Page 92 of Wanted By the Wicked Highlander

“Somethin’ like that,” Sebastian said. “Though the number tends to grow a bit larger every time Fergus tells the story.”

“It was six last I heard it,” Alba said, arching a brow at Fergus. “Last month it was seven.”

“The story improves with age,” Fergus said, entirely unrepentant, and the whole table dissolved into easy laughter, Lily included, even though she had not the faintest idea what any of it meant.

Sebastian squeezed Alba’s hand once beneath the table and did not let go. Then he felt her fingers tighten around his.

He glanced over. She was not eating. She’d barely touched the food on her plate all evening. He realized now that there was something in the set of her jaw that had not been there an hour ago, something that looked less like the usual sharpness she wore and more like a woman working up the nerve to say something she had been holding onto.

“Ye’ve gone quiet,” he observed, his voice low enough to not carry past the two of them.

“I have been thinkin’ how to say somethin’.”

“That’s never stopped ye before.”

“This is different.” She turned to look at him fully now, and whatever nerves had been building behind her eyes gave way to something steadier, something that made his own chest go tight before she’d said a single word more. “I am carryin’ yer child, Sebastian.”

For a moment, the noise of the Hall dropped away, the whole world narrowing down to her face, the words she’d just uttered and the sheer, staggering weight of them.

“Say that again,” he managed.

“I am with child.” Her mouth curved, uncertain and hopeful at once. “I have suspected for a fortnight. The healer confirmed it this mornin’, before the council.”

“Ye kent this mornin’ and said nothin’?”

“I wanted the right moment.”

“This is the right moment.” He was already on his feet, his chair scraping loudly against the stone floor, drawing more than a few curious glances from further down the table.

He did not care. He caught her hand and pulled her up beside him, right there in front of the whole Hall, and found he could not have kept the words in even if he’d wanted to.

“I am goin’ to be a father,” he announced, voice carrying clean across the sudden hush that had fallen over the room. “Alba’s carryin’ me child.”

The Hall erupted.

Fergus was on his feet with a roar, almost as fast as Sebastian had been, his words obliterated by the surrounding clamor, already reaching for his cup to raise it high.

Margaret made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, both hands pressed to her mouth. Hamish pounded the table hard enough to rattle every cup on it, roaring his approval loudly enough to be heard clearly through to the kitchens.

Isobel rose gracefully to embrace Alba the moment Sebastian released her hand, murmuring something too quiet for him to catch, while Alasdair reached to clasp Sebastian’s shoulder with a grip that said more than any words could have.

“A bairn!” Fergus exclaimed, still on his feet, cup raised high enough that half the Hall could see it. “To Sebastian and Alba MacGregor, and the newest wee terror this family’s about to inherit!”

“To the MacGregors!” someone shouted from further down the table, and the Hall took up the toast at once, cups raised, voices overlapping in a warm, chaotic roar of approval that seemed to shake the very stones of the Keep.

Sebastian pulled Alba back against his side, one arm wrapped firm around her waist, and pressed a kiss to her temple without restraint or shyness, right there in front of every soul in the Hall.

“Ye couldnae have celebrated privately first?” she murmured, though she was laughing despite the accusation, leaning into him rather than pulling away.

“And miss the chance to shout it at the whole Hall? Nae a chance.”

It was Brian, predictably, who cut through the celebration first, wriggling free of Philomena’s grip and darting up the table toward them.

“Does this mean I am gettin’ a cousin?”

“Aye,” Sebastian said, crouching slightly to meet him properly.

“Can I name it?”