The Highlander's Redemption (Mills & Boon Historical) (Highland Brides - Book 1)

‘You, Madeleine Lafayette, are a captivating wee witch.’

‘I am not a witch,’ Madeleine said, flustered and indignant. She could feel the heat of his body, though they were hardly touching.

‘No? Maybe a fairy, then,’ Calumn said, wondering fancifully if she had indeed cast a spell on him. Mere foolishness—but he hadn’t come across her like before, and he didn’t seem to be able to make himself stop what he knew he shouldn’t be doing. For he wanted suddenly, urgently, to kiss her. He leaned closer and caught a trace of her scent, remembered that too, from last night, like the wisps of a dream.

‘What are you doing? Let me go.’ Madeleine’s lungs seemed to have stopped working. Her heart was pumping too hard. Calumn’s eyes sparkled blue like the summer sea.

He looked as if he was going to kiss her.

Surely he would not dare? Surely she would not …?

Calumn kissed her. It was the softest of kisses, just a touch of his lips on hers. A warmth, a taste, a curl of pleasure inside her, and it was over.

‘Oh!

You should not …’

AUTHOR NOTE

In the eighteenth century it was relatively common for young Scotsmen like Calumn, the hero of my story, to join the British army as part of their education—just as the sons of English noblemen were accustomed to do. Prior to the ‘45 Rebellion there was little conflict between the British Government and the Highland clan system, since both operated almost independently.

The Young Pretender changed all of this. Contrary to popular myth, the Jacobite uprising wasn’t a case of Highlanders led by Bonnie Prince Charlie fighting an English army. It was a much more complex and far more harrowing scenario than that.

The forces of the Crown, led ultimately by the King’s brother, the Duke of Cumberland, were made up from the regular army, supplemented by a number of clans loyal to the King (mostly but not exclusively Presbyterian, including my local clan, the Campbells of Argyll), who did not want to see the Catholic Stuarts on the throne. Though efforts were initially made to keep Highland regiments out of the fighting, by the time of Culloden there were four Scottish regiments involved. Ranged against them, the Jacobite army comprised a mixture of Highland clans (largely Catholic and Episcopalian), lowland recruits, plus French, Irish and even some English volunteers and mercenaries. Kin faced kin across the battlefield, just as Calumn finds himself doing.

Following the defeat of the Jacobites, the feudal power of the clans was systematically removed and the landscape of the Highlands changed for ever, regardless of whether the laird had supported the Government, as Calumn’s father did, or Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Charles Edward Stuart fled to France from where, having become an embarrassment to the French court, he was packed off to Switzerland. He eventually died in Italy, reputedly of drink. He never returned to Scotland.

The retribution which followed Culloden—the disarming of the clans and the ban on Highland dress, the confiscation of lands, the burning of crofts and the decimation of the population (commonly known as the Clearances)—which is depicted in my story—is entirely factual. ‘Butcher’ Cumberland’s nickname, and reputation, was well earned.

About the Author

Born and educated in Scotland, MARGUERITE KAYE originally qualified as a lawyer but chose not to practise—a decision which was a relief both to her and to the Scottish legal establishment. While carving out a successful career in IT, she occupied herself with her twin passions of studying history and reading, picking up first-class honours and a Masters degree along the way.

The course of her life changed dramatically when she found her soul mate. After an idyllic year out, spent travelling round the Mediterranean, Marguerite decided to take the plunge and pursue her life-long ambition to write for a living—a dream she had cherished ever since winning a national poetry competition at the age of nine.

Just like one of her fictional heroines, Marguerite’s fantasy has become reality. She has published history and travel articles, as well as short stories, but romances are her passion. Marguerite describes Georgette Heyer and Doris Day as her biggest early influences, and her partner as her inspiration.

Marguerite would love to hear from you. You can contact her at: Marguerite_Kaye@hotmail.co.uk

Previous novels by the same author:

THE WICKED LORD RASENBY

THE RAKE AND THE HEIRESS

INNOCENT IN THE SHEIKH’S HAREM

(part of Summer Sheikhs anthology)

THE GOVERNESS AND THE SHEIKH

and in Mills & Boon^® Historical Undone! eBooks:

THE CAPTAIN’S WICKED WAGER

THE HIGHLANDER AND THE SEA SIREN

BITTEN BY DESIRE TEMPTATION IS THE NIGHT

The Highlander’s Redemption

Marguerite Kaye

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Johanna, Catriona and Fiona, who amazingly claimed to be flattered to have a lochan named after them!

Prologue

The wind ripped mercilessly across the bleak, rolling moorland, driving the icy sleet straight into the grimly set faces of the Jacobite forces ranged opposite. Calumn peered through the haze of smoke at the ragged Highland line in a desperate attempt to make out the Macleod colours, but it was useless. There was no doubt Rory was among them somewhere. Best not to know exactly where.

The big three-inch guns pounded across the narrow gap which constituted no-man’s land. The air was acrid with the stink of gunpowder. Calumn’s ears rang with the noise—the tumultuous blast of artillery, the drums, the snorting and whinnying of the Dragoons’ horses stationed on the left flank. And above it all the eerie banshee wail of the wind.

He readied his company of fusiliers for battle, rousing the men, straightening the line, barking lastminute orders. His heart was pounding so hard he could hear it even above the thud, thud, thud of the guns. He was afraid, but not of death. He cared not a jot for his own life, but he was terrified none the less. Terrified that he would look up in the heat of battle and come face to face with his brother.

A spine-tingling roar, starting low and rising to a crescendo, as if from the maw of a thousand lions, carried across the moor from the Jacobites. A fearsome, chaotic line of Highlanders, standards flying, began to charge. Calumn automatically checked the fixing on his bayonet. Saw Cumberland give the signal. Gave his own company the nod. And slowly, inexorably, moved forward into the hellish fray.

A shot whistled past his ear. Traitor, traitor, the voice in his head sang out, yet onwards he went, step after disciplined step, towards the heaving mass of wild-eyed clansmen in their plaids. His feet sank into the brackish water of a burn. The wounded screamed, crumpling beside and in front of him. The ferrous smell of fresh blood rent the air, mingling with the heart-wrenchingly familiar scent of sodden wool coming from the filleadh begs worn by the Highlanders. With leaden arms, he raised his musket, aimed and fired. High. Mutinously high. Far above the heads of the men who were his kin.

A riderless horse bolted, the high-pitched whinny like the scream of a frightened child. He saw the Macleod colours directly in front of him and paused, frantically searching, seeking Rory’s distinctive mane of gold hair, the exact same colour as his own. A hissing noise, which he thought at first was the wind changing direction, made him look up just in time to see the murderous glint of metal arc through the air towards him. In time to turn away from its fatal path, but not in time to avoid it completely. The heavy, double-bladed claymore sliced into the flesh of his belly, the force of the impact sending him flying backwards into his own line. Finally, he saw Rory. As he cried out his brother’s name, his legs gave way beneath him and he felt himself falling, falling, falling …

Calumn woke with a start as he always did, sweating profusely. The dryness of his mouth told him he had been shouting in his sleep. Trembling, like a man with the ague, he reached for the decanter of whisky he had taken to keeping on the nightstand by his bed, gulping down a generous dram of the fiery golden liquid. He touched the large scar, which weaved a jagged path across the taut muscles of his abdomen. The physical wound had long since healed, but on nights like this the scar felt burning hot, inflamed and aching, as though he had been branded by an iron.

Eventually the vivid memory of the nightmare faded. Calumn slumped back against the damp pillows, clutching his glass. The furious beating of his heart slowed. The sheen of sweat on his chest dried.

But other, less visible scars still burned, deep in his psyche. The all-pervading sense of desolation. And the heavy blanket of guilt which enveloped his soul.

Chapter One

Edinburgh—July 1747

Madeleine Lafayette huddled forlornly in the entranceway of a close, the narrow passageway leading to the tenements which Edinburgh’s residents called home. Even in the dim glow cast by the flare of the nearby brazier which served as a street light, it would have been obvious to any passer-by that the young woman was no native Scot. Her slim figure was clad in garments of a decidedly foreign cut, the dark blue tippet she clutched around her shoulders woven in an intricate design that was neither plaid nor stripe. Her flaxen hair showed almost white in the ghostly light, but her skin had neither the pallor of the city dweller nor the swarthiness of the Gael. Rather it was translucent, like a pearl tinged with colour by the sun. With a generous mouth, the soft pink of coral, and slanting green eyes under fair brows, she had the appearance, against the grey of the city’s sandstone and granite, of an exotic sea-creature out of her element.

Shivering, Madeleine hugged her tippet closer. At the top of Castlehill she could see the dark hulk of the castle looming, forbidding and—as she had discovered to her dismay—impregnable. Perhaps it had been a mistake, coming all this way alone with no contacts and no plan, nothing save the one objective in her mind. To find Guillaume.

The exhilaration of her impetuous flight and the trials of the rough sea voyage with the Breton fishermen had prevented her from thinking too much about the danger she was courting in coming here alone, the overwhelming odds which were stacked against her, or the terrifying possibility that despite all her certainty she was wrong. That Guillaume really was dead.

No! He was alive. He must be alive.

Above her, from the castle ramparts, someone barked out a staccato order. Footsteps rang out over the cobblestones as another rushed to obey, then silence descended again.

At home in Brittany her father would be asleep, for in the summer months they both rose with the sun. She loved those early morning rides around the estate, checking on the progress of the year’s planting. The scent of dew-drenched grass beneath the hooves of their horses mingled with the tang of salt and the sweet smell of the crops in the fields. By the time they returned for breakfast, the mist from the sea which hung over the land like a cloak of the finest lace would have burned away to reveal the clear azure of the Breton sky. Here in Edinburgh the air smelled so different, of stone and people and dust and dirt. Though she knew the slate-grey North Sea was only a matter of miles away, she could detect no trace of it. A pang of homesickness clutched her.

Guillaume had been here, in Edinburgh. She knew that much from his early letters home. This morning, landing in the port of Leith just to the north of the city, the castle had been her first thought. She’d made straight for it, for she’d been told that Jacobite prisoners were held there still. The discovery that she could not gain entry had been a blow to her hopes. The sensible thing then would have been to look for lodgings, but she had been unable to tear herself away, tormented by the thought that Guillaume might be just yards away on the other side of those thick walls. An endless stream of people passed in and out of the garrison, but all were checked by the vigilant guards. By the time Madeleine had concluded that she must enlist the help of someone with legitimate business there, it was dusk and the city gates were locked. With no clue as to how to go about finding a bed for the night, she fought the urge to shed some tears of self-pity.

She wondered how Papa had reacted to her flight. Perhaps he was regretting the harsh words which had triggered it. He had been so changed since Maman died, throwing himself into the management of the estate as if he needed to fill the void in his life, leaving no room for dealing with his grief. At home, he had retreated into his shell, like one of those hermit crabs she and Guillaume used to race across the sands, teasing them with sticks to make them scuttle forwards—though mostly they went sideways. Without doubt Papa would be furious to find her gone, knowing full well whither she had come, though she had left no note. Recalling the extent of her wilfulness, Madeleine shuddered.

A burst of hearty laughter startled her out her reverie. A group of soldiers were staggering up the steep incline towards their barracks. Instinctively, she shrank back into the gloom of the passageway, but it was too late, they had spotted her. Three of them, clad in the distinctive red coats and white gaiters of the British army, loudly and raucously drunk.

‘What have we here, lads?’ the largest of the group said with a lascivious grin. Faced with a pair of large green eyes set in a strikingly lovely face framed by white-blonde hair, he whistled. ‘A beauty, by God.’ Grimy fingers grasped Madeleine’s chin, forcing it up so that he could examine her face. ‘What’s your name, darling?’

‘Laissez-moi, let me go,’ Madeleine said haughtily. She was frightened, but not overly so. They had obviously taken her for a lady of the night, and would leave her be when they realised their mistake. She shook herself free.

The man laughed and tried to snake his arm around her waist. ‘Give us a kiss,’ he said, manoeuvring Madeleine so that her back was against the sandstone of the close wall. The other two joined him, grinning and egging him on. She could smell the ale on their breath, the dirt and sweat on their bodies. Now she was afraid. There were hands on her, touching her face, her hair, her breasts. She struggled. ‘Let me go,’ she said again, her voice betraying her fear, but the man merely tightened his hold, so she kicked out, her foot in its sturdy boot making contact with his shins.

He yelped. ‘You little wild cat, you’ll pay for that.’

On the other side of the street, Calumn Munro was returning from an evening in his favourite tavern down in the Cowgate where the whisky, which came from the landlord’s own illegal still, was mellow, and the company convivial. As he made his erratic way home, a woman’s cry for help pierced the balmy night air, causing him to halt abruptly.

Across the road, at the foot of Castlehill, a group of men were bundling something—or someone—into a close. Despite the potent effects of the whisky swirling around his brain, Calumn’s body was immediately on full alert. He strode purposefully towards them, his long legs covering the short distance effortlessly, his golden hair and the heavy skirts of his coat flying out behind him. When he arrived his fists were already clenched in readiness. There were three of them, soldiers in uniform, he saw with disgust, surrounding their victim. He caught a glimpse of pleading eyes and fair hair, noted that the woman was young and extremely pretty. She was also struggling frantically.

Concern for her plight and loathing for its perpetrators filled his mind and fuelled his body. With a roar like a battle cry, Calumn launched himself at the soldiers, with nary a thought for his own safety. He took the largest of the three first, hauling him clear of his intended victim before landing his own mighty fist smack in the middle of the man’s face. With immense satisfaction he heard the crunch of bone. A swift follow-through with a double punch to the abdomen, and with a whoosh of breath the man collapsed, moaning. Calumn turned his attention to the other two, fighting dirty, using his feet as well as his fists.

Heart pounding, legs shaking, a cold sweat breaking out on her brow, Madeleine leant back against the wall and took deep, gulping breaths of air while in front of her, in the narrow space, her rescuer set about the soldiers with a devilish fury. He was a tall man and, beneath his expensive evening clothes, a very well-built one, with broad shoulders and powerful thighs. His hair, the colour of ripe corn, unpowdered and untied despite his formal dress, flew out in a bright halo of colour behind him as he dealt efficiently with her assailants. Of his face she could make out little, gaining only a fleeting impression of cold menace.

A cruel blow to the jaw took his second opponent out. A vicious kick and an arm-twisting had the last one at his mercy. On the stairway which wound its way from the close up to the first of the tenements, a man appeared in a nightcap, brandishing what looked like a poker. Her rescuer glanced up, telling him curtly to go back to bed, at the same time frogmarching the third soldier out of the close and hurling him into the gutter. Madeleine forced herself to move. Quickly retrieving her small bundle of belongings from beneath the stairwell, she picked her way over the comatose bodies of her attackers out into the street where her rescuer waited.

‘Are you all right?’ he said anxiously, his voice a soft, attractive lilt, very different from the harsh tones of the soldiers.

Madeleine nodded. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she managed through lips made stiff with fear. Seeing he was not yet convinced, she tried to reassure him. ‘Truly, I’m all right, I took no hurt.’

The tension in him eased, his mouth curling into a smile, the fierce lines on his face relaxing, so that she saw he was young, perhaps five or six and twenty, and almost unfairly handsome. His eyes were dark blue, his smile engaging. Despite her ordeal, she could not but return it.

‘Calumn Munro,’ he said with a flourishing bow, ‘I’m happy to have been of service.’

‘I’m most happy to meet you, Monsieur Munro,’ Madeleine said with a curtsy which was almost steady.

‘You’re French,’ he exclaimed in surprise. ‘Mais oui.’

She was enchantingly pretty, all big green eyes and silken hair, with a mouth made for kissing. Alone, at such a late hour and in the vicinity of the castle, he had assumed she must be a courtesan, but, looking at her more closely, he wasn’t so sure. Of a certainty, she was no common harlot. ‘May I know your name, mademoiselle?’

‘I am Madeleine Lafayette.’

‘Enchanté.’ His exertions, on top of the whisky, were beginning to take their toll on Calumn. He needed his bed, but he could not simply abandon the poor lass to the whim of the next group of soldiers who were even now making their raucous way up the hill. ‘Let me escort you home, mademoiselle,’ he said, proffering a gentlemanly arm. ‘It’s not safe for any woman to be out on her own here at this hour.’

His knuckles were bleeding. There was a bruise forming on his cheekbone. She saw now what she had not noticed before, that he was—albeit charmingly—in his cups. ‘I am thinking that you too should be in your bed, monsieur,’ Madeleine said, ‘you look as if you have had too much wine.’

‘Not too much wine, too much whisky,’ Calumn corrected her gravely. ‘Let’s get you home. Come now, which direction?’

The words were very slightly slurred. She began to fear that he would collapse if they stayed here for much longer. ‘Which direction are you taking?’ she asked, and when he pointed vaguely down the hill, told him that she, too, was going that way. She would see him to his own door and then claim to have lodgings nearby. She tugged on his arm. ‘Come along, monsieur.’

‘Calumn, my name’s Calumn,’ he said, taking her bundle and throwing it casually over his shoulder before tucking her hand into his other arm. ‘En avant!’ He seemed to rally, setting off down the brae with an easy grace, the loping stride of an animal built for speed, not the mincing step of a city man. Clinging to his arm, Madeleine had to run to keep up.

They crossed into the Lawnmarket, which during the day teemed with tradesmen selling butter and cheese as well as the wools and linens for which the place was famed. At this time of night it was eerily quiet, difficult to imagine that in just a few hours it would be nigh on impossible to get from one side of the street to the other without running the full gamut of maids, merchants and pickpockets.

At the far end, Calumn stopped at Riddell’s Court where his family kept rooms. ‘Where to now?’

Madeleine shrugged. ‘Not far. I can make my own way from here,’ she said, trying for a confidence she was far from feeling. The reality of having to spend the night outside and alone was only just starting to sink in.

She reached for her bundle of belongings, but Calumn held on to it, seeming to notice for the first time what it actually was. ‘You’ve just arrived, haven’t you?’

Madeleine nodded reluctantly.

‘And you’ve nowhere to stay?’

‘No, but there is no need to …’

‘You’d best come up with me then.’

Madeleine shook her head.

‘I don’t blame you, after what you’ve been through, but you’ve nothing to worry about. Apart from anything else, I’m fit for nothing but sleep. I’ve a spare room with a lock on the door that you’re welcome to, and I promise I won’t try to take advantage. Word of a Munro.’

She had a fleeting sense of a shadow when he said his name, like a cloud crossing the sun, then it was gone. Weighing up a bed in a house and a door with a lock, against a draughty stairwell and a backdrop of late-night marauders, Madeleine was extremely tempted to accept his offer. Instinctively, she felt Calumn Munro was trustworthy. Had he not already proved himself a knight errant? She nodded her cautious acceptance. ‘You’re very kind, monsieur. ‘

Calumn led her through the wrought-iron gate which protected the close entrance into the courtyard and up the steep wooden stairs to the second of the building’s four storeys. He had some difficulty in fitting the heavy key into the lock, but eventually threw the door open with a flourish. ‘Here we are.’ He pulled Madeleine into a narrow hallway and thrust the door shut behind them.

Inside, in the warmth, the after-effects of the whisky hit him abruptly. In the light of the lamp which burned on the table by the door, she watched the colour drain from his face. ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Calumn said, waving vaguely at a door almost directly opposite. ‘I’ll just stop here for a wee minute.’ He started to slip down the wall.

Though she was taken aback by the rapidity of his decline, Madeleine gamely tried to catch him before he fell unconscious on to the floorboards. ‘You can’t go to sleep here.’ Placing Calumn’s arm around her shoulders, she staggered as she heaved him upright. ‘Which is your chamber?’ she asked, and then all but dragged him towards the door he indicated.

‘No, no, I’ll be very well where I am,’ he mumbled in protest, but she continued to propel him forwards, managing to reach the bed just before the weight of him pulled them both on to the floor. ‘You’re a fine lass,’ he muttered appreciatively, collapsing backwards onto the bed without releasing his hold on her. Madeleine tumbled forwards, sprawling full length on top of her host. ‘Perfect,’ he murmured happily, pulling her closer, one arm around her waist, the other hand proprietarily on her bottom, before falling instantly asleep.

