is cause enough for any woman to envy you. Envy breeds ugliness. Ugliness breeds hate. Hate demands action. Even if no man called you contrary or accused you of blasphemy, a woman will.

“Someday your hair will turn the head of the wrong man—a man wed to a vindictive wife—and she will find the easiest way to remove you from her husband’s thoughts. It happens every day. It is the way of men and women, this jealousy, this possessiveness. I have seen it. I have been called to rectify it. I have ordered the execution of many an innocent woman because her life was not truly in my hands.”

He gripped the bars and his knuckles turned instantly white. His face was red above his gray clothing, a brand of fire in a colorless room.

“When you called me murderer, you couldn’t know how close you were to the mark. I have been an executioner of innocents.” He lowered his gaze to the floor for a moment, then looked up into her eyes. His face and his voice softened. “But not when I could prevent it, like I can prevent it now. I hold one of those precious lives in my hands. And I will not squander it. You are my salvation, Isobelle. If I can keep you from being tried as a witch, perhaps I will win God’s forgiveness for one of those whom I could not save.” With the backs of his legs, he pushed the bench away, stepped around the end of it, then moved to the doorway. “You may say your prayers with privacy tonight.”

“Wait!”

He paused with his arm braced against the frame, but would not face her. “Forgive me, Isobelle. I may never be able to permit you to leave.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Stunned, Isobelle collapsed to the floor. Her elbow caught on the bed and kept her upright. Had he truly meant it? She may never be allowed to leave? Ever?

She fought for breath, but could only manage small gasps of air. She knew the open window was only steps away, but that didn’t keep the room from feeling like a tomb—a tomb that grew smaller with every gasp she took.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. But then she realized there was no need.

Her arms shook. She dug her fingers into the wood of her bedframe in order to feel something, anything. For she had no solid sense of herself, as if she were slowly fading away like the glow of a fire. There one moment, gone the next. Never to be revived, only replaced. And if she disappeared from the world, the result would be as significant as a thimbleful of water taken from the sea.

The pressure of the wood against her fingers was all there was left of her. And if that hold broke, she would shatter into a thousand flakes of ash.

Never permit you to leave…

She struggled for a rational thought in her head with which she might battle her complete despair. The man was distraught. His cruelty might have naught to do with her. The sorrow from his past had driven him to lash out at her, surely. Perhaps he couldn’t bear to be the only sad soul on the island tonight. Hadn’t she often done the same to Ossian, made him miserable when she was miserable, so she felt less alone?

Poor Ossian. She had put him through such torment, it was a wonder the man had stood with her all this time in spite of his promise to Monty. No other man would have done so. She’d been cruel and selfish. A spoilt bairn who should have encouraged her cousin to return home long ago. She should have made that first little village work. She should have made friends. She should have found a husband.

And she should have cut her hair.

Her heart jumped at the thought, but for once, she viewed her dark red mane as the enemy, not her personal Holy Grail to be defended and preserved. Could her exile have been so different, in truth, if she’d but humbled herself enough to cut her hair?

Would her tyrant have taken notice of her had her head been covered? She looked back at all the hopes her hair had destroyed, and continued to look back until the most terrible question of all demanded an answer.

Had the kirk’s bastard condemned her for her hair alone? If not for her unwieldy red tresses, would the matter have been left to Father MacRae when he returned? Would she, even now, be breathing deeply of heather and bracken, knowing no other soil between her toes than that of her ancestors? Monty had urged her to cover her head and keep it covered until the matter had been settled, but she’d been…too proud.

Pride had brought her here! Her hair had brought her here. Nemeses, both. But the unholy pain in her chest forced her to realize other things as well. The most painful fact was not that Gaspar Dragotti could not love her. It was the recognition that she’d been holding out hope…

…that he could!

She furiously shook her head and tears flung from her eyes. How could she have harbored such a hope? How could she have allowed herself to even want such a thing? Was he not the enemy? She had intended to win his affection simply to win her freedom. But was there more?

Even as she asked the question, she knew the answer. She struggled against it for a bit longer, to delay yet another blow to a heart already writhing in her breast. But the thought, now exposed, demanded to be acknowledged.

She hoped for his love…because he already had hers. Isobelle Ross loved the enemy!

A long, dazed moment later, the cure for all enemies grew warm and heavy against her calf—her skean duh. She lifted her foot to feel the solid rub of it against her leg. It was there. It was waiting.

She took a deep and filling breath, suddenly calm. It was the kind of calm that comes when a decision has been made and the action needed becomes clear. She relaxed her grip on the bed and stood, then moved the stool beneath the window. Tonight she was wearing her own nightdress again along with the boots and hose in case of escape. It was also the best way to keep her skean duh on her person and close to hand.

She placed her boot on the stool and lifted her white skirt out of the way. Then slowly, she pulled the little knife from its sheath. Seated on the stool once again, she examined the blade in the light of the candle Gaspar had left behind.

A fine, sharp edge it still had. The handle was thicker than it ought to be, with layer upon layer of soft leather. A gift from a father she barely remembered. The sheath, a gift from her mother. Would they be disappointed to know what their gifts were ultimately used for? No matter.

She wished there were some polished surface in which she might see her reflection, but the dragon had provided her with nothing more vainglorious than a brush. She felt her head, petted the thick mane she’d wrestled with all her life, wondered if it might be a relief to be free of it now. But where to start?

She pulled a thick mass forward over her left shoulder and tested the length. It was nearly to her waist. If she cut it at the neck, might she possibly fit the rest beneath a crispin? Or perhaps inside a padded roll as she’d seen the noble ladies wear? She’d tried to wrap her wealth of hair inside a turban and failed with each attempt. But with half the hair, she might succeed.

But as her captor’s words came back to her, all thoughts of fashion dissolved. She simply wanted to be rid of it all, and rid of the pain that gnawed at her innards. Then she would turn her thoughts to the dragon and how to make him rue the day he’d laid eyes upon her.

She raised the blade and hoped it might guide itself, but a flash of light made her pause. It was the reflection of her face in the smooth silver surface. Her face. Was that smooth flesh her enemy as well?

If the dragon kept her locked away so he could gaze upon her at his leisure, she would make true and certain he never wanted to look at her again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Gaspar did not go to Isobelle at Compline, leaving her to pray alone as he’d promised. His past always made him feel foolish, and he’d gone to sleep feeling decidedly mean. The kindest thing to do for her was to allow her to sleep. And when she woke, he’d apologize.

Dawn was not so considerate of him, however, and the pale blue light woke him as surely as a trumpet’s blast. He rose to face his day of penance and decided to walk the beach and practice the apology he must deliver with her morning meal.

Perhaps he would begin by explaining that it was his heart that was the true captive here. The bars that held him prisoner were long curled strands of dark red hair, and even as he watched her sleep through the intricately designed screen, he was on the inside, looking out. He had no gate, and no key. He would be bound to her forever, even if she left him.

The sky was clear and empty but for a gull that had much to complain about. His fellows fled the beach and joined him, and together they went in search of something that apparently not be found on Isola del Silenzio, his Island of Silence.

He strolled to the western point and found the tide had washed nothing interesting onto the shore. The south beach had nothing more than a thin offering of shells. There was something new on the east side, however. A large bit of dark fur. Perhaps a remnant of what was once a sea lion.

He neared it cautiously, not knowing if some small animal might still be alive enough to strike out at him. But as he bent over it, he realized it was hair—Isobelle’s hair!

He spun in the sand and looked at the tower, wishing, as he ran, that he could see through the stones. He had to pay close attention to his footing, as he wore no protection on his feet, and he noticed another clump of hair. He snatched it up midstride and continued toward the arched doors. He stopped dead when he noticed the second lock had not been moistened by the sea spray, but by blood.

The ever-present wind brought a cry to his ears, but it was not the gulls; it was Isobelle, sobbing. A gust tugged at the dark red hair in his hand as if it were determined to take it from him.

“Isobelle.” It was both a whisper and a prayer, and he repeated it with every step as he ran to her.

~ ~ ~

James Ferguson, former MI6 agent for Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, was pleased to find that people in the fifteenth century were much more trusting than people from his own twenty-first century. He had no need of Google. Everyone knew everything about everyone. He supposed that was what happened when there was no telly to watch. These people simply watched their neighbors for entertainment.

A Scotsman looking for another Scotsman was nothing to raise a brow over. However, a Scotsman looking for a Scotswoman who’d recently been arrested as a witch was another matter entirely. These Venetians were quick to tell all they knew and quicker still to offer consolation in the form of food. Wonderful food. And to a growing lad of six feet eight inches, they were generous with their plates and their pity.

“Of course you’ll wish to know where she’s buried,” said one woman with a sly wink, “only there is no grave to find.”

Another was quick to join in, ladling the last of her rich soup into James’ empty bowl. “And not because she perished, I’d vow.”

“I was getting to that,” the first complained. “No one witnessed the execution of a red-haired Scotswoman. No one—”

“Some say she disappeared in a puff of smoke the moment God’s Dragon put her into a boat.”

“I was getting to that as well!”

The women began to bicker in Italian, forgetting he only spoke French and could not understand more than a word or two.

“Ladies, please,” he said in French, reminded them of his limited tongue. “What is this about a dragon? God’s Dragon?”

“Gaspar Dragotti,” the first woman whispered, looking around her kitchen as if this Dragotti might be lurking among the spices hanging from the ceiling beams. “Special Investigator to The Patriarch of Venice himself. He is the authority who arrested her. But she disappeared—”

“As soon as he put her upon the water!” The second woman hurried out of the reach of the first one.

“Did anyone see this?”

“Yes! Icarus was there. He saw it all.”

“Icarus?”

The dragon’s servant. He swears the woman disappeared.”

“She spoke to the sharks!” The second woman lunged to the other side of the table just as her friend reached for her. “She threw herself into the water and called the sharks to come for the dragon. He and his men dared not go after her.”

The first woman folded her arms and glared at the one who kept blurting out the exciting parts of the story.

“So she drowned? Or was killed by sharks?” He needed to keep them focused on the details at hand.

“No.” The women looked at each other as if trying to remember the details. Eventually, they shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Icarus.”

James smiled. Finally, the lead he’d been waiting for.

“Tell me. Where do I find this Icarus fellow?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

With Icarus in tow, Gaspar raced up the steps as fast as his legs would take him. With years of ascending them, he could have climbed his own steps with a hood over his head and still been in no danger. He did pause as he neared the landing, however, in case his racing feet took him over the edge. There was no time for stumbling. The woman was bleeding and he knew not how badly! Had someone come to his island secretly in the night? For surely, the woman had no blade or she would have used it to escape!

He hurried through the doorway and over to the gate, his hand already extended behind him for the key. Thankfully, Icarus was close on his heels. Gaspar couldn’t see her at first, splitting his attention between the seemingly empty cell and the keyhole. The stool lay on its side beneath the window. The floor was a smattering of bloody footprints. And though he was loathe to do it, he raised his eyes and searched for a white gown that might be hanging from the rafters.

Suddenly, the key was wrenched from his hands and he found Icarus unlocking the gate for him. He pushed past the little man and glanced up again, but there were only morning shadows there.

Where had she gone?

He heard her sniff and turned.

There. She was under the bed.

“Go away,” she growled.

Gaspar’s heart recovered itself with her coherent words. Icarus hurried out the gate and locked Gaspar inside.

“You see?” He bent down to take a look at her. Her gown was smeared with blood, her face was in shadow. “My man has locked me inside with you, so I am unable to leave you.” He gave her a stern frown. “Will you come out, or shall I overturn the bed?”

She made no move, so he lifted the end of the bed and gave it a shove. It hit the back wall and stayed. Her blankets and plaid slid to the ground and it disturbed him to see the colorful plaid there. Whenever she’d been anxious, she’d held the length of wool tight around her. If she had no need of comfort while she lay wounded on the floor…

He scooped her into his arms and braced himself for a fight, but she only hit his chest with her fist, and that, only once. With his foot, he pulled on the edge of the bed and it crashed back into place, the stuffed mattress with it. But instead of laying her upon it, he turned and sat, holding her to him. Finally, he was able to look into her tearstained, blood-smeared face. If there was much damage there, he could not tell.

“You were jealous. I see that now.” He noted the cut across her nose that mirrored his scar. “You wished to have some noble scars of your own. But I am relieved to see you were not nearly as successful.”

She put a hand over her nose and ducked against him. But with the majority of her hair scattered to the winds and the waves, her high cheeks were still visible, along with a lovely pink ear bearing an odd cut in the shape of a V. Such a wound, along with the shallow cut on the bridge of her nose, could account for all the blood in the room as wounds to the head tend to bleed freely. He checked her over carefully, just to be sure, holding her gently as a bird, turning her arms this way and that. He looked for fresh blood and felt for…injuries.

He’d forgotten that women were so much softer than men.

When his thoughts slipped beyond his control, he concluded there were no other damages to be found and hugged her close so she might not see the grin on his face. He couldn’t help it. He was that relieved.

Satisfied that he had regained his composure, he rolled her away from him a bit. A sad but pink face looked up at him. Her hair had been cut to the breadth of a hand. Some places longer. The left side of her head was matted with blood.

Her green eyes were startling. Her nose was a bit red from crying, and her lips were as smooth and perfect as the petals of a pale rose. He was completely powerless to look away from them.

“Isobelle. Isobelle,” he whispered. “What am I to do with you?”

Those jeweled eyes rolled. “Ye let me go, ye daft dragon.” Then she whispered, “Ye let me go, or ye let me burn.”

“I would like nothing better than to make you burn, my sweet, but not the way you have in mind.” He lifted her head to his and pressed his lips against those perfect rose petals before she had a chance to misunderstand him.

Her arms rose tentatively around his neck and he hoped it was not only for balance that they did so. But to be sure, he ended the kiss and retreated only slightly. To his joy, she pulled him back to her and demanded more. All other such embraces from his past were melted from his memory—like so many dusty candles turned to an indiscernible puddle of wax—by the heat of what he felt for Isobelle.

Kissing her felt like coming home to the only destiny he would ever need, and he was determined to show her the same, worshipping her mouth with his own. When he paused for breath, she pushed him away and looked into his eyes. A little fold of worry twisted her brows while she took his measure. Then she shook her head and kissed him again, her hands searching his hair, his face, his arms as if she were trying to convince herself he was real.

“Gaspar,” she breathed. “My dragon.” She kissed his mouth, his cheek, then his ear. “What am I to do with you?”

He leaned forward and pressed his lips to her neck, ignoring the blood, searching for the taste of her flesh. “You let me—”

Burn, he was going to say, but his whisper was interrupted by the click of the lock. He closed his eyes and took her scent deep into his lungs for fear of never knowing another chance to do so. Then he looked up, while he still hovered over her, like a predator interrupted mid-meal.

Icarus stood against the open gate as if prepared to defend it from being closed again, his chin held high, his eyes on the ceiling. Gaspar thought him both foolish and stout of heart…and far too loyal to the man he used to be.

The little man cleared his throat. “Mi perdoni,” he said in a small voice, his eyes never lowering.

“No, please.” Her whisper was warm against his neck. “Take me with you.”

Gaspar knew that if he carried the woman out of the tower, he’d continue on to his bedchamber. He was that untrustworthy at the moment, but could not find the words to explain.

She kissed him again, to plead her case. It might have been one of the most difficult things he’d done in all his years, but finally, he turned his lips away and gasped for breath.

“I am not the man who brought you here, Isobelle. You have changed me to my soul, truly. But you must give me time to consider what this new man must do.”

He laid his hand gently against her cheek and waited for her complete attention. Finally, she raised her gaze from his lips.

“When I attended the commencement ceremony for the Regatta, I so easily slipped back into that other man, and it frightened me. Will I always do so? I am a man torn in twain. One very much alive. One very much…apart. You brought me to life, Isobelle. I must be certain I will yet live if you are no longer within my reach. Do you understand?”

“Ye are too quick to worry, my love. Ye returned to yer duty and felt familiar with it, ‘tis all. Ye’re the same man now as the one before ye left, are ye not?”

“I am. But the moment I returned to the patriarch’s presence, I saw you differently.” He hung his head, ashamed. But he would not keep the truth from her. “I thought of you as a temptress come to ruin me. When I returned, I tried to stay away from you until I knew what to do with you.”

She tried to climb from his lap, but he wouldn’t let her go.

“Don’t you see? I left this island and I became dead again. One touch from your hand and my foolishness dissolved. My heart beat again.” He lifted her hand and pressed it to his chest. “You see? The man lives.” He shook his head sadly. “But does the dragon merely sleep?”

Her struggles resumed, so he set her off his lap. He refused to release her hand.

She sighed. “I’ll tell ye true, I am not flattered to be thought a temptress.”

“I do not—”

She pressed her fingers to his lips. “You must release me, Gaspar. Send the temptations away and slay this dragon if that is what you truly wish. And if the man survives, find me.”

Gaspar released her hand and stood. He paced to the window and back, looking for an argument to offer, but he found nothing. Removing her from his island felt as foolish as removing his heart from his breast, however. She could not expect it of him!

He stomped to the gate and Icarus scurried out of his way. He ignored her gasp as he stepped out of the cell and pulled the gate closed again.

“I will consider it, Isobelle. But I must have time to examine how much of me is the man, and how much the dragon. And if I can survive the separation…” He locked the gate and turned away. This time, walking down the steps was no easier than walking into a dark, incoming tide.

Her voice trailed him into the stairwell.

“Ye only use the beast to excuse yerself, Gaspar. Dinna offer me hope when ye’ll only recant. I know ye now. Through and through. I will not be fooled again…Dragon.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Icarus was so distracted by the excitement on the island that he’d rowed the small boat off course three times causing him to arrive home later than usual. His sister would be sufficiently displeased to tempt Icarus to find another place to sleep for the night and tell the woman the dragon had detained him until morning.

He stopped and stared at his sister’s door while he weighed the possibility of her believing his tale, that the dragon would allow him to go home in the morning, only to break his fast and return again.

Not likely at all.

He steeled himself and headed for the door, but a giant shadow stepped in front of him, barring the way. The man was so large in fact, he might well be his master, so he swallowed his surprise, stepped back, and waited for the man to speak.

But after his gaze took in the length of the silhouette from boots to head, he concluded this man could not be his master. Not even God’s Dragon stood so tall.

“Easy, Icarus, m’ friend. I’ll not harm ye.” He spoke the same language as the woman, and even to his simple mind, Icarus knew that could be no coincidence. “Parlez Francais?”

Icarus nodded. “I speak a little,” he said in clumsy French.

“Ye understand why I am here?”

He nodded. “She has not been harmed, monsieur.”

The man smiled as wide as Icarus’ own head.

“Happy I am to hear it, my friend. Let us go inside and show yer sister that ye, too, are unharmed.”

~ ~ ~

The cruelest twist of all was that Isobelle’s window faced northwest. Toward home. Just so many mountain ranges between herself and East Burnshire, Scotland. Castle Ross and the clan would be rising to a fine mist, perhaps—a fine mist that would be such a relief from the warm Mediterranean nights here. Although she’d been given water for bathing and cleaning her wounds, the heat had long since dried her short hair and left her wishing she could bathe all over again.

Only once had the tyrant demanded to know what she’d used to cut her hair and face, but he’d quickly retreated without an answer. It seemed he was all dragon again, and the sight of a woman shedding her clothes was a temptation to which he refused to subject himself.

She smiled at the memory of his face just before he’d turned and fled. The dragon did not love her, but he wanted her, and she would use it against him.

She refused to think about the feel of his arms around her, or the taste of his mouth, his skin. For a few foolish moments, she’d forgotten that Gaspar could not truly love her. But she would never forget again.

Her gaze dropped to the surf below. There was a fine spray taunting her to come out and play, to cool herself at her leisure. A wee swim. Aye and away the most immediate relief to hand. Aye and away as likely as her tasting a bit of Scottish mist before nightfall.

Away, whispered the serf. Come. Away.

She listened for half an hour longer, while she formed a plan.

~ ~ ~

Later that night, long after the sun had set and the sea had grown black, she stood at the window again, gazing out upon the Quarter Moon seemingly shining down upon the mainland beyond.

And she waited.

Her thoughts lost themselves among her possible routes home—for she would be going home—and she nearly missed the shift in the air behind her. She might have waited, unmoving, for an hour more if not for the chill that ran up her spine.

He was there. Without so much as a toe skimming the floor, she knew. She always knew. It was simply a change…in the silence. An exchange of one emptiness for another. Her own breath joined by his.

“Gaspar,” she whispered out the window. “Gaspar,” she breathed to the moon. “Please.”

“Isobelle.”

He’d spoken so quietly, she wondered if he’d meant her to hear it. But she turned her back on the window, pretending surprise.

“Dragon?”

“Come, now, Isobelle. You knew I was here.”

She considered denial, but nodded.

“Gaspar will do, here in the darkness, do you not think?”

She shook her head. His name was an endearment she would use only when necessary, to control him.

She held on to the windowsill at her back, suddenly frightened to go on with her plan. Did she wish to leave him? To hurt him? To punish him for not loving her, even when she’d always known that for Isobelle Ross to be loved, and loved undeniably, was impossible? Just like many others before him, he wanted her. But now…

No! She had to stand strong. Gaspar Dragotti wanted her only as a pet. Something amusing to lighten his mood. It was madness.

It was possible her life would have ended in a witch’s fire if he hadn’t opened her eyes to the dangers of being accused again. In spite of all Ossian’s warnings, she’d never really understood, could never truly understand how immediate that danger was until God’s Dragon showed her. She supposed she owed him something for that. But he’d already taken something…

She was a habit for him now. And it was difficult for anyone to overcome a habit until they were forced to do so. The problem was, he had become a habit for her as well. She found it hard to sleep until she felt him stretched out on the other side of her wall, until the coolness of the metal faded with the warmth of his body. Did he press himself against it, as she often did, to feel less alone in the world?

Yes. Madness.

And the madness must end. Better to end it quickly.

“Fine, then. Gaspar. Gaspar, I beg ye…”

“What is it, Isobelle?”

