Page 57 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

“Maybe I struggled before him, but I have managed,” Alba said, the admission sounding almost angry, her jaw tightening until her teeth ached. “I had this land. The people. I had me freedom.” Her throat tightened slightly, a sudden, hot ache that made it difficult to swallow the damp air. “And now... now every time he walks into a room, I stop thinkin’ properly.”

She remembered the corridor. She remembered the way the stone had felt against her back, cold and unyielding, while everything else had been entirely too hot. She remembered the rough texture of his knuckles against her chin, the gravelly catch in his breath just before his mouth closed over hers, and the terrifying realization that she had not wanted to pull away. She had wanted to pull him closer.

Margaret smiled until her cheeks puckered. It was the exact look she had given Alba when they were fourteen and a young stable hand had left a bunch of wild violets on Alba’s desk.

Alba’s eyes narrowed, and she nearly shoved her cousin into a graying snowbank at the edge of the path. “It’s nae funny.”

“Oh, I ken.” Margaret caught her balance, her fingers wrapping gently around Alba’s forearm to steady them both. “That’s the problem.”

Alba swallowed hard, the cold rain catching on her eyelashes as she stared down at her muddy boots. “I should hate him.”

“Do ye?”

Alba stood there in the dark, the rain soaking through the wool of her hood, because the answer had become terrifyingly complicated.

God help her, she did not hate the memory of his mouth.

Margaret turned her head, her gaze drifting up toward the high, narrow windows of the Castle. Above them, the lights of the Great Hall glowed warmly through the rain, casting long, trembling squares of amber across the wet stone of the courtyard.

“Do ye remember what ye told me the night before I married Fergus?” Margaret asked quietly.

Alba frowned slightly, her mind working through the fog of her own confusion. “Probably somethin’ wise and devastatin’. I was very fond of bein’ devastatin’ in those days.”

Margaret snorted softly, a small, wet sound. “Ye told me that love was dangerous because it gave another person the power to ruin ye.”

Alba remembered. Gods, she remembered. She had sat on the edge of Margaret’s bed while the maids packed the heavy cedar chests, her own hands trembling.

“And?” Alba asked, her voice barely a whisper against the rain.

Margaret smiled faintly into the dark garden, her eyes reflecting the distant, amber light. “Turns out ye were right.”

Alba blinked once in surprise, turning her head to look at her cousin’s profile. Margaret’s hand settled protectively over her stomach again, her fingers stilling against the heavy wool.

“It does give them the power to ruin ye. Every time Fergus rides out to the borders, I feel as though me ribs are bein’ pulled apart. Every time he stays out past dark in a storm, I look at the door until me eyes ache. It is terrifyin’, Alba. It is the most frightenin’ thing I have ever ken.”

She turned, her hazel eyes bright and completely clear as she looked into Alba’s face. “But some people become worth the risk anyway.”

Silence settled gently between them after that. The rain seemed to thin, turning into a fine, silver mist that hung in the torchlight like woodsmoke.

Alba looked back toward the Hall. Through the glass, she could see a broad shadow move past the light; Sebastian, still watching the door, still waiting. For three years, she had been a wall. She had been the stone that kept the wind from her people, the iron that kept the ledger balanced, the cold, bloodless ruler who did not feel because feeling was a luxury the MacLarens could not afford.

But walls did not laugh with six-year-old boys in libraries. Walls did not feel their blood turn to fire at the touch of a man’s wrist.

Margaret watched her for a moment longer, the tenderness in her face shifting back into her usual, wicked amusement as she noted the direction of Alba’s gaze.

“Though for the record,” Margaret added dryly, her shoulder bumping against Alba’s with enough force to rattle the pins in her hair, “if Sebastian MacGregor breaks yer heart, Fergus has already volunteered to bury him somewhere unpleasant. Under the pigsties, most likely. He’s very particular about his spade work.”

Alba laughed despite herself, a sudden, sharp sound that echoed softly through the quiet gardens. The tight, painful knot that had been sitting in her chest since the night before seemed to loosen, just a fraction, letting the cold air reach her lungs.

“He is a very large man, Margaret,” Alba said, her lips curving into a genuine, teasing smile as she looked at her cousin. “Fergus would need a very large spade.”

“He has two,” Margaret replied instantly, her eyes dancing. “And three brothers who dislike the MacGregors on principle. We’ll make a day of it.”

Alba did not answer with words. Instead, she reached out and took Margaret’s hand, her fingers wrapping around her cousin’s small, warm palm. The gesture was simple, but as she squeezed, she felt the last of the rigid, administrative frost inside her begin to give way.

She looked up at the glowing windows of her home—the home she had defended, the home she had feared for, the home that was no longer just a ledger to be kept.

As she stood in the damp garden with her cousin’s hand in hers, she realized she was waiting for a beginning.