Pressed tight against his body, Madeleine could not decide whether to be shocked, annoyed or amused. She could not move. Her head was tucked into the crook of his shoulder, her face pressed into his neckcloth. He smelled of clean linen and warm man. Different, but not at all alien or repellent as her attackers had been. Reassuring almost. It must be his size. He was not just tall, but solid muscle and bone. The contours of his body seemed to complement hers, as if they were two halves of something designed to fit. Her curves melded into his hollows. It was an unexpectedly pleasant feeling. Though she knew it was imprudent, she was not at all inclined to move just yet. Guillaume had never held her like this. That last day, before he had sailed to the aid of the Scottish Prince, he had not held her at all.

The buttons on Calumn Munro’s jacket were digging into her chest, and something else was pressing insistently against her further down. His hand tightened on her robe. She could feel his heart beating slow and steady through his jacket. She could hear him breathing, feel his breath on her hair. His proximity was making her hot. A trickle of sweat ran down the valley between her breasts. She realised what the something else was which she could feel through the layers of her petticoats. A shiver arrowed through her.

Minutes crept by, and still Madeleine lay pliant on top of him, listening to his breathing in the dark of the room. She stopped thinking. Exhaustion rolled over her like a mighty breaker on to the beach. The temptation to close her eyes and give in to sleep was almost overpowering. Two days it had taken the fishing boat to sail from Roscoff to the port of Leith. She’d felt its rocking under her feet for hours after she had landed. The bustle and noise of the sailors and stevedores at the port had been intimidating. Edinburgh itself was smaller than she had expected, but much more foreign, too. Had it been a mistake, coming here?

Beneath her, the tone of Calumn’s breathing changed and his grip on her loosened. Madeleine inched cautiously off the bed, back out to the hallway. Picking up the lamp, she opened the door at the far end and found herself in a large reception room with a huge fireplace. The boards were polished and scattered with rugs. Two enormous wooden chairs of carved black wood sat side by side at the hearth, with a settle opposite. Under the window was a chest of the same wood, the fittings brightly polished brass. A table and four chairs sat in another corner. Heavy rafters showed dark against the tempered walls, on which were two companion portraits. A fierce man in full Highland dress with Calumn’s deep blue eyes, and a woman, golden-haired and very beautiful, equally stern. His parents, unmistakably. They were obviously a wealthy family.

A muffled groan drew Madeleine back to the bed chamber where Calumn lay sprawled on top of the covers. She ought to make him more comfortable. Placing the lamp carefully on the nightstand beside a decanter of amber liquor, she unlaced his shoes. He did not stir, so she unrolled his stockings. His calves were muscular and finely shaped. His legs, with their cover of dark golden hair, felt rough and warm. His feet were long and narrow. Bare, they made him look vulnerable.

The water in the china jug was cold, but she poured some into the bowl anyway, and found a clean linen towel which she used to carefully bathe his knuckles. She had nothing with which to bandage them, but judged they would heal more quickly exposed to the air in any case. The bruise on his cheek was purpling. At home she would have applied an arnica paste for the swelling.

Engrossed in her task now, Madeleine set about removing Calumn’s jacket, a more difficult operation, for the dark-green velvet fitted tight across his broad shoulders. By the time she had finished she was out of breath. His silk waistcoat was easier. She unwound his neckcloth and placed it at the foot of the bed beside his jacket. His shirt fell open at the neck, giving her a glimpse of his chest she could not resist touching. His skin was cool. A dusting of hair. Not an ounce of spare flesh. She should not be doing this.

With an immense effort, she rolled Calumn to one side, tugged up the heavy counterpane and sheets and rolled him back. He sighed and snuggled his head deeper into the feather bolster. His profile was so perfect it could have been sculpted, save for the tiny cleft in his chin. A long strand of gleaming golden hair caught in his lashes. Madeleine smoothed it back. It was surprisingly soft.

‘Bon nuit, Calumn Munro,’ she said, pressing a tiny kiss to his brow. Treading softly, she retrieved her bundle and opened the second door leading off the hallway. It was a small windowless chamber obviously intended for a maidservant, simply furnished with an iron bedstead, a wooden chair and a wash stand. As Calumn had promised there was a lock in the door and a key in the lock. Madeleine hesitated, then turned it. Quickly disrobing, she placed her shawl, dress and stockings on the chair and sank gratefully on to the rather lumpy mattress, pulling the rough woollen blanket over her. Within minutes she was asleep.

The next morning Madeleine padded through to the scullery on bare feet with her tippet wrapped over her shift and poured herself a glass of water from a large stone jug. Returning to the main reception room, she walked straight into Calumn, who growled something low and vicious in an unfamiliar language. Startled, she jumped back, spilling some of the water down her shift. He towered over her, clad in a long woollen robe tied loosely at the waist. In the bright light of day his eyes were dark blue and heavy lidded. The stubble on his jaw was a tawny colour, darker than his tousled golden hair, giving him a raffish look.

‘Who in the devil’s name are you?’ he barked.

Madeleine’s heart sank. ‘Madeleine Lafayette. You don’t remember?’

‘You’re French?’

She smiled nervously. ‘Yes, I’m still French.’

To her relief, Calumn’s flash of ill temper faded. He raked his hand through his hair and grinned ruefully. ‘French, and obviously not a housebreaker. I need coffee.’ He opened the door leading out onto the stairwell. ‘Jamie,’ he roared, ‘where are you?’

A patter of feet preceded the arrival of an urchin of some nine or ten years with a mop of dirty blond hair and a face which would benefit from the application of a washcloth. ‘Nae need to ask how you are this morn, Mister Munro,’ the lad said with a cheeky grin, handing over a tray on which was an enamel pot of coffee and a large jug of ale. ‘You’re like a bear wi’ a sore head.’

Calumn took the tray wordlessly. Tossing the boy a coin, he caught Jamie’s curious glance towards Madeleine. ‘I’ll not be the only one with a sore head if I catch you blathering, do I make myself clear?’

‘Clear as day, Mister Munro. I didn’t see nobody.’ Whistling tunelessly and somehow managing to grin at the same time, a feat which impressed Madeleine immensely, Jamie banged the door shut behind him.

Calumn poured them both a cup of coffee before helping himself to a long reviving draught of ale. ‘Jamie’s family live on the ground floor,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘Andrew Macfarlane, his father, is dead. His mother takes in lodgers and looks after me, too.’ He dropped gracefully into one of the seats opposite Madeleine. Under his robe he still had his shirt on, but not his breeches.

Embarrassingly aware of her own dishabille, Madeleine pulled her tippet closer and tried to redistribute her shift, a manoeuvre which simply succeeded in drawing Calumn’s attention to her bare ankles. Shuffling her feet as far back under the settle as she could manage, she shook out her hair in an effort to disguise the flush creeping over her cheeks. ‘Do you remember nothing of last night, monsieur?’

Calumn inspected his knuckles ruefully. ‘Aye, it’s coming back to me now.’ His mouth thinned as an echo of the menacing look from last night traced a path across his handsome countenance. ‘It’s men like that who give soldiers a bad name. You took no harm?’

Madeleine shuddered as the image of the men’s faces flickered into her mind like evil spirits. ‘None, thanks to you. You were very brave to take on three of them alone. You could have been killed.’

He gave a twisted smile. ‘Perhaps that was my intent. I sometimes think I’d be as well dead.’ His eyes glittered, like the glint of granite on a Highland peak.

Madeleine shivered, frightened by the bleakness in this expression. ‘You should not talk so.’

‘Should I not now?’ he growled at her. ‘And what business, mademoiselle, would that be of yours?’ he demanded, frowning fiercely and staring off into space, so that she dared not reply.

Fortunately he did not seem to expect her to. His frown eased, then as suddenly as it came on, his mood shifted and his attention refocused on his visitor. She looked mighty uncomfortable in her state of undress. Far too uncomfortable to be the type of woman he had taken her for. And she was younger than he had taken her for, too. What the devil had he got himself into?

‘It was a sorry introduction to Scotland for you, but if you don’t mind my saying so, you were asking for trouble, hanging around the castle like that. They no doubt mistook your calling. I did so myself, but I take it I was wrong?’

Madeleine stared at him in consternation. ‘Indeed, you are mistaken,’ she said indignantly, clutching her tippet even more tightly.

‘That’s what I just said,’ he responded, unmoved by her embarrassment. ‘But as I’ve also just said, you can’t blame me for thinking it, anyone would have made the same mistake.’

She could not deny this, so remained silent.

‘What the hell did you think you were doing there? Had you no money for a lodging?’

In the cold light of day, after a night’s refreshing sleep, Madeleine struggled to come up with an answer to this perfectly reasonable question. Her actions seemed stupid even to herself. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, feeling singularly foolish. ‘I mean—yes, I had money, but I don’t know why I didn’t find a place to sleep.’

‘Do you know why you’re here, at least? In Edinburgh, I mean?’

‘Of course I do,’ she responded, drawing herself up haughtily. ‘I was trying to get into the castle, but they wouldn’t let me pass.’

‘Why on earth …?’

‘I wanted to speak to the prisoners there. I’m looking for someone.’

‘A man, I presume.’

Madeleine nodded.

‘And what has this man done?’

‘Nothing,’ Madeleine said indignantly. ‘He’s not a criminal.’

‘Then why—ah, your man is a Jacobite.’ He waited on her nod. ‘And what makes you think he’s in there?’ Despite his pleasing lilt, the worlds were sharply spoken.

‘I don’t. I don’t know where he is.’ Madeleine paused, swallowing hard as the many, many things she didn’t know about Guillaume and his fate threatened her ability to think clearly. ‘The castle is as good a place to start as any. I thought someone in there—one of the other Jacobites—might know him, or of him, might be able to help me trace him.’

‘It’s a bit of a shot in the dark if you ask me.’ Calumn pressed a hand to his brow. His head had begun to thump. His tried to think, but his thoughts fled from his grasp like a hare from a hound. ‘How do you come to speak such good English?’

‘A woman in our village, Madame le Brun, who is married to the school teacher, is from a place called Dover.’ Confused by the sudden change of subject, Madeleine eyed her host warily. ‘She teaches me embroidery—or she tries to—as well as English. She would be pleased at the compliment,’ she said with an attempt at humour, ‘for she despairs of my stitchery.’

Calumn rubbed his eyes and shook his head in an effort to clear away the fog befuddling his brain. A shaft of sunlight slanted in through the leaded panes of the window, making him wince. Too much whisky, but at least it stopped him from dreaming. He focused his gaze on his unexpected houseguest. She was a slight thing, with long flaxen hair trailing down her back. Beautiful in a fey, ethereal way. ‘You look like a mermaid,’ he said.

His smile curled like smoke. His voice had a teasing quality, a lilting, sensual tone, which connected to her senses at a very basic level. Looking at him from under her lashes, the sunlight making his hair a burnished halo, Madeleine thought anew how strikingly attractive Calumn Munro was. Perhaps his ill temper was simply morning crotchets. ‘My mother used to say that, too,’ she said.

His eyes crinkled as his smile deepened. ‘Did you put me to bed?’

‘I just made you comfortable.’ The vivid memory of being held hard against him made Madeleine’s toes curl up into the soft pile of the rug at her feet.

‘Did I behave myself?’

She wondered nervously if he knew that it was she, not he, who had taken liberties. ‘You behaved perfectly. You promised you would. Word of a Munro, you said.’

Calumn’s smile faded. His eyes darkened, as if a light had gone out. ‘Word of a Munro,’ he repeated, his tone bitter. ‘I must have been drunk.’

He got up and stretched, rolling his shoulders, which were stiff from tension. He needed food and fresh air. ‘I can’t think on an empty stomach. We’ll get some breakfast and you can tell me your story properly.’

‘You’ve done too much for me already,’ Madeleine protested, but it was half-hearted. She was ravenous. Calumn Munro looked like a man with influence, and last night had proven him also a man of action. What’s more, he was her only friend in this foreign country; she would be foolish to turn down the opportunity to enlist his help.

Foolish, but also wise? She knew nothing of him, found not only his uncertain temper but his very presence unsettling. But … she trusted him. And he intrigued her. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said with an uncertain smile. ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’

‘I’ll get Jamie to fetch you some hot water,’ Calumn said, suiting action to words with a bellow which would have awoken the dead.

With the hot water, Jamie brought a letter which had just arrived. When he had washed and dressed, Calumn broke the seal reluctantly, his frown deepening to a scowl as he scanned the closely crossed sheets of his mother’s elegant hand. Father weaker … demise imminent … factor requiring constant supervision … your return required urgently. All the usual phrases, although the bit about the attack on the western lands was new. Revenge by a Jacobite clan … to be expected given the Munroes’ stand, his mother wrote. Calumn’s stomach clenched in anger as he read this paragraph more closely. Bad enough the mess the Rebellion had left in its wake, now they must be feuding amongst themselves! If they were to survive in the Highlands, the clans must stick together, could they not see that!

Beg of you to return. Your father … not likely to live much longer. If his father died, the lands would be his. His to change and to renew, his to care for and nurture rather than work to exhaustion, his to do all the things he’d thought about and planned during the last few years. But they weren’t his yet, nor likely would be in the near future. His father might be weak, but his grip on life was a lot more tenacious than his mother gave him credit for. And anyway, what was the point in dreaming, when the fact was he couldn’t go home. Not now. Maybe not ever.

The usual feelings of frustration and anger and pointless railing at fate, roiled in his gut, making him nauseous. Calumn crumpled the letter up in disgust and threw it into the empty hearth just as Madeleine rejoined him. She raised her brows, wondering what could have inspired such fury, but seeing the deep frown which marred his face, chose wisely not to comment. He was dressed in breeches and top boots teamed with a dark coat, the clothes expensive and well cut. He had shaved and tidied his hair, though it was not tied back but swept away from his brow, curling almost to his shoulders. It was unusual for a man of his obvious standing to go without powder or wig, but Madeleine thought it becoming.

Calumn gave himself a shake, pressing his thumb into the furrow of his brow as if to smooth away the thoughts which formed it. ‘Come on, then,’ he said, holding open the door for her, ‘my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.’

They made their way down the stairs, out of the dark close and into the Lawnmarket, which was now teeming with hawkers and traders. Vendors vied for supremacy in the calling of their wares. Horses and carriages clattered on the cobblestones. Chairmen shoved and pushed their precarious way through the hordes thronging up Castlehill and down the High Street towards the Parliament buildings and the solid hulk of the Tollgate prison. The appetising scent of fresh bread, strong cheese and the dry, fusty smell of the many bales of cloth fought a losing battle with the stench from the sheughs, the steep gutters running either side of the street.

Madeleine paused, wide-eyed, in the close entranceway, waiting for a gap in the heaving crowd. Calumn took her arm. ‘Hold on tight to me.’

She needed two steps to keep up with his one. The crowd seemed to part for him like magic as his long legs strode effortlessly through the busy market. Madeleine clung to his arm for dear life, with her free hand keeping a firm hold on her small supply of money through the slit in her petticoat where it was tucked into one of the embroidered pockets tied securely around her waist.

Noticing the trepidation on her face, Calumn pulled her closer. ‘I take it you’re not from the city?’

‘I’m Breton, from a place near the town of Roscoff on the coast.’

‘I’ve not been to Brittany, though I’ve been to France. So you’re a country girl, then?’

‘Absolument.’

He had not slowed his pace. They took the steep road down West Bow, Calumn leading the way unerringly through a warren of dark closes and narrow wynds to an inn on the Grassmarket where he greeted the landlord by name and demanded breakfast immediately. They were ushered into a dusty back parlour, away from the curious group of ostlers, coachmen and passengers awaiting the public conveyances, and shortly were served thick slices of bacon, eggs and blood pudding. Though Calumn ate heartily, Madeleine was more cautious, deciding against the heavy black pudding after a suspicious sniff.

‘Tell me about this Jacobite you’re looking for.’ Calumn pushed his empty plate aside.

‘He came to Scotland with a battalion called the Écossais Royeaux.’’

‘The Royal Scots. A mix of French and Scots, and a fair few mercenaries too. Under Drummond’s command, am I right?’

‘Yes. How do you know all this?’

He ignored her. ‘All the French were pardoned, you know, rounded up and packed off home long since. How can you be certain this man of yours is still alive?’

She traced a pattern on the scarred wooden table with a fork. ‘I just am. I can’t explain, but if he was dead—well, I would know. I would feel it.’

Rory’s dead, Calumn. It’s been almost six months. He’s dead, we have to accept that, all of us. Heronsay is yours now. His mother’s words echoed, making him close his eyes in an effort to block out the painful memory. His own reply floated into his mind, so strangely reminiscent of Madeleine Lafayette’s. He’s alive. If he was dead I would know. I would feel it.

Calumn blinked, and found that same Madeleine Lafayette’s big green eyes watching him with concern.

‘Is there something wrong?’ Instinctively, she reached out her hand to his.

Her fingers were long, the nails well cared for, buffed and shaped. He laid his other hand on top of hers, noting the stark contrast between her smooth and creamy-white skin and his own, rough and tanned. Her hand felt good nestling there, fragile yet resilient. He twined his fingers into hers, liking the way her fingertips grazed his knuckles, fitting so perfectly, though she was so much smaller than he. He remembered then, last night, how the rest of her body felt, pressed close to his, fitting just as snugly, feeling just as right. It was as if he knew her. Had known her. Which was ridiculous. He dropped her hand, sat back and shook his head firmly. ‘There’s nothing wrong. I know what you mean, that’s all, when you say you’re sure he’s alive.’

Just for a second he had looked lost. Vulnerable. ‘You’ve obviously felt the same about someone,’ Madeleine prompted carefully.

A door slammed shut. His eyes refocused. ‘So who is he, this Jacobite of yours?’ Calumn asked brusquely.

‘His name is Guillaume, the Comte de Guise.’

‘A nobleman. That should certainly make it a bit easier to track him down.’

‘‘Oui, that’s what I thought,’ Madeleine agreed with relief. ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to the other Jacobites at the castle. I know it’s unlikely, but I have to start somewhere.’

‘It’s highly unlikely, especially after all this time. Why have you waited so long? It’s been over a year since Culloden.’

‘You think I don’t know that!’ Madeleine’s lip trembled. ‘A whole year of trying everything in my power to find out what has become of him, but no one will tell me anything. I’ve written countless letters to the authorities and to the army, but all they will tell me is that Guillaume is not on any list, either of men who have been sent back, nor of any of the—the fallen, or the men who have been executed. It is so out of character for him not to get in touch. I don’t understand it—where could he be?’ Huge eyes swimming with unshed tears gazed up at Calumn beseechingly. The strain of the last year, the ordeal of the last few days, were beginning to take their toll.

‘Do you not think, mademoiselle, that the time has come to accept that he is—’

‘No!’ Her gaze was fierce, her rejection absolute. ‘No,’ she said again more quietly, though no less resolutely, ‘I won’t listen, you sound just like everyone else.’

The accusation stung. Once again, Calumn was reminded of a similar scenario not six months ago, his own no-less-vehement rejection. His hand clenched into a fist. He had held out, held on, waited, but he could not forget the doubts. He had not been so steadfast in his belief as this woman was. Though he had held fast in public, in private he had questioned. Was not this certainty simply the guilt of the survivor? A stubborn unwillingness to confront the truth? He had survived his wound because fate, ill fate, had placed him on the side of the victors. Rory, who had chosen to fight with his kin, had most likely not been so fortunate. Yet still Calumn had waited, because not to wait would be to admit the inadmissible. The price he had paid, would continue to pay, for his own choices, was high enough without that.

‘I’m sorry, I should not have been so rude.’ Madeleine’s voice broke into his thoughts. She was gazing at him searchingly. Too searchingly.

‘There’s no need to apologise,’ Calumn replied gruffly. ‘What you believe is not for me to question.’

She smiled tentatively. Whatever was going on in that handsome head to make his tempter so volatile, it was more than the after-effects of whisky. ‘I know Guillaume is probably dead, I know that it’s irrational of me to think otherwise in the circumstances, but I still find it impossible to accept. You understand, I think. It’s the lack of certainty.’

His nod was reluctantly given, but it was eventually given all the same. ‘What is this man to you?’ he asked sharply.

