Page 53 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

Alex flashed his grin over his shoulder, pulling Peigi behind him. His disheveled songbird smiled and clenched her mantle closed around her.

“To the stables, for Faunus,” he called, the Souling torches in the distance still lit when her hand slipped free.

He stopped and turned.

“Are ye all right?”

She nodded. Forced a smile but touched her forehead. “Of course.”

Alarmed, he took her face in the cradle of his palms and dipped his head to see her expression, but it was shadowy.

Her skin was clammy. As it had been when she’d collapsed. She put the back of her hand to her forehead.

“I just feel so…lightheaded,” she said, blinking, when she grappled to hold his forearms, his doublet, her legs buckling, her head drooping, as she fell—

He caught her.

“Peigi?” He lifted her in the cradle of his arms. She lay limp, crumpled against him.

“Peigi!” He jostled her, though she dangled like moss upon branches in his arms.

“Jossy!” He barreled toward the village.

So frail and thin in his arms. Down to the shore he dashed, clenching her to him.

“Jossy!” he thundered, crunching over the pebbly shore. The celebration was too loud. They couldn’t hear him.

The trees of the Tomvaich thickened across the water. He cut past the cave, over the grasses, over the hillock, as his people feasted. He broke through the cottages, into the hamlet commons.

“Where’s Jossy!” he bellowed.

The music silenced. The chattering and clinking fell dormant.

“What happened?” Aulay jumped up as Alex heaved for breath. Adjusted her weight as she shifted in his grip.

“She fainted again. I need yer maw.”

Christ, why did this keep happening?

“She returned to the castle to oversee the feasting.”

Peigi was moving in his arms. Coming to. Thank God. But he needed answers. Couldn’t bear this to happen again. He needed Jossy’s expertise and herbs and care.

“I need ye to fetch her whilst I get the lady to her chamber.”

Aulay nodded and padded off into the night as Alex hurried toward the castle.

He sloshed through Allt A’ Bhacain, God, he shouldn’t have made her go on foot to the cottage.

Shouldn’t have made her exert herself no matter how much she’d scolded him to stop fretting, to treat her normally instead of like a violet.

Wind whipped across the plain, biting his cheeks and nose, but still, he carried her, as he saw Aulay, in the distance, jogging up the courtyard steps into the castle.

Alex maneuvered past the vendors’ carts locked tight as the lay folk congregated around a bonfire upon the competition pitch. The last thing Peigi needed was Kendrew MacGregor catching wind of them together, and it was becoming clear there was a deeper concern. Did she have an illness?

His mind ran rampant with what-ifs, panic. He snuck inside the kitchen doors. The din burgeoned as he bypassed the corridor leading to the feasting, in favor of slipping into the reception. From there, it was only a short jaunt to the stairwell.

“What happened?” Joslyn breathed behind him.

“Collapsed again,” he murmured, turning. “And she will nay eat. Rejects every offer.”

His limbs tremored with helplessness. Sweat from the run rolled down his temples into his beard and despite her meager weight, over half an hour in his arms had settled an ache in his injured shoulder.

Worry churned with thoughts of Samhain mischief and bad omens. This was their third encounter. How was the song sung?

Three times ye have to find your mate or fall unto the curse…

“What if we’re nay fated, but cursed?” He gave voice to the panic.

Christ, could he nay stop shaking?

“Nonsense. Nary a need to be dramatic, lad,” Joslyn murmured, resting a hand to Peigi’s forehead. Jossy, the foremost believer in olden magic, calling curses nonsense? He scoffed— “Take her to her chamber. Fetch my medicinals, lassie.”

Gertie, he realized, lurked behind them.

Gertie scurried away and Joslyn waddled into the great hall, calling above the ruckus of the drinks to the bard.

“Play the one about the ghost of the woman in the tower!” Joslyn joined him by the hearth, drawing the chamber’s attention.

