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who cannot remember a single thing about her life!”
    “You are not a lunatic, Catherine. Do not speak that word again.”
    Lachlan watched with curious interest as Drumloch moved forward. He was about to reach out to her when the sound of hooves and an approaching carriage interrupted the sudden hush in the stable tack room.
    “The magistrate has arrived,” the footman said, stepping into the doorway.
    Lachlan shut his eyes and listened to the ominous sound of the heavy prison coach rumbling to a slow halt outside. The horses nickered and shook in their harness while Lachlan made one last attempt to fight against his bonds.
    It was hopeless, however. He could not escape.
    “ This isn’t over, ” he growled at Raonaid as the magistrate and four Lowlanders armed with swords and muskets filed quickly through the door.

Chapter Three
     
    Catherine sat before her looking glass, watching with impatience as her maid brushed and styled her hair for dinner.
    It was difficult to relax. Four hours ago, the magistrate had untied the Highlander and bashed him over the head, then clamped iron shackles onto his wrists, and dragged him away. All this occurred before she could fully comprehend the ramifications of the situation.
    She should never have accepted her cousin’s decision to call for the authorities. Instead, she should have insisted on keeping the Highlander here until he could answer more questions—she had so many of them—but everything had spun out of control so quickly.
    He was now locked up in the village prison, and she was here, dressing for dinner, still reeling from the memory of his hands on her body and his kiss upon her lips, and feeling even more separated from her sense of identity—which had been shaky and unstable to begin with.
    She was supposed to be a lady of noble breeding. How was she ever to manage the disturbing prospect that she was a witch?
    Before today, she had been drifting along in some kind of dull, invisible existence, believing anyone who suggested anything about the person she once was. She accepted all explanations and felt no passion for anything, no desire to change or seek something more. She knew nothing of what existed beyond this place. Her world was empty, and everything they told her made her feel like a ghost. Her soul seemed lost to her, as if it were floating around in the air somewhere over her head, just out of reach.
    Something was missing.
    Herself, perhaps. Her memories. Her life. That would make sense.
    Or perhaps she yearned for the lover who had taken her innocence. Was he the man called Angus? The Scottish chief who, according to the Highlander, had shared her bed for a year?
    If she was, in fact, this oracle called Raonaid … She was not yet convinced.
    Reaching for the pearl and emerald earrings, she took one last look in the mirror. Tonight she wore a formal gown of dark purple silk over a wide hooped petticoat, with richly embroidered cuffs of velvet, and a fine brocade, linen-lined stomacher. At her neck she wore a pearl and emerald choker, and her hair was swept into an elegant powdered coiffure with jeweled combs.
    No, she thought with absolute certainty—she could not possibly be that mad witch from the Hebrides, who put hexes on people. She was the daughter of an earl, and she looked the part. Despite everything, she felt the part. Perhaps the Highlander was the one who was mad. Or simply mistaken.
    Catherine dismissed her maid, left her private bedchamber, and ventured into the corridor, which was brightly lit by flickering candles in wall sconces, spaced closely together and illuminating a long row of ancestral portraits.
    None of whom she recognized.
    She reached the stairs, laid her hand on the rail, and decided that she would speak to John privately that evening and arrange for some sort of meeting with the Highlander as soon as possible. She needed to know more about the clan chief who had shared his bed with “Raonaid” in the Hebrides, the man