‘Guillaume and I are—friends.’

‘Friends! You’ve come all this way, after all this time, for a friend? He must be a very particular friend.’

Piercing blue eyes, disconcertingly penetrating, searched her face. Madeleine returned to playing with her cutlery. She was strangely reluctant to tell him the truth. She put the fork back on the table and forced herself to meet Calumn’s gaze. ‘We have known each other since childhood. Guillaume is my best friend.’ That, at least, was true.

Calumn raised his eyebrows sceptically. ‘And how came you to be here in Edinburgh alone?’

‘Everyone else thinks Guillaume is dead. No one will listen to me, I had no option but to come.’ The truth was, she had run away, but if she told this man the truth she doubted he would help her. More likely he would insist on packing her back to her father, and she could not risk that, not when she had already risked so much just to get here.

‘Won’t you be missed?’

She shrugged, deliberately offhand. ‘They will guess where I am.’

‘I see,’ Calumn said drily, thinking he did, now. She was obviously in love with the missing Comte, in all likelihood had been his mistress, and had equally obviously been abandoned. If he was not dead, this Guillaume de Guise, he had most likely taken up with another woman. Calumn had seen it himself many a time with his own men, stationed far from home for months on end, falling for a pretty local girl and abandoning all thought of the one waiting for them back home. Whether her swain was dead or unfaithful, Madeleine Lafayette was doomed to disappointment.

Callous bastard, not even to have the guts to tell her! If Guillaume de Guise had been one of his men! Calumn sighed and shook his head. ‘You’re probably on a wild goose chase, you know,’ he said gently.

A film of tears glazed her eyes, but Madeleine shrugged fatalistically. The defensive little gesture touched his heart more than her tears. He did understand, of course he did. He’d been the same, all those months when Rory was lost to them. Calumn felt in the pocket of his waistcoat for his handkerchief and handed it to her. Wild goose chase or no, she’d been very brave to come here like this all on her own, so determined and so steadfast in her belief. He, of all people, could not but admire her for that. She deserved to find out the truth, even though she was heading for heartache. Why not help her?

He took her hand in his again, enjoying the feel of it again. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he told her. ‘I’m not promising, but I think I can get you into the castle, if you’re set on it. And I have a friend here in Edinburgh who can check the records, make sure de Guise’s name isn’t on any of our lists for deportation or—or anything else.’

‘I knew you understood,’ Madeleine said softly.

The intensity of her gaze made him uncomfortable. Calumn threw some coins on to the table. ‘Come on, let’s see what we can do about finding this precious Guillaume of yours.’

Chapter Two

Calumn set off at a brisk pace with Madeleine hurrying along breathlessly at his side, buoyed up by the prospect of making progress at last. The Grassmarket was the disembarkation point for most coaches coming in and out of Edinburgh. At the far end stood the gallows, and towering high above it, perched on its plug of volcanic rock, stood the castle.

‘Everything here is so tall.’ She gazed up in wonder at the lofty buildings climbing four, five, some six storeys high. To one whose experience of a metropolis was limited to the small Breton market town of Quimper, the Scottish capital, with its crowded thoroughfares and bustling populace, was like an alien world. The houses were packed so tightly against one another it seemed to her that they, like the people on the street, were jostling for space and light. Inns and coaching houses took up most of the ground-level accommodation, separated from each other by the narrowest of alleyways. The skyline was a jumbled mass of steeply gabled roofs and smoking chimneys, with washing lines strung out on pulleys from the tenement windows, fluttering like the sails of invisible ships. ‘So many people living on top of each other, I don’t know how they can bear it. It’s like a labyrinth,’ Madeleine said.

‘Aye, and a badly built one at that, down in this part of town,’ Calumn replied. ‘Some of these wooden staircases are treacherous. The problem is there’s too many people and nowhere to build except up, because of the city walls.’ He pulled her adroitly out of the path of a dray loaded with barrels of ale.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To see a friend of mine.’ He led the way through a wynd, which rose sharply between the two streets it connected, then turned left into a small courtyard where more rows of laundry took up most of the cramped space, flapping on lines stretched between poles across its width. ‘Mind these stairs. See what I mean about treacherous?’

The staircase wound up the outside of the building, almost like a wooden scaffold attached rather precariously to the stone tenement. Madeleine lifted her petticoat and climbed nervously, relieved when they stopped at the first floor.

‘Jeannie,’ Calumn called, rapping briskly on the door.

A young woman answered, her pretty face lighting up with pleasure when she saw the identity of her visitor. ‘Calumn, what a surprise.’

Her vibrant red hair was caught up in a careless knot on top of her head. Her figure was lush, with rather too much of her white bosom on display through her carelessly fastened shift, Madeleine decided prudishly.

‘I brought Mademoiselle Lafayette to meet you. Madeleine, this is Jeannie.’

‘Good day to you, mademoiselle,’ Jeannie said, bobbing a curtsy. ‘Come away in, the pair of you, before we have the rest of the close wanting to know our business.’

Despite the fact that she was obviously not a respectable female, Madeleine warmed to her. Jeannie ushered them into a room which seemed to serve for living, sleeping and eating all at once. A huge black pot simmered over the fire, suspended on a hook which hung from a complicated pulley-and-chain device inside the chimney breast. A large table and an assortment of chairs took up most of the space, all covered with piles of neatly folded clothing. In the far corner a recess in the wall, like a cupboard without a door, was made up as a bed. Jeannie bustled about clearing some chairs and bade them sit down. ‘I’m sorry about the clutter,’ she said to Madeleine.

‘Jeannie takes in laundry,’ Calumn said, leaning comfortably back on a rickety wooden chair, clearly quite at home in the crowded room. ‘She washes my shirts and I give her young brother fencing lessons in return. She also does the washing for some of the prisoners up at the castle.’

‘Those that can afford it, any roads. I’m up there most days. It’s a sorry sight, I can tell you. Some of those poor souls have been locked up there for years.’

Realisation finally began to dawn on Madeleine. ‘You mean you can talk to the prisoners,’ she exclaimed.

‘Aye, of course.’

‘Mademoiselle Lafayette is looking for someone who may be held there,’ Calumn said, responding to Jeannie’s enquiring look. ‘A Frenchman called Guillaume de Guise.’

‘What does he look like?’

If only she possessed a miniature! Madeleine screwed up her eyes in an effort to picture Guillaume’s face, but after so long without seeing him it was as if his image had blurred. She could remember things about him—his smile, the way he strode across the fields, the sound of his voice calling to his dogs—but she couldn’t see his face clearly. Instead, she described his portrait, taken for his twenty-first birthday and a good likeness. ‘Tall, though not as tall as Monsieur Munro. Slimmer too, with dark hair, though he usually has it cut short, for he wears a wig. Blue eyes, though not like Monsieur’s either, paler. And he is younger, he will be twenty-three now.’ She looked at Calumn, lounging with careless grace on the chair next to her. He had such presence, an aura of power, of—of maleness—that she could not imagine ever forgetting what he looked like. In contrast, the memory of Guillaume appeared boyish, disappointingly ephemeral.

Jeannie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t recall having seen anyone like that.’

‘Wait a bit though, did you not say that Lady Drummond’s being held in the Black Hole?’ Calumn asked.

‘Aye, she’s there with her two daughters, and a damn shame it is too, to see such a proud woman brought so low. I have some of their shifts to take back today. Beautiful stitching on them.’

‘Lord Drummond was the commander of the Écossais Royeaux, the regiment for which de Guise fought,’ Calumn explained. ‘He was executed some months ago now, but they don’t have the right to send his wife the same way. She’ll be worth talking to.’

‘You can’t expect me to take her there, Calumn, it’s a terrible place.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ Madeleine declared determinedly, ‘and I would be very, very grateful if you would help me. Will you, please?’

Jeannie pursed her lips disapprovingly. ‘We’ll have to do something about those clothes of yours, they’re far too fine for a laundry maid. I’ll give you an apron to put over them, and you can wear a cap, but you’ll need to keep your hands out of sight. Anybody with a wheen of sense can see those have never done a day’s washing.’

‘Thank you!’ Madeleine leapt to her feet and impulsively pressed a kiss on Jeannie’s cheek. ‘You have no idea how much this means to me.’

‘Don’t be daft, I just hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for. Away with you just now. Meet me at the bottom of Castlehill at two.’

‘She’s nice, I like her,’ Madeleine said to Calumn as she once again found herself executing a little running step to keep up with his pace. ‘She’s your chère-amie, isn’t she?’

Calumn laughed. ‘Lord, no, Jeannie’s a grand lass, but she’s a friend, that’s all.’

‘And what does it mean, to be a grand lass?’ Madeleine asked, articulating the strange phrase carefully. ‘Am I one?’

They had reached the close which was the entranceway to Calumn’s rooms. Smiling at her lisping attempt at the Scots tongue, he pushed the gate open and ushered her through into the courtyard. As she moved past him, the swell of her hip brushed his leg, and he remembered last night again. Her body had been so soft and pliant, on top of his own. He thought of the way her hand felt so at home in his after breakfast this morning too, and before he could stop himself he wondered if her lips would fit his in the same way.

She had stopped to wait on him as he shut the gate. As she made to walk to the stairs he caught her arm and pulled her towards him, startling himself almost as much as her. ‘You are far too pretty to be called a grand lass,’ he said. ‘You, Madeleine Lafayette, are a captivating wee witch.’

‘I am not a witch,’ Madeleine said, flustered and indignant. She could feel the heat of his body, though they were hardly touching.

‘No? Maybe a fairy then,’ Calumn said, wondering fancifully if she had indeed cast a spell on him. Mere foolishness, but he hadn’t come across her like before, and he didn’t seem to be able to make himself stop what he knew he shouldn’t be doing, for he wanted, suddenly, urgently, to kiss her. He leaned closer, and caught a trace of her scent, remembered that too, from last night, like the wisps of a dream.

‘What are you doing? Let me go.’ Madeleine’s lungs seemed to have stopped working. Her heart was pumping too hard. Calumn’s eyes sparkled blue like the summer sea. He looked as if he was going to kiss her. Surely he would not dare? Surely she would not …

Calumn kissed her. It was the softest of kisses, just a touch of his lips on hers. A warmth, a taste, a curl of pleasure inside her, and it was over. ‘Oh! You should not—’

A hooting noise interrupted her. It was Jamie, standing on the bottom step, a dog comprised mostly of terrier wriggling in his arms. ‘Me ma says to remind you that this is a respectable close.’

‘As if she would ever let me forget,’ Calumn muttered, straightening up. ‘Here, go and put your washerwoman’s apron on. I’ve a bit of business to attend to. I’ll be back in time to escort you up to the castle.’

He handed Madeleine the key to his lodgings. Madeleine took it, trying not to imagine what kind of woman Jamie’s mother must be imagining her, to be caught kissing in public, even though he had kissed her without the slightest bit of encouragement! They would think her the same type of woman that Calumn obviously imagined her to be! For the first time since she had arrived, she was glad to have the North Sea between herself and her home. If her father had—but he had not seen, and would never know, and she would make sure it didn’t happen again, so it was pointless to worry. ‘There’s no need to come back for me,’ she said to Calumn, thinking that perhaps the less she was in his company the better, ‘I know the way now.’

His lips thinned. ‘You’ll do as I say,’ he said implacably.

It would be a waste of breath to argue; besides, she had much more important things to do right now. Madeleine nodded her agreement and made her retreat.

An hour later, her transformation to laundry maid was complete. She had tucked her petticoat and shift up at the waist, exposing her ankles in the way she noticed all the women did here, for the very practical reason of keeping their clothes from trailing in the stinking gutters. The closed robe she wore, the only one she had with her, was of cerulean blue with a darker stripe, and though the material, a blend of wool and silk, was of excellent quality, the long starched cotton apron Jeannie had given her covered much of it. She’d taken off her saque-backed jacket, and made sure that the frills of her shift showed at the neckline of her dress and at the hems of her tight sleeves, which she had pushed up to the elbows.

‘Well, do I look the part?’ Giving a little twirl before curtsying low in front of Calumn, she unwittingly granted him a delicious view of her cleavage.

He had thought her slender, but her curves were now clearly revealed. She had a delightful body. The slim arms emerging from the fall of lace at her elbow were white, the fragile bones at her wrists and ankles, and the elegance of her long, tapering fingers, her neck, all were somehow emphasised by the changes she had made to her clothing. The soft mounds of her breasts had the lustre of pearls against the white of her shift. Her mouth, with its full lower lip, was pink and luscious.

‘You look more like a princess playing at dressing up. Here, let me.’ He carefully tucked her hair back under the cap, giving her a marginally less just-got-out-of-bed look. Up close she smelled as sweet as she looked. Lavender and sunshine. ‘I’m not so sure it’s such a good idea after all, letting you go to the castle like this. Can you not pull the neckline of that dress a bit higher? You’ll have half the garrison lusting after you.’

‘I’ll be with Jeannie.’

‘Exactly. I should never have introduced you to her. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

Madeleine giggled. ‘You weren’t thinking very much at all. You had the headache from all that wine—no, I forgot, whisky—last night. You shouldn’t drink so much.’

‘If you had to live in my head, you’d know I can’t drink enough,’ Calumn flashed angrily.

Taken aback at the acrimony in his voice, she flinched. ‘And does it work?’

‘What do you mean?’

Resolutely, she held his gaze. ‘Mostly, people drink to forget something.’ ‘I am not most people.’

No, he most certainly was not. But he was trying to forget, none the less. Madeleine decided it was probably best not to say so, however.

They arrived at the bottom of Castlehill to find Jeannie waiting with two large baskets of laundry. She surveyed Madeleine and shook her head doubtfully. ‘They’ll have you for breakfast if we’re not careful.’

‘That’s what I’ve been telling her,’ Calumn agreed, picking up both the baskets, carefully stacking one on top of the other.

‘Don’t speak to anyone unless I tell you to,’ Jeannie said, setting off up the hill towards the castle at a pace which rivalled Calumn’s. ‘And don’t catch anybody’s eye, especially not Willie MacLeish, the head gaoler, he’s a lecherous old devil.’

Madeleine struggled to keep up in more ways than one, for Jeannie spoke as quickly as she walked, in a broad lowland dialect that she found difficult to follow. She was reduced to nodding and smiling as Jeannie continued to rap out instructions and advice, concentrating all her efforts on keeping abreast of her two companions. By the time they reached the entrance way to the castle she was out of breath and panicky.

‘I’ll wait for you here,’ Calumn told her. ‘Just do what Jeannie says, she’ll keep you right. Bonne chance. ‘

Madeleine smiled bravely, wishing desperately that he was coming with her. He had an air of authority which she was horribly conscious she lacked. Without him she felt strangely bereft and extremely nervous.

‘Stick close and you’ll be all right,’ Jeannie said reassuringly and set off apace. The guards at the portcullis nodded them through, casting a curious glance at Madeleine, but making no attempt to stop her. They hurried on up the spiralling incline to another gate and finally entered the heart of the castle. A company of soldiers were being drilled in the courtyard. The distinctive clang of metal on metal came from the armoury in the far corner. A group of Redcoats lazed idly in the afternoon sunshine. To Madeleine’s relief there was no sign of her attackers from last night. Already it seemed like a lifetime ago.

The familiar scent of horse was strong. She wondered if Perdita, her own faithful white mare, was missing her daily outing. She wondered what Calumn was doing. He was a strange mixture, that one, as fiery as the whisky he consumed to escape his devils. As golden in appearance, too, and, she suspected, every bit as addictive. A pleasure to be paid for with a sore head—or a sore heart, maybe.

‘Auld Willie MacLeish.’ Jeannie’s warning voice intruded on her thoughts. A middle-aged man with wispy tufts of hair looking comically as if they had been glued on to his pate and a complexion like porridge awaited them at the entrance to the castle vaults. ‘Keep behind me,’ Jeannie hissed. She dumped her laundry basket in front of the man, neatly preventing him from coming any closer, and did the same with the basket Madeleine was carrying. ‘Here you are, Willie, I hope your hands are clean.’

Willie’s toothless grin was like a dank cave. He proceeded to rake through the neatly folded linen, causing Jeannie’s displeasure when he shook out a shirt and threw it back in carelessly. ‘Aye, that all seems to be right,’ he said eventually. ‘I see you’ve help with you the day, Jeannie—who’s this wee thing?’

‘She’s just a friend lending a hand.’

‘And what’s your name, girlie?’

Madeleine shrank back as the full impact of Willie’s body odour hit her.

‘Do you think we’ve got all day?’ Jeannie said sharply, poking the man in the ribs. ‘I’ve plenty other customers to see to after this, you know.’

Willie cackled. ‘I bet you have, Jeannie Marshall,’ he said with a leer, but to Madeleine’s relief he led the way towards a heavily studded door and began to apply his keys.

Though she had been warned, Madeleine was appalled by the conditions, unprepared for the human suffering which confronted her. Her admiration for Jeannie grew as she watched her call out cheery greetings before producing an astonishing assortment of goods from the capacious pockets of her petticoats, including tobacco and some flasks of whisky. Many of the prisoners were Jacobites, but some were common felons awaiting the gallows. With Jeannie’s help Madeleine spoke to any who would listen to her, but none had anything to say about either the Royal Scots or Guillaume, the Comte de Guise.

Deeper down the cells were much smaller, the prisoners manacled and the requirement for laundry sparse. It was with relief that Madeleine followed Jeannie back to the main door. ‘Have you known Calumn long?’ she asked as they waited for the gaoler to return and let them out.

Jeannie drew her a knowing look. ‘I met him when he came back to Edinburgh after he left the army. He’d been a Redcoat, even been stationed here at the castle once, so he told me. My brother Iain has ambitions to join the army too, so I asked Calumn if he could give the boy a bit of a head start. That’s when he offered the sabre lessons. Calumn’s good company, we have a bit of a laugh and a joke together, but that’s all there is between us.’

‘He was a soldier?’

‘A captain, no less. He doesn’t talk about it, mind, I’m not sure why. It’s a touchy subject with him.’

‘Did he fight in the Rebellion?’

‘I don’t ken. I told you, he doesn’t talk about it, and if I were you I wouldn’t go prying. Calumn Munro’s not someone who would take kindly to your poking your nose into his business.’

‘What about his family?’

Jeannie shrugged. ‘They’ve lands somewhere in the Highlands. He doesn’t talk about them either. Calumn has been a good friend to me and my brother, but you’d be wise not to get any ideas about him. He’s what we call a charmer.’ She picked up her basket at the sound of the key grating in the lock. ‘That’ll be Willie. He’ll take us to Lady Drummond.’

The Black Hole was above the portcullis, so that the prisoners held there were under almost constant surveillance by the sergeants of the guard. The conditions in the other vaults were unhealthy, but the Black Hole was positively inhumane. Lady Drummond, a tall, thin woman with a Roman nose and piercing grey eyes, shared the small space with her two daughters. She greeted Jeannie in a friendly manner, but, seeing Madeleine, immediately looked suspicious. ‘And who are you?’ she asked in a cultured voice with the lilt of the Gael.

Madeleine dropped a curtsy. ‘Madeleine Lafayette, madame. I’ve come in search of news of someone who fought under your husband.’

‘A Frenchman? They’ve all been deported, so I’m told.’

‘Yes, but Guillaume has not come home.’

‘Guillaume?’

‘Guillaume de Guise, the man I am searching for. Do you know of him?’

‘The Comte? I remember him, certainly,’ Lady Drummond conceded. ‘May I ask what he is to you?’

Quickly, Madeleine told her. ‘Please, if you know what became of him, I beg of you to tell me.’

Lady Drummond’s face softened marginally. ‘You must understand, mademoiselle, that the little I do hear I cannot be certain of. Rumours reach me, it is true, and I have my own means of communicating with the outside world, but—knowledge can be a very dangerous thing, in times like these. If I am discovered …’

The door at the foot of the stairs was opened and Willie MacLeish’s voice bid them hurry before they got him into trouble. Despairingly, Madeleine picked up her basket. ‘You’ve lost everything because your husband chose the Prince. I’m trying to prevent the same thing happening to Guillaume.’

