Page 49 of Outlaw Ever After

“What, exactly, should I call ye?” she said. “Is Alexander a lie?”

He smirked. “Alexander Stewart is my formal name. Ye, of all folk, should understand having more than one name. Peigi .” Her argument died on her lips. “And I’d be most pleased to win this tourney,” he added.

He would? How dare he be so cavalier? He’d entered this tourney on a whim, only wanting her when the prize of a castle and lands had finally made her worth it.

“I fail to see why ye’d be pleased, as it seems ye nay wanted to be saddled with me in the first place,” she whispered.

“Anyone who thinks ye’re shy has nay yet learned how stubborn ye can be.” That pleat deepened with perplexity as his eyes flashed to Jossy, who ignored him. He postured over her, folding his arms so that his biceps bulged bigger. “Ye’d rather sell yerself to the highest bidder?” he gnashed out. “Laird Graham , perchance, and his pantries of garlic and prolific family jewels?”

“It’s yer fault I’m in this predicament,” she snapped back, and the blow finally landed its mark.

He winced.

Hurt wobbled her lips, but she mastered them. Felt his gaze boring into the tremble as if he had a right to care that she was upset. A lady shouldn’t ever cry over a man and already she’d done that far too many times.

Then his emeralds shuttered and narrowed murderously. “I recall ye enjoying this predicament as enthusiastically as me. I recall giving ye all the power to walk away.”

She sucked in at the barb, cheeks burning red. She palmed the embarrassment. God, she had, and she chewed her lip with shame. She couldn’t blame him entirely. He hadn’t forced her. She’d wanted him, ready to give him the world of her own accord. Because I trusted him.

Still, he softened apologetically at the sight of her shame. He took her arms as Joslyn hurried the children out of the chamber—the fire crackling into the silence.

“Why’d ye nay tell me who ye were, songbird? The Grant’s wee sister?”

God, that nickname. How she’d missed the endearment, and the mist in her eyes finally won as her words came out thick and soft.

“Because I wanted ye to love me for me , nay because I’m sister to an earl—”

She cut off the plea. Whirled away from his touch and began to busy herself with a spool of catgut, a needle, clay jar after clay jar that she maneuvered about the sideboard pointlessly, if only to keep her trembling hands busy.

She gestured around her. “Nay for all of this. I waited, and waited, and waited for ye as the sun moved across the sky and finally sank, and every clan left the faire until it was empty and all were gone and…”

Hands took her shoulders. Turned her, but her normally tempered tongue wouldn’t cease.

“Ye once said ye wanted a simple life. Ye once spoke of yer cottage on a shore”—his eyes softened with that pain she’d seen in the hall, but her lip was wobbling again and blast it, she couldn’t steady it—“and why was I nay good enough by myself? Why did ye nay want to keep me? String me along with yer promises to come when ye were intent on leaving instead, nay laying down yer sword? Why—”

“I came for ye, songbird,” he croaked. He gripped her cheeks. Brushed a thumb across her brow to smooth her concern so that calluses once more snagged her skin.

He’d what? Foolish hope burgeoned in her chest. She stamped it down. “I was there and ye nay came—”

He shook his head, frustrated. “My missive. How could ye nay have found it?”

“Another missive?” Should she laugh or cry at his lie? “Ye fooled me with yer broken promises”—his eyes cut down to her fingers—“but now ye lie about giving me another missive?”

“Nay. About my summons.”

“Lies . When the only thing I ever asked of ye was yer honesty. Ye told me to meet ye on the last day of the faire—”

“And then I was summoned to the Earl of Arran, lass. How does one turn that down? For the position that let me lay down my sword so I could provide for us. I left ye a missive asking ye to wait a wee bit more. I asked Lady Rose to be amenable and offer ye a chamber until then. It was all right there, in the missive. I raced like hell back to Kilravock, but she’d nay seen any woman named Margaret. But I was certain there was something wrong when I found this .”

His face darkened with irritation as he held up her lyre, strings snapped, frame scraped from the scuffle below stairs. “How do ye explain me finding yer most beloved possession in that greenwood?”

Sakes, the frustration contorting his battered brow was almost convincing—Nay, he’s a playactor, always dazzling his audience .

Wearily, he dropped the instrument to his side and muttered, glancing askance at her. “High and bloody low, I scoured every book for every Margaret in Scotland. Visited every stronghold. Searched and searched because I couldna believe everything ye’d felt for me had been a lie, that ye couldna wait for me for one extra sennight or that mayhap ye’d wanted someone with a title after all…”

He raked a hand through his knotted hair again, finally ripping it loose, and paced away as locks fell about his face, flinging the lyre onto the bed like an afterthought.

“And ye were planning yer marriage to a wealthy laird all long…”