Page 82 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

Alba watched them both—Margaret still fussing over Fergus’s split knuckles now, wrapping them in linen with hands that trembled only slightly, Isobel guiding Alasdair firmly toward the nearest bench despite his protests—and felt a sense of relief in her chest for the first time since Kerr’s men had dragged her from the clearing hours earlier.

Then she caught Isobel’s eye across the yard, and the older woman’s gaze shifted, purposeful and knowing, from Alba’s face to Sebastian standing just behind her shoulder, mud-caked, blood-streaked and completely unfazed by either.

Alba felt heat climb up her neck despite the cold morning air.

“Well,” she announced, turning to face the gathered women before anyone could comment further, forcing brisk cheer into her voice the way she had once forced steel into it before a Council meeting she had not wanted to attend. “I suppose ye’ll all need new gowns now.”

Margaret’s head came up so fast. “New gowns? Whatever for?”

“A weddin’, apparently.” Alba tilted her head toward Sebastian, who had the decency to look faintly startled that she had announced it before he had had the chance to do so himself. “At the MacLaren’s.”

“MacGregor’s,” Sebastian corrected firmly, stepping up beside her with mud still drying along one shoulder of his torn cloak.

“We’ll see about that.”

“There is nothin’ to see about it. It’s me name she’ll be takin’, and besides me Hall has the better hearth for a proper feast.”

“Yer Hall smells permanently of wet dog and old smoke. Mine has a hearth large enough to roast a full ox and a Hall that doesnae flood every spring.”

“It floods once a decade, and only the West Corridor.”

“Once a decade is once too often for a weddin’ feast, MacGregor.”

Margaret let out a delighted, watery laugh that had nothing left of the fear in it from moments before. “A weddin’! Oh, Alba,” She pressed both hands to her mouth, eyes bright, already halfway to some private calculation of guest lists and flowers despite the mud and blood still drying on every person in the courtyard around her. “At the MacLaren’s, at the MacGregor’s, I care nae which Hall, only that it happens soon, and that I have proper warnin’ to have somethin’ decent made to wear.”

“It will happen,” Sebastian said, “the moment I can drag her in front of a priest before she changes her mind.”

“I have nae changed me mind in me life,” Alba said. “I simply enjoy watchin’ ye argue with me over hearths and floors and whose Hall smells worse.”

“I have noticed. It’s become somethin’ of a habit for ye.”

“Only because ye make it so easy.”

Isobel, still standing beside Alasdair while the healer worked at his cheek, shook her head slowly, though the small smile she wore gave away exactly how little she minded the delay in seeing to anyone’s wounds properly. “The whole Clan will hear of this by midday, mark me.”

“The whole Clan,” Fergus said, finally releasing Margaret’s hand long enough to clap a heavy palm against Sebastian’s shoulder. “They already heard of it the moment ye rode into that clearin’ alone for her, MacGregor. The weddin’ is merely the part wherethe rest of us get fed properly for once, instead of standin’ about in the rain.”

“There’s always somethin’ in it for ye, Fergus.”

“Aye. Usually food. Sometimes wine. Tonight I will settle for both, and gladly.”

Sebastian’s arm slid around Alba’s waist, settling there with the growing familiarity of recent days. It was as natural as breathing, as if her body had always belonged pressed against his side and he had only now realized it.

Alba leaned into it, mud, blood, exhaustion, and all, and realized with a clarity that owed nothing to the gray dawn spilling slowly over the courtyard walls that she had everything she had ever needed, wrapped completely and finally in his arms.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The handfasting took place beneath clear skies three weeks later. That day brought with it the first proper stretch of sun the glen had seen since the rains that had nearly cost Alba everything.

The Castle overflowed with banners in both MacLaren blue and MacGregor green, strung along the courtyard walls in a compromise neither had fully agreed to, but both had somehow ended up pleased with.

Music drifted from every corner. Pipes near the Gate, a fiddle somewhere by the kitchens, a boy with a drum who kept losing the rhythm and starting over with unshaken confidence.

Alba stood just inside the Keep’s entrance a while longer than she needed to, taking in the scene through the open doors before stepping out. The crowd, the color, the sheer scale of a day she had once assumed would never come for her twice in one lifetime.

Philomena adjusted the fall of her gown one final time, tugging a stray curl back into place with fingers gone soft despite herself.

“Ye look a proper Lady,” Philomena said, “for once nae covered in mud or blood.”