Page 23 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

Seizing the pot straining her arms and setting it aside, Alexander held Peigi upright as she blinked, skin pale.

Energy zapped at his fingertips, radiating up his arms like it once had in a greenwood, like…

it once had when they’d been bairns. The familiarity of the sensation rushed back. Aye, he’d remembered that

sensation most of all from the lass in the granary window who’d blessed him so innocently with a kiss.

A wolfhound sniffed in behind her and circled around the chamber.

“Mi lady,” gasped Joslyn, hurrying to gather the pot. “Ye carried this up all those stairs? Why no’ ask for assistance?”

“The kitchen was busy, the ale maids occupied, and the others were…” Her words faded as she glanced around the chamber.

Alexander followed her gaze. To the maids fluffing pillows unnecessarily and ignoring her, when he hardly needed such fretting. And not a single one looked remorseful.

Irritation pitted in his gut, brimming to the surface. “Nay misplace yer anger at Seamus Grant,” he growled. Chastened, the maids gawped wide-eyed.

They looked to Joslyn, who nodded. “Ye’re dismissed.”

Curtsying, they took their leave. Thomas the groom hurried in with an armload of wood, followed by the lassie he’d spied in the hall.

“Mi laird.” The lad beamed. “Is it true what they’re saying, that ye’re the—”

“Meet my grandbairns, Sir Alexander,” Joslyn said, squaring the lad’s shoulders in front of her, and he didn’t miss how she squeezed him to silence him.

“Mi lady, are ye all right?” the lassie, Gertrude, said.

Margaret’s hands—Peigi’s, for Christ’s sake

—came to rest upon Alexander’s arms as she blinked to regain her balance, and he hated that it felt like heaven. “I’m fine, Gertie,” she said, forcing a smile.

“Bollocks.” Alexander frowned. “Yer nay fine.”

“That’s what ye said in the hall, too,” Gertrude added. “When yer sister asked ye to hold her babe.”

Alexander moved her to the bed like a naughty bairn, forcing her to sit, when those amber-brown eyes looked up at him.

“Gertie, love, come help me with the pot,” Jossy said.

He folded his arms and took her in. On his bed. In what had once been his home that he had secretly hoped he might someday regain for her. The jest seemed as if it was on him in this regard.

He searched her unreadable face. How could she have such stoic expressions? He prided himself on being able to read people, and yet, she seemed camouflaged in mystery and second guesses.

What had caused this illness of which he’d just learned? And was she recovered? And why did he care when clearly, she planned to marry another?

“Truly, it was heavy and those were many stairs. I was lightheaded, ’tis all.” She pushed to her feet as his jaw ticked at her quiet defiance.

She slipped past him to lay out a bundle upon the sideboard.

“Ye argue with me?” He followed her like a husband who wasn’t finished arguing with his wife, puffing up his chest as if it would convince her to comply. It didn’t.

“Wouldst ye punish me if I am, Sir Alexander

?” she said as she unloaded the contents of her bundle.

“Shall I make ye sing?”

She whirled around at his voice so close at her back, a pair of shears in her grip and brow arched. An unexpected smile tugged up his lips to know she at least remembered that time in a greenwood that seemed like a lifetime ago and yet, just yesterday.

She reached up to touch his eye. Hesitated, as if remembering how he’d yanked away from her— This time, he snagged her hand.

Gritted his teeth in anticipation of her touch as he brought that smooth palm to his cheek.

Regretted jerking away from her, because like an eejit, he hated that he wanted her touch.

“Sir…Alexander. Yer name nay starts with C

,” Gertrude said. “Does that mean ye’re nay going to win?”

…

“He’s going to win, all right,” crowed Thomas.

“But his name nay starts with C

,” the girl argued.

“He’ll win!”

“But his name!”

“Both of ye, wheesht. Tommy,” Joslyn chided, “finish starting the fire.”

The bairns scampered across the chamber and Peigi stared up at his battered face.

“What, exactly, should I call ye?” she said. “Is Alexander a lie?”

He smirked. “Alexander Stewart is my formal name. Ye, of all folk, should understand having more than one name. Peigi

.” Her argument died on her lips. “And I’d be most pleased to win this tourney,” he added.

He would? How dare he be so cavalier? He’d entered this tourney on a whim, only wanting her when the prize of a castle and lands had finally made her worth it.

“I fail to see why ye’d be pleased, as it seems ye nay wanted to be saddled with me in the first place,” she whispered.

“Anyone who thinks ye’re shy has nay yet learned how stubborn ye can be.

” That pleat deepened with perplexity as his eyes flashed to Jossy, who ignored him.

He postured over her, folding his arms so that his biceps bulged bigger.

“Ye’d rather sell yerself to the highest bidder? ” he gnashed out. “Laird Graham

, perchance, and his pantries of garlic and prolific

family jewels?”

“It’s yer fault I’m in this predicament,” she snapped back, and the blow finally landed its mark.

He winced.

Hurt wobbled her lips, but she mastered them. Felt his gaze boring into the tremble as if he had a right to care that she was upset. A lady shouldn’t ever cry over a man and already she’d done that far too many times.

