Highland Vow (16 page)

“I am ready to return to Donncoill,” she said as she stepped out of his embrace.

Glancing at her two companions, Payton half smiled. “It should nay surprise me that we willnae be returning without a stray or two.” He reached out to ruffle the child’s thick, dark curls, then scratched the cat’s chin.

“Someone left the bairn by the road to die and no one in the nearest village would claim him. I call him Alan. The cat was being sadly tortured by some wretched children. He wouldnae leave after I rescued him and tended his wounds. His name is Muddy.” She smiled faintly as she stroked the big cat’s head and the animal purred loud enough to make Payton laugh.

“Ye are leaving the fool then?”

“Aye, he has made his choice.”

“And ye dinnae wish to stay and try to change his wee mind?”

“Nay. I did all I kenned how to do just that and none of it worked. Unless he sees that Isabel but uses his honor against him and isnae worthy of it, he will cling to his pledge to her.”

“Do ye think he will regret his choice and seek ye out?”

Elspeth shrugged as Payton helped her secure her bags on one of his horses. “I didnae tell him I would wait.”

“’Twas probably wise.”

She mounted, then sighed and looked down at Payton, who watched her with some concern. “I fear I didnae hold my temper. I said things.” She shook her head. “I told him that I might consider taking him back if he crawled to me as he has crawled to Isabel for ten long years.” She was not surprised to see Payton wince. “I dinnae think he will see any promise or welcome in that, do ye?”

“Nay, lass. Weel, we shall return to Donncoill. Mayhap some time, some distance,” he began, then just patted her leg and went to gather his men.

Since they had a late start, they rode for only a few hours before camping for the night. It was a quiet, somber group that shared bread, cheese, and wine around a small fire. Elspeth suspected she was responsible for the mood of the men, but she had no idea of how to fix it or any real inclination to do so. It took all of her wit and strength to keep herself from falling into a sodden, weeping lump of pain.

Caring for Alan helped some, although even he was unusually quiet. Muddy disappeared to find his own food, returning shortly after Alan fell asleep and curling up next to the child’s basket. Elspeth helped clean up after the meal, then spread her bedding
out next to Payton’s and prayed for sleep as she curled up in her blanket.

It did not come. She listened to the men bank the fire and decide who would take which watch. She listened to them settle down on their beds, some murmuring a shy good sleep to Alan. The familiar rumble of Muddy’s purr told her that some had even paused to stroke the cat. One man even complimented the animal for protecting little Alan so well.

By the time Payton sought his bed, she knew she would find little sleep this night. She listened as he stretched out. Then he shifted around several times as he sought a comfortable spot. Then he scratched himself for a little while. Then he yawned. Finally, he was quiet, but she knew he watched her, and she refused to look his way.

For a little while she stared up at the stars. Then she studied the moon. She smoothed the wrinkles from her blanket. She studied the stars again. It was obviously going to be a very long night.

What she wanted to do was cry. She wanted to weep, to howl out her pain and grief. Her chest ached with the need. Her throat felt so tight and full she was surprised she was not strangling. Elspeth could not display such wretched emotion before the men, however. It would embarrass all of them. She also feared that, once she began, once she let that sadness loose, she would be weeping and wailing all the way to Donncoill.

“No one will fault ye for crying, Elspeth,” Payton said.

“I ken it, but I willnae do it,” she vowed.

“Because he isnae worth it?”

“Weel, mayhap he isnae, but all we could have shared together, all he tossed away, certainly is. And, Jesu, how can ye condemn a mon for wishing to honor a vow?”

Payton reached out and tugged her closer. He wrapped one strong arm around her waist and held her, her back against his chest. She felt as taut as a bowstring and it worried him. Elspeth was a woman who was free with her emotions, hiding little or nothing. This control was unlike her and he cursed Sir Cormac for teaching it to her.

“Ye are young, Elspeth,” he said. “Ye will heal. Oft-said words, and nay verra comforting just now, but still true.”

“I ken it. Yet I dinnae think I will e’er love anyone as much as I loved him,” she whispered. “’Tis odd, but although I am verra angry and verra hurt, I still feel sorry for him. I e’en find myself hoping that he finds some happiness, that he doesnae pay too high a price for choosing honor o’er me. I e’en find myself wondering, if I did go back, could I still save him from Isabel?” She released a shaky laugh. “Such a contrary lass I am. I want to hurt him as he has hurt me, but I dinnae want him to be hurt by another.”