Their whispering was ridiculous. Icarus had gone for the night. No one would hear if they screamed at each other, let alone spoke at full voice. And still she whispered.

“Just once,” she sighed. “Just once, can I walk along the shore? Just once, can ye let me outside? No one will see me in the dark. No one. Please.” She whined the last as she could already see his head shaking in the shadows beyond the gate.

“I cannot open the gate. Every night, Icarus takes the key with him. Even if I wished to—”

“Gaspar! I will go mad if ye doona let me outside tonight. I have done my penance. This room is little different than my tomb. I have light. I have life. But what good are either of those without hope? Ye may as well begin collecting wood for me fire, for without hope, any death is welcome.”

He came forward, grabbed the bars to either side of the gate. His chest was bare to her. His hair was mussed and wild, making him seem a different sort of beast, something much warmer than a dragon. His arms were immense but his wide hands and knuckles looked like bones in the moonlight from the way he gripped the barrier between them.

“Say you do not mean it,” he growled.

The sound induced chills up her back and into her hair. Or perhaps it was the sight of him that did so, for she was sorely tempted to go to him, to reach through those bars and prove that he was real—not some shadow that had stalked her each night. She placed her hands on the wall behind her and struggled to stay put.

“Yes, Gaspar. All yer instruction has been for naught. I would confess to witchcraft, or murder, or both, if this prison were my only alternative.”

He was agitated, but not enough to bend to her wishes. She had to push him further.

“Ye never planned to release me, did ye? Ye’ve known it from the first.”

She turned back to the window and grabbed the bars there for strength. She looked down, trying to see the path that led to the dock, to judge the distance for the thousandth time. If she were somehow able to squeeze through the bars, the fall might not kill her. But anyone who jumped from such a height was a fool, even if the dragon might someday leave her alone long enough to work the bars loose.

“Isobelle. You must believe me. I will allow you to leave when I believe you to be ready. I will even send word to Ossian where to find you. I only need time to…accept it.”

“No, Gaspar,” she said sadly. “I am prepared to leave this prison, or leave this earth. But I canna stay another—”

“Yes! Yes, you must. One more day. Be patient one more day. I will keep the key tomorrow, when Icarus leaves. I will allow you to walk along the shore, though you must allow me to tie a rope—”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Why would ye need a rope?”

“You might try to swim—”

“I dinna ken how to swim.” She turned back to view the darkening waves.

“But you tried, that first day, before you saw the sharks.”

She shrugged. “I was going to drown myself, ‘tis all. I thought ye were taking me away only to burn me, so I’d have no body in Heaven. ‘Tis what they did to Joan of Arc, is it not? If I drown in the sea, I might have kept my body, aye? But not if sharks got me.”

“You cannot swim?”

“Nay.”

“Then you might try to drown yourself again? You’ve just said you are ready for death.”

“I want to live, Gaspar, as much as ye yearn to feel alive, aye? If only I could trust ye to keep yer word, that ye’ll return me to Venice…”

He sighed heavily. “No, Isobelle. Not Venice. You would not be safe there. But I will have your things collected and sent to you. Wherever it is you wish to go…”

His voice trailed off. He was unhappy to suddenly be bound to that promise. She could hear the regret in his voice.

Well, damn the man for sending the key away every night. If he hadn’t, she could have ended their little habit much quicker. Now she was going to have to wait another day.

“I will bother you no more tonight,” he murmured. “Sleep. You may walk along the sand tomorrow.”

It may have been the first time she’d actually heard him leave the room so late. His footfalls were heavy, as if he were stomping down the steps.

Isobelle sighed and moved to the bed. Even though the night was warm, she did not welcome the coolness of the metal wall beside her. Just as she teetered on the edge of sleep, listening to the receding waves, she thought she heard a man’s voice. Arguing. Coughing. Arguing again.

It became part of her dream.

She was in her tower. A much higher tower now. And the people of Venice were carrying bundles of sticks across the water, walking on the water. They placed their sticks at the base of the tower, then hurried away for more. They were building a bonfire. They were going to burn her, tower and all.

But she wasn’t alone. Gaspar stood inside her cell with her, looking out the window.

“They saw you dancing on the sand, Isobelle. Nothing for it now. They’ll try to burn us both, but the flames won’t harm me.”

She laughed. “Are ye a witch, then?”

He laughed too, then his eyes began to glow. “Not a witch, my sweet. A dragon.”

But a dragon had wings. He could take her away if only he would.

The flames whooshed up the side of the tower and she stuck her head between the wide bars to see it. When she stepped back, Gaspar the dragon was gone.

She should never have danced.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Never, since that first week he’d spent writhing in pain from his burns, had Gaspar been known such abject torment. He’d chocked on it with each step as he’d descended the tower, feeling an immeasurable and irreversible form of distance grow between them. Then, when he’d reached his private rooms, he’d released that torment with enough force to bring the dark stones down around him had he not buried his howling in the bedclothes.

He was both monster and man, the halves of two animals fused together. There would be no separating them. He loved her, but more than that, he needed her. Without her company, he would wither and die like a flower with no sun. He’d turn into a dead and colorless creature—the very creature that had stepped behind the rood screen in the abbey and waited for his life to be saved.

The moment he’d stepped into His Beatitude’s presence, he’d lost his color in spite of the extravagant emerald raiment’s he’d been ordered to wear, to mark him as part of the patriarch’s retinue. His mind had slipped back to familiar, emotionless thoughts. Heaven help him, his voice had even changed into something cold and ugly.

But he didn’t wish to be ugly anymore. The world wasn’t ugly anymore. And he wanted to be part of that fresh and appealing world again. But he would lose that chance if he lost Isobelle. And so, Gaspar the man and Gaspar the monster would keep her against her will, even if she hated him for it.

~ ~ ~

The next day passed slowly for Isobelle with nary a breeze to cool the sweat on her brow. The only thought that kept her from going mad was the hope of dipping herself in a dark sea.

The scuff of two pairs of boots on the steps told Isobelle it was time for her supper. Her heart leapt with her, propelling her off the stool. With shaking hands, she moved the seat away from the window, then turned back to take hold of the bars. Each scratch of sole against stone brought him closer. When those boots entered the room she nearly squealed with anticipation. But was it anticipation of her escape? Or was it the anticipation of Gaspar standing at her back for a moment?

Perhaps it was both.

Perhaps she did feel too much for a man who would hold her captive forever if no one stopped him. Perhaps she could love him, if only a little, for what he had done for her. When he’d held her in his arms and kissed her, she’d believed she loved him in spite of his madness. But he’d been unable to return that love—at least not enough to release her.

She would go home, then. Perhaps she’d make her place in Ireland first where she might blend in a bit with other red-headed women. Perhaps she’d send a letter. Perhaps someone could come visit her. And if Ireland was not the place for her, she would go home...

The key scraped inside the lock. The gate groaned in protest, a bit louder than it ever had before, as if it would warn the men of her plans. The air heated at her back. She turned her face to the right, away from the intense orange sunset glaring at her from the left. And from the corner of her eye, she saw Icarus pausing, watching his master, then scurrying away.

“Icarus, hold a moment.” Gaspar’s voice was deep and ragged, revealing as much emotion as she was feeling herself. “Leave the key with me tonight.”

“B...but Master,” the little man stammered. “You made me vow—”

“Rest easy, Icarus. A woman will be coming tonight, to...inspect her. She will need the key.”

“Would you like me to stay?”

“Icarus. No. This will be no place for a man.”

“And her tray?”

“She can slip it under the gate tonight. Neither of us needs to return.”

“Yes, Master.”

The air behind her cooled. God willing, for the last time.

~ ~ ~

For an hour, she sat on the stool and stared at the food on the tray. Cheese, bread, and a plum. She considered eating the plum, but her stomach clenched at the thought. If she had to swim, she would wish to have an empty stomach.

Icarus had left the island long ago and yet Gaspar had not come. Had he changed his mind? Or did he consider the sky too light still? The Quarter Moon would offer enough light for strolling across the sand, but would it be light enough to row a boat in a constant direction? Or lend enough light to swim by?

She’d gone over the possibilities many times, but she would not know how badly she might need to harm the man in order to get away from him, to find another boat, and to get it off the shore before he was able to come after her.

If it came to it, she did not know if she would be able to kill Gaspar Dragotti, even to save what was left of her life. But what if I have no other choice?

God help me.

Her thoughts plagued her so completely that Gaspar was standing before her without her noticing his footfalls. A glance at the floor revealed why; his feet were bare. Bare also were his arms. He wore no tunic, and there were no sleeves tied to his under tunic. His arms were thick with muscle and vein and she was sorely tempted to slide her hands along them.

In anticipation of walking on the beach, she’d removed her own boots and hose, then she’d tied the hose around her thigh so she could keep her skean duh close. The plaid would be a hindrance if she had to swim. She would leave it behind.

“I promised you a walk along the beach, my lady.”

She looked up into the shadows of his face. He appeared a bit ill, as he had each time he’d come to the tower that day. And he acted oddly, as if something between them had changed more than just his acquiescence to allow her outside.

He tilted his head to one side. “You haven’t changed your mind.”

She jumped to her feet in answer and his breath caught. They hadn’t stood so close or touched each other since they’d kissed. But this time, they were alone on the island. Icarus would not come to interrupt them if Gaspar took her in his arms now. She was ashamed to want him to do just that, but she wanted to leave that tower much more.

The air was warm between them. Hot even. Sweat trickled from the side of her neck to pool in the notch below her chin. His gaze followed the moisture’s progress. She sensed him itching to reach out and touch where it gathered at her throat. It was possibly his last chance for a tender touch.

But it was her last chance as well, her last chance to touch him.

Her left hand lifted and her fingers tangled with his as he reached toward her. Suddenly shy, she pulled back.

“Come,” he croaked, then took her firmly by the hand and walked backward, toward the open gate. “You must not release my hand. Is that clear?”

Speech was beyond her ability at the moment, so she nodded. He need never know how torn she was between obeying and disobeying that order. If they had met under simpler circumstances, she might have never let loose of his hand whether he wished it or not.

Her footsteps faltered, tripping over her thoughts. How long had it been since she’d come through that doorway, or glimpsed those steps? He made certain she was steady, then turned and led her down the steps, holding her hand behind his back so that she too could walk close to the outer wall.

A torch hung next to the landing. Another one waited beyond the curve in the stairway luring her with its promised light. But she needed no luring. She held tight to Gaspar’s tugging fingers as he unwittingly lead her to freedom.

They passed the second torch. Another beckoned. The excitement tempted her to giggle. The thought of leaving Gaspar behind, forever, tempted her to weep. She resisted both.

The last torch. The bottom step. The solid floor. The open archway led to the heavy warm night beyond.

He paused before the threshold and she worried he might have only been teasing her, to teach a lesson in patience. To teach her not to trust in the arm of man—any man, including him. Perhaps he would say it was time for prayers and haul her back up the stairs because it was time for prayers, and prayers were more important than the promise of a walk along the shore.

But he didn’t turn back—he simply removed the last torch and led her outside.

Outside! Heaven help her, she would never walk inside again. She would find a tree on a beach somewhere and make her home of it. Never again would a door close, a gate close, or a tomb seal behind her. Never, ever again!

Gaspar slowed, then stopped, pulling her next to him, their fingers entwined like lovers, their shoulders bumping until she stilled.

“Look.” He looked skyward. His torch swept up and over their heads in an arc, then hung low, out of the way so the stars could be seen. “The unimpeded sky.”

She drank in the utter glory of the lit heavens, but found she was thirstier for another sight entirely—Gaspar, standing with arms uncovered, as unfettered as the night sky. Just a man standing next to her, holding her hand as if he could not bear to let her go. A flood of tears blurred her vision of him, and she looked away before he could catch her staring.

It was her turn to tug him along. She knew just where she wished to go—the little pool of water visible from her window, where she’d wished she might dip her hot and dusty toes. Gaspar followed along happily.

The pool was larger than she’d expected. The rocks at the edge were wide enough to sit upon and keep her skirts from getting wet. But what did wet skirts matter?

Gaspar sat beside her so they had no need to let go of each other’s fingers while they dipped their toes.

“My favorite spot,” he confessed.

“Truly? Then why is it I’ve never seen ye here?”

“I’ve stayed away, knowing you were watching, not wishing to disrupt what peace you found.”

She made no reply so she might not sully the man’s favorite spot with memories of what she was about to do.

“Come,” she said. “I want to see the rest of the island.”

“I regret there is not more for you to see, my lady. But when I purchased the island, I had need of privacy, not land.”

She suddenly wished to hear nothing further about his little island. She wanted no memories to add to the ones she would already carry with her. If he were to reveal anything more of his private life, she might not be able to bear what she meant to do.

And the first thing she needed to do was to find a boat.

She dragged him up to the ridge and around to the side of the tower, to see whatever had been hiding from her for weeks.

And there, behind his small fortress, was an extension of the beach she’d been staring at from her window. That and nothing more.

No boat.

No boat.

And no boat.

All her excitement drained from her in a single beat of her heart, then quickly welled again…with fury.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Gaspar resisted the urge to lift Isobelle into his arms. Her disappointment nearly dropped her to the ground, but she recovered quickly.

“Ah. I see you are more disappointed than I expected. Perhaps you were hoping to find some way of escaping my little idyll. But there is no escape, my sweet. If something were to happen to Icarus and he failed to return in the morning, we might well die here together if we ever tired of fish.”

It might have been the play of stars, but Isobelle seemed to be shaking—no doubt from the shock of finding nothing more interesting than a continuation of beach. She pulled her fingers from of his and he allowed it. If he were smart, he might consider moving out of her reach, but he did not feel particularly smart at the moment. In fact, he felt nearly as disappointed as she. Of course he had not wished her to escape, or to attempt it, but he had wished to see her happiness last a bit longer. They might have sat at the little pool for hours talking nonsense, but her impatience had stolen that bit of peace from them both.

“Leave me,” she whispered. “I beg ye, leave me in peace for a bit.”

If she were anyone but Isobelle, he might have granted such a request. But he knew her too well now to believe she might sit quietly and contemplate her fate, that she might not do something as foolish as to throw herself into the sea.

“I am sorry, my lady, but I cannot leave your side. Perhaps, on the morrow, you might have a different outlook on your time here. Perhaps you can find contentment…with me. And one day, we might leave this place…together.”

She dropped her chin to her chest, then collapsed to her knees in the sand, and the only thing visible, in the blue starlight, was that little cut across the bridge of her nose. His stomach turned at the thought of her feeling as hopeless as he’d once felt just before he’d slid that hot iron across his face.

Of course she had!

He’d taken away all hope when he’d warned her she may never leave. Hadn’t his mother done the same to him? Taken away all hope to escape the life she’d shaped for him?

Heaven help him, he’d tried to make her into himself. And she was right—letting her live or die by the sharpness of her own tongue would have been better. He should have never taken her. Never supposed his intervention would save her. He hadn’t saved her. He was the man from whom she needed saving!

He’d been lying to himself from the beginning. He’d stubbornly ignored the truth.

He had to let her go!

“I could convince ye I am content to stay with ye.” She whispered, but with the stillness of the sea, he heard, clearly, every word. “I could convince ye of anything, but it would be a lie.”

His chest caved in upon itself at the bursting of his heart, but he fought against the pain. Surely there were some things he had come to believe that were not a lie.

“Ye doona believe me? Here. Sit beside me. I will tell ye everything.”

Gaspar forced air and in out of his body and wondered which of her words might have been the truth. What of this world could he trust? The sea? The stars? Was his redemption now so out of reach? Could he be forgiven, as he refused to forgive his mother? The doctrine of forgiveness tried to flood his mind but he would hear none of it.

He remembered his first sight of her, through the rood screen. The way he felt about her then was nothing compared to his feelings for her now, but even so, they’d been strong enough to prod him on, to make her his own in the only way he would allow himself—as his possession.

And he’d given her nothing but pain.

As for himself, he felt more mortal than he’d felt for years. Mortal. Vulnerable. Alive. Wounded, but breathing deeply of the world around him. And now he felt it all simultaneously. Isobelle was to blame. Isobelle was to thank. She’d done this for him, brought him back to himself. The least he could do was return the favor.

But first, she wished to tell how she’d lied to him? So be it. If her confession caused him pain, it would be only too fair. His eyes were open. But after all he’d done to her, she would never believe that his heart was open as well.

He dropped to his knees beside her and sat back upon his heels.

“Isobelle, forgive me. Forgive—”

Her arm swung around. He felt the jarring impact of a large stone trying to force its way into his skull. Then it was gone. But the pain remained. The noise remained.

Isobelle stood over him as he fell onto his back. Her bottom lip tucked itself behind her teeth. She shook her head and tears dripped onto his face.

Then she too was gone. But there was nowhere for her to go—

Nowhere but the sea! And she could not swim!

“Nooo!”

He rolled. Found his feet, stumbled, searched the darkness for the whiteness of her gown. Saw nothing.

He turned.

There! Already so far into the water. How fast she moved! How anxious was she to run into the arms of death!

God help him, what had he done? He’d driven a beautiful creature out of her mind. But he could undo it. He could bring her back if only he could get to her before it was too late.

“Isobelle! Wait! Forgive me! You are free!”

He rushed into the water, blinking over and over, but the white was gone. His skull threatened to come undone beneath his hand, but he could not pause to recover. She was out there, drowning.

“Isobelle!” Waist-deep now.

As if rising to the sound of her name, the white gown surfaced. Twenty feet away!

He lunged, pulled his hand away from his head and swam as furiously as he could. He needed air. He had to pause. Had to breathe.

There. She was still there. Above water. Pushing the water out of her way.

“Isobelle! You are free! Come back!”

The vision turned and faced him, treading water.

She could swim?

He laughed. She could swim! Praise be, she’d lied to him!

“Isobelle, forgive me. Come back! The boat. In the morning. Forgive me!”

He stopped fighting the water, allowed it to cover him. The cool liquid soothed the ache in his head.

Air. He needed air. And he needed Isobelle’s forgiveness.

He kicked, over and over, until the water parted.

She’d come closer. She stayed above the water easily, but her breathing was labored. She could have never lasted long. Even if she could swim, she likely hadn’t done so often. Trying to swim from the island would have been suicide. And she’d nearly done it!

“Gaspar! Are ye badly hurt?”

She sounded so close, and yet, she was still beyond his reach.

Again, he allowed himself to sink. Ah, the relief. Like sleeping when one is tired. So tired. But he needed air again.

He kicked and fought his way to the surface once more and found Isobelle there, coming for him. He permitted her to pull him close, then with a furious kick, he rose above her in the water, wrapped his arm around her, across her chest, and took a firm grasp beneath her arm. Then he began dragging her back to shore in spite of the screaming in his skull. After a few half-hearted struggles, she settled down and allowed him to take her.

When they reached the shallows, he stood and helped her to do the same. Then he took a step away from her.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I was wrong to take you from your home. I was wrong to expect you to change. If I’d have succeeded, I would have never forgiven myself. You may leave the island as soon as Icarus arrives with the boat, Isobelle. I vow it.”

She looked at him askance as she filled her lungs over and over again. “Then it wasn’t a lie, to lure me back to shore?”

“Yes. It was a lie that I was drowning. I swim like a Venetian fish. Even if I’ve been struck on the head.” He lifted a hand to his bleeding forehead in a bid for sympathy, but she came no closer. “But the other, your freedom, was no lie. You may return to the city, to your cottage, or wherever you wish. I only hope you will avoid Venice because of what I have done to your name there. And I can afford to send you anywhere in the world. You need only choose.”

Instantly, anywhere in the world, even if it were the next island, sounded much too far away from one particularly lonely dragon. But he bit his tongue to keep from sharing that sentiment. His eyes were open. But after all he’d done to her, she would never believe that his heart was open as well.

“You changed your mind because you thought I intended to drown.”

“You would have drowned, even if you could swim. Even I could not cross this channel without a boat.” He reached out and pushed her hair from her eyes, unable to go another minute without seeing them clearly. “But that was not why I changed my mind. You have transformed me, Isobella. You have made me see the dragon and I have chased it away, never to return, even if the Pope himself demanded I resume my office.”

She eyed him suspiciously while he helped her to the soft grasses where they both collapsed.

“I was attempting to change you as I had once changed myself. I had turned myself into a cold creature that had no place in the world, and I suppose I was trying to make you the same, that somehow you might feel the only place in the world for you was at my side.”

She shook her head and water sprayed around them. “I will not be content in yer tower, Gaspar.”

He nodded and turned to face the water. It was not an easy thing to hear, but he could not blame her.

She sighed. “But at your side would not be such a bad place, I suppose.”

His heart tried to rouse his hopes but he bid it to settle. He dared not hope she could forgive him in truth, and told her so.

“I can try.” Her eyes lit up and her gaze fell to his mouth, then she looked away, embarrassed.

Though he would like nothing better than to take her into his arms and beg her forgiveness in a dozen different ways, he would forbear. He would not risk her mistaking passion for love. And love, like trust, must be earned.

He was finished lying to himself. And he knew that remaining on the beach with her, both of them dripping beneath the starry drapes of a warm sky, weakened their wills. So he got to his feet and brushed half-dried sand from his legs.

“I am going inside, Isobelle. I will change into dry clothes and start a fire in the kitchens. You come inside only if you wish. I will understand if you do not. I can find you a dry tunic. I do not suppose you wish to wear the white gown again?”

She shook her head sharply.

“When you are ready then.”

She swallowed awkwardly.

He grimaced, then offered a hopeful smile. “We can leave the doors open…”

The woman wrapped her arms around her knees and turned away from him, showing the awkward outline of her hair—another reminder of the damage he had done to her.

No. She would never truly be able to forgive him. Nor did he hold out hope of ever forgiving himself. The morning would bring with it a small Greek man and the vessel that would take her away from him forever.

But he would not waste this final night in mourning. He’d have plenty of time for that after she was gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Deep into the night, Isobelle lay across Gaspar’s chest watching their small fire die. She was back to wearing the luxurious white gown because Gaspar’s clothes were little better than blankets on her.

