Highland Vow

by Hannah Howell

  “’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.

  “And pleasuring you is what will soothe my vanity, is it?” she asked.

  “I ken ye weel, lover. Ye adore having a mon at your mercy. Here I am, willing to be tempted and tortured by your skillful mouth. Enslave me. There’s the lass. See what ye do to a mon? Make a meal of me,” he coaxed.

  “A meal? ’Tis a feast.”

  The noises Kenneth began to make told Cormac and the Douglas men that the couple were now fully occupied. As James eased open the door, Cormac stepped up beside Ranald. The scene that met his eyes brought no real pain, just disgust. Kenneth was sprawled in a chair, his head thrown back, and his eyes closed. Isabel knelt between hislegs, loudly pleasuring him. If he ever again doubted that Isabel was little better than a base whore, Cormac knew he would only have to recall this scene to put a swift end to that madness.

  The four Douglas men silently encircled the couple. Cormac stood next to Sir Ranald as that man touched the point of his sword to Kenneth’s throat. At the same time, James grabbed hold of Isabel’s hair and yanked her away from Kenneth. The noise made as she was forced to release her lover only added to the sordidness of the scene. The looks on the faces of the lovers—a mixture of guilt, horror, and fear—gave Cormac some small satisfaction.

  “Ye look surprised, Cousin,” drawled Sir Ranald. “It seems your own pleasure deafened you to our arrival.”

  “Would ye kill a kinsmon o’er this whore?” asked Kenneth.

  Isabel gasped, then after giving Kenneth a look full of loathing, turned a soft, beseeching gaze upon Sir Ranald. “He seduced me, Sir Ranald. ’Twas but a moment of weakness ere we were betrothed and he has used my guilt o’er that to force me to remain his lover.”

  “Aye, we all heard your virulent protests,” said Ranald, “and saw how fiercely he held ye upon your knees. I suppose your mouth was too full to call for aid.” He smiled coldly when Isabel flushed, the color in her cheeks so obviously due to fury rather than shame or embarrassment. “Ah, woe, how my heart is broken.”

  “Enough jesting, Cousin,” said Kenneth. “Let me leave so that ye may deal as ye wish with the woman. Surely ye cannae kill a mon for taking what was so freely and vigorously offered? ’Tis nay as if I deflowered your virgin bride. Ye have heard all the rumors about her. ’Twas such talk that made ye reluctant to accept the betrothal. Weel, I have given ye a good, sound reason to end it. E’en your father, who pressed for the match, willnae fault ye for casting her aside after this.”

  “True, but he would flay me alive if I allowed a murderer of our kinsmen to slip free of weel-earned justice.”

  “Do ye truly believe she killed her husbands?”

  The look of surprise and horror on Kenneth’s handsome face astonished Cormac with its perfection. He knew he should not be surprised that, once caught, Isabel and Kenneth would turn against each other. These two had murdered four innocent men for the basest motive—greed. They now calmly plotted to kill another and blame Cormac for the deed. Like so many others, Kenneth had allowed Isabel’s allure to lead him into danger. If he had had the strength to resist that temptation, he would be a free man now, free to continue eliminating those of his kinsmen who stood in the way of what he craved. Cormac suspected the man’s continued success in his plotting had made him too arrogant to be cautious.

  “Ah, Cousin, ye are good,” murmured Sir Ranald. “So innocent ye look with your monhood displayed for all to see and that proud piece still wet from my betrothed’s tender attentions.”

  A faint gleam of sweat on Kenneth’s forehead was all that revealed his growing agitation. “She is but a whore.”

  “That she is, and I willnae have ye thinking I am such a fool that I would spill Douglas blood over such a faithless bitch. Nay, I willnae be seeing ye dead because of her.”

  “Then why does your sword still rest against my throat?”

  “I but ponder my choices. Do I kill ye now? Or do I take ye to our laird and let him decide how to make ye pay for the deaths of four of our own?”

  “I dinnae ken what ye mean.”

  “Did ye really think we had but now arrived? Nay, Cousin. We were here ere ye began your first bout of rutting.” He nodded when both Isabel and Kenneth grew deathly pale.

  “No one will heed ye,” Kenneth said, only the faintest of tremors in his voice to reveal his fear. “They will think ye spout naught but lies born of jealousy.”

  “I think not. I have four other witnessess to your confessions. And hers.”

  “Four?” Isabel looked at the Douglas men, then at Cormac, her lovely blue eyes widening. “Ye would betray me, my love?”

  Cormac watched her eyes fill with tears. Her expression was one of deep sorrow and pain. She was as skilled as Kenneth, he realized. He wondered if anything she did or said was real. Cormac supposed that, one day, he might find some comfort in the fact that he had been fooled by the most adept deceiver he had ever had the misfortune to know. At the moment, ho
wever, he was finding it increasingly difficult to resist the urge to slap that perfect face.

