Lochmorton Castle, West March, 1595

Duncan Maxwell grabbed one of the pitch torches from its sconce on the dungeon wall, and ducked to avoid hitting his head on the lintel, as he entered the small, dark cell. The reiver his men had captured in the wee hours of the morning huddled in the far corner. The figure neither looked up to see who had entered nor flinched at the sound of the heavy wooden door thudding shut. Duncan knew that his presence had been registered, however, for the youngster’s spine stiffened and his respiration increased.

“Well, reiver, what have you to say for yourself?”

The boy didn’t move.

Duncan sighed. So that was the way it was going to be. He didn’t relish the notion of threatening a child, but he would do what he must to find out who was responsible for the recent raids on his territory resulting in the loss of a dozen cattle and twice that many sheep. His men were getting restless and angry and would soon begin to take out their frustrations in raids of their own.

He strode over to the lad and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him up with one hand until the boy’s feet dangled several inches from the floor. It was far easier than it ought to have been, even for a man of Duncan’s unusual height and strength. He grimaced, wondering when the child had last eaten, for he weighed little more than a wet cat.

Notwithstanding his sympathy for the boy’s plight, Duncan gave him a none-too-gentle shake. “Answer me, lad, or you ken I’ll have no choice but to hang you on the morrow.”

Still, the boy ignored him. Duncan had to give him credit – he was brave and loyal, if not bright.

“Come on, boy, you can’t be more than fourteen. Do you want to die before you’ve even swived your first wench?”

That brought the boy’s head up. In the light of the torch, his eyes glittered black with malice. He drew back his head and spat in Duncan’s face.

Under any other circumstances, such an action would have brought a swift and violent reaction. But, at the precise moment the spittle hit his chin, Duncan realized his mistake. His gaunt-faced, dirty-cheeked prisoner was no lad, but a girl.

He was so startled by the revelation that he nearly dropped her. Christ in heaven, what manner of raiding party would permit a girl to ride with them? Bad enough to think they’d impress a child, but a female? The very idea bespoke an unthinkable brand of madness and desperation.

Filled with remorse at having treated her so roughly, he set her gently on her feet, half-fearing she’d crumple back to the floor in a heap. To his relief, she held her ground, staring up at him defiantly with wide, thick-lashed eyes that might be either dark brown or deep blue. Although her cheek and jaw bones were far too prominent, no doubt a consequence of poor nutrition, her heart-shaped face and bowed lips were unmistakably feminine. His men must have been blind to mistake her for a boy.

But then, to be fair, they had come upon the raiders at night and had brought her directly back to the dungeon, which was hardly well-lit. The possibility that their captive might be female would never have crossed their minds, as it hadn’t his until he’d got a good look at her face. If she had kept her head down, he might not have recognized the truth, either. Christ, he might have kept her in the dungeon for weeks on end without ever realizing what a treasure he had been handed.

For however mad and desperate her clan must be to bring her along on a raid, they would be ever madder and more desperate to ransom her back. And he would gladly stretch the necks of the men responsible for reiving his livestock in payment for her safe return.

“Let’s begin again, shall we? I am Duncan Maxwell, laird of Lochmorton Castle, and you are …?”

Silence.

He tried another tack. “I’m sure your family is very concerned for your safety. Would you not like to get word to them that you’re well and in no danger?”

More silence. She had the fortitude of a stone, he had to give her that.

But then something happened which betrayed her. A long, low gurgle issued from the region of her belly.

“Your first name, then, in exchange for your breakfast.”

At that, he could almost see her salivate. She was terribly hungry, almost starved. Duncan wished he didn’t have to use her privation against her, but this was no time for an attack of conscience. Especially when she was the thief, and he was not responsible for her condition.

She raised her head and thrust her chin out. “You already have my name, Duncan Maxwell, laird of Lochmorton Castle.”

His brow furrowed. He most surely did not know her name.

“You said it when you first came in,” she clarified.

Duncan thought back. What had he said when he’d entered the cell? Well, reiver, what have you to say for yourself? Cheeky, that’s what she was.

“Reiver is not your name, and we both know it.”

“Aye, well, it’s the only one you’re going to get,” she said with a shrug. The gesture drew attention to the thin, pitiful shoulders beneath the oversized linen shirt she wore. He found his gaze drawn lower, involuntarily seeking the outline of her breasts. She must have bound them, he decided. Either that or she was exceptionally small-bosomed.

For some peculiar reason, the image of breasts so tiny he could encompass their entirety in his mouth flashed through his brain, bringing with it an immediate flare of lust.

