Page 49 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

Soul Mass. Wrestling match and Souling Night.

Second day of November.

Alex strangled Maxwell’s wrist.

Tight

. Forced his arm above his head to reveal the knife he’d discreetly brandished.

The crowd at the wrestling match roared their disapproval as the knife finally fell from Maxwell’s grip.

Villagers dipped beneath the bunting, fists in the air.

“Tell me, are blades nay forbidden?” Alex snarled in Maxwell’s ear as they grunted against each other’s force.

“Halt!” shouted Sir Donegal, storming onto the pitch turning to mud in the relentless mist. “What is this?”

Maxwell’s lips pinched shut. Alex pushed away as Maxwell added another step between them, and Alex noticed how Maxwell’s eyes flashed across the yard. To MacGregor. MacGregor shrugged indifferently. He was going to let Maxwell take the fall.

Be damned. Maxwell had been so easily swayed from a friend on yesterday’s hunt, to a foe now.

Greed did that, he suspected. After Peigi had mentioned the history book, it was too much of a coincidence that MacGregor was fighting for lands that had once been promised to his sire. It was strange that his brother was laird of lands that had been stripped of their sire. It smelled rotten.

“Explain yerself!” boomed Sir Donegal. Maxwell turned to Alex.

“Anyone put ye up to this?” Alex murmured under his breath. “MacGregor, by chance?”

Maxwell chewed a retort unto submission. “Nay. If I point my finger, MacGregor’s brother in Arran’s administration will target me with more taxes.”

Bale.

“Ye draw a blade?” Donegal commanded, arriving before them.

Swallowing his pride, Maxwell nodded stoutly. “I let my anger guide me. I meant no wrong.”

Nay, he’d let his

greed

guide him. He’d absolutely meant wrong.

“Ye violate yer contract committing to good sporting. Under Laird Grant’s command, I am to uphold fairness. Collect yer bags and leave the estate.

Now

.”

Maxwell shook his head, eying MacGregor once more, but stormed off. Disqualified.

As the wrestling throughout the day progressed, Alex found himself opposite Ross.

He grunted to hold Ross down. Having already bested two others, he was tired.

He braced Ross into the mud, his legs splayed and torqued, a knee plunged in the mud and the other across Ross’s legs, an arm linked through Ross’s elbows while the other pinned down his neck.

His injured shoulder burned, the stitches close to tearing.

Ross struggled valiantly, but the sand in the glass finally ran through.

“Sir Alexander has three wins!”

Alex hoisted himself up as the crowd cheered and waved their kerchiefs or punched the air, and he heard Peigi cry, “He did it!”

He glanced to see her arms flung around Gertie and Jossy as they jumped up and down.

I’m winning for all of ye

. He pried Ross up to sitting, slapping him on the back. He offered down his hand, chest heaving as the chilly mist floated like a haze.

Ross staggered to his hands and knees, took Alex’s hand in his, and—

Yanked him down face first into the mud.

The crowd roared with delight. Alex rolled onto his back, guffawing, and spied his child minder Sir Donegal, holding his belly with laughter. Ross now offered down his hand with begrudging amusement.

“Serves ye right, bastard, for ousting me from the competition.”

Alex took it, jolting Ross’s arm and relishing Ross bracing for the feint, before letting himself be hoisted back up. His chest heaved for air as he swiped his muddied forearm across his face, smearing it worse.

“Ye were no meager opponent, Ross.” Alex fought for breath. Ross was a good man. Had Ross won this tournament, he had no doubt the man would have treated his songbird well. “I hope we can become aligned someday.”

Ross nodded. Looked at the prize that was no longer a possibility for him, for this was his third wrestling loss and therefore, his second overall tourney loss. He was out.

“She likes

ye

, besides,” Ross finally said. “I’d have honored her, but I would wish for a happy wife, and she’d nay have looked at me like she does ye.”

Their boots sucked into the mud as they lumbered toward the well and imbibed from a ladle.

Ross nudged him, gesturing toward Peigi who was gossiping girlishly and flashing that hard-earned smile at him. He returned it, belying the undercurrent simmering through his veins that his songbird was at the heart of a conspiracy she didn’t realize.

“Lucky bastard to have such a beauty’s favor.”

She was

happy

today. She’d indulged the hall this morn with her lyre, too, and had blushed sweetly when he’d joined her with his flute.

Eyes of deepest greenwood, would be so swift to drown there…

He’d basked in the song that had secretly been for him, even if the hall was none the wiser.

MacGregor was approaching the well. He bristled. MacGregor, too, had won three rounds, just as Alex had. On the morrow, he and MacGregor would duel for the prize.

Last night’s search had turned up empty-handed, too. No skull. No clear evidence of where the fourth disbursement of funds could have been put to use. No Seamus.

