Page 14 of Outlaw Ever After

Fok, he’d offended— He scoured his chin.

She whirled over her shoulder before vanishing around a bend, fingers curling around a tree for leverage as her hair splashed around her, and those chestnut gems met his eyes.

“Bring yer lyre.” He jutted up his chin, as if she’d agreed to return, but an anchor dropped in his gut that he’d just dashed it all.

…

Second day of Lughnasadh

“ Eyes of deepest greenwood, ’twould be so swift to drown there… ” Peigi hummed. Stroked her comb through her hair by the fire so her rosewater would dry.

“Ye’re humming.” Lady Elizabeth, her sister-in-law, came to sit beside her and bounced her babe, Peigi’s niece, on her lap.

“I always hum when I’m happy.”

“Ye’re singing a new song.” Elizabeth sighed. “And this lassie refuses to nap.”

“Merely a tune that came to me yestereve.”

Emerald eyes. A man who said he didn’t want to lose her. Somehow, he’d deciphered one of her secret pains, and had only treated her as if he beheld a treasure, not damaged goods.

“Ye’re going to great pains to look fetching.” Elizabeth settled a floral crown atop her head.

The babe grabbed Elizabeth’s snood, tangling her fingers in the netting and yanking. Peigi looked to the early morning sky, the stark light washing out the peaks of the Cairngorms.

Elizabeth suppressed a smile, disentangled the child’s fingers from her hair. “Ye bathed.”

“I needed it after yesterday’s heat.”

“With yer rosewater again.”

“I often do so.” Peigi laughed.

Her mystery warrior with the flute, ink-stained fingertips, and hope for his new future had liked her scent. She’d heard him inhaling her aura. For the first time, she didn’t want to be invisible. Not to him . She wanted to be bonny.

Elizabeth smirked. “Nay when we travel and nay have the amenities of home. I’ve never seen such a dreamy side to ye, for as ye combed yer hair, ye looked positively smitten.”

Just the thought of her warrior’s teasing sent a shiver though her. His easy laugh. His taunting, as if she were a novelty he needed to unravel. His self-deprecating self-disappointment, gilded as a devil-may-care nonchalance. His unabashed awe at her voice. That he seemed unbothered by her past. His admission about his sire.

“ And ye’re crafting a new song. Ye only do that when ye’re inspired.”

“I am inspired,” Peigi relented to her excitement. “I’m with my family at a festival. I’ve just seen my sister Aileana for the first time in months.”

“Posh.” Elizabeth leaned in and lowered her voice so Seamus wouldn’t hear, even as wee Beata squirmed and flopped her body in hopes of slipping off Elizabeth’s lap to crawl away. “Ye were singing about a fellow.”

Peigi shook her head, but the corner of her mouth wouldn’t stay down as her smile grew.

“I kenned it! Who is he?” Elizabeth teased. “Ah… That’s why ye go to pains right now.”

“Whatever are ye havering about?” Peigi tsked.

“Why, he comes to visit Seamus— ouch .”

Beata had Elizabeth’s earring in her fist, pulling.

“Come here, wee urchin,” Peigi said, setting aside her comb and taking the infant. “And give yer poor mither a moment’s rest. 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?”