Duncan shook himself, puzzled by his response. Small breasts did not appeal to him. He preferred his women full and curvaceous … not to mention welcoming. Odd that his body didn’t seem to agree with this assessment. Even filthy and scrawny as she was, he couldn’t dismiss his awareness that she was young and female and utterly in his power.

If he chose to take her to his bed, no one would say him nay. No one but her, and her only defences – an excess of bravado and a sharp tongue – would be easy enough to overcome. Duncan wasn’t a vain man, but he was well aware of his effect on females of the species, and he doubted this slip of a woman would be any exception. And once she’d sweetened up under his assault, she’d likely tell him not only her name, but anything and everything else he wanted to know.

The scheme built itself before he was even fully aware he had conceived it. She was cold, hungry, and alone. Her clansmen had turned tail and deserted her, undoubtedly believing she would swing by morning for their collective crime. Any person subjected to the kind of privation she’d obviously suffered would likely be more easily seduced by kindness than by cruelty. You caught more fish by baiting hooks than throwing rocks, after all.

He smiled, benign and beneficent in his newfound, if devious, magnanimity. “Very well, Reiver, you’ve admitted what you are if not whom. For now, I think that’s sufficient for breakfast and an improvement in your accommodation.”

True to her brothers’ descriptions, the Maxwell of Lochmorton was huge and forbidding, a veritable beast in a tartan. Although for a beast, she had to admit he had remarkably comely features, despite the telltale scar – the Lockerbie lick – that slashed across one cheek. The warm glow of the torch flickered across the rugged terrain of his face, dominated by a prominent brow ridge and a long, hawkish nose that had obviously been broken more than once. But when he smiled … it was as if the clouds had parted to admit the sun, flooding the hard landscape in bright, beautiful light.

Surely it was only hunger that made her sway precariously towards him. She hadn’t eaten a proper meal in three days.

He probably thought she was weak because she was female. That if he plied her with food and drink and a warm, soft bed, she would betray her family. He could not be more wrong.

Even so, she would bide her time and play his game, pretending to be the noble hostage. But there would be no ransom. A rescue was equally out of the question. Eventually, he would realize the truth and hang her for a thief. No Scottish border laird could afford to allow a reiver to go unpunished, even a female one.

In the meantime, however, it would be good to be well-fed, dry and comfortable, especially at the laird of Lochmorton’s expense.

But she would give him nothing. He was a Maxwell. Her mortal enemy. And that she would never forget. Or forgive.

Duncan always knew when Reva – as he had taken to calling her – entered the room he was in. In the two months since she’d become his “honoured guest”, he had come no closer to determining her real first name or her identity, but his nerves had become intimately acquainted with every nuance of her bearing. He recognized instantly the weight and rhythm of her footfalls, the cadence of her breath, the citrusy scent that was uniquely hers.

Despite the low, buzzing din in the castle’s main hall, each and every harbinger of her arrival registered on him in ripples of awareness, like pebbles cast into a still, blue lake. It came as no surprise to him at all, therefore, when she set her trencher of blood sausage and bread in the centre of the long table and sat down to eat. As always, she studiously ignored his presence, bending her head over her food so that her auburn curls partially shielded her face from his view. Fortunately, her hair, which had been cropped in deference to her masquerade as a boy, was still too short to hide much, and so Duncan could still make out the elegant slope of her nose and the stubborn point of her chin.

As he watched her tear off a hunk of the bread and wrap it around the sausage, he pondered what name to give her today.

It was a game he had devised since her second day at Lochmorton. At each meal, he greeted her with a different name, hoping she might betray by some small reaction her true first name. She had, of course, never so much as flinched as he worked his way through all of the more common women’s names, both Scottish and English, and a few much more uncommon ones as well. At this point, he was fairly well out of likely options, but he wasn’t about to give up the game.

When she opened her small, bow-shaped mouth wide to encompass the makeshift sausage roll, which bore an undeniable resemblance to a phallus, Duncan went soft and hard all in the same moment. Of course, she immediately spoiled the effect by sinking her teeth into the sausage and tearing a large bite from it, but the sheer bliss that suffused her features as she chewed was equally, if not more, erotic. Christ, he wanted to see that look on her face when she was naked and spread out beneath him. He wanted that look to be for him.

His body’s response was an absolute puzzle to him. In any other circumstance, he would likely not have given her a second glance. Although six weeks of proper meals had eliminated the emaciated, hunted look she’d had that first morning and filled out some of her curves, she had not been binding her breasts as he had suspected. The dark green gown she wore – a cast-off from his sister, Alys – fit well enough from top to bottom and across the shoulders, but gaped at the chest despite obvious attempts at alteration.

Duncan found himself trying to catch a peek down the bodice as she bent over her trencher. He cursed himself. Even when he couldn’t think of a single reason to be attracted to her, he couldn’t stop thinking about bedding her. It was perverse. She was nothing he thought he wanted in a woman … and everything he desired.

