Page 25 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

His muscles twitched beneath her fingertip. He pulled away from her touch.

“Mi laird. She’s assisting me treating the man’s injuries.” Joslyn hurried in behind Seamus.

“I was stitching your knife wound, brother,” Peigi added carefully.

Her voice was composed again, as if that sadness swimming in her amber pools a moment ago had drained, leaving a void.

“Aye, but he need nay have his hands on ye for ye to do it.” Seamus’s eyes were locked on his

. Fury burned there, as bright as oil upon the water’s surface. “Nay raise a weapon to me, man.”

“Temper nay yet cooled, man

?” Alexander couldn’t help taunting, eyes narrowing. “Nay raise yer voice to yer sister. She’s done nothing wrong.”

Seamus’s face softened once more, like it had in the great hall when she’d flinched from him. Seamus scoured his face, a parchment balled in his fist.

Peigi slipped out from behind him. Taking her tongs to his eye, she pried free the engorged leeches and placed them back in her jar while his gaze remained locked with Seamus’s. His swelling was much reduced, he realized, thanks to her measured skill. He could see out of both of them again.

Silently, she collected her medicinals, picked up a garment, and slipped around them both and out the door, the dog plodding at her heels. Alexander exhaled furiously, paced a step, then sheathed his blades.

“What is it ye truly want?” seethed Seamus.

Alex arched a brow, ignoring Joslyn’s burning curiosity. “Is this a trick question? The bride prize.” He gestured to where Peigi had just disappeared.

A rebuttal was forming on Seamus’s lips but Alexander cut him off.

“Nay, man. Nay dangle a feast in front of the wolves of the world and then tell them they canna eat. Ye came to my

chamber. What do ye

want?”

Seamus gnashed his rebuttal into submission, gazed pointedly at Joslyn, nodding toward the door, until she curtsied and departed. He handed Alexander the parchment: The contract Alex had seen other men signing in the hall.

“Yer signature. To officiate yer participation.”

“Wish me to sign it in blood, do ye?” He eyed Seamus’s empty hands and feigned looking around. “Ye’ll have to draw more of it, though it seems ye have a particular skill.”

“Subdue yer cheek, man, and cut the shite.” Seamus took stock of his rib slitters, sgian dubh, bollock dagger, dirk…

Alex shrugged his shoulder as Seamus continued.

“A royal parchment pusher should have no trouble producing a quill and inkwell of his own.”

Alex harrumphed. “Wish to see if I am who I say I am?”

He sauntered backward a few steps, his eyes trained on his adversary, then turned to his packs. Seamus was scrutinizing his every move, every possession, as he flipped open his satchel.

He withdrew a polished maple case, clinked the air with it as if toasting Seamus’s goblet, who huffed and folded his arms.

He removed his inkwell and lifted his quill reverently, making a point to smooth the pheasant barbs and vanes, shaped into a brown and green striated plume, a gift Uncle Niall had given to him when he’d started his studies.

He carried the instrument and the parchment to the dressing table.

Seamus followed like a roll of thunder at his back.

He read over the document. Simple enough. Four contests: The Burning Sticks, a local tradition. The Wild Hunt, another local Samhain tradition. Wrestling. And the Melee, a fight of choice weapons until first blood was drawn.

All local traditions? He’d played them time and again as a lad, and memories shivered through him.

“Interesting selection of games.”

“My sister chose them from traditions these folk adhere to, to build affection with them,” Seamus said. “They’ve been hesitant to like her.”

“Can nay imagine why with a brother like ye,” Alexander murmured blandly.

Yet a faint smile shimmered over Alex’s lips. Sweet lass, thinking about others, even when they’d abandoned her to haul a cauldron up three sets of stairs out of spite. Even when she’d been a wee bairn, endangering them both to help him. Nay shy indeed. Just content in the shadows.

He uncorked the well. Dabbed his pen into the ink and hovered over the page as he read the smaller print.

Two losses meant disqualification. Two wins meant continuing to the third round which would end in a takedown. No weapons except for the melee. No attempts to kill. Contestants assumed their own risk and assumed possibility of injury, etc., etc.…

He touched his quill to the page as he skimmed the final line.

The prize: a handfast to the Lady Peigi, née Margaret Grant, Freuchie Castle, lands, estates, commodities, waterways, castle folk, the sum of contest entry fees, and outstanding finances—

“Finances?” His pen froze and blotched the page.

“A minor sum.”

“How do ye define minor, man? Do ye hope to pawn off a sinking ship?” Alexander winked, elbowing Seamus, if only to further irritate him.

Judging by the tick to Seamus’s jaw, it was working.

“Ye sly cur. And here I am, to investigate yer debt. As a law pupil, I once argued a marquess’s contract who’d valued his sisters in a hierarchy of how many sheep they were worth.

