Chapter 16 #2
She went completely still. That moment stirred something smaller, quieter, and infinitely more fragile in her.
His mouth slowed. His hands stayed exactly where they were but stopped their movement, going completely still against her back and her hair, simply remaining present.
He lifted his head.
She was staring blankly at the middle distance over his shoulder. Her jaw was set, her hands, still gripping his shirt, had gone tight in a way that was no longer about desire. Her breathing had completely shifted. It was not shallow with want; it was careful. Heavily managed.
“Alba.”
She blinked. Her eyes slowly came to his, and what was resting in them instantly stopped him.
It was not fear. It was not the sharp wariness she habitually wore around him in the corridors, the Study, or the Great Hall. It was something older than any of that, rawer, and considerably more private.
He took his hand gently from her hair. He kept his other hand at her back, but his palm flattened and went still. Supporting her rather than directing her.
“I havenae…” She stopped.
The rain hammered the roof. The lantern swung in its slow arc. Siobhan breathed steadily in the stall beside them.
She tried again.
“Ewan and I…” she said, her voice coming out incredibly quiet, yet entirely level.
“We never did this.” A sharp pause. Her jaw tightened once.
“He was old, and he was ill. The night we married, there was the raid, and after that he…” She stopped again, her eyes dropping down to the collar of his shirt.
“He died before we ever consummated the marriage.”
Sebastian stood in the amber lantern glow completely still, letting the words land before he allowed himself to respond to any part of them.
She kept going, her voice low and steady.
“I came to this castle on me weddin’ night in a dress I hadnae chosen the cut of, married to a man I’d met exactly twice before the contract was signed.
” Her eyes stayed fixed somewhere near his collar, not quite meeting his.
“I didnae even ken which chamber was mine until Philomena showed me.”
“Alba.”
“Let me finish.” It came out sharp, not at him, just at the words themselves, as though she’d been holding them so long they’d grown teeth.
“The raid came that night. I hid in the passage behind the tapestry in the East Corridor while men died on the other side of the wall, close enough that I could hear them.” Her jaw tightened. “I didnae ken if Ewan was alive or dead until I came out at dawn.”
Sebastian’s hand on her back lay very still, but he did not speak. He understood, without being told, that she would stop entirely if he said the wrong thing now.
“I was a widow before I was ever truly a wife,” she said. “And the Clan was watchin’ me, every one of them, waitin’ to see whether I’d fold.” Her chin lifted slightly, some old, hard-won defiance surfacing even now. “I didnae fold.”
“Nay,” he said quietly. “I’d gathered that much.”
A faint, humorless huff of breath left her, not quite a laugh.
“Three years, Sebastian. Three years of running this Clan alone, of men twice me age sittin’ across that table thinkin’ widowhood made me soft enough to manage.
” Her hands, still gripping his shirt, tightened briefly.
“I learned how to make certain none of them ever thought that twice.”
He felt something move through his chest, heavy and slow, entirely separate from the want still sitting low in his blood.
“And in all that time,” she said, her voice dropping further, quieter than he’d ever heard it, “there was nay one.” She stopped. Started again. “I daenae mean only this.”
Her fingers flexed once against his chest. "I had John to guard the Gate, and Philomena to guard me temper, and a Clan that needed their Laird steady every single day, rain or ruin.
" She swallowed. "What I dinnae have was a single soul who wanted something from me that wasnae duty.
No one who stood beside me because they chose to, and asked for nothing back. "
Sebastian held completely still, letting the understanding arrive fully.
She had stood at an altar in a dress she had not chosen, come home to a Holding that was not hers and a bedchamber that was a stranger’s, and been widowed before dawn.
She had hidden behind a wall while men died feet away, then walked out into a grief that was not real yet and a Clan demanding she be made of stone.
She had looked at every piece of this reality and chosen to stay and fight for it with everything she had.
And she had done every bit of it alone.
His hand at her back moved, one slow shift, drawing her into him rather than toward a kiss. Not desire. Not pressure. He understood, bone-deep, that some things only asked you to be present inside them without flinching.
“Alba.” He said her name low, just to have her hear it. “I am nae goin’ anywhere.”
She made a small, broken sound against his collarbone.
He brought his other hand up and held her. Both arms closed around her fully, without an agenda. It was the exact way he had held Brian on the night of the fire, when there was nothing left to do except make certain the boy knew his arms were there and would not let go.
He said nothing further. The storm continued, hammering the timber roof with a thoroughness that made the stable feel like the only solid, unbroken place left in the world. The lantern swung in its long, slow arc.
He felt her hands, still gripping his shirt, slowly release their hold. Then her fingers spread flat against his chest, her palms resting over his heart. She breathed, he held her, and neither of them moved.
He had wanted her. He still wanted her. But there was something worth infinitely more than what he wanted standing inside his arms in a stable in a storm, and he was not going to mistake which one mattered more.
Not with her. Not with this.
“I have got ye,” he said, the words murmured very quietly into her hair.
That was all. The rain continued its heavy assault. She did not pull away.