And that gave him this morning’s name.

“Good morrow, Venus.”

He expected the same response he always got, which was, of course, none. So he was surprised when she raised her chin with a jerk and fixed him with a blistering stare. A casual observer might have called her eyes brown or perhaps hazel but, to Duncan, her eyes were the colour of the moors – a dark, mossy green flecked with rich brown and bright gold – and like the moors, they could appear at one moment soft and inviting, at another fierce and forbidding.

At the moment, their mood was definitely the latter. “It is one thing to attempt to make me betray myself, but quite another to openly mock me, sir.”

Duncan’s eyebrows went up. “Whatever makes you think I’m mocking you?”

“I have looked in a mirror on more than one occasion,” she said with a snort, “and I am well aware I am no man’s ideal of feminine beauty.”

“Perhaps you have spent your life in the company of the wrong men.”

“And if you think you will trick me into revealing who those men are with such a transparent attempt at flattery, you are bound for disappointment.”

Duncan blinked. Of course, he hadn’t been thinking that at all, but he should have been. After two months of good food and a warm bed, she ought to be softening by now. Any other woman would have cracked, he was sure. Yet, if anything, his reiver seemed to be digging her heels in even more. It was almost as if she wanted him to execute her.

Christ, what sort of a monster did she take him for?

The sort who plans to execute her loved ones if she reveals their identity, his conscience pointed out.

But that was the way of the border. Reivers must be brought to account. She knew it as well as he did, which was no doubt why she guarded her secrets the way a vestal virgin guarded her virtue.

She didn’t trust him, and she shouldn’t. But he wished, with a heavy ache in his chest, that it were otherwise.

There was no denying it: Lochmorton Castle was a happy place. Everyone had enough to eat, warm clothes, and a solid roof over their heads. Children frolicked in the courtyard when the weather was good and in the hall when it was not. The clansfolk went about their daily tasks with great cheer, unconcerned about what the morrow would bring.

And it was all because of him. The Maxwell.

They could do nothing but sing his praises. Since he had become chieftain two years ago upon his father’s untimely death at Dryfe Sands, the clan’s fortunes had been utterly transformed. The livestock were plentiful, the crops meticulously tended, the larders well-stocked. His people felt safe and secure. No one dared to threaten Duncan Maxwell openly, and though the occasional raid could not be prevented – begging your pardon for mentioning it, miss – they had never in memory been so prosperous or content.

The worst part of it was that their contentment was contagious. She had expected to be treated with disdain, or even contempt. Instead, she had received nothing but kindness. When the women had discovered that she could not sew, and so could not alter the gowns they thoughtfully provided her, they did not deride her, but rather offered to teach her if she was willing to learn.

After a lifetime of being told that the Maxwells were the root of all evil, it was disorienting, and she had slowly found herself admiring Duncan Maxwell in spite of herself. He was everything a clan chieftain should be – wise, strong, dependable and honest. In short, everything her uncle was not.

As her hatred had seeped out of her over the course of the past few weeks, it was replaced with something even more difficult to bear: the hopeless, soul-deep longing that he could be hers.

Which was why, when he had called her Venus this morning at breakfast, she had reacted so sharply and uncharacteristically. She wanted more than anything for him to find her beautiful and desirable, but she knew such a wish was as foolish as it was impossible. Yet, when he’d looked at her with his sharp blue eyes and told her she must have spent her life in the company of the wrong men, her throat had thickened with the realization that it was true. Her family was nothing but wrong men, although perhaps not in precisely the way Duncan Maxwell implied.

Still, she could not betray them. They were her flesh and blood.

One thing was clear, however. If she stayed here at Lochmorton much longer, the Maxwell clan would become more of a family to her than her flesh and blood had ever been and pleasing Duncan Maxwell more important to her than a lifetime of loyalties.

She had to do something drastic. And soon.

When Reva didn’t appear at mealtime for the third morning in a row, Duncan went looking for her. Although she’d lost her gaunt, emaciated appearance, she was still too thin to stop eating. If she was fasting in the hopes he’d feel guilty and release her, she needed to be disabused of that notion immediately. And if she was ill – God forbid – he would see to her care.

He did not find her in her chamber, which came as something of a relief, for if she could exercise her freedom to roam the castle at will, she could not be sick – or at least not terribly so. After fruitless searches of several common rooms, he located her at last on the upper floor of the tower.

She stood in front of a tall, narrow window to the left of the stairs, her forehead pressed against the glass as she surveyed the harsh landscape that spread out below. The sky was overcast, and so the light filtering in through the wavy glass illuminated her profile in a cool, silvery glow.