The most beloved was worth a herd of one hundred head, the least useful sister valued at only eight stone of wool. But Christ, a debt

?” He smirked. “Lady Peigi must mean the world to ye.”

“It’s nay her fault she was put in this position,” Seamus growled as his brown eyes locked on Alex’s.

He set down his pen, parchment unsigned.

Interesting. Marrying off his dishonored sister might protect her, but offering this castle seemed to offload Seamus’s final debt to the crown, too. Seamus was no fool, he’d give him that.

“Are ye to sign it or nay?” Seamus grumbled with increasing agitation.

Alex folded his arms. “I’m nay signing shite until I ken more about yer debt.”

“Then ye’re nay participating.” Seamus made to sweep up the parchment but Alex whipped it away first, his face turning to stone as he jabbed a finger toward Seamus.

“Then yer entire bride tourney is void. I’m returning to the crown with this advertisement for the tourney and said contract in hand…

” He shimmied it for emphasis, taunting Seamus, then turned to throw his things back in his satchel, swinging it over his good shoulder.

“…to show the Archbishop exactly what scheme ye play at—”

“Nay.” Seamus hastened, jolting toward him.

Alex whirled around, rib slitter flicking loose. “Nay come at me, man, unless ye wish to share in this eve’s bloodletting.”

Seamus held up his palms and stopped. “I mean no harm… this

time.” He smirked.

“Then ye’d better explain. Because as I see it, I arrive to audit yer debts to find ye offering a contract to bequeath an undisclosed financial concern to an unsuspecting winner, a scheme which stinks

of foul play—”

“The debt will be moot once the contest is through. I swear it.”

“How?” demanded Alex, slowly sheathing his blade.

“With the contestants’ entry fees… I nay gain a single benefit off my sister’s marriage. At six pounds an entrant, ’twill total sixty pounds, and goes to the winner. ’Twill be enough for the inheritor to pay the final outstanding debt.”

Alex’s eyes bounced back and forth between Seamus’s brown ones.

Soft brown behind his armored glare, like his sister’s, he realized.

This villain, who’d once tied Alex behind his horse and forced him to jog to his granary, at least on this account, was being honorable.

He’d paid off three sixty-pound debts over the years, according to the records.

It wasn’t as if he had a history of evading his debts.

Just stretching out repayment as long as possible.

Alex’s jaw pumped. He still had a job to do, personal revenge aside.

“Ye go before the Archbishop, man. I’ve come to summon ye.”

“And I ask for three days, to let me complete this tourney first.”

Why the hell should Alex accommodate him? He opened his mouth to rebuke him—

“For my sister’s

sake. For her honor

. This castle…it’s the only dowry I can provide her. As ye ken from yer parchments, reaves have cost me much over the years. I’m barely breaking even.”

At Seamus’s accusatory emphasis and hard glare, the heated words forming on Alex’s tongue cooled. For Peigi’s honor. He owed her that much. He knew the reaves were true. Had seen how they haunted his songbird’s gaze and blemished her fingers.

“And then her new husband”—said with barely leashed sarcasm, for the implication was clear that Seamus did not wish the new husband to be him

—“can accompany me to make the final repayment in full to the Archbishop himself. And Peigi can live on in relative security here.” His brow contorted in the closest semblance to pain that Seamus might be capable of making. “God kens my sister deserves at least that, for what she’s suffered.”

How had

she suffered? Aside from her obvious emotional wound, surely there had been another reason she’d convalesced at the Abbey. Jesu. He scoured his face and exhaled. How the hell was Seamus managing to extort sympathy from him

***

He paced, weighing each choice. If

by some chance, another won the tourney and was able to repay the debt immediately, the Earl of Arran would likely honor them as the new stewards of his birthright and he’d never regain it.

However, if he dragged Seamus to court now, before the sixty pounds was his to spend, the castle would be stripped from Seamus.

But at what cost? He’d not be married to Peigi.

Did she even want to be to him? And no way in the Devil’s inferno would Seamus betroth her to him. He’d just fok himself.

He scoured his jaw again. The only way for him to get both was to win.

“Nay make me beg,” Seamus gritted so softly, Alex barely heard him.

He exhaled. “Shite…”

For years

, he’d dreamed of sinking a dirk into this bastard’s chest and now, when he finally had Seamus by the bollocks, he…couldn’t. This was his home. But it was also his songbird’s sole livelihood. He…couldn’t deprive her of it.

Alex ripped out his quill again, stalking to the dressing table once more, and dipped it into the inkwell. “Starting on the morrow after the first event, ye will show me each renovation.” Then he sculped his signature in a twirl onto the contract.

Alexander Stewart, Esq.

Battered hands crafting elegance. Binding him.

The ink still wet, Alex held it out to his adversary. “I’ll give yer sister three days to be married. Then ’twill be me

escorting ye to Edinburgh for you to pay this outstanding debt.”