“Do ye sleep, Dragon?” she whispered.

“No.”

She grinned into his clean tunic. “What does it mean, this thing you say in Italian—say agga po poli?”

He laughed, and she savored the sound rumbling through the side of her face and into her fingertips. He repeated the phrase, time and again, to show her the intricacies of the words, but she still failed to say it correctly. She wearied of being laughed at, so she stopped trying.

“It is not Italian,” he said. “It is Greek. It means...”

“Yes?”

“It means...I love you too much.”

The words, and knowing he’d been saying them for nearly the whole of their time together, took her breath away. But now that she knew their meaning, she couldn’t resist attempting the phrase one more time.

This time, he didn’t laugh. His breathing had stopped, his chest went quite still beneath her fingers. Then suddenly, he rolled her onto her back. For a long moment, he gazed into her eyes in wonder. Then slowly, his head lowered, closer with each heartbeat, until his lips touched hers.

A long, lovely moment later, she was allowed a breath and she whispered, “Troppo perfetto,”

~ ~ ~

Isobelle woke with a sudden pain in her mouth. Then her hair was pulled as a gag was tied around her head! When she tried to remove it, she found that her hands were tied to either side of her bed. She was back inside her cell!

Her heart burst inside her chest and she waited for death to claim her, but it would not!

The ceiling confused her until she realized she was lying with her head nearest the gate, not the way she usually slept. Gaspar stood over her. Thankfully, his face showed no trace of satisfaction.

He put a finger to his lips. “Shhh. Isobelle, you must stay silent. I had to act quickly. His Beatitude, The Patriarch of Venice comes with Icarus. Even now, they are at the dock. I would have asked you to hide, but I could not trust that you would believe me. And if the man demands to see you, you have to be here, in your cell. You cannot tell me you would have willingly come back inside, that you would trust last night was not a trick.”

She tried to argue as clearly as possible, but he pushed another scrap of cloth into her mouth. She could hardly hear the thoughts in her head clearly after that.

“I must go. Please, lie still. Be patient. Say your rosary and I shall kiss you once for every bead. After you forgive me, of course.” He left her side, closed the gate, and turned the key. He gave her one last desperate look. “I will do whatever I can to make him leave quickly. Trust me, I beg you. Either I or Icarus will be up to release you when it is safe. The dragon is dead, Isobelle. I swear it.”

Isobelle screamed, but the sound never made it beyond the room.

Gaspar pressed his face between the bars. “You have seen the island, Isobelle. There is nowhere to hide. If he insists on seeing the tower, the only safe place for you is here. I must go! Keep still and pray he will not have energy enough for the steps!”

And then he was gone.

Isobelle lay on her back in amazement. Fully awake now, she wondered if the night before had been real at all. The cold sea, her dress slowing her progress, the panic of the darkness. And then his voice, calling her back to the lights. Promising her freedom. Promising life away from the tower.

Something had happened to him between the nooning meal and the moment he’d come to open the gate, to release her. She might have saved herself a hard swim if she’d have comprehended sooner. He was no longer God’s Dragon, the sword-arm of the church. He was just a man, offering his open arms in exchange for a prison.

Or was he?

The alarm had been sounded. God’s Dragon had been called back to his duty. And the first thing he’d done was to tie her up and place her back in that prison.

For her safety? Truly? Why not introduce her to the patriarch as his servant, his cousin, his...anything. Why allow the man to see her as a prisoner, guilty of some sin?

If Gaspar was right and she was lucky, the man would go away and never know.

If Gaspar was wrong, and the man came looking, he would not take kindly to Gaspar keeping her alive. What was he thinking? To find her here would mean her death! He should have sent her out into the sea. At least she would have a chance.

Nonsense. It was all nonsense. She needed to calm herself and think clearly. She took a few deep breaths and it helped instantly.

Can it truly be the patriarch he cannot trust?

Voices floated in through the bars of the window. Italian. She could understand nothing but the fact they were moving closer. Then she heard Gaspar’s deep voice booming out in greeting.

She refused to lie still and wait for luck to determine her destiny, so she tugged at the ties that bound her hands. Not painfully tight. She pulled firmly on her right wrist, closest to the wall. The knot tightened, but it allowed for more room between that knot and her wrist! She lifted her elbow and pulled against the restraint. Halfway up her hand, it ceased sliding. She tried folding her hand in on itself. It slid a little more. If she continued to pull, she might pull her bones apart! She relaxed, rested. Then she tested the slack on her left wrist. It was much tighter. And if she pulled on it, the knot might prove too hard to open if she managed to get the right hand free.

What other option did she have? She’d tucked her skean duh inside her boot in the kitchen!

Oh, Gaspar! Gaspar!

She continued to pull her right hand. The skin began to give, then burn, then bleed. Tears sprang to her eyes, not from the pain, but from the hopelessness she felt. So cruel, the twist her life had taken in a matter of hours.

At the sound of voices in the stairwell, dread rested on her chest with the delicacy of an anvil. In a fit of defiance, she gave one last, desperate pull and the tie, now wet with blood, slid up to her knuckles, then over! One hand was free!

She reached up and wrenched off her gag, pulling hair, ripping the thing away. She tossed it aside.

But the footsteps were halfway up the stairs at least!

She sat up and began working furiously at the knot on her left hand. She’d pulled too much. The knot was seated. She dug with her fingernails, but she only managed to free a few strands. She could slide beneath the bed, cover the remaining hand with a blanket, but it was too late, they were at the door!

“Preparati,” came Gaspar’s voice from the landing. Then footsteps. Prepare yourself. He’d said the same thing to her often enough, before prayers.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Gaspar fought to remain dignified as he led his employer up the tower steps. His instinct was to send His Beatitude from his home, resign his position, and let the consequences be damned. Perhaps he and Isobelle could be far away by the time those consequences were called due. But he could not. He would act as he had always acted—with confidence. Surely the patriarch would think twice before questioning Gaspar’s actions. He was God’s Dragon, after all. A man to be trusted by church leaders, trusted especially by the patriarch who knew him best.

His mistake had been hiring the metal workers. They’d bragged about their creation. Word had spread during the Regatta, and as soon as the event had ended, the patriarch came to look at the work himself. No doubt a secret cell piqued his interest much more than the workmanship, but it was excuse enough to come.

A consequence he would be paying for in but a few moments.

It was just as well the man demanded to see it immediately, not accepting an offer for tea or refreshment first. This way, Isobelle need not be tied up any longer than necessary.

Why couldn’t he have taken her out the rear door and tried to bury the better part of her in the sand? For surely there was no other hiding place on the whole of the island.

So many things he might have done. He’d thought of half a dozen since he’d left her in the cell—the cell he’d vowed never to use again. There had simply been no time. If it weren’t for his need for a drink and a glance out the window, His Beatitude might have walked into his open home and caught them sleeping in each other’s arms! But thankfully, there had been time enough for Gaspar to lift her unconscious body and take her where he always felt her to be safest.

Carrying a torch, since the stairway was dim even in daylight, Gaspar reached the small landing with the patriarch at his back, followed by two of his guards. The door stood wide, as always, but shutting it would have done no good, not when the screen was the object of the older man’s visit.

A thought occurred to him and he turned to look at Icarus. The man had been acting odd of late, which Gaspar had chosen to ignore—thinking the servant simply guessed too much about his master and the lovely prisoner. But Icarus met his eyes and showed only worry, not guilt. On the boat ride to the island, his servant had not betrayed him.

The patriarch, then, was not expecting a woman to be inside.

“Prepare yourself,” he said, to warn both the elderly man and Isobelle. He took a deep breath and stepped inside, then stepped to the right and slid the torch in the loop. For a moment, his hands lingered on the torch, wishing he could have just a moment’s peace more before he had to explain.

“Yes, yes. It is an extraordinary piece,” said His Beatitude. “And what is this?”

“Your Beatitude.” Gaspar turned and joined the man now standing before the gate. But Isobelle was not where he’d left her.

“Please tell me, Gaspar, that you have not been alone on this island with this woman. Tell me!”

Icarus hurried to Gaspar’s side. “Forgive me, Master,” he whispered. “I forgot the key. I left it at home today. I beg your forgiveness.”

Gaspar wondered at the little man’s quick thinking, but wasted no time taking advantage.

“Icarus, I will deal with you later.” He waved the servant away. “I assure you, sir, Icarus alone carries the key to this cell. Though I sleep below and have no wish to spend more time than is necessary with this woman, I could not open the gate had I wanted to. An unnecessary precaution, but all precautions against the devil are wise. Do you not agree?”

Poor Isobelle. She would understand none of their conversation. And he feared what her imagination might do. Already she had freed one of her hands and removed her gag. But what truly frightened him was the awareness that Isobelle knew only one phrase understandable to The Patriarch of Venice.

I love you too much.

At the moment, she had her hands together at the edge of the bed, her head bent forward, and the rosary spilling over her wrist. Gaspar had to ignore outright the blood smeared across that hand.

Isobelle had learned how to pretend meekness. He suspected, however, her whispered prayers were not all for their guest’s benefit. She was also terrified as he was, for he noticed the minute shaking of the rosary beads.

“Who is she?” The older man had trouble taking his eyes off her, but in his voice was disgust. It was the same tone he’d heard from many a man when confronted with a beautiful woman. Men who hated what they could never have.

“The daughter of a dear friend.” He’d had time enough to prepare that answer. “She was accused of being a witch, but I have concluded that accusation was inspired by the color of her hair alone. I promised her father I would make certain she would be meek and subservient before I returned her. Although she was a meek child to begin with.”

The patriarch finally turned and frowned at him. “She is clearly no child, Gaspar. You were right to cut her hair, but you should have shaved it all.”

Gaspar shuddered as if revolted by the thought. “You know of my wish to remain as far away from women as possible, Your Beatitude.”

“Then have someone else do it.”

“Yes, Patriarch.”

“And tell the father his daughter could not be saved.”

Gaspar could feel the outrage of a hundred such declarations paling in comparison the fury he felt now, over the life of one. May God forgive him, he would not obey this blind man.

“But she can be saved, Patriarch. She has been saved.”

The old man’s nostrils stretched and contracted. “Absolution? From you?”

Gaspar knew he needed to speak quickly before his employer’s imagination took over. “I believe this young woman would be a great example to others of her age, that they might see how she has been humbled.”

The man’s brow lowered over stern eyes. “Or she could rally them together in pity. I am sorry, Gaspar. My decision has been made. Besides, we must not allow the seeds of that red hair to perpetuate.”

Swallow. He needed to swallow. How could he argue if his words could not pass the ball of rage in his throat?

“It is a pity your slave did not bring the key. We could have disposed of this problem today. But I suppose, since she is the daughter of a friend, you would not wish to execute her yourself. I shall send another.” And with that, the old man turned for the door.

Gaspar knew the man would not respond well to begging, but he had little choice. He needed time if he was going to get Isobelle away from the island before this executioner arrived.

“Your Beatitude, I would ask a favor.”

The man turned back with an impatient grunt. “A favor, Gaspar? When this private exorcism has cost you any favors you might have earned from me?”

“Yes, Patriarch, for I am certain there will be an opportunity, soon, to earn another. I would ask this favor before it is earned.”

The man took a deep breath and expelled it in exasperation. “What is this favor?”

It required all Gaspar’s years of discipline to keep the desperation out of his voice. “I would ask that you allow me a sennight to help the child prepare to meet God.”

The patriarch shook his head. “She will not meet God, Gaspar, without a body. She must burn after she is dead.”

“No, sir,” he said calmly. “She must not.” Oh, but he was in such danger to speak to the man so. “As certain as you are that she is a witch, I am just as certain she is not. Therefore, I beg you, do not put either of our salvations in jeopardy by robbing this woman of the chance to see God. You do believe in the salvation of the souls of men, and therefore women…”

The man’s nostrils flared and he lowered his chin. “You are no priest, Gaspar. Do not presume to discuss salvation with me.” His narrowed eyes told Gaspar he would never again have the patriarch’s trust. His time in Venice would not last. That was, if he stayed…

And suddenly, he was grateful to the blind old man for opening the gate of Venice and allowing him to leave. His penance was over. It was time to leave this prison, and he would not look back.

“Beheaded then.” The old man narrowed his eyes to mere slits and moved back to the gate, and Gaspar’s heart jumped. The man grabbed the bars at each edge and shook them. They made no sound. The lock held as tight as if it had been melted into place. He worked his way around the enclosure, shaking and testing each joint. He even lifted his robes, climbed onto the bench and pulled at the bit of screening hanging from the ceiling, but the rings to which it was attached were thick and deeply embedded in the wood beams. He then pushed and pulled at them, noting the space between the screen above and the one below.

Gaspar worried the man might find a weakness in the iron that would allow them to remove Isobelle, so she might be murdered immediately. But in each test, the screen held, and he blessed the artisans he’d so recently been cursing. Their work was not nearly as loose as their tongues. Praise be.

Finally, the patriarch ceased his testing and allowed his guards to help him off the bench.

“If the only key is in the city, I will take your man and collect it. Then I shall return with an executioner…in five days. I would return tomorrow, but I must preside over a few more Regatta celebrations in spite of that fool that calls himself the King of Napoli. Five days, Gaspar. I trust you will both be prepared for her to part this world.”

“Yes, Your Beatitude. And I thank you for your…” He could not use the words mercy, wisdom, nor generosity. “Thank you for your patience.”

The old man glared, but eventually nodded and left the room.

Gaspar’s heart jumped again when he remembered the patriarch was determined to collect the key from Icarus, when the key was currently in Gaspar’s pocket!

He turned back to the cell and found Isobelle’s eyes wide with worry. Perhaps she had understood enough. But there was no time to explain. He dug in his pocket, fumbled with the string, but finally wrapped his fingers around the key. Then he hurried to the door and listened. They were only halfway down.

He returned to the gate. “I will cut your binds in a moment, sweet Isobelle, but I must slip Icarus the key first.”

He slid the dangerous thing into the lock and turned it as slowly as possible. Thankfully, the mechanism turned silently. Again, he blessed the artisans. He swung the gate wide, then used the stool to block it open. He would not trust it to remain that way, and the patriarch had already proven the cell could not be compromised if the gate were locked.

“I will return before you finish your prayers.” He smiled and gave her a wink.

She rolled her eyes and returned his smile. It was forgiveness enough to lighten his heart. He needed only to remove the holy man from his island and he could return to her and hear her forgiveness from her own sweet lips.

The patriarch was sufficiently irritated to move twice as quickly back to his boat as he had when he’d arrived. Even so, it was not fast enough to ease Gaspar’s mind, but it was his turn to practice patience. He held the key behind him and felt Icarus take it from his fingers before hurrying to the large boat.

Success! His pounding heart slowed a bit.

Once on board and seated, the old man smiled. “Your man. We will take him with us.”

Had he not noticed Icarus was already seated on his boat? And that his boat was well away from the dock?

The patriarch motioned for the rowers to begin. “We will keep him with us, and we will take his boat along as well.” He smiled slyly. “We shall all see you in five days, Gaspar. Be ready.”

Only then did Gaspar notice the small boat moving to join the larger one. A guard at the rear finished tying the knot that would ensure Gaspar and Isobelle would have no way off the island before the patriarch returned with the executioner.

If it weren’t for the fact that she was tied up, fearful, and bleeding, he might have postponed telling the woman he loved that her life was still very much in danger.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Isobelle escaped her other binding and walked carefully down the steps alone. Gaspar met her at the bottom of the stairs, his face as pale as the moon the night before. He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around her middle. With his ear pressed against her and her fingers running through his hair, he apologized once more for not thinking of a better way to have hidden her from the patriarch.

“There wasna time.” She lifted his chin and smiled into his eyes. “I understand. I do.”

Gaspar took a shaky breath, and pressed his forehead to her middle. “He took my boat, Isobelle. Our way off the island. I thought he would only take Icarus, but he took the boat as well.”

Dread tried to settle on her chest again, but she would not have it. “We will think of some other way off the island. If we swim out into the lagoon, to the busy channel, a boat will surely stop for us.” Then a sickening thought presented itself. “Or do ye not mean to leave with me?”

He stood and led her into the solar. He took a seat and pulled her onto his lap. “Listen, my love.” He wove his fingers through hers and held their hands to his chest. “I do not wish to keep anything from you. The patriarch is going to return in five days…with an executioner. But I vow to you, I will see us safely off the island long before then. Together.”

She smiled, the news of an executioner paling in importance when the man she loved planned to stay by her side.

“We’ve five days then,” she said cheerfully. “Dinna fash. I canna speak Italian, but I understood the disagreement. And I know the number cinque, aye? It was either five days or five journeys.”

Some of the worry smoothed from his brow and he sighed in relief. “You stayed so still, I assumed you understood nothing.”

She pushed a bit of his hair from his face and tucked it behind his ear. She laughed when he shivered. “Weel, I’ve been taught, lately mind ye, that it is best to remain quiet when men of the church are about.”

He laughed. It was a rare, but glorious sound.

“The rosary was a nice touch.”

“Oh, aye. I thought so meself, just as ye were coming through the door. Almost hung meself with them.”

He turned their hands and worried over her bloody wrist. “I am so sorry,” he whispered, then kissed the bruised flesh. It was as exquisite a touch from his warm lips as any other had been. And far too brief.

“No need. If we’ve five days to find a way off the island, let us not waste them with more apologies, aye? And will ye be coming with me, not because ye fear the patriarch’s wrath, but because…” She bit her lip and looked down, unable to finish. Releasing her was one thing. Loving her was quite another. “Because…”

“Because I love you.” It was not a question. “I wish to leave with you, Isobella, and remain with you, if you’ll have me.” He shook his head. “I meant to say, Isobelle.”

“Auch, now. Did I say I mind?” She couldn’t help but smile wide with the sudden rightness settling in her chest. “Though Isobella sounds too pretty a name for someone with questionable hair.”

He sighed. His brows knit together while he touched the odd locks on her head. “Your hair makes no matter to me. But I do love to see your eyes so easily. How long will it take to grow again? A year? Two?”

She frowned. “I dinna ken. Me head feels a bit lighter. I may need a pillow now, like I’ve ne’er needed one before. But I doona mind the cool air blowin’ on me neck now and again. Though, in Scotland I would freeze.”

“With the whole of the world to choose from, where shall we go?”

She considered it a moment. She’d been so desperate to go home, to where she was dearly loved, she could think of nothing else. But that desperation was gone. Did she long for the sights and sounds and smells of the Highlands? She did. But now she had a longing of another sort. She’d been alone in the world—excepting a cousin who had been unable to stay with her much. But she was no longer alone, if the look in her dragon’s eyes was to be believed.

“How far must we go to be beyond the patriarch’s reach? I doona expect the man will be overly pleased when he finds us gone.”

His brow lowered like that of a pensive dragon and she could not resist the impulse to kiss him there.

He looked up and gave her a wink. “We would be safe in France. Word will spread throughout the Church States, but with Charles VI trying to steal Naples, the patriarch will not be reaching beyond Milan.”

He freed his fingers from hers, kissed her hands, and released them. Then he braced his arms behind him, allowing her to leave his lap if she wished. But she kept her seat.

“It is likely I will be a hunted man, Isobelle. There will be a price on my head and many a man will try to search me out. Are you certain you’d like to spend your life with a dragon who was once capable of locking you in his tower and demanding your submission? It is a frightening tale for any woman to have endured.”

She thought he might go on, but he left it at that. She’d told him she wanted no more apologies, but that was what he was giving her. One last plea for forgiveness.

“I havena seen that scaly monster for quite some time. I am fair to certain he’ll not be back. Misguided beast. I believe his replacement is a well-meaning lad.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I vow I will never hold you against your will again.”

“Auch, well, the question is, do ye wish to hold me against yer heart? As I wish to hold ye against mine?”

His arms wrapped around her once more. “Do you mean it, Isobelle?” His whisper made her shiver.

“Aye, I do. Over, and over, and over again.”

~ ~ ~

Taking any gold in their pockets would weigh them down and drown them if they had to swim from the island. But since Isobelle didn’t want Gaspar to leave her often in order to sustain them, wherever they decided to go, she thought they should take a little something along. And that thought led to another, which led them to test the large bench in the water, to see if it might float with both of them and a little bit of coin as well.

It did not. The water seeping between the planks was the problem. So they tried wrapping her Ross plaid around the bench. The wool was woven so closely, it was a great improvement. They assumed the worst, that it would not hold indefinitely, but they decided it was worth the risk. After all, if the odd boat began to sink, they could let the coins go and rely on their ability to swim, a talent Isobelle assured him she possessed when she was not hampered by skirts.

They decided to wait for the tide, which was due to hit the island on the south side in the early morning, and thus push them north, toward the mainland. If they were not pulled onto a boat, they could hope the plaid would hold until they reached the distant shore.

By the time the sun set in the west, they were exhausted. They bathed in the drinking water they’d be leaving behind, dressed for their journey, then ate their suppers on a blanket on the beach. If they slept indoors, they might sleep past the tide, especially with as weary as they were.

Isobelle sat facing the water with Gaspar at her back trying to work a brush through her clean but wet hair. Though the water glowed a lovely pink from the dying sunset, her attention was not on the water, but on a small black speck that appeared and disappeared behind distant waves.

“Do ye see that black bit, on the horizon?” She leaned to the side and pointed.

Gaspar peered over her shoulder and chills bubbled up her spine and spread to the back of her ears. She never wished to be farther away from him than she was at that moment.

“Yes. I see it,” he said. “It is a boat.” He tossed the brush on the blanket and hurried to his feet. “I’ll get a torch. Hopefully, they’ll see it. We may get off the island without getting wet!”

Isobelle strained to keep the black bit in sight as if her concentration might keep it from disappearing. She was pleased when it was still visible when Gaspar reappeared with the burning brand. He carefully waved the fire over his head in a wide arc and she shielded her eyes so the light wouldn’t blind her from seeing the boat.

Then the little spot stopped disappearing behind waves. It remained steady, though it no longer moved to the side.