  “Aye, Isabel, I would have the world ken the whole ugly truth about you,” he replied.

  “How can ye say such a thing after all we have meant to each other, all we have endured together?”

  “Together? I endured like the witless fool I am. Ye did nay more than keep another stallion in your stable.” He shook his head. “Four deaths, Isabel? Four murders? And for what? This fool who turns on ye in a blinking just to try to save his own worthless hide? For money and lands? Ye had plenty of both. Nay, Isabel, we had nothing. At first, I was just too blinded by your beauty and my lust to ken it. And just lately, I was too desperate to prove I had the honor my parents lacked by clinging to a pledge made years ago—a pledge I should have considered finished at least by the time ye wed your second husband. Honor. I cannae believe I wasted it on such a whore.

  “Cease weeping,” he snapped. “I will nay longer be deceived by such ploys. Nay, especially not when I have just witnessed ye supping greedily and noisily upon another mon’s staff. Ye forget. I have also just heard ye and your lover plot yet another murder and talk of how ye would set the blame upon me again.”

  Isabel’s expression changed swiftly from sorrow to narrow-eyed fury. “Ye are just angry because ye blame me for the loss of that little Murray whore.”

  “Aye, ye are to blame, but so am I. And,” he added in a cold, hard voice, “if ye wish to keep your bonny looks ye will ne’er speak of Elspeth like that again. Ye are nay fit to e’en speak her name, and whilst I may have the excuse of being a complete fool enslaved by a bonny face and a whore’s skills, ye have none at all.”

  “These men will see me dead!”

  Cormac did feel a pang at that thought, a genuine touch of sorrow. This woman had been a big part of his life, intertwined somehow with every move he had made in the last ten years. Despite the lies and betrayals, it was not easy to think of her impending death. He forced himself to look away, to remember that she was guilty of the death of four men—five if one included the hapless Donald the lovers had spoken of so callously. And it could have been six, for she had done nothing to stop her lover from tossing Cormac to the wolves. She would have let him die for her crimes if the unfortunate Donald had not come along.

  “As ye were willing to see me dead once. Aye, and again after ye killed Sir Ranald.”

  “Ye had best think again, Cormac,” she said, her voice hard. “Ye make a mistake in turning your back on me now.”

  He stared at her in surprise. “Do ye threaten me?”

  “I but tell ye that ye could lose a great deal if ye cast me aside, if ye leave me to these men.”

  “Ye make no sense, woman. I have already lost a great deal because of you. What more harm can ye do me?”

  “Shut the bitch up, James,” ordered Sir Ranald. “This game grows tiresome.”

  “Cormac, ye best heed me,” Isabel began, but despite her struggles, James soon had her bound and gagged.

  Sir Ranald, who was busy helping the other two men secure Sir Kenneth, looked at Cormac. “She but tries to play with ye a bit more. The bitch can feel the sting of the hemp upon her fine throat and seeks to save herself.”

  “I ken it,” Cormac said, then grimaced. “Still, ’tis hard to break such an old habit. I but need a wee bit of time to accept that what I believed for so verra long was all a lie and that this ugliness is the truth.”

  “Ye will stay to act witness?”

  “Aye. Do ye really think ye will need it?”

  “Mayhap. There are those who havenae yet seen the truth and Kenneth has a few powerful allies. ’Tis hard to say if they are loyal, thus may try to save them, or if they will now slink away, afeared of being touched by all of this. And Isabel isnae without allies, either. She has e’er kenned which men to bed to gain her the most advantage. Then again, some of them may be more than willing to see her hang for playing games with them.”

  “Considering how swiftly those two turned upon each other, ye may find yourself weighted down with ones eager to reveal more of their perfidy.”

  “True. Weel, ye need nay linger here and witness this. They will be weel secured and I will send word if I need ye or if all is done and ye may leave. Aye, and mayhap chase down the wee Murray lass.”

  “Do ye ken Elspeth?” Cormac asked in some surprise.

  “A wee bit. She and her mother came to my father’s keep to help when some illness struck us hard. Verra skilled at healing, as her mother is. And verra bonny indeed. Her clan is small but rich, and nay without influence when they choose to use it. ’Twould be a good match. Odd that she didnae tell ye about her cousin and Isabel if ye were so, er, close.”

  “Do ye mean Sir Payton?”

  “Aye. Bonny laddie. Brave and honorable.” Sir Ranald laughed softly and shook his head. “When he heard I was to wed Isabel, he came to me. Faced me calmly and told me what he believed was the truth about my betrothed. Hit close to the mark, he did. Also told me he had bedded down with her once.”

