Page 98 of Outlaw Ever After

“Ye speak the truth?” he finally bit out. “Are ye saying that all these years, we labeled an innocent lad an outlaw? It’s been four and ten years. Ye were so young. Could it be ye were confused?”

“I ken what I saw, and it has lived in my mind forever in these horrible dreams.” She lifted her eyes to his.

“Are ye saying Bale lied?” he gritted out. “I must ken yer true answer.”

“I nay even ken Bale. But are ye saying I’m lying? What motive would I have to lie?”

He stared at her, though it was clear he was conflicted. Believe his sister who’d only been a child? Or believe his long-time ally and friends, who’d also suffered the same loss as him? Then he scoured his face, not saying what he clearly wished to say.

“Or what motive would Bale have…” he pondered cryptically.

“Seamus, ye were so bent on punishment ye wouldna listen to anything but yer anger.”

“I did want to listen, but I never got the chance to question the prisoner because he vanished, the granary window opened for him to climb right down the ladder. And who had helped him? One of ours? A rogue Comyn who had somehow snuck into Urquhart? I could never figure out which man would act so treacherously as to help free a murder suspect.”

“Because it was nay a man who freed him,” she rushed out before she could bite her tongue. Sakes , would he be furious with her?

“What are ye saying…” His words trailed away, his deep brown eyes in the candlelight narrowing with realization. Her sisters’ arms tightened around her.

She lifted her chin despite the sudden chill that made her shiver with uncertainty.

“’Twas a lass who nobody would listen to,” he finally said.

“And here she is before ye. How many nights do ye think the widowed Comyn lady cried herself to sleep in this verra chamber over the loss of her husband and child before she passed? How am I to be happy here amid her ailing spirit?”

A knock on the cracked door sounded.

Peigi grabbed her robe from the chair beside the bed and swung it around herself as everyone’s attention turned. “Enter!”

Sir Donegal pushed it open. “Many of us heard a cry.”

“I have what ye’re looking for,” Kendrew MacGregor added, remaining outside the door. “I was just on my way back to the solar at Peigi’s outburst.”

Her skin prickled, taking him in as his eyes darted from her to Seamus, a few servants peering around him.

Seamus nodded and turned back to the door, not looking at her again. Just like that? She’d confessed what she had seen and done, and he had nothing more to say?

Hurt lanced her with each breath.

Aileana squeezed her hand. Elizabeth cupped her head to her shoulder, but Peigi disengaged from their fretting and dismissed them. She couldn’t go back to sleep. She had to know if that laddie was Alex. She thought on what Joslyn had said about the Lady Comyn having once had a book of music. She dug out the one her brother had given her years ago, her fingers tingling, and opened the cover.

Music for a lyre. Had it come from Freuchie’s gallery? His mother had used to play that lullaby for him.

She slid on her slippers, snagged up her candle, and floated out the door.

Chapter Thirty-One

But as Peigi arrived on the top floor, stepping into the corridor and approaching the gallery…

“Have ye asked him about his royal parchments?” MacGregor was saying. “Ye wanted proof, and so I’ve found ye more. How much will it take to convince ye to act?”

She stopped.

“It’s a name with ties to this region, too,” MacGregor said.

What were they talking about? Him who ?

She should announce herself, instead of lurking like an eavesdropper. For some reason, she blew out her candle and eased around the doorway to the niche on the other side, cinching her robe closed, spying the two of them like coconspirators hunched over a manuscript.