“It’s coming,” Gaspar said. But there was no celebration in his voice. And he’d stopped waving the torch.

“Are you disappointed we will no longer be alone?” she said with a laugh.

He shook his head, unsmiling. “No, my love. I worry who is coming to our door.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

“Perhaps it is Icarus?” Isobelle tried to sound more hopeful than she felt.

“It is no boat of mine.”

The dark spot grew into a wide bottomed boat, a smaller rendition of a Viking’s vessel with one oar working at each side. She’d seen a dozen of the same once the carrack had entered the Mediterranean with Ossian and her on board, though she’d never seen one so sparsely manned. This one appeared to be empty if not for those oars dipping into the water over and over again.

A shiver ran through her. “I see no one,” she whispered. She was frightened. Someone should have hailed by now.

Gaspar came to stand beside her and wrapped his free hand around hers, but he offered no assistance as the boat neared his dock. Suddenly, the oars were tucked in and a great beast rose up and lunged out of the center of the vessel, landing smoothly and silently on the wooden planks. It stood on its hind legs and pulled the boat close, then wrapped a single rope around one of the dragon heads carved on the top of a pylon.

Not a beast, but a beast of a man covered in fine furs despite the warm climate, who would have stood head and shoulders, and more, above the guards who had walked those planks earlier that day.

A healthy mane of hair draped from his head in disarray, not unlike Isobelle’s own. When his boots crunched onto the sand, he drew a long-sword as easily as he would an eating knife. He stopped ten feet away and rested the sword on his protected right shoulder. Then he grinned.

Gaspar tensed.

Isobelle could not resist grinning back. He seemed a cheerful sort. Nothing like the sober party that visited that morning. Surely not the enemy.

“Gaspar Dragotti?” the man asked.

Gaspar hesitated for so long that Isobelle wondered if he would lie.

“I am,” he finally said.

“I wondered,” the man said in English, “since the lass there was supposed to be well and goodly secured in a tower, aye?”

A Scotsman?

Gaspar pulled her behind him and braced his legs apart. “Who are you?”

The man offered a little bow, not taking his eyes off Gaspar. “The newly appointed executioner…of The Patriarch of Venice.”

Isobelle’s head began to shake and she noted Gaspar’s head was doing the same.

“We were promised five days,” he said. “We will have our five days.” The last sounded like a threat to Isobelle. By the look on the big man’s face, he’d heard the same.

“Weel,” his brogue was thick but strange, “perhaps the patriarch decided ye couldna be trusted to be here when he returned.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the bench wrapped in plaid, just beyond the reach of the waves. “Or perhaps it was me own suspicion. I’ve heard tell that Isobelle Ross canna be trusted to stay anywhere for long. And I thought I should come quickly, before she got away.” He took no step forward, but seemed content to stand where he was and visit a while, as if the heavy sword weighed nothing at all. “Icarus was kind enough to give me directions. Though I very nearly missed ye.” His grin broadened. “I do thank ye for the signal, aye?”

Gaspar’s head was shaking again. “Did my servant give you her name?”

The beast lowered the tip of his sword to the side and started forward. Gaspar lunged for the torch, then returned to stand before her.

“Easy, now, mate. My name is James. I’ve been sent by Montgomery Ross to collect his Isobelle and take her home again.”

“Monty?” Her hand flew to her breast. The sound of her brother’s name was like a gift of sweet heather. “My Monty?”

“His Isobelle?” Gaspar’s voice sounded coarse, as if he’d swallowed a bit of sand.

“His sister,” James clarified, grinning. “I take it, ye’re less than anxious to be rid of her, then? Ye’ve not taken her from her tower just to put the torch to her?”

Gaspar’s shoulders relaxed, as did his grip on her fingers. But she thought they might both feel better if she wrapped herself around his arm and stood against him.

“No. Er, yes,” Gaspar said. “I’m fond of her. Did you ask if I was fond of her?”

James laughed. “I suppose I did, in a way. Ye canna guess how relieved I am I doona have to kill ye in order to save her. I’m not to meddle with history. Killing a man meddles with history something fierce, as ye can imagine.”

Gaspar laughed. “I do not understand what you mean, in truth. But I assure you, I am equally relieved I have no need to kill you in order to save her. Your progeny be damned.”

James laughed again, obviously amused by the notion of anyone besting him. Gaspar laughed again, but warily. She remembered Monty and his friends laughing and posturing in much the same way.

Isobelle was overcome with hunger for any news of home. “Tell me, James. Is my brother well?”

The giant man considered the ground for a moment and she worried he had bad news to share. She clutched Gaspar’s arm tighter still, but he shrugged her off and wrapped his arm around her shoulder instead. In his other hand, the torch flagged, but she suspected he wouldn’t lower it so long as James held his sword.

James finally faced her again.

“Weel, first, let me tell you that Monty is fine. He’s a happy mon, but for his worry over ye. The fact that Ewan is laird now doesna mean there is anything wrong with yer brother. It is just, he has...moved away, ye might say.”

“So we can join him?” Her heart soared. “But what of my sister, Morna? Do ye ken anything of her?”

“Oh, aye. I’ve heard a’ plenty of her and her husband. Happily married. Expecting a bairn, I believe. As is Monty’s wife, or so the witches tell me.”

Gaspar tensed around her.

Isobelle shook her head and patted his chest. “I’m certain they are only Muir witches, my love. The ones I told you about.”

Gaspar didn’t seem to take any comfort in that fact, but she was more worried for her sister at the moment. “But Morna. How can she be happy with her husband? I warned her to stay away from him.”

James nodded vigorously. “Oh, aye. The Curse of Clan Ross. ‘Tis over. Of course they willna be telling the tourists the prophecy was fulfilled, but—”

“Prophecy?” Gaspar’s head began shaking again.

Isobelle hardly dared ask, knowing the man at her side would not take the question well. But Gaspar’s comfort would have to wait.

“Do you know, James? The faery, did it come?”

James gave her a wink, then a slight nod. “All tales yer brother and sister are anxious to tell ye.”

“But what of Ivar?”

Gaspar tensed again. “Ivar?”

“Easy mon. He’s marrit to Morna, Isobelle’s sister.”

Isobelle jumped and wrapped her arms around Gaspar’s neck. No news could have made her happier. She could stand to wait a wee while for other details. The important thing was that Morna and Ivar had been reunited. All her suffering had not been for naught. And if she hadn’t suffered as she had, been chased out of a town or two, she might never have met Gaspar.

Her dragon held her close until the big Scot cleared his throat. “Here now. Shall we all rest a bit on the beach, and away with the tide? I must admit, my rowing muscles could use a bit of recovery time.”

“Indeed,” Gaspar said. “It will come in on the south of the island, and roll north. We can reach the channel with little effort.”

Isobelle did have one more question that could not wait to be asked.

“Tell me, whom did my brother marry?”

James was suddenly uncomfortable again, but she was not about to show him mercy. Who knew how long it might be before she was able to ask her brother anything?

The big man looked at Gaspar, then at the sea. Finally, he turned back. “It seems as though yer brother… uh, Monty…” He took a deep breath and rubbed his face. “Monty married the faery, lass.”

“The faery?” She and Gaspar said in unison.

She looked at her poor confused dragon and wondered if returning to Scotland with him might not be a good idea. Of course she did not fear he would change his views and begin executing witches, but she did worry all the talk of the wee folk, and selkies, and loch monsters might be too much of a strain on his mind.

“Well,” her dragon said with horribly false cheer, “I cannot wait to meet a real faery.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Gaspar woke to the cry of a gull. The eastern horizon was still blue, but a light blue. He hadn’t slept well, what with Isobelle in his arms and the big Scot snoring at their backs like a scornful chaperone who only pretended to sleep, snorting each time either of them shifted position. But considering how anxious he was to be away, he wouldn’t have slept well, James’ snoring notwithstanding. They’d already loaded their things in the boat, including Isobelle’s damp plaid, so there was little left to do but climb aboard. And it was high time they did.

If the patriarch thought to send his new executioner along early, he might think to send others as well.

Gaspar stood and stretched, then bent to wake Isobelle. But he paused at the rumble of oars being stowed. Many oars. He looked about the shore, but there were no boats other than James’. He turned, but saw nothing but the tower keep, his home for the last ten years. Another noise came from the west, but the west beach was empty. Cautiously, he moved to peek at the portion of the south beach blocked from sight by the tower.

Two lanchas rolled in with the tide, their bows sinking deep in the wet sand.

We should have left as soon as we had a boat!

A half dozen guards sporting black uniforms poured onto the shore from each bow. A figure in a long gold robe followed more slowly.

Gaspar ducked out of sight and hurried back to Isobelle and the Scot who were already on their feet.

“To the boat,” he hissed, then he snatched up his sword lying next to the blanket and unsheathed it quietly.

Isobelle turned and ran without question. The Scot pulled his giant’s sword free and took a stance. Gaspar was simply grateful they’d thought to load the boat before bedding down. Isobelle would want for nothing, even if she never made it back to her brother’s side.

“You two, go! I will hold them off for as long as I can!”

James gave him a funny look. “Dinna be daft. You go.” He then turned a smile to the dozen church guards pouring from both sides of the tower. They seemed a bit surprised to find their quarry outside waiting for them. But they stopped and created a line, then stood at the ready to charge. One man’s attention remained on the side of the tower.

Recognizing every man facing him, Gaspar spoke quickly.

“Contrary to what the patriarch will tell you, this woman is no witch. I would rather die here today than allow her to be harmed.”

“You are bewitched,” snarled Jappot, a guard he never cared for due to his fondness for tormenting prisoners. “We have come to save you from her, Dragotti.”

Gaspar smirked. “No, Jappot. You’ve come to help the patriarch save his pride. He was wrong about her, and he cannot admit it. He is only a man in the end.”

The guards shifted uncomfortably, but none eased his stance.

A flash of gold. The old man had finally appeared around the side of the tower and came forward with a sneer.

“I suspected as much,” he said as he neared, stumbling over sand and patches of grass. “It was a bit too convenient for a Scottish warrior to be lurking so close to your slave’s quarters. And an experienced executioner at that.” He pulled the cell key from his pocket, the string bouncing in the breeze, and threw it at Gaspar’s feet with disgust. “The little Greek will die for his lies.”

The patriarch turned and looked back as yet another soldier brought Icarus forward. The man had been ill-used. Black blood adhered to his face. His hands were tied behind him. The guard forced him to his knees ten feet from the beach on which the rest of them stood. Not close enough to be protected.

Gaspar shrugged. “Your soldiers know the truth, Your Beatitude. They know you have come only to save your pride.”

The patriarch’s jaw jumped, but he did not look at his men. Perhaps he did not care to know what he might see. His sneer dropped away abruptly and his brow bunched with concern.

“I have come to rescue you, Gaspar. You are like a son to me. How can I leave you in the clutches of a woman God has clearly marked as a witch? I will not leave you to her. Not you. My son.” He placed his hands together in prayer, and shook them forward and back, as if pleaded to God. “I would see her cleansed from your blood.”

Isobelle screamed. The Scot moved to shield Gaspar so he could look behind them to the dock. A guard, dripping with water, stood at Isobelle’s back with a blade across her throat. Her death was but a nod away.

Gaspar stepped around the Scot and faced his former confessor. “Release her.”

The patriarch raised his brows in all innocence. “One day soon, you will forget her and return to my service. But only if the witch is burned from this world. Then, her curse must be purged from you, my son. By fire as well, if we cannot think of another way.”

Gaspar shook his head furiously. “You promised she would not burn. You, who would eschew baring false witness.” He turned to face the line of men to his left. “You see? He is only a man, a man who is jealous of a beautiful woman.”

The old man snarled. “You see how she has infected his blood? How else shall I cleanse you, Gaspar, if not with fire?” He looked to the dock. “Bring her!”

“No!” Gaspar had no leverage. He had nothing the old man wanted. He could threaten nothing the old man held dear. And if they fought, Isobelle would be harmed first. “Wait! You want to cleanse me? You want me to one day return to your service?”

The old man raised his chin, but said nothing.

“Then I will surrender myself to you. I will go willingly, if you allow the Scot to take the woman and go.”

The gold-gowned devil narrowed his eyes and considered. No one moved. Gaspar couldn’t understand how he’d held the patriarch in such high regard all those years. Had he truly considered himself unworthy to wash the other man’s feet? Impossible!

“Come, now.” Gaspar spoke loud enough for all to hear. “If what you said is true, if you have not lied, then I am the one you have come to save. So cleanse me. With fire if you must. If you believe you can save me as surely as I believed I could save her, then do so. But first, you will let the woman go back where she belongs. Far from here. Far from you. Far…from me.”

His voice broke at the last. He should have known the dream he’d been spinning in his mind for more than a day was too wonderful to be truly realized. Isobelle had forgiven him too quickly. Now God was demanding a true accounting. But at least, if there was one good deed he could do in this life, he would see the woman go free. And Icarus too!

“You will come quietly.” The old man smiled. “And you will not speak to my soldiers, is that understood? I will not have that witch’s blood spewed into their ears. And I will be surprised if that scar on your face is the worst you will end with, my son.”

Gaspar’s heart jumped with joy. He’d agreed! But he’d agreed too quickly.

“One moment.” Gaspar still held his blade as if he might attack. “You will send Icarus with them.”

The old man grunted. “I have already pronounced sentence on the slave.”

“You will send Icarus with them.” He pointed his sword directly at his former employer and turned the blade meaningfully.

The patriarch shook his head, his face twisted with malice. “No. You must choose. The woman or the slave. You may not save them both.”

James grunted and stormed forward. None attempted to stop him as he pushed Icarus’s guard out of the way, then grabbed up the little man like a wayward child and stormed back toward the shore with Icarus tucked under his arm. None dared attack him from behind, and still might not have done so even if Gaspar hadn’t been ready to defend him. The big man did not stop until he’d marched onto the dock and deposited Icarus on the dark boat. James then turned and plucked the blade from the man threatening Isobelle and kicked him off the dock and into the water.

James barked at the woman to get aboard. To Gaspar’s surprise, she ignored the man and fled down the plank and ran to Gaspar’s side.

“I will not leave without ye.” Tears streamed down her angry face. She turned to the patriarch. “Ye’re a right bastard. Ye wear the devil’s gaudy robes and quickly condemn the rest of us.” She spat at the old man’s hem.

“Isobelle,” Gaspar growled. “Did I teach you nothing?”

“Oh, aye. Ye’re teachin’ me how to be a martyr. And a fine teacher ye are.”

James stomped down the plank. There was no question what he planned to do.

“Kiss me quickly, my love,” he said. “It is the only farewell you are likely to get.”

She noticed James too and grabbed Gaspar’s head. She nearly knocked out his teeth, so ferocious was her kiss, as if she were punishing him for sending her away.

“I love you,” he whispered against her lips, then suddenly those lips were gone.

She screamed in James’ arms, but she did not struggle, praise be. If she ran to him once more, he wasn’t certain he could let her go. Would he be able to stomach the killing of twelve young men who had served him well?

James placed her in the boat and gave the vessel a shove before hopping smoothly over the side and joining her. Her complaints ceased and the low rumble of the giant’s voice was the only thing to be heard.

Gaspar waited for the oars to hit the water before he intended to give up his weapon, but the big Scot must have been oblivious to the danger, for he seemed in no hurry to get underway. Did he not realize the patriarch could not be trusted? Had he not been paying attention? They’d even been speaking English!

“Seize him!”

Gaspar wrenched his attention away from the boat to find Jappot demanding his blade.

“Hold!” Isobelle’s command carried easily over the water and they all turned to find her standing in the center of the boat with her arms raised. “You will allow Gaspar to depart with us, or with Satan’s aid, I shall cause the patriarch to bleed from the palm of his hand!”

What could she possibly be thinking? She was no witch. Despite what James had said, there were no witches, or faeries. And it didn’t appear as though Isobelle held a weapon of any kind, let alone a crossbow.

“Release him!” Her voice was calm and confident, revealing none of the emotion she’d displayed a moment before. But her demand was so preposterous, he nearly laughed in spite of the breaking of his own heart.

The patriarch was not amused, however. No doubt he was furious that a witch was about to slip his grasp—and one who had just confessed. But the soldiers laughed. One by one, they looked back at the old man’s white gloves, then laughed again.

The patriarch lifted both hands to show her the flawless white palms.

“So be it.” Her words were punctuated with a small but sharp explosion.

The old man screamed and clutched his right wrist. Red blood seeped from the center of his glove. The two lines of soldiers broke into chaos.

James stood tall in the center of the boat and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Move yer arse!”

Gaspar was relieved to know that his legs were prepared to carry him quickly to the dock, as his mind was busy trying to understand what had just happened. He tried not to worry over the fact that he’d promised to surrender, especially since he was about to be reunited, for the moment at least, with the woman to whom he’d just bid a final farewell. He also tried not to worry about getting in a boat with a true witch, since he loved that witch with all his soul.

He ran to the end of the dock and leapt, hoping he could land in the boat half as smoothly as James had. But alas, he knocked Isobelle on her backside and sent Icarus flying as well. Luckily, he did not tumble out the far side.

Jappot was the only guard to pursue him and when he reached the end of the dock, he threw his pike with all his might, but it banged against the hull to little effect and splashed into the water. The rest of the guards seemed torn between watching the departing boat and helping a wounded patriarch. A few of them lifted a finger or two in a discreet wave.

After a bit of fumbling, Gaspar and James coordinated their efforts with the oars and applied them more efficiently to the water while Isobelle tended to Icarus’ damaged face.

Gaspar leaned toward the big man and confided, “I keep waiting for the next catastrophe. I cannot believe we are in a boat, together, escaping. And successfully.”

James laughed. “Enjoy the moment. We’re nay home yet.”

Gaspar looked at Isobelle. James was wrong; he was already home. But he could see how they might face a few dangers getting to wherever her brother was. However, with an impressive man like James in their company, he had high hopes.

Once they caught the current, James manned the rudder and Gaspar was finally able to take Isobelle into his arms.

“Isobelle, my sweet. You must tell me. Are you, indeed, a witch?”

Her eyes widened in fright.

“Surely you can tell me,” he said with a squeeze to her shoulders. “You can’t believe it would matter to me now.”

She pointed to James. Gaspar hadn’t realized the man was laughing, but when their eyes met, the big man released the rudder and applied himself to holding his bouncing stomach. After a moment, he pulled something from behind his back. It was small, shiny, and black. “This is a gun. It can shoot small bullets that can drill a hole through a man. If ye shoot him through certain body parts, it will kill him, of course.” He put the thing back. “Like a cannon. Only much smaller, aye?” He put a hand back on the rudder. “Hmm,” he muttered. “I doona suppose guns have been invented yet.”

Gaspar looked back at Isobelle.

“Doona be looking sidelong at me, Dragon. I only said what he told me to say.”

“Don’t worry,” James said cheerfully. “Where ye’re going, there will be many things more impressive than a gun.”

Gaspar tried not to worry what that meant for them. “I assume you’re taking us to her brother? This Monty?”

James shook his head and grinned. “Oh, nay. I’m taking ye to the Muir witches. They can get ye to Monty.” He looked out over the Laguna Vida and closed his eyes to the warmth of the morning sun. “Hopefully,” he muttered.

There was no time to ask what he’d meant, for Isobelle pulled his face to her and kissed him.

A short while later, they’d crossed the Laguna Vida and were headed toward the mainland. Gaspar no longer had to dig so deep with his oar. He let the Scot steer them as he fell into a rhythm and looked his fill at the woman who had awakened him from a long, deep sleep. She was the most shockingly beautiful woman he’d ever known, but now it had nothing to do with her hair, or those incredible lips. It didn’t matter where their boat was headed, as long as they were together.

Although he could not help but hold onto one worry.

He was God’s Dragon, slayer of witches, soon to be placed into the care of his former prey. The worry was, how far beyond the Republic of Venice had his reputation extended?

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

With Jappot and the patriarch noting their direction, the little party of four headed back to the island of Venice, which no doubt put both men at ease—an escaped prisoner running back toward his prison. But Gaspar and his companions bypassed the main harbor and continued on to the island of Murano. Once the patriarch sent word across Venice Island and The Republic, they would be hunted. But until that word spread, Gaspar held considerable power and intended to use it.

As they floated up to the quay his arms and back were knotted with fire by the time he stowed his misused oar. He supposed it was his penance to pay for all those years of allowing Icarus to do most of the rowing. He’d been concerned with appearances, even when he and the little man were on the island alone, and now he was sufficiently ashamed. While he and James had rowed, he’d tried to apologize to his servant and assured the man he would try his best to compensate him for the fact he could never return to his sister’s home, but Icarus laughed.

“My sister cannot be angry with me now, yes?” He raised his brows a number of times in succession. “And she treated me like the slave I am, Signore, when you never did.”

Gaspar pulled a folded parchment from his waist and handed it to the Greek. “I planned to leave this for you, but I could never think of where to put it, where you might know what it was.” He smiled. “Your freedom, Icarus. And a bit of gold as thanks. You may go where you wish, though I would go as far from Venice and the patriarch as possible.”

Icarus was unable to speak, but his ability to cry was impressive for such a quiet, usually stoic man.

The flag of Venice swayed happily in the morning sun as if trouble would never step upon the shores of the little island famous for its production of glass. Gaspar climbed out of the dark boat that seemed darker still sitting upon such bright blue water, and stretched into the skin of his former self. It was necessary, but abhorrent to him now, like pulling on filthy clothes after one had bathed. But he had to admit, it also felt like strapping on an impressive suit of armor.

James lifted the small and haggard chest that, thanks to a dangling strap, looked like a poor container for anything of value. No one would guess the amount of gold coins filling the bottom half. “I assume you have a plan,” the big Scot said, and handed the chest to Gaspar. He picked up Isobelle by the waist and sat her on the dock while Gaspar’s hands were occupied.

