Page 27 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

The Burning Sticks and Communion of the Dead. All Hallows Eve. Thirty-first day of October.

The crisp air stung Peigi’s cheeks, and the clouds hovered above, a blanket of gray pregnant with unshed snow.

She rolled the promise ring in her icy fingers, caressing the signet of the scythe and lyre as commotion for the day’s first event dinned.

“What is that?” Elizabeth asked. Peigi looked up. “A ring? Where did ye get it?”

A cheer went up among the spectators, who parted for the suitors walking down the footpath from the castle. She searched the procession, looking for him

. Her eyes narrowed. Where was Alex? She counted nine men. Counted nine again

. Graham with his dour expression. The young, good-natured Laird Ross laughing with Laird Gordon beside him. Of course, Sir MacGregor, wearing a superior smirk, gaze fixed on her.

Gathered at the base of the dais where Peigi would sit to draw the contestants’ names, she looked this way and that, pushing up on her toes, frowning.

Mistress Joslyn arrived at her other side as Gertie tussled with the wolfhound. “Yer sister wishes ye to ken that she’ll join us when she’s finished feeding Calum… Ye look piqued, mi lady.”

The woman tucked a loose strand of Peigi’s hair into her fur-lined hood and adjusted the pins against the bite of the wind, as the sky finally dusted a snow flurry against her cheek.

Kindness? Joslyn had been kindly enough since Peigi’s arrival, but this was the first time Mistress Joslyn had personally assisted her.

“Ye should have eaten this morn,” the woman admonished.

Peigi pocketed the ring. “I had little appetite.”

“Nerves about ten men fighting for yer hand?” Elizabeth teased.

“What’s wrong?” Joslyn continued.

“There are only nine.” Again Peigi searched the procession for Alex’s charismatic grin, as sporadic cheers lifted from the crowd along the bunting for their laird as each passed. “Alex is missing.”

“Alex?” Joslyn murmured at her familiarity with a side-eye.

“ Alexander

?” Elizabeth asked. “The man Seamus made a spectacle with last night? Peigi, do ye ken him?”

She swallowed. No sense in lying. “He was the man I-I met at Lughnasadh.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened with comprehension. “Yer song. Eyes of deepest greenwood… The one I thought was about Laird MacGregor.”

Elizabeth began looking around, too. MacGregor’s green eyes glinted gently as the procession halted before her.

“Lady Peigi.” He bowed along with the other suitors gathering alongside him. “Good morn to ye. Ye look fine indeed,” he complimented.

She forced a smile.

“True, Peigi, the man is nay here,” Elizabeth concurred.

“Who?” MacGregor asked, straightening from his bow.

“Alexander Stewart,” Peigi said. “The contest is ready.”

A fire burned in the middle of the pitch, whooshing sideways as the wind whipped where sat several sticks wrapped in waxy fabric, ready to be set aflame for the Burning Stick tradition.

As soon as the distant bell of the kirk of Duthil chimed morning prayers, the contest would begin.

And missing an event was akin to a loss.

“Ah, him. Yer brother detained him this morn, I believe. I do hope he makes it in time.” MacGregor looked back to the castle, as if he’d be glad for Alex to miss it.

“That isna fair of Seamus to waylay him.” Did Seamus hope to sabotage Alex’s participation?

She turned to hurry away—

“Are ye saying ye prefer

him?” Sir MacGregor arched a brow.

Peigi’s brow firmed, but she froze. “Of course nay.”

Joslyn tsked at her, refastening the frog at her throat holding her cloak closed. “Ye’ve a long day ahead of ye, what with the ladies’ games this afternoon and the ceremonial bread giving this eve and then tonight’s feast and music. Nay worry about the man. He seems resourceful.”

“Music? Pegs, will ye be playing for us? Oh, such would be a treat!” Elizabeth cheered, then teased, “As if yer suitors need another

reason to adore ye.”

The nine men before her grinned, rumbling their compliments.

She waved off her sister-in-law as she fiddled with the wool encasing her, her face heating at the attention.

A ram’s horn resonated across the pitch. “All contestants, present yerselves to the pitch!” called Aulay Comyn, a serving man.

Wind and snow flurries, like flecks of cotton, ruffled Peigi’s cloak.

“I shall go in search of Aileana and seek Seamus as weel.” Elizabeth left.

Joslyn, too, busied herself nearby. Anxiously, Peigi bit her lip as the contestants filed away and the crowd’s attention followed. Backs blessedly turned, giving her a moment’s reprieve; up ahead, she saw Seamus in the distance descending the steps of the courtyard with Aileana.

