God’s balls, how had he kept himself away from this woman? She was sensual heat, softness, all that was good in the world.

Josette closed her arms around him, anchoring him, as the wind tried to blow them from the wall, a Highland wind that couldn’t be bothered going around them.

The cold couldn’t prevail with Josette in Will’s arms, heating him like the best fire, her mouth a place of warmth. Her lips were smooth and tender, her kiss coaxing him to surrender, to throw away the complexity of his life and simply be with her.

It was tempting. If they’d been born in another place, another time, he’d even now be in a cozy room, in a bed, with Josette, laughing, conversing, kissing, making love.

He slid his fingers under her cap, finding the silk of her hair. She dressed like a prim matron, but he’d known her in a filmy chemise, her hair tumbling down, a shy smile on her face.

He hardened, his need for her overtaking all other senses. Will pulled her closer, and Josette came readily. Her gown under the shawl was thin, only a skirt and a petticoat between her and the world. No panniers and other underthings in so primitive a place. She felt him—he knew she did—because she stiffened.

Their mouths eased apart. “Will,” she whispered.

Admonition? Or wanting more?

Will decided he liked the second choice. He kissed her again, smiling into it when her hands moved down to his hips and then to his backside, which was bare under the scratchy breeches.

Her breasts rested against his chest, and all Will could think of was loosening her bodice and dragging it downward so he could kiss and lick her flesh.

Josette made a noise in her throat, her lips answering his, her body pliant under his hands. She wanted him, he realized with gladness. Wanted him the same intense way he wanted her. That had never changed between them.

A cold chill struck his side, and Will flinched, still tender from his earlier wounds. Josette pulled back with a gasp, and then began to laugh.

The dog had pushed between them, her blunt nose bumping Will through a tear in his shirt, clearly wanting her share of the attention.

Will’s amusement died when he saw Lillias at the top of the stairs, her skirts held free of the loose stones, her glare in place.

She turned her angry look to Josette but did not begin a tirade, to Will’s surprise. Perhaps she expected Josette to be locked in an embrace with Will as soon as she possibly could.

Josette flushed, tucking strands of hair back under her cap. She did not apologize, did not hasten to explain. One thing Will loved about Josette was that she never felt she needed to justify to others what she did.

Lillias made a noise of derision. “While ye’re enjoying yourselves, did ye think that maybe that man is off to tell soldiers we’re here?”

“He won’t,” Will said. “Bhreac looks out for himself and has no love for British soldiers.”

Josette finished straightening her cap. “She has a point, Will. If he seizes opportunities as you say, he might take money from the soldiers in return for information.”

“True. But if he brings the soldiers back, we’ll know right away that he means to betray us.”

Lillias’s eyes widened. “And we’ll be sitting ducks. The logic of a Mackenzie.”

Will busied himself petting the dog, enjoying the warmth of her wiry fur. “He won’t find us at all. There’s a fine view of the glen from here, miles and miles—soldiers can only come from that way.” He pointed across steep hills beyond the loch. “We’ll see them in plenty of time to escape out the back way.”

When Josette and Lillias looked at each other blankly, Will raised his brows. “Ye did scout out the escape route, did ye not? Och, ladies, you’re lucky I decided to help you.” He gave Beitris a final pat and headed for the stairs. “Well, come on then. I’ll guide ye through it. But bring a lantern or two. ’Twill be deadly dark.”

Josette’s curiosity rose as Will led them unerringly through the keep and down a set of broken steps that led to the old kitchens. These rooms were too ruined for use, which was why they’d moved their cooking space to the upstairs chamber with the newer fireplace.

Will halted at the remains of an old hearth and removed blocks to reveal a rectangular opening supported by stout columns of wood, gray with age. The columns were solid, cut from whole trunks and kept moist beneath the earth.

“Where did they find trees?” Josette asked, touching a pillar in wonder. The surrounding hills were bleak, no forests to be seen.

“Hauled them from elsewhere,” Will answered. “In the old days, Highland lairds had power, men, and wealth. We weren’t always poverty-stricken wretches.”

“I’m sorry,” Josette said quickly.

Will shrugged. “’Tis the way of things. No one is rich forever. Or poor forever. The world moves in cycles. A sine curve, my brother Mal would say, as though we all know what the devil he’s talking about.”

He ducked beneath the opening and signaled her to follow.

Behind Josette came Lillias, and behind her, the rest of the ladies, and Glenna and Beitris. Not one of them had wanted to remain in safety while Josette and Will explored, and she’d known it would be fruitless to ask them to. The English considered Highland men strong-willed—it was clear they’d never met Highland women.

Josette of course had every right to order Glenna to stay behind, but she also knew that her daughter would wait until they were gone and follow anyway. Beitris stayed next to Glenna, Glenna already adoring her.

Will led them through the tunnel, the candle inside his iron lantern barely cutting the darkness. The feeble glow showed a passage of brick, strong and squared, running straight ahead of them.

“Every castle in these parts has a covert way out,” Will explained as they walked. “Ye never know when your neighbors will decide to besiege ye and try to starve ye into submission. This way, ye can flee, or at least bring supplies in.”

