Page 9 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

“We need a plan,” Alba said, swinging her legs out of bed.

Philomena immediately turned away from the window, one of the traits Alba valued most about her maid. She was quick, sharp, and fiercely loyal. “What kind of plan?”

“The kind that will give us our home back.” Alba reached for the water basin and splashed freezing water over her face, the sudden cold sharpening her focus. “He’s given me seven days todecide. Marriage or leave.” She dried her hands on a rough cloth and looked Philomena directly in the eye. “I intend to use all seven.”

Philomena’s eyes narrowed. “What do we do first?”

“First,” Alba said, reaching for the green wool of her dress, “we get through breakfast without me committin’ a crime.”

She managed that. Barely.

The Great Hall was thick with the smell of woodsmoke and unfamiliar cooking, which was disorienting enough on its own. But it was the layout of the long oak tables that made her freeze in the arched doorway. Her tables, shifted two full feet to the left to make room for a rough planning board one of the MacGregor men had leaned against the far wall, covered in hand-drawn strategic maps and route markings in charcoal.HerHall.Hertables. Someone else’s bloody war.

She stood stiffly in the kitchen doorway, holding a wooden cup of cold porridge, swallowing her pride, and told herself this was a strategic retreat, not a defeat.

She was still telling herself that when she entered the stone corridor a few minutes later and saw four large MacGregor guards carrying heavy crates straight through her home.

“Whatexactly,” she said, her voice coming out with the dangerous, quiet softness that Philomena had once described as the calm before a landslide, “do ye think ye’re doin’?”

The men stopped instantly. One of them blinked at her. Before any of them could awkwardly answer, Sebastian’s veteran man-at-arms stepped forward from the rear of the procession.

Hamish.

She had learned his name already, the one with the graying hair at his temples and the watchful, calculating eyes that missed considerably less than they appeared to.

“Movin’ the remainin’ supplies inside, me Lady,” he said. Pleasantly. Which was somehow infinitely worse than a sneer.

“Intomekitchens.”

“Into theLaird’skitchens, aye.”

The words landed with the specific, lethal precision of a blade finding the narrow gap in an armor. Notthekitchens. Not evenourkitchens.

The Laird’s kitchens.

As though the permanent transfer of ownership was already complete, already settled, already a thing so blindingly obvious it required no further discussion.

Alba looked hard at the crates. Then at Hamish. Then, at the familiar corridor that led toherkitchen, inherCastle, on land that borehername by ancient Highland law, a signed contract and three grueling years ofherown blood and exhaustion.

“Move them to the south storeroom,” she ordered firmly. “The kitchens are for food preparation, nae storage. If ye stack supplies in there, ye block the hearth and the cook cannae manage the fires properly. Ye’ll have cold meals and spoiled stores before December.”

Hamish looked at her for a long moment. Something shifted significantly in his weathered expression, not quite reassessment, but very adjacent to it. “Aye, me Lady,” he said, dipping his head.

The men turned on their heels, shifting the heavy crates toward the south storeroom. Alba walked on before anyone could see the small, grim satisfaction dancing on her face.

She sensed him before she even saw him. She detected the crisp outdoors—cold winter air, fresh sawdust, and the unmistakable, masculine atmosphere that seemed to follow Sebastian MacGregor naturally.

She pushed through the heavy kitchen door into the open courtyard, and there he was, as if he had always belonged there,as if the castle had been intentionally built around him rather than violently taken over by him.

He stood near one of the ancient oaks along the southern wall with his linen shirt sleeves rolled up to his broad elbows despite the biting cold, bent over a rough trestle table someone had dragged outside, studying maps with one of his captains.

The repairs to the outer wall were already aggressively underway behind him. Wooden scaffolding was going up, stones were being mortared, and two men on high ladders were working on the massive gap near the East Tower that Alba had been petitioning the stubborn Clan Council to address for the better part of a year without any result.

Now, the stone was being laid right before her eyes.

A sharp, traitorous prickle of relief bloomed in her chest, and she crushed it instantly.

Her jaw locked so tightly it ached. She forced her gaze away from the workers, refusing to let her eyes linger on the repair, refusing to give him the satisfaction of noticing. If he thought a few loads of mortar and some timber could earn her gratitude for invading her home, he was even more of a fool than she believed.