Highland Vow

by Hannah Howell

  A light slap on the back brought him out of his dark musings. He turned to look at a grinning Sir Balfour. Cormac noticed that neither her kinsmen nor his own, all gathered round him, showed the least bit of sympathy for his obvious state of discomfort or the torment his new bride had just promised to put him through.

  “She is all yours now, laddie,” Balfour said and laughed softly.

  “I thought fathers were supposed to dislike handing their daughters o’er to another mon,” Cormac said.

  “I have had two months to get used to the idea.”

  “Ye believed I would come for her?”

  “Most days, aye. I am married to one just like her. Let my Maldie walk away from me because I was being a fool. Took me nearly as long as ye to go after her. I found I really had no choice in the end.”

  “Nay, no choice at all,” Cormac agreed softly. “Still, ’twould be better if all was right and settled between us.”

  “Cannae be as bad as ye think. She married you and the way ye could get her to say aye tells me a great deal and should tell ye something as weel.”

  “She didnae really wish to marry me.”

  “Lad, ’tis clear ye dinnae ken the lass as weel as ye should yet. If my wee Elspeth truly didnae want ye, there would have been a bloody war needed to get her to kneel beside ye before that priest. Aye, and most of the Murray women plus nay too few of the lads would be standing firm at her side. Now, I am going to tell ye something that might help ye.”

  Connor hooted. “Run, Cormac. He is about to give ye advice on women. Oof!” Connor both laughed and grimaced when his father elbowed him in the stomach.

  “I speak as a mon who has long walked the rockiest, most trecherous path any mon can—marriage.” Although his eyes danced with laughter, Balfour scowled at his sons when they all said the last word at the same time he did. Then he turned back to Cormac and continued. “The lass is like her mother, and if my brothers dinnae lie, her aunts, too, are much the same. If ye have some confessing to do, take the lass to bed first and love her hard. When she gives ye that look that makes your innards clench, tell all.”

  “Weel, I dinnae have any confessions to make,” Cormac said, “but some explantions are due.”

  “’Twill still work.”

  “Strange advice for a father to give.”

  Balfour shrugged. “As I said, I have had time to become accustomed to the fact that my wee lass is a woman grown.”

  “Weel, ’tis good advice, but I fear ’twill be many long hours ere I can put it to any use.”

  “Aye? Ye are wed now. No one will be keeping ye and the lass apart.” Balfour laughed when Cormac’s eyes widened. Then the younger man grinned and strode purposefully toward his new bride.

  Chapter Twenty

  “The cursed sun hasnae even finished setting,” Elspeth grumbled as she stared out the window.

  Her bedchamber was to be the wedding night chamber and she was in it far earlier than she had intended to be. For a little while Avery and Gillyanne, along with her sisters and a few other of her female cousins, had helped her avoid being cornered by Cormac. Then the younger girls had been sent to bed and the older girls had been carefully extracted from Elspeth’s side by their mothers. Cormac had wasted no time in taking full advantage of that. The next thing Elspeth knew she was in the cleaned, scented, and decorated bridal chamber. She had been undressed, washed, lightly scented, and dressed in a nightgown whose only purpose was seduction.

  As if Cormac needed such inducement, she thought. Half her trouble in trying to resist him was that she could sense Cormac’s desire every time he drew near to her. It had been even more powerful when he had touched her, which the rogue had done every chance he could. He had not tried to sway her with heated kisses again, but he had not needed to. After far too short a time, she had been more than willing to be led away to begin the wedding night. It was embarrassing to be so easily routed, especially by her own desires.

  The sound of the door opening and closing drew her attention and she turned to face her new husband. Elspeth was pleased to see that he had the good sense to look uncertain, even a little contrite. She was not pleased to see that the only thing between her and the feel of his warm skin appeared to be a loosely tied robe. The way he was looking at her, his beautiful blue eyes darkening with need, was making her blood heat. It was not going to be easy to rein in all that hunger long enough to talk. Elspeth hurriedly poured them each a goblet of spiced wine.

