Highland Vow Read Free Page A

his brothers together was the unhappiness that had too often darkened the halls of their keep, shadows caused by parents who loathed each other and by too many deadly intrigues.
    He inwardly stiffened his spine. He could not hide at Donncoill. He had to clear his name. Turning to face Lady Maldie, he gracefully bowed, then took her small hand in his and touched a kiss to her knuckles. Even as he straightened up to wish her farewell and thank her yet again for her care, a tiny, somewhat dirty hand was stuck in front of his face.
    “Elspeth, my love,” Maldie said, fighting a grin, “ye must ne’er demand that a mon kiss your hand.” She bent a little closer to her tiny daughter. “And I think ye might consider washing a wee bit of the dirt off it first.”
    “She will be back,” Balfour said as he draped his arm around his wife’s slim shoulders and watched Elspeth run off. “Ye shall have to play the courtier for her.”
    “I dinnae mind. ’Tis a painfully small thing to do for the lass,” Cormac said. “I would be naught but food for the corbies if she hadnae found me. Truth to tell, I have ne’er understood how she did.” He idly patted Elspeth’s one-eyed dog Canterbury as the badly scarred wolfhound sat down by his leg.
    “Our Elspeth has a true gift for finding the hurt and the troubled,” Maldie replied.
    Cormac smiled. “And ye are expected to mend them all.”
    “Aye.” Maldie laughed. “’Tis our good fortune that she has e’er understood that not all wounds can be healed. Ah, and here she comes”—Maldie bit her lip to stop herself from giggling—“with one verra weel-scrubbed hand.”
    Elspeth stood in front of Cormac and held out her hand. Cormac struggled not to give in to the urge to glance toward Balfour and Maldie, for their struggle not to laugh was almost tangible and would ruin his own hard-won composure. Little Elspeth was still somewhat dirty, with smudges decorating her face and gown, but the hand she thrust toward him was scrubbed so clean it was a little pink. He dutifully took her tiny hand in his and brushed his lips over her knuckles. After a few moments of reiterating his gratitude, he hurried away, braced for the battle to clear his name.
    Balfour picked up his solemn-faced daughter and kissed her cheek. “He is a strong lad. He will be fine.”
    “Aye, I just felt sad because I think he will be fighting this battle for a verra long time.”

Chapter One
    Scotland—Ten years later
    “My fither will hunt ye down. Aye, and my uncles, my cousins, and all of my clansmen. They will set after ye like a pack of starving, rabid wolves and tear ye into small, bloodied pieces. And I will spit upon your savaged body ere I walk away and leave ye for the carrion birds.”
    Sir Cormac Armstrong stopped before the heavy door to Sir Colin MacRae’s private chambers so abruptly his muscles briefly knotted. It was not the cold threat of vicious retribution that halted him, but the voice of the one who spoke it. That soft, husky voice, one almost too deep for a woman, tore at an old memory—one nearly ten years old, one he had thought he had completely cast from his mind.
    Then doubt crept over him. There was no reason for that tiny Murray lass to be in Sir Colin’s keep. There was also the fact that he had not had anything to do with the Murrays since they had so graciously aided him, nothing except to send them word that he had cleared his name, and sent a fine mare for a gift. He could not believe the little girl who had saved his life was not still cherished and protected at Donncoill. His memory could be faulty. And how could Sir Colin have gotten his hands on her? And why?
    “Weel, we ken that at least one of your wretched cousins willnae be plaguing us again,” drawled Sir Colin. “That fair, impertinent lad who rode with you is surely feeding the corbies as we speak.”
    “Nay, Payton isnae dead.”
    Such deep pain, mingled with fervent hope, sounded in those few words