Chapter 12
The arrival was announced well before the carriage reached the gates.
A horn sounded from the outer wall, followed by the steady clatter of wheels over stone and the sharper rhythm of mounted guards falling into formation.
Frederick stood in the courtyard, one hand resting lightly on the small hilt of the hidden dagger under his tunic, and Lennox stood a few paces to his right; both men’s expressions were composed as they watched the gates open.
He had expected Ariella to come as soon as she received the letter from their mother.
He had expected Maxwell to come with her.
What he had not expected was how quickly the household had gathered itself into a state of visible anticipation, as if the castle itself understood that a daughter was returning and a new branch of the family was to be inspected.
Servants moved more briskly than usual. Caitlin had changed gowns before noon. Even the kitchen staff had somehow learned of the visit before the messenger finished the sentence.
Lennox leaned slightly nearer, keeping his voice low enough that only Frederick would hear.
“Yer mother has instructed half the staff to behave as though the king hisself were arriving.”
Frederick did not look at him. “Me sister inspires more panic than kings.”
“That is likely true,” Lennox said. “Kings tend to leave sooner, too.”
The carriage rolled fully into the courtyard then, lacquered dark and trimmed with the McNeill colors.
Two mounted men followed behind, and another pair rode ahead.
His brother-in-law, Maxwell, was the Laird McNeill.
He did not trust roads any more than he trusted weather, strangers, or chance itself.
Frederick respected that, even if he found it excessive in practice.
The carriage door had hardly been opened before Maxwell was already at its side.
He dismounted in one smooth movement, crossing the short distance before the footman could properly offer assistance. He lifted Ariella down as though the woman weighed no more than a folded blanket, his hands careful and unshakably certain around her waist.
Frederick had seen the man on battlefields. He had seen him at treaty discussions and in the aftermath of violence. There was something almost unsettling in the contrast between that hard competence and the tenderness with which he handled his wife.
Ariella set her feet down and immediately looked smaller than Frederick remembered, though he knew that was only the effect of the child she carried. Her belly was full and unmistakable beneath her traveling cloak, and one hand went there at once, protective even as she smiled.
“Frederick,” she said, and the warmth in her voice reached him before she did.
He stepped forward and kissed her brow in greeting. “Ye should have waited another week.”
She drew back at once, one brow lifting in a look so familiar that it almost unsettled him. “And miss meeting me nephew? Certainly nae.”
Maxwell joined them without allowing more than a breath of distance to remain between himself and Ariella. He clasped Frederick’s forearm in greeting.
“Ye look tired,” Maxwell said.
Frederick gave him a level look. “And ye look as though ye have nae slept since she began carrying.”
“That is because I have nae,” Maxwell replied without a trace of irony.
Ariella rolled her eyes. “He is intolerable.”
“I am attentive,” Maxwell corrected.
“Ye are both,” Lennox muttered under his breath.
Frederick ignored him.
Caitlin descended the steps then, all grace and controlled delight. She embraced Ariella first, then Maxwell with formal affection, speaking at once of the journey, of whether the roads were too rough, of whether Ariella had eaten properly, of whether the guest chambers had been aired enough.
Frederick let the swirl of greeting move around him for a moment before turning his attention toward the doorway behind the upper gallery.
He had sent word that Iona and Jamie need not come down immediately. The arrival would have enough noise and scrutiny without forcing them into the center of it at once. Still, he knew curiosity would bring them sooner rather than later.
He was right.
Jamie appeared first, hovering at the edge of the steps with the alert stillness of a child trying very hard to appear brave.
Iona followed a heartbeat later, one hand lightly at the boy’s shoulder.
Erin remained farther back in the hall, watching with the calm of a woman who trusted little and missed less.
Ariella noticed them at once.
Her face changed immediately. Not with shock. Not even with caution. With open interest.
“That will be him,” she said softly.
Caitlin turned, delighted all over again. “Jamie, come here, darling. Your aunt has arrived.”
Jamie looked up at Iona first.
Frederick saw the hesitation there, small but present. The boy did not fear his family now, not truly, but new people still required measuring. New affection required testing. That instinct had not left him.
Iona bent slightly and murmured something Frederick could not hear. Whatever it was, Jamie nodded and went forward.
