Page 32 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

She hurried into the corridor down the stairs, the wolfhound trotting behind her like a shadow.

“Songbird!” Alex called at her back, but she kept pattering, blinking at the lightheadedness that seemed wont to assail her.

“Come back here, Alexander,” Seamus rumbled in the distance.

“Nay, Seamus, leave them be…” Aileana and Elizabeth’s voices echoed until she could hear no more.

Across the boisterous hall she dashed. Into the kitchens. The conversation and clanking among the servants was jovial, when she heard chatter about the…Laird?

Attention turned to her. The chattering ceased. Happy smiles fell, replaced with guardedness lingering in the air between them. Alex wasn’t behind her anymore. Had Seamus caught up to him?

Peigi nodded to them with her practiced smile, belying the tumult within, to ease their worry. They were, after all, creating this feast for the daughter of their conqueror, and would never care for her if they feared her censure.

“It smells delicious,” she said.

The scents of the feast were savory. Loaves were piled high in a basket.

“Are these for the village?”

The baker nodded to her question and she picked up the basket and woven lid, wedging it against her hip.

Scullery maids returned to chopping vegetables, and meats were turned on the spits by serving lads in silence.

“Mi lady.” Maids curtsied as she passed.

“How does yer dress suit, eh, Francine, right?”

“Aye, mi lady, and I love it so—” A maid jabbed Francine to silence her gratitude on a frown.

Francine, in the flaxen dress Peigi had given her that morn tied up between her legs, fell quiet. Her other had torn and Peigi’d overheard her lamenting that she had none other to wear while repairs were made.

“Come see me before the sennight is through and I’ll take up the hem so ye no longer trip upon it.”

“Ye mustna fret so, mi lady. Especially if it’s only borrowing.”

Peigi waved her off. “I’m happy to do so. When I told ye it was yers, I meant for keeps.”

Amid Francine’s rambling thanks, Peigi smiled at the kitchen workers uncertain glances.

There were only two exits: one leading to the herb garden behind the castle, and one leading to the main corridor.

She slipped past the bunches of onions and carrots hanging from the rafters, past the wavering heat of the ovens glowing orange in the wall, and swept her skirts aside to descend the steps toward the side door, the weight of the basket more than she’d first anticipated.

Hoisting the door open by its metal ring, she—

Smacked into a wall of muscle.

Her basket slipped, breads threatening to tumble as the lid fell off and she wobbled. Broad hands snagged her arm to steady her.

She flinched at the unexpected touch—

The hands released her as if she’d bitten them.

“Christ.” A curse gruffed onto the air as Alexander caught the basket and brought it back to her hip.

She blinked up as the dog trotted down the steps behind her.

Alex raked a hand through his tresses hanging loose over the shaved undersides, the other braced to the doorway beside her, the afternoon sunlight haloing him like a god.

How did he ken I’d come this way?

His eyes darted down to hers. Stormy oceans of green lapped with white caps of fury. Then his hand rose to cup her face, hesitated, then clenched into a fist and dropped, denying her his touch.

A growl raked up his throat. “I could kill the whoreson who taught ye to flinch.”

He’d be shedding blood for a long time.

She collected herself and adjusted the basket. He braced his other hand on the other side of the frame, caging her there.

“From whom are ye running, lass? Me?”

From the past

, her conscience whispered, as his eyes searched hers.

“Ye mean, to where am I going,” she said. “I’ve an errand to run.”

“ Liar

.”

Her gaze shot up to him at his accusation and arched brow. The basket of bread faltered at her hip.

“Ye were spooked.”

“It’s nay a lie. The ladies teased me, ’tis all. The villagers celebrate the Communion of the Dead with fresh bread and it’s tradition—”

“There are serving lads to do such labor. Nay only that, but pay them a coin to do it? Ye’ll have their undying fealty.”

“I wanted to reestablish the traditions my sire slayed—” She bit her lip, shame staining her cheeks. She finally exhaled. “I’ve inherited this responsibility out of a past forged in conquest. How else will I ever grow trust with people who’ve been so hurt by my kin?”

It felt good to let slip a taste of the past. She was so used to hiding it and letting it fester in the shadows.

“Mistress Joslyn told me it’s tradition for the lady of the castle to deliver them.”

“Aye, but for the Laird Comyn’s

wife—” He cut himself off as silence hung in the kitchen, the burn of the servants’ rapt attention boring into her back and hanging heavy in the air. What he’d meant was it wasn’t a job for a Grant

.

She furrowed her brow. Felt his eyes dip to the lip she nibbled. How would he know that?

The basket was slipping again as she readjusted it. He caught her hand in his to help resecure it when his thumb brushed over her bare ring finger.

His eyes trained on it. “ Why

?” he breathed, though she wasn’t sure what he was asking, when he changed course. “Are they unkind?” he asked instead.

“I hear their whispers, the hatred they harbor for me. They look at me and see an enemy. And I… I blame them nay. But I nay want them to feel resentment when they look at me, for I ken they’ve suffered. I ken their pain as my own.”

His eyes flashed over her shoulder as he continued to caress her finger. Sakes, the kitchen workers could hear this. She bit her tongue.

“Then ye must show them who ye really are.”

Her brow furrowed. He was still looking at them

.

“Yer promise ring—” That same flash of hurt, quickly banked by impassiveness, flitted across his face. “Ye nay longer wear it.”

“The promise was broken,” she whispered, gazing up at his face contorted in pain he wasn’t speaking, haloed in sunlight. “I couldna bear the weight of it…”

He squinted into the distance and bit out tightly, “Did ye cast it off or save it?”

She reached into her pocket and unfurled her fingers to him. Upon her palm lay his ring.