“Understandable. Ye love him. I have ne’er been in love myself, but I do believe that this will pass, that ye will heal. I believe love is an emotion that must be returned, must be nurtured, or ’twill wither and die.” He hesitated a moment and then cleared his throat. “What if he has left ye with child, Elspeth?”

Elspeth felt her heart contract with both fear and hope. If she was carrying Cormac’s child it would cause so many problems it made her head spin to think of them. It would also hurt and disappoint her family, at least for a while. She had no fear of losing their love, however, and she knew, without doubt, that they would all love her child. Cormac, however, would have to avoid all of her kinsmen as avidly as he had avoided the Douglases for years, she mused. She knew she could get her whole family to swear not to kill or seriously injure him, but she suspected they could find other ways to make his life
a misery.

The joy and hope came from the thought that she would have a part of Cormac to love. There would be sadness, too. A child would give her someone to spend her hopeless love on, but it would also prevent her from ever completely forgetting Cormac. Memories would be stirred each time she looked at the child they had created together. She could only hope that those memories would soon be more sweet than painful.

“I willnae ken if I am with child for a while yet,” she said. “If I am—weel, that will be both joyous and sad, but I will deal with it.”

“’Twill probably end all chance of ye marrying anyone.”

“I think I have done that anyway.” She felt tears sting her eyes and tried to fight them back. “I kenned weel what I might lose when I decided to love Cormac and to try to make him love me. I really had no choice. I think I have loved him since I first set eyes on him, although I was but a child. Even then I must have sensed that he was the other half of me, but I did ken it for certain the first time his lips touched mine. In my arrogance, or mayhap my naivete, I thought he would ken it, too. All I had to do was make him look close enough to see.” She started to quietly weep and decided it might be a good thing to release a little of the grief knotting her insides. “I could have made him verra happy, Payton.”

Payton held her a little closer and kissed the top of her head. “Aye, lass, ye could have, and I think his tossing aside that precious gift for a whore like Isabel is truly what makes the mon a fool.”

“They must have rutted all night,” Isabel snapped. “The room stank of it.”

Sir Kenneth Douglas watched his lover pace their bedchamber with some interest as he half sat, half sprawled on their bed. “A smell ye are most familiar with.”

Isabel glared at him. At the moment, she was unmoved by the sight of his naked and obviously aroused body. Since her first marriage to his cousin they had been bound tightly by lust and the blood on their hands. Neither of them was faithful to the other, each of them taking lovers when they pleased, yet in a strange way, they were as good as married. Their scheme to become rich and powerful through her husbands kept them together as did their fierce, insatiable lust for each other. Kenneth was the one man she had never been able to control. With his black hair, black eyes, and swarthy skin, he looked more like some Spaniard than a Scot. He also looked hard, cold, and dangerous—all things that made her pulse leap. To her utter disgust, the way he constantly reminded her of what she was, disparaging her with softly spoken insults, also excited her.

“Weel, the threat she posed is gone now,” Isabel said. “She wasnae so difficult to rout.”

“Are ye sure?”

“I watched her ride away with Sir Payton carrying her bag, some brat, and a monstrous cat. She is gone.”

“In body, mayhap, but in spirit?” He shrugged. “’Twill be a while ere ye can be certain her memory doesnae linger with him. If it does, he may no longer be the complacent, adoring fool he has been up until now. She may have opened his eyes.”

“And ye think that could make him dangerous?”

“He kens a lot about ye, Isabel. Too much. Until now, his blind devotion, his belief that ye are a poor, much wronged innocent, and his strange adherence to a vow many
men would have cast aside long ago have kept him from seeing too clearly. If his eyes have now been cleared of the great wonder of ye,” he drawled, his sarcastic tone so sharp she frowned, “he may weel start to think more deeply on all he has seen, and he may no longer be so blind that he cannae understand the importance of it all.”

Isabel sighed with a swiftly passing regret then sat down on the bed. “Ye want to be rid of him.” She reached out and curled her long, slender fingers around his erection.

“It may be for the best, but we willnae waste such a sacrifice. Unless he forces us to act sooner than we might like, we shall wait until we make good use of him. He can die protecting you. That should please his little chivalrous soul.”

“I dinnae wish to talk on that now.” She bent over him, replacing her stroking fingers with her tongue.