“I do hope you are not planning to jump,” he said, hoping to inject a bit of levity.

At the sound of his voice, she turned to look at him. Her expression was so bleak, Duncan’s heart wrenched as if it were trying to twist its way out of his chest. For a few seconds, he was terrified that she really would go so far as to throw herself to her death just to escape him. Was he really that horrible a beast for doing what any other sensible landowner would do in his position?

A wry smile flitted across her lips. “I suppose if I did, it would rather severely damage my value as a hostage.”

Her words cut him to the quick.

“Do you really believe that is the only reason your death would pain me?”

She shrugged. “What other reason could there be?”

He shouldn’t have been surprised. He shouldn’t have been insulted. But he was. Umbrage collided with pent-up lust and frustration. With three strides, he devoured the broad expanse of floor separating them, grabbed her upper arms, and yanked her against his chest.

“What other reason? How about this?” he growled before crushing his mouth to hers in a fierce, hungry kiss.

To his surprise, she didn’t try to pull away or resist, but instead parted her lips to accept the demanding thrust of his tongue. And then she went further, answering his strokes with small feints and parries of her own. He groaned and framed her face with his hands, angling her head to ensure the best possible access to the buttersweet territory of her mouth. She wound her arms around his neck in response, answering him measure for measure. And he found himself grinding his rising erection against the slight swell of her belly.

She nestled against him like a tiny, delicate bird. The difference in their size and strength should have alarmed him. He had the power to crush her without even trying, and yet, he didn’t for a second fear the possibility, for like the heather she might appear small and lovely and fragile, but she was strong and enduring and utterly suited to this world, a product of its harsh, unforgiving landscape.

And this kiss – this dark, needful, ardent kiss – felt like the first truly honest interaction they’d ever had. For once, she wasn’t ignoring or evading or resisting his questions, but telling him, with her lips and her tongue and her ragged breathing, exactly what she was thinking and feeling. Things like please and don’t stop and most of all – more. And damned if he wasn’t thinking and feeling the same things. He might well have borne her to the cold, hard stone floor and taken her right then and there had not the flavour of salt interrupted his enjoyment of the moment.

He paused. It tasted like … tears.

She was weeping. Silently, even as she continued to kiss him without reservation, tears streamed from her eyes and mingled with the sweet, tangy taste of her mouth.

He broke the kiss and raised his head. Her eyes were glazed – both with passion and with misery. Christ, what was he doing to her? Perhaps he was capable of crushing her, after all. “Please do not cry. I do not want to hurt you.”

“Then let me go,” she whispered.

“You know I cannot do that.” Although now he wasn’t sure why he couldn’t. Was it because he had to punish the raiders for challenging his authority and stealing his clan’s property? Or just because he wanted to keep her for his own selfish and impure reasons? He wasn’t even sure which notion he hated the least. But he knew one thing for certain: releasing her was not an option.

She turned her head and gazed out the window again. “Perhaps I should have jumped.”

Panic gripped his chest. “Do not say that. You would not.”

“Nay, you’re right. I would not. I’m far too great a coward.” She swiped at her eyes and gave him a watery smile. “And perhaps a wee bit melodramatic. I’m no’ accustomed to being cooped up indoors for such long periods of time, you see.”

“You’ve spent a great deal of time outside, then?” he asked, hoping not to sound as if he was prying, although of course he was. The more he knew about her, the greater the likelihood he could find out who she really was. His men had canvassed the countryside in search of anyone who might know of a young woman who’d gone missing, but so far, they’d had no luck. Perhaps they’d just been looking in the wrong places.

And if they look in the right places and find her family, what will you do then? Are you sure you want to know?

He shook off the unpleasant questions.

“Oh, nearly all of my life,” she was saying, her face animating with pleasant memories. “We didn’t have much of a place to be inside, you ken. Certainly nothing so grand as this.”

So, they’d been poor, living, most likely, in a small, sod-roofed cottage on some godforsaken corner of some wealthy laird’s estate. They’d had the resources for good, strong horses and decent firearms, of course, but those were the tools of the trade, every bit as much a necessity for a reiver as a plough and seed for a farmer.

And if they’d had horses …

“Would you like to go for a ride?”

She gave him a shocked look, and he thought perhaps she’d recognized the double entendre, which was perfectly understandable given that he’d been on the verge of riding her good and hard just moments ago. He jerked his head in the direction of the window. “Out there,” he clarified. “On horseback.”

Her eyes widened and there was no mistaking the joy that sparkled in their moor-coloured depths. “Really? You would give me a horse and allow me to ride? Aren’t you afraid I will try to escape?”