Her heart thumped. Would Alex soon follow? Patchouli teased her senses as if she could smell the man’s delicious soap. Where was Alex if Seamus had finally left him alone—

“Ye repaired my coat,” a deep voice tickled against her ear.

She whirled around. Bright emerald eyes shimmered down at her from a wall of muscle, his hair neatly knotted and fresh-faced for the day.

“How did ye… I thought Seamus…”

Alex’s mouth kicked up into his signature grin, revealing his teeth and split on his lip. His face battered, his eye black and purple… Sakes, that beating by a half score of guards. For some reason, the damage only intensified his wild beauty.

Peigi glanced back at Seamus. How had he gotten ahead of her brother?

“I’m resourceful.” He shrugged, echoing Joslyn’s sentiment. A hand carefully slipped beneath her cloak onto her waist, jostling her gently, as he leaned down to her ear. “ And

ye washed it.”

“Washed w-what?”

“Me coat.” He nudged his shoulder out where the stitching she’d sewn the night before rested, repaired from the knifing. “Ye didna have to.”

“It was wrong of my brother to cause ye harm,” she breathed at his closeness. “’Twas a matter of principle, nothing more.”

She felt his next words hesitate against her lobe. Felt his freshly woven braid brush gently against her ear, and a shiver racked through her. His hand on her waist steadied her. And then his touch slipped away. Patchouli vanished. Her eyes fluttered…open? Had they fallen shut?

“Peigi!” Her name was called.

She glanced around for Alex, but he was gone

.

“Peigi!” called Aileana again, unhooking her arm from their brother’s and dashing down the lane like she were still the fairy-kissed sprite she’d always been.

Peigi spotted Alex circumventing the pitch like a thief sneaking.

How had he done that? Her attention darted to Seamus who also seemed to have spotted Alex, his brow tightening.

Was he wondering the same thing? How Alex could have gotten ahead of him without passing him on the stairs or through the great hall?

“Ah, all is weel,” Elizabeth said, hurrying back to her, too, out of breath, pointing. “The man Alexander has arrived. See?”

The kirk bell began to toll Prime prayers. The crowd cheered, drowning out the vendors hawking their wares along the pathway.

“It’s starting!” squealed Elizabeth.

“Try to have fun.” Aileana squeezed her hand. “How many ladies can say ten

men were so enamored that they competed for her hand?”

The knot in Peigi’s belly tightened. “They want my dower lands, Aileana. Freuchie Castle is the real crown jewel of this tourney. I’m just a figurehead.”

A hush fell over the spectators.

“Nay true in the least,” Elizabeth admonished. “Ye’ve always been bonny. ’Tis why so many suitors are drawn to ye. Remember all the callers over the years?”

“Remember how they all withdrew their offers when they realized I had no money?”

She cocked a knowing brow at her sister-in-law.

“Nay sell yerself short, Pegs,” Aileana encouraged. “Look. They keep eying ye. That

one has his eyes upon ye hard. Sakes, he watches ye

, nay the castle, as if ye’re

the crown jewel and he a prime thief come to steal ye away…”

Peigi’s skin tingled as the crowd parted like Moses had commanded it. Alex strode forth. Clad in his weaponry. A head taller than most folk around him and distorted through the heat wavering off the firepit. Odin among his thralls. He had

had a chance to steal her away. Little did her sister know, he’d chosen not to.

“Will ye sing yer song about him this afternoon?” Elizabeth teased her.

“She wrote a song about him?” Aileana gasped softly.

Lovely. Peigi stifled a heavenward glance. Now Aileana would pressure her mercilessly as to why.

“I’d love to hear ye play it, mi lady,” Joslyn said. “It’s been years since these walls have heard a chatelaine make music.”

Peigi opened her mouth to refute—

“Ye’re so lucky,” Aileana said to Joslyn.

“I miss her music. It was always my solace.” Aileana put her head together with Mistress Joslyn’s as if the two were fond friends and hadn’t just met the day before.

“She always speaks more through her song than her words. I remember all those reaves, how she’d always sing to me when we hid, waiting for the menfolk to return from the skirmish… ”

At this, Aileana’s words trailed off. Reaves had left their scars on all of them. And Joslyn was watching her carefully now, as if curious about something she wasn’t asking.

“Nay, Lady Aileana, she’s no’ graced us with her songs,” Gertrude said, pausing in her tussling with the dog and pushing unruly wisps from her eyes.

“Nay once

?” Aileana’s question lilted.