  “Brave indeed.” Young Payton, too, Cormac mused and inwardly shook his head in disgust. “Elspeth said naught, either because she didnae ken it or she didnae think I would heed her words.”

  “But ye would now?”

  “Aye, but I fear it is far too late to do me any good,” he said, not really referring to any confession about Payton, sadness and regret weighting each word.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Are ye trying to drink dry every barrel in town?”

  Cormac blinked, recognizing the voice even in his drunken haze. He glanced up from the tankard of ale he had been blindly staring into and looked at his brother William. He blinked again slowly, trying to make William’s face clearer and steadier. Cormac wondered what time it was. He had returned to the inn after the disaster in Isabel’s rooms and then decided to get drunk. That plan had succeeded. He was very drunk indeed, but he had not yet reached that sodden oblivion he reached for. The arrival of his brother and a few more of his family was not wholy welcome, but at least it meant he would have some help finding his bed.

  “Hello, Will, and to ye, too, Alaister.” He nodded at his other brother, then squinted. “Be those others our cousins Malcolm and David?”

  “Aye, ye sodden fool,” William said as he and the others sat down at the table and he signaled the maid to bring over another jug of ale and four tankards. “We have been searching for ye for a fortnight or more.”

  “Oh, aye? What for?”

  “Weel, ye are probably too drunk to understand, but our parents are dead.”

  “Did they finally kill each other?”

  “Nay. Thieves did it. They were traveling home from enjoying a week of debauchery with their friends and their carriage was robbed. Still drunk, they decided to fight to save what few coins they had and were quickly cut down. Old Patrick and his son saw it all. They wisely surrendered. They brought the bodies back for us to bury.”

  Cormac knew that, beneath the ocean of ale he had consumed, lurked a flicker of grief. His parents had been good at making children, but had cared little or nothing for their progeny. They had not cared for each other much, either, constantly filling the halls of the keep with angry words, recriminations, and insults. The only things either of them had shared an interest in were drinking themselves numb and bedding others—as many others as possible. Half of the ones he called cousin were actually his half brothers and half sisters, bastards bred and forgotten by his mother and his father. Nonetheless, they had given him life, and for that reason alone he owed them some measure of grief. He was just too drunk to do it now.

  “Ye are the laird of Aigballa now, Cormac,” Alaister said, his green-brown eyes dark with concern.

  “Jesu, so I am,” Cormac muttered, then took a long drink.

  “So ye must come home.”

  “Cannae. Have to stay to see Isabel hanged.” He grinned as all four young men choked on their ale, then helped each ot
her calm down. It was rare that he could so utterly shock his kinsmen and he hoped he would be able to recall this moment when he finally emerged from the drunken stupor he was sinking into. “I am a witness.”

  “To what?” demanded William, his voice still hoarse from choking on his ale.

  “Her perfidy.” Cormac had the feeling that the oblivion he sought was swiftly creeping up on him. “Confession made afore me and four Douglases. Heard her. Saw her, too. She didnae look quite so bonny with Sir Kenneth’s rod halfway down her greedy throat. Jesu, I dinnae ken what troubles me more: that she deceived me, that I could be such a fool, that she has spat upon my honor for so long and I didnae ken it, or that all of ye can now say I told ye so.” He could not keep his eyes open any longer. “Ah, Elspeth, my angel, I am so sorry,” he whispered and fell forward.

  William winced in sympathetic pain when Cormac’s head hit the scarred, filthy table with a loud crack. “We will have to carry the fool to bed.”

  “What made him drink so deeply?” asked Alaister. “He rarely does this.”

  “Something to do with Isabel, the Douglases, a certain Sir Kenneth’s staff, and someone named Elspeth. I think the poor fool has finally seen Isabel for what she is. Howbeit, the truth will have to wait until his head clears. Considering how much he has drunk, that may take a few days.”

  “I am nay sure it is a good sign that him seeing the truth about that whore has made him drink like this.”

  “What would ye do if ye just found out that ye had wasted ten years of your life on a murderous bitch?” William nodded when his younger brother and their cousins all grimaced. “I am thinking that isnae all of it, though. Nay, my gut tells me this Elspeth is what prods this wallow. Weel, no sense in trying to guess. We will take him to his bed and pray he wakes up sensible enough to talk in the morning.”

  Cormac held himself perfectly still and wondered if he should, or even could, open his eyes. He felt the effects of the vast quantity of ale he had drunk in every vein, every muscle, even deep in his very bones. The problem was that he had to relieve himself so desperately that it, too, was painful. That meant that he had to move, and although his experience with such heavy drinking was slight, he knew it was going to cost him dearly.