She squeaked in surprise, but did not fall. When she had her balance, she let go of the man’s hands and wrapped her colorful plaid tighter around her head and shoulders. Other than the locks hanging about her face, there was little of her red hair to be seen. It made Gaspar a little sad, but he was grateful she would draw less notice.

“You there!” A man stood in the middle of the dock and waved them forward.

Gaspar gestured for Isobelle to walk behind him. Icarus followed James. But as they approached the quay’s official, the man’s eyes lit, and Gaspar’s stomach tightened.

Had the patriarch spread the word the day before, as soon as he’d first left Isola del Silenzio?

“Signore Dragotti! Forgive me! I did not recognize the boat.” The official’s waving grew desperate. “Come! Come. Let me offer you a seat in the shade. My name is Spini. I am at your service.” He glanced briefly behind Gaspar while he bowed, then straightened, his expression showing none of the curiosity that was surely eating at him.

Gaspar’s painful shoulders dropped in relief. The man simply recognized him and wished to please him.

“I have urgent business,” he barked in his usual manner—usual until recently. “I need a fast ship. A small crew. And I need them within the hour. Can this be done?”

The man’s eyes bulged. “Si, Signore. Anything His Beatitude might need.” He ran off the dock to another man who stood shuffling papers and arguing with a ship’s captain. After a few gestures and even fewer words, the arguing ceased and the red-faced captain headed down the gangway.

Long painful fingers of dread started working their way into Gaspar’s stomach and he thought to shore up his courage with the sight of Isobelle. So he glanced over his shoulder, to give her a quick but private smile, only to find her tucked beneath the arm of the big Scotsman, the chest of gold sitting all but forgotten at the man’s feet. While Gaspar wished James could protect the woman without the need to touch her, he took some comfort in the fact that even James chose not to hold the heavy chest over long. He was no Hercules then. Nothing so godlike to easily steal away Isobelle’s attention.

She’s mine!

James sent him a wink as if he’d read at least one of his thoughts, and Gaspar faced forward just as the captain arrived. He recognized the man.

“Captain Ermacora,” he said in greeting before the man could speak.

“Signore Dragotti.” The captain offered a low bow. “I was just arguing with Spini and his brother over the fact that my ship is ready to depart with its glass for France, the tide will be leaving soon, but half of my crew is still in the city. Lying drunk between a woman’s—” Ermacora glanced over Gaspar’s shoulder and choked. “That is to say, they are the most slovenly of my men, and of little use. My error was in thinking one of the brothers could be spared to gather them up. But that hardly matters now.” He waved his hand as if to wave away everything he’d just said. “My ship and what men I have are at your disposal, Signore. I would be happy to act as captain, if you wish, and take you wherever the patriarch has ordered you. I have no fear allowing a woman aboard my ship as long as God’s Dragon is in attendance. The good luck of one will reverse the ill luck of the other, no?”

Gaspar watched the man closely, but there was no sign he thought much more than what came from his mouth. Ermacora’s greed was famous, but his loyalty to the church was unquestionable. He’d simply confirmed his own reputation.

“I appreciate your willingness to serve His Beatitude, Ermacora. Your leadership is appreciated. Let us make all haste.”

~ ~ ~

Each minute passed like her days in the tower while Isobelle waited for the ship to start moving. Every man who glanced Gaspar’s way added a weight to her stomach. Boats came and went, and more boats arrived at the quay. And any of them, from a distance, might have been carrying the patriarch’s men. Only there was no telling, without an eyeglass, until the boat grew close enough to see its occupants.

After a while, she couldn’t bear to watch any longer.

A few of Ermacora’s overdue men tried to climb aboard, but the theatrical captain pushed them back into the water as a lesson in punctuality. Eventually, the ship began moving and in her excitement, Isobelle glanced at Gaspar, hoping to share at least a silent bit of relief, perhaps even joy. But the handsome man was turned away, as he’d been each time she’d looked to him. In appearance at least, he’d turned back into the controlled, unapproachable man who had arrested her.

“Dinna worry so,” James whispered in her ear. “He has to wear the dragon mask for the now, aye? Dinna put words in his mouth, or guess his thoughts.” He chuckled. “But ye can take comfort in the fact he’s being eaten from the inside with jealousy, because I hold yer hand.”

She was ashamed by how much comfort the idea did give her. In fact, it brought a cheerful smile to her face, but she was careful to turn that smile on the waters, and not where anyone would see it. She’d kept her head down and her hair covered well, looking no one in the eye since they’d boarded. Ossian would not know her if he were standing right beside her, and not just because she was lighter an armful of hair. She was that changed. Her old self would have started frightening the sailors the moment she’d stepped on board.

~ ~ ~

The ship was a two-masted caravel that traveled much faster than the larger Spanish carrack, even when riding low in the water with a cargo of glass. There were only eight oars to each side, but there was much less ship to move. Another few minutes and they would near the Porto di Lido and leave the islands and lagoon behind.

The captain barked an order and suddenly the oars lifted from the water and hovered above it. Isobelle willed them to lower and resume their work, but her will had no effect. The ship slowed quickly while the captain descended the few steps from the upper deck. He strode directly to Gaspar and leaned close.

“Two lanchas approach, Signore…filled with the patriarch’s guards. I wonder…if you would prefer to wait for them. They seem most anxious to stop us. Perhaps they are hoping to be of assistance to you.” The Italian captain’s eyes watched Gaspar closely. “But if your business is too urgent to delay…”

The side of Gaspar’s jaw jumped, the man unable to sit quietly within the beast. And Ermacora saw it. But there was no time for chess moves. They were about to be boarded, and he couldn’t allow that, for it would mean Isobelle’s death. Capitulation was vital.

“You are quite right.” Gaspar gave a nod. “My business is too urgent. I shall have to manage without their assistance.”

The captain turned and shouted for the oarsmen to resume, and the wood blades dug back into the water like the claws of a single animal. Grasp, release. Grasp, release. And the ship moved.

Another man called out from the bow. After a warning look to Gaspar, Ermacora ordered the oars up again. “It seems the patriarch’s guards are well motivated, Signore. They move to block our escape, risking their very lives.”

Gaspar was tempted to look, but since there was still a chance those in the small boats did not yet know Gaspar and his party were aboard. However, if the caravel was searched…

The captain moved closer still. “The damage to my ship will be minimal, but the damage to my soul might be expensive indeed.” The man glanced at the old trunk at James’ feet, then back to Gaspar.

He didn’t know if James spoke Italian or not, but the big man seemed to sense the danger and reached for something at his back. But Gaspar shook his head. James could not use his small black weapon now. Those young men in black uniforms would not die because of him. And it seemed the captain had not surrendered just yet.

Gapsar nodded again to Ermacora. “Unquestionable compensation, Captain.”

The man frowned, wasting precious time. “Is it your money, or does it belong to The Patriarch of Venice?”

“Mine.”

Ermacora smiled. “Then I shall have no qualms about taking it.” He strode quickly to the port side and shouted over the rail at the unseen boats. “Stay back, my friends, or we will send your lanchas to the bottom of the lagoon! I was warned at Murano that the patriarch’s guards carry the Black Death. Even now, you come too close.”

A denial came from the distance along with a command to allow them to board.

Ermacora laughed. “You leave me no choice. I hope your men can swim.” He then ordered the oars back in the water and for the crew to brace themselves for impact.

Gaspar translated for James and Isobelle.

Ermacora walked back to them. “I suggest you and your friends go into my cabin immediately.” He gestured to a set of steps that led beneath the upper deck. “And decide how much I am to be compensated.”

Gaspar gave the captain a grateful bow and led the others away before they might be noticed. James brought the trunk and Gaspar took the opportunity to take Isobelle’s hand to pull her along. Icarus followed.

“And consider carefully, Dragon,” Ermacora said to their backs, “the worth of a soul.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Edinburgh, two weeks later…

Isobelle sat glaring at James and hoping the gash on his chin hurt him something fierce. He and Gaspar had been poking at each other for the past week and she was prepared to clunk their heads together if they went at it again.

They were seated around a corner table at the Black Hart Coaching Inn, but she kept her head covered with a dark hood in case the serving women might gossip. Anyone who caught sight of her unsettling hair would find it difficult to keep their tongues between their teeth, and if anyone recognized her from some visit to Castle Ross…

Of course, it was difficult not to draw attention to a party that consisted of scarred dragon with a black eye and a giant with hair the color of flame and a handsome, foreign look about him—though, when he opened his mouth he could be nothing but a Scot. His French accent was atrocious, but Icarus had proven the most talented with that language. In fact, the little man had decided that France was the best place for them to part company. He had his freedom, after all. And James had hesitated when asked if the little man might be welcomed when they met up with Monty.

“It isn’t that he won’t be welcomed, mind ye. More like he may wish he hadn’t gone. There would be no coming back.”

Icarus hadn’t liked the sound of that detail, so he’d disembarked in Cherbourg. Gaspar spent a good while thanking the man before Icarus disappeared, becoming part of the crowd moving along the docks.

Now, they were three, sitting in an inn, stuffing their gobs, as James put it, and waiting for horses.

Isobelle noticed that Gaspar grimaced and turned his head to the wall each time a well-dressed woman entered the Inn. And after he’d reacted the same way half a dozen times, she teased him about it.

“You will remember,” he said quietly, “that I have known a fair share of noble Scotswomen from my years at the English court. I merely prefer not to be recognized.”

She sat straight when she did, indeed, remember what he’d shared with her about his youth. And she suddenly understood why the man had been fighting with James. He was jealous. Fearful James might win her away from him. It was the same way she now felt about the better-dressed women in the room, as if each of them might have known her dragon, even if it was long, long ago.

James wanted to know more. She told him to shut his gob. And when Gaspar started laughing at James for having been put in his place, she slapped his arm, though gently.

Then James snorted.

Isobelle glared at the big man. “I will not stand for more of yer nonsense.” Gaspar laughed again and she turned her glare to him. “Nor yers, ye daft dragon. If ye wish to punish every man who looks my way, and I begin punishing the women for looking at ye, the whole of Scotland will be orphaned, ye ken? I’m yers, ye eegit. Ye must be content with that. Ye canna be the only man to see me unless ye lock me in a tower, aye?” Then she rolled her eyes dramatically. “Oh, but that didna work so well, did it?”

Gaspar sobered, then grumbled an apology to her.

“Not to me, my love. Apologize to Wee James.”

Gaspar gave a devilish smile. “I beg yer pardon…Wee James.”

James’ grin fell from his face. His jaw ground back and forth, then he winced and stopped abruptly. He continued to glare at Gaspar while he put his finger gently to his damaged chin.

Isobelle sighed and got to her feet. “Lads,” she said in disgust, and glanced toward the door for signs of their horses. She was anxious to quit the place if only to be free of prying eyes. But there was no sign yet of the stable lad.

“Isobelle Ross!” A voice called from behind her as she turned back to the table and she froze like a stone. If she turned, someone would know they’d identified her correctly. If she ignored them…

She looked frantically to Gaspar and noted the tiniest shake of his head. Then he said something to her in Italian, as if they were in the middle of a discussion. He looked at her, as if waiting for her to respond in kind. But she could count her Italian words on ten fingers.

“Troppo grasso,” she said with a shrug. The veil beneath her hood draped down both sides of her head and she tucked it closer to her cheeks.

“Forgive me.” The stranger was suddenly at her shoulder. He spoke English. “I have seen you before, have I not?”

Again, Gaspar shook his head and stood, for which she was grateful, since she was fair to certain she was about to collapse to the floor and she hoped he might catch her.

“You have me at a disadvantage, sir.” Gaspar didn’t reach for her. In fact, he moved away from her a bit.

“I am Father Clellan. And you are surely Gaspar Dragotti? Special Investigator to The Patriarch of Venice?”

“I am Dragotti.” If he would have said, “I am a dragon,” he would have been believed as well, his old confidence was that effective. He hoped a stern look would convince the man to leave him in peace.

But the unwelcomed priest lingered. “You will find this amusing then, Signore. When I first glimpsed this lady, I mistook her for a young woman who had once been condemned as a witch. A Scottish woman, in fact.”

The priest tilted his head to one side to get a better look at her. Gaspar stepped further away and she realized he did so to lure the man’s attention from her. When the man continued to peer around her hood, Gaspar gestured for the man to come to him, which he did. Finally free of his attention, she stepped closer to James and bent as if to speak to him. Then she listened.

“Father Clellan, I promise not to translate your words, so Signore Crescento will not be offended. In these frightening times, you can understand why she would not view your mistake as amusing.”

The priest stammered. “Uh…uh… Of course, of course! And travelling with God’s Dragon…” He gasped. “Of course. Forgive me.”

After an uncomfortable pause, Gaspar continued. “This is the problem with our kind, Clellan. We have condemned innocent women for less, have we not?”

Through the edge of her veil, she watched the priest nod until he grasped what he was confessing to. His head stopped and his eyes widened.

Gaspar raised an imperious brow. “We must work harder to find the truth. Must we not?”

Clellan nodded quickly, then looked awkwardly about him. James stood and the priest started, then offered Gaspar a shallow bow.

“Forgive me, Signore. I have Mass to prepare. Godspeed to you and… He waved a hand toward her and James. “I am at St. Mary’s.” He started backing away. “If you have any need of my services, you need only send word.”

Gaspar only nodded. Clellan turned and scurried away like a nervous rat.

Once the man was gone, Isobelle sat again, breathing unsteadily. Clellan had been the priest to whom young Orie had confessed. And the bastard who’d condemned her to die had come from St. Mary’s as well. The one whose hands Montgomery had offered to cut off.

And he was probably still there in Edinburgh! Within minutes from her! But she wasn’t thinking of discovery just then—she was thinking about revenge.

Gaspar and James, no longer squabbling, both stood over her protectively. She opened her mouth to tell them…something, but she couldn’t form the words. She was both terrified and seething with hatred. There was little doubt—if she asked them—that the two men beside her would send the man to Hell…

But the words would not come.

Unfortunately, her tears had no such trouble and poured freely down her cheeks to splash on her veil now bunching at her neck.

Gaspar pulled her up and into his arms in spite of a wide room filled with witnesses. After pressing her head briefly against him, he pulled back to look into her eyes.

“Je suis désolé,” he said in French. “There is no English way to express it accurately. I am desolated for you, that you should have suffered such torture at the hands of men…like me. And then, for the benefit to fall to me—one of them.” He shook his head feverishly. “How can you possibly forgive me, sweet Isobelle?”

Suddenly, she felt much too wonderful looking into Gaspars warm eyes, and all thoughts of revenge melted through her fingers. As close as she was to vengeance, as easily as she might reach for it, she knew that there was a choice to make—one and not the other. Gaspar and happiness and love, or hate and anger and vengeance. An easier choice had never been.

She smiled and put her hands to the sides of his head to sooth him. “I found Paradise, my dragon. It matters not how I found it.” She rose to her toes and kissed him long enough for him to believe her. Then she sighed. “Now. Let us go home, aye?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Monty stood with Ivar in a room his modern wife and her sister had dubbed his Man Cave, though the only stone in the room surrounded the hearth. And if it weren’t for his insisting against it, Jillian might have allowed the contracting man to use false stones. Why would the world have invented false stones when true stones lay on the ground for the taking?

It was one of the symptoms of an ill civilization, he was certain.

He and Ivar turned at the sound of ice tinkling against glasses.

“The Muirs are coming,” Jillian announced as she entered the newly painted room.

Monty rushed to her and took the tray heavy with drinks and gave her a scowl. “Firstly, ye shouldna be toting heavy things about in yer condition, and not in a newly painted house, aye? The fumers—”

“Fumes,” she corrected and rolled her eyes. “And the paint is dry.” She took one of the glasses from the tray and handed it to Ivar.

“And second, ye should never walk into a room and announce that those meddling old women have come to call. Ye should invite us to sit and brace ourselves before ye share the bad news, aye?”

Jillian nodded. “I see your point there.”

“And third.”

Her brows rose in the way they did that warned him about lecturing overmuch. She had issues with being ordered about, whatever that meant. After all the months he’d spent in her century, he was beginning to have issues with the word issues.

“And third,” he said again. “I dinna care to hear ye lie, Jillian. Even when ye’re but jesting with me.”

He set the tray on a chair and took a glass for himself. Lemonade, they called it. He was fair to certain it was puckering his innerds, but he couldn’t seem to quit the stuff.

His wife grinned. “I wasn’t lying, Montgomery. My aunts are here.”

Lemonade spouted from his lips and he fought to keep it from climbing up his nose. He glared at Jillian, then looked around him at the damage done. He’d sprayed the stuff all over the floor and Ivar was wiping his face with the back of his sleeve, his eyes promising some sort of revenge.

“Ye see what happens when ye call them family?” Monty pointed at the wet little circles on the subfloor. “It is good the carpetors have yet to arrive.”

“Carpet layers,” she corrected.

No matter what they were called, Monty worried that once he had his carpets and the wee castle was finished, he might never allow anyone inside for fear of mussing his home.

The twenty-first century was a grand place for keeping clean, and he rather liked the idea of his new home stayin’ that way. If he weren’t clean enough and needed to go indoors, he’d simply walk over to Ivar and Morna’s castle and muddy their floors instead.

His sister’s home would be finished in the next day or two as well. Of course, she’d married a MacKay, so she’d be living on the far side of the burn. Monty and Jillian—and their expected sons—would live on the Ross side. The trees that used to surround the Ross/MacKay burn back in the 15th century were gone long ago, but a peaceful forest still grew. And though the burn itself had turned into a small river, he and Ivar had decided there was not a more appropriate place to build their new homes.

Jillian and her twin sister, Juliet—who now lived beside Castle Ross—mocked Ivar and him for insisting on curtain walls around their modest keeps, but the women would never understand. A man must protect his family the best he knew how, and he and Ivar knew how to defend their homes with curtain walls. They were still working on collecting men at arms, but each time they found a fit man and made an offer, they were laughed at. When next they went to the city, they planned to consider a more sober sort.

There was a fine reason for the curtain wall that he didn’t share with his wife, however—that one day he and Ivar might have another falling out, as they’d once done, and Monty wanted a wall between them in case that day came. And Ivar, being no fool himself, was no doubt preparing for the same. Of course he couldn’t fathom anything that might cause such a rift between them again. But the fact was, it had happened once, so it could happen again. Especially if Monty and Jillian’s boys got into mischief one day with their MacKay cousins and sides needed to be taken.

And just as the mason had said, who’d built those walls, a good fence a good neighbor makes, or something to that effect.

The three of them took their drinks and went outside to meet the witches. Monty claimed he wished to breathe unpainted air, but what he truly wished was for Loretta and Lorraine to never step foot inside his home. If they stopped to admire a wall, Monty would worry he might one day find a tunnel on the other side of it. The two simply could not be trusted.

Morna’s black SUV pulled through the gate just as the old sisters were climbing out of their small car. Ivar kissed his wife at the bottom of the stairs, then greeted the sisters cheerfully, damn him.

Monty opened his mouth and Jillian reached a hand up to cover it. Then she gave him a stern look. “Be nice,” she said.

Monty rolled his eyes. When was he ever un-nice?

“Welcome,” he said to his sister and assumed the witches would think he was talking to them all. Then he turned to Jillian and smiled innocently.

She rolled her eyes and abandoned him to greet the unwanted ones. He bit his tongue and withheld his aid as she swayed back and forth down the steps. She’d warned him, if he lectured her again on breathing, walking, and the like, she would go live with her sister until the babies were born. And he believed her.

Of course, if the witches hadn’t come visiting, there’d have been no need for her to descend the stairs yet again.

One of the old sisters looked up at him sharply and wrinkled her nose. “One day, you’ll appreciate us, Montgomery Ross.”

“Oh, I do. I do,” he said for Jillian’s benefit. “What do ye think of our new homes? ‘Tis a pity they’re not closer to Castle Ross where ye might pop in whenever ye like, aye?”

The other sister finished hugging his wife and grinned knowingly at him, but he refused to believe the woman kenned something he did not.

“They’re fine houses, both of them. Yer children will find happiness here.”

He snorted, though he was relieved to hear they weren’t predicting otherwise.

“We see just one problem,” said the first sister, grinning like a fool.

“Oh?” Ivar took Morna’s hand and gave the old woman his full attention. Jillian looked equally as concerned. Monty frowned, not happy in the least the sisters would make his delicate wife worry.

“What problem?” he demanded. And though the pair would prefer that he wring his hands and beg for their secrets, that was all the bending he would do.

The sisters smiled at each other, then turned to Morna. “Where will you put the third one?” they asked in unison.

“The third what?” Ivar wrapped a protective arm around his wife and threw a worried glance up at Monty. Monty shook his head to comfort the man, but they were likely both thinking the same thing—triplets for Morna.

“The third house,” said one sister.

“For Isobelle,” said the other.

Isobelle? It was but a whisper he never allowed out of his heart.

Monty would have collapsed on his step beneath him if his legs were not bidding him run. Instead, he moved to the side and started down the steps, leaning on the half-wall—as Jillian should have done—expecting his knees to fail him as he went to Morna and took her from Ivar. Together they faced the witches.

“Where is she?” He asked politely.

“She’s coming,” said the one. “But she doesn’t come alone.”

“Is it James?” Jillian asked.

And though Monty would be grateful if the man did indeed bring his sister to them, he couldn’t suppress the brotherly instinct to pummel the man if he had been wooing his sister. Even James, impressive as he was, was not worthy of Isobelle.

The other Muir sister shook her head and smiled. Her entire face was a waterfall of wrinkles. “She is bringing…a dragon.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Isobelle’s entire body shook as they neared Castle Ross just after midday. Her horse grew skittish as she could no longer control the trembling that increased with each step that brought her closer.

Home.

She was to see Castle Ross before moving on to where Monty, Morna, and Ivar awaited her. She would have one last chance to touch the place of her nightly dreams before it was tucked back in with the rest of her memories. But that’s all she’d dreamt of for nearly two years—one more chance to see it. A wish about to be granted. She could ask for no more than that.

What would they say at the gate?