He hated to admit it, but he was having his doubts. Seamus didn’t seem like a thief. Under Seamus’s demand, Donegal was upholding fairness. And he couldn’t shake that the man had apparently nay reaved the village a hundred times over, not to mention had kept his people employed.

He washed his chest, mud sluicing off of his pectorals as MacGregor did the same.

“Will the morrow be a fair fight?” he quipped at MacGregor’s silence. “There’s no one left to coerce and ye’ll be hard pressed to convince me to draw a blade on meself.”

“No idea of what ye speak,” MacGregor drawled.

“Cut the shite, man,” Alex said, slapping his washrag upon the well and turning to stare at him. “Why are ye targeting me?”

MacGregor said nothing.

“I ken ye found my missive to Peigi this summer,” he prodded further.

At this, MacGregor’s brow furrowed. “How so?”

“The walls have ears, man.”

After a moment’s contemplation, a sly grin spread on MacGregor’s face. “At least we nay longer have to pretend that ye’re an innocent contestant in this tourney. What other secrets do ye harbor?”

Alex shrugged.

“I ken ye ruined her.”

“She could never be ruined,” Alex rumbled.

MacGregor’s lips tipped up with amusement. “I’m nay concerned with her virtue.”

“Then why pursue her if she rejected ye outright?”

“Marriage isna about desire.”

“Nay, ye want something more,” Alex said. “Or ye hide something more…about Freuchie, perchance? Or mayhap…yer brother?”

“I could say the same for ye, Alexander or Reaper or…” Now MacGregor stopped and set down his rag. “Tell me, what does

C

stand for?”

Ah, there it was. “Cretin, as ye’ve said.”

“Nay Caleb?”

“No idea of what ye speak.” Alex slung his words back at him. “Does Seamus ken ye’ve tried to see me killed?”

MacGregor smirked. “What Seamus doesna ken willna hurt him.”

His nape prickled with warning. Prophetic words. Or threatening ones. Because he was beginning to think there was quite a lot Seamus didn’t know. And that Peigi was at the heart of it.

He glanced to Peigi, atop the courtyard organizing the Souling party—in Francine’s tartan mantle.

His

colors—a perfect chatelaine, ever demure, despite only ever wanting a simple, quiet life, as if she didn’t cope daily with darkness.

…

Peigi sucked in her breath as a hand slipped around her growling stomach in the commotion of gathering guests and nobles in the courtyard.

Patchouli surrounded her.

“Ye’ve nay eaten weel today.” The scolding resonated at her ear, a surreptitious kiss pressed to her lobe as bodies teemed around them.

She gathered up the basket of soul cakes in her mittened hands and smiled over her shoulder.

“I’m

fine

, Sir Alexander,” she said coyly.

“Will ye nay stay and rest, songbird?”

Joslyn tsked at him, shooing him away. “Ye’ve nay won her hand in marriage yet, laddie. Quit fretting and have faith.”

He chuckled as Peigi giggled.

Joslyn continued. “Ready, mi lady?”

“Indeed, Jossy. Ready—

oh

!” Her basket was hoisted from her grip as Alex perched it upon his shoulder and offered her his arm.

She flashed a glare at him, but he shrugged, a smug smile on his face as he gazed at the horizon and ignored her. She slipped her hand through his elbow. Felt his muscles twitch and clench down to hold her.

Arms linked with Aileana and beside her, Elizabeth, babes bundled and packed upon backs, she led the castle party down the courtyard stairs, followed by the ladies, lairds, and contestants. The castle staff followed in procession as a bodhrán struck up a rhythm.

The wind whipped flurries from the gray skies, yet the singing was gay.

She pushed her worry out of her heart. This eve would be about celebration of the dead, of those who rested in purgatory, needing prayers to ascend to heaven. It would be about joyous children, cakes, and feeding these folk.

“

Thars a lass in Inverness, sing oh sing me laddies

!” belted the bard as roars of approval echoed across the shorn hayfields. Clapping and dancing broke out among the revelers.

“Chestnut hair and skin so fair, sing oh sing me laddies!”

“They’re playing our song,” Alex murmured beside her. And a breath later, her basket was foisted to Aulay and Alex snatched up her hand, wrenching her free of her sister to reel her around the ancient standing stones amid the field.

“Lips of gold if truth be told, sing oh sing me laddies!”

She squealed! Basked in his hold as her hair jostled loose from her coif to feather around her face. As his clear, rich baritone bellowed the lyrics.

“Steal a kiss and twirl the miss! Sing oh sing me laddies!

”

He spun her, then swooped down to her, his lips puckered exaggeratedly to a rowdy cheer of delight from the Comyn staff.

She batted him away and wagged her finger at him. “Do

nay

dare, sir!” she scolded.

“Till her brother doth said I’ll have yer head! Run oh run ye laddie

!”