The men erupted into deafening cheers.
Campbell turned to her and said, “Lady Ogilvy must be sorely wanting for company, wouldn’t you say, Magdalen?”
She looked to the valley below. A manor house sat idyllic in a tree-edged glen, surrounded by modest cottages, a barn, and those other buildings necessary for running an estate. Her breath came shallow as she realized what she was about to be witness to.
“Gather some torches, gentlemen. Today we lunch at the bonny House of Airlie, and I’d have a nice fire to take the chill from my bones.”
There was a brief commotion followed by distant screams as wave upon wave of Covenanters spilled down the hill toward Ogilvy lands, leaping and hollering their bloodlust. Torches appeared all around as if from nowhere, and already Magda saw tentative flames biting at thatched roofs.
A few dozen men had the main house surrounded, struggling with fire too stubborn to ignite such a large building. She heard a window smash, and a burst of flame belched from one of the first-story windows as someone thought to set their torch to the draperies. The sound of shattering glass echoed through the valley, as more men tossed in their torches, hopping in and out of the burning house with deranged glee. The smashed windows released the sounds of the screaming women within, and Magda slid from her horse, legs crumpling beneath her in her horror.
The Ogilvy estate took hours to burn. Serving women climbed from high windows. Those who landed safely only suffered a worse fate at the hands of the men who snatched and dragged them into the trees.
Unable to fathom such butchery, Magda turned and stumbled from the scene, a knot of clansmen ever at her back, grumbling now to be missing the festivities.
Her hearing dimmed, and Magda instinctively cupped her ears. Her hands felt clammy and numb, as if she were being touched by someone else’s chilled, damp fingers instead of her own. Remote thoughts quivered in the back of her mind, that she must be going into shock, that she’d soon pass out. And yet she couldn’t muster concern for herself. Her heart fluttered a frantic beat, and she felt weak, insubstantial, that if she’d just let go, she could disperse, vaporous, into the air.
She found she’d slumped to the ground at the foot of a tree. Magda curled onto her side and shut her eyes, not quite caring if she lived or died.
Her body felt languorous, and warmth pulsed through her as a slow throb began between her legs. She longed to kiss James, to taste him, but she had to be satisfied with the feel of his hands, massaging her breasts, pinching gently at her nipples. Magda arched slightly, leaning into him. He pulled down the neck of her dress and cool air touched her skin, tightening her, beading her into rigid points. His fingernail flicked the tip of her exposed breast, and Magda slowly began to emerge from her sleep, aching for more.
The fingers pinched her with sudden roughness, and her eyes flew open, at once wide-awake, the sight of Campbell’s looming face dousing the warmth that had filled her in sleep with cold shame and anger and fear.
His thin hair was pulled into a tight knot, exaggerating his broad forehead and the thick jowls at his chin. Magda began to shriek, and was silenced by Campbell’s mouth, gnashing at her in a violent kiss. His lips were so thin she felt nothing but the stubble above his mouth and his teeth grinding into hers. He pushed her away.
“As lovely a sight as you are, I’d have you washed. You smell foul, woman.”
Terror hammered her heart thin and fast in her chest. Magda quickly tugged her dress back up over her exposed breast.
“Yes,” Campbell sneered. “Do cover yourself. We can’t have any men eyeing your wares. You’remywhore now.”
Despair unfurled in her, smothering even her fear, leaving her gasping to pull air into her lungs. Magda thought now that she would risk anything to escape this man. Any other fate was preferable to remaining his captive. She’d get away from Campbell, or she would die.
“Up.” He slapped Magda on the side of her hip. “We’re a day’s ride from Gloom, my base in the Lowlands.” He stood and turned to mount his horse, held in stoic silence by a young, filthy-looking boy.
“Tonight you sleep inmycastle. A proper wench in my very own bed.” He laughed, trotting off.
She’d ridden the day in numb silence, unable to wrap her mind around all that had befallen her in the past weeks. Born to wealth in Manhattan, could she really be destined to die as the property of a cruel seventeenth-century clan chief?
Campbell’s castle loomed high on a hill in the distance, and the sight of it brought fresh terror pounding through her veins. She refused to believe this. Refused to accept that she’d been sent back in time tothis.
The castle wasn’t a pretty one. It emerged, solid and sharp edged, high above a craggy, tree-tangled valley in the Ochil Hills. Unlike the romantic whimsy of other European castles she’d seen, this one seemed almost to portend a dreadful fate. Like something out of a fairy-tale nightmare, it featured a large, rectangular tower rising into the gray sky, its stone face and scant windows declaring the impossibility of escape.
Her horse skittered, and a burst of panic brought her back into the moment, her heart thumping to realize how close she’d come to the edge of a gorge yawning below her. The ravine was steep, and covered by a thick web of moss, leaves, and a few tenacious saplings fighting to take root. A thin stream of water burbled obliviously at the bottom.
“The Burn of Sorrow, aye?”
“What?” Magda asked, startled.
“That there’s called the Burn of Sorrow.” The anonymous clansman winked at her, as if merrily sharing an insider’s knowledge of her future in Campbell’s care.
"Is that a joke?” Magda tried to sound outraged, and she cursed the weak, warbling voice that escaped her.
“No, lass.” He adopted an informative tone that annoyed her, and she felt a flicker of gratitude at feeling something other than the dread that was permanently lodged like a stone in her gut.
“The Marquis of Argyll, he’s a powerful big man in Scotland, and he’s keen to chill the bones of any who’d think to attack his lands. He’s holdings aplenty in Scotland, aye? Inveraray Castle is his main seat, but we’re off to his Castle Gloom now, of course. Oh aye,” he said, seeing her look of astonishment at the name. “Long ago they’d renamed it Campbell Castle, but our marquis prefers the sound of the old name. The Campbells have a flair of mystery about them, aye? We’ve the Burn of Sorrow, Castle Gloom . . .
“Don’t be fashed,” he giggled, “there’s always the Burn o’ Care on the castle’s far side.” Chortling, he kicked his pony and jarred into a trot away from Magda and toward the front of the line.
