Page 134 of Outlaw Ever After

“But they’d listen to me,” Seamus said.

Bale scoffed—

“And me,” Tormund MacLeod growled, stabbing his dirk into the board. “That is my man on his deathbed. My brethren, whom I would trust with my life, nay to mention he’s an esteemed lawyer in the Archbishop’s employ.”

Bale paused.

Tormund’s mouth curled up. “Harder to murder someone so beloved by the Crown.”

“And me. I’d trust Seamus with my life,” James MacDonald said, even though he’d once been one of Seamus’s enemies.

Irritated, Bale tried to argue—

“How did ye come by yer lairdship of Lyon Tower?” Peigi asked, then walked around the table to confront the man who’d once so intimidated her.

She opened a flyer she’d found upon Caleb’s body and lay it upon the board. Depicting a skull on a pike.

“The late king granted it to me,” Bale said.

“Before yer sire was killed?” She arched a brow.

He shrugged carelessly, but remained silent this time, his jaw tightening.

“Curious, when yer lands had been stripped from yer sire many years ago,” Seamus said.

Bale watched him.

“It so seems the law libraries at Court have records of when ye were awarded the lairdship,” Seamus said. “It was nay until a month after their murder. And yet, ye seemed to already ken ye were being bestowed the title mere days after their death, when ye signed yer name on our flyer calling for the outlaw’s surrender.”

Laird Bale MacGregor. Peigi stabbed it with her fingernail.

“How could ye have kenned ye’d be a laird, if ye’d no’ been awarded the lairdship yet? Where did ye get such a distinctive ring, Laird MacGregor?” Peigi asked, sensing him backing into a corner. She’d not flinch like she had as a lassie. She’d strike . Ye need nay always hide in the shadows , Caleb whispered in her mind.

“’Twas my sire’s—”

“I saw it. I saw ye . I saw what ye did to my sire and yers —the man stripped of lands ye would have inherited had he nay been a traitor .”

Bale’s composure snapped. “My sire, a heretic and a traitor, saw me stripped of my inheritance, and the king saw the value in me wanting it back. And I have worn his ring since I peeled it off his finger, as he lay dying in that field yonder, as a reminder of all the shame he made me suffer!”

“So ye dispensed of him for the king and saw yer lands returned. And what of Kendrew inheriting an estate in Speyside?” Peigi continued.

Kendrew spoke up now. “There’s no proof of which estate my brother speaks.”

“There’s only one estate in Speyside,” Seamus said, gesturing around them. “And ye’ve spent a lifetime pinning the rightful heir of Freuchie as a murderer.”

Seamus flicked his finger at Donegal, flanked by more guardsmen, to come forth and collect the MacGregor brothers.

Bale grinned. “Take me away, if ye will. Arran will have me freed in no time. But it seems ye’re yer own worst enemy, Seamus, because there’s one small problem: ye have nothing but a contract that says the last man standing in yer bride tourney gets the prize. And that prize goes to Kendrew, nay me. Ye’d punish a man who canna be pinned as guilty?” Seamus froze. “And unless ye want me complaining to the Crown of lies and foul play, I suggest ye honor that.”

“I said the winner of the melee would win,” Seamus said.

“My opponent is currently dying,” Kendrew drawled, and he sauntered from the solar. Peigi’s lungs seized. This couldn’t be happening.

She chased him down the stairs into the hall, her brother and the others pursuing. Staff and visitors were congregated there, waiting for news of a death above stairs. Somberness clung to the rafters, faces perking up at their arrival and eyes widening at Peigi’s clothing so disheveled and caked with blood.

“Ye wished to silence me!” she called at his back. “Marriage would be the perfect way, aye? Because ye and Bale kenned that a wife must be silent when faced with incriminating her husband.”

Matins tolled distantly. She shivered. Soul Mass was over. Oh God, had Caleb departed? Had she just felt his soul pass through the veil? A tear leaked down her face. “Ye never wanted me—”