  Cormac took one look at Elspeth and felt as if he had been kicked in the chest. The thin silken gown she wore was a soft rose color and so thin she might as well have been naked. Even more tempting was the way it was secured from neck to hem with lightly tied bows. It would be so easy to undo, so easy to reveal all those now shadowed curves he ached to kiss. When she handed him a goblet of wine, he stared at it blindly for a minute, so dazed with lust he had to pause and think about what it was he was suddenly holding.

  “I think we need to talk,” Elspeth said. Then she hastily took a sip of her wine when she heard the husky note of desire in her voice.

  “I ken it.” Cormac downed his wine, tossed his goblet aside, and pulled her into his arms.

  “This isnae talking.”

  “Lass, I ken verra weel that there is a lot we must say to each other, that I need to explain a verra great deal.”

  In a vain attempt to cool the heat caused by his closeness and the touch of his hands, Elspeth drank the rest of her wine. It did not work. With each stroke of his hands on her back, she wanted to press closer to him.

  “So start talking,” she said, her voice too thick and unsteady to manage any more words than that.

  “Cannae.” He began to brush soft, nibbling kisses over her face. “Ah, my wee angel, I ache for ye. My need is so strong, so overwhelming that soon I doubt I will be able to recall my own name.”

  “We cannae ignore what is wrong between us,” she protested, but she did not stop him as he slowly undid each bow, softly kissing each new patch of skin the slowly parting gown revealed.

  “Nay, and I dinnae mean to ignore it. Just set it aside for a wee while.”

  Elspeth shuddered as he fell to his knees in front of her and finished untying her gown. She clutched his shoulders and cried out softly as he caressed the backs of her thighs with his long fingers and covered her still flat stomach with heated kisses. When he slipped his hands up the inside of her thighs and gently nudged them apart, she could not offer him any resistance. She clung to him, almost frantically stroking his shoulders, arms, and head as he loved her with his mouth. It did not take long for her to shatter from the strength of her release.

  Cormac caught her in his arms as she started to collapse, her legs too weak and trembling to fully support her. He carried her to her bed, gently laid her down, and yanked off his robe. Elspeth only got a brief glimpse of his gloriously aroused form before he nearly fell into her open arms.

  She cried out softly when he plunged into her. The feel of their bodies united again soothed a few of her emotional wounds. She wrapped her body around his, welcoming the near desperation of his possession, for she shared it. Although too caught up in her own passion to understand the heated words he whispered against her skin, she cherished them. Elspeth fought to hold on to the moment, but then, with a soft growl that told her Cormac knew what she was doing, he took her aching nipple deep into his mouth and suckled, hard. Every meager restraint she had put on herself disappeared. She cried out his name as he yet again took her to passion’s heights. Even as she sank into that sweet bliss, she felt Cormac drive deep into her body and shudder with the force of his own release, and then he sweetly called her name.

  It was several moments before Cormac came to his senses. The way Elspeth was stroking him with her small, soft hands and feet was not making it easy for him to remain sensible, however. Nor was the feel of her tight heat surrounding his swiftly recovering manhood. Kissing her gently, he eased the intimacy of their embrace. He
also raised himself up on his forearms to ease some of the temptation of being flesh to flesh with her.

  Then he looked into her eyes. The green was still dark with lingering passion. She was looking at him as if he was everything that was important to her. Sir Balfour was right. That look made a man’s innards clench. Cormac admitted to himself that one of his greatest fears had been that he would never see that look in her eyes again.

  The thought of Sir Balfour made Cormac remember the man’s advice. The warmth she felt for him right now might not last long. If he got her started discussing things now, began all of his explanations now, matters might be nearly smoothed over before her hurt and anger had a chance to return. It would certainly all go along much more easily if those fierce emotions did not tangle everything up.

  “Angel, ye are a mon’s dream,” he said, brushing a kiss over her lips. “I kenned it when ye were with me and within moments after ye left me.”

