Page 44 of Outlaw Ever After

Peigi walked back into the hall, composed, and no longer looking at him as she floated among the guests like a perfectly trained chatelaine. A knot tightened in his gut as he tracked her, the pearl of an already valuable prize, for all these other men to woo. Laird Graham was waylaying her, and was dangerously close to losing a hand, for it was upon her lower back as the supposedly pious man leaned down to her ear to speak. To her credit, she slipped free of him in much the same way she had MacGregor.

“Have a care ye nay murder Laird Graham with the daggers ye be slinging from yer eyes, lad,” Joslyn teased, clucking her tongue as she stretched wide his swelling eye and flipped down his lip.

Oh, songbird… If she only knew how he’d searched for her, ill with regret that he’d had to leave another bloody note for her, while she’d been here instead, planning a marriage to some rich laird.

“Come, let us get ye to yer chamber before Seamus Grant sets his guard upon ye again.”

He cocked up his grin. “It’s good to be back, Jossy.” He hefted his satchel over his shoulder and followed Joslyn out of the hall as the entourage of maids flurried behind him, carrying food and ale.

“We thought ye dead. Years ago. After ye went to retrieve yer sire’s, eh,” she couldn’t say head, apparently, “and were chased down again—”

“Wheesht,” he shushed.

Christ, they were all going to give him away if they didn’t stop staring like he was the prodigal son.

“When I realized that Seamus had rampaged through the hamlet after me, I’d nay do that to everyone again.”

And then, that damning flyer… The skull was here, somewhere, buried in these walls.

They ducked into the stairwell, when Aulay leaned in behind them. “Blessed be yer ugly face survived.”

A grin split both their faces wide, and Alexander lay his finger over his lips.

“Aulay…” He hitched up his chin with a flourish. “What are ye talking about? I’ve always been prettier than thee.”

Aulay stifled a laugh, his jaw pumping with a retaliation that he chewed back.

“I almost nay survived, had it nay been for a…”

A lassie, he remembered. The wee sister to Seamus Grant who’d played a lyre… His eyes snapped back to Peigi in the hall.

Peigi’s broken lyre, abandoned in that greenwood where their summer dreams had once bloomed, burned against his thigh…

My brother wants yer head , a distant memory whispered.

And his brother doth said I’ll take yer head! a lady had laughed and sang three months prior.

Gooseflesh pebbled his skin. His eyes narrowed on the hurt, angry songbird playing flawless hostess, dancing a reel with Laird Gordon.

That night so long ago was distorted by time. It had been too dark to see the girl’s face, not to mention he’d been delirious with grief, pain, and hunger. Could his memory be trusted?

“Are ye weel?” Joslyn whispered.

He turned back to Aulay as shock pitted in his gut. He gripped Aulay’s shoulder and murmured, “Meet me for an ale tonight?”

“If ye can evade Laird Grant to do so, but I was just without the walls and overheard him say he plans to set a guard on ye.”

Alexander whispered, “Does Seamus ken about the, eh, alternate routes?”

Aulay grinned. Shook his head. “In the village at midnight, then? We’ve a fresh barrel of whisky to tap.”

“Count on it.”

Joslyn shooed her son Aulay away and took a tallow candle from her apron, lighting it in a torch. They began to spiral up. Plastered stone, covered in rich tapestries made so painstakingly, hung like reminders, threads of red ochre and saffron yellows, royal purples, and indigo woad:

The weaving of a young man reaping fields of barley with his scythe.

The granary miller grinding corn.