Page 73 of Outlaw Ever After

The basket was slipping again as she readjusted it. He caught her hand in his to help resecure it when his thumb brushed over her bare ring finger.

His eyes trained on it. “Why ?” he breathed, though she wasn’t sure what he was asking, when he changed course. “Are they unkind?” he asked instead.

“I hear their whispers, the hatred they harbor for me. They look at me and see an enemy. And I… I blame them nay. But I nay want them to feel resentment when they look at me, for I ken they’ve suffered. I ken their pain as my own.”

His eyes flashed over her shoulder as he continued to caress her finger. Sakes, the kitchen workers could hear this. She bit her tongue.

“Then ye must show them who ye really are.”

Her brow furrowed. He was still looking at them .

“Yer promise ring—” That same flash of hurt, quickly banked by impassiveness, flitted across his face. “Ye nay longer wear it.”

“The promise was broken,” she whispered, gazing up at his face contorted in pain he wasn’t speaking, haloed in sunlight. “I couldna bear the weight of it…”

He squinted into the distance and bit out tightly, “Did ye cast it off or save it?”

She reached into her pocket and unfurled her fingers to him. Upon her palm lay his ring.

Visible relief relaxed his face. She placed it in his hand. He took it between his thumb and finger, dwarfing it in his hold.

Her throat ached to part with the ring. How many times had she held it at the abbey, as tears had purified her cheeks but had failed to heal her heart?

Jaw pumping, swallowing hard, he pushed off the doorway.

“Come, ye have bread to deliver.”

“I have been schooled that only the Lady Comyn can do such things.”

His eyes met hers. Bounced away, but he took her basket and jerked it down. He lifted her left hand, inspecting her nails, then slipped the ring over her knuckle.

Static zapped! Buzzing shot through her blood, that spark like the touching of metal, like secrets whispering through the sidh . Sakes, she always felt this from him when their touch made a full circle!

Her throat tightened shut. The kitchen maids gasped.

Alex said nothing as he hoisted up her basket and whisked her through the herb garden.

She balked.

“Ye canna just come with me, Alex,” she argued, even though her fingers tightened around his grip, the burn of the ring resonating up her arm to her heart.

“I hate to tell ye, lass, but I can do a great many things.” He tugged her forward a step. “’Tis half a league to the hamlet by road. Yer arms will tire.”

She shook her head, drawing him to a halt again as she laced her fingers with his. “But my brother’s men would take issue with ye walking unchaperoned with me.”

“As yer brother, I’d take issue with ye walking unchaperoned . If I were a brother worth a damn, that is.”

Then he flicked a finger at someone behind them. “Yer shawl, Francine?”

He knew the maid by name? The woman had seemed overly friendly with him, and Peigi had assumed the lass flirted. That ache pitted harder for the three months he’d roamed free. Had he come to know Francine more closely yestereve when he’d been angry with her ?

A knife clattered to a worktable. Skirts rustled out the door into the herb garden.

Francine pattered up beside her, handing Alex her tartan shawl. Comyn tartan.

“Mi laird-eh,” Francine breathed, bobbing a curtsy, gaze trained hard upon her feet.

My laird? Peigi’s eyes flew up to see him nodding thanks to the maid with a fond smile.