Lady Drummond pursed her lips. ‘There is something. It surprised me, for it did not sound like the de Guise I knew, but—there is no saying what war will do to a man, and there cannot be two men with such a distinctive name. I can’t promise anything, mademoiselle, but if you’ll give me a little time I think I can find out his whereabouts. I’ll send a message through Jeannie, one way or another. Tomorrow, the next day at the latest.’

‘Thank you, madame, thank you so much,’ Madeleine said fervently, kissing Lady Drummond’s hand and dropping a deep curtsy before she hurried down the steep stairs. The temptation to look up as she passed under the portcullis was strong, but she resisted.

Calumn was waiting near the top of Castlehill. Madeleine and Jeannie made a pretty picture as they approached, striking enough for most men on the busy thoroughfare to take a second glance. Jeannie sashayed confidently through the crowds, casting flirtatious sidelong glances to the left and right, the deep red of her hair glinting in the sunshine like a summons. Beside her, Madeleine’s fey looks and flaxen hair were ethereal, her step as graceful as a dancer’s. ‘I take it your visit was a success then,’ he said when they came into earshot.

‘I’ll know soon. Lady Drummond has promised to send me a message through Jeannie.’

They were at the junction of West Bow. Jeannie stopped to take her baskets from Calumn. ‘This is where I leave you. I’ll be in touch once I’ve had word from her ladyship.’

‘Remind your brother to expect me on Wednesday,’ Calumn said.

Jeannie glanced over at Madeleine. ‘Aye, provided you don’t get distracted,’ she said with a teasing smile, heading off down the hill.

Back at his lodging, Calumn steered Madeleine towards the settle in the reception room. ‘I’ve asked Jamie’s mother to serve us dinner. I’ve told her you’re a distant relative, on your way to London to take up a post as a governess.’

‘A governess!’

‘I had to think of something to save her sensibilities,’ Calumn said, ‘though God knows, you look no more like a governess than a laundry maid. You can use my spare room again tonight, it will save you the hunt for other lodgings.’

‘You are very kind, but I don’t think it would be right.’ It would most definitely be wrong. Once again, Madeleine thanked the stars for the cold grey sea which, she sincerely trusted, would protect her hitherto spotless reputation. There would be questions when she returned, but she was relying on Guillaume’s presence and her father’s relief at their safe return to plug any gaps which her own imagination could not fill. It grieved her to think of deceiving Papa, but really, it was his own fault for not believing.

‘I could ask Jamie’s mother to recommend somewhere,’ she suggested, strangely loath to do so. Because she was tired, she told herself, not because she actually wanted to stay here.

‘You could, but you’ve seen how crowded the city is, you’d likely have to share.’

‘I didn’t think about that. But it wouldn’t be right for me to stay here. People would think—they would say that—it wouldn’t be proper.’

Calumn laughed. ‘I’ve told you, they think you’re a distant relative. Anyway, isn’t it a bit late to be worrying about the proprieties after last night?’

She stared into those perfectly blue eyes of his, searching for his meaning. Did he remember? Madeleine folded her arms nervously across her chest, realised how defensive the gesture was and placed her hands once more in her lap. ‘You’re right. I should have thought about it before. I shouldn’t have stayed here last night.’

‘Why not?’ Calumn sprawled in the seat, but he was looking at her with unnerving penetration.

She twisted her hands together, suddenly nervous, and moved to the large chair opposite him. ‘I should have told you before. I’m not what you think I am. In fact, I am Guillaume’s betrothed,’ she confessed baldly.

Calumn looked remarkably unperturbed. ‘I guessed it must be something like that, even though you did your best to lead me into believing you were just his mistress.’

‘You guessed!’

‘You’re not a very good liar. That vagueness about your family, and when I saw you with Jeannie—it was obvious you were gently bred,’ Calumn explained matter of factly. ‘Then there was the fact that as de Guise’s discarded mistress you can’t have had much to gain in coming looking for him, whereas if you were his affianced bride—it had to be something like that to make you run away, which is what I presume you’ve done?’

Madeleine stared at him in astonishment. ‘Yes, but.’

‘And why should you tell me the truth, after all?’ Calumn continued in a musing tone. ‘You’re in a foreign country, you’ve been attacked by three drunken soldiers and we have known each other less than twenty-four hours. Frankly, I’m impressed that you’ve had the gumption to get this far without a fit of the vapours.’

Madeleine smiled weakly at this. ‘Thank you.’ She fell to pleating the starched apron Jeannie had lent her. ‘I won’t go home. You won’t make me go home, will you? You know what it’s like, don’t you, the needing to know what happened? You know what it’s like to have to wait and wait and wait, and all the time everyone is telling you that you’re wrong?’ Her big green eyes had a sheen of tears. ‘You do understand that, don’t you, Calumn?’

For the second time that day, her words evoked memories he spent most of his waking hours suppressing and much of the night time reliving. The months of waiting, the guilt of the survivor gnawing away at his guts, adding to the agony of the betrayal he had been forced into and the lingering pain of his slow-to-heal scar. He did not want to remember. Calumn ran his fingers through his hair. ‘We’re talking about you, not me. What family have you back in France?’

‘There’s just Papa and me. I’m an only child—my mother died last year.’

‘Just Papa. Who will no doubt be insane with worry. Did you say you left no word of where you were going?’

‘No,’ Madeleine whispered, shrinking from the thought of the upset her disappearance must have caused, ‘but he will guess where I am.’

‘You left his care without telling him and you left it alone. He will be imagining all sorts, any father would be,’ Calumn said sternly. ‘You must write to him, put his mind at rest, as soon as you have word from the castle. What possessed you to do something like this after so much time has passed?’

‘Guillaume’s cousin has started legal proceedings to have him declared dead. If he succeeds, all Guillaume’s lands will pass to him—a man who has spent all his life in Burgundy,’ Madeleine said contemptuously. ‘Guillaume loves La Roche, it would break his heart to lose it. Papa would not listen to me, he said I should forget Guillaume, that coming here to look for him would be too painful, but I couldn’t stand by and let La Roche fall into a stranger’s hands.’

‘Ah. So it’s about land.’

The sudden change in Calumn’s tone made Madeleine wary. ‘And Guillaume.’

‘An arranged match, I assume?’

‘We were betrothed when I was five years old, and certainly it is the dearest wish of my papa to see me settled so close, for our estates share a border and a son of mine would be able to inherit where I cannot, but—’

‘Very touching, but it’s still an arranged match.’

‘Guillaume is my best friend. I know him as well as I know myself. He is like the son my father never had, and—I don’t need to justify my marriage to you. Yes, it is an arranged match, but I am very happy with it. It will make me happy.’

‘How does it make you happy?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘De Guise gets you and, through your son, your father’s lands. Your father gets to keep his estate in the family and his daughter next door. But what about you, what do you get out of it?’

‘Get out of it?’ He did not sound angry, but there was a tightness about his voice she could not understand. ‘You make it sound like a business transaction. It is what I want.’

‘Really? ‘Tis not my experience that fulfilling the expectations of others leads to happiness. You’d have done better to stay at home. At least that way you’ll avoid being shackled to a man you are marrying only to please your father.’

‘You know nothing of the situation,’ Madeleine said indignantly. ‘Of course I want to do this for Papa, but I am not just doing it for him, and I am certainly not being forced into doing something I dislike. In any case, what is wrong with wanting to do what I know will make others happy?’

‘Nothing at all, unless it makes you unhappy.’

‘Why should doing what I know is the dearest wish of those nearest to me make me unhappy?’ Madeleine asked in bewilderment.

‘You subscribe to the view that duty is its own reward, do you? Aye, well you’re right in one way. In my experience duty is always rewarded handsomely. By misery. You’re fooling yourself, Madeleine. You’re not in love with Guillaume de Guise.’

‘Guillaume is the dearest person in the world to me since Maman died.’

‘Like a brother, maybe, but are you in love with him?’

‘I’ve known him since we were children, of course I love him.’

‘Love, not in love. That’s not the same thing at all.’

She stared at him wordlessly, feeling out of her depth. She could not read his face. He did not seem angry, but he had a look in his eye she did not trust, a tightness about the mouth she was wary of. He was watching her too closely. His coat hung open, the full skirts trailing on either side almost to the floor. He crossed one long leg negligently over the other, so casually, yet there was something about him that was most definitely not casual. He was baiting her. Setting a trap for her, if only she knew what it was.

‘Answer the question, Madeleine.’

Unexpectedly perturbed by the turn the conversation had taken, Madeleine got restlessly to her feet, tugging Jeannie’s cotton cap off her head. Several long strands of her hair unfurled, curling over her cheeks and down her neck. ‘Love, in love, it’s the same thing,’ she said with a certainty she was by no means feeling. ‘I love Guillaume as my friend. When we are married I will love him as my husband. I will love him because he is my husband, and because in making him my husband I know I am making both him and my family happy.’ She said the words like a catechism, as if by articulating her feelings in this way they would acquire more heft. Tugging impatiently at the bow which held her apron in place, she managed to pull it into a tangle.

‘Come here.’ Calumn sat up. ‘Let me do that.’

She stood with her back to him. His knees brushed the sides of her petticoat. His fingers pulled at the bow. ‘Closer, it’s worked itself into a knot,’ he said, tugging her nearer, so that if she leaned back just the tiniest fraction their bodies would be touching. He bent his head and it brushed against her back.

‘There,’ Calumn said and the strings of Jeannie’s apron unravelled.

He turned her round, putting his hands on her waist. Then he stood up, still holding her, giving her a look that could be mistaken for a smile, a curl of his mouth that seemed to reach up inside her like long fingers, squeezing her, slowly squeezing the breath out of her in the most curious way. Her lips were level with his throat. If he kissed her again, she would have to stand on her tiptoes. Not that she was going to kiss him. Or allow him to kiss her. What on earth was she thinking?

Calumn’s voice, softer now, interrupted her thoughts, which seemed to have strayed far beyond the bounds of what was decent. ‘Being in love is a different matter entirely from feeling affection for someone. The fact you don’t understand that tells me you’re not. And just to prove it, Mademoiselle Lafayette, I’m going to kiss you again.’ He tilted up her chin.

‘No,’ Madeleine whispered.

He put his arms around her.

‘No.’ Her heart raced, as if she had been running. Calumn leaned towards her, and a long lock of hair, bright as new-minted gold, fell over his cheek. She gazed into his eyes as he lowered his lips to hers, knowing she should move away, but something contrary and stronger in her kept her there, because she wanted to know what it would be like to be kissed by him. Properly. Just so she would understand what he meant.

She couldn’t move. She gazed at him like one mesmerised, her lips parting just the tiniest fraction, the movement so small she was not even aware of it.

Calumn hesitated. She should not be here. He should not be doing this. Not even to prove her wrong.

But her mouth was made for kissing. He hadn’t thought of much else since that tantalising taste of her earlier in the day. She felt as if she were made for him, though who would have guessed it to look at her, so fragile compared to his own solid bulk. His hand tightened on her waist. He should not, but how could he resist when she was looking at him, unblinking, with her bewitching eyes, as if she saw into his soul? As if she was luring him towards her, exactly as mermaids do to sailors. She wanted him to kiss her. And it was for her own good, was it not? He could not resist. He simply could not. So he kissed her.

He kissed her and Madeleine sighed, the sound of the dying wind playfully ruffling a sail at sunset. Calumn’s mouth was warm as before. Soft as before. Gentle as before. It fitted over hers perfectly, his lips moulding themselves to hers, sipping on hers, as if tasting, encouraging her to do the same. She twined her fingers into his hair, relishing its springy softness, and pressed her lips against his, relishing the different softness and now the taste of him. She felt her blood heat. He kissed her and she kissed him back, liking the way his breath came just a bit faster, the way his fingers clenched just a bit tighter on her waist, the way his excitement fuelled her own. His tongue touched hers, turning warm into scalding hot. His fingers tangled in her hair. His tongue on hers again, a flash of heat that made her insides quiver and an answering surge in him, for she could feel the hardening of his arousal nudging against her.

She sighed and this time it sounded like a moan. She thirsted for more. His kiss became less gentle and she liked that, too. She pressed, mouth to mouth, breast to breast, thigh to thigh, flesh to muscle, her softness against his hardness. His hand slipped up from her waist to cup her breast. No one had ever kissed her like this. No one had ever touched her so intimately. No one. Not even—what was she doing!

Madeleine wrenched her mouth away. ‘Non!’ She wriggled free of his embrace. Heat turned to cold in seconds, as if her blood had been flushed with ice, though her lips were burning. She tried to cool them against the back of her hand. She forced herself to meet Calumn’s gaze. His eyes were glazed, his hair in wild disorder. A dark flush suffused his cheek bones. His breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. Shamed, she realised she probably looked the same.

Calumn shook his head, pushing his hair back from his forehead. ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘you’re right, that was more than enough to prove my point.’

‘What point?’

‘You would not have kissed me like that if you really were in love with de Guise.’

Madeleine blushed furiously. ‘It is none of your business how I kiss Guillaume, and none of your business to be kissing me. You should not have done so. I told you to stop. I said no, I—’

‘You’re deluding yourself, mademoiselle,’ Calumn said with infuriating calm. ‘You wanted to kiss me, just as much as I wanted to kiss you.’

Madeleine stared at him in consternation, desperate to contradict him, but instinctively knowing that to do so would be foolish. ‘I …’

Just then, there was a soft rap on the door. ‘Your dinner’s here, Master Munro,’ a female voice called.

‘Saved,’ Calumn said with an infuriating smile as he left the room to relieve Mrs Macfarlane of her loaded tray.

Chapter Three

Mrs Macfarlane’s plain but excellent repast eased the tension between them. As they ate their way through chicken stew served with a dish of peas and greens, Calumn directed the conversation to less personal matters. Perhaps he felt he had made his point, perhaps he wished simply to enjoy his food without further contretemps; whatever it was, Madeleine was happy to follow his lead. Banishing the whole kissing episode to the back of her mind, she regaled Calumn with a highly coloured version of her two days at sea in a Breton fishing boat. It made him laugh, and encouraged him in turn to recount some of his own—carefully edited—traveller’s tales. His description of a meal of pig’s trotters he had eaten in a Paris café encouraged Madeleine to recall the plate of pig’s fry she had been presented with as a child, after attending the ceremonial slaying of the said pig by one of her father’s tenants.

‘It was an honour, you know,’ she said with a grin, ‘but I was only about five, and I said to Papa, I don’t like worms.’

‘Did you eat it?’

‘Oh, yes, Papa would not have his tenants insulted. It didn’t taste of anything much.’ The clock on the mantel chiming the hour surprised them both. ‘I didn’t realise it was so late,’ Madeleine said in dismay.

‘You’ll stay here, then? It’s far too late for you to go looking for somewhere else now, and at least if you’re here I’ll know you are safe.’

Though he phrased the words as a question, his tone indicated that he would brook no argument. Madeleine was inclined to dispute this assumption of responsibility, but common sense and an inclination to spend more time in his rather-too-appealing company made her keep quiet. ‘Thank you. I would like to stay, if you’re sure.’

‘I’m sure.’ Calumn pushed back his chair. ‘I’m going out for a while. Have you everything you need?’

She was disappointed, but realised he was being tactful. ‘Yes. And thank you, Calumn, you’ve been very kind.’

‘Until the morning, then.’ The door closed behind him, leaving the rooms resoundingly quiet. Loneliness threatened. To keep it at bay, Madeleine tried to think about what she would do when—no if, it must be if—Lady Drummond sent her a message with Guillaume’s whereabouts. But that set her into a panic about how she would do whatever she had to do, so she took herself to bed, and despite being absolutely certain she would lie awake all night worrying, Madeleine fell into a sound sleep.

The company at the White Horse was thin, and Calumn was not in the mood for gambling. Returning early, he lay awake, all too aware of Madeleine in bed next door.

Her situation was abominable. He knew too well what it felt like, that wanting to know. If de Guise was alive, the bastard deserved a whipping for not having the guts to face her. He did not deserve her, any more than he deserved to have her save his lands, for he must have known his cousin would claim them in his absence. In fact, de Guise seemed altogether too careless with all his property. Of a certainty he didn’t deserve it. Unless of course he really was dead, which, the more Calumn thought about it, seemed the most likely thing.

Except that Madeleine seemed so sure. Just as Calumn had been, against all the odds. What if he’d given up, as his mother had begged him to? How would that have looked, on top of everything else? Angrily, he closed his mind to that path of thought. Betrayal was betrayal. A matter of degree made no difference.

Back to Madeleine, an entrancing enough diversion.Such a shame it would be for such a lovely one as she to throw herself away on someone who didn’t deserve her. Her response to his kisses had taken him aback. His own response had been equally surprising. Calumn was not a man accustomed to losing control, but there was a depth of sensuality in her which was obviously yearning to be released.

Releasing it was absolutely none of his business, Calumn told himself. None, no matter how tempting the idea was. Misguided Madeleine might be in choosing to marry for the sake of her family, but at the end of the day, it was her decision. And as to seducing her just to prove a point—no! No matter how attractive the proposition was, it was strictly against his own rigid rules of conduct. But that did not prevent him from thinking about it.

Madeleine awoke the next morning to an insistent tapping on the door of her chamber. Still befuddled with sleep, she tumbled out of bed and opened it, wearing only her shift. Calumn stood on the other side, already dressed, filling the small room with his presence. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, gazing up at him in bewilderment.

He reached down to twist a long coil of her platinum hair around his finger. ‘You look even more like a mermaid than usual, with your hair down like that.’ His eyes widened as he took in her state of undress. The neck of her shift was untied, revealing the smooth perfection of her breasts.

She caught the direction of his gaze and blushed, placing her arms protectively over herself, trying to bat away the hand which toyed with her hair. It was a nice hand. Warm. The fingers long and tapered. Not soft but work-roughened. He had not the hands of a gentleman, but nor were they of a common labourer. He had interesting hands. Realising she had been holding on to one of them for far too long, Madeleine dropped it.

‘It’s a bonny day,’ Calumn said. ‘I thought I could show you a bit more of Edinburgh while you wait on her ladyship getting in touch.’

‘That would be lovely, but I’m sure you must have business to attend to.’

‘Nothing that can’t wait, and at least if you’re with me I can be sure you’re not getting into any trouble.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Don’t look like that, you know perfectly well you shouldn’t be going about a strange city on your own, and you know perfectly well you don’t really want to. Allow me to be your guide. I want to.’

The clank of a pail heralded Jamie’s arrival with hot water. It was an appealing idea charmingly proposed. After clearing the air last night, and spending such a pleasant dinner, Madeleine could think of no reason to refuse it. ‘Thank you. I’d like that,’ she said, with a smile she tried hard to restrain.

‘We’ll go out by the Bow Port,’ Calumn said, taking her arm at the gate of Riddell’s Court half an hour later, ‘then we can walk through the royal park. I’ll show you where Prince Charles Edward stayed in the lap of luxury while he was in Edinburgh—and where his men were forced to camp in less salubrious conditions.’

They proceeded in their usual fashion through the Edinburgh streets, Calumn striding with graceful ease through the crowded thoroughfares and mazelike wynds. ‘Thank you for taking the time to show me around. Despite what you said, I am sure you have other things you should be doing,’ Madeleine said, clinging to his arm.

Calumn cast her a shrewd glance. ‘Are you fishing?’

Her dimples peeped. ‘A little. You don’t strike me as a man who would be content to be idle. Jeannie told me you’d been teaching her brother how to fight with a sword.’

‘Did she now? And no doubt she told you I’d been in the army too?’

Remembering Jeannie’s warning about Calumn’s reticence on the subject, Madeleine nodded warily.

To her relief Calumn seemed not to take offence. ‘I joined up at sixteen. ‘Twas my father’s idea. I was in need of some discipline, he said, and to be honest I was relieved to get away from him—I was just beginning to see that what he called the old ways were more or less tyranny. We were forever at outs. A couple of years’ service is all he intended, enough for me to learn how to do as I was bid, then I was to come home and do as he bid.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘But the army made me; my regiment was more like a family to me than my own blood. After two years, though my father ordered me home, I stayed on. Two years became six, the rift between us became a gulf, but the more he created the less inclined I was to obey and as for him—even now he’s on his last legs, there’s no give in him.’ Calumn’s face darkened, then he shrugged. ‘I was a good officer and I worked hard to earn the respect of my men. There’s any number of wee laddies in these parts like Jeannie’s brother who think to escape as I did, though what they’re running from is poverty rather than despotism. I spend a fair bit of my time teaching them the tricks of the officer’s trade. Not that any of them will be able to afford a commission, mind, but if they know how to use a sabre and a foil, if they have some education and understand the basic rules of warfare and command, it will give them an advantage in moving up the ranks.’

