Page 2 of A Highlander's Vow

Chapter One

Later that evening

After preparing forhis departure the next morning, Gregory joined Daniel in his solar. Beth had retired for the evening and it was just the two of them sipping ale and watching the small fire burn down.

At last, Daniel, most likely thinking of his wife all soft and warm waiting for him in their bedchamber, broke the stillness. “You’ve never been one to shirk a vow, Gregory. So why does this one trouble you so? I get the impression that you seem to think marrying Megan Sinclair is akin to a noose about your neck.”

Gregory gave a humorless laugh. “Because it is. Marriage was never meant for me.”

Daniel arched a brow. “You’ve said as much before. But you’ve never told me why.”

For a long while Gregory continued to stare into the fire. Then, as though the words dragged themselves out of him, he spoke. “When I was but a lad, I watched my mother’s eyes grow sad with disappointment and misery over the years of her marriage.

“My father was a hard man. He cared more for alliances and land than for her. She was given to him by her da like coin traded across a table, and he demanded from her obedience, sons, and silence. No’hing else.

“He also had no problem taking his fists to her. After a beating, Iwould hide under my bed and listen to her crying.”

Daniel’s jaw tightened, but Gregory continued.

“I swore I’d never bind a woman to me that way. Never make her feel as though she meant less to me than the sheep in the pasture. And I would ne’er take my fists to her.”

Daniel’s eyebrows rose. “Nay. Ye are no’ a mon to harm someone under yer care.”

He looked at Daniel. “And then…” His voice roughened. “Then I tried once. There was a lass, years ago, before I came here from Fairburn Tower to act as your Second-in-Command. I thought… perhaps.”

He shrugged and took a gulp of his ale. “She died before winter ended. Fever took her so swiftly, I scarce had time to understand what I felt for her before she was gone.”

Gregory smiled. “I believed it was fate’s way of reminding me that marriage for me is no’ meant to be.”

The solar fell quiet but for the crackle of flame. Two men sitting there with their own thoughts. Daniel with his happy marriage that took him forever to talk his wife into.

Gregory rubbed a hand over his face, weariness making him appear much older than his twenty-eight years. “Since then I’ve held to my oath. I’ll fight for my clan, bleed for them, die for them if need be. But I’ll not bind a woman to me and watch her suffer and fade.” He shrugged. “Mayhap I have my da in me and will turn on any wife I take.”

Daniel leaned forward, resting his arms on his thighs. “Ye’ve spent too much time alone, cousin. Ye are yer own mon, not a copy of yer da. Since it seems ye are headed to the state of marriage, consider it need not be a chain, nor something that will turn ye into a mon ye would ne’er be.” He sat back in his seat. “The elders gave me two choices for a bride and I thank the Lord every day that I was able to convince my Beth to marry me. She has shown me what love really is. ’Tis a great thing, ye ken.”

Gregory’s mouth twisted. “Aye, well. Ye’ve always had more faith in love than I.”

He stood and nodded to Daniel. “I leave at first light. If I doona see ye before I leave, I will honor my vow and return with a wife.”

Daniel nodded and watched his cousin leave.

*

As planned, Gregoryand the half dozen men Daniel sent with him were mounted and on their way to Sinclair Castle Girnigoe before the sun rose.

The night before, while tossing and turning, punching his pillow every half hour or so, Gregory had plenty of time to think about his life and the changes he was about to face.A wife. Something he hadn’t planned on. Certainly not for a long time.

He’d had plenty of lasses, but never one who expected more than a tumble in bed and in some cases, a coin or two. Sometimes he felt as though that whole process left him feeling empty, but a man had needs.

He spent a great deal of time wondering how he was going to approach Robert’s widow. Did she know about the pledge they had made? Were there several bairns to bring back with him? Would the woman even honor the agreement made so long ago?

Gregory had never met Robert’s wife. The two men weren’t the best in keeping up correspondence. Robert had stopped a few times at Castle Leod before he married Megan.

It had been a joy to reunite with his friend. They wrestled, clashed over swords, drank the village inn dry, and had fun with a couple of lasses. At the same time.

Robert had never mentioned plans to take a wife, so getting the message telling him of Robert’s death and enclosing the documentwith the pledge they’d made to each other when they were barely twenty years had been a shock.

Gregory had no idea who’d had possession of the document to send it to him. It would have been better if the sender had enclosed more information than “Robert is dead from a skirmish on the border. He asked me years ago to hold this and send it to you if he should die, leaving a wife.”