Page 119 of Outlaw Ever After

We. As if they were in this together. He brought her hand to his lips again and kissed each scar of hardship her fingers had endured—

“Elope with me. Tonight,” he begged. “We’ll live here. It’ll be the life ye wanted.”

She laughed as if that were preposterous. “I… What ? What about yer castle? Yer people?”

He slipped his grip around her nape and rested his forehead to hers, breathing in her fine rosewater. “We’d have their village yonder, for it’s on my island—”

“But Freuchie is yer birthright. Ye deserve it returned.”

His throat bobbed and his eyes closed. “’Tis only stone and plaster. I ken ye have no wish for it.”

“But I want ye to have it… Caleb Comyn canna allow Kendrew to finally get his way.”

His heart pinched at her fervor, her loyalty to him.

“Yer people want ye returned,” she pressed.

“Kendrew and Bale will fight me for it. The fighting will nay cease. I ken ye want peace.”

She shook her head. “I had no idea what I once asked ye to give up.” Her fingers cupped his cheek. “I nay want to be the reason keeping ye from seizing it. I wouldst see ye happy and yer sire’s skull found.”

But he also wanted to see her happy, and a life squabbling over a castle would make her miserable.

“And what about the contest—”

“A marriage contract would override any tourney contract. I have some coin. I could pay Kendrew restitution whilst I figure out how to have him and Bale investigated. We can build our life here. Like we’d once planned. We can cope with them, come what may.”

“I’m afraid to dream it. I’m afraid it will be ripped away before we can have it.” She shivered.

“Dream it. We shall make it so. Come, let me show ye.”

He dashed her along crumbling walls crisscrossing fields, delineating fallow pastures.

They passed the remains of a byre overcome with grasses. The stone footings of another outbuilding protruded like ragged teeth.

“Cattle would low happily here in these pastures.” He pointed. “Chickens would keep the pests away.”

She turned to him, so uncertain. “Goats would flourish, too. Plenty of milk for cheese.”

“And sheep, for wool.”

…

Her palm brushed upon the brittle grasses and dormant wildflowers as they ran.

So familiar.

They slipped beneath the dilapidated thatching of the ruin, beneath an arched doorway adorned with tracery and a broken pane glinting in moonlight.

Ptarmigans startled!

Flapping from their roosts among the rafters with a beating of wings.

She traced her fingers along the peeling plaster. Weeds encroached along the footings. Memories whispered.

“The kitchen was over here?” She knew it had been, glancing about to get her bearings.

He nodded.