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“Thank you, Cat. That’s good of you.” Glynnis took the bottles and the bundles of herbs and deposited them under the counter. “Now, I daresay there must be something I can do for you, in return?”

Their eyes met, and Glynnis didn’t need to say anything more.

They had an understanding, she and Glynnis.

It was best for them both if certain of their transactions remained unobserved.

Cat darted a glance around the room. Ah, what luck! There were no other patrons about. She could hear Bryce Fraser moving about in the workroom at the back of the shop, but for once, he’d left Glynnis to her own devices.

It was a rare opportunity.

Cat leaned over the counter, lowering her voice. “Pennyroyal oil.”

Glynnis darted a look over her shoulder toward the workroom in the back. Bryce was visible through the half-open door, bent over the workbench, writing something.

There was nothing inherently suspicious about pennyroyal, of course. The leaves made a lovely tea, and it was safe enough if used in moderation. Pennyroyal oil, however, would be a trifle more difficult to explain, particularly for her.

It wasn’t as if she had anything nefarious in mind. They were troubled by mice at the castle, and the oil took care of them. No doubt dozens of other households in Dunvegan used it for the same purpose, but they weren’t her , were they?

Glynnis knew the risks as well as she did. “You’re quite sure about this, Cat?”

No. She wasn’t sure about anything, even something as simple as pennyroyal oil, but wasn’t it bad enough she could hardly bear to set foot in the village anymore? Were they to be overrun with mice, as well?

Cowardice begets cowardice . . .

She nodded before she could change her mind. “I’m sure. If anything should go awry, I promise your name will never come into it.”

Glynnis nodded and dragged a stepstool out from under the counter. She slid it over to a shelf in a far corner, climbed up, and reached for a round jar of dark brown glass. Cat held her breath as Glynnis slid the brown jar aside and rose to her tiptoes, reaching for something behind it.

“Glynnis.”

Glynnis froze, her hand suspended in midair, but she gathered herself quickly, and when she turned and looked over her shoulder at her brother, her face was composed. “Yes?”

Bryce Fraser stood in the doorway of the workroom with his arms crossed over the barrel of his chest. “What are you about? Come down from there.”

“I’m fetching the ginger for Miss MacLeod.” Glynnis snatched up the brown glass jar and pulled it from the shelf. “Poor Freya has been suffering from a nervous stomach.”

She climbed down from the stool, the jar in her hands.

Bryce Fraser glanced from Glynnis to Cat, his blue eyes narrowed.

Dear God, those eyes. They were the iciest blue imaginable, and his skin was so unnaturally pale she couldn’t even look at him without a shiver darting down her spine.

Bryce Fraser was cold, down to his marrow. He’d done an admirable job of hiding it at first, but a person’s true nature would out, sooner or later.

Sooner, in Bryce’s case, and it had taken precious little to reveal it.

She’d known, of course, that there was a certain type of man who turned ugly when a lady declined his advances, but until recently, she’d never imagined Bryce Fraser was one of them. Looking at him now, she couldn’t understand how she hadn’t seen it at once.

Her mother had always told her a lady could read everything she needed to know in a man’s eyes. The worst of him, and the best of him. She’d used to delight in telling the story of how she’d agreed to marry Rory MacLeod after one look into his eyes.

Before Bryce Fraser, Cat had admired blue eyes, but he’d put her off them entirely.

Finally, Bryce let out a grunt. “Get on with it, then.”

He returned to the workroom in the back, shaking his head.

“If you’ve a mind to go hunting in the woods for some heather, I could use some of your liniment.” Glynnis set the ginger aside. “Poor Mrs. Douglas has been in twice already this week searching for it, and she won’t be the only one, as it’s meant to be a damp winter. I don’t like to do without it.”

“There’s not much heather to be found this late in the year.”

“Aye, that’s so, but if you could find some and see clear to making up a batch, I’ll make it worth your while.” Glynnis braced her hands against the counter. “Say, half a pound per bottle?”

