Page 43 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

But as Peigi arrived on the top floor, stepping into the corridor and approaching the gallery…

“Have ye asked him about his royal parchments?” MacGregor was saying. “Ye wanted proof, and so I’ve found ye more. How much will it take to convince ye to act?”

She stopped.

“It’s a name with ties to this region, too,” MacGregor said.

What were they talking about? Him

who

***

She should announce herself, instead of lurking like an eavesdropper. For some reason, she blew out her candle and eased around the doorway to the niche on the other side, cinching her robe closed, spying the two of them like coconspirators hunched over a manuscript.

“I agree,” Seamus replied.

“Then what’s the plan? Apprehend him?”

“Nay. Carry on as normal so as not to upend Peigi’s tournament with more violence. We stay the course. I shall go to Edinburgh under pretense to fulfill ‘Stewart’s’ summons and…acquire reinforcements of my own to have on hand to capture the true

murderer when all is done. Ye will remain here to keep an eye on our outlaw.”

Kendrew nodded, an uncharacteristically wide smile on his lips. “Fine. We’ll pretend we nay suspect.”

Peigi withheld her gasp! Nay, he couldn’t. After what she’d just professed about the truth of that day, Seamus was still bent on disregarding her? She had to talk to him and beg him to stay. She would do so when Kendrew wasn’t whispering influence into his ear.

“What was Peigi’s nightmare about?” Kendrew asked.

“About the wedding.”

“Her wedding? She shouldna fear, for when I win, I intend to spirit her to Edinburgh where Bale assures me the Archbishop would waive the banns and allow me to provide her a proper kirk ceremony.”

Kendrew spoke of his winning as if it were guaranteed.

Seamus tensed. “The wedding from years ago.”

“Hmm. When she feared the skull on that pamphlet?” Kendrew stroked his chin. “I nay realized those still plagued her.”

She furrowed her brow. That’s not what her nightmares were about. She’d just told Seamus as much. Yet he didn’t correct Kendrew.

“Tonight’s was the first one since she was a bairn.”

“She was a wee thing,” MacGregor said. “I’d have hoped her fears would have healed by now. Of course, if ye’d let me have my way, the outlaw would no longer be a burr in our saddle.”

“Nay, I still disagree with that harshness. He was only twelve years, man. He deserved to have a trial.”

Her brother thought that? But Peigi had seen the pamphlet. She’d seen the calls for the outlaw to turn himself in using his sire’s skull as bait. She’d heard the menfolk arguing about a hanging. Had her brother argued…for leniency?

Yet he was going to Edinburgh for reinforcements?

Seamus returned the manuscript to the shelf.

“A shame we never found that skull,” MacGregor lamented. “These folk likely stole it away, or the outlaw returned for it right under yer nose…”

The skull had gone missing?

She stepped back into the niche as they breezed out of the gallery. She held her breath, heart thudding, until she heard their discourse recede down the corridor, then muffle into silence as they wound down the stairs.

She exhaled. Slipped into the gallery. Found the tinderbox on the mantel, and relit her candle. She scoured the shelf where she’d seen them return the manuscript.

Taking it to the lectern, she opened it. A copy of Castle Freuchie’s deed?

Gifted by Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland, to an Alexander Comyn upon reaching majority?

A young miller knighted and styled Baron of Pitlochry, upward of thirty years ago by the late King James IV in thanks for the miller reporting to him a traitor he’d overheard at an alehouse. Married to Esther Comyn,

née Stewart, Alexander received the castle keys at age eight and ten years, Esther, only five and ten. So young.

Alexander Stewart

. That was the name Alex had announced for himself. Which happened to be the Comyn laird’s given name and his wife’s maiden name. No children were listed upon this deed, so their son hadn’t yet been born. Peigi’s arms shivered with gooseflesh. The names

could

be a coincidence.

Coincidences are what we call fate when we nay understand what it’s trying to tell us.

She twisted her promise ring around the tip of her pinkie where she’d been toying with it ever since she’d gone to bed. Flipped through the manuscript, but there were few other details. It was a record of prior deeds, before her brother’s acquisition.

She slid it back onto the shelf, opening the portfolio next to it. Slid it back onto the shelf, too. Slipped out another, and another, until she huffed and pulled out the last one on that shelf:

The Histories of the Battle of Flodden Field In Northumberland of England and Alexander Comyn’s Title of Baron and Ascendence to Freuchie Stewardship.

Hmm. This was the battle in which Alexander Comyn had been knighted by King James, who’d then been slain at Floddin shortly after.

She opened the cover of the manuscript. Leafed through it.