“Regrets? Shall ye miss the fool?”

Kenneth was not the only one who could wield a soft, yet bitter, insult or taunt. “He had a few fine qualities”—she lightly squeezed his manhood—“that I will dearly miss.” In some ways she spoke the truth, but she purred with victorious delight as her lover took up the challenge she had thrown out.

Cormac swore and stood up. For three days, sleep had been elusive. For three long days, every time he closed his eyes, he saw the look on Elspeth’s face, heard the pain in her voice, remembered every word she had said. For three torturous days, he had done little else but think and try desperately to convince himself that he was not the fool she had called him. Hour after slowly passing hour, he fought to ignore the emptiness he felt, the pain barely held in check by doubt and denial. The only things that grew stronger were his body and the sense that he had made the biggest mistake of his life when he had not stopped Elspeth from leaving him.

He stood by the window and stared into the street, waiting for the fourth day to begin. Nights were wasted on him at the moment. They were passed in hours of groping, unproductive, confusing thought. The few times he managed to grasp at a little sleep, that respite would be cruelly ended when he would wake in a state of sweating need only to find himself clutching nothing but a pillow—a pillow that still carried the faint scent of lavender, her scent. Then he had to fight that overwhelming sense of loss and emptiness all over again. He found he even missed that cursed cat.

Even more troubling than his confused feelings was the complete lack of word or sight of the woman who had instigated this emotional chaos, this wretched, unending soul-searching. Isabel had swept in, demanded her due, cajoled words of love from him, then left. While still deep in shock over the painful scene with Elspeth, he had dutifully sent word to Isabel that his lover was gone. Isabel had responded with absence and complete silence.

That Isabel would so thoroughly ignore him after she had gained what she obviously wanted only added to the doubts tearing him apart. He did not want to think she had used and deceived him for ten years, but the thought was creeping through his heart and mind like poison through his blood. Had his love become no more than a sick habit? Had she been using his sense of honor and the vows made by a lovesick youth to hold him in thrall? Was he truly blind to what she really was? Every rumor and accusation he had heard whispered about her ruthlessly plagued him now. Had she never truly loved him? She should be here to help him, to soothe away his doubts and ease the odd emptiness Elspeth had cursed him with.

He needed answers and he was not finding them trapped alone in his room with only his own confused thoughts for company. Cormac slammed his fist against the wall, almost welcoming the stinging pain in his hand. Enough was enough. He was not going to sit there like some foolish lapdog waiting for his mistress to dole him out tiny scraps of affection.

The time it took to wash and dress did not ease his determination to see Isabel. Nor did the time it took to get some food to break his fast. It did make the morning pass a little more quickly, however. It was midmorning before he set out to see Isabel. For once he was not concerned about anyone seeing him go to her or about breaking his promise to wait until she came to him or summoned him to her side.

As he entered the castle, however, and made his way to Isabel’s rooms, Cormac felt uneasy. Isabel was, through her marriages, firmly part of the powerful Douglas clan. It was not a clan to anger, he well knew. That did not seem to be a great part of his sudden unease, though, and he was puzzled. Some instinct was telling him that he should not do this, that he was not going to like the results, but he forced his hesitation aside. It
was far past time for a confrontation. After ten years, Isabel owed him something, if only a few honest answers.

What he found outside Isabel’s rooms caused him to falter. Four men stood there, their faces grim. Two stood with their ears pressed to the door while the other two stood guard. Cormac felt his stomach knot with tension and a hint of fear when he saw that they were Douglases. None of them made a move to threaten him or halt his approach, however, so he walked up to them.

“So, Armstrong, ye actually come to her now, do ye?” drawled a tall, broad-shouldered man, his voice pitched low so as not to carry.

“I have come to speak to Isabel, aye,” he replied. “What are ye doing here?”

“We are listening to a most interesting conversation, or so it promises to be when it begins again. Care to join us?”

“Ye ken who I am, but I dinnae recognize any of you,” he said even as he stepped closer to the door.

“I am Sir Ranald,” replied the tall man. “The mon with his ear still pressed against the door is my brother James. The mon to your right is Ian, to the left is Wallace. Douglases all.” He smiled coldly. “I am your lover’s new betrothed.”

