Page 113 of Outlaw Ever After

He glanced to see her arms flung around Gertie and Jossy as they jumped up and down.

I’m winning for all of ye . He pried Ross up to sitting, slapping him on the back. He offered down his hand, chest heaving as the chilly mist floated like a haze.

Ross staggered to his hands and knees, took Alex’s hand in his, and—

Yanked him down face first into the mud.

The crowd roared with delight. Alex rolled onto his back, guffawing, and spied his child minder Sir Donegal, holding his belly with laughter. Ross now offered down his hand with begrudging amusement.

“Serves ye right, bastard, for ousting me from the competition.”

Alex took it, jolting Ross’s arm and relishing Ross bracing for the feint, before letting himself be hoisted back up. His chest heaved for air as he swiped his muddied forearm across his face, smearing it worse.

“Ye were no meager opponent, Ross.” Alex fought for breath. Ross was a good man. Had Ross won this tournament, he had no doubt the man would have treated his songbird well. “I hope we can become aligned someday.”

Ross nodded. Looked at the prize that was no longer a possibility for him, for this was his third wrestling loss and therefore, his second overall tourney loss. He was out.

“She likes ye , besides,” Ross finally said. “I’d have honored her, but I would wish for a happy wife, and she’d nay have looked at me like she does ye.”

Their boots sucked into the mud as they lumbered toward the well and imbibed from a ladle.

Ross nudged him, gesturing toward Peigi who was gossiping girlishly and flashing that hard-earned smile at him. He returned it, belying the undercurrent simmering through his veins that his songbird was at the heart of a conspiracy she didn’t realize.

“Lucky bastard to have such a beauty’s favor.”

She was happy today. She’d indulged the hall this morn with her lyre, too, and had blushed sweetly when he’d joined her with his flute.

Eyes of deepest greenwood, would be so swift to drown there…

He’d basked in the song that had secretly been for him, even if the hall was none the wiser.

MacGregor was approaching the well. He bristled. MacGregor, too, had won three rounds, just as Alex had. On the morrow, he and MacGregor would duel for the prize.

Last night’s search had turned up empty-handed, too. No skull. No clear evidence of where the fourth disbursement of funds could have been put to use. No Seamus.

He hated to admit it, but he was having his doubts. Seamus didn’t seem like a thief. Under Seamus’s demand, Donegal was upholding fairness. And he couldn’t shake that the man had apparently nay reaved the village a hundred times over, not to mention had kept his people employed.

He washed his chest, mud sluicing off of his pectorals as MacGregor did the same.

“Will the morrow be a fair fight?” he quipped at MacGregor’s silence. “There’s no one left to coerce and ye’ll be hard pressed to convince me to draw a blade on meself.”

“No idea of what ye speak,” MacGregor drawled.

“Cut the shite, man,” Alex said, slapping his washrag upon the well and turning to stare at him. “Why are ye targeting me?”

MacGregor said nothing.

“I ken ye found my missive to Peigi this summer,” he prodded further.

At this, MacGregor’s brow furrowed. “How so?”

“The walls have ears, man.”

After a moment’s contemplation, a sly grin spread on MacGregor’s face. “At least we nay longer have to pretend that ye’re an innocent contestant in this tourney. What other secrets do ye harbor?”

Alex shrugged.

“I ken ye ruined her.”