Mahindar spread his hands. “Very well, but it might be days.”

“Days?” Her heart squeezed. “I don’t understand. Why should he do this? This is his home.”

Hamish loomed at her shoulder. “Because he’s a madman, ain’t he?”

Juliana swung on him. “Hamish McIver, don’t you ever say that again. If you do I’ll…I will speak to your mother about it. Mr. McBride is not mad. He was held for a long time against his will, and that is hard on people, isn’t it? It stands to reason he still has bad dreams about it.”

“But he’s awake now.”

Hamish had a point, and Juliana hardly understood it at all. But she thought of some of the things Elliot had told her: I drift in and out…Sometimes I can’t remember the things I’ve said or not said…

“The lad is right,” Mahindar said. “The sahib is a bit mad now. He never quite recovered from his imprisonment, the poor man.”

“Stop,” Juliana said in a loud voice. “No more talk of madness. My husband is not mad. But we must find him.”

Both started at her tone and scurried away to resume the search.

They hunted everywhere. Mr. McGregor joined in, for once not arguing, scolding, or shouting, despite his obvious fragile condition from imbibing the night before.

The man put a bony hand on Juliana’s arm. “There is a place he could be. I used to go there when I was a lad, pretending there were ghosts.”

Hamish paled at the word ghosts, his freckles standing out on his white skin.

“This house is too new for ghosts,” Juliana said briskly, even as she let McGregor lead her away.

“But it was built over the old castle,” McGregor said. “Which was th’ McGregor stronghold for six hundred years. Before that, it was a keep to defend this little valley against all comers.” He climbed down the stairs from the scullery and led her along the passage to the boiler room, where they’d found Nandita cowering the morning before. “There’s still a way to get to the old McGregor castle—the ruined cellars below it, anyway. Found it when I was a boy.”

Mr. McGregor moved to the other side of the boiler room and pried a piece of grimy paneling from the wall. Behind this was a narrow niche that looked like a broom cupboard, empty and unused. McGregor shone the candle lantern he’d snatched up onto the flagstone floor.

“Trapdoor,” he said.

“Where?” Juliana stared at the floor but saw nothing that looked like a trapdoor.

McGregor chuckled. “My nanny and tutors could never find it either.” He set down his lantern, dug his fingers under at what looked like a haphazard crack in the floor, and pulled.

The entire piece of flagstone came up and away, revealing a hole into dank blackness.

“Come on,” McGregor said cheerfully. “It’s not deep. A sturdy Highland lass like yourself will find it no trouble.”

He dropped through the hole and landed on hard-packed earth five or so feet down, enough room for the small-statured McGregor to stand upright. A tall man like Elliot, though, would find it a tight fit.

McGregor helped Juliana down then reached back up for his lantern.

“I thought these were the dungeons, when I was a lad,” he said, flashing the light on the irregular walls, the old, old stones still a solid foundation for the house above. “But they were the wine cellars. I found a plan of the whole place once.”

The darkness was vast, the many walls forming a maze. Juliana crept close behind McGregor, hoping his memory for the place hadn’t failed him.

She heard a noise. Movement.

McGregor heard it too and stopped, shining his light into a corner of two thick walls. The lantern caught on something that glittered. Eyes.

A powerful form lunged out of the darkness. McGregor’s lantern went flying, and the candle extinguished as the lantern clattered to the floor. McGregor cried out, then Juliana heard the thump of a body slammed against stone.

She ran toward the sound and found the hard-muscled figure of her husband kneeling on the floor, McGregor kicking and flailing under him. McGregor’s breath grated, and any words he tried to form were incoherent.

“Elliot!” Juliana shouted as loud as she could. She grabbed Elliot’s shoulders and tried to pull him away.

Elliot resisted, twisting to loosen her grasp while keeping hold of McGregor, but Juliana clung fast. She put her lips to his ear and begged, “Elliot. Stop.”

He didn’t respond. Juliana wrapped her arms all the way around him, tears filling her eyes, her voice breaking on a sob. “Please.” She kissed the line of his hair.

Elliot froze. All movement ceased, Elliot’s body becoming immobile as a marble statue. Beneath him, McGregor coughed.

“Juliana,” Elliot whispered, bewildered, uncertain.

“I’m here.”

Elliot turned, swiftly, almost violently, his hands finding her arms, her shoulders, her face. “Juliana.”

“I’m here,” she repeated, trying to keep her voice steady. “You’ve given poor Mr. McGregor quite a fright.”

“I’m all right.” McGregor coughed again and cleared his throat. “Lad, you have a powerful grip. We’ll have some Highland games, and I’ll put my money on you to win every round.”

Elliot ignored him. He ran his hands over Juliana’s face and down her arms again. Juliana touched him in return, their only connection in this dark place. She cupped his face, her fingers finding his lips.

“What am I doing here?” he asked her in a harsh voice.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We’ve found you.”

She put her arms all the way around him. Elliot sank down into her, shuddering, his body so cold, and he clung to her as though he’d never let go.



Juliana made her calls later that afternoon, without Elliot.

She thought she’d be going by herself, with Hamish to drive her in the dogcart, but at the last minute, Mr. McGregor came barreling down the stairs and out of the house declaring he’d accompany her.

McGregor’s kilt bounced above his bony knees, his coat collar half turned wrong. Komal came out after him, grabbed him by the arm, turned him around, and yanked his collar straight.

“Leave me be, interfering old woman.” McGregor trailed off into mutters as he stamped through the mud to the dogcart. Komal threw up her hands and disappeared back into the house.

They went first to the neighboring estate of the man called McPherson. McPherson’s house was a proper castle, dating to the fourteenth century, McGregor said, with all the drafts to prove it. The house stood on the edge of a loch between a fold of mountains, the road taking them to a drawbridge.

The drawbridge was up when they reached it. Hamish pulled the dogcart to a halt, and Juliana looked up at the round, squat castle. She’d been uneasy leaving Elliot behind, but Mahindar had promised to look after him, and Elliot himself had growled at her to go.

Shutting her out again, like the dark wooden drawbridge that now shut them out of Castle McPherson.

A man appeared on the battlements. He was large and bearlike, and wrapped in blue and red plaid. “Stop there, McGregor!” he bellowed. “I have twenty cannons trained on ye, unless ye can pay the ransom.”

Juliana glanced at Hamish, but the young man appeared to be in no way alarmed at this. McGregor stood up in the cart.

“Open up, McPherson, ye daft bastard. I have the new Mrs. McBride with me.”

McPherson peered down at them, shading his eyes. “Oh aye?” He looked down on his side of the wall. “Duncan! Wake up and lower the bridge!”

The drawbridge, which looked to be in good repair, cranked down on oiled chains. Hamish, without question, picked up the reins, and the dogcart rattled across the bridge.

On the inside, McPherson’s house proved to be up-to-date and pleasant. McPherson had renovated the castle into a comfortable, habitable abode, with plenty of paneling, glass windows, drapes, carpets, books, soft furniture, and a staff of about a dozen to look after it. The castle also had a long gallery full of ancient Scots weaponry, paintings of McPherson ancestors, and relics not only of Culloden, but from clan wars from the more distant past.

McPherson, who met them at the door and proceeded to show Juliana these wonders, was a giant of a man. Where McGregor was small and wiry, McPherson was tall and rotund, large with good meals and muscle. His red hair and beard were just going gray, and his face was northern Scots fair and freckled, tinged now with summer sunburn.

“I collect,” McPherson told Juliana as she admired the historic pieces. “Real Scottish history, not the tartans and fake claymores shopkeepers sell to English tourists. I have mostly McPherson relics here, but some McGregor and McBride as well.”