Visible relief relaxed his face. She placed it in his hand. He took it between his thumb and finger, dwarfing it in his hold.

Her throat ached to part with the ring. How many times had she held it at the abbey, as tears had purified her cheeks but had failed to heal her heart?

Jaw pumping, swallowing hard, he pushed off the doorway.

“Come, ye have bread to deliver.”

“I have been schooled that only the Lady Comyn can do such things.”

His eyes met hers. Bounced away, but he took her basket and jerked it down. He lifted her left hand, inspecting her nails, then slipped the ring over her knuckle.

Static zapped! Buzzing shot through her blood, that spark like the touching of metal, like secrets whispering through the sidh

. Sakes, she always felt this from him when their touch made a full circle!

Her throat tightened shut. The kitchen maids gasped.

Alex said nothing as he hoisted up her basket and whisked her through the herb garden.

She balked.

“Ye canna just come with me, Alex,” she argued, even though her fingers tightened around his grip, the burn of the ring resonating up her arm to her heart.

“I hate to tell ye, lass, but I can do a great many things.” He tugged her forward a step. “’Tis half a league to the hamlet by road. Yer arms will tire.”

She shook her head, drawing him to a halt again as she laced her fingers with his. “But my brother’s men would take issue with ye walking unchaperoned with me.”

“As yer brother, I’d take issue with ye walking unchaperoned

. If I were a brother worth a damn, that is.”

Then he flicked a finger at someone behind them. “Yer shawl, Francine?”

He knew the maid by name? The woman had seemed overly friendly with him, and Peigi had assumed the lass flirted. That ache pitted harder for the three months he’d roamed free. Had he come to know Francine more closely yestereve when he’d been angry with her

***

A knife clattered to a worktable. Skirts rustled out the door into the herb garden.

Francine pattered up beside her, handing Alex her tartan shawl. Comyn

tartan.

“Mi laird-eh,” Francine breathed, bobbing a curtsy, gaze trained hard upon her feet.

My laird?

Peigi’s eyes flew up to see him nodding thanks to the maid with a fond smile.

Nay, every man here was either landed, titled, or both. Even he’d once said he owned some land.

He shook out the tartan of these conquered people, then swept it around her—so shabby, yet worn and comfortable.

“What are ye playing at?” she breathed.

“Ye hate being here upon a pedestal. I remember the way to yer heart, and it was nay being lavished in fanfare.”

She gazed upon his deep bruises, now yellowing, his focus intent on tucking the garment around her shoulders and cinching it around the pearls sewn into her bodice.

His hands, swift a moment ago, lingered where it overlapped her bosom as if taking care to tuck a beloved into bed, and for a moment, her eyes fluttered shut, when next she felt him plucking a pin from her snood.

Her eyes flew open. “My hair!”

He released another pin, ignoring her protest as her hands shot up to touch it.

Detangling her fingers, he leveled a playful frown at her as he braced her hands at her sides, then returned to freeing the netting bundling her tresses until it fell away and the weight of her hair tumbled down.

“There,” he gruffed. “Such a bonny wood nymph should never be so constrained.” Sifting his fingers like a comb into her locks, he fanned her waves reverently as if they were silk, and God, how her skin burned at the touch, for it was still filled with tenderness.

Her body flamed to life. Cheeks flamed hot.

His eyes inspected her blush with a pleased notch of his chin. Leaning in, his lips brushed the shell of her ear, his beard scraped her collarbone, and his male musk filled her nose and clouded her judgment.

He whisper-sang, “ Skin so fair with chestnut hair…

”

Her forehead came to rest at the center of his chest and her hands gripped his tunic. Mist stung her eyes, and she closed them. Afraid to fall again.

Mayhap if he won, they could begin to sort out the wreckage?

“Wh-what are ye doing?” she whispered against his tunic.

“I’m sneaking the lady of Freuchie away to her greenwood.”

He sifted his hand along her nape beneath her hair. Shivers flitted down her spine at his careful touch. She looked up. Something quiet filled his eyes as he fingered a lock between his thumb and pointer.

“These past three months, yer voice and this hair were all

I could imagine, as every bloody village I passed, castle I visited, clue I looked for, led me to the wrong Margaret. Fok

I couldna believe that the only lass I’d ever given all of meself had nay waited for me and I’d never ken if she carried my—”

He scoured his jaw, shutting himself up. All of himself… He’d never completed in union with a lass…until her. Realization dawned like a gut punch, winding her.

And it was then that she saw unvarnished pain, as if these past months of thinking she hadn’t waited for him had been hell for her bright, shiny warrior. Was…he speaking truth about some missive?

Carefully, she took his arm, peering up into his askance gaze.

He shook his head, as if helplessness had suddenly bloomed within him. “Even if I win, will it ever be as it once was?”

Gasps sounded behind them.

Oh God, the staff was

listening to them! She jerked back. Whispering rustled like a breeze. Were the maids whispering about the oat stalks? Of Joslyn’s premonition about another chance at love? She’d only known Alex twice now. The last stalk had predicted thrice for her husband-to-be—

Absurd

, she chastised herself. ’Twas only a game.

Yet an inkling was growing restless, itching to take voice.

Her brow furrowed upon him, hoping to find some sort of clue.

Taking bread to the village is a Comyn lady’s task

. And a lady was only a Comyn if she was married to the laird, he’d just informed her as he’d smoothed this shabby tartan she wore as if it were fine silk.

He seemed to fit with these folk, too, cleaning the tournament field with his opponents’ arses as if having played Burning Sticks countless times.

These folk calling him a laird, almost as if he were… their

laird. For that to be true, he’d have to be the surviving heir of the laird her sire had slayed so long ago. He’d have to be…the laddie

she’d once set free?