Page 37 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

“Sometimes,” she said. The truth slipped out, more honest than she had ever intended.

Brian accepted this with a slow nod, apparently satisfied with the diplomatic answer, and immediately moved back to asking about the naming rights to the horses.

The servant schedule took most of the late morning. She worked through the parchment at the small table in the upper corridor, redistributing duties now that the MacGregor households needed to be incorporated into the castle’s daily rhythm.

Brian sat directly across from her, the wooden sword resting across his knees. He had produced a thick piece of bread from somewhere and ate steadily, watching her write.

She was reassigning the linen duties when he suddenly slid off the bench. He came around to her side of the table, leaning in to look at the parchment over her shoulder.

“That word,” he said, pointing a crumb-dusted finger. “What does it say?”

“Philomena.”

“That’s a long name.”

“It is.”

“Longer than Sebastian.”

“Also true.”

He considered this, filing it away as relevant data, and went back to his bench and his bread without further comment.

They crossed the courtyard together just after midday, cutting toward the kitchen garden where she needed to speak with the groundskeeper about the winter frost beds. The cold had settled in heavily overnight. The cobblestones were glazed with a thin, slick frost that had not lifted despite the pale midday sun.

Brian slipped his hand into hers.

He did not look at her when he did it. He did not announce the gesture or ask for permission. His small, cold fingers simply found hers between one step and the next and wrapped tightly around them. He adjusted his pace to match hers and kept walking.

Alba looked down at his small hand, swallowed by her own.

The wooden sword was tucked securely under his other arm. His dark curls were escaping whatever comb someone had forced through them this morning. There was a small, dark smear of kitchen grease on his left cheek that she had not noticed until now. She would mention it in a moment.

Something in her chest went quiet. It was a sensation she did not have a name for. It was not soft, in a way; perhaps quieter than soft.

She looked up. Sebastian was directly across the courtyard.

He stood with his back to the woodpile, a heavy iron axe resting against one broad shoulder. He was not chopping wood. His linen shirt was damp through at the chest and between his massive shoulders, dark with the cold sweat of hard, punishing physical labor. His sleeves were rolled past his elbows despite the biting frost.

His expression was entirely devoid of the careful, deliberate blankness he wore in the Great Hall or the Study. It was a raw, heavy look—something she could not find a word for and chosenot to analyze. It was an expression that broke through his control before he could put the mask back on.

She remembered the corridor. She thought about the distinct, rough quality of his voice when he had said her name. She remembered waking up this morning, lying perfectly still with her palm flat against the cold stone wall, suddenly realizing in a panic that she only had two days left and had no idea what she would do when the time ran out.

He had kissed her in a dark corridor, and then, this morning, he had been chopping wood, looking angry. He had not sought her out. He had not appeared in a doorway, a kitchen, or a staircase the way he had every other morning for the past few days. She did not know what to do with the sudden ache of his absence.

Insufferable brute.

She turned abruptly, her jaw clenched, and continued walking. She grasped Brian’s hand even tighter, her eyes locked on the wooden kitchen garden gate ahead.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the sharp, violent crack of an axe driven into a splitting block with far more force than the timber needed.

She did not look back. She kept her chin high, Brian’s hand in hers, and her pace exactly where it was.

Chapter Thirteen

The maid went to Alba first.

Sebastian watched it happen from the shadowed doorway of the great hall. The girl crossed the corridor with a question already forming on her face, passing him by without a flicker of hesitation. She continued straight to the Study. Alba’s sharp voice answered before the knock even fully landed.