To the other side of the castle lay a deep, dark woods filled with huge craggy oaks and thick green moss that carpeted large awkward boulders and the rich black loam of the forest floor.

Some of the villagers said Kilkairn Wood was enchanted, a rumor given credence when Kat Macdonald moved into the abandoned cottage. Long ago it had housed her mother, a woman said to have bewitched the last lord of the castle.

To the villagers, the wood was reported to be enchanted and enchanted it remained.

“Blasted, ill-mannered, arrogant Englishman!” Kat told her horse, her tones ringing over the clopping of Merriweather’s hooves on the packed earthen pathway. “I vow, but I am done with Malcolm and his houseguests.”

She’d have to eschew all visits. At least this last visitor hadn’t been as bad as Fitzhugh who tried to squeeze her knee beneath the breakfast table even after she’d darkened his lights once already. “Men. Always taking more than you want to give them.”

Merriweather tossed her mane as if to agree that such behavior was beyond the acceptable.

Kat patted the mare’s neck. “That’s exactly what I think, too.” She relaxed a little in the saddle, her nerves still a-jangle from this morning’s contretemps with the handsome stranger. She wouldn’t think about it any more. It was too fine a morning to let go to waste.

The lazy sun flickered through the leaves overhead as they meandered ever deeper into the forest, dappling the mare’s reddish sides with touches of amber and streaks of gold. Kat lifted her face up to where towering trees laced branches over the path, wide boughs of green leaves soon encompassing them completely.

The air was even cooler here, in the deep woods. Kat loved being among the trees and away from the hard words and groping hands of Kilkairn. Calmness began to sift into her soul, though one part of her mind continued to dwell on this morning’s confrontation.

Normally, though she resented such treatment, she didn’t let such things bother her. But this time things had been different. For one, she’d actually allowed the stranger to kiss her, and for two, the truth be told, she didn’t think she’d ever seen a handsomer man. Well, perhaps once. But that one time should have taught her to beware such men.

She thought wistfully of the prettily turned compliments that St. John had spoken, all with a disturbing glint of sincerity in his gaze.

It had been that glint that had given her pause. Most of Malcolm’s guests knew her past history and came with the intention of luring her farther down the path of lost virtue. They used empty, quickly blurted suggestions and grasping hands, neither of which had any effect on her except to raise her ire.

St. John, in contrast, had seemed to genuinely admire her.