Skimmed dates of battle, numbers of casualties, preliminary tensions leading to King James’s decision to invade England, his slaying, aftermath and trials of treason conducted by his widowed queen, when the name of a traitor caught her eye.

Trial of the heretic, Richard MacGregor.

Stripped of his lands in Glen Lyon, and stripped of the promise of a castle and lands to his issue in Speyside? Castle Freuchie sat directly upon the River Spey. Coincidence?

Was this the same Richard who’d sired Kendrew and Bale? She knew Bale was Kendrew’s older brother, but didn’t know much about him. What had Richard MacGregor been punished for? She read on.

Richard, son of Gregor didst attempt to cross foe lines with privy information pertinent to King James’s cavalry size, and whereabouts, thus attempting to spoil the fight in favor of the English Army, were it nay for a common lad née Comyn, loyal to his Crown, who didst overhear the treachery being designed and reported it to His Highness’s camp.

And Richard, a heretic, or Protestant, had been stripped of all lands as punishment according to the histories. She picked up her taper holder and knelt in a pool of linen, pushing the manuscript back onto the shelf, questions abuzz in her mind—

“Mi lady?”

Peigi jumped at the sound of Joslyn’s voice, teetered off balance and thudded to her rear. Her ring clinked across the floorboards.

“Goodness, child,” the midwife gasped, scurrying to catch the taper that threatened to set the rug ablaze.

“Nay…” Peigi chased the ring as it slipped into a crack, exhaling with relief as she fished it out and slipped it safely on her finger.

“Mistress Jossy? Ye frightened me.”

Joslyn set the candle on the nearby sill and helped her upright.

“Ye frighten easily, child?”

Peigi composed herself. “Have ye nay found yer bed yet?”

“Just doing a final check of the castle. And I could ask ye the same.” The woman scrutinized her. “Ye pass out in the village as ghostly as death whilst Sir Alexander worries himself into a state, and yet ye’re up at the witching hour as Samhain approaches, as if tempting fate.”

Peigi relaxed at the motherly scolding and fidgeted with the ring, drawing Joslyn’s eye to it. “I’m sorry. I’m restless.”

Joslyn softened, scooping her unbound hair over her shoulder. “What ails ye?”

She shook her head. Could she trust Joslyn with her question? The serving woman had grown warm to her, but Joslyn was still a Comyn, and the Comyns still didn’t see her as an ally.

“What do ye make of Sir, eh, Alexander?”

“Hot on yer mind the lad is, eh?” Joslyn winked, but Peigi didn’t miss Joslyn’s quiet scrutiny. Then she asked, “I think what matters more is what do

ye

make of him?”

Peigi blew out of the corner of her mouth, ruffling a loose strand of hair that Joslyn had missed. “I knew him once.”

“Only once? What happened?”

“He asked me to elope. Gave me this ring as a promise.”

She held out her finger, and Joslyn’s brow shot up as she inspected the design contemplatively. “I can nay imagine he gave it lightly. Why did ye nay agree?”

“I

did

. I came to meet him time and again, but, eh…he needed to fight. Then he was waylaid and said he left me a missive explaining, but,” she shook her head, “I never saw such a missive.”

Joslyn lay a gentle hand on her arm.

“Do ye think with a ring like that, that he left ye pining on purpose?”

Peigi chewed her lip. “What ye said, about the oat stalks, it’s silly for it was just a game and yet I can nay help but feel as if I’ve met him before.”

“Ye did. At Lughnasadh, aye?”

“Nay. There was a familiarity even then. I still feel it in my marrow and I’ve begun to wonder…”

Peigi shook her head. “I feel as if he hides something from me, and all I’ve ever wanted from him was honesty…”

Peigi turned back to the shelf and squatted back down, slipping out a book which only proved to be a book of hours, slipping it back in, pulling forth another.

Joslyn nodded to herself. “Mayhap he

doesna keep secrets, so much as he protects his heart.”

“Why did ye give Sir Alexander that chamber?” Peigi asked, recalling the familiarity betwixt her head servant and him.

“There were none other available, mi lady.”

“Ye doted on him as if ye kenned him the moment he arrived.”

“Mi lady, the lad was attacked. I saw to his comfort and care, as did ye.” Joslyn studied her. Cupped her face in her maternal way.

“Ye speak of the warrior as if he were a wounded laddie.”

“Aren’t they all, dear?” Peigi paused at Joslyn’s wisdom, the remark catching her off guard as the candlelight flickered in her blue-green eyes. “Laddies baptized by bloodshed, that leaves

so

many scars? And yet, some of them still manage to emerge from the wreckage stalwart and true.”

“In my experience, men are aggressors who terrorize women and bairns.” Peigi twisted the ring around her finger again.