Page 61 of Outlaw Ever After

“Nay, Alex, he—” At Joslyn’s lift of the brow at her familiarity again revealed, Peigi’s words caught in her throat.

“Is that the lyre the rogue brought with him last night?” Aileana whispered, and Elizabeth nodded beside her.

“But how could he have repaired it?” Let alone return it without her even feeling it.

“The laird of the castle—the Comyn laird,” Joslyn corrected herself, “had many a tool, for he made his wife any instrument she desired. Mayhap the newcomer found a means to repair it?”

“Barred in his chamber?”

She could play almost any instrument… My da crafted her any instrument she desired…

Hmm. A strange memory to suddenly have. But she also remembered a man at an instrument vendor, who’d easily known what to do with every instrument there.

“Ye’d better take yer seat,” Aileana leaned in and whispered. “Nay think for one moment I’ve forgotten how ye reacted to him last night, and now, to learn ye wrote a song about him? I’ll figure out what’s passing betwixt the two of ye…”

“She kenned him at Lughnasadh,” Elizabeth murmured, ever helpful .

Peigi strained a smile and nodded goodbye to her busybody sisters, but felt the rogue’s emerald gaze—in his nondescript kilt, his strawberry blond hair tied back in its knot, his beard adorned with bone beads she’d once toyed idly with like dice—follow her up the dais steps where she’d sit like some princess on a pedestal.

Aulay removed the lid from a bowl of names and held them forth as she swept her skirts aside and sat. She reached in and selected a cutlet. A hush settled over the crowd to hear whose name would be called.

She unfolded the parchment. “Sir, eh…”

She faltered as she read the name. Felt humor, of all things, warm her lips. Sir Alexander . He’d been cheeky writing “Sir” in such superfluous script.

“Are ye all right, mi lady?” Aulay asked.

She smiled politely, nodded, and handed him the parchment.

Aulay took it, his mouth quirking at the corner. He jogged down the steps, lifting his horn to his lips.

“Sir Alexander Stewart!”

Chapter Nineteen

A roar of cheers from the local villagers and castle workers—and groans of disappointment from the other contestants—echoed.

“Come forth, Sir Alexander, and choose yer opponent for the Burning Stick!”

Alex stepped forth and took a flourishing bow.

“I demand to read the other cutlets!” Kendrew MacGregor erupted. “Someone could be showing favoritism by filling the pot with the blackguard’s name!”

“Here, here!” Laird Graham concurred, rallying other contestants to agree.

Seamus stood from where he sat with the other nobles, the bastard, thinking to waylay him and cause him to earn a loss for missing this event. “I put the names in myself. All is fair!”

MacGregor stood down like a good wee lap dog, though the other contestants continued to shout suspicions.

“How can we take yer word?” Laird Gordon called.

“Because I strive to always be fair!” Seamus argued.

Fair? Alex snorted. Where had that fairness been when that strap had lashed his back so long ago? As he’d been dragged like a carcass behind a horse? When Richard MacGregor and his Grant bride had tried to steal his mither’s family cottage?

The arguing continued.

Seamus strode forth and ducked beneath the bunting. He took each parchment out of the bowl and unfolded it, holding them up for all to see. “A different name on each one! He won the chance fairly!” He glared at Alex now, as if he wished he hadn’t. “No name has been repeated!”