Page 2 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

She pushed the words to the edge of her tongue. Closed her eyes tight for courage. “I disobeyed.”

“What?” he fumed, brow darkening, as a tall man with short dark hair stalked up to them.

“I chased Mildred. I saw the lad with a knife, aye, but—”

“Because he killed them, Peigi,” the man said, one blue eye and one green narrowed angrily. “I saw it happen, I was right there. Are ye calling me a liar?”

Who is he?

She shivered.

“Naybody is calling ye a liar, man,” Seamus growled, pushing up to face him, even if he were a few inches shorter still. “And ye’ll speak gently to my sister.”

“Seamus, put the lass to bed already. Her interruptions are distracting us from what needs to be done.” He flicked his hand dismissively as if she were a fly on his trencher.

She backed up another step, heart racing.

Seamus dragged a hand through his hair and looked at her.

“Go back to bed, Margaret.” He employed her given name wearily, like an old man.

But as he retreated inside and closed the door, Peigi tiptoed down the stairs, along the walls of the quiet great hall.

She stole into the kitchens, wisped behind the umbra of herbs hanging from the rafters.

She collected some nuts, some cheese, a bun.

The trees had just dropped and crab apples—tart and crisp—abounded.

She took a couple, putting everything into a sack.

Unhooking a flagon of watered wine, she unbarred the door to the herb garden, sneaking into the night.

She crept across the yard toward the granary. Climbing the ladder, she balanced her cold toes on the rungs—always barefoot—to the hayloft. She opened the window shutters wedged shut to keep the owls from roosting or the swallows from nesting within. Moonlight streamed a shaft into the dark.

She peered inside.

“Laddie,” she murmured. Nothing. “Laddie,” she breathed again, glancing at the sentries.

A rustling sound caught her ear. She stilled. Heart raced.

Something began to shuffle. A rat? A vole?

Her pulse pounded like hooves. Someone, or some thing

, was climbing the stacks of grain. Grunting as if in pain.

And then a face rose over the sill and stared hard at her with hollow eyes, so big and wide.

The boy’s face was gaunt. His eye color was indistinguishable in the darkness, but his white-blond hair was matted and his cheeks were streaked with dirt.

“It’s ye,” he whispered hoarsely, a hunger in his simple words for some sort of connection. “Were ye the one singing?”

She nodded.

“Ye played the Irish lyre, too?” he asked.

Again she nodded. “My maw is from éireann

. She taught me.”

“Ye sang like a songbird.”

She smiled at his reverence.

“What are ye doing here?”

“They want to hang ye,” she said, nervousness shaking her words. “I brought ye food. And the blessing me maw puts under my pillow

.”

She dug into her pockets and wobbled on the ladder.

She held out the wilted posy. He stared at it.

“A blessing for me?” His voice cracked, as if he couldn’t believe anyone in the world would do such a thing.

Her eyes watered, too. She nodded. “A hawthorn to drive away despair.” He inspected the hawthorn as self-consciousness trembled her fingers.

“A clover, for good luck.” She pointed to the clover, his grubby fingers brushing hers, energy crackling through her skin and up her arms as heat burned her cheeks for what came next.

“And a forget-me-not, so ye ken that I’m always praying for thee. ”

She pressed a wee kiss to his lips—

Buzzing shot through her blood, a spark touching metal, like secrets whispering through the sidh

.

They yanked apart, wide-eyed. Her mither always

gave the blessing with a kiss but that had never… The sensation vanished.

And there was no mistaking his eyes, hollow before, shining brilliantly now, light glinting silvery green in the moonlight.

Had he felt such intensity, too? Her mother always said she had the gift of Sight, but right now, what she felt was strange and elemental, like threads braiding fates together—

She wobbled off-balance on the ladder. He grabbed her. Winced as she steadied. He must be in great pain.

“What did they do to ye?”

He looked away, refusing to answer.

Two sentries changing shifts startled her from her trance. In the distance, leather slapped leather as wrists shook. She had to leave.

“I shall leave the window open.”

Sometimes right

was wrong

, and now, with everyone bent on avenging her sire’s death, being just

was eluding them in favor of their anger.

“Why do ye help me?” he finally said as she began to descend.

She paused. “Because ye’re innocent.” And upon those words, the strangest ache assailed her. “They want yer head.”

“They already took my da’s.”

She shuddered. Hurried down another rung as her bare feet patted around for purchase. She knew.

The next morn, the laddie was gone. Pandemonium thrust the castle into upheaval.

Days later, while her sire’s body lay in the chapel and her mother was sitting vigil, Seamus returned empty-handed, fist clenched.

He called the hall to attention. The laird’s badge now pinned his kilt at his shoulder.

His eyes were steely, the last of his innocence gone.

At his hip his hand rested on the hilt of their father’s dirk.

“The prisoner has evaded us and I canna uncover the whoreson who set him free,” he declared to a rumble of dissent. “But let it be heard, when I do, they will know the bite of my punishment.” Peigi bit her quivering lip. Her brother would hate

her if he knew what she’d done. “I’ve petitioned the crown to declare the Comyn heir an outlaw, and I hold their approval in my fist. He is an outlaw ever more unless he surrenders, and I’ll nay rest until I smoke him out of his hole.”

In the coming days, the menfolk argued further. And then, the gauntlet was thrown down. A parchment depicting the Comyn laird’s skull was passed throughout their villages. Messengers spiked it to tavern walls and highroad sign posts across Scotland:

A skull on a pike before a castle.

Should the Outlaw Comyn wish to honor his sire in a burial, he will submit to interrogation in three moons’ time to Laird Seamus Grant and Laird Bale MacGregor at Urquhart Castle’s gates.

If he so ignores this demand, his sire’s skull will forever be buried in the holding of Castle Freuchie, never to be found again, and Castle Freuchie will pass to the Grants in perpetuity.

Who was Bale?

All knew the skull was where the soul resided. All knew the soul was trapped in purgatory if not interred. But years passed. The lad was never seen again. He’d seemingly… vanished

.