“Let me do the speaking, lass.” James gave her a wink and urged his horse to the fore. When they reached the gate, a man waved to James, and before a word was said, the painfully familiar barrier swung open. He looked over his shoulder as they neared the inner bailey. “Ewan must have told them to watch for me, aye?”

Ewan. She was about to see Ewan!

They dismounted before the stables and she hurried inside to hide herself in the dimly lit out building. Gaspar joined her. James sent the stable lad to fetch his laird, then stood just inside the wide doorway. She’d kept the hood of her cloak far forward to hide her face, but now pushed it back a bit and peeked through a gap in the boards.

She thought the stable lad looked a great deal like Orie, the Smithy’s son, the one whose confession had been her doom. And she dearly wished she could show herself to the lad and share her secret—that she hadn’t died in the tomb after all—in case he thought himself to blame for her death.

Poor Orie. She’d thought about him often.

The number of men on the walls had been double what she remembered. The bailey was full to bursting with folks she didn’t ken. It was not unlike the crowd when Scots from other clans had come to view her witch trial.

Two large shadows entered the stable, but she looked away before she might be recognized.

“Laird Ross,” James said quietly, “may I present Signore Gaspar Dragotti, and his companion, uh…uh…”

Isobelle turned and found a finer dressed version of the cousin who’d nearly drowned her in spirits when she’d escaped her tomb.

“Ewan!” She rushed forward and jumped into the outstretched arms of the new laird. “Oh, Ewan! Ye look so fine!”

“Isobelle,” he whispered. “Odin kens I would be pleased to see you on any day, but…”

She pushed out of his embrace and gave him a good frown. “Oh? Do tell, cousin.”

He rolled his eyes and scooped her up again. “Doona be frowning at me first thing, Izzy. I was about to say that the chieftains of a dozen clans are in our home just now, and if it were another day, ye could have had free rein of the place. But now, no. The Gordon sent his wee son, Cinead, so there is at least one bastard who will recognize ye, if yer seen.”

He peeked over her shoulder and his eyes flew wide. Then he dropped her like she carried the Black Death and stepped back.

Isobelle turned to find a too-innocent Gaspar standing with his hands behind his back.

“Be nice,” she whispered.

“I am.” Gaspar and Ewan said it in unison and James laughed.

Ewan held out his hand. “Gaspar? Italian, are ye?”

“No. English.” And he folded his arms without looking at Ewan’s open hand.

Ewan turned a nasty look at Isobelle like she’d brought an Englishman just to vex him.

“He’s mine, Ewan. Ye’ll be nice to him. I dinna care if ye must tell yerself he’s The Pope himself. I’m keepin’ him.”

She grabbed her dragon by the arm and dragged him to her, then she pulled his head down until their lips met, giving him a kiss that was sure to make her cousin uncomfortable. Once that was accomplished, she growled against his lips.

“Shake his hand, Dragon. Or I’ll have ye kept in the dungeon for a time, aye?”

Gaspar’s hand shot past her toward the scraggly cousin. Then he grinned while Ewan tried to shut his mouth.

“I’m keeping her. Just so you know it.”

Ewan sighed, then shook the offered hand.

“Just as bossy as e’er ye were, Izzy. And where is our Ossian, then?”

Isobelle opened her mouth to explain, but Gaspar stopped her with a hand on her arm. He took a shaky breath and looked into her eyes. “I hired Ossian as a crossbowman…and sent him to the New World…so I might get my hands on Isobelle.”

Isobelle reacted to the news without much thought. She simply pulled back and threw her fist into the man’s jaw. How dare he wait so long to confess such a thing?

The man stumbled back, but James was there to catch him. Ewan showed a lairdly amount of patience and manners by allowing the man to get his balance before he dealt his own blow to the same abused jaw. Then he turned to Isobelle.

“Instead of shaking his hand, I should have cut it off!”

James stood watch again while Isobelle and Ewan sat in a pile of fresh hay and waited for the dragon to stir.

“I’ll let Monty give ye the particulars, but I will tell ye that yer brother saw the error of his ways, ye might say, and helped Morna get free of her Gordon husband. Cinead believes Morna threw herself into the sea and drowned. But she was verra much alive when last I saw her.”

Gaspar woke with a start and she put a hand to his chest to assure him.

Ewan grinned. “While ye slept, ye English bastard, we cut off those hands ye were speaking about.”

Horrified, Gaspar pulled his hands up to see, then sighed in relief. Ewan got to his feet laughing, then offered to pull the other man to his feet as well.

Gaspar grinned, then took Ewan’s hand. But instead of Gaspar rising, Ewan was pulled forward and with an Italian boot applied to his middle, he was tossed over, onto his back in the hay.

James joined them and helped Isobelle stand, then rolled his eyes at the other two.

“One of the witches is coming, Laird Ross.”

Gaspar jumped to his feet and crossed himself. Ewan nodded, as if he thought crossing himself was a grand idea, and did so.

Isobelle rolled her eyes, then took Gaspar’s hand in hers. “I havena forgiven ye fer sendin’ Ossian away, mind, but ye look as if ye might faint.”

A figure slipped through the doorway and uncovered its head. It was Mhairi, and Isobelle would have gone to her and given her a hearty greeting if Gaspar’s fingers hadn’t squeezed hers so securely.

Mhairi waited for her eyes to adjust to the shadows, then hurried to join them. She looked worried when she recognized Isobelle.

“We saw a dragon,” she whispered.

Isobelle laughed. “Mhairi Muir, Gaspar Dragotti.” She nodded at each in turn. “My dragon.”

Mhairi smiled broadly. “That’s fine. That’s fine. I didna think we could fit a dragon into the tomb…”

Isobelle stiffened at the mention of the infernal thing. “What do you mean?”

Mhairi looked at James, then at Ewan. Both men looked sheepishly at their boots.

“Weel, now. This is a fine mess. And with no time to explain. The chieftains are restless, Ewan. They’ll not wait on ye much longer. And we canna leave her standing about, aye?”

James frowned, “Why do they wait?”

“For Ewan’s weddin’ to begin, of course.”

Ewan grimaced. “There was hardly time… Ye dinna ken her, Isobelle. And ye canna be introduced, aye?”

“He’s right.” Mhairi tugged on Ewan’s arm. “Go on and get marrit. Then meet us below for a proper fare thee well.”

Ewan kissed Isobelle on the cheek and hurried away.

Then Isobelle turned to Mhairi, dread filling her limbs until she couldn’t feel them any longer.

“Mhairi? What do ye mean, below?”

“Now, dinna fash. We’ll send ye off to be with Montgomery and Morna in no time at all.” The woman gave her a wink.

“Oh? And will ye promise before God that me brother and sister yet live?”

Mhairi looked taken aback by the question, then smiled. “Oh, aye. They live. And where they live is a wondrous place. Ye’ll be quite happy, I assure ye.”

Gaspar put his arm around Isobelle’s shoulders and gave Mhairi a look he may have given many a woman accused of witchcraft. “Just where does her family reside?”

The woman started to speak, but James waved her off.

“They now live where I call home.”

“And where is that?”

James grinned and gave Isobelle a wink before turning back to Gaspar. “Why, in the New World.”

Gaspar choked and sputtered, but Isobelle wasn’t worried. That wink had given James away. His winks were a bit less frightening than ones from the witches.

Isobelle tilted her head and stared at the big man through narrowed eyes. “Ye must be jesting, James. There is something ye havena told us.”

The big man sighed. “Aye. There is. But I dinna want you to fret as yer bound to do. Ye see, the way to Montgomery and Morna… The way leads through yer tomb, lass.”

That numbness in her limbs came up to fill her head and the stable went dark, as if someone had doused the sun.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Gaspar didn’t know these people. There was little reason to trust them, especially when the person that led the rest around by their noses was a self-proclaimed witch. But he trusted James, and the big Scot vowed on his honor that he had, indeed, come to Castle Ross through this passage. And although Gaspar believed there was yet some secret with which they could not entrust him, he would be patient.

In truth, there was little to worry over but the witches. And since the one didn’t seem to be overly concerned with him, he ceased fretting over her. He would remain vigilant, of course, but once they were away from this place where Isobelle might be recognized, they could rest their minds. Besides, it hadn’t mattered where they came to roost, as long as he and Isobelle were together. If her brother’s home did not make Isobelle happy, they would simply move on. Together.

Isobelle’s hand trembled in his as they hurried through the kitchens. The cooks and maids were far too busy to pay them much attention. Just beyond the heavy steam and the savory smells of hot meat, there was a wide stairway that led down. The steps were lit by a lone torch at the bottom.

James stood at the top of the steps and gestured for Gaspar to precede him.

“Isobelle Ross!” The strange voice came from behind.

Gaspar urged Isobelle to go on without him, then turned to see who had spoken. A diminutive man came from the kitchens, his face red with outrage. “Let me pass!” he demanded. “I am Cinead, son of The Gordon and I demand you let me pass!”

“Oh?” James arched his brow at the little tyrant. “Only a son? And why do you spy upon The Ross’s stores?”

Cinead raised a short finger. “I saw her! Ye canna deny it! Isobelle Ross is here!”

James laughed with glee. “Of course she is here. Her ghost is always here. And on wedding days, she makes herself seen as well as heard. In fact, she attended yer sister’s wedding to Montgomery Ross, did she not?”

The little man sneered. “There was no wedding, and ye ken it. But now I see it was not a ghost, but the woman herself who haunts the place. Now let me pass!” He was a bold man to be so small and speak to a man four times his size. He turned his finger on Gaspar. “Ye held her hand coming through the kitchens.”

Gaspar lifted his hands in mock horror, much as he had when Ewan had told him they’d been cut off while he’d slept in the hay. “She held my hand? But why would she do such a thing. I’m English!”

The little man’s eyes flashed as he glimpsed the bottom of the stairs. “And low, here she is!”

Gaspar turned and found Isobelle dancing about just beyond the last step. She hummed a dissonant tune and swung her skirts from side to side.

“The kirk will hear of this,” Gordon hissed.

“I see nothing,” said James, then he looked suspiciously at Gordon’s son. “Do ye feel quite well?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Do not pretend—”

“Where is she?” Gaspar demanded. “What does she look like?”

The little fellow pointed and rolled his eyes. “That is Isobelle. I would ken her anywhere.”

“I see nothing,” Gaspar whispered to James. “Perhaps he has been drinking all day.”

“Ye!” Isobelle stopped dancing and gathered her skirts as if she might run up the steps. “Ye drove me Morna to her death! Murderer!”

Gaspar was grateful Isobelle whispered her rantings. If others came to the stairs, they could not continue to deny her presence.

The Gordon man screeched and drew a dagger from his belt, then pushed Gaspar off balance and slipped between him and James. Gaspar jumped down the steps to stop him. Isobelle danced away down the hall, laughing, but moving quickly just the same.

Gaspar got hold of the other man’s plaid sash and was able to slow him at least, and when the man surged forward to escape his grasp, the sash came free and the little man flew forward. He grunted when he hit the dirt floor, then stilled.

Gaspar warily turned the man onto his back and found the handle of the little dagger sticking at an odd angle out of his left side.

The man grinned up at him. “Ye see? She is real. Why else would ye fly to her aid?”

There were voices approaching the stairway, and he and James exchanged an anxious look. Then together they dragged the little man down a corridor, out of sight of the stairs.

“What shall we do with him?” James asked.

“Stop the bleeding as best we can.” Gaspar knelt over the little body and took hold of the blade’s handle. The man hissed as the dagger slipped from his body.

“A shallow entry,” Gaspar announced. “He will live.”

Isobelle stood behind James where the Gordon man couldn’t see her. Gaspar shook his head slightly and she disappeared again. Mhairi came forward with a basket of herbs and strips of cloth.

“Weel, now,” she said cheerfully. “What have we here? Laird Gordon’s son getting into mischief? I saw what happened, of course.” She tisked. “A bit light in the head, are ye, Cinead Gordon? To go and attack the big man just because he has the same red hair that our Isobelle once had? And ye accused him of being Isobelle herself?” She shook her head, tisking again. “What will yer father say, I wonder. He’ll wish to ken his son isna right in the head, I’m certain. So he can tend after ye carefully, aye? He favors ye so, does he not? Surely he’ll be most gentle.”

Cinead glowered at the woman even as she cleansed his wound and dressed it. It didn’t take long.

“Yer a witch,” he hissed, as she finished and stood. “The kirk shall hear about ye, and those who keep ye.”

Gaspar couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Gaspar Dragotti, Special Investigator to The Patriarch of Venice and the church’s servant. I have found no witches at Castle Ross. Only a man who believes he had seen the dead. Indeed, that warrants an investigation. Though I was hoping to be on my way…”

If Cinead Gordon understood nothing else, he realized that they would all stand together against him.

“I would return to the hall now,” he grumbled.

“Here now. What is amiss here?” Ewan entered the corridor and frowned down on the wounded man. “Gordon? What has happened here? And why are ye in me cellars?”

Gaspar lifted a brow and waited for Cinead to make whatever claim he dared.

“I slipped on the stair, Ross. And landed on me own dagger, ‘tis all.”

Gaspar inclined his head and the fellow relaxed a bit, though he was not a happy man.

“Daniel!” Ewan shouted and his man came running. “Help Gordon here to the hall.”

“Aye, Laird.” The young man lifted Cinead’s arm to help him rise, but the man was far too short to get a shoulder under. “By yer leave,” he finally said, then picked the man up in his arms like a baby. They all bit their lips to keep from laughing as the red-faced man was carried away.

Gaspar found Isobelle shaking like a dry leaf in a winter wind, cowering against the wall further down the corridor. Gaspar hurried to her and pulled her up into his arms. He held her until the trembling eased. Then he spoke low against the top of her head.

“We will not go, if you do not wish it.”

She nodded into his chest, then took a breath and shook her head instead. “I wish to go. I wish to see my family again. I will do whatever it requires to travel there, as long as ye are with me.”

James laughed. “The journey will not last as long as ye might think.”

She reached over and touched James’ arm. “Will ye come along with us, then? To show us the way?”

James grimaced, then nodded reluctantly.

“We have our sacrifice, sister.”

Gaspar looked up to find the witch and her twin standing farther down the corridor. One carried a small torch.

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “What is to be sacrificed?”

They laughed. “Not what ye think, Dragon,” said one. “The passage requires both love and sacrifice. There is love aplenty, I see, but James will sacrifice many an adventure, I think, to go along.”

Her sister nodded. “Not to fear, giant. Ye may return to us yet. We canna say.”

James tipped his head to one side. “Ye canna say? Or ye doona ken?”

The sisters laughed. “We canna say.”

James grinned broadly and rubbed his hands together. “Weel then. Yer brother awaits, Isobelle.”

Gaspar tried not to think of Monty and Morna as just more people who will vie for Isobelle’s attention.

Ewan took Isobelle’s hand and pulled her away. “Me bride awaits, as well, Isobelle. I must let ye go.” Then he gave a list of messages he wanted relayed to her brother. “And give Morna a kiss. And Jillian—that will make Monty sore, so dinna ferget to do it, aye?”

“Who is Jillian?”

Ewan laughed. “Jillian is the faery lass. Did James not tell ye the tale?”

Gaspar resisted the urge to cross himself again, but he thought that since the Muir Witches had been real people, then maybe this faery would be as well. His heart lightened instantly when Isobelle returned to his side and slid her hand into his.

They moved further into the cellars, then filed into a small room. He thought it ridiculous to climb up into the small stone tomb, but he could not falter for Isobelle’s sake. He simply placed all his trust in James.

And if James had led them astray, Gaspar would beat him to a bloody puddle.

“Dinna fash,” James repeated once the three of them were inside. “We’ll just cover the hole here…” He scooted a heavy round of wood, like a slice of a stump, into the hole at their feet without bothering to light a torch beforehand.

“Where is the door?” Gaspar reached out and pushed against the nearest wall.

“There’s no door but the hole in the floor.” James said. “But I think it best if we hold tight to each other for a moment before we open it.”

“James,” Gaspar said with warning in his voice. “Where do we go from here?”

A large hand reached out and took hold of Gaspar’s tunic. “It is not so much that we go anywhere. But I believe the tomb itself…goes, and we are…taken.”

“You are mad!” Gaspar whispered. Then he noticed Isobelle was shaking again. “Here. Open the hole again. We are finished with this.”

James’s hand held firm for a minute more. Then he sighed. “I hope it was long enough.”

There was a bit of whispering in the room below and as James fumbled with the wood, Gaspar grew more and more furious. But he would see Isobelle tended to before he took her kin to task. No matter what their secrets, their silliness could not be overlooked. First thing in the morning, she could bid them all a final fare thee well, and together, they would be gone from this place.

“Witches,” he sneered to himself.

The hole in the floor was suddenly open and the room below much brighter than when they’d left it.

“Don’t be grumbling about witches, Dragon.” An ancient woman frowned up at him. “You’ll thank us before the day is done.”

A strange ladder was suspended below the hole and James climbed down upon it first. Then the device was gone and a large man stood beneath the hole and frowned as the old woman had. “Is she up there, James? Ye didna come back without her, did ye?”

“Nay, Monty. She’s there, if her dragon will let her out.”

“Monty!” Isobelle fell to her knees. Then suddenly she squeaked and tipped forward. Gaspar barely caught her by the backs of her calves.

“Here, now. Let her go, ye bastard. I’ve got her, but ye must let her go.”

Gaspar released Isobelle’s feet and prayed she would be safe, though why her brother had suddenly arrived, he knew not.

“Come out, Gaspar. Ye’re safe here.” It was James’ voice.

“Gaspar?” Isobelle was now beneath the hole with her head tipped back and her lovely pink face smiling up at him. “I’ll begin kissing every man in sight until you come down from there.”

He needed no further provocation. “Then you’d best move to the side, my love.”

A heartbeat later, he landed on his feet before her and he was certain she hadn’t had the chance to kiss any of them. Unfortunately, there were a great many men in the room from which she might choose.

He pulled Isobelle behind him, but his hand was suddenly empty. He turned to find her wrapped in the arms of the large one who was hopefully her brother, though there was another man in the room that looked precisely the same.

“I assume you are Montgomery Ross,” Gaspar said by way of greeting. Then he gestured toward the man’s replica. “And I hope you are not also a set of witches.”

The brother grinned and opened his arms, allowing Isobelle to step away from him. Gaspar feared the man was going to embrace him as he had his sister, but he shouldn’t have worried. Montgomery Ross had nothing so affectionate in mind…

When the man’s fist failed to knock Gaspar to the ground, Isobelle beamed with pride. Too bad he allowed his attention to linger on her, for the second blow was much more effective.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Jillian was thrilled for Monty—he might finally be able to forgive himself for what had happened to Isobelle while he’d been head of their clan. She wanted to sit down and have a good cry on his behalf, but there would be plenty of time for tears later. For now, she had to keep from scaring the newcomers to death. Remaining calm was essential. No use having them run screaming out of the cellars only to die of shock once they got a glimpse of someone talking on a cell phone.

Once James, Isobelle, and Gaspar were out of the tomb and on their feet in the little workroom—and the latter recovered from his introduction to Montgomery’s fist—Jillian explained that they’d travelled forward in time and now stood in Castle Ross in the 21st century. Isobelle had laughed and thought it was a joke. Gaspar hadn’t even smiled.

“If there are witches and faeries in the world,” he’d said, “then anything might be possible.”

“And if Isobelle has allowed her hair to be cut,” said Morna, “then the world is not what any of us knew it to be, aye?”

They waited until Isobelle understood they were serious then gave her a moment to accept it. With a firm hold on both Gaspar and Morna, she seemed ready to at least try.

Since there were twelve people packed in the little room, they were all relieved when Isobelle and Gaspar were ready to be exposed to the 21st century. They filed out of the workroom and up into the hall. The Muir sisters were followed by James, then Juliet and Quinn and their son Percy, Morna and Ivar, and Isobelle and her handsome friend. Jillian and Montgomery brought up the rear, mostly because she was too pregnant to climb the stairs quickly.

It only took a good look at the drastic changes to the hall, with its red velvet tourist trappings and crumbling stones, to convince Isobelle. As agreed beforehand, Jillian and the rest bit their tongues and resisted revealing too much too fast. Instead, they allowed the two newcomers to ask the questions. They’d also agreed not to speak of cars and airplanes and television until necessary. They figured computers could maybe wait a month.

To the disappointment of two dozen tourists, they closed Castle Ross for the day. And as someone who had once been a tourist of the castle, hoping to have a peek at the famous necklace of Isobelle Ross, Jillian felt truly sorry they had to be turned away. But she had also helped Monty, Morna and Ivar adjust to the shock of the 21st century, and she knew the best thing for Isobelle and her man was to keep them inside the castle until some things had been explained.

It didn’t help matters that James hadn’t given them any warning.

It had all been decided long ago that seniority-wise, Montgomery was rightful Laird of Castle Ross, even though the clan now consisted of the immediate family at that point. So, since her husband was The Shiz, and she, Lady Shiz, Jillian ducked outside and did her lady-of-the-castle duty and called for supplies on her cell. She figured they might be in for a long siege. There was no telling how much time the couple would need to process each bit of information, and Jillian made it clear to the others there would be no rushing. She wasn’t going to see her newly reclaimed sister-in-law end up in the loony bin.

The modern-though-ancient set of Muir sisters produced umbrellas and massive sunglasses from their car and, together with young Percy, sat in folding chairs at the entrance to the car park, prepared for whatever weather came up. To be helpful, they sent the tourists away as gently as possible. The excuse that upset the fewest people was to claim that an intervention was being staged for one of the family members with a substance-abuse problem. Most folks nodded in understanding and turned back without much grumbling. For where better than Scotland might someone need help overcoming their love for the drink, or whatever it might be?

That explanation was much better than Lorraine’s first suggestion—she’d wanted to tell everyone the castle was closed for the annual meeting of the local witch coven. Montgomery threatened to cut out her tongue, and Loretta’s too, if she so much as mentioned witches. He’d been suspected of being a witch one too many times that day. Lorraine really should have known better than to tease him.