“Half a pound!” The liniment wasn’t worth that, and they both knew it. Indeed, Glynnis was perfectly capable of making up her own batch of the liniment. She didn’t need Cat’s help at all.

A lump rose in her throat. “You’re too good to us, Glynnis.”

“Nonsense.” Glynnis reached for the twine, avoiding Cat’s eyes. “It’s not charity, Cat. I’ll sell it to Mrs. Douglas for half again that amount, and I don’t have the time to go digging about in the woods for heather.”

Glynnis didn’t fool her for a minute, but she wasn’t in any position to say no to half a pound per jar of liniment. Goodness knew they needed the money. “Very well, then. I’ll see what I can find.”

It wouldn’t be easy, but if there was any heather to be had this late in the year, she knew where to find it.

Her mother had shown her long ago how to find what she sought in the forest. From there it was simply a matter of cleaning the fresh plants, grinding them into a paste, then pressing it and extracting the valuable liquid.

“Very well. Here’s your ginger.” Glynnis held Cat’s gaze as she took a small portion of ginger root from the jar and dropped it in a neat mound in the center of a length of brown paper.

There’d be no pennyroyal oil changing hands today, then.

It was too risky with Bryce watching their every move through the open door.

She’d have to come back for it. Her heart sank at the thought of yet another trip into the village with all those staring eyes following her down the High Street, but she gave Glynnis a smile. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Glynnis tied off the packet with a length of twine, then withdrew a handful of coins from a small wooden box under the counter, and held them out to Cat as payment for the maidenhair syrup.

But when Cat reached out to accept the coins, instead of dropping them in her palm, Glynnis gripped her wrist.

Cat looked up, startled, but Glynnis put a finger to her lips and jerked her head toward the workroom, where they could hear Bryce moving about.

“Out back, in the mews.” She pressed the coins into Cat’s palm and closed Cat’s fingers around them. “Wait for me there, and I’ll bring the oil to you.”

* * *

The MacLeod chit didn’t look like a witch.

To be fair, he’d only gotten a glimpse of the side of her face—the curve of a pale cheek, the tip of an upturned nose, and that lock of startling red hair—but it was plain to see she was far from the monstrosity Dougal and Clyde had described.

Bloody Dougal and Clyde, with their nonsense about grotesque figures with long chins, sunken cheeks, and a dusting of hair on their upper lips.

Although that was how witches were meant to look, according to the paintings he’d seen. The paintings were always dark affairs, with half-dressed crones prancing round a fire and small horned devils leering in the background.

It was all rather alarming.

He hadn’t believed for a single moment that the MacLeod sisters were witches, of course. The very idea was absurd. But he had suspected they’d at least look the part.

How could anyone in Dunvegan mistake the dainty little thing that had just darted into the apothecary’s shop, with her wee basket over her arm and her cloak pulled low over her head like a turtle hiding inside its shell, for a witch, for God’s sake?

Although that cloak did make her look as if she had something to hide.

It was pure folly on her part to imagine she could disappear underneath that cloak.

There was no way to disappear in a tiny village like Dunvegan.

That was the trouble with these sorts of places.

One couldn’t set a toe onto the High Street without every bloody citizen for miles around knowing about it.

Cloak or not, within an hour all the villagers would know she’d come here this morning.

But if the young lady who’d just hurried down the cobbled street couldn’t be mistaken for a witch, neither was she a figment of his imagination. No, she was as much flesh and blood as he was, and thus as much of a problem as she’d ever been.

Chaos would find poor, timid little Catriona MacLeod soon enough.

But first things first.

“I’d best be off, friend.” Hamish rose from his chair, glancing down at the half-full bottle of whisky on the table. “You’ll do justice to the rest of that whisky, eh?”

“Aye.” Munro curled his arm protectively around the bottle. “Kind of ye.”

Hamish reached into his pocket, tossed a handful of coins onto the table, and made his way out the door, but in the brief time it took for him to emerge onto the High Street, Catriona MacLeod had disappeared.

“Damn it.” She was just here. Where could the chit have gotten to?

