Highland Sinner by Hannah Howell

Tormand loving each other. She could almost feel the touch of his mouth still lingering on her breast. The warmth that filled her body at that memory told her that she remembered it all too well. For a virgin, she was having some very vivid, very sinful, dreams about Sir Tormand Murray. It was a blessing that she would not be seeing much of the man or she might find the temptation he offered far too much to resist.
    And she would pay dearly if she succumbed to that weakness, she thought as she shuddered. Morainn could not be certain, but she suspected that was what the bloody end of the dream was telling her. If she let Tormand Murray into her bed she would suffer as all the other women had suffered. Then again, she thought ruefully, such ideas could have been put into her head by her talk with Nora today.
    Morainn felt her cats curl up against her and welcomed their warmth. She was not sure if she had just had a true vision of what was to come or if it was only a chilling warning to be careful. Since she did not see Page 34
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    any reason a man like Tormand Murray would seek her out, she had to wonder why she even needed such a warning.
    Because she wanted him , she thought with a sigh. She could deny the truth to herself all she wanted to, but, in her dreams, that truth came out. Morainn could not believe her own foolishness. Tormand Murray was a man steeped in the sins of the flesh and, if even a few of the rumors about him were true, he made no effort to turn away from any temptation. After years of fighting to cling to her chastity, despite her deep loneliness and the men who tried to steal it from her, she would have to be witless to hand it over to a man like Sir Tormand.
    Closing her eyes, Morainn lightly stroked Grigor, her big yellow tom, when it rested its head on her stomach. Its deep, rumbling purr began to ease away the lingering horror of her dream. She felt herself begin to relax, her breathing softening, as she welcomed sleep again. In the morning she would decide if she knew enough yet to risk going to Sir Innes and Sir Murray and telling them about her visions. It was a decision that required a well-rested mind for she knew the danger was not really that he might not believe her. It was that he would and she could easily find herself spending far too much time in the company of a man who sorely tempted her to sin—and do so repeatedly and with great enthusiasm.

    A low growl abruptly pulled Morainn’s attention from the chickens she was feeding. Her gray tabby William crouched on the low stone wall surrounding the rough chicken coop. The cat’s fur was all standing out and its ragged ears were flattened against its head. She looked in the direction it stared, but saw nothing. That did not immediately cause her to relax her guard, however. William might be just a cat, but the animal was never wrong when it sensed, and warned her of, a possible threat.
    Morainn had just finished shutting the chickens in the coop when she heard the sound of horsemen approaching and her heart skipped with fear. “Walin,” she called to the boy playing with a ball behind her cottage, “get in the house now.”
    Walin picked up his ball. “Ye wish me to hide?”
    “Aye, laddie, at least until I ken what the men riding this way are wanting of me.”
    “Mayhap ye should hide, too.”
    “They have already seen me. Go.”
    The moment the boy disappeared into the cottage, Morainn walked to the front of her home intending to meet her uninvited guests at her front door. A flicker of amusement went through her as her cats gathered around her, her big toms to the front on either side of her. She knew they could do little to help her fight against six men, and that such sights made too many people think of such things as familiars, but she did not order them away. If nothing else, she remembered all too well how often a nicely aimed slash of sharp claws