“Aye, that is a problem,” he admitted, as much to himself as to her. But if she did try to escape, she wouldn’t get far. He would determine which of his horses she rode, and he would choose the sorriest, slowest nag in his stable to ensure she’d not outrun him. Not that he had any horse that could outrun his Curaidh. But still, he would prefer she made him a promise. “Will you give me your word that you will not try to escape? In exchange for a few hours outside these walls.”

Her teeth worried her lower lip for a minute, but then she nodded. “Aye, I give you my word I will not try to escape.”

“Then I am not worried. Be ready tomorrow an hour after breakfast.” He started for the stairwell, then checked his step and looked over his shoulder at her. She looked soft and thoroughly kissed and he ached to return and finish what he’d started, but now that he had a plan for ferreting out the truth, he must execute it. “And Reva?”

“Aye?”

“You will come down to breakfast tomorrow morning. If you do not eat, I cannot in good conscience allow you to ride.”

She bowed her head, the very picture of meek subservience. “Aye, sir.”

He should have known right then that he was in trouble.

Duncan had never seen a man, let alone a woman, who appeared more at home on a horse than Reva.

True to his plan, he had instructed his stablehand to saddle the oldest, tiredest nag in his stable. This didn’t mean the roan mare was a poor or useless mount, of course; no one in the West March could afford to keep horses that weren’t up to the demands of border life. Still, Ruadh was a bit past her prime and, having foaled several months ago, should have been nowhere near capable of matching Curaidh for speed or stamina.

And yet, with Reva on her back, Ruadh showed no signs of flagging spirits or energy. If anything, the horse seemed as enthusiastic and joyful at the opportunity to be out on the moors as her rider. Together, they moved effortlessly over the rough, uneven terrain, horse and rider flowing together as one.

“Race you to that outcropping,” Reva challenged, pointing to a rock formation several hundred yards distant.

Her face was so full of life, so different from the bleak, hopeless expression of yesterday, that Duncan couldn’t resist. What harm could come of it? If it made her happy, if it endeared him to her even a little, it could only help his cause. Perhaps he’d even let her win.

He grinned at her. “You’re on!”

Reva, being Reva, didn’t wait for a starter’s mark. She kneed Ruadh’s flanks and leaned over the mare’s neck. The animal surged forward without so much as a half-second’s hesitation. By the time Duncan spurred Curaidh into action, Reva held a lead of almost a hundred yards.

There would be no question of letting her win now. He would be fortunate if she didn’t beat him outright, at least over this short distance.

He bent low and murmured Gaelic encouragements in his mount’s ear. The musket he’d slung over his shoulder in the event of an attack slapped hard against his back with each thundering beat of Curaidh’s hooves.

They were making up ground, but not quickly enough to overtake her before the finish line. She reached the outcropping just strides before he did, her laughter ringing out like chimes as she pulled the mare to a halt.

“I win,” she said, her features glowing with triumph.

“You cheated,” he pointed out, referring to the head start she’d taken. Curaidh’s flanks heaved beneath him. By contrast, her horse barely looked winded.

“Aye, but you kenned I don’t play fair already.”

“Fair enough.” He shook his head as he gave his horse a soothing pat. “How on earth did my men catch you when you can ride like that? I’m sure the horse you had that night was in much better condition than Ruadh here.”

She shrugged. “They were supposed to catch me,” she said.

“What do you mean, they were supposed to catch you?” His mind raced with possibilities. Was she a spy? An assassin? Neither seemed remotely likely, and yet …

“If we were ever interrupted during a raid, it was my job to create a distraction and allow the rest to escape, even if it meant my capture. The assumption was that since I was female, no one would actually execute me for the raid and I’d soon be set free.” She smiled winningly at him, as if to give him the opportunity to remedy his failure to behave according to expectation.

“You mean you’d done this before?” He was horrified. Damn it, she could have been killed any number of times before she’d crossed his path. He might even have hanged her himself without realizing … His stomach turned.

“Ride with my family on raids? Oh aye, all the time.”

“Christ, Reva …” He closed his eyes. “But then … why didn’t you tell me straight away that night that you were a woman?”

Her mouth drew into a straight, tight line. “I wanted you to execute me.”

“What! In the name of God, why?”

“You’re a Maxwell. I knew you wouldn’t let me go. I knew you’d try to get me to betray my family. I thought death would be easier to bear than that.” She drew a ragged breath. “Than this.”

“Than what?” She looked up at him, her eyes filling with tears.

“Falling in love with you.”

He couldn’t think of a single thing she could have said in that moment that would have surprised – or thrilled – him more. His heart threatened to burst through his rib cage.

She loved him. As God was his witness, nothing mattered but that. He didn’t care who she was, where she had come from, or what she had done. As long as she loved him, everything could be made right.

