Free Sarah Gabriel by Stealing Sophie Page A

some standards, but vast enough.
    Stepping in a pool of cold water, she yelped. Her shoes, impractical heeled slippers with thin soles and silver buckles, were unsuitable to rugged walking. Her toes were chilled through, and blisters were forming on her heels.
    The whiskey that warmed her earlier had faded from her blood. She felt near exhaustion and grateful for MacPherson’s assistance. His strong, capable hands were always there to pull her along, to lift her, to support her.
    At the peak of the long hill, the wind whipped cold and the burn gurgled in its gorge, which had grown quite deep. Sophie stopped when MacPherson did. He pointed.
    Across the burn’s gap and over a long meadow, a castle perched on the rise of another hill. Washed in moonlight and mist, its dark silhouette rose against a black sky.
    The broken bones of the structure thrust into the night, a jumble of cracked walls and jagged half towers. Its windows gaped empty, without a glimmer of light, and a crumbling wall ringed the yard. Thin mist swirled around its base.
    A soulless place, desolate and bleak. Sophie shivered.
    “Is that your home?” she whispered.
    “It’s where I stay,” he replied. He took her hand and walked along the burnside. They came closer, keeping the burn and the meadow between them and the castle. The angle of the old ruin changed, and Sophie gasped.
    “I know that place! Glendoon…aye, I thought it sounded familiar to me. I have not heard the name since childhood. It was once the seat of my clan. No one has lived there for centuries.”
    “Your ancestors deserted it long ago, after rock slides turned this area into a devil’s tub.”
    “I used to hear stories…. They say it is haunted.”
    “The ghosts won’t harm you.”
    She caught her breath. “Have you seen them?”
    “No, I’m too practical for it, I suppose. But those ghosts have saved my life a few times.”
    “How can that be?”
    “No one ventures up here unless they have to, because of the long, hard climb, and because of the legends—it is not a good place. No blessings of home and happiness here,” he said.
    “There used to be, long ago.”
    “Perhaps. But if visitors come too close, the Glendoon ghosts keep them away with their unearthly moans and shrieks.”
    “Shrieks?” She gulped.
    “It’s proven a benefit to the outlaws who hide here.”
    She wondered, suddenly, if he was teasing her. She hung back on his hand when he tugged her forward.
    “Come along. There’s nothing to fear. They’re MacCarran ghosts. They’ll be delighted to welcome a kinswoman.”
    Sophie looked behind her. “I…please, you must let me go—”
    “What happened to your appetite for adventure?”
    “It does not extend to screeching ghosts. This was all a terrible mistake, Mr. MacPherson. We should never—I should not have agreed. Outlaws are one thing, but ghosts…I do not think I can face them.” She leaned back. As a child, she had suffered nightmares about ghosts and bogles. Even as an adult she was not keen on the dark. And she had heard long ago that ghosts inhabited Castle Glendoon, though no one she knew had seen them.
    She tried to free her arm, twisting to face the long hill. She would have fled down it had MacPherson let her go.
    “That way,” he said, leaning close, his voice low in her ear, “lies a treacherous descent, as you know. Would you make it safely, alone in the dark? And this way,” he continued, turning her toward the castle again, “lie ghosts and outlaws. Which will you choose, my lass?”
    She stared at the castle’s black silhouette, feeling the outlaw’s hands warm upon her shoulders. Then she glanced again at the dangerous incline, shuddering.
    “Call upon your courage, lass,” he whispered. “There’s an adventure in either direction.”
    Drawing a breath, heart racing, Sophie closed her eyes. She felt as if she stood on a cliff, about to step out into open air. For a moment she reached up to clutch the silver and