Jillian could tell Isobelle and Gaspar weren’t the only ones who would need adjusting since Monty couldn’t keep from glaring at the couple’s clasped hands. So she watched and waited, knowing there would be trouble, but confident she carried an ace up her sleeve for when that trouble came.

By the time the pizzas arrived, they’d covered the basics. A bit of history, a lot of plumbing, and the circumstances that brought Morna and Ivar back together. Jillian thought it best not to let Isobelle know that she and her sister, Juliet, were also, quite probably, Muir Witches. They were still trying to wrap their own heads around it. But she did admit to being the faery prophesied to reunite Morna and Ivar—though she insisted she wasn’t a true faery, just a woman who’d been put inside a tricky tomb.

Gaspar seemed relieved to hear it, but he often glanced between her and her sister Juliet, who resembled her in every way except her darker hair. The pink hair extension drew the man’s attention every few minutes, but he looked afraid to ask.

For lack of chairs, they sat about on the floor while they ate. Monty insisted Jillian at least sit on the edge of the dais. The pizza didn’t seem to bother the new couple, and remembering what 15th century cuisine was like, Jillian wasn’t surprised. James was eager to list an entire menu of things he intended to eat, in order of priority. Morna told what foodstuffs she missed the most, but admitted there were plenty of things to make up for the loss, like chocolate. Food, it seemed, was safe topic that eventually helped everyone relax—everyone except Montgomery.

“James,” Monty barked. “Let’s you and I take the old sisters something to eat.” He stood and started piling pizza on a paper plate.

Since Monty usually didn’t care if Loretta and Lorraine fell off the face of the earth, Jillian knew something was up. But he gave her a look that warned her not to meddle. She gave him a warning look of her own, but didn’t say anything as the two men left the hall.

She turned to find Gaspar looking at their disappearing forms. Then he turned his gaze directly at her. His brows were slightly drawn together, and she felt that, deep beneath that calm and cool exterior, he was a shaking, nervous wreck. She’d noticed how he’d kept Isobelle on his left side and his right hand near the hilt of his sword. And she didn’t think all that wariness came from the fact that he’d just been plunged into completely foreign circumstances.

The man was afraid of Montgomery. But why?

She narrowed her eyes and asked him, silently.

In answer, he gave her a frighteningly vulnerable look, squeezed his eyes shut, then turned away.

The pizza did a somersault in her stomach and she looked around for Juliet. They exchanged a thought.

“Something is wrong here.”

And from a strange, inner distance, she heard another thought from the Muir sisters sitting outside.

“You must keep the dragon away from the tomb!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“Isobelle,” Jillian said loudly, drawing the young woman’s attention away from Morna. “Lorraine and Loretta, our own set of Muir sisters, told us you’d be bringing a dragon with you. We were prepared for just about anything to come out of the hole. I think some of these guys were a little disappointed you didn’t bring a small scaly pet along.”

Everyone chuckled, then waited for Isobelle to reply.

She smiled wide and shared a glance with Gaspar. Then she nodded at him. “This is my dragon. Gaspar Dragotti—”

“God’s Dragon!” Monty’s voice boomed around them as he strode menacingly in Gaspar’s direction. “Surrender your sword!”

Ivar and Quinn jumped to their feet and moved quickly to surround Gaspar. James reappeared, looking both sheepish and angry. His right hand was tucked behind him and Jillian realized he kept his gun there. But they’d dealt with the man when rescuing Juliet from a 15th century Gordon chieftain and Jillian trusted him to keep a level head, even though Monty was over-reacting. After all, James was familiar with Monty too.

Poor Isobelle’s mouth hung open, and she shook her head as Gaspar pulled his hand from hers and rose to his feet. Then he gave a heavy sigh and removed his sheath and sword from his belt. Ivar took them and glanced at Monty for some explanation. But her husband’s attention was on Gaspar and no one else.

Isobelle reached up to Quinn and he helped her to her feet. “Until you hear the entire tale, brother, I insist you hold your judgment.” She gave James a disappointed look.

The tall one shook his head. “He didna give me the chance to say much. Only what I learned before I found ye on the island, aye? Only who he was and that he’d taken ye. For all I knew then—”

“He is one of them, Isobelle.” Monty choked on his emotion, then growled past it. “He tries witches, puts them to death. Deny it, Dragon!”

Gaspar’s eyes narrowed. “I do not deny that I have put women to death—”

Isobelle stepped closer to Gaspar. “Only when there was no way to save them, Monty. He saved as many as he could.”

“Is that what he told ye, mavournin’? To win yer…affection?” Monty hissed the last word.

Tears washed silently down Isobelle’s face, but she stood proud. “He saved me, brother. He saved me from myself, then he saved me from the kirk’s men. Just as ye did. Was it so long ago?” She looked at her tomb still perched on the dais. “I remember the last stone ye placed there, brother.”

There was a long silence while both of them stared at the aging structure.

“Blow us a kiss,” Monty whispered. “And douse the light…”

He often mumbled those words in his sleep. It meant he was stuck in the nightmare again, and he never came out of it easily. She just hoped that Isobelle’s arrival might mean the end of those long, horrible nights.

“Gaspar sacrificed himself,” Isobelle said, bringing Monty’s attention back from the tomb. “He offered himself in my place so James might bring me home to you. But we got him away as well. The man he thought of as a father planned to torture him, perhaps kill him, and he accepted it gladly if James was allowed to take me away. He was a powerful man and he lost everything for loving me, Monty.”

“And now he will lose a little more, I think, for locking my sister in a cage. I cannot bear to think what else ye have done to her.”

Gaspar’s arm shot out and the back of his hand connected with Monty’s cheek. “How dare you do her the dishonor!”

Jillian wanted to run to Monty, but she stood still with the stone image of her husband at her back. Constant as that stone image—that’s what Monty was. He fiercely loved everyone who belonged to him, a true laird of his clan. And he was clearly in Hell at the moment because he hadn’t been there to protect Isobelle yet a second time.”

“We will let our blades decide who has dishonored my sister,” Monty snarled.

James pushed past Ivar to get in Monty’s face. Jillian hoped Scotland’s James Bond could stop the fight, since she wasn’t able to breathe, let alone speak.

“You canna kill him, Monty. I willna allow it. I’m still in Her Majesty’s service until I’m told otherwise. If ye try to kill this man—”

“I am not dead yet,” Gaspar said with a smile.

Isobelle pushed herself between the men and held Gaspar behind her. “I will not allow it!”

Monty ignored her. “Fine, then. We will not fight to the death, but to first blood. That shouldna tax ye beyond bearing, Dragon.” He put his hands on his hips as he often did when he thought he could lay down the law. “If ye are the victor, my sister may keep ye. And if I draw first blood, ye will climb back into the tomb and return from whence ye came. And if ye’d prefer not to face me blade, ye’re welcome to hie thee home while I fetch me weapon.”

“No!” Isobelle shrieked. “He is in as much danger from the kirk as I ever was, Monty. He canna go back! The man from whom he saved me will send men to hunt him and kill him, and only because he defended me! And I’ve finished with it, brother. I’ve finished with others suffering because of my foolishness. Do ye hear?”

Monty turned away from her, still caught up in his own emotions.

“I love him, brother. I love him as sure as ye love yer wife! And ye, and Ossian, and Ewan—ye teased me all me life that no man could ever love me, but ye were wrong.”

Isobelle’s declaration fell on deaf ears as Monty avoided looking in Jillian’s direction and left the hall. Jillian was torn between running after him and keeping her eye on Gaspar. If the Muirs had some idea of what was going to happen, she thought the safest thing was to follow their advice and keep the dragon away from the tomb. Besides, she knew better than to try and stop Monty when he was in warrior mode. He was going to be fighting a man with a sharp blade and she wasn’t about to cause him any distractions.

Gaspar and a distraught Isobelle moved away from the others and bent their heads together, and Jillian looked away to allow them a little privacy. This was no time to inform the woman that another man named Luthias had loved her so much her supposed death had driven him mad. That story would wait until Monty’s tantrum was over.

Quinn had drawn Juliet into his arms and they held each other silently, probably remembering how it was not so long ago they had to fight to be together.

Morna stood a bit behind Isobelle, ready to comfort her sister if she could, but all the while she carried on a silent conversation with her husband, Ivar, who stood holding Gaspar’s sword and sheath, waiting on Monty.

Always watching each other’s backs, Ivar and Monty. And she could imagine them as young boys, becoming like brothers, one test of bravery at a time. It gave her hope for her own sons, that one day they would have each other’s backs. Too bad they would probably support each other in some pretty stupid stuff too—like fighting someone with a real sword.

But she’d seen Monty fight. She’d seen all of them fight. And the one to worry about was Gaspar. Even if he were hiding some impressive dragon scales beneath his tunic, he was in trouble. And if Monty ordered him back into the tomb? She had to decide just how far she’d go to stop him. After all, they each owed Isobelle a debt for starting it all. If she’d never tried to help Ivar and Morna, none of them would be together.

None of them.

There was movement, and Jillian watched as Gaspar kissed Isobelle on the forehead and then turned her, to hand her off to Morna. Then he headed for the archway that led to the kitchens. Juliet frowned at her—Quinn had her locked in his arms and it didn’t look like she would be getting out any time soon. The guy had nearly lost her too many times to count, and he still wasn’t quite confident enough to let her get beyond arm’s length from him. Most of the time, they had to kidnap her and leave a note if they wanted to go shopping, and Quinn would still come looking for her. Poor guy.

Jillian found Gaspar standing at the head of the stairs that led to the cellars, but he wasn’t looking down, he was staring at the kitchens. There was an addition there that he wouldn’t have seen in the 15th century version.

He glanced at her, then back into the kitchen where empty pizza boxes covered every inch of an old table.

“She will love it here, will she not?” he said. They both knew which “she” he was talking about.

“Yes. Actually, no one cares if you’re a witch nowadays—not that Isobelle’s a witch, because she isn’t.”

He nodded. “I know she is not.”

“And no one bats an eye when a woman speaks her mind.”

That got his attention. “Truly?”

She nodded and smiled. “Truly.” Then she realized what he was saying. “Uh. You know, you’re going to be very happy here too.”

He smiled politely. “We both know that is not true. Your husband seems quite capable of spilling as much of my blood as he wishes to spill. But I believe I can avoid causing Isobelle too much shame.”

“So you plan to fight?”

“Yes.”

She glanced at the bottom of the stairs. “I thought maybe you were looking for the tomb.”

He shook his head. “No. Just wishing for a quiet moment to prepare for battle.”

“Ah. Well. Maybe I can help you there.”

His brows rose. “You would aid your husband’s opponent?”

She grinned. “I would, if that enemy promised not to hurt my husband too much.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Jillian thought it was ridiculous, really, how stoic all the women were as they stood on the sidelines. If most of them weren’t dressed in jeans and t-shirts, you’d think it was a medieval reenactment or festival of some kind. There was a simple stock fence that edged the field that ran between the manor house and the castle, mostly to keep tourists from parking their cars there. The four of them leaned on the top rail and waited for the men to come to their senses, or to need an ambulance, whichever came first. Poor Isobelle didn’t even know about ambulances.

What worried Jillian more than a little spilled blood, however, was the danger of Montgomery Ross starting a new nightmare. If he did force Gaspar out of Isobelle’s life, his sister might do more than just haunt his dreams.

Swords in hand, the men gave a slight bow, then to Gaspar’s credit, he advanced first. It just wasn’t fair that he was weighed down by his heavy tunic. In fact…

Jillian looked at her sister and shared an idea. Then together, they put their hands around their mouths and chanted, “Take it off! Take it off,” over and over again.

Monty stood in the middle of the field and waited for Gaspar to come to him. But the yelling distracted them both until finally, Monty demanded to know what they meant.

“Tell Gaspar he can take off the tunic,” she yelled. But she wasn’t about to tell him it was the kind of thing you shouted at strippers.

Monty nodded at Gaspar. The man handed his sword to Ivar and pulled off the gray tunic, leaving him wearing a strange shirt with sleeves actually tied onto the arm holes. But that didn’t keep her attention long because the only other thing the man was wearing was an incredibly revealing pair of hose. There was no codpiece. Just a lot of…stuff…where that codpiece should be.

As one, Jillian, Juliet, and Morna turned to look at Isobelle.

Isobelle frowned. “Why do ye look at me?” But it didn’t take long for her eyes to stray back to Gaspar’s body. Her eyes widened, and she bit her lips together.

Monty actually blushed and raised his sword to point at Gaspar, but lowered it quickly. “Quinn,” he shouted. “Ye’re of a size with the man. Lend him some clothing. And for pity’s sake, show him the loo.”

Jillian couldn’t help snorting because there wasn’t a chance in hell what they’d just seen was the man’s full bladder. Juliet suppressed her laughter, but just barely. She moved next to Isobelle and put her arm around the worried and still-innocent young woman.

Morna scooted closer to Jillian.

“Poor Monty,” she said.

“I know, right?”

“‘Tis just as it was that day he found me with Ivar at The Burn, aye?”

Jillian gave her sister-in-law a wink. “He’s going to catch on any minute now. Surely.”

“I pray so.”

Jillian gave the worried woman a grin.

Morna’s eyes widened and she leaned even closer. “Ye ken something. Tell me.”

“Let’s just say he’s about to have his memory refreshed.”

“Ooh. I like the sound o’ that, aye?” Then she frowned. “We canna allow him to send the Englishman back, Jilly. No matter what happens here.”

“Anything for Isobelle.”

Morna nodded and put her arm through Jillian’s. “And if the man turns out to be a monster, we send him back at the first show of fang or claw.”

While they waited for Quinn and Gaspar to return, she watched Monty as he looked the rest of them over like so many children—and he was the babysitter. He spent an especially long time frowning at Ivar while his friend smiled lovingly at Morna. And Jillian suspected the man was refreshing his memory all on his own.

~ ~ ~

Gaspar walked from the manor back to the field trying to block from his mind the things he’d just seen. The loo was impressive, as he’d been promised. But the carriage he’d seen rolling down the hillside had moved along without the aid of horses, as if it floated along some unseen waterway that remained constant no matter the angle. But the carriage that floated up the same hill?

He wished he might have been able to stay in this place long enough to discover the mechanism for that. Of course, he also would have liked to linger long enough to kiss Isobelle until she never had need of kissing again.

But that was not likely, and he prepared himself for the truth—that Isobelle would need more than just kissing and he wouldn’t be there to satisfy that need. She needed, and deserved, to be loved and cherished. To have a worthy man at her side and a hand to hold all her waking hours. To be appreciated for her wit, and to be unspeakably happy. And it was highly likely he would not be the man to supply any of it. After all, the chance was remote that Lady Ross’ instruction might aid him, even if he used it. But it was hardly honorable, and therefore, unlikely that he would employ the tactic.

The one called Quinn had been quite hospitable. The manor house was his, as it happened, returned to him when his sister and her family had moved to Edinburgh. He had a nearly-grown son, although he was wed to the young woman, Juliet, the lass with the strange hair. Quinn had confided that his marriage to Juliet had taken place in that very loo, only months ago, but it was never to be discussed.

Would that he might have lingered long enough to understand how two men so similar, but not brothers, had come to marry sisters that also mirrored one another. For all their lives, their children would likely mistake the wrong people to be their parents.

What brought his attention back to the battle at hand was his disgust with these people who took Isobelle’s wishes so lightly. Did Morna and Ivar not owe their happiness to Isobelle’s attempts to reunite them? For shame. On them all. And it grieved him to think of leaving her in their hands, especially with the brother who worried more about his pride than the truth. Montgomery Ross didn’t wish to believe his sister loved an Englishman, or that the Englishman loved her. He simply excused his actions with whatever of Gaspar’s sins he could find.

Albeit imprisoning Isobelle was a dreadful sin, it was a sin for which he’d been forgiven.

He should have known better than to remain when the barbarian greeted him with his fist. He should have fought his way back into the travelling tomb and pulled Isobelle up with him. They would have found another home, one they could have shared. Together.

Gaspar finally set his regrets aside and watched the line of women standing along the side of the field with their backs to the sun. Why then did they have need to shade their eyes while he walked past them? Did he look as foolish as he felt with his legs wrapped so tightly? And the tunic he’d been given was little more than a second skin. He felt decidedly naked, but he could not worry over such things with his last chance to impress Isobelle looming before him.

Ivar held his sword out to him, but he hesitated. He turned and held out a hand to the woman who inhabited every fathomable inch of his heart and unfathomable inch of his soul, and he thanked God when she hurried to his side.

“Dinna fight him,” she pled. “We will refuse to obey him. We leave here, run away. My sister will aid us, I know she will.”

He smiled down into her eyes. “I will not run away, Isobelle. And neither will you. You’ve wanted so long to be back with your family, I will not take that from you.”

“I doona care, my love. If they send you back, I go as well. I go where you go.”

She twisted the thin cloth at his neck and pulled him down to meet her embrace. Her lips tasted like the most precious of nectars and he willed himself to remember it always.

“Swear it to me, Gaspar. Tell it back to me. I go where you go.”

He smiled again. “I vow…that as long as you live…I go where you go.” And he sealed it with a kiss.

She nodded and stepped back, but the tears on her cheeks told him the truth, that she knew he’d just lied to her. Did she also know that it broke his heart to do it?

“Enough of this bletherin’!” Monty bellowed. “Ivar, restrain Isobelle if ye must,” he pointed his sword at Gaspar, “but it is time to defend her honor.”

Isobelle raised her chin and walked back to the fence without an escort. Gaspar took the offered sword from Ivar, then faced the Scotsman. “Yes. It is time. But it is I who defend her honor. En guard.”

And with that, he attacked. The jolt of first engagement seemed to come just a hair’s breath before the sound of it. His bones shuddered as each blow was met with equal force, and he reveled in it. Occasions for concentrated battle had been rare of late.

If Ross was surprised by his strength, he hid it well. The man’s attention to his swordplay was frightening. Since he’d met the man, a storm of emotions had ever been at play across his features. But as soon he lifted his sword, all expression fell away. Gaspar did his best to do the same.

“I see ye ken yer debole from yer hilt,” Ross said, beating Gaspar’s blade sideways, trying to knock it from his hand.

“I spent a good deal of time fighting pirates, my lord.” He spun on his heel and came around to strike the back of Ross’s blade, but the man’s fingering was as sure as his own. He retreated a step when the man answered in kind.

A few blows later, they had their just distance. Gaspar was surprised to find his reach was slightly longer than his opponent, but he took no false hope in the knowledge. The man could easily pound him into the ground like a troublesome spike if he chose to, he was that powerful. And yet, his blows were restrained.

Gaspar could not afford to pace himself. His best chance to draw Ross’ blood would be to do so while his strength was fresh. So he attacked again. But the big man met his tempo with ease, never feinting, never retreating. And Gaspar realized with a certain amount of dread that the man was toying with him as a cat toyed with a mouse until it was bored.

The least he could do was to keep the man entertained.

He waited for the right opportunity and tossed his blade into his left hand, then attempted a falso filo, slipping his blade beneath Ross’s and flicking the tip of the blade to cut the man’s hand. For the first time, Ross stepped backward and corrected the angle of his sword, pointing it at Gaspar’s neck so, if he attempted the same again, he’d impale his neck on the tip of Ross’ blade.

They both broke the line and breathed deeply while they circled each other, taking half-hearted thrusts every few steps. Ross watched for Gaspar to reverse hands again, so he might take advantage. But he was soon to learn that the dragon was skilled with his left hand as well, and he attacked with force to test the strength of that arm.

“I have lived twelve years in Venice, my lord. We row a great many boats with heavy oars. I believe you will find me equal to the task.” He wasn’t going to divulge the fact that his servant rowed most of the time.

“Ye must have pitifully small boats, aye? Because ye seem to be flaggin’. Would ye like me to step back and give ye the chance to change hands? Seems yer right arm was a wee bit stronger.”

Gaspar laughed and shook his head. Then he dropped his smile to concentrate on defending a forceful attack. He was honestly surprised his blade hadn’t shattered, so powerful were Ross’s blows. And Gaspar’s arms felt as if he’d already rowed out to his island, that he may not have the fortitude to row back.

The other man’s jaw clenched and he lunged forward, his blade aiming low toward Gaspar’s legs. He parried and jumped just beyond the man’s reach, but he doubted he could react so quickly a second time.

Without daggers, he felt safe to move close and stepped forward, his blade sliding against Ross’ blade until their crosses caught. He spoke in a low voice so the others would not hear him.

“Laird Ross, we both know how this will end, but I would beg a favor, before the coup de grace.”

For the first time since they began, the man frowned. “Aye?”

They separated with a hard push, then Ross attacked again. Gaspar deflected a blow and the swords slid together again.

Ross growled. “Speak.”

“Vow to me you will not allow Isobelle to follow me back. She will never be safe there.”

The man nodded once. “Aye. With or without a vow, I would never have allowed it.”

“I thank you just the same.”

They parted again and Gaspar fought against the pain of his breaking heart by attacking with all his might. As he was pulling away, he twirled the end of his blade, attempting to cut the man again. All he needed was to mark the man! But Ross’ size did nothing to slow him. His arms and feet moved as deftly as a thin lad being chased by chickens.

Four times he thought his blade would connect with flesh. Four times, he’d been wrong.

He growled in frustration. There was nothing for it. He was about to lose Isobelle. A dozen blows more. He could defend a dozen blows more, that was all.

Was this God’s punishment? Was he truly unworthy of her?

He shook his head. No. That could not be. He well be the only man who could love her as she deserved to be loved. He understood her like no other man could. What other man would understand the heart that beat inside Isobelle Ross—the woman who would sacrifice all for the sake of love alone, even if it was simply the love between two strangers?

No. He would not leave her. To love Isobelle was to stay at her side, no matter what the cost.

Gaspar had no choice but to use the weapon Lady Ross had placed in his hands. He thought himself above trickery, but he would sacrifice even his honor if he must. He couldn’t leave Isobelle. He couldn’t take her with him. So he simply would not go.

