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“No, because . . .” Cat blew out a breath. She’d hoped to have this business settled without either her sisters knowing about it, but it seemed not one of the three of them could take a step inside these castle walls without the other two finding out about it.

“Because?”

There was no use trying to hide it now. Freya would persist until she had the whole of it. Despite her gentle nature, Freya was still a MacLeod, and she had a stubborn streak as deep and wide as Loch Dunvegan.

“Because I sent a note to Glynnis yesterday that I’d deliver the syrup today.”

Freya sucked in a breath. “Glynnis! You mean to say you’re going to the village today?”

A sharp rebuke rose to Cat’s lips—something about dramatics and making such a fuss over nothing, but once again, she bit it back.

As much as she hated to acknowledge it, Freya was right.

It was no longer a comfortable thing, visiting with Glynnis, because as dear a friend as she was to them—Glynnis was one of the only friends they had left in Dunvegan—it always caught the villagers’ attention when they were seen in each other’s company.

A pair of peculiar women, their heads bent together, whispering.

No good could come of that .

“You can’t go, Cat. What in the world are you thinking, even considering it?”

“It’s only a brief visit, just long enough to—”

“Cat, please.” Freya reached across the table and gripped her hand. “You remember what happened the last time?”

Oh, she remembered. She wasn’t likely to forget it anytime soon.

Or ever. A lady didn’t forget the day the street emptied when she appeared at one end of it, or the echo of a dozen doors slamming shut, one after another, as she passed.

It wasn’t an experience she was eager to repeat, but there was no help for it.

A review of her account books earlier this evening had told her that plainly enough.

She’d counted and calculated until her head was wobbling on her neck, but no matter how many times she tallied her columns, the result was the same.

They were down to their last few pounds.

It was no wonder she’d slept ill and woken with her heart pounding and her lungs on fire in her chest, startling awake at every creak of the heavy wooden shutters, every crash of a wave on the rocks below her window.

It was no wonder she’d dreamt of a mob of crazed villagers with pitchforks in their hands, chasing her and her sisters through the cobbled streets of—

No! It was a dream only. Just a dream.

Still, dream or not, there’d been no chance of sleep after that.

“Come now, Freya. There’s nothing to worry about.” Cat gave her sister’s hand a brisk pat. “Why, I’ll be there and then gone again before any of them even realize I came.”

“They will realize it, Cat. They always do, now.”

If only she could argue the point! More than anything she wished she could tell her sister it was nonsense, that none of the good citizens of Dunvegan cared a whit for what they did, but Freya knew as well as she did that it was a lie.

Even Sorcha, for all that she did her best to ignore anything having to do with the villagers, knew it.

“I’ll be as quick as I can be. I promise it.”

Silence. Freya’s cheeks had gone pale, but she said nothing, only stared at Cat with an expression that made her squirm. “Please, Freya, don’t look at me like that. Say something, will you?”

“Say something? All right then, since you demand it. I’ll say that it looks as if you intend to break the second promise you made, just as you did the first one.”

“We need the money, Freya.”

Freya gave her a stricken look, then glanced away, biting her lip.

The silence stretched between them until at last Freya let out a long, slow breath. “You’ll only go to the apothecary? And you won’t speak to anyone aside from Glynnis?”

Alas, it wasn’t that simple. “I can’t promise I won’t be obliged to speak to Bryce, but you can be sure I won’t seek out his company. Indeed, I’ll do my best to avoid him.”

She always did, but Bryce Fraser was the apothecary, at least officially. Everyone in the village knew it was Glynnis who had all the medical and scientific knowledge, but naturally, it wouldn’t do for her to act as the village apothecary.

She was a woman , after all.

A brilliant one, with a great many unusual talents, including an exhaustive knowledge of plants and their medicinal uses that rivaled Cat’s own, but when had that ever mattered?

So, it was left to Bryce, a man without the faintest trace of his sister’s talents or intelligence, and if that weren’t awful enough, he was one of the few unmarried gentlemen in Dunvegan and fancied himself quite dashing, indeed.

God above, just the thought of those bulging blue eyes wandering over her made a shudder dart up her spine.

Freya’s lips turned down at the mention of Bryce Fraser’s name, but she didn’t offer any further objections. Instead, she caught Cat’s hand between her two cold ones. “You’ll see that you’re not left alone with him, won’t you? Not even for a moment, Cat. Promise me.”

“I promise it.” It was an easy promise to make, and unlike the others she’d made so recklessly, easy to keep, as well. She wouldn’t ever make the mistake of being alone with Bryce Fraser again.

Freya still didn’t look pleased, but she rose from the stool and crossed the room to the door, turning back to glance over her shoulder when Cat didn’t follow her. “You need to sleep, Cat. Come to bed. You can finish this in the morning.”

“I’d just as soon finish it, now I’ve begun.” There’d be no sleep for her tonight, in any case. There never was, after the dream.

Freya sighed. “Very well, if you must, but this is the last time.”

“The last time. I promise it.”

Dear God, what a liar she’d become! The truth was that promises were a luxury she could no longer afford. Still, she’d just as soon keep the worst from her younger sisters for as long as possible. She gave Freya what she hoped was a reassuring nod. “Go on, then. Off to bed with you.”

The workroom felt dreadfully cold and empty once Freya had gone with the darkness and silence pressing in on her. But she set to work, and by the time the sun peeked over the edge of the horizon, she had six bottles of maidenhair syrup waiting to be packed into her marketing basket.

She had no excuse for putting off her foray into the village now, but perhaps it was just as well. She couldn’t avoid it forever, and the sooner she went, the sooner she’d be back.