  Elspeth felt some of her lingering pleasure fade away, but she did not try to leave Cormac’s arms. If he was going to be honest with her, she might find she either needed or wanted him close. If not, she might as well enjoy their closeness for a little while longer before hurt and anger again pulled them apart.

  “Yet ye didnae come after me,” she said quietly. “Ye didnae stop me.”

  “Weel, I fear I couldnae have no matter what I felt like doing. Despite having made love all night long—something sure to steal a mon’s strength—I had spent the morning walking. I think it all helped bring my strength back, but not for a while. At that moment, I could barely cross the room without my legs buckling beneath me. I was as weak as a newborn.”

  “Oh.” And that meant that a kiss was all he and Isabel could have shared, despite what the woman had tried to imply with all of her frettish tidying, Elspeth thought crossly. “I think ye hesitated for more reasons than your weakness.”

  “Some, but if I could have that day, I would ne’er have let ye leave me. Confused though I was, I was verra certain about that, about wanting ye to stay with me.”

  “For this,” she whispered, indicating their lightly entwined bodies with one brief wave of her hand. “Ye wanted me to stay for this.”

  “Would ye believe me if I said nay? What mon wouldnae hold fast to something as fine as what we share? From the beginning I kenned that it was as fine as any I had e’er had, that none had e’er been or e’er would be so fine.” He half smiled and kissed the faint frown curving her full lips, easily guessing her thoughts. “Aye, in all ways I kenned it was the best and that deeply troubled me. How could it be, I asked myself, when I—” He choked to a halt when he realized what he was about to say and to whom.

  Elspeth almost smiled at the look of consternation on Cormac’s face. “Nay, dinnae stop. We are wed now. There is nay turning back.” She brushed the back of her hand over his cheek. “I may flinch, but pay it no heed. Ye may say things I dinnae like or dinnae want to hear, but I have just spent two long months filled with questions I had no answers for. I dinnae want to spend the rest of my life that way.”

  He took a deep breath and continued. “How could what ye and I shared be the best when I was supposed to be in love with Isabel? And I cannae describe what I felt when I realized that Isabel hadnae been the virgin she had claimed to be. That was the first lie I discovered. And as always, I struggled to ignore it.”

  “Ye loved the woman for ten years, Cormac.”

  “I was her toy for ten years—the wee pup too young and too stupid to see anything but Isabel’s beauty. A fool who was so worried about breaking a boyhood vow, so concerned about losing e’en a scrap of honor, that he ne’er looked close enough to see that the woman he honored wasnae worth it.”

  There was a lot of anger behind his words. He had a right to it, but Elspeth wondered how deep it went and what the true cause of it was. Was it just a man’s anger over being played for a fool or the pain of a betrayed heart?

  “Many men were fooled by her, blinded by her beauty and their lust,” she said, watching him closely.

  “For as long as I?” He grimaced with self-disgust when she said nothing; then he rolled on his side to face her and dragged his fingers through his hair. “Weel, there was her lover Sir Kenneth, but ’tis uncertain who used whom the most between them. He at least had the wit to see Isabel for what she was and put it to use for him.”

  “Which got them both a trip to the gallows.”

  “True. What I am trying to say is that, from the verra beginning, ye made me doubt and question the path I had chosen, the truth of my feelings for the woman I had trotted after for so long. Everything ye and I did together—from simply talking to making love—left me with even more doubts, more confusion, and more questions. At times, I foolishly blamed you for my muddled state. Then I would blame myself. My mistake was that I ne’er paused to blame Isabel.” He muttered a soft curse and got out of bed. “Some more wine. This talking dries the throat and I babble so. ’Tis clear I will be at it for a while.”

  Elspeth’s eyes widened as he strode over to the table where she had set the wine. He poured them each a goblet full. The man did not know the meaning of the word modesty. How could he expect any woman to be sensible and talk when he was flaunting himself like that? When he turned to walk back to the bed, she took one long look at his trim, muscular form, groaned, and pulled the covers over her head.