Ariella knelt with more difficulty than grace, ignoring Maxwell’s immediate look of concern. “So,” she said, smiling at Jamie as though there were no one else in the courtyard at all, “ye are the boy who has sent my mother into a state of permanent delight.”
Jamie glanced at Caitlin, then back to Ariella. “Maybe.”
The answer made Ariella laugh.
“I can already see that ye are trouble,” she said.
“Only when it is interesting.”
Maxwell let out a low breath that might have been a laugh despite himself. “A family trait, then.”
Frederick’s gaze shifted briefly to Iona.
She had come down the last steps but did not cross fully into the center of the group. Her posture was composed, but he knew her well enough now to see strain where others might only see quietness. Too many people. Too much welcome at once. Too many eyes, even kind ones.
Ariella rose carefully and turned to her then.
“Ye must be Miss Iona Pearson.”
Iona dipped her head. “Aye, Lady McNeill—”
“Ariella,” his sister corrected at once, echoing their mother so exactly that Frederick almost looked at Caitlin to see whether either of them noticed. “Nay titles between us, if ye please. We are family now, or near enough that I mean to behave as though we are.”
There it was again. That easy acceptance that still seemed to bewilder Iona more than suspicion ever had.
Iona answered politely, but Frederick saw the uncertainty remain behind her eyes.
The introductions continued more thoroughly after that. Maxwell greeted Iona with grave courtesy and Erin with watchful respect. Lennox inserted himself where unnecessary and was rebuked by Ariella with the sort of fond impatience reserved for old allies.
Jamie answered questions selectively, growing bolder each time one of them earned a proper reply. By the time the luggage had been taken upstairs and the servants dismissed, the edges of the meeting had softened.
The strain had not softened in Iona.
Frederick noticed it more clearly that evening.
Dinner had been set in the smaller hall rather than the great one, which should have made the gathering easier. The table was full without being crowded. Candlelight warmed the stone walls. Conversation moved easily from travel to weather to the stubbornness of Highland roads.
Maxwell remained predictably attentive to Ariella, refilling her cup before she asked and glaring at any dish he thought too heavily spiced.
Caitlin asked questions with cheerful relentlessness.
Ariella answered half of them and redirected the other half toward Jamie, who by then had become curious enough to ask Maxwell why he looked so grim when nothing dreadful had happened.
Frederick might have laughed at that on another night.
Instead, his attention kept drifting to Iona.
She sat straight, listened well, answered when spoken to, even smiled when politeness required it.
Yet each new kindness seemed to make her tenser rather than easier.
Caitlin’s warmth had already unsettled her.
Ariella’s open welcome only added to it.
Maxwell’s steady courtesy, his obvious devotion to his wife, the way Jamie had begun to lean into the family’s orbit with less fear and more wonder, all of it pressed at something in her that did not know how to rest.
He recognized the signs by now. The stillness that was too deliberate. The smile that arrived a fraction too late. The way her fingers tightened around the stem of her cup when too much attention landed at once.
By the time dessert had been placed on the table, he knew she needed space before she bolted from the room in body or mind.
He rose under the pretense of pouring more wine, moved behind her chair, and bent just enough that only she would hear.
“Come with me.”
She looked up at him, startled. “What?”
He kept his tone even. “Come stand by the hearth with me. Let them busy themselves with Jamie for a bit.”
Her eyes shifted at once toward the far end of the table, where Ariella had drawn Jamie into a discussion about whether babies kicked harder when annoyed, while Caitlin listened with shining eyes and Maxwell corrected every reckless theory offered.
Iona hesitated.
Frederick held her gaze. “They are occupied.”
That, more than anything, seemed to persuade her.
“Iona? Might I borrow ye?”
Ariella’s voice carried lightly across the table, warm and inviting, yet impossible to refuse.
Iona paused beside her chair, her hand still resting against the carved wood, caught between movement and stillness. Her gaze shifted instinctively toward Frederick before she could stop herself.
There was something steady in his expression, something that did not press and did not command, yet held her all the same. For a fleeting moment, she considered refusing Ariella, remaining where she was, allowing the quiet space he had offered her to remain intact.