Gaspar found the strength to attack again—three blows, clang clang clang, then retreat, leaving Monty room to recover.

“Tell me, Laird Ross. Does yer wife have a brother?”

Ross delivered two powerful blows. Clang, clang. The second, Gaspar deflected.

“Nay,” the man growled. “Why do ye ask?”

Three more. Clang. Clang. Clang! Gaspar nearly dropped his weapon. He took a few deeps breaths, then was able to speak again.

“I wondered, if she’d had a brother…”

Two more blows. Clang, clang. He could defend two more, surely.

Ross frowned and lunged. Gaspar deflected and spun, but his foot caught and he fell to one knee. Clang.

One more. He had to stand and face just one more. But he couldn’t. He was barely able to raise his sword and point it at Ross. The big man slapped the blade away with his own.

Clang.

Gaspar could lift it no more.

“I wondered,” he panted, “what you might have told such a brother, once he learned you’d been holding Jillian prisoner in your castle?”

Monty’s sword hovered in the air, drawn halfway back to his shoulder. His frown made Gaspar wonder if, in his current state of fatigue, he might have slipped into the Italian language. He watched the long-sword, waiting for it to change direction and come for his head. But the tip of it drooped to the ground and Ross straightened. Then he sent a frown in Lady Ross’ direction, and Gaspar recognized the opening for what it was.

Hope alone lifted his own sword and he made a molinetto, a small circular cut, on Ross’s forearm. In reaction, the man’s sword jerked up and caught Gaspar on the chin. He stepped back quickly and offered a small bow of apology even while he was seething.

A small red spot bloomed on the big man’s flesh and he frowned at it for a moment before looking severely at his wife again.

Isobelle shrieked and jumped in the air with Morna and Juliet. Lady Ross stood stark still and stared at her husband. Eventually, she ducked through the center of the fence and started toward him, walking slowly, her strange green boots only slightly less disturbing than the fact she wore breeches. Her fingers were tucked into strange little pockets that did not show, and her look of remorse would sway any judge.

Gaspar clambered to his feet and faced the man quickly, before the woman was close enough to speak.

“Blame me, Laird Ross. I begged your wife to give me some way to distract you. I would not relent until she gave up the tale. My actions were shameful. I withdraw the victory. Just do not punish the woman, I beseech you.”

“It’s a lie, Montgomery. Don’t listen to him.”

Surely it was dangerous to step so close to her angry husband, so Gaspar tried to pull her back and behind him.

The man growled. “If I will not allow ye to put yer hands on me sister. What makes ye believe I’d allow ye to touch me wife?” His voice had grown louder with each word.

Gaspar put his offending hand in the air and stepped to the side. Their audience laughed, but Gaspar could not see the reason.

“Did you hear him?” Ross asked his wife as he reached out and pulled her to him again, her rounded belly notwithstanding. “He was defending ye. And to me. Have ye ever heard such nonsense?”

The woman’s hands worked their way up the man’s arms and behind his neck, though he had to bend far forward to allow it.

“I did offer him a little advantage, husband.”

Monty smiled. Smiled! “Aye, because he was sorely disadvantaged.”

“As are we all,” she whispered. “As we should be, yer lairdship.”

It might have been Jillian’s exaggerated brogue, or the fact that she’d called him laird, but the big man lowered his mouth to his wife’s in spite of an attentive audience.

Since Gaspar was forgotten, he turned to take advantage, and had just enough time to open his arms before Isobelle flew into them.

“Gaspar, my love! Ye’ve beaten him!”

He held her tight a long moment, remembering all those days and nights when they’d had a cold metal wall between them. He reveled in the feel of her while he could, before he had to dash her hopes again.

“No, Isobelle,” he whispered. “Your brother has beaten me.”

She looked up and her lips parted when she noticed his chin. She shook her head frantically then pressed her head to his chest and wrapped her arms securely around him.

“What is this?” Montgomery barked. “I’ll not take a victory that isna mine. Yer dragon looks a bit long in the tooth, Sister, but ye can keep him if ye still want him. He tried to defend my guilty wife. He’s a saint for all we ken.”

Gaspar remembered what Isobelle had told him in the beginning about the men she knew who treated their women well. Isobelle claimed Monty was not one of them, but she’d been wrong.

He bent to kiss Isobelle again, this time in the dizzying knowledge that they could truly be together. There were no secrets left to bare, no other’s approval to seek. Nothing to separate them—most especially 500 years. Isobelle seemed to be celebrating the same as she met his passion with equal fervor. In the distance, he heard the clearing of a throat or two and dredged up the will to at least pause for a breath.

He opened his eyes and was a little too pleased to find Isobelle was having a more difficult time opening hers. He also found that Lady Ross had been set aside and her husband was moving toward him. Gaspar had scarcely released his hold on Isobelle before he fell onto his backside. Again.

“Saint or no,” the man bellowed, “the next time ye kiss my sister will be after ye’re wed and not before.”

Gaspar got to his feet and fisted his hands, then leaned close to his would-be brother. “How far is the church? For I will be kissing her again, and soon.” He held a hand out to Isobelle and pulled her close again, ignoring her snorting brother. “Will you have me to husband, Isobella—Isobelle?”

She nodded and rose onto her toes to whispered close to his ear, sending delicious chills up his back. “Perhaps when we’re alone in the night, ye can call me Isobella.”

He thought that sounded like an exceptional idea and wished to reward such inspiration with a kiss, but he remembered the brother before he laid his lips on Isobelle’s again. He looked at Ross and asked permission with a raised brow. The man rolled his eyes and nodded, and while Gaspar kissed his Isobelle, he realized the laird of the clan, the mighty Montgomery Ross, was all bluster when it came to matters of the heart.

EPILOGUE

University of Edinburgh library, a year later…

“Who is that?” A brunette American student, approached her blond English flatmate and slid sideways onto a chair. “Tell me he’s not a professor.”

“Unfortunately,” said the blond, “he is, alas, a professor.” She was trying not to spend any more time staring at the man at the other end of the table, but failing. His face was pure perfection, except for the minor detail of an angry white scar that slashed across his face. But it simply made him look…perfectly imperfect. “Teaches History, Art History, and Italian. Oh, and some class on the Ottoman Empire.”

“I’m changing majors,” said the brunette.

“You cannot,” her friend snapped. “Apparently, there has been a rash of girls trying to get into his classes. They’re full up. And the counsellors are positively snarky to anyone wanting to change any major to History.”

“I bet Italian’s not full.”

“Full. I have already tried.” The blond tried to concentrate once more on her book.

“Ottoman Empire?”

She shook her head.

The brunette sighed. “How do you say perfect in Italian?”

“Perfetto,” said a red-head as she passed their end of the table and headed toward the professor. She leaned down and gave the guy a long, sexy kiss. Then she slid into a chair catty-corner from him and laced her fingers in his.

“Who does she think she is?”

“Has to be his wife,” said the blond.

“Oh? How can you tell?” Her friend glanced casually at the other end of the table again.

“Because she’s showing us the ring on his finger,” she whispered, then sat forward so her hair would cover her embarrassed face.

“Oh, wow.” Her friend hunched down in her chair and looked away.

“What?”

“Pregnant as a cow.”

The blond looked up through her bangs at the couple. Mr. Perfection pulled out the chair for his wife who literally appeared to be hiding a basketball beneath her gray sweater. He kissed her hand as she stood, then led her back toward their audience of at least two. He glanced at the blond and gave her a polite smile that lasted a thousandth of a second and she was fairly certain her heart stopped and died happy.

She and her friend held their breath as the couple passed. The brunette sighed in relief, a bit loudly at that. The wife stuck her head around the bookrack, and the blond gasped.

To be tediously honest, the woman was as beautiful as her husband. Though she looked a bit odd when she mooed!

The blond literally died of embarrassment and dropped her head onto her book. After she was sure the couple was gone, she looked up at her friend and grinned.

“I think she’s a freaking lucky cow.”

THE END

*Return to the ALSO BY  L.L. MUIR page for links to my other books.

Or enjoy the following excerpts.

Excerpt from WHAT ABOUT WICKHAM

I had seen a kissing booth before.

Every fall I was allowed to accompany Gay to Douglas, Wyoming where the State Fair was held. Gay’s one vanity was her love of cooking competition, and if she didn’t win a ribbon, it was a damned long ride back to Casper. So of course, I had many reasons for wishing her well.

There was no chance of running into our family cook, however, in the small Scottish village of Sillerbirch, so I had no qualms about watching the goings on at the kissing booth. No one was going to walk up behind me and slap me on the back of the head for doing so.

“Be careful,” said Mary, as she watched alongside me. “See that placard? No MacKays Allowed.”

Then a saw it. A sign no bigger than a bread box, hanging off the front of the booth.

“But don’t worry. There’s another on the opposite end of the row with a sign that will read “No Rosses Allowed.” We’ll just go there. They always have the cutest boys anyway.”

That was all the encouragement I needed to pry my eyes away from the young man leaning into the first booth to kiss the female attendant.

“He must have bought a lot of tickets,” I said, then realized I’d spoken to myself as Mary was already ten feet away and fading fast.

I held my sweater to my shoulders and ran after her, only to bump into a young man wearing a black leather jacket.

“Pardon me,” I said quickly and ran away.

Since I’d failed to look him in the eye when I spoke, which was a poor show of manners on my part, I turned back to give him an apologetic smile. The boy didn’t seem to appreciate it at all, however, and only stared at me with startling green eyes.

I mouthed the word ‘sorry’ and turned away for fear of becoming forever separated from Mary, but not before the young man’s face softened, if only slightly. A chill ran up my spine at the idea that he might yet be watching me as I hurried down the row. I resisted the urge to turn back a second time.

So distracted by the memory of his face, as I was, I nearly passed Mary before I caught sight of her turquoise headband—the one my mother had purchased for me in New York—the one Mary informed me she was trading me for one of hers covered in genuine Scottish plaid wool. I didn’t bother to inform her that Wyoming was not only on of the biggest supplierd of oil in the United States, but also famous for wool. I let the exchange stand, however, because as soon as I chose to wear my torquoise dress, I’d be borrowing back my headband.

I first noticed the sign. No Rosses Allowed. Then I noticed the banner. Kissing Booth for Charity. Then I noticed the handsome boy inside the booth and the earth beneath my feet gave a little lurch. I had to grab onto Mary to maintain my balance. The boy bent forward to kiss the girl at the head of the line, but while he did so, he opened his eyes and scanned the crowd. When he’d finished his part of the exchange, he took the girl’s coin and gave her a wink. As she walked away, I felt I should call out and stop her, to tell her she should ask for her money back.

“Och, now. What have I done, to upset the pretty lassie, I ask ye.” The boy leaned against the frame of the booth while looking straight at me.

“You did it wrong. You should give her back her money.”

The boy’s eyes sparkled and his dimples deepened. Only then did I remember why I’d nearly fallen down. He was the same boy I’d bumped into not two minutes ago.

“Perhaps ye’ll give me a wee lesson on how they perform kisses in America, then.”

I shook my head. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“How did you get here before I did?”

His dimples faded. His eyes turned cold even though he kept his smile.

“Ah, that. Well. There are two of me, ye see.”

Excerpt from KILT TRIP

Book one in the Scavenger Hunting Series, coming soon.

PROLOGUE

England, 1704

“Am I mistaken, or did Flora just invite us all to do something wicked?”

Bridget was amazed Mallory was able to keep her voice down. Following the Duchess’s clandestine gift of advice for the young female entrants to Society, Mallory had immediately dragged Bridget and their friend Vivianne from the arboretum and into the garden. Dozens of young ladies had flooded out the doors behind them, and their trio of colorful skirts had barely escaped around the corner of the glass structure before her cousin posed the question.

They weren’t the only ones to have understood what was afoot. All along the softly lit paths, small clutches of ladies were bending their heads together like hungry hens going after the same handful of grain.

Handful of grain indeed.

Every young lady knew what every other young lady was discussing, so there was hardly a need for secrecy. But the somber-clad enemy was afoot—men wandering about, wondering why all the youngest dancing partners had disappeared. They eyed the little groups curiously, then the wisest of them fled back through the balcony doors as if they’d sensed danger, which they had, if truth be told.

Bridget turned to her cousin, satisfied they wouldn’t be overheard. “One would have to be both daft and deaf not to have understood. Grandmother said the duchess has been out of her mind for years, but then again, so is Grandmother.”

“She was daring us, then.” Mallory’s eyes were crinkled in mischief.

“To go to...Scotland?” Vivianne whispered ‘Scotland’ as if she were breaking the law to utter the word.

“To go anywhere, I’m sure, just as long as we play the game.” Bridget watched Vivianne’s teeth worry at her bottom lip. Her friend liked to assume the role of the timid mouse, but deep down, Vivianne loved adventure just as much as she and Mallory. Bridget couldn’t remember climbing out of one window without her cousin and her friend there to catch her if she fell...or push her if she hesitated. Finally, she put a voice to what the others must be thinking. “It’s the best way to punish a man, Flora said. And if ever a man deserved punishing, it would be my fiancée.”

Mal and Viv exchanged a look. They understood. They didn’t condone her marrying Baron Braithwaite, even if Bridget insisted on bowing to the man’s blackmail. But since they couldn’t come up with a solution either, they’d stand by her—especially on an escapade that would cause the man severe humiliation.

Mallory placed her hands on her shimmering blue hips that glowed in the light trickling through the branches in the arboretum. “If you think you’re going on an adventure without me, Bridget Kennison, you’re mistaken.”

“And I refuse to be left behind.” Viv crossed her arms, her play-acting finished.

“I wouldn’t think of going without the pair of you. But after tonight, we mustn’t ever say the words ‘scavenger hunt’ aloud, or surely we’ll be stopped before we start. Word of the dare will get out, I promise you. Someone will burst.”

Looking around the gardens just then, it wasn’t hard to determine who was tempted to play and who was only tempted to rat out the tempt-ees; the rats were watching the fluttering hens with interest.

Bridget led her friends further into the shadows.

“And what shall we hunt?” Viv clapped her hands silently.

“Men.”

“Mallory!”

“Well!”

Bridget held up her hands to stop the bickering. “I know just the souvenir an English Baron would never want his bride to bring home.” Bridget leaned in and lowered her voice. She felt sure she’d scream if she didn’t tell them immediately. “A kilt. From a Highlander.”

“Oh, that’s delicious!” Mallory grinned. “I’ll take the Highlander.”

Viv gave a pretty snort. “Don’t be silly, Mallory. You can’t keep a Highlander. It must be something you can retrieve, for a memento of your final act of defiance. What will you do, lock him up in the dungeon? Put a collar on him like a puppy?”

Mallory raised her brows and smirked.

“Mallory!”

Finally her cousin dropped her smile and pouted. “Fine. I’ll steal a sporran.”

“A sporran. Sounds even more scandalous.” Bridget looked to Viv. “What do you want?”

“Something…romantic.”

“Obviously, Vivianne. That’s the point, isn’t it?” Mallory rolled her eyes.

“I can’t think so quickly.” Her friend frowned at the ground as she slowly circled the others twice, kicking her skirts in leisurely steps. She came back and shrugged. “I’d like a broach, then. A Scotsman’s broach.”

“They call them brooches. It sounds as if we can all get what we want from a single man.” Bridget suddenly didn’t like the idea, but she couldn’t say why. It wasn’t as if she was after a man’s heart, after all.

Mallory shook her head. “Come now, we must have some rules. No more than one item from any man.”

“I agree.” Bridget felt better. “That way one poor fellow won’t awaken to find himself without clothing, purse, or jewelry.”

They all giggled, but stopped short when they noticed Grandmother Kennison’s form looming on the balcony. In unison, they stepped even further into the darkness.

Due to the dark shade of her purple gown, Viv became a disembodied head of blond curls. “Do you suppose,” she whispered, “there are any romantic Highlanders to be found?”

Mallory nodded. “Bridget’s Grandmother Kennison thought so. She said the Scot who kidnapped her was a poet. And he never returned to the Highlands. He waited, just across the border, in case she ever changed her mind.”

They all sighed in unison, staring at the balcony.

It was all decided but the details, but the three of them would go.

To Scotland.

For a scavenger hunt.

They’d be safe enough; Bridget had a secret weapon, of sorts. If they found themselves in any trouble, they merely needed to call upon the Scot who owed the Kennison family a substantial favor—the Scot who’d kidnapped her grandmother over four decades earlier—a man named Laird Alistair Graham.

CHAPTER ONE

Alistair Graham was dead.

Alistair Rory Macpherson had arrived in time to give his grandsire a good shock, a good laugh, and a good burial. The shock had come when the old man laid eyes on his favorite red-haired grandson from the Highlands. The laugh had come after Rory had confided his purpose for his visit. The burial may or may not have come days later had Old Alistair not laughed quite so hard nor so long.

His young widow was but content the man died with a smile on his face.

After surveying the crowd come to mourn his grandfather, Rory began to understand why the man had laughed so. There was nary a wed-able, bed-able, or even palatable lass to be found among the clan. The only suckling bairn appeared to be Old Alistair’s new son, or else such lasses of a breeding age were well hidden from the likes of Rory. He began to wonder if they’d caught wind of his arrival and hidden the womenfolk, but if that were true, his grandsire would not have been so surprised when he’d walked into the old man’s hall.

Besides the loss of his favorite relative, Rory was disappointed on two counts; first, he would have to look elsewhere for a wife; and second, his grandsire’s clan looked to be dying out. Living among the border reivers, they’d most likely had their fertile women carried off along with the occasional herd of cattle. If these Grahams didn’t do a bit of reiving of their own, they were doomed.

As doomed as Rory felt.

Perhaps somewhere between the border and his Highland home he could find a lass who’d never heard of him, and carry her off before his tragedy reached her ears. If he could please her enough, she either wouldn’t believe the lies, or wouldn’t care.

No lass from his own clan would have him now, and he’d have no Englishwoman, but he wasn’t quite prepared to leave his beloved island to find a suitable mother to bear his children. Not yet, anyway.

Standing on the curtain wall surrounding the Graham keep, Rory was relieved the mourning days were coming to an end. With his grandfather’s home open to mourners, all kith and kin had been needed upon the battlements. No Elliot, or other border clansman could be trusted to keep their thumbs in their belts when paying their respects.

“Laird Macpherson!” A Graham spotted him from the ground and scrambled up to the narrow wall steps. “Laird—”

“I’m no laird, mon.”

“Yes, sir. Forgive me, sir. But I thought you would wish to ken some Anglishmen are coming, all lather and leather.”

Rory’s gut clenched. He should have never ventured so far South.

“How many?” He forced himself to sound the confident Highlander he appeared to be.

“Three, Laird.” The man cleared his throat. “I thought that since ye’re grandson to auld Alistair...”

“Nay. Ye’ll need to settle on a new laird from among yer own. I’ll be leaving on the morrow.” Rory nodded once for good measure.

The man’s shoulders slumped.

“You should choose a mon who will go after things that have been taken from ye, ye ken?” He put a hand on the other’s shoulder. “If the Grahams are to survive, you’ll need someone with fire in his belly, and a head on his shoulders. Someone young.”

“Someone like ye, then, laird?” The man grinned. “Are you sure ye cannot be swayed into settlin’ here?”

“I’ve little taste for English air, Mister Graham.”  Rory looked South and tried not to shudder. “And I’d not be much use as a laird if I sickened every time the South Wind blew.” He dropped his hand back to his side. “Tell the captain of the guard to make ready for the invaders. We’ll let the bastards come mourn, and then heaven help them if they’re not back across the border when the black cloths come down in the morning.”

“Aye, laird.”

“Only for the day, Mister Graham. Dinna forget that. My friends and I will leave when my grandsire’s tucked in the soil.”

So Rory would play the part of laird until the Englishmen fled. It would not do to have their enemy see how poorly led the Grahams had become, especially if measuring the new Graham laird was the purpose in their coming.

Within the hour, Rory was wondering if he’d made a considerable mistake by sitting at the head of Alistair’s table with his two companions, Ian and Connor, at his sides. The Grahams had lined up for his attention to discuss matters that had been neglected since Alistair Graham had become ill and it would take days to sort through all the grievances, let alone hear witnesses. And Rory’d be damned if he’d judge a man unfairly, as he himself had been judged.

“Until the English are gone,” he announced, “and you can choose a new laird, I will only hear concerns that cannot wait a day or two. I promised only to stay until the mourning cloths come down.”

The queue dwindled as one by one folks nodded and walked away. One lad stood his ground.

Rory called him forward and the lad shuffled close. He smelled of dust and pine. He looked as if he’d slept with the pigs.

“Yer lairdship.”

“I’m no laird, cousin Jamie.”

The boy’s face lit for a moment, then he took a deep breath and began.

“Since the men have been called to the wall, laird—I mean, Rory—I mean, cousin—” Jamie blushed.

“Go on, cousin.”

Seated to his right and left, his companions, Ian and Connor, hid their smiles behind their mugs.

“Aye.” The boy frowned, then must have remembered what he was going to say. “Since you’ve needed the men on the walls, the lads and I have been riding patrol...and I have a message for you from the three Englishmen, only they’re not Englishmen at all—”

“Take a breath, Jamie. Fill yer sails and take yer time, aye?” Rory took a deep breath too, relieved their visitors weren’t English after all. “I’ll have the message first.”

The food ushered into the hall was of much less interest than the tale the lad quietly told, and Rory and his friends gave the boy their complete attention until the report was finished.

It was all Rory could do to remain seated instead of flying out the gates to see for himself!

For a list of all L.L. Muir books currently available, check out my website, www.llmuir.com. And as always, thank you for playing!

About the Author

L.L. Muir lives in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains with a charming husband who makes her laugh, but does not make her do pans. Like most authors, she is constantly searching for, or borrowing pens. The best ideas always begin on a napkin.

If you like her books, please consider leaving a review. You can reach her through her website— www.llmuir.weebly.com , or on Facebook at L.L. Muir.

Thank you for playing!

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

GOING BACK FOR ROMEO

NOT WITHOUT JULIET

COLLECTING ISOBELLE