She paused at the window again before going downstairs, watching the hazy fingers of light struggling against a sky thick with gray clouds. From up here, the loch appeared as smooth as a sheet of dark glass, like the kindest of friends, tempting you to dip a toe in and refresh yourself.

To look at it now, one would never guess the treachery that lay beneath the calm waters, the swirling currents that caught you around the ankles and jerked you down into the deep, the rocky bottom falling out beneath you as the water closed over your head.

If the currents didn’t finish you, the jagged rocks you hadn’t noticed at first would do the trick. That, or the cold. It was a convenient reminder never to forget that danger lurked beneath the most harmless of surfaces.

It was rather like poison that way.

She closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of the deceptive waters below, and ran a hand over her eyelids. Had it only been a matter of months since a visit to the village had become something to dread, instead of a pleasure?

Perhaps it had been inevitable, the villagers turning on them as they’d done.

If her father hadn’t been an infamous smuggler, or her mother a Murdoch daughter, it might have been different.

If their Great-great-aunt Elspeth hadn’t met her end at the hands of a mob who’d lashed her to a stake and watched her burn, the villagers might have had more patience with them.

But so much wickedness in one family? There was no overlooking that .

She turned away from the window and made her way down the narrow stone staircase to the low door that led into the main part of the castle. From there, she emerged into the portrait gallery and hurried down the staircase to the entryway, but she came to a dead stop at the bottom of the stairs.

It was deserted.

Even now, weeks later, it still felt like a fist to her stomach to come downstairs and find Duffy’s usual place by the door empty.

For as long as she could remember, his craggy face was the first thing she saw when she came down the stairs in the mornings, his stern expression softening into a smile when he caught sight of her.

She’d ask after his health, and he’d launch into his usual complaint about the damp making him “a wee bit achy” in the joints, and she’d smile because Duffy’s troublesome joints were as much a fixture at Castle Cairncross as the sixteenth-century suit of armor that stood in the alcove to one side of the staircase.

Then she’d tell him he mustn’t stay in this drafty hallway all morning, as it would only aggravate his joints, and he’d wave a hand and tell her that one room in the castle was as drafty as the next.

Over the years, this exchange had become something of a ritual of theirs.

But Duffy had been gone these past few weeks, and with him Mrs. Duffy, who’d been their housekeeper for as long as she could remember. She’d pensioned them off because she couldn’t in good conscience allow them to continue in the castle once the boats started coming.

If they’d stayed, it would only have been a matter of time before the villagers turned on them, as well.

She remained frozen at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the place where Duffy had once stood. The castle had never felt as lonely as it did now, not even after their mother had died.

“Cat?” Freya wandered into the entryway but paused on her way up the stairs when she saw Cat standing there, staring at nothing. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, I . . . is Sorcha about?”

“No. She’s gone off on one of her adventures.” Freya waved a hand in the direction of the woods, which was the scene of most of Sorcha’s adventures.

“Ah. She’s wasting no time this morning, I see.” Goodness only knew what she got up to out there, but there were some things best left unasked, and Sorcha’s comings and goings was one of them. “You’re on your way up to the roof now, I imagine.”

“Yes. I felt a bit off this morning. I think a storm is approaching.”

For all her warnings to Cat about catching her death, Freya spent an inordinate amount of time on the chilly roof with her notebooks, thermometers, and rain gauges. “Don’t linger up there if it starts to rain like you did last time. You were in bed for a week.”

As scoldings went, it was a mild one. Freya’s mysterious aches were much like her own flutters and twitches, although in Freya’s case, it signaled an impending change in the weather.

Freya had the same connection to the elements their poor Great-great-aunt Elspeth had had, which was rather worrying when one considered Aunt Elspeth’s fiery end.

Still, Freya’s talents had proved extraordinarily useful these past few months, perhaps even more so than Cat’s, though Freya’s particular skills didn’t line their pockets the way Cat’s potions and unguents did.

Yet they’d proven the difference between life and death, for all that.

“I won’t stay out for long. I don’t like that wind.” Freya regarded her in silence for a moment. “Perhaps you’d better put off your trip to the village for another day?”

“It can’t wait, I’m afraid.” Cat buttoned the front of her cloak and settled the deep hood over her head so it covered most of her face.

All the better to hide her from the prying eyes of the citizens of Dunvegan.

“I don’t like this, Cat.”

“Nonsense. I’ll be back before you know it, I promise it.” She drew her basket over her arm, taking great care to avoid her sister’s concerned gaze.

Freya let out a soft huff, but she said only, “See that you are.”

It would take an hour, perhaps a little longer. Really, it was hardly any time at all. Why, she’d be back before Freya had a chance to miss her. It was a walk into the village, nothing more. She’d done the same walk dozens of times before.

There was no need to fall into hysterics over it, for pity’s sake.

It wasn’t as if the villagers were really going to chase her into the woods. It was just a dream, nothing more. It meant nothing. She’d found the castle to be much the same this morning as she’d left it the night before, and her sisters engaged in their usual pursuits.

All was well.

But the uneasiness in her belly persisted. Her eyebrow was twitching most insistently, and there was an ominous tingle underneath her breastbone. As she made her way down the rocky pathway that led to the village, a spray of gooseflesh rose on the back of her neck.

She knew better than to dismiss her telltale tics and flutters.

Something was amiss. She couldn’t see or hear it, but she could sense it, the air around her alive and crackling with portent.

She’d long since learned to heed these sorts of warnings.

They were signs of ill-tidings yet to come.