“If every castle has tunnels, doesn’t everyone know where they come out?” Josette asked. “Wouldn’t the neighbors simply be waiting at the other end?”

“Not if the castle dweller is clever. The ways are hidden, sworn to secrecy within the clan.” Will sent her a dusty grin. “I, too, lass, always wondered about that. Secrets must have leaked. But now, no one remembers. These days clan wars are arguments across tavern tables—or long, silent grudges.” Or Highlander betraying Highlander in the Uprising, but Will decided not to mention that.

“I’m glad I missed the old days,” Lillias said. “I barely have patience with the new days.”

“You’d have been pouring pitch down on the heads of rival clansmen with the best of them,” Will said. “Ah, here we are.”

They’d walked, by Josette’s calculations, a mile, perhaps more. Her feet were beginning to ache, and Glenna, the most curious girl on earth, had wondered out loud how much longer it would be.

Will kicked aside rubble and started to climb what looked like steps cut into the wall. They seemed precarious, but Will scrambled up without worry.

“Not far now.” He sounded undaunted, animated, as though he’d done nothing so entertaining in a long time.

Josette eyed the crumbling, rather slimy staircase in distaste. Will was clambering up in a merry way, and Josette did not want him to think her too fastidious to follow.

Holding her skirts high, Josette ascended after him, hearing the dog panting and scrabbling behind her.

“He could be taking us to our deaths,” Lillias said, out of breath.

“Ye didn’t have to come,” Glenna said. “Go back and wait for Mr. Douglas to return with English soldiers.”

Josette called down to her. “A grand idea, Glenna. You take Lillias back. ’Tis too rough here for the pair of you.”

“Bugger that.” Glenna grinned up at Josette around the bulk of an eager Beitris. “I’m coming with you. I’m sixteen now, Mum. Ye can’t tell me what to do anymore.”

“Ha. I will argue with you about that later. If you fall and hurt yourself, I won’t be kind. And watch your language.”

Glenna didn’t answer as she picked her nimble way up the staircase. From the sound of it, none of the ladies had made the sensible choice of returning to the warmth of the keep.

The staircase rose a long way, the walls changing from stone to shored-up earth. Josette tried not to compare it to a tomb, but the similarities gnawed at her. They’d be climbing out through a hole as though emerging from a grave, if there even was a way out. The entrance might be buried, walled off, or closed with a locked gate, to which no one had a key.

No matter, Josette reasoned. They’d simply go back. But still, the walls pressed at her, the air becoming thick.

Only Will’s strong legs in the awful breeches, large feet in shapeless shoes, kept Josette going. She let her gaze linger on his backside, which was as firm and interesting as she remembered.

The darkness lightened, and with light came a breath of air. Josette heaved a sigh of relief and hurried behind Will up the final steps. At the top was a small square room with a grate set into a stone wall, the opening just large enough for a person to climb through. Gray light and a breeze wafted through it.

“The grate will be locked, I suppose,” Josette said as she caught her breath.

“It is. ’Tis also well rusted.”

Will banged the grate with his shoulder. The iron bars creaked mightily before the entire grating popped free and landed in rocks and weeds outside the hole. The opening, about four foot square, looked out over a long stretch of tumbled land, not a house or farm in sight.

Josette had grown up in southern France, which had been rife with farmer’s fields, vineyards lining the hills. All had been lush, green, growing. She’d lived in cities as an adult, but even Paris and London had parks and trees.

She had difficulty growing used to the forbidding land of Scotland, which could some moments be bleak and others spread forth the most beautiful glory she’d ever seen. It was wild, untamed, rugged, like the Highland man leading the way out of the hole, his long legs wriggling as he crawled free.

Will turned and reached for Josette, gripping her arms with hard hands as he tugged her with great gentleness out of the earth. She wanted to hang on to him as he lifted her, to kiss his warm mouth again, to wrap herself in him and shut out the world. She’d told him she’d keep herself distant from him, but his presence was already crumbling her resolve.

The opening led to the side of a hill that slanted sharply down to a swollen creek that rushed through a narrow valley. Will released Josette as soon as she was free, and she slithered around him to sit on soft grass.

Beitris, with a grunt of effort, scrambled out, helped by Will with his hands on the scruff of her neck. Beitris shook herself as soon as she was free and waited for Glenna to crawl out with Will’s assistance.

Glenna stood up, surefooted on the slope. “Ain’t it pretty?” she asked the world in general.

The Highlands spread before them, the tip of Strathy Castle, their erstwhile home, small in the distance to the south.

“A good place from which to watch one’s enemy.” Will stretched out on the grass beside Josette, propped back on his elbows. “You’d know when your attackers gave up on the siege and retreated, or you could round up loyal clans and come upon them from behind.”

Lillias peered out of the hole, Mysie behind her. “At least we know we can escape. I’m going back. Work to be done.”

She gave Josette and Will a disapproving look before disappearing into the dark. The other ladies must have decided to go with her, because none tried to emerge.

Josette had no desire to immediately return to the drudgery of cooking and cleaning. She’d done that enough in her life to enjoy a reprieve when she had one.

