Chapter 19
“Can we go outside?”
Jamie’s voice came from the doorway before Iona had fully turned from the small chest where she had been folding linens. There was a quiet urgency to her daughter’s request that drew her attention at once.
Iona glanced over her shoulder. “Outside?”
“Aye,” Jamie said, stepping further into the room. “Just for a bit.”
There was something in the child’s expression that gave her pause, but Iona straightened slowly, brushing her hands together. “A walk, then?”
Jamie nodded, quick and eager, though her fingers twisted together as she waited.
Iona moved toward her, pausing only long enough to gather a light wrap before they stepped out into the corridor and down toward the courtyard. The morning air greeted them with the warmth of a hidden sun, and a pleasant breeze carrying the scent of damp earth and distant heather.
They walked in silence at first.
Jamie stayed close at her side, her steps small but steady, her gaze moving over the grounds as though seeing them with new eyes. Iona did not rush her. She let the quiet settle between them, knowing it would not last.
“Ma?”
Iona glanced down. “Aye?”
Jamie hesitated, her foot dragging slightly along the path before she spoke again. “So I daenae have to cut me hair anymore?”
There it was.
Iona felt the question settle deep within her, heavier than it should have been, though she had known it would come.
“Nay,” she said gently. “Ye do nae have to.”
Jamie looked up at her, her brow furrowing. “Ever?”
Iona considered that for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “Only if ye wish it,” she said.
Jamie’s gaze lingered on her face, searching.
“But… what if someone sees me?” she asked. “What if they find out?”
“They will, and it will be all well,” Iona said softly.
Jamie stopped walking.
Iona took another step before realizing, then turned back to her. The child stood very still, her small hands clenched at her sides.
“They will?” Jamie repeated.
“Aye,” Iona said, stepping closer. “They will.”
Jamie’s eyes widened slightly, not in fear exactly, but in something uncertain, something that had no clear name yet.
“But… we were nae supposed to,” she said. “We were supposed to hide.”
Iona crouched down in front of her, bringing herself level with her daughter so she could meet her gaze fully.
“We were,” she said. “For a time.”
“Why?”
The question came quickly, almost before Iona had finished speaking, as though it had been waiting.
Iona drew in a slow breath.
Because I was afraid.
The thought came unbidden, sharp and clear, though she did not speak it aloud.
Jamie shifted her weight, her gaze dropping briefly to the ground. “Did I do something wrong?”
The words were quiet, but they struck deeper than anything else she had said.
Iona’s chest tightened at once.
“Nay,” she said firmly, reaching out to take Jamie’s hands in her own. “Ye did nothin’ wrong. Nae ever.”
Jamie looked up again, uncertainty still lingering in her eyes. “Then why did we have to pretend?”
Iona swallowed, her grip on the child’s hands tightening just slightly before she forced herself to ease it.
“Because I did nae trust the world around us,” she said. “And I thought that if I could make ye seem… different, then it would keep ye safe.”
Jamie considered that her small face serious in a way that made her seem older than she was.
“Was I nae safe?” she asked.
Iona hesitated.
For a moment, she nearly softened it. Nearly told her what would be easier to hear, but she had waited too long already. “There were times when I did nae feel certain,” she said carefully. “And I chose what I thought would protect ye best.”
Jamie’s fingers tightened in hers. “Even if I did nae like it?”
The question held no accusation. Only quiet curiosity.
Iona’s throat tightened.
“Aye,” she said. “Even then.”
Jamie was silent for a long moment.
A breeze passed between them, lifting a few loose strands of her hair, brushing them gently across her face. She did not move to push them away.
“So, do I still have to pretend?” she asked at last.
Iona shook her head. “Nay.”
Jamie searched her face again, as though measuring the truth of it. “Nae even a little?”
“Nay, lamb, nae even a little.”
Jamie’s shoulders eased, though only slightly at first, as though she did not quite believe it yet.
“And… he knows?” she asked.
Iona knew who she meant.
“Aye,” she said. “He knows.”
Jamie’s gaze flicked away, then back again. “And he didnae mind?”
“He didnae,” Iona said. “He asked what ye wished, and he listened.”
Jamie’s lips pressed together, as though she were holding something in. “He said I could choose,” she murmured.
“Aye.”
Jamie nodded slowly.
