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bedchamber.
    But the welcoming effect of the flickering torchlight and the earthy-sweet scent of peat proved sorely dampened by the sprays of red-berried rowan branches affixed to the castle gatehouse.
    Red-ribboned and ridiculously large, the rowan clusters stared back at him. A mute warning of what he’d find within, for red-ribboned rowan was his family’s special charm.
    An ancient cure bestowed on the Macphersons by Devorgilla, the most respected wise woman in all the Isles and Western Highlands.
    A charm the cailleach had assured would safeguard the clan’s prized cattle, keeping them fat and hardy throughout the long Highland winters.
    But also a talisman said to repel evil of any kind.
    Including bogles.
    Ghosts
.
    Jamie frowned. Thinking of his brothers thusly was not the homecoming he’d envisioned.
    Even the weather was less than desirable, for the night had turned foul, with a thin drizzle chilling him and thick fog sliding down the braes to creep round Baldreagan’s walls. An eerie, shifting gray shroud that minded all too easily of his reason for being there.
    Refusing to be daunted, Jamie pulled his plaid more closely around him and peered at his father’s empty-seeming gatehouse. Not surprising, the portcullis was lowered soundly into place. And since his brothers had e’er taken turns at sharing the castle watch, there’d be no telling on whose shoulders such a duty now rested.
    He found out when the shutter of one of the gatehouse windows flew open and a less-than-friendly face glared down at him.
    A young face, and one Jamie didn’t recognize.
    Even though the lad’s freckles and shock of red hair marked him as a Macpherson.
    A herder laddie, Jamie was certain, for when the boy leaned farther out the tower window, a distinct smell wafted on the night breeze. As if the lad had just returned from mucking out the cow byre.
    “Who goes there?” the stripling demanded, his suspicious tone lacking all Highland warm-heartedness. “You’re chapping unannounced at the door of a house in mourning and I’ve orders not to open to any.”
    “Not even to a son of this house?” Jamie rode beneath the window. “I am James of the Heather,” he called up to the lad. “I’ve come to see my father. And pay my respects to my brothers. God rest their souls!”
    The herd boy stared at him, disbelief in his eyes. “My laird’s youngest son occupies himself in the far south of Kintail, in the service of a MacKenzie, last we heard. He hasn’t been to these parts in years.”
    “That may be, but I am here now and would have entry to my home,” Jamie returned, his temples beginning to throb. “It is cold, dark, and wet down here. Too wet for the old bones of the dog I have with me.” He reached around and patted Cuillin’s head. “We are both weary from traveling.”
    The boy hesitated, his gaze flicking to Cuillin then back to Jamie.
    “You do have the look o’ Neill about you,” he allowed, still sounding doubtful. “What if you’re his bogle?”
    “His—” Jamie began, then snapped his mouth shut, unwilling to discuss ghosts twice in the same evening.
    Instead, he cleared his throat. “I am my father’s son James, so true as I’m here,” he said, his head aching in earnest. “Now raise the portcullis and let me in. I would see my da before he sleeps. I was told he’s ailing.”
    “Hah!” came a second voice as a stern-faced old woman appeared at the window. “Aye, and so he is unwell,” she confirmed, peering down at Jamie. “He’s in a bad way and he willna be troubled this late of an e’en. These are dark times with many ill things afoot. We canna trust—”
    She broke off, her eyes rounding. “Jesus wept—it
is
you!” she cried, clapping her hands to her face. “Wee Jamie come home at last. Ach dia, how I’ve prayed for the day.”
    Jamie blinked, staring open-mouthed. He scarce trusted his eyes. But the silver-gray curls framing the well-loved face and the sharp,