‘I imagine you are an excellent teacher—though with that temper of yours, I would not envy the boy who gets it wrong.’

Calumn laughed. ‘Aye, it suits me fine, being able to vent my spleen on a roomful of waifs and strays. Believe me, they give as good as they get.’

‘And does it work?’

‘As I said, it gives them a start. The idea proved so popular, we set up regular classes. I suppose it’s grown into a sort of school. The day-to-day business is in the charge of two men who served under me for many years, and our old regiment is more than happy to take recruits trained by them—and to give them a bit of financial support, too.’

‘I wish I could see it. Do you spend a lot of time there?’

‘Not as much as I did at first. Truth be told, they don’t really need me now.’

‘So you’re looking for something else to do?’

They were approaching the imposing gate in the city walls. ‘I’m supposed to be showing you the sights,’ Calumn said, making it clear he had answered enough questions. He pointed out a large house. ‘That belongs to Archie Stewart, who was Lord Provost of Edinburgh in ‘forty-five when Charles Edward was here. They say that he gave a party for the Prince, and up at the castle they got wind of it, but Archie’s house is riddled with secret stairs and passageways, so Charlie escaped, which is more than can be said for poor Archie. He was taken south as a prisoner, charged with abusing his position. Luckily for him they sent him back to Edinburgh for trial, and the good citizens here decided to find him not guilty.’

‘You don’t like the Prince much, do you?’ Madeleine said, risking a glance upwards to check Calumn’s countenance.

He frowned. ‘No.’ His tone forbade further probing.

Since it was a beautiful day and Madeleine did not wish to spoil the mood, she made no further comment but instead gave one of her little Gallic shrugs and smiled sunnily at him, pleased to see his frown fade. They passed through the Bow Gate and headed away from the walls of the city, towards the outskirts of the royal park belonging to the Palace of Holyrood. A steady stream of traffic jammed the road, dray carts and carriages belonging to the better off competing for space with mud-spattered public coaches drawn by sweating teams of horses. Laden mules, equally laden tradesmen and farmers with their wares formed a never-ending queue to pass through the gates. Calumn kept Madeleine clasped close to his side until they could leave the road and take one of the paths which headed towards the immense green space of the park.

He was an entertaining companion, knowledgeable, with a dry twist to his humour which exactly correlated with her own. As she did, he enjoyed inventing histories for the people they passed on the road; unlike Guillaume, who was more often than not puzzled by her tendency to exaggerate and embroider in order to entertain, Calumn was amused by her wit and did not once ask her to explain herself. By the time they reached the parkland, Madeleine was as relaxed in his company as if they had been friends all their lives.

Looking about her, she was astonished to find they were in what appeared to be the depths of the countryside, though they had not come so very far from the great city. The Palace of Holyrood sat in a little valley of its own, surrounded by formal gardens, with a chapel clearly visible. To her right a group of hills rose up surprisingly high, looking almost as if they had been lifted from the Highlands and plopped down carelessly in the flat lowlands. ‘It’s very beautiful here.’

‘We’ll walk round by the palace and you can see where the Prince first greeted the people of Edinburgh when he arrived.’

‘I read in the newspapers at the time that the Prince and his army were well received.’

‘I suppose it’s true enough, they were all for Charlie—or, more accurately, they were all against the Crown. It was hard times here just before the Rebellion, people were starving. They were looking for a champion and they didn’t mind who he was,’ Calumn said cynically. ‘It helped, mind you, that Charles Edward is a fair-looking man. The ladies loved him.’

‘I didn’t,’ Madeleine said with conviction.

Calumn was startled. ‘You’ve met him?’

‘When he returned to France after Culloden. His boat landed not far from my home.’

‘You must be one of the very few of your sex to dislike him. The lassies here were hurling themselves at him, from what I heard.’

‘Hurling?’

‘Throwing.’

‘Well, I didn’t do any of this hurling. I thought he was arrogant and conceited and rude.’

They had reached a junction in the path they had been following. Ahead lay the palace, but Calumn led Madeleine to the right, to a sheltered spot in the lee of the hills. It was warm. He stripped off his coat and laid it down on the ground. ‘We’ll rest here a moment, it’s a pretty view.’

Madeleine knelt down on Calumn’s jacket. He sprawled beside her, propping himself up with his elbow on the grass, careless of his pristine white shirtsleeves. A light breeze ruffled his hair, which in the strong sunshine was streaked with touches of red, like flames. They were in a slight hollow, completely hidden from passers-by. She was suddenly incredibly aware of his presence, as if her skin was reaching out for him. ‘It’s very beautiful here,’ she said, trying to focus on the scenery and not on the man at her side. ‘I can hardly believe the city is so close.’ As she spoke, she felt a prickle of awareness which she tried to ignore, keeping her gaze fixed on the horizon.

‘I think it’s very beautiful here, too,’ Calumn said softly, and she gave in to temptation and turned to look at him. It was a mistake. ‘Very beautiful,’ he said, tugging at her wrist so that she tumbled off balance, falling on top of him.

She knew she should move, but it was nigh on impossible to bring herself to do so. It was as if she were drugged. Or mesmerised. Or simply mindless. She lay on top of him as she had done that first night, pressed tight against him, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, only this time Calumn was fully conscious and his hands were doing the most delightful things, running down the curve of her spine, moulding themselves to the roundness of her bottom, as if he were learning her contours through her clothing It was shocking to be touched in this way. And exciting.

She became aware of his arousal hard against the inside of her thigh. ‘I shouldn’t,’ she managed, but what it was she shouldn’t, she did not want to put into words.

She made no move to pull away—though he waited, and knew he should wish she would. ‘Madeleine?’ She dropped her gaze, as if abdicating from the whole difficult question. ‘We should not be doing this,’ he murmured.

‘No,’ she agreed.

‘No,’ Calumn whispered. Then his lips met hers and there was no going back, for when they kissed, it was as if they had always been kissing. As if they had only just left off kissing. As if kissing was what they were made for, and rules—rules simply did not apply.

Delight and danger. Madeleine knew it, but she didn’t care. His kisses made her feverish, made her thirsty for more, made her care for nothing except more. Where Calumn led she followed, echoing what he did, nibbling on his bottom lip while he sucked on her top, softening when he pressured, opening when he pushed, taking what he gave and giving more. Allowing him, encouraging him to master her with kisses that reached down inside her to ignite her very blood.

She was driven by a need she could not define. Her fingers coiled into Calumn’s mane of golden hair, relishing the springy, silky texture of it. His hands were on her face, rough fingers on the soft area of her skin, stroking her eyelids, her ears, loosening her hair from its pins, combing through it, spreading it out behind her, his mouth leaving hers to nuzzle on the lobe of her ear, the hollow in the nape of her neck. He felt so solid. Solid chest. Solid thighs. And a different kind of solid hardness between his legs. She wanted to feel all of it pressed into the softness of her own flesh. As if he could imprint her with his shape, like a shell on the sand.

He whispered something in a strange language, something lyrical that curled like his smile around her, melting her bones. His mouth, soft and warm, kissed into the slope of her breasts at the edge of her shift, making her gasp with pleasure and alarm. Her nipples bloomed, crying for attention. ‘Calumn,’ she whispered, a question, a caution, which could too easily be mistaken for incitement.

He looked at her, smiled, heavy-lidded, watching her face with a fierce concentration as he shifted position to undo the fastenings of her robe. Watching for any sign that he should stop. That she wished to be released. Or perhaps that she wanted to encourage him. Which?

She was distracted. Pleasure. This must be what he meant. The very word was horribly enticing. Pleasure. Calumn gave it a whole new currency of meaning. Pleasure. Not something light and airy, but more deep-rooted. No longer the colour of sunshine, but the dark and beating colour of a creature he had conjured.

Her robe fell open. The ribbons of her shift were untied, the shift eased down over her shoulders to expose the startling whiteness of her breasts to the sunlight. It would seem the decision had been made, though she surely had not made it! Another of those addictive shivers rippled through her, making her skin tingle. Her nipples puckered and darkened as blood rushed to them. Calumn licked the tip of his finger and ran it over first one, then the other. Exquisite. A touch as gentle as a breeze. Warm, then cool. Rasping pleasure. She whimpered. Calumn licked his finger again. He looked at her, his eyes speaking to her, telling her something both mystifying and arousing. He touched her again. So new. So strange. For something so illicit, so unexpectedly wonderful.

He took her nipple in his mouth. A gentle sucking made her squirm. A tiny nip made her moan. A slow languorous licking made her gasp. His hands stroked the contours of her breasts. Feathering touches. Moulding hands. Warm, licking, sucking mouth. Tracks of sensation shot out from where he touched her, connecting with the heat that was building lower down. A thrum of vibration like the strings on a harp being tuned. Instinctively Madeleine prepared to resist whatever it was, though she had the strangest premonition that it would prove irresistible. She tensed.

He noticed the subtle change in her immediately. Astonished at the depth of her response, taken aback by how quickly it had happened, how close he was to forgetting himself and all his resolutions, Calumn sat up. One thing to dream of seduction. Quite another to suit actions to words.

He tore his eyes away from the vision spread in front of him, her hair almost white in the sunlight, her skin so perfect, slight traces of his touch blossoming like petals of passion on her breasts. She was intoxicating. He shifted uncomfortably, for the weight of his erection was thrusting against his breeches. He was unbelievably hard. He had not meant things to proceed so far, so quickly. He swore in Gaelic, the language he always returned to at times of emotion. ‘I didn’t mean this to get so out of hand.’

He forced himself to move, to create a distance between them, though his body screamed in protest. Calumn pulled Madeleine’s shift back up over her shoulders. ‘Cover yourself, for the love of God, before I lose sight of the little control I have.’

Madeleine did as she was bid, fumbling fingers making hard work of the ties and fastenings of her clothes. She felt like an instrument tuned too tight, stretched to screaming point, her strings taut with music they could not release. The glimpse she had had of something—something white hot, something liquid and pouring, something to drown in—was fading slowly as her body cooled. Had she disgusted him? Of a surety she had shocked him almost as much as she had shocked herself. What was happening to her? She barely recognised herself in the wild creature she had become under Calumn’s tuition. Why had not Guillaume ever …?

Guilt racked her. It did not matter what Guillaume had not done, the point was what she had! Kissed a man who was virtually a stranger! Allowed him to touch her most intimately. No—be honest, Madeleine—encouraged him to touch her most intimately, wanting him to do things to her she had never before dreamed it was possible to want.

Shame washed over her. She could not meet Calumn’s eyes, but sat frozen, plucking at one of the buttons on his coat, which she was still sitting on. ‘What must you think of me? I don’t know what came over me, I can assure you I have never, ever …’

He put a finger to her lips. ‘Look at me, Madeleine,’ he commanded, forcing her to do so. ‘You did nothing to be ashamed of. You’re a lovely creature, remarkably responsive, and I got carried away. What you’re feeling, it’s not wrong. It’s not shameful. It’s perfectly natural. Or at least it is when people are attracted to each other as you and I are, at any rate.’

She thought carefully about that. ‘You mean to imply that I am not attracted to Guillaume in that way?’

Calumn shrugged. ‘I didn’t say that.’ ‘You didn’t need to, but you’re wrong. It’s just that he’s never kissed me as you did.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t—he has not—because—it is none of your business.’

‘No, it’s not.’ It was not! And he shouldn’t have started this. But now that he had, he couldn’t leave it alone. ‘What about you, Madeleine? Have you never wanted to be kissed as we just did? Have you never dreamt of your wedding night? The bliss to be found in the union of the flesh. Love making. Pleasure, not procreation. Desire, not duty.’

‘Stop it. Of course I haven’t.’

‘Of course you haven’t. Listen to yourself. Betrothed to a man you claim to love, and you have never imagined making love to him!’

‘You will be saying that I am in love with you next.’

He laughed at that, amusement curling on his mouth, where the bottom lip was slightly swollen from their kissing, she noticed. ‘No, what we have between us is something much more earthy. Craving. Passion. Lust. All the things you don’t feel for your future husband. And all the things I’m damned sure we should not be indulging in, no matter how tempting.’

‘Marriage is not about passion and—and craving. It’s about much—much worthier feelings,’ Madeleine said defensively.

‘Worthy!’ Calumn sought relief in Gaelic, cursing long and fluently under his breath. Then he gave a deep sigh. ‘All right, have it your own way. If you are content with worthy, who am I to argue with you!’ He pulled her to her feet. ‘It’s too nice a day to argue. Let’s forget it. All of it. It won’t happen again.’

She managed a tremulous smile, telling herself she should be relieved, perfectly well aware that she was as much to blame for what had happened as he was, and too shocked at herself to do much more than walk by his side, listening with half an ear as he told her more about the Queen of Scots who had also been, for such a short time, the Queen of France. He told the tale with his own peculiar brand of cool irony, and eventually made her laugh.

At ease again, they skirted the grand Palace of Holyrood, taking the path out to the nearby village of Duddingston. ‘You never did tell me about your meeting with the Prince,’ Calumn reminded her.

‘It was in September last year, when he landed in France after he escaped capture from the British army. He was spending the night at a château close to our home, friends of my father’s, and they gave a party for him. I went because I wanted to find out about Guillaume.’

‘And what did Bonnie Prince Charlie have to say for himself?’

‘He pretended to remember Guillaume, but he did not. He told me he would not have left such a pretty betrothed behind, and then he tried to kiss me. I don’t understand what people see in him. I don’t understand why they followed his cause. He’s an arrogant, conceited pig, and I would not follow him in to dinner, never mind into battle.’

‘Bravo, Mademoiselle Lafayette. Would that others held your opinion. Scotland would have been saved a lot of heartache, and you would have been spared your journey.’

And she would not have met Calumn Munro. She didn’t know what to make of that thought.

They had arrived at Duddingston. The little village was built beside a small loch, with the kirk set on a promontory stretching out on to the water. It was very pretty, calm in the warmth of the afternoon, with the colours of the trees reflected on the still of the water. ‘Charlie’s men camped here before the Battle of Prestonpans,’ Calumn said.

‘It’s so strange to think that Guillaume may have been here. It’s so peaceful too, not a place for an army.’

‘Are you hungry? There’s a howf here, the Sheep Heid. They’ll run to some bread and cheese if you care for it?’

‘I’d love it. I’m starving,’ Madeleine said with a grin.

The inn was a simple stone building with a skittle alley built on to the side. It was quiet, for the locals were all at work, so they had the taproom to themselves.

‘Tell me more about your life in Brittany,’ Calumn said, once they were seated.

Madeleine took a reviving draught from her small tankard of beer to wash down the crusty bread she had been chewing on. ‘It’s very different from here. The air is full of the sea, it’s like it’s heavy with the salt. My family has an estate not far from the village of Roscoff. We grow wheat, and artichokes, too. But our biggest crop is apples, which we grow for the cidre, and also for mead. Then there are the dairy cattle for the butter and cheese so creamy and soft—not like this cheese which I think must come from sheep—and of course many of Papa’s tenants are fishermen as well as farmers. Most days I ride out with my father to oversee whatever needs done, and I also do the accounts and manage the dairy.’

Calumn smiled. ‘You really are a country girl.’

‘I can’t imagine a life spent living in the city, or languishing like a lady of fashion with nothing to do all day except needlepoint and gossip. Which, now I come to think of it, are very similar pursuits, for one involves embroidering tapestry, the other the truth.’

Calumn laughed. ‘You certainly have a needle-sharp wit.’ He took a long draught of ale. ‘In many ways Brittany sounds a lot like my own home.’

‘Tell me a little of it. You know so much about me, and yet you’ve given away very little about yourself. It’s hardly fair.’ She kept her tone teasing and was careful not to sound overly interested, but she was determined to satisfy her curiosity.

‘I come from a place called Errin Mhor in the Highlands, north-west of here. My family also has a large estate with tenant farmers. We’re situated on the coast too, so most people both fish and farm. In Scotland we call it crofting.’

‘What do you grow?’

‘Oats, barley, neeps, potatoes, kale. The winters in the Highlands can be long and harsh, the soil is shallow, not nearly as fertile as your homeland. But the fish—I’ll wager it tastes even better than what you’re used to.’

‘Is it beautiful, this place Errin voe—what did you call it?’

‘Mhor. It’s very beautiful. I don’t think there’s anywhere more beautiful on earth—but I’m prejudiced. It’s surrounded by mountains that seem purple in the summer with the heather. Then in the autumn, when the weather’s on the turn, they have all the shades of brown you can imagine—golden and amber when the sun rises over them, glowing russet and auburn in the sunset. And in the winter their peaks are white with snow and ice, glittering like diamonds. Our land lies in the lee of the mountains, grazing for the sheep in the lower slopes, farm land on the flat shelf that runs out to meet the sea. We’ve beaches of the whitest sand, and there’s lots of little islands just off the mainland where the water is shallow at low tide, and you can fish for the biggest crabs you’ve ever seen in your life.’

He stopped talking, gazing off into the distance with a smile on his face.

‘When I was little we used to race the crabs across the sand.’

Calumn dragged his mind back from his homeland to the dark, smoky interior of the howf, the enchanting woman facing him over the scarred wooden table. ‘We did that too, me and my friend Alasdhair.’

‘Do you not miss it?’

He was about to shrug, as he always did when asked this question, as if to dismiss Errin Mhor as a place of the past, but then he stopped. Of course he missed it. Errin Mhor was a part of him, a hole in his being that nothing else could fill. ‘There’s not a day goes by I don’t think of it.’

She had been granted a confidence and was immensely touched, for she knew it was a rare thing. ‘I would love to see it.’

‘You’d like it. We’ve much in common, us Highlanders and you Bretons. We’re both Celts, after all.’

‘And you and I, we’re both farmers at heart.’

‘So my mother would have me believe. According to her, no one is fit to manage Errin Mhor except me, now that my father’s health is failing. She’s appointed a factor, but she’s sure the land will go to rack and ruin unless it’s overseen by a Munro by birth.’

‘But that’s true, Calumn, your maman is right,’ Madeleine said enthusiastically. ‘When you are born to it, you have l’affinité which no one else can have. Why do you stay here in Edinburgh when you are needed at home?’ she was emboldened to ask. ‘You said yourself that you have nothing to keep you here. What are you running away from?’

‘Running?’ He stared at her long and hard. Emotions flitted across his face. Anger. Sadness. Bitterness. Resignation. ‘I’m not running. I can’t go home, that’s all. I don’t have the right any more.’

The anguish of his expression made her wish to put her arms around him, but she knew instinctively he would interpret any such gesture as pity. He was not a man who would take to having his hurt exposed. She had thought him a rich philanderer with too much time on his hands. Philanderer he was, and a very, very charming one, but he was not a man devoid of belief or honour. He was a man stripped of it.

There was a tiny thread of a scar under his left eyebrow which she had not noticed before. ‘How did you get that?’ she asked, tracing the slight pucker of the healed skin with her fingertip, the contact in some way assuaging the need to give him comfort.

‘A childhood injury. I got in the way of an arrow at a hunt when I was eight or nine. ‘Twas my own fault for not paying attention. The pain from the arrow was as nothing, believe me, to the beating my father gave me afterwards.’

‘Your father beat you?’

Calumn shrugged. ‘He warned me to stay at the back, but I didn’t listen. I was shot at for my stupidity and beaten for my disobedience. My father is the laird. He expects to be obeyed in all things.’

‘Just like you,’ Madeleine said, softening her words with a smile.

Calumn got to his feet. ‘You’d do well to remember that.’