“Loving me is not so terrible as all that, is it?”

She shook her head. “Perhaps not. But I did not want to. And now that I do … I do not know what to do.”

Duncan smiled gently. “Then you’ve no choice but to follow my lead.”

She nodded, her smile watery in return. “Aye.”

“Come with me,” he said, turning Curaidh away from the outcropping. “I know exactly what to do.”

He led her to one of the many small cottages that dotted Lochmorton’s landscape. Most would be occupied come planting time, but now it was after the harvest and most of his people had moved inside the castle walls in preparation for winter.

After helping her dismount, he brought her inside. She looked uncertainly around the small, sparsely furnished room. There was a fireplace, a few wooden chairs, and a bed.

“Why did you bring me here?”

Duncan caressed her cheek with one thumb. “To make you my wife.”

“Surely you cannot mean to marry me,” she gasped.

“I can and I do. I love you in return, Reva, and I shall settle for nothing less than making an honest woman of you.”

“’Tis a little late now,” she teased. She eyed the room even more dubiously than before. “But surely you should have brought me to a priest if that was your intent.”

He chuckled. “And so I shall … but I have been more priestly myself than I would like these past months. With your permission, I would like to remedy that now.”

“You mean …?” She glanced to the bed and back to him.

“Aye,” he said, drawing her into his embrace, “I wish to make love to you. If you will permit me, of course.” His voice was rougher – and more pleading – than he would have liked.

“That doesna sound like the proper way to make either an honest woman or a wife of me,” she observed, but the barest hint of a smile teased the corners of her lips as she said it.

He pressed his lips against her forehead. “No, but it is the only way to make a sane man of me. Knowing you love me, I cannot bear another minute of this torture.”

“Torture?”

“Aye, lass, you’ve had me tied in knots since that moment in my dungeon that I realized you were no lad. If you will not have me now, I do not know if I will make it whole to the wedding.” He moved his mouth to her temple and was pleased by her shiver of response.

She pulled away slightly and tilted her head to one side, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “My brothers always told me not to listen to a man when he claimed he’d sustain an injury if he did not have me in his bed. They say ’twas a ploy, that no harm ever came of waiting.”

He laughed and slid his hands from where they rested at the small of her back to cup her buttocks. She had worn breeches for their ride, and being treated to the sight of the rounded curve of her backside had been tempting him all day. “I never said my harm would be physical. ’Twill be entirely mental.”

She made thoughtful, scrunched-up faces as though considering this claim while he kneaded the firm muscles with his hands. Perhaps he wasn’t as fond of large breasts as he’d once believed. A generous set of hindquarters more than made up for any lack.

“Ah, well,” she sighed at last, “I suppose a mad Maxwell will do me no good as a husband. Very well, Duncan Maxwell of Lochmorton. You may make love to me.”

With a groan of relief, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. It was unmade and a bit lumpy, but he hoped she wouldn’t notice either discomfort. He knew he wouldn’t.

He first removed his plaid, which he had worn over shirt and breeches in deference to the autumn chill, and spread it out atop the bare mattress. When he was finished, he set about undressing her. She blushed when he removed her shirt and covered her breasts with her hands, but he pushed them away with a gentle shake of his head.

“Do not be ashamed, runag. They are just as I imagined. Small and firm and the perfect size to fit in my mouth.”

“In your mouth?” she asked, her eyes wide with puzzlement.

Her innocence was adorable. After such a difficult life, that she should come to him so obviously untouched seemed something of a miracle. That she had come to him at all was miracle enough.

He bent his head and encompassed the entire, lovely rosebud of one breast in his mouth. The salty tang of her skin was in perfect harmony with the lemony scent that clung to her.

“Oh,” she sighed in wonderment as he flicked his tongue across the hardening nipple.

“You see. Perfect, just as I said.”

The remainder of her garb came off with greater ease and less resistance. As each inch of her was revealed, he found more beauty to explore with his hands and mouth – the velvet-skinned expanse of her belly, the swirl of dark red-tinged curls at the apex of her thighs, the unexpected length of her slender yet muscular thighs and calves.

His own clothes he removed with even greater alacrity, nearly frantic in his need to lie with her, naked skin to naked skin. When he knelt between her thighs and eased his way inside her, he shook with the effort to maintain his control, fearful both of hurting her and of reaching his pleasure before he found hers.

He needn’t have worried. She wrapped her arms and legs around him the way she’d wrapped herself around his heart and urged him on. They rocked together as though they had made love like this hundreds of times before, each attuned to the other’s rhythms and sensations as both climbed towards the precipice and then tipped over it, in unison, into rapture.