They stood there for a moment longer, the quiet between them different now.
Iona rose slowly, releasing Jamie’s hands but staying close. “We will learn this together,” she said. “There will be things that feel strange at first. That is all right.”
Jamie looked up at her. “What if I do it wrong?”
Iona almost smiled. “Then we will do it wrong together,” she said.
Jamie huffed a small breath, something close to a laugh, though it did not quite reach her eyes.
They began walking again, slower now, their steps falling into an easier rhythm.
After a time, Jamie spoke again.
“Will I get new dresses?” she asked, glancing down at herself.
Iona tilted her head slightly. “If ye wish to have them.”
“And dolls?”
“Aye.”
Jamie’s gaze brightened just a little at that.
“And… will people talk about me?”
The question came quieter this time.
“Some may,” Iona said honestly. “But they will learn who ye are. And that is what matters.”
Jamie nodded, though her fingers twisted together again as she walked.
They reached the edge of the path, where the ground sloped gently toward the outer fields. The keep stood behind them, steady and unchanged, though everything else felt different in ways Iona was only beginning to understand.
For a time, neither spoke.
Then, suddenly, Jamie looked up again, her expression shifting in a way Iona had not seen since before all of this had begun. “Where did he go?” she asked, her voice lighter now. “Frederick.”
Iona blinked, caught slightly off guard by the change.
“He was called away,” she said. “Remember, there was word from the northern village.”
Jamie’s brow furrowed briefly. “Will he come back soon?”
“I expect so,” Iona replied.
Jamie nodded, though her gaze had already begun to drift back toward the keep, toward the path they had come from.
There was an unmistakable eagerness in her entire mood now.
Iona watched her for a moment, a quiet understanding settling in her chest as she did. Her daughter was waiting for him to return.
“Tell them exactly what the lass said,” Frederick said as he crossed the inner passage with Lennox at his side. “Daenae soften it, and daenae let any man in that room decide her confusion makes the rest of it less useful.”
Lennox adjusted his pace easily to match him. “Aye. Though if half the men on the council had been dragged through brush, dosed with something bitter, and left to stumble home in the dark, they would remember even less and still swear they had perfect sense.”
Frederick did not answer that. His attention had already shifted past the conversation for half a breath, his gaze moving toward the open arch that led to the western stair.
No sign of them. He turned the corner without slowing.
“They will ask whether the lass was violated,” Lennox continued, his voice lowered as they passed a pair of servants carrying folded blankets. “And they will ask it in poor taste.”
Frederick’s mouth flattened. “Then answer before they do. Say that Erin examined her. Say she gave no cause for further alarm on that front.”
“Aye.”
They moved through the keep at speed, the familiar corridors narrowing and opening around them in turns.
Frederick could have walked blind. He knew where he needed to be.
He knew what had to be said. Another woman taken, a second trail crossing into another clan’s ground, a returned captive with little memory and too much fear.
The council would need facts. They would need calm.
They would need direction before rumor reached them first and made cowards of half the room.
He could manage all of that.
What he could not seem to stop doing was looking.
The doorway ahead. Empty.
A shadow by the lower hall. Only a servant girl with a basket.
Left turn toward the south gallery. Nay red hair. Nay small dark head at her side.
He kept speaking as though nothing in him had wandered.
“Fergus said they made her walk most of the way back,” Frederick said. “That matters.”
Lennox glanced at him briefly. “Because they meant her to be found.”
“Aye. Or because they wanted us to think so.” Frederick’s gaze flicked toward the narrow opening that led to the inner court before returning to the corridor ahead. “Either way, it was deliberate.”
“Ye still think it is tied to the earlier attack.”
“I think too many things point in the same direction for me to ignore it.”
That much was true. Also true was the dull, persistent pull in the center of his thoughts that had very little to do with captors, trails, or council votes.
He had left their breakfast too quickly.
At the time, it had seemed unavoidable. Word from the north. A returned lass. Possible answers where there had only been questions. He would have gone in any case. It was his duty to go.
Still, as he passed another chamber and found it empty, he felt the weight of the abruptness in a way he had not expected.
He had left Iona at the table with Jamie and a truth only half settled.
Left the child with a few words and no time to see how they landed.
Left before he had any right to assume either of them understood what he had meant.