Page 101 of Outlaw Ever After

“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.

Joslyn nodded sagely, her hand cupping Peigi’s to still them. “And I ken ye’ve felt the worst of that, sweet lass. Women and bairns feel the brunt of battles, aye, but nay forget, those bairns are nay just lassies.” Joslyn lifted a toy knight from the windowsill where a row of wooden horses with pull cords and wheels and an intricately crafted castle sat untouched, yet cared for. “Those warriors were once laddies, and what example did they have? How would they have survived if nay by learning their sires’ games of power or being burned in their fires? The wheel turns round and round unless someone knocks a spoke out.”

Peigi looked at the book in hand. Opened the unmarked cover and again that strange pang yanked upon her heart. She sat on the floor, crisscrossing her legs and toeing off her slippers.

“What was he like?”

Joslyn quieted and replaced the figurine. “Who?”

Peigi held up the book. A children’s reader. On the inside cover was a rudimentary picture scrawled in charcoal of a horse and a tree. Had it been the boy who’d drawn it? “The lad who once lived in Sir Alexander’s chamber?”

She didn’t miss Joslyn’s gasp.

“We nay like to talk about that time, mi lady. Considering it was yers and Sir MacGregor’s faithers who wrought it upon us, we might wish to let that sleeping dragon lie.”

“I’m sorry to offend.” Peigi slipped the book back on the shelf, not meeting Joslyn’s eye. How could she tell these people that she hated what her sire had done? “I met him once—” She bit her lip.

Joslyn frowned. “Who?”

“The Comyn lad.”

“ When ?”

“Long ago when my sire died. I was only nine.”

Joslyn stilled.

“I was worried for him.” Peigi laughed wryly, for it had been childish to think her wee blessing would have protected him. “I made him a Samhain blessing.”

“A blessing?” Joslyn inhaled.

“I’m sure it was silly, for I was wee, but my mither always said I had the gift of Sight, even if it wasna cultivated, and so when I felt the urge to make a blessing, I did so.”

“This blessing ye made?”

“A bairn’s whimsy—”

“Nay, what was it?”

Joslyn was wide-eyed and serious.

“Hawthorn. And clover. And a forget-me-not because I wanted him to always remember that there was one Grant who knew the truth. I-I kissed him, though I think I stunned him more than anything.” She shook her head. “Then I left the window open so he might escape.”

“Why’d ye help him, when all believed he murdered yer sire?”

“Because I was witness to the crime. The lad didna do it. But naybody would listen to me.”