Chapter 21 #2
She had not meant for the question to sound as soft as it did. Nor had she meant for it to carry so much beneath it. Yet there it was all the same, and once spoken, it could not be taken back.
Frederick looked at her for a long beat. The answer, when it came, was quiet and steady.
“Aye, lass,” he said. “It is our duty to do so.”
The words should have struck her differently than they did.
There had been a time, not long ago at all, when duty had been exactly what she needed from him. Something that asked for no great faith in feeling and no dangerous hope beyond what could be plainly offered and plainly kept.
But now, hearing it again, she understood that the words had not changed when she had.
And yet, somehow, they still moved her. Because there was duty in his voice, yes, but there was something else beneath it now, something no less steady for not being named. She could hear it. She could see it in the way he watched her, as though the answer mattered more than he would ever say.
Her smile came before she could stop it, and she set the bracelet gently on the coverlet beside them and stepped forward.
The change in his gaze was immediate, though he did not move first. He let her come to him. Let her decide the distance. Let her choose the moment.
Iona lifted her face to his. Her mouth brushed his once, lightly, tasting the surprise of still being brave enough to do this. Then again, a little surer, and she felt the breath leave him in a slow, controlled exhale that made her want to smile against his lips.
His hand rose to her cheek, and the touch was gentle enough to undo her.
His palm settled against her face with a certainty that felt intimate in a way nothing else had, his thumb resting just beneath her cheekbone as though he had wanted to touch her there for some time and had only now allowed himself to do it.
When he kissed her back, he did so with a tenderness that stole whatever remained of her careful thoughts.
There was warmth in it. Patience. A kind of reverence she had never expected from a man like him.
His mouth moved over hers slowly, learning rather than taking, and the room seemed to grow quieter with every breath they shared.
Iona reached for the front of his tunic, not because she meant to hold him in place, but because she needed somewhere to put the trembling that had begun in her fingers.
He deepened the kiss only slightly, enough to turn it from sweet into something richer, enough that she parted for him with a soft inhale she could not hide.
The hand at her cheek slid back into her hair, steadying her, and his other came to rest at her waist in a way that felt less like possession than promise.
She leaned into him.
It happened without thought. Simply because she wanted to. Because he felt warm and solid and impossibly safe. Because the gentleness of his mouth made her chest ache.
This is what I wanted.
Not merely to be protected or to be merely chosen because duty demanded it. But this.
To be kissed as though he meant it. To be touched as though she was something he had not quite expected to cherish and had done so anyway.
Her hand slid higher against his chest, and she felt the beat of his heart beneath wool and linen, steady at first, then less so when she kissed him again with a little more confidence. Frederick made a low sound against her mouth, almost a hum, almost her name, and she felt it everywhere.
When they finally drew apart, it was not by much.
His forehead rested lightly against hers. His hand remained at her waist. The other still cupped the back of her head, fingers tangled loosely in her hair. Their breaths mingled in the small space between them, warm and uneven.
Iona opened her eyes first.
He was looking at her as though he had forgotten, for a moment, that anyone else existed.
The thought should have made her shy. Instead, it made something inside her soften completely.
“Aye,” she whispered.
His brow shifted slightly. “Aye?”
She smiled, slow and helpless and fuller than anything she had given him before. “I will marry ye.”
Something moved across his face then, quick and unguarded enough that she knew no one else saw it often. Relief, perhaps. Or something near enough to it that her own breath caught.
He bent as though to kiss her again.
At that precise moment, the other door flew open.
“Ma, I cannot find the right hole for—”
Jamie stopped dead in the doorway.
Iona sprang back as though burned, one hand going at once to smooth her hair while the other reached blindly for the bracelet still lying on the bed. Frederick straightened more slowly, though the composure he found was not quite fast enough to hide the warmth still lingering about his mouth.
Jamie looked from one of them to the other with open suspicion.
“What did I miss?” she asked.
Iona could feel the heat rise all the way to her face. “Oh nothin’, lass!”
“What is it?” their daughter asked, entirely untroubled.
Frederick, curse him, had the audacity to look amused. “Just as yer maither has said, lass.”
“Okay…” Jamie said and lifted the dress slightly with one hand and frowned down at the fastening near the side. “I need help.”
Iona let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh and crossed at once to her daughter, grateful for the interruption and somehow not at all.
Behind her, she could feel Frederick still watching.
And now, at last, nothing about that felt uncertain.