Page 53 of Outlaw Ever After

Seamus’s face softened once more, like it had in the great hall when she’d flinched from him. Seamus scoured his face, a parchment balled in his fist.

Peigi slipped out from behind him. Taking her tongs to his eye, she pried free the engorged leeches and placed them back in her jar while his gaze remained locked with Seamus’s. His swelling was much reduced, he realized, thanks to her measured skill. He could see out of both of them again.

Silently, she collected her medicinals, picked up a garment, and slipped around them both and out the door, the dog plodding at her heels. Alexander exhaled furiously, paced a step, then sheathed his blades.

“What is it ye truly want?” seethed Seamus.

Alex arched a brow, ignoring Joslyn’s burning curiosity. “Is this a trick question? The bride prize.” He gestured to where Peigi had just disappeared.

A rebuttal was forming on Seamus’s lips but Alexander cut him off.

“Nay, man. Nay dangle a feast in front of the wolves of the world and then tell them they canna eat. Ye came to my chamber. What do ye want?”

Seamus gnashed his rebuttal into submission, gazed pointedly at Joslyn, nodding toward the door, until she curtsied and departed. He handed Alexander the parchment: The contract Alex had seen other men signing in the hall.

“Yer signature. To officiate yer participation.”

“Wish me to sign it in blood, do ye?” He eyed Seamus’s empty hands and feigned looking around. “Ye’ll have to draw more of it, though it seems ye have a particular skill.”

“Subdue yer cheek, man, and cut the shite.” Seamus took stock of his rib slitters, sgian dubh, bollock dagger, dirk…

Alex shrugged his shoulder as Seamus continued.

“A royal parchment pusher should have no trouble producing a quill and inkwell of his own.”

Alex harrumphed. “Wish to see if I am who I say I am?”

He sauntered backward a few steps, his eyes trained on his adversary, then turned to his packs. Seamus was scrutinizing his every move, every possession, as he flipped open his satchel.

He withdrew a polished maple case, clinked the air with it as if toasting Seamus’s goblet, who huffed and folded his arms.

He removed his inkwell and lifted his quill reverently, making a point to smooth the pheasant barbs and vanes, shaped into a brown and green striated plume, a gift Uncle Niall had given to him when he’d started his studies.

He carried the instrument and the parchment to the dressing table.

Seamus followed like a roll of thunder at his back.

He read over the document. Simple enough. Four contests: The Burning Sticks, a local tradition. The Wild Hunt, another local Samhain tradition. Wrestling. And the Melee, a fight of choice weapons until first blood was drawn.

All local traditions? He’d played them time and again as a lad, and memories shivered through him.

“Interesting selection of games.”

“My sister chose them from traditions these folk adhere to, to build affection with them,” Seamus said. “They’ve been hesitant to like her.”

“Can nay imagine why with a brother like ye,” Alexander murmured blandly.

Yet a faint smile shimmered over Alex’s lips. Sweet lass, thinking about others, even when they’d abandoned her to haul a cauldron up three sets of stairs out of spite. Even when she’d been a wee bairn, endangering them both to help him. Nay shy indeed. Just content in the shadows.

He uncorked the well. Dabbed his pen into the ink and hovered over the page as he read the smaller print.

Two losses meant disqualification. Two wins meant continuing to the third round which would end in a takedown. No weapons except for the melee. No attempts to kill. Contestants assumed their own risk and assumed possibility of injury, etc., etc.…

He touched his quill to the page as he skimmed the final line.

The prize: a handfast to the Lady Peigi, née Margaret Grant, Freuchie Castle, lands, estates, commodities, waterways, castle folk, the sum of contest entry fees, and outstanding finances—

“Finances?” His pen froze and blotched the page.