  “If ye mean to keep talking, Sir Cormac, either get dressed or get back under the blanket,” she grumbled.

  Cormac grinned as he set her goblet of wine down on the little table by her side of the bed, then slipped beneath the covers while still holding his own. “Stirred by me beauty, are ye, lass? Wheesht, ye need to learn some control.”

  “Control, is it? Shall we see how much ye feel like talking if I get up and prance about naked?” She sat up and picked up her goblet of wine.

  “Oh, please, angel,” he said, his voice shaking with laughter, “do it. I am willing to be tested.”

  “Were we nay having a discussion?” Elspeth asked, eyeing him with a hint of annoyance as she sipped her wine.

  “That we were, and as I was prancing o’er to get our wine, I had a thought.” He decided it would be best to ignore her soft clapping. “I ken what mistakes I have made, but I dinnae ken exactly what troubles you. Mayhap if ye just ask me what ye wish to learn, ask me some of those questions that have troubled ye for months.”

  “Why did ye choose her?” she asked bluntly, her voice roughened by the remembered pain. “After all we had shared, why didnae ye e’en hesitate?”

  “Ah, but I did, my love.” He put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her close to his side. “All the time she was there I was in such a state of confusion I doubt I could have recalled my own name if anyone asked. I felt as if I was in some play, merely belching out words—the same words that had been said time and time and time again. Then I said what I felt she needed to hear so that she would leave. I wanted her gone because I was terrified that ye might come back and see us together and because I felt as if everything was suddenly wrong, verra wrong, and I desperately needed to think.”

  “And then I arrived.”

  “Just so. E’en when Isabel left and ye started talking, most of the words tumbling out of my mouth were ones of habit. Isabel has had a sad life. Isabel needs me. I have made a vow to the woman and I must hold fast to it. I have realized o’er the last few months of soul-searching that I had been verra weel trained. She caught me when I was young and innocent of women and has led me about by my boyish image of her e’er since.”

  “Actually, I thought she led ye about by something a wee bit lower,” drawled Elspeth.

  “Aye, mayhap, but isnae that where all the dreams of lusty young lads begin?” He set down his goblet, saw that hers was empty, and tossed it aside before pulling her firmly into his arms. “I didnae want her, Elspeth, but I didnae understand how that had happened, what had changed, or why. I needed to see Isabel and then calmly think o�
�er all that had happened during our long-awaited meeting. I needed time to realize that everything I had kenned for so long was no longer true. For the first time since I swore that I would ne’er break my word, that I would show the world not all Armstrongs were like my notorious parents, I found myself wondering how to get free of that vow I had given Isabel. I wanted to slap her for insulting you. I was annoyed by her demands, and I desperately wanted her to just go away for any number of reasons. Now, fool I might be, but I kenned there was something deeply wrong with that.”

  There certainly was and Elspeth barely kept her hope and delight hidden. Cormac spoke as if he had been inconvenienced by his former lover. He did not sound like a lover at all, but simply like any irritated male. To realize that he was feeling that way, had felt that way before she had walked away, and toward the woman he had adored, honored, and chased after for ten years had to have been a great shock to him. It was no wonder he had not been able to think clearly.

  “I just wish ye could have decided all this before ye heard her confession and could have come to me before she was dead.”

  “I wish I could have, too, angel mine,” he said softly, brushing light kisses over her face. “All I can do is swear to ye that I was already seeing the truth about her, looking clearly at all that had passed between her and me, and beginning to feel that I had trapped myself with that cursed pledge. I couldnae talk away the doubt any longer. After ye left, I was angry with Isabel for making such a mess of it all then disappearing, but I longed for you. Lying alone in that bed, I wasnae thinking of Isabel, but aching for you. I e’en realized that ye and I had made love more often during our short time together than Isabel and I had in all the years I had kenned her. By the time I joined the Douglases in hearing the woman’s confession, I kenned it was done, over, but I couldnae get those words out of my mouth. That would be admitting that I was a complete fool, that I had wasted all of those years.