Page 31 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

She had been avoiding the corridor near the east staircase all morning.

Not deliberately. Or rather, she had been telling herself it was not intentional, just as she kept telling herself that the quality of her sleep last night—shallow, restless, with her hand pressed flat against the cold stone wall beside the mattress as if testing whether it was still real—had nothing to do with the dim corridor.

It had nothing to do with the heavy press of his forehead against hers. It had nothing to do with the rough, low way his voice had sounded when he said her name.

She was avoiding the east staircase. She knew it. She climbed the west one instead.

The kitchens smelled of thick woodsmoke and bread. The heavy warmth hit her face as she pushed through the thick door. It was exactly what she needed—something immediate, requiring her to be present, useful, and fully focused on something other than what happened the night before.

The MacGregor families had been arriving in staggered clusters for two days now. The women, children, and elderly came behind the soldiers. Slower, quieter.

She had watched them settle into the rooms she had prepared. She observed the children find corners and claim them. She saw the women move through the unfamiliar space of the Great Hall, with their hands pressed close to their sides, maintaining the careful, compressed posture of guests who still did not believe they were allowed to occupy space.

The dinner was her idea. A genuine one, not a strategic move or a counter in the game she’d been playing since the morning he'd first ridden through her gates. Those people had nothing to do with Sebastian’s occupation of her home. She was not going to make them feel the burden of it.

She crossed toward Cook. “We’ll need more bread. And ale. Plenty of it.” She glanced toward the back corridor where the stores were counted. “The families that arrived this morning havenae eaten a proper meal in days. I want the meal tonight to feel like somethin’.”

Cook nodded, already turning toward the fire. “Whatever ye need, me Lady.”

Alba squeezed her arm once, briefly, and turned back toward the doorway.

Sebastian stood with one broad shoulder propped against the heavy oak frame, arms folded tight across his chest. He was perfectly, maddeningly calm. His doublet was unlaced at the collar, exposing the dark hair at his throat. His dark hair still carried the crisp cold of the outdoors. He looked like a man who had been awake since before dawn and found the brutal hours entirely unremarkable.

Must he be everywhere?

“Another hospitality gesture?” he asked.

“Are ye followin’ me?” she said.

He looked at her steadily, ignoring the question. “Is it another hospitality gesture?”

“Of course.” She kept her chin level, her hands easy at her sides. “The families arrived yesterday with almost nothin’. A proper meal and a lit Hall cost me very little and give them somethin’ to hold on to.” She let the pause land between them. “Ye’d understand the instinct if ye tried it occasionally.”

Sebastian nodded once, slow and deliberate. “Good.” His blue eyes stayed fixed on her face. “I had a similar idea.”

“Really? What?”

“Yer maid informed me ye’d give anythin’ necessary to help the people feel welcome.”

Something in the weight of his tone made her stomach tighten. It was not the words themselves. It was the exact, calculated placement ofanything.

“Yes,” she said carefully. “I would.”

He stepped aside from the doorway. Alba looked past his massive frame into the corridor and went dead still.

Wooden crates lined the passage wall, stretching along its length in neat rows. Open crates revealed their contents. She could see the fabrics from here. The deep green of her best wool gown was folded on top. The ivory of the fur-trimmed cloak she kept for feast days lay beneath it. The bronze silk she had been saving was layered underneath. Her cloaks. Her furs. The blue linen with the embroidered hem, which had taken a seamstress three weeks to make, she had worn only once.

Almost every gown she owned. Stacked. Ready.

The fury arrived quickly and intensely. She inhaled it in a calm, steady breath. He was watching her, and she refused to let him see any reaction.

She stood there with the anger burning at the back of her throat, and then she thought of the young mother she'd watched lift a sleeping boy from a cart with shaking arms, the morning the firstcarts came through the Gate. She thought of the older woman who had kept her hands folded in her lap and her eyes fixed on nothing; the little girl who had dropped her doll.

She turned back to Sebastian.

His expression had not changed. It never changed.

“The women who arrived have almost nothin’,” he said. His gaze moved over her in one deliberate sweep. It was unhurried, tracking from her high collar down to the hem of her gown. “Since ye’re plannin’ this grand dinner, I assumed ye’d be glad to help them look presentable.”