Alex slipped the few paces to the stairwell during their distraction, breezed beneath the archway, up the stairs, passing the tapestries and out onto the first floor, toeing open the lady’s chamber door.

It thudded against the wall as he strode to her bed while Gertie hurried in behind him and closed it.

But instead of laying her out, this time, he settled beside her, holding her to his heart, resting his head upon the pillow.

“Loosen her stays,” Joslyn directed, so calm, entering soon after with an armload of supplies and a water bladder on her arm. Gertie was already rousing a fire. “She’s going to be fine.”

“ Fine

is a bloody curse word, woman,” he fumed.

He was sick of hearing the word “fine.” Peigi wasn’t fine.

Still, he did as he was told and worked her laces loose with shaking hands, eyes trained on her shallow breathing and clammy face as Joslyn unwrapped dried biscuits from the food pack. She dumped dried leaves into a sieve and poured the hot water in the cup.

“How can she be fine one moment and then lightheaded the next?”

Joslyn removed the sieve and soggy leaves. Aromatic chamomile permeated the chamber. She pinched in ginger and stirred. “Gertie love, fetch a bowl of porridge, then find yerself an apple tart in the kitchens. It’s off to bed for ye after that. Take Thomas with ye.”

“Aye, Granny.”

Gertie left as Peigi’s head lolled and the fire began to crackle.

His teeth gritted as he felt Peigi’s forehead, watched her eyelids pinch and her brow furrow.

Jossy fetched a blanket and draped it over Peigi. Still wordless.

Be damned but why didn’t Jossy seem as alarmed as he?

“Ye ken what is ailing her,” Alex said ominously, brokering no argument as he tucked the blanket around Peigi’s neck. Pink was returning to her cheeks. She stirred. “Yet ye keep it from me.”

Jossy still

seemed short on words.

“Jossy.” He swallowed hard, and bit back—yet failed to mask—the waver in his rumble. “Answer me. If ye ken what is ailing her, speak up so I might help her.”

His aunt touched his shoulder as Peigi blinked those doe eyes open.

“Ale…Caleb?” she breathed.

“Thank Christ.” He exhaled, tightening her in his hold, burying her in his grip to hold onto the lass who still

wasn’t truly his.

“Dear lad,” Jossy crooned, like she once had when he’d been wee and scraped a knee. “Go wait outside the door. All will be weel.”

“I’m nay leaving her.” The thought of her dying, the thought of losing her all over again when he’d once lost everything and everyone who mattered, twisted angrily in his chest.

Joslyn squeezed his shoulder. “I must examine her.”

Jaw pumping, Alex forced himself to stand as Peigi looked up at him in confusion. He forced a stilted smile.

She furrowed her brow harder. “What happened? I thought we were on our way to the kirk.”

Jossy’s surprised silence bored into his back.

“Ye collapsed, sweeting,” he gruffed, as he cupped her cheek, doing his damnedest to master his tremor. “Jossy’s here.”

“I-I nay understand,” she said, but he stormed out, drew shut the door, then pressed his forehead to it and closed his eyes.

His jaw pumped. Francine approached and slipped through.

He fought for a glimpse within. But even though Peigi was sitting upright again, sipping her infusion, no relief coursed through him.

Each time she seemed well, she relapsed, until a sob tore from his songbird’s throat.

“But I… There was so much blood. They said I lost everything

.”

He snarled. “ Blood

?”

“Nay, dear lass—”

He blazed back through the door, interrupting Jossy.

Shock propelled his legs despite her scolding glare. What in God’s name had Peigi just said? He’d move a mountain to stanch such a wound that dared to afflict her so—

“The nuns, though well-meaning, were wrong,” Jossy continued. Wrong about what?

He searched Peigi for blood. What blood?

Joslyn’s face peered up at him again even if her words were meant for Peigi. “Ye nay miscarried as the abbess thought.”

Confounded woman! She was smiling now as Peigi sat crisscrossed like that wood nymph he’d once fallen for. In nothing but her chemise, her hand cupped over her mouth to hold back another cry.