The only thing that marred his pleasure was that, when she cried out his name, he could not call out hers in return.

“You shall have to give your name for the wedding ceremony, you know,” he observed some time later.

She lifted her head from its cradle in his shoulder and looked down at him, her expression guarded and a little sad. “You know I cannot,” she whispered.

“What if I promised not to seek revenge upon your family for the raid?”

Her eyebrows flew up her forehead. “You would do that? For me?”

He stroked her hair. “Aye, lass, I would. In fact, perhaps I should be thanking them.”

“Why?”

“Because if they had not tried to reive my cattle that night, I would never have met you.”

He pulled her head down towards his and gave her what he meant to be a sweet and reassuring kiss, but the instant their mouths touched, his intent was entirely forgotten. Her lips parted, ardent and inviting, and her tongue darted daringly into his mouth. He groaned as a fresh wave of desire spiralled down through his loins. With no small effort, he broke the kiss and forced his raging need back under control. While he could make love to her a half dozen more times without consequence, the same could not be said for her. She would be sore enough on the ride back to Lochmorton as it was.

As he drew away, she reached up and traced her thumb across the scar that marred his left cheek. “Did it hurt terribly?” she asked.

He recognized that she was changing the subject, but decided to go along with it. “Aye. Like fire.”

The memory of that day was as crisp as if it had happened yesterday, and yet as confused and chaotic as the events themselves. His father had insisted that they join their cousin, John, Lord Maxwell, in his campaign against Sir James Johnstone. With decades of enmity between the Maxwells and the Johnstones, there’d been no doubt that the battle would be bloody and ugly.

What both his father and Lord Maxwell had failed to anticipate was the formidable advantage the Johnstones’ familiarity with the terrain of Dryfe Sands would give them despite their smaller numbers. Lord John had died in the ambush mere seconds after crossing the river. Duncan’s father, along with a sizable portion of the Maxwell, Armstrong, and Douglas clan had followed him to the grave minutes later. Duncan himself had managed to escape with the routed army, but not before receiving the sharp tip of a Johnstone sword to the cheek. He had sworn on that day never again to enter a battle on territory he didn’t know as well as his own newly-altered face. And never to forgive the Johnstones for their perfidy.

But he did not want the hostility those old memories inspired to interrupt the peaceful contentment of the moment, and so he placed his hand over hers and held it against his cheek. “But at least I know now never to trust a Johnstone.”

“Aye, that you do,” she said softly, resting her head back on the curve of his shoulder. For the time being, he decided to let the issue of her name rest. After a few moments of silence, she stirred in his arms.

“What is the trouble now, runag?”

“I need to … that is …” she stuttered, her cheeks pinkening. “I must go outside and relieve myself,” she finished in an embarrassed rush.

Being a gentleman, of course he allowed her to get up and put on her shirt and breeches before heading out into the windy chill of the afternoon. And after what had just passed between them, it didn’t occur to him to follow her outside to keep an eye on her. After all, he trusted her.

It was only when he heard the sound of horse’s hooves that he realized the truth.

She hadn’t needed to relieve herself at all. All along, she had planned to escape.

The border between Maxwell and Johnstone land was in sight. Jamie Johnstone, great-niece of Sir James Johnstone and one of his many namesakes – albeit, as far as she knew, the only female one – was nearly home.

Duncan Maxwell’s big black stallion bore her over the rough, rocky terrain with breathtaking speed and ease. Saddled now with the roan mare he’d given her to ride, the laird of Lochmorton would never overtake them before she reached safety. Likely, he would not even try.

Free. She was almost free.

Why, then, did she feel as though her heart was being torn to shreds and pounded into the ground with every beat of the horse’s hooves? Her throat was raw and her eyes burned, but still she rode towards the border.

This was for the best. If Duncan discovered the truth of who she was, he would hate her. He had said himself he had learned never to trust a Johnstone. Until that moment, she had held out the smallest sliver of hope that they could be happy, that perhaps he did not share in his family’s ingrained hatred towards hers. But that had always been a slim and dangerous hope, for she had known from the beginning that he had been at Dryfe Sands, that he had lost his father there. The Lockerbie lick on his cheek told the tale of his participation in the battle, even if his tongue did not. And how could a man fail to despise the people who had killed his own father?

Her people.

She slowed the horse to a walk after the crossing the border. There was no indication that she was being followed, and although the animal showed no signs of tiring, even a horse as magnificent as Curaidh could not maintain such a breakneck pace indefinitely. It would be difficult to convince her brothers to return a horse as fine as he to the Maxwell stable, but she could not in good conscience keep him.

That alone told her a lot had changed. Once upon a time, she’d had no conscience at all.

Jamie Johnstone’s days as a reiver were over.

