Page 34 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

She moved on.

The girl appeared next, eight years old, no more, completely swimming in Alba’s russet wool kirtle, the hem dragging the floor in a long curl behind her like a tail. She stopped directly in front of Alba and stared up with round, black eyes.

“Yer dress is too long,” the girl said.

“It is,” Alba agreed. “We’ll fix that tomorrow.”

The girl considered this, apparently weighing whether it was a satisfactory answer. She tugged the hem of the kirtle up experimentally with both fists, studying the result. “I could wear it folded,” she said.

“Ye could.” Alba crouched before her, quickly tucking the excess fabric into the cord at her waist so the hem cleared the floor by a clean inch. “There. Now ye willnae trip and ruin the evening’s entertainment before the fiddle even finishes.”

The girl looked down at the improvement with grave solemnity. Then she looked back up at Alba. “Ye’re very good at dresses.”

“Years of practice,” Alba said.

“Will ye be here tomorrow?”

Something caught in her chest. “I will be here tonight,” she said. She smiled. “That’s enough for now.”

The girl seemed satisfied. She went back to her bread.

Alba straightened. She stood in the center of the hall, listening to the frantic fiddle, feeling the fire hot against her face, and quietly, privately, she let herself love this. The noise of it, the weight of two hundred people and more filling every corner of a Great Hall that had been too quiet for too long.

She did not look for him. She had decided that before she ever came downstairs, and she held the decision firmly.

She moved toward Hamish with the perfectly reasonable pretense of asking about the week’s grain count, spoke with him for three full minutes about entirely practical things, and felt the heat at the back of her neck fail to diminish by a single degree.

She turned toward the kitchen door.

Across the Hall, above the heads of two hundred people, Sebastian MacGregor was watching her.

She had not meant to find him. She had deliberately kept her gazesodeliberatelyelsewhere for two hours that finding him felt less like a choice and more like a collision.

He was not pretending to look elsewhere. He was not engaging his men, or scanning the room, or performing anything at all. He stood near the stone entrance with his horn cup loose in one large hand and his full, unhurried attention on her.

He crossed toward her before she could decide whether to let him. The crowd parted for him without seeming to notice it was doing so.

"Ye've been on yer feet since dawn," he said, stopping close enough that she had to tip her chin to hold his gaze. "Ye havenae eaten."

"I will eat when I have a moment to spare."

"Ye willnae. Ye never do." He looked down at her steadily. "I had Cook set a plate aside. It's gettin' cold waitin' on yer pride."

She opened her mouth to argue on principle, found she had no actual argument, and closed it again. "That is…" She stopped. "Thank ye."

"Aye." He did not move away. Something in his expression, low and banked, held there a beat too long for the middle of a crowded hall.

The fiddle screeched on. The Hall roared. All of it continued to move entirely around them.

Alba held his gaze for one long, ragged breath.

Then she turned, walked straight through the kitchen door, and let the heavy timber close behind her.

The cold of the stone passage pressed hard against her flushed face. Through the door, the muffled roar of the Hall sounded like a distant storm.

She looked down. Her hands were entirely steady.

Her heart was violently slamming against her ribs.