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the smith worked at his forge while servants emptied basins and chamber pots and brought in rushes and dried herbs for the freshly swept floors. One of the grooms, a young boy with sandy brown hair and freckles splashed across his ruddy cheeks and nose, eagerly ran up and took the reins from Kade’s hands.
    Maighdlin sat unusually still. The MacAlister keep was north of a wide river, the sea rippling below the base of the tower house, which rose from a narrow ridge. It was a rugged stone fortress, its battlemented walls buttressed by several powerful towers, square and cylindrical. The stone was the color of spilled blood in the pink glow of morning, and Maighdlin had not missed the meaning of the scorched, blackened grasses in the village crouched humbly at the keep’s gates. It had been a village much like her own, and she wondered if they too had been celebrating the Bealtunn when they were attacked. Now it was smoke and ash.
    The servants glanced her way in curiosity and then resumed their tasks. The low moan of the wind about the castle walls bespoke of a coming storm. She held her head high. “What will ye do with me?” she asked the Highland laird.
    “ I havena decided yet.” His eyes traveled over the heavy weight of her auburn hair, which caught the morning sun in a rook of fire, then the slender, proud arch of her neck, the delicate curve of her cheek. She had the type of beauty known to cast a rune on a man, a dangerous type that could bleed a man senseless, cause clan to rise up against clan. Brodie had been wise to hide her.
    “ Perhaps ye’ll spend yer remaining days in that tower.”
    Maighdlin raised her eyes to the castle’s southeast corner and the enormous tower, flat on the inner side and semicircular on the outer side. She shivered.
    He laughed. “Yea, ‘tis only nine paces in diameter. A fitting place to isolate you.” He paused. “Mayhap I’ll make ye my slave, and ye’ll serve me the rest of yer days.”
    Maighdlin was thoughtful for a moment, feeling the full weight of the man’s sorrows and hatreds. She thought of the way he had kissed her, controlled her, had lent her no mercy, and suppressed a shiver. “What if I could prove to ye that I am no’ Christel MacKinnon?”
    “ ‘Twould no’ matter what sort of proof ye conjured up, little witch. I need no proof other than that mark on yer shoulder.”
    “ But I have done nothing to offend ye.”
    “ Yer ve’y existence offends me, Christel MacKinnon.”
    Maighdlin straightened her spine. She felt wounded to the core by his words, but she wouldn’t show him her true feelings. “My name is Maighdlin .”
    His arm came ‘round her waist and bound her tightly to him. “Ye’d be wise to remember yer place here, Christel.”
    As Kade sprung from the horse, a woman emerged from the shadows. She was dressed in an embroidered, crimson tunic richly woven through with pearls. A belt of silk, shot through with silver thread, adorned her tiny waist; her glossy black hair was pulled neatly into a braid that poked from beneath her wimple and swayed provocatively down her back. Her hands sparkled with gold rings and ruby stones; from her wrists dangled whisper-thin bracelets of gold.
    Her eyes were large and blue, set off in her face by long, dark lashes that swept coyly down as she approached her laird. She wore some sort of rouge, perhaps sheep fat, and her skin had been vigorously rubbed pink and white.
    She hurried to them, knocking down a little girl who carried a ragged doll. The girl, who had blonde ringlets and deep brown eyes and was dressed in peasant rags, began to cry. Frowning and chastising the wayward child, she picked up her skirts and smiled lushly at Kade, trying to wrap her arms around him.
    Kade pushed her away and made his way to the child. Maighdlin was sure he would slap the poor child, but he extended his hand and helped her up. “Are ye hurt?” he asked the little girl. She shook her head shyly. “Nay.”
    He