The walk back was accomplished in silence, though it was not an uncomfortable one. As they neared the city walls and the traffic, mostly heading away from Edinburgh, grew heavier, Madeleine fell to wondering if Lady Drummond had left her a message. But when they arrived back at his rooms she was disappointed on two counts. Lady Drummond had not been in touch, and Calumn announced that he would be dining out. The truth was, he did not trust himself in Madeleine’s company alone, but being unaware of that, she chose to be insulted, and was consequently aloof to the point of rudeness when he departed, dressed in his evening attire.

She spent a lonely few hours, dining off mutton broth and rabbit stew cooked by Mrs Macfarlane and leafing through a well-thumbed book of poetry which she found on the floor beside the chair in which Calumn usually sat. Though the long walk should have given her an appetite, and Mrs Macfarlane’s cooking smelled delicious, Madeleine could not do justice to it. She retired early, and lay for what seemed like hours in the dark trying to plan her next steps, in reality listening anxiously for the sound of a key in the lock.

What was he doing? Who was he with? She was struck by the illogic of her feelings. What cause had she to be jealous, when he was nothing to her? No cause, and no right, but Madeleine prided herself on her honesty. She was jealous, none the less.

She could not understand it. Did jealousy then go hand in hand with the other emotions he had awakened in her this afternoon? Desires which she had not even been aware she could possess. Desires which, now they had been roused, would not let her be. Her body seemed to have acquired a distinct mind of its own. One which, she could almost convince herself, had nothing to do with her. It distracted her now, forcing her to remember this afternoon, to wonder how it would have been had Calumn not called a halt. To wonder, knowing that whatever she imagined, it would not be anywhere close to the reality.

Such distracting thoughts. Madeleine tried to summon up Guillaume’s slim figure, but it was like attempting to replace flesh and blood with smoke and glass. Though Guillaume’s hand had held hers a thousand times, though she had swum with him, danced with him, ridden out almost every day of her life in his company, it was as if all her memories of his touch, his scent, his looks, had faded.

Calumn’s face swam back into her mind. She had no difficulty at all in recalling his particular scent, the contours of his body, the way his skin felt against hers. The way her body felt against his. It meant nothing. But even so, frustration and desire kept her awake, tossing and turning until the lumpy mattress upon which she lay felt as if it were a bed of hot coals.

Finally she heard Calumn’s quick, light step on the stairs of the close and listened alertly as his key turned in the lock and the heavy door was carefully closed. He paused in the hallway just outside her door. She heard him sigh. Heard the door of his own bedchamber open and close. Gently. He was not in his cups tonight. The muffled sounds of him undressing and the vivid images her mind dreamed up as he did so ensured that any notion of sleep had fled. She lay in the quiet darkness of the night, listening to her own sighs and unable to stop thinking of the man lying naked on the other side of the bedroom wall.

The man in question was indeed naked, lying on his stomach, pillow pulled under his chin, the dappled moonlight playing on the long ridge of his back, his taut buttocks and muscled legs. An onlooker would be forgiven for thinking that a classical statue in all its smooth, firm and sculpted perfection had been splayed across the bedcovers.

Calumn, however, was wholly oblivious to the picture he made. In search of diversion he’d joined a group of friends in a game of cards, but his mind was not on the game. All he could think of was Madeleine. Madeleine laughing. Madeleine spread out underneath him on the grass. Madeline’s faraway look when she talked of home. Madeleine’s mouth. Her breasts. He liked the way she tucked her arm into his. He liked the way she fitted so snugly by his side.

Unable to concentrate on anything else, he had at least had the sense to lay down his cards before his losses were too heavy. Not even whisky appealed any more. But without whisky, he dreamed.

What are you running from? She was a mite too perceptive, Madeleine Lafayette. Her ability to see through him was unsettling. Describing Errin Mhor to her had brought back just how much he missed home. Depression draped like a heavy black cloak on his shoulders. Who was he to preach happiness to anyone? He, whose only aim in life these days seemed to be to avoid further pain. He, for whom happiness now would be forever out of reach. He had not the right to happiness, any more than he had the right to go home.

Calumn closed his eyes and pulled the sheet around him, trying to settle down to rest. But he was almost certain it would elude him.

He awoke the next morning, feeling as if his head had been stuffed with cotton. When he finally dressed and entered the reception room, he found Madeleine already sitting at the table with the coffee pot, looking quite at home. As she said good morning and handed him a cup, he found himself wondering what it would be like to see her like this every morning. Irritated with himself, he pushed the thought away and sat down opposite her. But the truth was, dammit, she’d made him realise he’d been lonely as well as homesick. ‘I have things to do today, I’ll be out most of the morning,’ he said brusquely.

There were dark circles under his eyes. She had heard him shouting in the night; a bad dream. She had listened at his door, wondering whether to wake him, afraid that to do so would be an unwelcome intrusion. Now, faced with his dark mood, she was glad she had not, though she was longing to know what had aroused such violent emotions. ‘That’s all right,’ Madeleine said brightly, ‘I’m hoping to hear from Lady Drummond. I thought I could go and wait on Jeannie returning from the castle.’

‘You’ll never find your way on your own. Jeannie will call if she has news, best to wait for her here.’ His tone brooked no argument.

‘I sense I’m in danger of overstaying my welcome. I’m extremely grateful for your hospitality, but I’ve imposed on you far too much already. Hopefully it won’t be for much longer.’

‘You haven’t imposed. I’m just tired, that’s all.’

‘Did you not sleep well?’

Had she heard him shouting? As he often did when he did not want to answer, Calumn chose to ignore her question. ‘I’ll be back by two, then we can discuss your plans.’

Madeleine clattered her cup on to the saucer. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be all right,’ she said haughtily.

‘I know you will.’ He looked at her meaningfully. ‘So long as you stay here and do as you’re told.’

‘So long as you stay here and do as you ‘re told,’ Madeleine repeated as the door slammed behind him. The arrogance of him! Gone was the delightful man from yesterday, and in his place this forbidding stranger who was obviously determined to keep a distance between them. Very well! But that did not mean she had to obey his every command. Madeleine muttered to herself angrily, lacing her boots and tying her tippet. ‘The arrogance of him!’ She would not sit here meekly twiddling her thumbs waiting on Jeannie to call. Calumn Munro was not her lord and master!

But as she stood on the edge of the Lawnmarket, watching the bustle of the traders, she had to work hard to suppress the urge to turn tail and do exactly as she had been bid. Nervously, hitching her skirts clear of the cobblestones, she made her way into the throng.

Chapter Four

Three hours later she returned to Calumn’s rooms to find them still empty. She was unwrapping her purchases in her room when a light tap on the door heralded Jeannie’s arrival. ‘You have news,’ Madeleine asked anxiously, after greeting the woman with a kiss and leading her into the parlour.

‘Aye. Is Calumn not here?’ Jeannie asked, seating herself on the very edge of one of the large chairs by the fireside.

‘No, though he should be back soon. Never mind Calumn, tell me please, what did Lady Drummond say.’

‘‘Tis good news,’ Jeannie said with a smile.

Madeleine gave a little squeal of excitement and clapped her hands together. ‘She knows where Guillaume is?’

‘You’re to make your way to a place called Castle Rhubodach. She says you’ll be expected, and he’ll find you there.’

‘Castle Rhubodach, where is that?’

‘Goodness, I don’t know. It must be in the Highlands somewhere, for she says Calumn will know.’

‘Calumn! How does Lady Drummond know we are acquainted?’

Jeannie looked embarrassed. ‘That was my fault. She asked me to tell her more about you yesterday, and I said that you were Calumn’s guest. I’m right sorry I told her now. I thought it would help, him being a Highlander and all, and gentry too, just like her. But it was a terrible mistake.’

‘Why so?’

‘It turns out Lord Munro, Calumn’s father, is a staunch supporter of King George. Lady Drummond was almost spitting blood when she said his name; it seems the families are old enemies. I was quite taken aback by her reaction, let me tell you—I’d have thought Calumn would have warned me. She said she wouldn’t put her trust in a Munro if he was the last man alive.’

Madeleine leapt to her feet, a bright flush of anger flying like a banner across her cheeks. ‘How dare she! She doesn’t even know Calumn.’

‘No, of course she doesn’t, but these Highlanders and their clans, they’re terrible ones for bearing grudges.’

‘What does she think Calumn will do to Guillaume, for God’s sake—murder him?’

‘Most likely she thinks I’ll have him brought to justice, which amounts to the same thing,’ a voice said from the doorway.

Both women jumped as the man in question entered the room.

‘You shouldn’t be eavesdropping at the door,’ Madeleine said, flustered by his sudden appearance. ‘It’s rude.’

‘It’s my door, and it’s just as rude to talk about your host behind his back. I don’t like to be gossiped about.’

‘We were not gossiping, we were just—Jeannie was just telling me …’

‘That Lady Drummond doesn’t trust me. I heard.’

‘She doesn’t know you,’ Madeleine said, glowering at the other woman.

Jeannie shook out her apron and straightened her cap, eyeing Calumn apologetically. ‘Who cares what that old snob thinks? I’ll be off now, I’ve sheets on the line, and it looks like rain.’

‘Then this is goodbye, Jeannie,’ Madeleine said. ‘Thank you, I am truly grateful for your help.’

‘Och away, it was nothing,’ Jeannie protested, though she swiftly pocketed the coin Madeleine proffered. The door closed softly behind her.

‘It’s good news then, I take it,’ Calumn said.

She had seated herself back on the settle, but it was a mistake, for she had to crane her neck to look into his face. He looked tired, and his hair was dishevelled. She had an urge to smooth it down.

He leaned his broad shoulders against the mantel. ‘Well, cat got your tongue?’

‘Calumn, what Lady Drummond said about your family, I—’

‘I don’t want to discuss it.’

‘But—’

‘Did you not hear what I said?’ he thundered, lowering over her like an avenging angel in a way that had her recoiling in her chair. ‘I will not discuss the matter further.’

Though she had seen flashes of his temper, this was something very different. She knew him well enough, though, not to pursue such an obviously touchy subject and waited in nervous silence for him to calm down, which he did surprisingly quickly, taking a few paces round the room before resuming his position leaning against the mantel. ‘So, what did the good Lady Drummond say then?’

‘I am to go to a place called Castle Rhubodach and wait for Guillaume to get in touch.’

‘So he’s definitely alive, then?’

Amazingly, this single, vital fact had not truly sunk in until now. Madeline’s smile dawned slowly. ‘Yes. You’re right. Guillaume’s alive! He must be, mustn’t he? You don’t think it’s some kind of cruel joke? Or a trap perhaps,’ she asked anxiously.

Calumn sat down on the settle beside her and put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Regardless of what Lady Drummond thinks of me, I don’t think she’s the type to lie. If she says he’ll be in touch then she must have cause to believe he will. So, yes, it looks like de Guise might be alive after all.’

Madeleine slumped heavily against his side. ‘I can’t believe it.’ Tears, hot tears of relief, welled up in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just such a shock.’

‘I know.’ He remembered as if it were yesterday the day Rory appeared out of the blue at Heronsay. Word had reached him on the island an hour or so in advance, but he would not credit it. Not until he saw him standing there on the beach. Until he heard his voice, until he could actually touch him, would he believe that his brother really was alive. He closed his eyes. It was a happy day. About the last happy day he could remember.

Madeleine burrowed her face into Calumn’s chest, the woven fabric of his waistcoat rough on her skin. He felt so solid. He smelled so good. She felt as if she belonged there. A very foolish thing indeed to think. Guiltily, she eased herself away. ‘Do you know where this Castle Rhubodach is?’

‘It’s near a place called Aberfoyle. Quite a bit west of here, in the Trossachs.’

‘Oh,’ she said blankly.

‘You’re none the wiser, are you? You’ll need horses. You’ll not be able to go by carriage, there are no roads, only tracks.’

‘Oh,’ she managed again, trying not to feel daunted by the prospect. Being completely ignorant of the terrain, she had not actually contemplated the mechanics of her journey. ‘I’m used to riding. I hate being stuck in a carriage,’ she managed bravely.

‘It’s wild country. Mountains and lochs are the least of your worries. Most likely you’ll have to spend a few nights in the open. And you’ll be hard put to find anyone who speaks English, they all have the Gaelic. You’ll be lost unless you have a decent guide.’

‘A decent guide. Of course.’

‘Someone who knows the lie of the land. A native.’

Just as she was beginning to question her sanity in contemplating such an undertaking, an idea came to her, so audacious she wondered if she had the temerity to suggest it. She had no right to ask, no right to expect, yet—surely he would see it was the perfect solution. She cleared her throat nervously. ‘Calumn, I don’t suppose—no, it doesn’t matter.’ She laced her fingers together in her lap, trying to summon up the courage, wondering if to do so was wise.

‘What is it? It’s not like you to be so reticent.’

She couldn’t help it, the idea was so perfect. Despite her best attempts to contain it, an excited smile spread across Madeleine’s face. ‘Oh, Calumn, would you?’

‘Would I—you expect me to accompany you?’ He stared at her incredulously.

Madeleine’s smile withered like a vineyard grape in the merciless glare of the sun. ‘I thought—yes.’

His lips thinned. ‘Completely out of the question. I cannot return to the Highlands. I told you that.’

‘Yes, but you did not give me a reason.’

‘What, you think I am answerable to you now? How dare you! Who are you, a chit of a lass set upon her own ruination, to demand that I explain myself? I have reasons. Very good reasons. But they are my business and no one else’s.’

Though his anger appalled her, the task which lay ahead of her was even more intimidating. What’s more, she was fast coming to the conclusion that whatever his reasons for avoiding the Highlands, Calumn should be forced to confront them. It was this thought which gave her the courage to challenge him. ‘You are a hypocrite, Calumn Munro,’ she flung at him. ‘You are so certain you know what is best for me, but you are determined that no one but you knows what is best for you! Who are you to talk to me about happiness, when it is quite obvious that you are miserable? I asked you yesterday what you’re running from and you didn’t answer. Why not? Are you afraid as well as unhappy?’

Calumn turned white, though whether it was anger or some deeper emotion Madeleine could not tell. She held her breath, willing herself to refrain from retracting her words, for she had hurt him, and she had not meant to do so, only to provoke him into action. Even as she thought it, she knew she was being unfair. Selfish, even, for it was not just that she wanted him by her side as a guide, but that she was not ready to say goodbye. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said contritely, her shaky voice breaching the silence which threatened to overpower her. ‘You are quite right, it is none of my business. I should not have asked such a thing of you, especially when you had already made your feelings on the matter plain.’

Her tone, more than her words, eased the tension.

Calumn realised his fists had been clenched, so close to the bone had her accusations been. Far too perceptive, Mademoiselle Lafayette. Most definitely, he did not like it. ‘Why are you even contemplating such a difficult journey? Why must you find de Guise, when he has obviously no inclination to be found?’ he asked, made callous by his need to redirect her thoughts.

Madeleine flinched. ‘You know why. It’s not just our betrothal, it’s Guillaume’s land. La Roche is his inheritance. I can’t bear to see it taken from him.’

The hurt in her voice made him feel like a monster. ‘The Highlands can be an inhospitable place to a stranger. I don’t want you to come to any harm,’ Calumn said in a more gentle tone.

‘Then I’ll hire a guide as you suggested.’

‘You’d be an innocent abroad. How would you know who to trust?’

‘I trusted you, didn’t I? Are you telling me that was a mistake?’

They glared at each other in silence. Calumn drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. ‘We’ll send a messenger to Castle Rhubodach on your behalf with a letter asking Guillaume to come here.’

‘No, I need to go myself. Lady Drummond said—’

‘Lady Drummond is not here. You’re in my house, and you’ll do as I tell you.’

She could tell by the way he clenched his jaw that he was fast losing control of his patience, but the words were out before she could retract them. ‘I don’t take orders from you, Captain Munro. ‘

He took a hasty step towards her, then stopped. ‘Don’t call me that! You’ll do as you’re told!’ Taking a deep breath, he tried, not entirely successfully, for a more conciliatory tone. ‘It’s for the best, Madeleine, you’ll be far safer here, where I can keep an eye on you.’

A desire to get to the bottom of the matter made her bold. ‘You could keep an eye on me if you came with me to Castle Rhubodach. Why won’t you come with me? Please, won’t you tell me? You are an honourable man, I know you are, I can’t believe you’ve done anything terrible.’

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said bleakly.

‘Then explain it to me.’

A wash of tiredness swept over him. ‘It’s too sad and sorry a tale to sully your ears with, and anyway we’ve strayed a long way from the point. Trust me, it will be best if I you do as I suggest. Write a letter to de Guise asking him to come here. I’ve promised Jeannie’s brother some extra tuition. I’ll arrange for someone to take your letter north when I get back.’

He had that set look on his face that told her his mind was made up. She knew there was no point in arguing, though she was absolutely certain that he was wrong. She must go to Guillaume herself, Lady Drummond had been quite specific about that. And reluctant though she was to bring their acquaintance to a premature end, she thought that perhaps it was best after all to remove herself from Calumn’s presence. He disturbed her. He led her thoughts down a perilous path. How perilous a path it was, she did not want to explore. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said meekly, though she hated to deceive him.

Calumn looked relieved. ‘Good. I’m glad you’re finally seeing sense. I’ll see you in a wee while.’

He would not, though he did not know it. Best get it over with quickly. Best not to think about it. She swallowed hard. ‘Calumn?’

He paused in the doorway.

‘Thank you for—for everything. I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn.’

‘Forget it. I’ll be back soon,’ he said, and left.

Alone, Madeleine fought the urge to lie down on the bed and weep. Instead she threw herself into action, for if she gave herself time to reflect, she suspected she would lose courage. She wrote not one note but two, the first a letter to her father, informing him of her whereabouts and intentions, which she trusted Calumn would post for her. The second was to Calumn himself, begging his pardon for deceiving him, thanking him for his hospitality, pleading with him to return home himself to right whatever wrong he felt he had done. Exactly what that was, she could not imagine, nor could she believe him capable of anything heinous. A tear fell on the words, leaving a tell-tale blot, but she had not the time to copy the letter out again. She folded it, propping it up in front of the clock on the mantel, where he would be sure to see it when he returned.

With a heavy heart, she dressed herself in the clothes she had purchased in the Luckenbooths near St Giles’s earlier that day. The plain cotton shift, or sark, as the woman in the market stalls had called it, was similar to her own, though of coarser quality. Over it she donned a petticoat of pale blue, and a shorter skirt of blue-and-gold stripes. She kept her own stays, boots and stockings, but abandoned her saque-backed jacket for a simpler arrangement, a garment of blue wool like a man’s waistcoat, with wide sleeves laced into it. Her own clothes were bundled together into her Breton tippet, then she picked up the plaid, or arisaidh, a double length of striped worsted, and concentrated hard on tying it as the woman had shown her. First, she fashioned the long strip of material over her skirts like an apron. A slim leather belt held this in place, then she pulled the remainder of the plaid up over her shoulders like a cloak, its folds hanging like pockets down over her hips. A pewter brooch held the whole thing in place, fastened at her breast, leaving enough of the soft wool on her shoulders to pull up like a hood over her head to protect her from the weather. The operation took her some time, but she was much taken with the effect. With the hood to cover her give-away fair hair, she believed even her father would be hard put to distinguish her from a native Scots woman.

It was time to go. At some point in the future she hoped to be able to look back on these last few days fondly, but for now it was with a heavy heart that she closed the door firmly behind her. She would never know if Calumn heeded the advice in her letter. She would never know, either, the sensual pleasures his body had promised. Nor must she ever allow herself to think of them again, for to do so would be to take the first step along the path of acknowledging their significance. She must will herself to forget. Without Calumn’s distracting presence, that would surely be a simple enough thing.

Madeleine stepped out into the afternoon sunshine and hurried down to the Grassmarket. She had checked while out shopping, and knew the coach for Falkirk left from the White Hart in half an hour. From there, she could hire a guide and horses—at least she hoped so, not having planned that far ahead. Head down, arisaidh covering her hair, clutching her small bundle of belongings, she scurried away down the Edinburgh streets.

Calumn arrived back at his rooms later than he had anticipated. He knew she had gone the moment he closed the front door behind him. The quality of silence betrayed her. He could sense her absence like an animal senses the loss of its young. The note caught his eye immediately, his name written on it with a flourish in an elegant copper-plate hand.