When she’d been a celebrated artist’s model in Paris, she’d dressed in finery and done no drudging at all. In her boarding house in London, she’d hired servants, though she’d assisted with plenty of the work. But that had been different—she’d labored but she’d had tenants and income, the results of running a good business.

Now she was back to drudging, eking out survival in this place while they sought the impossible. She might never have come but for that knock on the door in the middle of the night, a message that had chilled her to the bone.

Glenna, who thought of this only as a fine adventure, wandered the hillside. “If the men of the castle were so clever to have this escape route,” she asked Will. “Why’s it a ruin? Why didn’t they round up an army and return to save it?”

Will laced his hands behind his head and studied the cloud-strewn sky. “Now that’s an interesting tale. Strathy was abandoned only recently, about thirty years ago. The laird of this land threw in with the wrong side of the uprising in 1719 that destroyed Eilean Donan Castle—the English blew up a huge pile of gunpowder stashed there—and ended at the battle of Glen Shiel. The laird of Strathy got himself killed, his men outlawed, his castle left derelict. I suppose this ruin is left as a lesson—though probably it’s empty because the land around here is hard for farming, and even for running cattle.”

Glenna sat down, arms around her slim knees, leaving the dog to wander on her own.

“Are Highlanders always so rebellious?” she asked Will. “How long before you have another uprising?”

“There won’t be any more, I’m thinking,” Will said. “World’s changing. More Scots are finding out there are places beyond our glens and fields, more money in banking or trading or scientific discoveries than in trying to raise crops in the rocky hills. But I don’t think Highlanders will be kept down forever. ’Tis in our nature to fight. We don’t like others telling us what to do with our lands, our people. One day we’ll throw the English out and go back to fighting amongst ourselves, which is what we do best.”

A breeze fluttered Will’s plaids against the brown green heather, making him look like an ancient clansman taking his ease before running off to another battle.

“How do you know so much?” Glenna asked. “All about the uprisings and the battles at castles? Were you there?”

Will gave her a startled glance then relaxed into a laugh. “I know I’m ancient to ye, lass, but I’m not that ancient. What happened at Eilean Donan Castle and Glen Shiel took place when I was a wee lad. But I listen to the tales, talk to people. And …” He let his eyes go wide. “I read things. Sometimes a whole book.”

Glenna wrinkled her nose at his teasing. She sprang to her feet, restless, and wandered off again, Beitris at her side.

Josette rested her cheek on her arm as she regarded Will, his dark red hair stirred by the wind. “Books, eh? You really have read Sir Isaac Newton and all?”

“His Principea?” Will nodded. “Every word. He goes on a bit, but it’s interesting. And Galileo. Same thing.” He sat up, pushing his hair from his eyes. “Makes me glad I live in these times, even with the brutal soldiers chasing us. Did ye know, in Galileo’s day, you could be tortured and burned alive just for saying the earth goes around the sun?” He huffed a laugh. “The Inquisition forced Galileo to state that his ideas were simple mathematical pleasantries, not meant to be taken seriously. At least now we’re only persecuted if we don’t kiss the right king’s boots, instead of for movements in the heavens we can’t do anything about. If God wants the earth to race around the sun, I figure that’s His business.”

Josette lost herself in his voice. It had been a long time since she’d heard his baritone rumble, words washing over her as he whispered to her in the night.

Will could talk—about anything and everything. He’d ramble here and there, dredging up stories about old Scotland, then tell her bits of gossip about the King of France, or go on about the history of Chinese porcelain.

He carried so much in his head, Josette marveled. Will had told her once he couldn’t help himself—he learned a thing and he remembered it forever. Crowded up there, he’d say, tapping his forehead, which was why he had to let it out in long streams of speech.

Josette didn’t mind. She lay back, letting his words wash over her. No matter the dire circumstances that had brought the two of them together again, she blessed the Lord she could be with him again, and listen to his chatter while touched by his warmth.

Will and Josette, with Glenna and Beitris, returned to the castle to find the ladies cooking and Bhreac not yet returned. Will left Josette in the kitchen and returned to studying the maps, ideas niggling at him.

The problem with Josette being here was that Will had difficulty concentrating when she was near. Even now as he examined the map, the memory of kissing her on the battlement, her hands seeking, kept intruding. That and lying with her on the grass in the sunshine, as though they had all the time in the world to talk, to laugh, to become reacquainted in all ways.

If Lillias hadn’t interrupted them on the wall, Josette might have let her hands wander more, finding Will hard and hot for her. They’d shared passionate moments in awkward spaces before, touch working wonders.

Damn. Will forced himself to focus on the map again. Something had caught his eye—a place, a name. He leaned down, shutting out the stone walls, the chill, the voices and laughter of the women below.

It would come to him. Will’s memory lost little, but sometimes it took a moment for him to pull a thought from the depths. Focusing on one object, letting the rest of the world go dark, helped.

Ah … perhaps …

Josette rushed into the room. “He’s back. Will, Mr. Douglas has come back. And he says he has news.”

Her scent, her voice, her presence, swept over Will and broke his concentration once more.

He sighed, marked the place on the map with a stone, and straightened. “We’d best go see what it is, then.”