Page 18 of Outlaw Ever After

“Ye spinster , ye.”

She lifted her eyes heavenward, unable to stop shaking her head, another smile fighting for freedom even though she tried to suppress it. Tried to sidestep him—

“Nay move a muscle whilst I fetch yer cane.” He jumped into step with her and offered his elbow. “Would hate for ye to break a hip.”

The laugh she’d been wrestling burst from her throat as she slapped his arm—

He snagged the offending hand, wedging it into the bend of his elbow as they walked.

“Ye strike me? I should see ye punished then,” he taunted.

“And what is my sentence?” He filled her senses with his towering height and herbal patchouli. Sharp and alluring. Like him.

“A lawyer worth his salt wouldst demand the harshest punishment.” He nodded with faux thoughtfulness, his eyes glittering with mischief. “A song from yer sweet lips. Though ’tis nay such a punishment for me.”

“’Twould be if I sing off-pitch and clash my strings.”

He shuddered. “A horror that would kill a man.”

“Sakes, ye’re insufferable!”

He shifted behind her, his chest brushing against her back as his hands settled on each shoulder. She chewed her lip as he leaned around to her other ear. His beard rustling against her tresses. His breath tickled the shell of her ear, raising gooseflesh up her arms.

“I’m just getting started, songbird,” he whispered like a secret, then finished his revolution around her, moving down trail again. “Come.”

“To where?”

He backed up with a cocksure swagger as he clutched his heart, as if about to deliver a soliloquy to his patrons of the arts. “Indulge me.”

At this, he captured her hand and dashed her to the edge of the glen. They jogged along the tree line following the meandering river. Trailblazed through the trees, hopping over roots as she cleared her skirts from her feet.

The path spit them out beyond the tavern tent, where the horses were corralled, and he whistled. “Faunus!”

A leathery Friesian with a crimped mane floating around his face popped his head up.

Faunus? He was a rogue indeed to name his mount after a god of fertility who was known for adoring the nymphs.

He leapt onto the stallion bareback. Then he leaned down, offering his arm, waiting for her to come to him like he had yesterday, and sakes, she was letting him hoist her up, her skirts fanning about them. Patchouli and Highland heather drifted to her nose as she cinched her arms about his girth, that chilling scythe transecting his back between them. His belly tightened beneath her touch. She pressed herself against his back, against the shaft of his scythe, his heat foreign, yet comforting.

Why do I trust this ruffian with a blackguard’s twinkle in his eyes?

What was it about the way he’d basked in her song and admitted what it meant to him that sent shivers of a knowing through her blood?

Songbird. That’s why. The moniker resonated deeply in the heart of the lassie she’d once been.

Had that laddie, from so long ago, survived? Died? The shiver intensified.

He steered Faunus toward the countryside as she tucked her slippers against her stomach. Tapped his heels into the belly of the beast, who took off at a trot. Then a canter!

She gripped him tightly! So high from the ground as they jostled and her lyre banged her side. Goodness, was Faunus seventeen hands? Eighteen ? And she was letting him spirit her away? To where?

This was madness. But with him , she wasn’t flinching.

…

Over the edge of the glen they went, her arms tightening around him with such trust. He glanced back at her, her tresses tangling on the wind, glossy in the sunshine, her floral wreath bouncing loose upon her head, ready to fling off. But the brightness in those chestnut eyes, the wide smile on those plush lips, urged him onward.

Down the hill they cantered, Faunus responding to his nudges. Wind whipped the beads dangling from his beard. Faunus’s mane flapped in his face as they breezed over the pink blooms of corncockles, lavender heather, and pillowy blue daisies.