Cormac stared at the man, feeling the sharp stab of betrayal. Isabel had said nothing about a new marriage being arranged, yet she had to have known even as she was reminding him of his pledge to her. Again she pulled him to her side when she was not free to do so. This time he felt no pain or sorrow, only a cold, hard fury.

“When?” he asked.

“It was all settled a fortnight ago,” replied Ranald, watching Cormac very closely.

Here was proof that Isabel had indeed known what was being arranged for her even as she had sent for him. “Congratulations.”

“Ah, now what have I done that ye would curse me so?”

“Ye are about to marry a verra beautiful, wealthy woman. Ye think that is a curse?”

“When that woman has put four of my kinsmen in the ground, aye.” He looked at James, who still listened at the door. “Are they done yet?”

“Soon, if I judge the sounds right,” said James.

“When they cry out in satisfaction, crack open the door. We will have to be most silent then, but at least we shall hear what is said more clearly.” Ranald looked back at Cormac. “Ah, ye didnae really think her faithful, did ye?”

He had, save for her brief marriages, but Cormac decided he would rather cut out his tongue with a spoon then admit it to this cold-eyed man. “Is all this just to prove her faithless so that ye might end the betrothal?”

“I hope to gain far more than that, but if we fail to hear all we wish—aye, that would suit me for now.”

Reluctantly, Cormac moved to the door and pressed his ear against it. The door not being of thick oak, but of a lighter wood, the muffled sounds he heard came through clear enough for him to recognize them, and he inwardly winced. If that was Isabel in there, she was definitely enjoying a lusty bout of lovemaking. Cormac frowned and stepped back, wondering why he felt no flare of jealousy. He should want to kick the door down so that he could see with his own eyes that Isabel was no more than the whore so many called her. Instead, he was ready to wait, prepared to see the Douglas men play their
game through to the end. The only emotions he did feel were sharp annoyance and a deep disappointment in himself as well as in Isabel.

“Could be her maid,” Cormac felt compelled to say and just shrugged when all four men briefly looked at him as if he was completely witless. He was starting to get accustomed to that look.

“Now that would disappoint me, but I ken exactly who so loudly ruts behind this thankfully thin door. ’Tis my betrothed and my cousin Kenneth. We have kept a close watch on the both of them since they came to court and long before that. I believe that the pair have long been lovers and a great deal more.”

Before Cormac could ask Ranald exactly what that more was, James signaled them all to be silent. The last of the couple’s cries resounded clearly through the now cracked door. Cormac felt himself blush faintly beneath Sir Ranald’s steady gaze, for he recognized the woman’s cries as Isabel’s. She had led him to believe he was the only one who had ever heard them. Clearly that was a lie. He wondered how many other lies she had told him.

“Ah, Kenneth, my love, ye just get better and better,” said Isabel as she rubbed her feet up and down his strong calves.

“Your skills improve as weel, my sweet.” Kenneth eased their bodies apart and moved to sit on the side of the bed. “’Tis a wonder, considering your taste for sweet lads.”

“Cormac isnae a lad. He is but a few years younger than ye are.”

“Since he has probably kenned verra few women besides your sweet self, I consider him a lad.”

This could become very embarrassing
, Cormac mused, but he did not move away. The truth was worth a little humiliation. All his other emotions were now buried beneath a deep, gnawing need to find out who Isabel really was. He had the sick feeling that the woman he thought a wronged innocent for so long, the woman he had pledged his life to, was nothing but the scheming whore everyone said she was.

“I have taught him all I know,” Isabel said.

“Ah, weel, then he must be a veritable stallion of a lover,” Kenneth drawled.

“Are ye jealous, lover?”

“Of some toy from your childhood ye are unwilling to cast aside? I think not.”

Cormac winced, his discomfort added to by the looks of sympathy the other four men sent him. If he had been as wrong about Isabel as everyone said he was, he supposed he deserved their pity. If they knew what he had given up for this woman, they would probably weep for him. There was a good chance he would weep for himself if the truth about Isabel proved to be as ugly as everyone said it was.

“If ye arenae jealous of Cormac, why did ye allow him to take the blame for my first husband’s death?”

“He was there and he was easily made to look guilty. Ye would rather have set my kinsmen on our trail?”

“Nay. They gave Cormac little rest till ye gave them that fool Donald.” Isabel’s chuckle was soft yet sharply cold. “To think that fool Donald thought he could trick us, rule us with our secrets. He deserved to hang for that conceit alone. Where are my stockings?”

