Free Highland Vow by Hannah Howell

woman before she had even had a chance to taste it.
     
    Cormac stared blindly around the campsite and dropped the two rabbits he had caught and prepared on the ground. Elspeth was gone, but that was not what caused him to feel so panicked. There were many reasons for her to have wandered away from the camp. Her bag was gone as well, however.
    Had she finally walked away, decided she would do better on her own? He would not blame her if she had. Traveling with a man who tried to ravish her every morning, then snapped at her or ignored her all day had to be driving her mad. It was certainly doing that to him. She could also have decided that she had had enough of seeing him sniffing after every other woman they met. Being knotted up with lust and unable to sate himself on the one who stirred it up was turning him into a blind, rutting beast. A tavern maid, a milkmaid, a widow—any woman other than a well-bred virgin who gave him the least hint of welcome. Such behavior had to have given Elspeth a complete disgust of him. In fact, the way he seemed so eager to bed down with any woman probably had her believing that the passion he had revealed to her was just common lust. She might even be ashamed of herself for responding to him as she did.
    None of that was important, however. At least not as important as the fact that SirColin was after her, was even willing to kill to get his hands on her. It was not only Elspeth’s chastity at stake or the threat of a forced marriage to a man she loathed. The moment Sir Colin succeeded in wedding and bedding her against her will, the Murrays would be gathering men and arms. They might already be doing so. Her family and their allies would all be endangered as they fought to rescue her and avenge her as well as the men Sir Colin had murdered. Cormac knew how such a happening could devastate Elspeth, and because of what he owed her and her family, he had to do all in his power to stop it. That meant keeping Elspeth safe and close by his side until Sir Colin gave up or died.
    Cormac mentally checked that all of his weapons were where they should be as he located Elspeth’s trail and followed it into the forest. He was not sure what he could do if she was determined to flee him. An apology for his behavior would probably help, but it would not be easy. What could he say? That he did not usually allow himself to be led around by his staff? That he did not usually act like a rutting swine willing to make a wellborn lass wait outside the door while he eased the ache in his groin on any woman willing to lie down for him?
    And just what kept happening to those women? he wondered yet again. One minute they were smiling and swishing their hips in blatant invitation; the next they were like ice and a little frightened. Elspeth was doing something to make the women rescind their avid welcomes. Cormac did not like to think Elspeth was threatening the women. Yet one minute, that widow had been so eager she nearly had his breeches off him before he finished greeting her. Then, after he had gone off for a moment of privacy, he came back to utter rejection. Elspeth’s look of innocence might have been convincing if the widow had not kept glancing her way as if she expected to be murdered in her lonely bed. Just perhaps Elspeth owed him an apology as well. Reprehensible as his actions might be, she had no right to interfere.
    When he finally saw Elspeth, he stopped short, then took several slow, very deep breaths to calm an instinctive flare of rage. He was out looking for her, worrying about her, and she was sunning herself on the riverbank. A quick glance at the array of clothing carefully hung from the branches told Cormac that she had not planned to flee, had just come to wash her clothes. The recollection of the panic he had felt troubled him. The fact that there had been no need for it annoyed him.
    As he stepped closer to her, all his plans for scolding her about her recklessness and thoughlessness