Page 7 of Outlaw Ever After (Highland Handfasts #3)

Eyes of deepest greenwood, ’twould be so swift to drown there, swim deeply in them if she could, a smile that dost ensnare…

” she continued singing, rocking, lulling the squirming girl until her tossing gentled and she relaxed on a quivering sigh, the battle slowly leached out of her as she drifted to sleep.

“She kept Seamus and me up half the night. Ye have the magic touch, Peigi.” Elizabeth stroked Beata’s hair gently. “Always so good at making others feel better. Whatever will we do without ye once ye marry?”

“Marry?” Peigi gasped on a whisper so as not to wake the babe.

“Why, as I was saying, another suitor comes to negotiate with Seamus and ye must like the man, to be so intent on yer appearance, which is silly because even if ye wore nothing but rags a man would drop at yer feet to bask in yer beauty.”

Reality cut through her lovestruck bliss. Negotiate? “Who?”

She’d promised to meet a hired sword and scholar today. Whose name she didn’t even know. Without much more than a purse of contest winnings to his name if the worn dullness to his kilt was any indication. Was she making a mistake?

“Sir Kendrew MacGregor, of course.”

Her pulse stuttered. No, it clipped quickly through her veins.

Her eyes darted to Seamus, leaning against their caravan at their campsite entrance.

“Sir MacGregor is a handsome man. And older, which means he’s experienced.

” Elizabeth flashed a coy smile. “Of course he’s waited for ye all these years, too.

Those dark green eyes…and, well, I thought yer song about green eyes,” she stammered at Peigi’s continued confusion, “and, well, he nay smells of garlic or stale ale, nor does he already have a brood of bairns the size of a Roman legion, either…”

Elizabeth referenced Laird Graham. The suitor who’d approached her brother yestereve. Seamus had taken one look at her ashen face and sent Graham on his way.

Seamus was dressed formally: his kilt clinched with a ceremonial badge at his shoulder, boots laced, doublet fastened to the throat, despite the early hour.

Dressed officially. Like for signing betrothal parchments?

“I nay kenned.”

The family ties between their clans went back to her childhood when her aunt and Kendrew MacGregor’s sire had eloped. They’d moved into an abandoned home and all had come to celebrate, until the Comyn laird had confronted them to drive them away—

She closed her eyes and exhaled away the images of that desperate boy with the bright blond hair running to the fray, screaming for his da, so frightened—

MacGregor had been orphaned that day, too, him newly knighted but still a green man of eight and ten years. Their three families intertwined in the losses of their sires.

She shuddered. Willing her heart to ease. Willing herself to accept what she couldn’t change: Seamus’s mind.

A retinue approached the camp. Seamus pushed away from the caravan.

“Seamus,” a man greeted in an even voice.

“Kendrew,” Seamus replied, then turned to gaze at Peigi, before clasping wrists with the man decked in a proud great kilt.

Peigi took not just a few sips, but strong swallows of her wine, urgency lapping at her heels as she passed off the sleeping bairn to Elizabeth and circumvented the fire.

She arrived beside Seamus.

“A pleasure to see ye again, Peigi,” Kendrew said, inclining his head, always informal, for he’d known her since she was a babe.

Hair so dark brown it was sable, clean and combed but hanging free around his shoulders.

A well-trimmed beard. A handsome visage.

A proud brooch sparkling at his shoulder. A calculation always in his eye.

His soap drifted to her nose. It was a plain, scentless soap

smelling of a man who drags bairns behind his mount

, and horse leathers.

Not

a spicy patchouli.

Seamus’s brows furrowed at her anxiousness, but he turned to MacGregor. “A moment, man. Ye ken where the ale is.”

MacGregor inclined his head and sauntered away to collect his drink.

“What ails ye?” Seamus turned to her.

“What is this of more marriage talks?”

“Pegs. I simply wish to hear his terms.” So it was true. MacGregor, like a brother and longtime ally, wished to take her to wife. Her heart panged, thinking of her emerald-eyed warrior who had implied that he’d prefer to pass his time with her and

not

one of the tavern wenches. My God, what would Seamus say? He’d die of apoplexy. Right before riding off to smoke him out of his hole to castrate him.

“He’s asked many times over the years. Did ye ken?”

“What? Even when all I had was no coin and a dower castle embroiled in debt?”

He nodded. “He’s always wanted

ye

. This’s good, aye?”

No, it wasn’t, nor did it make sense. What laird wanted to marry a pedigreed lady who brought no riches to the board? “Please, I wish to have a say in this.”

His expression gentled. “What’s really wrong, Peigi?”

“I just…” She wrung her fingers together, eying MacGregor as he jested with Sir Donegal, Seamus’s first in command. Silly of her to feel such desperation, for her mystery man had made no declarations. “Nay him.”

He took her arms. “Ye’re past yer twentieth year. I finally have some coin for a celebration and the debt is mostly repaid. I want ye wed to someone powerful, and whilst I’m undecided, MacGregor

does

have a royal ear. His brother, Bale, has become an advisor to the Earl of Arran. Ye might remember Bale. He was there…that day—” Seamus’s words cut off. But she knew what he’d meant.

That day

. That name of Laird Bale MacGregor on the flyer who she didn’t actually know. When she’d been wee and her whole world was thrown sideways. “MacGregor carries political clout and will—”

“Warmonger and bring trouble aplenty to my doorstep when his enemies reave upon us.”

She remembered MacGregor’s fiery demands for the outlaw’s—the lad’s—hanging.

The thought of marrying him—as kind as he’d been to her people—twisted her belly with unease.

He, too, was under the illusion that the outlawed boy had murdered their sires.

She couldn’t bear a lifetime trading in her brother’s anger for a husband’s.

Seamus’s hands dropped. She schooled herself and shook away memories of the laddie who’d once haunted her every dream, though now he’d taken only to echoing, an outlaw evermore. If Seamus suspected she was venturing toward that subject again, he’d quash it.

“No decision will be made today. Promise.” Seamus drew her to his chest. “But I wish ye to consider him.”

He kissed her forehead.

“Go and be merry.”

Peigi snagged her lyre, whirling the strap across her chest, and hurried toward the greenwood, away from MacGregor’s silent perusal.

She kicked off her slippers as she cut through the festival, across the contest fields, and vanished into the trees.

Down the deer path, she splashed through a burn, soaking her hem.

Pebbles poked her toes. So early, it was silly that her first thought was to come here when her reluctant warrior with the ink-stained fingers might nay have even broken his fast—

A flute trilled the melody they’d sung the day before: Thars a lass near inverness, sing oh sing ye laddie

…

Green gems locked upon her. The man on her mind, groomed today with doublet fastened and weaponry sheathed about his form, curled his mouth into a grin as he pushed off the rock where he’d been leaning.