Then his emeralds shuttered and narrowed murderously. “I recall ye enjoying this predicament as enthusiastically as me. I recall giving ye all the power to walk away.”

She sucked in at the barb, cheeks burning red. She palmed the embarrassment. God, she had, and she chewed her lip with shame. She couldn’t blame him entirely. He hadn’t forced her. She’d wanted him, ready to give him the world of her own accord. Because I trusted him.

Still, he softened apologetically at the sight of her shame. He took her arms as Joslyn hurried the children out of the chamber—the fire crackling into the silence.

“Why’d ye nay tell me who ye were, songbird? The Grant’s wee sister?”

God, that nickname. How she’d missed the endearment, and the mist in her eyes finally won as her words came out thick and soft.

“Because I wanted ye to love me for me

, nay because I’m sister to an earl—”

She cut off the plea. Whirled away from his touch and began to busy herself with a spool of catgut, a needle, clay jar after clay jar that she maneuvered about the sideboard pointlessly, if only to keep her trembling hands busy.

She gestured around her. “Nay for all of this. I waited, and waited, and waited

for ye as the sun moved across the sky and finally sank, and every clan left the faire until it was empty and all were gone and…”

Hands took her shoulders. Turned her, but her normally tempered tongue wouldn’t cease.

“Ye once said ye wanted a simple life. Ye once spoke of yer cottage on a shore”—his eyes softened with that pain she’d seen in the hall, but her lip was wobbling again and blast it, she couldn’t steady it—“and why was I nay good enough by myself?

Why did ye nay want to keep me? String me along with yer promises to come when ye were intent on leaving instead, nay

laying down yer sword? Why—”

“I came for ye, songbird,” he croaked. He gripped her cheeks. Brushed a thumb across her brow to smooth her concern so that calluses once more snagged her skin.

He’d what? Foolish hope burgeoned in her chest. She stamped it down. “I was there and ye nay

came—”

He shook his head, frustrated. “My missive. How could ye nay have found it?”

“ Another

missive?” Should she laugh or cry at his lie? “Ye fooled me with yer broken promises”—his eyes cut down to her fingers—“but now ye lie about giving me another missive?”

“Nay. About my summons.”

“ Lies

. When the only thing I ever asked of ye was yer honesty. Ye told me to meet ye on the last day of the faire—”

“And then I was summoned to the Earl of Arran, lass. How does one turn that down? For the

position that let me lay down my sword so I could provide for us.

I left ye a missive asking ye to wait a wee bit more.

I asked Lady Rose to be amenable and offer ye a chamber until then.

It was all right there, in the missive. I raced like hell back to Kilravock, but she’d nay seen any woman named Margaret.

But I was certain there was something wrong when I found this

.”

His face darkened with irritation as he held up her lyre, strings snapped, frame scraped from the scuffle below stairs. “How do ye explain me finding yer most beloved possession in that greenwood?”

Sakes, the frustration contorting his battered brow was almost convincing— Nay, he’s a playactor, always dazzling his audience

.

Wearily, he dropped the instrument to his side and muttered, glancing askance at her. “High and bloody low, I scoured every book for every Margaret in Scotland. Visited every stronghold. Searched and searched

because I couldna believe everything ye’d felt for me had been a lie, that ye couldna wait for me for one extra sennight or that mayhap ye’d wanted someone with a title after all…”

He raked a hand through his knotted hair again, finally ripping it loose, and paced away as locks fell about his face, flinging the lyre onto the bed like an afterthought.

“And ye were planning yer marriage to a wealthy laird all long…”

Her hand covered her mouth. She’d noticed that he seemed thinner, but now that she was so close, there was no mistaking that he was gaunt. The hollows of his cheeks were more defined. Grooves crinkled crow’s feet at the edges of his still functioning eye, as if he’d spent many a night sleepless.

“There was no letter.” She shook her head as he turned back to her. “Kendrew said everyone left and then my brother sent out a search until I was found and it was dark and—”

“There’s no way

ye could have missed it. I secured it against that rock right in the middle of our greenwood, and there was no rain and no one else to find it there.”

“There was no

letter,” she insisted, illness roiling.

“Then someone must have taken it. And ye thought I’d”—his face suddenly crumpled with realization, gouging her with his next words as his thumb caressed her cheek—“nay come?”

His hand dropped. He scoured his beard. That beard. She’d once twisted it so idly. Then he slouched his other hand upon his belt and paced a step away, composing himself.

God, should she believe his convincing plea? She cupped his cheek as if she might find the truth in his touch. It mattered not. Because she was embroiled in a bride tournament. Men had signed legal contracts. She was no longer free to elope, even if she so wished. Which she didn’t.

He winced. She snapped her touch away. “I’m sorry.”

He’d yanked away from her in the hall, and she knew the scuttling feeling of someone touching her

without license.

He captured her hands. Dragged them around his neck and her into his hold, burying her in that patchouli and heather that she’d fallen in love with.

He burrowed his forehead into the crook of her shoulder and neck where he’d so loved to nuzzle her, as if he could never quite get close enough, and he exhaled, as if he’d finally found a moment of elusive contentment. In her arms.