At the other end of the street, a door creaked on its hinges, and he glanced up just in time to see the hem of a brown cloak disappearing behind the door of the apothecary’s shop.

Catriona MacLeod. Who else?

She vanished into the dim interior.

He waited until the door closed behind her before he eased away from the wall at his back and strolled down the High Street, as cool as you please, and took up a position at the corner of the alleyway adjacent to Fraser’s Apothecary.

Yes, this would do nicely. Unless the chit really was a witch and could make herself invisible, there was no way she could return to the castle without him seeing her.

He’d simply wait here.

But a minute slid by, then another, then a half dozen, and Catriona MacLeod didn’t appear. He poked his head out, but the apothecary’s door remained closed, and the street outside it was deserted.

For God’s sake, how long did it take to visit the apothecary?

Was it possible she’d caught sight of him in the pub’s window? She wouldn’t have recognized him even if she had, of course, but given how rare strangers were in Dunvegan, just a glimpse of an unknown face might have been enough to spook her.

But where could she go, aside from out the door she’d gone in? Unless . . .

Was there a door around the back?

He turned and slipped down the alleyway and had just come out into the mews behind it when one of the back doors opened.

He ducked out of sight, but the lady who emerged from the gloomy depths of the shop wasn’t Catriona MacLeod.

It was another lady, young and fair-haired, with a large apron covering a plain, blue cotton dress.

Ah, that must be Glynnis Fraser, the apothecary’s sister.

He’d made it his business to find out her name.

He knew all their names. Every single shop owner in the village of Dunvegan.

Glynnis Fraser didn’t venture far but remained just outside the door, looking this way and that, as if she were waiting for someone.

Curious. If he didn’t miss his mark, the lady was up to something.

Sure enough, a few moments later there was a click of boot heels against the cobbles, then Catriona MacLeod rounded the corner and hurried to the back door of the shop, the hem of her cloak fluttering in the wind.

He edged a little closer and peeked around the side of the building, but even now, with her facing in his direction, he couldn’t see more than the barest outlines of her face.

That bloody cloak was doing its job.

Instead of ducking out of sight, as a proper spy would have done, he lingered at the corner. It was risky, but he wanted to get a better look at her. For informational purposes only, of course.

A man liked to know what he was up against.

Unfortunately, the mews behind the apothecary shop were as gloomy as a haunted churchyard. Between that and the hood she was wearing, he couldn’t make out a single feature of Catriona MacLeod’s face.

It wasn’t so gloomy, though, that he couldn’t see her creep up to Glynnis Fraser. They spoke briefly, their heads bent together. He couldn’t make out a word of what they said from where he stood, but he saw Glynnis pull something from her apron pocket and hand it to Catriona.

It looked like a parcel, wrapped in brown paper and tied with several lengths of twine.

It had been a furtive exchange, each of them glancing over their shoulders the entire time like a pair of thieves exchanging a bit of contraband.

Neither lady lingered, after that. Glynnis slipped back into the shop, closing the door behind her. As for Catriona MacLeod, she shoved the item Glynnis had handed her into her basket.

He’d give a pretty penny to know what it was, but there was no time to ponder it now because as soon as she’d secured her prize, Catriona MacLeod scurried away like a small redheaded mouse with a bit of cheese clutched in its paw.

He followed, taking care to keep a half dozen or so paces between them, but he may as well not have bothered, for all the notice she paid him. Whatever mischief Miss MacLeod was getting up to, it had all her attention.

She didn’t return to the High Street, as he’d expected, but instead darted behind the row of shops, onto a rutted path that led up a steep hill, and into a wooded area at the crest.

The woods? He glanced up at the sky, where the first of a mass of threatening gray clouds were gathering. God above, what did the girl think she was doing, scampering up into the hills—alone, no less—with a storm brewing?

Damn it, he despised being caught in the rain. Despised climbing hills, too, and that was to say nothing of the healthy dislike he now felt for Catriona MacLeod.

But there was no help for it. If he wanted to know what the chit was about—and he did —there was only one way to find out.

And that was to go after her.