“I tossed them o’er by the wall.”

“Ah, I see them. Do ye still believe that Donald’s sacrifice worked?”

“It has been near to ten years, love, and none have looked our way. We succeeded there. Dinnae worry on it. If ye feel the need to brood and quake, worry on the other three fools ye wed. Some still puzzle o’er those deaths. I think we erred in trying to make them look like accidents,” Kenneth murmured. “Stupidity, recklessness, illness. That leaves those who cared about the fools no one to blame but God, and few accept that verra weel. ’Tis easier and ends all wondering if there is someone to hang for the death. The thirst for vengeance is quenched and the mon soon forgotten.”

“There is some wisdom in that. Still, must it be Cormac again?”

“Feeling some tenderness toward the fool?” Kenneth asked, a thread of anger in his cold voice. “E’en after he tossed ye aside for the wee Murray lass?”

“He didnae toss me aside,” Isabel snapped. “I am here and she isnae, is she?”

“Isnae she? I think ye ken, as I do, that she lingers in his mind. Ye have lost your grip there, love. He stays because he pledged himself to you and ye can depend upon Sir Cormac to honor a pledge as surely as ye can depend upon his parents to break one. Dinnae be too vain to accept the truth and the danger of that. Ye have played with that puppet far too long. The strings grow brittle. They didnae break with this lass, but they may with the next. Aye, for all we ken, he begins to think he has erred in choosing ye o’er the Murray lass. Those strings could already be frayed near to breaking. Our plan has no room for sentimentality.”

“’Twas nay sentimentality,” Isabel grumbled. “Mayhap I but grow weary of being rutted on so that ye can fill your pockets and gain lands. Mayhap I think I have buried one too many husbands. I am nay the only one whose hands are stained with the blood of four men. Ye are as soaked in it as I am, yet ’tis me they watch, me they suspect.”

“But ’tis best this way. I am nay a beautiful woman who can steal a mon’s wits with sweet words and a honeyed mouth,” Kenneth said, a hint of sarcasm in his soft voice. “’Tis men who will judge and hang us, and ye are far more capable of seducing away their suspicions than I am. This will be the last one.”

“Are ye certain?”

“Aye. Whilst ye weep o’er the grave of poor cousin Ranald, I shall be made laird of his lands. He is the last one to stand between me and all I covet.”

“Except for his father.”

“An old mon who will die ere his son does.”

“And ye willnae change your mind about putting the blame for Ranald’s death upon Cormac?”

“Nay. ’Tis time he left us and he shows no sign of doing that on his own.”

“If we must,” Isabel said, no hint of reluctance in her voice. “How long must I stay wed this time?”

“Nay too long. Cousin Ranald can be such a reckless young mon. I am sure we will think of a suitable way to end his life ere ye grow too tired of him. Ye may e’en enjoy yourself. ’Tis said that he is a skilled lover.”

“I wouldnae ken. He has shown no inclination to take advantage of our betrothal.”

“Poor Isabel. A mon who can resist your many charms. There is a wonder. Weel, come here and let me soothe your bruised vanity.”

“We have just finished dressing,” Isabel protested.

“All ye need to do is unlace my breeches.”

Cormac watched Ranald signal sharply with his hand, stopping his men from interrupting the lovers. It took him a moment to see the advantage of letting Isabel and Kenneth become amorous again. Kenneth would certainly be caught at a disadvantage, unable to react quickly enough to defend himself. Isabel and Kenneth would also be set off balance by the interruption, unable to deny that they were lovers. Since Isabel was betrothed, it was almost adultery. Sir Ranald could kill them both for that alone and suffer little for the act.

Cormac felt numb. Everyone had been right about her. She was a murderous, deceitful whore. He had lost ten years of his life to her. He had lost Elspeth. He was surprised his friends and family had stayed loyal to such a complete idiot. It did not require much thought, even by a witless fool like himself, he thought sourly, to know what Kenneth was asking of Isabel. Cormac had no doubt that Isabel would soon oblige the man. She had always displayed both skill and enjoyment in the task. It was not something he wished to see, but he would force himself to see this through to the bitter end. Although he did not think he was fool enough to let her talk her way out of this, even if she yet again tried to play upon his sense of honor by reminding him of vows made, a stark image or two to enhance all he had just heard might not be amiss.