Squinting in the darkness, Jamie closed the stall door behind Curaidh, wincing at the loud creak of the hinges. She paused for a moment, listening for any hint of a human presence, but heard only the annoyed snorts and curious whickers of horses whose nightly rest had been disturbed.

She took a deep, cleansing breath. It was ridiculous for her to be so on edge. No one would anticipate a reiver breaking into his stables to return a horse. A smile tickled her lips as she thought about Duncan’s reaction on the morrow, when he discovered his prized steed had been returned – though her brothers, ever the opportunists, had seen to it that the stallion had left a few “deposits” with several of the Johnstone mares in the months before they’d brought him back.

Of course, James and Robbie still thought this entire plan was mad and dangerous. And yet, perhaps because they felt some latent sense of guilt for her months of imprisonment in Maxwell territory – a fate they considered several orders of magnitude worse than death – they had acquiesced to her decision. And now, she was but a few steps from meeting them outside.

Not so mad or dangerous this …

“Oof!” Just feet from the door, she came to an abrupt halt against an immovable object that felt remarkably warm and strangely malleable. Rather like a human chest. And a damnably familiar one at that.

Damn and blast!

“So, reiver, we meet again.” Duncan’s voice was low and gravelly and terribly arousing. He grabbed her wrists and yanked her flush against his body. Her eyes widened. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who was aroused. “What did you come to steal this time?”

“You know as well as I that I have not stolen anything from you,” she retorted. Please, let James and Robert have got away. As long as they were safe, she could bear any indignity at Duncan Maxwell’s hands. She reckoned she deserved every one he could dish out after what she’d done.

“On the contrary,” he murmured against the top her head, “you’ve stolen my heart. I was hoping you came to return it.”

The raw, unconcealed pain in his voice took her aback.

“I – I—” she stammered. Her heart hammered like a blacksmith’s mallet against her breastbone. “I came to return Curaidh.”

“I know,” he said softly, grazing her ear with his lips as he spoke.

Gooseflesh rose on her skin, racing down her arm. She didn’t know what to make of this strange situation. It seemed rather more like seduction than detention.

“What do you want?”

“I should think that would be obvious. I want you, Jamie Johnstone.”

She gasped, incredulous. “You know my name!”

“Aye, lass.”

“But – but how?”

“You did not think I just let you escape, did you?”

She stared up at him blankly, a rather fruitless enterprise in light of the darkness. “What choice did you have? You had a slow horse and no clothes on.”

“True, and I could not have prevented you from getting away … not without shooting you, and though I’ll admit I was sorely tempted, I might have missed and shot Curaidh instead. But in any event, ’twas simple enough to track where you’d gone, runag. And once I realized you were a Johnstone, it was only a matter of making inquiries of the right people to discover the rest.”

Jamie’s mind whirled. All these months, he had known who she was, who her family was, and yet he’d made no effort to exact justice for the raid. He could have petitioned the Warden for redress, or even the king, but obviously he had not.

“Since then, I’ve been waiting for you,” he added, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand. “Not entirely patiently.”

“What? But – what on earth could have made you believe I would come back?”

He shrugged. “I know you, and I knew you would not steal from me. Not after what we shared.”

“But I ran away—”

He pressed his finger to her lips to shush her. “I did not give you much choice, did I? Telling you I’d never trust a Johnstone. That was why you asked about the scar, wasn’t it?”

“Aye,” she admitted. “I wanted to know if you still hated my family for what happened at Dryfe Sands.”

“And I did. Then, and for some time afterwards. And I was furious with you for breaking your promise.”

“I didn’t promise I would not escape. I promised not to try to,” she pointed out.

He chuckled. “Aye, I recall now you were very specific when you made the promise. Notwithstanding, I was very angry – and hurt. I considered coming after you, going to the Warden, demanding satisfaction from the king. But in the end, I realized this is the only thing that would ever bring me true satisfaction.” His mouth swooped down and captured hers.

Aye, aye, he was right. This was the only thing she wanted, the only thing that truly mattered. She would never want anything else in life if only she could have this – the pepper-sweet taste of his mouth, the warm, solid breadth of his body, and the truths they could only seem to communicate this way.

He lifted his head. “I am ready to declare an end to this branch of the Maxwell-Johnstone feud. What do you say we start a new alliance in its place?”

“I would love that, but what about my brothers? I am not so sure they’ll go along.”

“My brother, Ewan, is out there right now, negotiating a bride price for you. I think ’tis safe to say they’ll find the terms favourable.” His voice dropped an octave. “I’d even give them Curaidh in exchange for you.”

Joy blazed in her heart. “I love you, Duncan Maxwell.”

“As I love you, Reiver of my heart.”