Fury possessed him as he read its contents. He flung it into the hearth. Took a turn about the room. Picked the note out of the hearth and scanned it again. Screwed it up into a ball and hurled it at the window. Rude, headstrong, stupid, stupid girl with no sense of the danger she was like to encounter. How dare she disobey him!

A heavy crystal glass shattered satisfyingly on the hearth. For God’s sake, she had not even an idea where she was going. No idea how to go about hiring a guide, nor to judge if he was trustworthy. At the mercy of every shyster and villain who wandered the highways and byways looking for just such easy prey! She would be lucky if she ever made it to the Highlands, never mind track down her cursed Guillaume. Damn the pair o’ them!

Calumn picked the note up once more, smoothing it out and perusing its contents for a third time. It is your home, where your heart is, and where your heart is, is where you belong. The words were like salt in a wound, but he could not deny the truth of them. Edinburgh was not home. He was hiding here. None the less, that did not prevent him from wishing to make her pay for forcing him to confront such an uncomfortable truth. He had successfully avoided doing so for months, but now she had flung it in his face, he could run from it no longer. The De ‘il take you, Madeleine Lafayette!

Still clutching the note in his hand, Calumn slumped down on to a chair. But even as he reached for the whisky decanter, he paused. Whisky was a diverting companion, but a dangerous one. He needed a clear head.

By the time the coach arrived in Falkirk, Madeleine was feeling distinctly travel-weary. The small vehicle was extremely cramped inside, and she had been squashed into the greasy squabs beside a dour-faced minister who muttered passages from his well-thumbed Bible in a relentless droning monotone until the fading light forced him to stop. A large—very large—farmer who smelled quite distinctly of pig occupied more than his fair share of the seat on her other side. As the minister intoned his final amen, the farmer gave a grunt which may have been concurrence, but sounded uncommonly like something which would have emanated from one of his stock and fell immediately asleep. The assault on Madeleine’s ears was then renewed, with a series of whistling snores impressive in their variety of tone and duration.

The roads between Edinburgh and Falkirk were deeply rutted from the recent dry spell, and the coachman seemed to have no notion of sticking to the published timetable, stopping to exchange friendly banter with almost every other vehicle they passed. Madeleine’s head ached from the bumping and racketing and the minister’s incessant muttering, and her empty stomach had been gurgling in protest for the last ten miles.

She had had ample time to regret her hasty departure and fret about the reception her note would receive. Ample time to doggedly refuse to give room to the persistent worry that Calumn’s accusations about her feelings—or lack of them—for Guillaume had some grounds. Ample time to remind herself, with rather less conviction as each mile passed, that until Calumn sowed the seed of doubt in her mind she had been perfectly content.

Finally, exhausted by her own circular arguments, irked at her own inability to convincingly shore up the foundations of her future, she stopped thinking all together. Descending on shaky legs from the coach when it eventually pulled up in the bustling courtyard of the inn, she thought only of a meal and her bed.

‘Mademoiselle Lafayette. We meet again,’ said a very familiar voice.

She must be hallucinating. A man in full Highland dress who looked uncannily like Calumn stood before her, large as life and even more unfairly handsome. Madeleine swayed on her feet. The ground rushed up to meet her. For the first time in her twenty-one years, she fainted.

She came to in a private parlour in the inn. Opening her eyes, she gazed around, for a few seconds completely disoriented. She was sitting on a chair. There was a fire crackling in a grate. A pair of long, muscled legs stood in front of the fire. She blinked. Looked up. Blinked again. ‘Calumn?’

His soft laugh was unmistakable. ‘Didn’t you recognise me?’

She sat up. It was him, it really was Calumn Munro, but a Calumn she barely knew, so breathtakingly different did he look. It was as if his heritage as a Scottish laird was stamped on his bearing. A mantle of authority seemed to have descended on him, power and lineage emanating from his very stance, the aristocratic profile, even the curl of his fiery hair. Highland dress seemed designed to emphasise Calumn’s height and muscular frame. It seemed, in fact, to Madeleine’s admiring stare, to have been designed specifically with Calumn Munro in mind.

He wore two separate plaids made from lengths of the same tartan wool, red interwoven with very dark blue and gold. The filleadh beg, or belted plaid, was held at his waist with a large leather belt, the buckle of silver embossed with the Munro coat of arms, the motto Dread God in Gaelic on the hilt of his dirk, the long, lethal knife he wore sheathed at his waist. The filleadh beg stopped just at the knee, showing his long muscular legs in their woollen hose to perfection. The dusting of golden hair, glimpsed on his thigh and the top of his calves as he turned, the pleats of the plaid swinging tantalisingly out behind him, matched the darker gold on his head. Madeleine realised he must be naked underneath. She dragged her eyes upwards, lest her face betray the stirring in her blood.

A dark blue worsted jacket, the skirts much shorter than the fashionable length, was worn over his white shirt, and over that was the second plaid, the filleadh mòr, which served to keep out the cold at night, but was during the day fixed to his shoulder with a long silver pin engraved with Celtic symbols, topped with a large emerald. He did not wear the traditional bonnet. His hair, loose and tumbled, golden and amber, looked somehow wilder, much more of a mane, its vibrant, luxuriant life symbolic of the heart of the man. His eyes seemed a deeper blue, like the colour woven into the tartan he wore. His whole being seemed taller, wider, more solid, and rough hewn. She could not say how, but it was so. ‘You look magnifique, but also—I don’t know, as if you have a new skin.’

He should not have been surprised at her perceptiveness. Calumn smiled, flattered but disconcerted, for he was aware of the change himself. The tartan had been woven by his mother. The stockings were her work, too—she was, despite her noble birth, a skilled needlewoman. The dirk had been a present from his father for his sixteenth birthday, the pin a baptismal gift from his maternal grandmother. It felt as if he was wearing his ancestry. It felt almost like a homecoming and just as bittersweet. ‘You think I’ve come out of hiding?’

Madeleine looked uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t say that.’ He smelled of wool and leather, an earthy combination which added to the elemental look of him. He had a leather pouch attached to his waist, some sort of purse it must be, finished with fur. ‘What do you think of my outfit?’ she said in an effort to distract her thoughts. ‘Do I pass muster as a Scots lass?’

‘Very nice. It suits you surprisingly well. I take it you went out behind my back to purchase it?’

She decided to take a leaf out of his own book and ignore this question. ‘What are you doing here, Calumn?’

After much soul-searching, he had finally been forced to admit that Madeleine was right. Such an established thing it had become in his mind, the belief that the north was closed to him, but over the last few days, she had pushed open the room in which he had locked both his pride and his spirit. Her flight had forced his hand, but once he had calmed down he found he had not the will to incarcerate them again.

It was time to take the first steps towards confronting his demons.

And then there was Madeleine, so charming before him in her Highland dress. If he must face up to reality, then so must she. Quid pro quo. Such a foolish thing as she had done, taking matters into her own hands and expressly disobeying him. She was a feisty piece, but she must learn there was a price to be paid for nerve. By the time she was reunited with de Guise, he would make sure she entertained no more thoughts of marriage to the man. Would make very sure that she knew the difference between affection and passion. The prospect made him smile in anticipation.

‘What’s so amusing?’ Madeleine’s voice brought his reverie to an abrupt halt. ‘You haven’t answered my question—I asked what you’re doing here. And now I come to think of it, how did you know where to find me?’

‘As to finding you, it was a straightforward enough matter. I sent Jamie off to the Grassmarket to make enquiries. I wasn’t expecting the Highland dress, but fair-haired foreigners, especially pretty maids, are not exactly common. You were seen boarding the Falkirk coach. Travelling alone on horseback, ‘twas an easy enough matter to get here first. As to why I’m here—I think I should be asking that of you. Did I not tell you to wait? Have you any idea how foolishly you’ve behaved?’

‘How I behave is none of your business.’

‘You may be nigh on two-and-twenty years old, but you are still a naïve young woman alone in my country, and a foreigner to boot. I am responsible for you. How do you think I’d feel if you came to harm? Did you honestly think I’d let you go off on your own like this?’

‘I knew you would be angry, but I never thought you’d come after me. I didn’t do it deliberately to make you follow me—you don’t think I did, do you?’

‘No,’ Calumn conceded. ‘You’re headstrong and willful, but you don’t strike me as the manipulative sort.’

‘I’m sorry to have left without telling you, but if you’ve come all this way to try to persuade me to go back, you’ve wasted your journey. I won’t go.’

Calumn smiled wryly. ‘There’s an old Scottish saying—save your breath to cool your porridge. It means don’t waste your time on unwinnable arguments. I haven’t come to persuade you to come back, I’ve come to take you myself.’

‘You’ll come with me?’ With a squeal of delight, Madeleine leapt to her feet and threw her arms around him. Relief and gratitude soon gave way to a prickle of conscience, however. ‘Are you sure it’s what you want to do? I am grateful—more than grateful—but I don’t want to force you into coming with me just because you’re worried about my safety.’

‘You’re not forcing me, I’m coming because I want to. I’ll take you as far as Castle Rhubodach and no further. After that, God help him, you are de Guise’s responsibility, are we clear on that?’

She nodded, only too happy to agree to any terms, if they meant he would accompany her.

‘One more thing, Madeleine,’ Calumn said softly. He put his finger under her chin, forcing her to look up, to hold his gaze. The look in his eyes sent her pulses racing, a peculiar combination of threat and promise. ‘I’ll not be accused of cowardice. Not by you, not by anyone. I don’t have to prove that to you, but I will. And it’s not the only thing I will prove.’

Her mouth was dry. Somehow she knew he was about to make the ground shift under her feet. ‘What else?’ she said, her voice more croak than anything else.

‘I will show you the true route to happiness and you won’t find it in obedience.’

‘You think to make me fall in love with you,’ she said incredulously.

‘Oh, I won’t go that far. But I know I can make you want me. Enough to give yourself to me.’

‘Why must you see my betrothal as a personal challenge? You won’t do it, though I realise that you will see these words too as a challenge. I am committed to Guillaume. If I am not in love with him now—at least, in love as you describe it—then I have no doubt that love will follow once we are wed.’ If truth be told, she was, in fact, beginning to doubt that very thing, but now was not the time for telling the truth. Now was most certainly not the time to be allowing Calumn Munro to see any chink at all in her defences.

‘We’ll see,’ Calumn said with a soft laugh.

She tried to formulate a response which would penetrate that infuriating confidence of his, but could not. In the end, she wrenched herself from his grasp and gave her little Gallic shrug. ‘Yes, we will,’ she said.

‘And I very much look forward to it,’ Calumn added, claiming the last word, as ever. ‘But not tonight,’ he continued, turning to more practical matters. ‘I have taken the liberty of bespeaking rooms—have no fear, separate rooms—for us. I suggest we discuss our route over dinner, and then retire betimes since we’ve an early start, and must make sure we have adequate provisions with us for the journey.’

‘You make it sound like a military exercise.’

‘As an officer I would remind you that I’m used to giving orders—and, I might add, having them obeyed to the letter. Dinner will be served in fifteen minutes,’ Calumn said, trying not to smile.

She could not but respond to the challenge in his voice. Madeleine drew herself up to her full height, stood solemnly to attention and performed an extravagant salute. ‘Oui, mon capitaine,’ she managed before fleeing from the room. As she ascended the stairs, she was gratified to hear the sound of deep masculine laughter reverberating in the air.

They set off just after daybreak the next morning on the well-trodden road to Stirling. It was as if they were retracing the Rebellion in reverse, for it was at Stirling that Charles Edward’s Jacobite army had been involved in another ineffective siege of a castle, prior to the Battle of Falkirk. Madeleine was struck by how similar the two fortresses looked, Stirling and Edinburgh, built high and impregnable on their plugs of rock, as if the earth had thrust them up ready made from its core. If anything, Stirling Castle, perched on its heavily wooded escarpment, looked even more dramatic, surrounded as it was by completely flat farmland. They decided to avoid the busy town, stopping only to purchase food before carrying on north towards the Trossachs and the start of the Highlands.

The landscape shifted before Madeleine’s eyes, the roads narrowing to tracks, the land rolling and rising on both sides of her as they travelled through glens enclosed by hills, the mountains of the southern Highlands looming in the distance. Lush green grass gave way to the dark of fern, the vibrant yellow of late gorse in flower, and the purpling of the heather. In the glens, streams ran plentifully, icy cold and sparkling from the mountains, the ground springy, sometimes sodden under the horses’ hooves. As the afternoon faded into evening, Madeleine caught glimpses of tiny roe deer gazing thoughtfully out from the cover of the ferns.

‘We’ll stop here for the night,’ Calumn announced as they came to a small clearing near the head of a glen. ‘It’s plenty mild enough to sleep in the open, and there’s no sign of rain,’ he said, scanning the cloudless sky, pale in the evening sun.

Madeleine slid gratefully out of the saddle, leaving Calumn to tend to the horses, removing their tack and hobbling them, while she set out their provisions. They ate hungrily, the fresh air having given them both a hearty appetite. Afterwards, as they lazed on the grass, Madeleine became aware of the sound of running water. She removed her arisaidh, boots and stockings and went to investigate. It would be good to wash off the dust of the journey. The stream gushed and burbled along the flat, boulder-strewn valley floor, forming pools in the rocks. Madeleine picked her way to one of the pools, tucking her skirts up into her belt.

The water was crystal clear. Taking a deep breath, she pushed up her sleeves, cupped some of it in her hands and splashed it on her face. Droplets spattered on to the neckline of her sark, her sleeves, her neck, her breast. She cupped and splashed more, gasping as the icy water fell on her skin. As she bent over again, her foot lost its hold on the smooth stone underneath and she wobbled, only just managing to steady herself, avoiding a fall at the last minute.

Laughing to herself, she looked up to find Calumn by the bank watching her. He, too, had stripped to wash, and was wearing only his shirt and his filleadh beg. His legs and feet were bare. His shirt was open to the throat. It was not that she had forgotten, but, taken up with the journey, the scenery, the newness of everything, she was struck afresh with how incredibly attractive the man was.

Water was surely her element, Calumn was thinking. It darkened her hair to tarnished silver, sheening on her skin, making the sleeves of her waistcoat, and the frill of her sark, cling provocatively to her. He imagined how it would feel to lick every delicious droplet from her damp body.

‘All yours,’ Madeleine said, stepping daintily up on to the bank, suddenly embarrassed at the intimacy of the moment. Resisting the urge to look over her shoulder, she wandered back to where they had left their belongings in a little hollow hidden from the track by a high bank of gorse and fern.

Calumn stripped off his shirt and waded into the stream, where he washed quickly and efficiently. Throwing his shirt back over his dripping torso, he rejoined Madeleine. She had spread out their two plaids on the ground and was sitting on one, combing her long hair. It was unbound and flowing down over her shoulders. The ends were damp and curling. Her bare toes peeped out from under her skirts. She had removed the sleeves of her waistcoat and placed them to dry over a gorse bush. Her waistcoat bodice was unlaced, revealing the white skin of her throat, the soft mounds of her breasts.

Alerted to his presence, she looked up. The expression of elemental lust on his face was unmistakable. She dropped her comb, her heart pounding. She was afraid—not of what he would do, but of her ability to resist. It was wrong, but she knew that it would feel right. Worse, shamefully worse, she wanted it.

Calumn’s magnificent body was damp under his shirt, the contours of his muscles tantalisingly revealed through the wet folds of cloth, his strong legs planted before her. He was staring intently down at her like a ravenous predator. She knew she was his prey, for she felt spellbound and helpless.

But still, ‘No,’ she whispered as he knelt down beside her. ‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can, if you want to. No one will ever know.’

She was intrigued, as he had known she would be. ‘But how?’

Calumn’s soft chuckle was filled with knowledge and certainty. ‘There are many ways to take pleasure without risk. I can show you.’

‘You mean we wouldn’t—you wouldn’t …’

‘You’ll still be a maid. But a sated one.’ His eyes were a deep, mesmerising blue. As beguiling as the sea on a hot summer’s morning. Eyes to dip into. Eyes demanding that she do so.

‘Sated,’ Madeleine repeated, feeling the word trickle down her throat, tempting and heady as illicit liquor.

‘Sated,’ he whispered huskily in her ear. His breath was like a warm caress. His fingers twined in her hair as if they would weave magic spells. ‘Trust me,’ he said.

Tantalising little kisses on her eyelids. Trust me. She did. But she did not trust herself. Calumn nibbled on the lobe of her ear. A shiver like quicksilver made her bite her lip.

‘Don’t you want to know, Madeleine, how it feels? Don’t you want to know what it’s like, to let go?’

Nibbling kisses on her mouth now, following the line of her lower lip. ‘Let go?’ Even as she spoke the words in an odd, breathy voice, she remembered it, that tuned-too-tight feeling. Recalled, too, the way it had ended, leaving something unfinished. Her breathing quickened with the memory and the allure of Calumn’s promise. A flush stained her cheeks. Inside, deeper down, she felt another flush begin to pool.

He saw the moment she decided from the way her bewitching green eyes darkened with passion. ‘Let go,’ he said again, only this time it was a command he knew she would obey.

He smiled at her, a slow, seductive, certain smile, watching its reflection in her eyes, feeling a tightening coil of desire in the pit of his stomach. Beneath his plaid, his manhood unfurled and stiffened. He prayed for restraint. His own. For Madeleine he wished the opposite. The urge to be naked on top of her was almost overwhelming. He gave in to it partway, tugging his shirt over his head.

Madeleine drank in the view of his torso, as unfamiliar to her as the Highland landscape and just as magnificent. Still-damp skin tinged with golden hair, smelling of mountain water and male muskiness. Her eyes traced a path across the breadth of his shoulders and down his arms with their muscles like whipcord. Back along the valley of his chest and down to the dip of his ribcage, the concave of his stomach, where a vicious scar curved in a crescent shape, disappearing like a question mark, beneath his belt buckle. Where did it finish? How had it happened? She would have liked to trace its path with her fingers. She wanted to touch him, but was afraid to.

When he removed the bodice of her waistcoat, she neither resisted nor aided him. He unlaced her stays, then the ties of her sark so that her breasts were exposed to his touch. The urge to cover herself from his gaze was instinctive, but he gently removed her hands, replacing them with his own. His touch was quite different, moulding their shape in his palms, the abrasion of his roughened skin on her own softness making her nipples bud and peak. His mouth now, kissing, licking, sucking on her nipples, making her breathe fast then slow, light then heavy, as pleasure-coated needles of feeling surged through her. Her body arched like a bow being readied.

She was hot, heated from within, as if a brazier had been set alight, low down inside her, licking flames into her blood, out to her pulse points. More flames where Calumn touched her, licked her, stroked her, as if he were lighting fuses, separate but connected, all tracking a path to the heat which was building between her legs. His hand on her flank now, under her petticoats, on the soft skin at the top of her thighs.

As his fingers brushed the damp of her curls he felt her instinctive resistance. He cupped her, waited, delicately kneaded her, coaxing, cajoling, until she relaxed and he felt her wet, enticingly wet, against his hand. With a heroic effort, he gathered up the shreds of his self-control and stroked lightly, gently, then teasingly, flitting around the edges, careful not to tumble her over the precipice too soon.

Madeleine moaned, her fingers clutching and digging into the ground on which she lay. She could feel her muscles gathering and clenching. A heady tightness. She tried to steady herself, but his touch kept her off balance. A trickle of perspiration ran down her back. Everything he did, every touch, whatever it was he was doing—she didn’t care what it was—stoked the heat, bound her tighter. A delicious light-headedness combined with the tightness. Too hot. Too bright. Too much. Almost too much. She writhed, as if she would escape his touch, but all she wanted was for it to go on and on.

‘Let go,’ Calumn whispered urgently.

For a split second she had a vision of herself, lying exposed and dishevelled on the ground, allowing herself to be intimately caressed by a semi-naked man she barely knew.

‘Madeleine, stop thinking.’ His kiss gentled her, soothing her as if she were a frightened animal.

She closed her mind to the conflicting messages her brain was attempting to formulate. She stopped thinking. Allowed one hand to drift over his heated skin. Relished the so-different feel of him. She kissed him back. Kissed him back again. Felt heat surge as his tongue tangled with hers and his fingers worked their magic.