Wait… “Nay miscarried

?”

Joslyn shook her head as if to lament confounded man

, but smiled proudly all the same.

Peigi looked down at her stomach and her hand migrated there as…a smile showed through the anguish.

Had her sob been joyous and nay sorrowful?

“What’s happening,” he croaked, kneeling beside Peigi and snagging up one of her hands.

He brought it in his fists to his lips.

“Tell me, woman, for I nay think I can hold me heart in me chest much longer—”

“I carry yer babe,” Peigi whispered, cupping his desperate face, her touch a blessing.

The air in his lungs froze. My babe.

The weight of those words didn’t sink in. They hung in the air.

His eyes locked on hers. Then dropped to her belly. “Ye carry our bairn.”

She nodded. “It’s nay been an easy carriage thus far, but Jossy assures me there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“’Tis strongly rooted.” Jossy beamed. “It’s been nigh three months, and I suspect the worst is nearly over.”

“Morning sickness,” Peigi added, nodding at him as if trying to make him understand. “’Tis why so many foods turned my stomach and I canna eat and thus lose my strength.”

“A foolish name for a sickness when ye’re sick with it night and day,” he grumbled, and she laughed.

“Are ye to be a worrisome husband?”

He’d rooted a babe within her. The back of his nose tingled. His eyes pricked—she’d been to hell these past few months. She’d weathered that horrible storm alone.

“I am weel,” she assured him, biting her lip at his enduring silence. Her gaze bounced away. “Un-unless this displeases ye? I thought that we, that ye—”

He swept her off the bed, fanning her chemise around in his arms as she banded her arms around his neck, before dropping down to his knees and grasping her hips, planting his lips to her belly. Resting his forehead against the figment of a life they’d created, as the hearth popped and crackled.

“I was nay there for ye,” he croaked.

She sifted her fingers into his hair, as his forehead pressed more firmly against her womb, as if to feel it all. He lifted his head and stared up at the woman he wanted to worship for the remainder of his days.

“Can ye ever forgive me?” God, his words so thick. He cleared his throat roughly.

“But can ye nay see,” she smiled, cupping his cheek, “all is forgiven already.”

“I’m going to be a da.” That sparkle, that smile splitting her mouth wide was bright enough to light up the world. “Ye’re going to be fine.”

She giggled and nodded. “I am going to be fine!”

He bounced up and whirled her in his arms again.

“No more carrying cauldrons up the stairs,” he chastened into her neck, though it was laden with lingering concern. “Ye should rest,” he said, not relinquishing her to rest as her feet continued to dangle over the floor.

“Nay, I should eat! Jossy’s already sent a maid to prepare me proper meals until this sickness passes…” Her face dropped.

“Are ye lightheaded again?” he fretted, setting her down and shuffling her back to bed amid her protest. “Are ye dizzy?”

“I’m fine, man.”

“ Fine

.” He harumphed his least favorite word.

“But we must elope. We must be quick.”

That alarm surged again. Conflicted, he knelt and cradled her cheek. What kind of man would he be to charge off into the night with her when she was so frail and yet, she was right, too.

“I nay want ye to suffer another moment like tonight.”

“But ye ken we must. Ye promised.”

Promise… He dare not break his promise. Nodding resolutely, he brought her hand to his lips. Kissed her ring finger fisted in his grip.

“Finish every

bite Jossy brings ye, and then dress warm. We’ll leave after that for Duthil.”

Like hell he would see her on any other man’s arm. Like hell he’d allow another man to rear his bloodline as his own. He thought he heard Jossy murmur something about him playing with fire.

He always had.

Minutes later he roused Thomas in the stables, slipping a coin into his hand. “Ready Faunus for me, quietly, lad,” he murmured. Glancing over his shoulder at patrolling guardsmen, he gazed up at Peigi’s window, shuttered tight, and prayed he wasn’t making a mistake.