“And now, we feel cheated,” the old woman teased. “I shall request ye play, if I may be so bold.”

Peigi dismissed their request with a flick of her fingers, for she was known for her appearance

, nay herself, and only one man had cared enough to look beneath the surface. “It’s noth—”

“Nay just music. She strums a lyre as if a fae upon a harp. It’s the sound of her voice that is the sound of her quiet heart,” her impish sister continued.

“A lyre,” Joslyn breathed. Peigi shivered in the gusting wind, though no one else seemed to notice a gale.

“The Lady Esther Comyn reared her bairn on song.” Peigi didn’t mistake how Joslyn’s face, wrinkled by time, softened at the sight of a distant memory instead of something tangible.

“She once wrote down her songs in a book in the gallery, but it went missing long ago, else I’d fetch it for ye. ”

“Oh, my lyre was lost for a spell.”

“Then what is this?”

Peigi’s cloak shifted as Joslyn pulled something from beneath tugging on her girdle… Her lyre

? On

her person?

She froze, then whipped around to gaze at Alex. Had he just…when he’d come to her only moments ago… He was watching her. His hands slouched on his belts and weight shifted onto one boot, he was the portrait of casual, as if he didn’t have a beaten face and slashed arm.

His eyes dipped to her lyre. Hesitantly, she took it from Joslyn and strummed it. Each string, repaired. Perfectly tuned. By a skilled musician with an ear for song. The feeling felt foreign on her fingertips after three months, and yet, so natural. Sing me a song, woman…

Her chest pained, clashing chords striking heartstrings. All eve, as she’d danced, she’d thought of him

above stairs, guarded in his chamber like a criminal.

All night as she’d stitched his coat, she couldn’t shake how he’d shielded her from the knife, his desperation for her to know he’d come for her and his untruth about a nonexistent missive, the way he’d lain his forehead upon her belly while she sutured him like a wife tending to her husband, gripping her as if wishing he could push the sands of time back up the hourglass.

What on earth was she going to do? What if Alex didn’t win this tournament? Would she be able to live her life as the wife of another now that she knew he was vying for her again? And yet, what if he did

? Could she ever put her trust in him again? What if he never lay down his sword like he’d promised, or was summoned away unannounced time and again? Always one boot out the door? There was nothing binding a man to his word except his promise, and Alex’s promises rang hollow.

The promise ring burned in her pocket.

“How did this get here?” she breathed.

“Ye often carry it, silly.” Aileana giggled.

“But-but it was…so badly damaged…”

Aileana inspected it. “I’d hardly call that

damaged. Aye, some nicks, but it looks to be in perfect working order.”

“Nay, Alex, he—” At Joslyn’s lift of the brow at her familiarity again revealed, Peigi’s words caught in her throat.

“Is that the lyre the rogue brought with him last night?” Aileana whispered, and Elizabeth nodded beside her.

“But how could he have repaired it?” Let alone return it without her even feeling it.

“The laird of the castle—the Comyn laird,” Joslyn corrected herself, “had many a tool, for he made his wife any instrument she desired. Mayhap the newcomer found a means to repair it?”

“Barred in his chamber?”

She could play almost any instrument… My da crafted her any instrument she desired…

Hmm. A strange memory to suddenly have. But she also remembered a man at an instrument vendor, who’d easily known what to do with every instrument there.

“Ye’d better take yer seat,” Aileana leaned in and whispered. “Nay think for one moment I’ve forgotten how ye reacted to him last night, and now, to learn ye wrote a song about him? I’ll figure out what’s passing betwixt the two of ye…”

“She kenned him at Lughnasadh,” Elizabeth murmured, ever helpful

.

Peigi strained a smile and nodded goodbye to her busybody sisters, but felt the rogue’s emerald gaze—in his nondescript kilt, his strawberry blond hair tied back in its knot, his beard adorned with bone beads she’d once toyed idly with like dice—follow her up the dais steps where she’d sit like some princess on a pedestal.

Aulay removed the lid from a bowl of names and held them forth as she swept her skirts aside and sat. She reached in and selected a cutlet. A hush settled over the crowd to hear whose name would be called.

She unfolded the parchment. “Sir, eh…”

She faltered as she read the name. Felt humor, of all things, warm her lips. Sir Alexander

.

He’d been cheeky writing “Sir” in such superfluous script.

“Are ye all right, mi lady?” Aulay asked.

She smiled politely, nodded, and handed him the parchment.

Aulay took it, his mouth quirking at the corner. He jogged down the steps, lifting his horn to his lips.

“Sir Alexander Stewart!”