Like a gathering storm it was, inside her. Clarity like a lightning fork, and she knew what he meant. She let go. Swelling. A quickening and surging, gathering force like an avalanche of heat, and just as unstoppable. She cried out as it caught her, took her, flicked her into the air and sent her tumbling to earth in a free fall, her breath escaping in a series of little panting cries.

Sated. Lying with her eyes closed, drowsily wallowing in a wholly new sense of well-being, she wondered if this was what Calumn had meant. Sated. She forced her eyes open, for it was as if her lids were weighted down. He was sprawled beside her, propped up on his elbow. Watching her. In his smile she could see triumph writ quite clearly. She could not grudge him it. She smiled back. A surrender, albeit a temporary one.

Beside her, Calumn lay equally content. Not because he had taken another step towards making his point. Strangely, that thought did not occur to him. His feelings had rather more primitive roots. The satisfaction of a man who knows he has given his woman pleasure.

Chapter Five

Madeleine awoke in the soft light of the morning. A majestic stag was grazing in the clearing just a few feet away. As she stirred he looked up, his nose twitching, staring at her imperiously for long seconds, his antlers looking impossibly heavy for his head. She blinked and he was gone, the white of his scut disappearing over the brow of the hill.

Madeleine sighed. After last night, it was no longer possible for her to fool herself. She was wading into deep water with Calumn Munro. Whatever were her feelings for Guillaume—and she was no longer so sure of those, either—what she felt for Calumn was fast becoming irresistible. The notion that she could keep the two separate was, she had to admit, not only naïve, but perhaps even untenable. The point was fast approaching where she must put an end to things if she were not to jeopardise her future. The problem was, she was no longer sure that the future she was protecting was the one which she wanted.

In many ways nothing had changed. She still loved Guillaume. She was still certain that her marriage to him made sense. In every way but one. Somewhere along the way, between landing at the docks of Leith and last night, she had begun to doubt that it would make her happy.

What did make her happy? It was a question she had never asked herself. This, came the unwanted thought. The fresh of the Highland morning air cool on her face. The contrasting cosy warmth of the rest of her body, covered in Calumn’s plaid. Being cradled against Calumn’s chest. His arm draped lightly around her waist. His chin resting on the top of her head, feeling his breathing. This.

She wanted more. She knew it was what Calumn intended. More. To make her see his reason. Which she was beginning to see for herself. Tempting. Illogically tempting. And potentially fatal. But still, she wanted it. More. Wanted it enough to be able to believe for just a little longer that it didn’t preclude a way back.

Beside her, she felt Calumn stir. ‘Up with you,’ he said, putting paid to her reverie, rolling away from her and pulling the plaid away at the same time. ‘We’ve a long day’s journey ahead of us.’

By the time they had breakfasted and saddled the horses, the dawn chill had melted away, giving the promise of another mild Scottish summer day. They made good time, reaching Aberfoyle just after noon. The little town lay right on the edge of a stunningly dramatic shift in scenery, as if north and south of it were two different worlds. Behind Calumn and Madeleine lay the gently rolling hills of the Campsie Fells, with Stirling Castle still discernible in the far distance. Ahead of them lay the rugged grandeur of the Highlands. They stopped to rest and water the horses, partaking of a simple meal at an inn on the High Street. Suitably refreshed, they resumed their trek north.

The terrain was becoming increasingly difficult. Mountains rose sharply out of the landscape, their lower slopes shielded by ancient forests. Above the tree line, heather and bracken lent purple and amethyst, burnt umber and tawny shades of brown to the palette of colours, and higher still were peaks stony and grey with scree or dusted white with snow. The ranges receded on and on into the horizon like a painting, stark against the pale blue of the sky.

They followed the path along the river which tumbled down to Aberfoyle, zigzagging along the contours of the hillside to Loch Awe, a sheen of deep blue dotted with islets, the mountains and hills reflected in its depths. The air here was sharper, for summer came much later in the north.

By the banks of the loch, Madeleine reined in her horse and sat staring, overcome by the sheer majesty of the terrain spread out in front of her. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she whispered, her eyes following the effortless gliding of a huge bird of prey riding high on the thermals above the water.

‘A golden eagle,’ Calumn told her, following her gaze.

They sat in silence for a while, watching the eagle search for a fish to pluck from the water. Though Madeleine continued to feign interest in the bird of prey, her attention was in reality focused on the man by her side. He fitted perfectly here, his planes and contours, rolling muscle and sinew in harmony with the land of his birth. She remembered the stag this morning. Majestic was a word quite as suited to Calumn as he sat astride his horse, his hair glowing like a halo, clearly master of the landscape. A shadow flitted over his face, a grim sadness, reflected in the tightening of the muscles in his cheeks, his throat, his shoulders, the straightening of his spine. His gaze remained fixed on the distant horizon, his thoughts lost deep in a place she could not imagine and could not reach.

As if sensing his change of mood, Calumn’s horse snickered nervously, reclaiming his attention. His eyes refocused. Madeleine hurriedly lifted her own skywards, only to find that the eagle must have already swooped down successfully on its prey, for it was no longer anywhere to be seen.

‘Where is Castle Rhubodach from here?’ she asked. ‘Is it far?’

‘It’s over there.’ He pointed to the head of Loch Awe. ‘Beyond the peak you can see, Ben Venue. The track skirts round the base of the mountain. It’s a fair way yet. We won’t make it before nightfall.’

‘It’s so beautiful here. Could we not spend the night on the shore of this lake and finish our journey tomorrow?’

‘It’s a loch.’

‘Lock.’

‘Loch.’

‘Lochchchch,’ Madeleine repeated, laughing at her own abysmal attempt to imitate the soft sound.

Calumn grinned. ‘It is a bonny place, right enough. Come on then, let’s find somewhere to camp.’

The shores of the loch had several small sandy bays. Trees grew down almost to the water’s edge in places, and on some of the tiny islands too there was a sparse scattering of the distinctive Caledonian pines, looking as if they were growing out of the loch itself. Calumn found a shallow cave which would provide shelter from the elements later, and here he stored the horses’ tack, their saddle bags and provisions. The water was calm, the sun at its zenith in the sky, and there was not another soul to be seen. They sat together at the mouth of the cave, drinking in the silence which surrounded them.

Madeleine removed her boots and stockings, enjoying the gritty feel of the sand between her toes. The deep calm of the water looked unbelievably tempting. ‘Is it safe to swim in the …’ She hesitated, concentrating furiously on trying to form her mouth into the right shape to pronounce the word, a performance so endearingly comical that Calumn had difficulty containing his laughter. ‘Loch,’ she managed finally, looking inordinately pleased with herself at the result.

‘Can you swim?’

‘I’ve swum in the sea all my life. Maman taught me.’

‘Your mother! ‘

‘Mais oui, bien sûr. Maman was not well born, you know? She was the only daughter of a fisherman, and she had two brothers, both fishermen also. Believe it or not, Breton fishermen think it’s unlucky to learn how to swim, they think it tempts fate, but Maman believed it was rather tempting fate not to be able to swim.’

‘Fishermen are a superstitious bunch, it’s the same here.’

Madeleine’s dimples peeped. ‘But you are not a fisherman, are you? Swim with me, Calumn.’

He shook his head. ‘Not a good idea. It’ll be freezing.’

‘I’m used to the Atlantic Ocean. It can’t be any colder than that.’

‘I think you’ll find it is, but go on,’ he said, ‘see for yourself.’

Unable to resist the implied challenge, Madeleine got to her feet and picked up her skirts, making her way to the water’s edge. Tentatively putting one foot into the water, she gasped with shock, for it was icy, even colder than the mountain stream she had bathed in last night. Behind her, Calumn roared with laughter. Determinedly she put her foot in again, thinking she would grow accustomed to the temperature, but if anything this time it felt even colder. Head held high, she walked the short distance back over the sand towards him.

‘I told you,’ he said, grinning up at her.

His teeth were white and even. His mocking eyes were blue, drowning-in blue. Deep and tempting, like the waters of the loch. Though warmer. Much warmer. He was sitting in his shirt sleeves, his brogue-clad feet planted firmly in the sand, the folds of his filleadh beg draped between his legs. His hose were tied below the knee. He had nice calves, she thought, muscled yet shapely, clearly defined under the woven stockings. ‘You were right, I admit it, you were right. I would freeze.’

She looked so adorable, standing over him like that, the breeze whipping tendrils of her hair around her face. He wanted her. More than he had ever wanted any woman before. ‘Forget swimming,’ Calumn said, ‘I can think of a much better way to amuse ourselves.’

Before she could stop him, his hand on her wrist yanked her down on to her knees before him, like a supplicant. He looked at her in such a way as to make his intentions unmistakable. Now was the time to exercise the caution she had urged upon herself only this morning. Now was the time to put an unequivocal end to Calumn’s assault on her mind. On her senses. Now!

Madeleine flicked a strand of hair from her eyes, and in doing so set herself off balance. Reaching out for something to stop herself from falling over, she encountered Calumn’s leg. Warm skin. Rough hair. She froze.

Calumn watched her as a hunter will when trapping a wild thing. Unmoving. His eyes on hers, unblinking. Waiting. Enticing. She pulled her hand away.

‘Coward,’ Calumn said.

She licked her lips. She did not feel afraid, though she knew she should, for she was without doubt on the brink of something irrevocable. She felt uncertain. Which way to jump? Which way? Frantically she wished he would decide. At least then she would not have to.

‘What are you afraid of, Madeleine?’ Calumn said with that annoying habit of his of asking her questions she did not want to answer. ‘Admitting defeat?’

‘Defeat,’ she repeated, confused by the word. Which way was defeat, surrender or retreat? She was in no doubt of what she wanted. Did surrender really have to lead to her defeat? Could it not somehow go hand in hand with victory? Why must she have one and not both? She knew she could not, but it was what she wanted. Right now, more than anything, she wanted Calumn. She felt so strange. Nervy. Agitated. Excited.

Keeping her eyes fixed on his face, as if her actions were naught to do with her, she ran her fingers up under his plaid, from his knees to the top of his thighs. The lightest of touches. A touch which could mean nothing or everything. A touch which could easily be continued, and just as easily withdrawn. Calumn’s eyelids fluttered briefly closed. She moved her hands to the back of his thighs, her fingers fluttering from there down to the crease at his knees. He made no attempt now to dissuade her. She could see from the darkening of his pupils, like a storm brewing, that desire already had him in its grip.

She could stop. Now would be the time.

‘It’s me you want, Madeleine,’ Calumn whispered, uncannily echoing her thoughts. ‘You know that. Admit it.’

‘I want you.’ The truth. Or a truth. She could not think straight. No longer cared to think. Not with him so close. So distractingly near. Temptation personified. Who was she to resist? ‘I want you, Calumn,’ she said again, testing the words for their veracity, finding them solid.

Triumph lit up his eyes at her admission, but it was not due to the defeat of her betrothed. That contest was far from Calumn’s thoughts. It was his name on her lips, the winning of her for himself which mattered. With a low growl he pulled her closer to him.

She would have overbalanced, were it not for her hands on the outside of his thighs. His plaid had become dislodged, moving higher up his legs, so that she could see almost up to where she held him. Heat flared inside her like a warning beacon, but already she was beyond heeding it.

Her lips were so perfectly formed for kissing. Her kisses were more addictive than any whisky. Calumn needed no urging. He kissed and was kissed. Still kissing, he discarding her bodice and loosened her stays, freeing her breasts to his touch. She responded by tugging at his shirt. He stopped kissing her only to pull it over his head. Her hands on his skin set him aflame.

‘Slow down,’ he whispered raggedly, the instruction intended as much for himself as for Madeleine. He gentled his kisses, positioning her so that she faced him, their spread legs intertwined, their lower bodies still clad. He pulled her into his embrace so that her nipples brushed against his chest when he kissed her. He could feel them peaking against his skin. It was delicious. He moved, so that they grazed the hairs on his chest, the tiniest of movements sending hot pulses of feeling down to his groin, and he knew from the way she gasped, from the way she clutched his back, that it was having the same effect on her.

He ceased his plundering of her mouth to watch her as he touched her, his fingers tracing the line of her neck, her shoulders, the tender flesh on the inside of her arm, then the mounds of her breasts, the indentation of her waist, watching her, seeing her eyes darken, her skin respond to his caress, watching and silently encouraging. He saw the moment her instincts kicked in, the little flick of her tongue on to the full pinkness of her bottom lip, the glance up at him for reassurance as she started to mimic his actions.

He prayed for control. Wondered, for the first time, if he would be able to stop at the point where he must. He had never had cause to doubt himself before, but this was different. Fleetingly, it occurred to him that everything about Madeleine was different. Then he closed down his thoughts and focused on what was here. And now.

She was acutely aware of him watching her. Not where his hands touched, but watching her face to see how she felt when his hands touched, so she did the same. Watched his face as she ran her fingers over the line of his jaw where there was the faintest trace of stubble, down the column of his throat to the little hollow at the base. His shoulders were broad, a complex pattern of muscles underneath his skin, which rippled as he moved. The blades seemed not so sharp as hers, which were nearer the surface. More layers of muscle from the top of his arms to his elbow, where his flesh became sinewy, the hairs on his forearm downy, the skin lightly tanned. There was a pulse beating at his wrist. The skin on the inside of his arms was soft, vulnerable. She could feel a tiny scar there. Her fingers traced its shape.

His chest was all valleys and rolling hills. She smoothed her palm across his breast, feeling the flatness of his nipple, sucking in her breath when in return he rolled her nipples between his fingers. Without thinking, she leaned forwards and licked him, allowing her teeth to graze where his fingers pinched, tasting the slightly salty tang of him, smooth skin and rough hair and puckered male nipple, and then she looked up and felt a surge of pleasure when she saw the effect of what she had done on his face.

Then a resounding surge of response from her as his mouth enveloped her breast, licking, sucking, tugging heat from her. Her hands ran down his torso, the vee-shape to his narrow waist, the curve of his ribcage, counting her fingers over the muscles of his abdomen. She traced the curve of his scar, then kissed it, pushing him back so that her tongue could run over its ridges, so that she could flutter kisses over it, as if she were the answer to the question it asked, as if her kisses could fill the void it had obviously left, as if she could heal him. For he needed to be healed. She knew that much.

The ornate buckle of his belt grazed her chin. Her fingers struggled with the fastenings until he managed it for her, casting it to the side.

She wriggled closer to him, and he pushed her skirts up around her thighs, positioned her legs over his, so that her feet were gripping the sand behind his back, her calves brushing his waist. What now? Panic threatened. It must have shown in her eyes, for he kissed her slowly, holding her steady, stroking her hair, brushing her sensitised breasts against his chest.

Seconds of stillness. Aeons of stillness. Then he kissed her again, pushed her skirts high up around her waist so that she was spread in front of him, but also nestled in to him. Then he tugged at the front fold of his plaid, pulling it apart.

He took her hand and placed it on his erection, wrapping her fingers around its girth. Hard and smooth. Unexpectedly smooth. He guided her wrist so that her circling fingers moved up to the tip. Back down again. Finally, she dropped her gaze and allowed herself to look. A ripple of sensation, like water flowing over stones, made her muscles contract as she gazed in fascination. Her fingers pale against the dark of his shaft. The surprising size of him. The knowledge that she had caused this, that it was for her, that this was her hand on the very core of his being, was intensely sensual. He encouraged her to stroke him again. She saw from the way his stomach clenched that what she did he liked. She felt her own stomach clench.

‘We don’t look the same, but we feel the same,’ Calumn whispered. ‘When you do that to me, this is what I feel.’

His fingers slipped easily inside her, slid up slowly, easing her apart delicately, then retreating. He did it again and instinctively she gripped him. Again, and this time she echoed him, doing to him what he did to her, and again, slowly, again, her breath coming faster as she felt, and saw what she felt reciprocated, and so felt more. Again.

Calumn stayed her hand, placed her fingers on the tip of his erection where the skin was darker. ‘And here, when you touch me here,’ he said rather jaggedly, as if he was struggling for breath, ‘this is what I feel.’

His touch between her legs became the caress she remembered from yesterday, slipping up to stroke; fluttering touches where she was hot and swollen, where each touch sent lightning-bright sparks. With the tips of her fingers she touched the tip of his erection, dancing, flitting touches, circling when he did, stroking when he did. The first caresses had lit the smouldering embers of a fire. Now it was as if a bellows had been applied, for the flames shot up and out and burned and licked at her as they had done yesterday, only more intensely because already her body was welcoming and not resistant and because she could see that Calumn was feeling the same.

She felt him thickening in her hold. She heard the tempo of his breathing change. She felt herself swelling under his touch, and that swooping, diving, tumbling crashing sensation as he touched her exactly where she needed to be touched, and when she felt his fingers slip inside her again, plunging in to muscles eager for him she knew to resume the sliding, stroking movement on his shaft. And although she closed her eyes because she could not keep them open—so intense was the first wave of her climax that she dug her heels into the sand and arched her body up—she knew she had been right, for she felt him too, pulsing in her hand, hardening, swelling, the wave travelling up his length. Then she heard his groan, dragged from him, and felt him explode hot and wet in her hand, as she was hot and wet in his.

She slumped into his arms, her body pressed against his heaving torso, clutching tight as she fell back to earth, then hugging into him as she landed, feeling his breath on her hair, floating on a cloud of sensation, her limbs heavy, as if she had been drugged. Different from yesterday. More. The pleasure of giving as well as taking making it much more. Her body hummed.

She searched her mind for guilt, but found only a sense of rightness. Though she knew what she had done was without doubt a betrayal, still she could not see it in that way. Calumn had awoken this wanton in her. Calumn, whose scent was on her now, whose body was wrapped around hers at this very moment. Calumn, whose breath matched hers, whose mouth seemed to have been made to fit hers.

It was then that guilt struck her. Not for what she had done, but for what she had been trying to avoid. The truth stared her in the face. She glanced at it, then looked away as the foundations of her world tilted. Not yet.

They tarried by the banks of Loch Awe the next morning. When Calumn suggested they postpone their journey another day, Madeleine eagerly agreed. She was happy here with him. She did not want it to end. Was not yet ready to face what the ending would involve.

They ascended the slopes of Ben Ann, one of the smallest of the surrounding mountains, nestling egg-like against the skyline, an easy but rewarding climb. The views from the summit were panoramic, back to the lowlands and north-west where the true peaks of the Highlands could be seen snow-capped and stark.

‘Mountains and lakes—lochs,’ Madeleine hastily corrected herself, shading her eyes from the sun. ‘There are no towns, I can’t see any people, no farm land, just us and some sheep. In Brittany it is either sea, or orchards and crops, so very different.’

‘It’s only the flat land in the glens, by the lochs or the shores that can be cultivated,’ Calumn replied. ‘That’s why sheep are so important. And cattle, too. All these tracks you can see, they’re mostly drovers’ roads, though beef is too expensive for the Highland folk to eat themselves.’ He was staring off in the direction of his own home, Errin Mhor, which sat near the coast, far out of view. Up here on the peak of Ben Ann, the landscape spread before him and plucked at his heartstrings in a way he could not ignore. His yearning for Errin Mhor was primitive and instinctive, an ache in his very bones that he had grown adept at suppressing. Now it came to life like a creature which had been hibernating inside him, filtering into his blood, so that standing here looking west, it was as if Errin Mhor called to him and he must answer.

‘Which direction is your home?’ Madeleine asked, as if she could read his mind.

He directed her to a distant valley. ‘That way and west, in the land that lies between there and the sea.’

‘Is it far?’

‘Two or three days from here.’

His tone was bleak. She did not know what to say. All her instincts told her that he should go there. Everything she had seen of him here, so at one with nature, served to convince her that her instincts were right. But she knew that to press him was to invite his resistance.

‘Over yonder,’ Calumn said, pointedly changing the subject, ‘on the other side of the glen, that’s Castle Rhubodach where your destiny awaits.’

He was silent on the way down the mountainside, walking in front of her where the path was narrow and steep, ready to catch her should she fall into one of the many streams—burns, she corrected herself—that traversed the mountainside, making the way boggy, though the heather flourished. She enjoyed his protectiveness, the way he made her feel that she was something precious and delicate, feminine. An unusual sensation for her, who would normally assert her independence.