Chapter 22 #2
For a few moments, neither of them spoke.
Then Frederick said, “Daenae fash yerself over the expense of any of it.”
Iona turned slightly. “Any of what?”
“The wedding. The feast. The flowers. Whatever else me mother and Erin decide is necessary for the proper joining of two people who might have done this quietly and spared us all.”
She looked at him, and the teasing in his tone eased the question before she had fully realized it lived in her.
“I was nae thinking on expense,” she said.
“Ye were about to.”
His certainty would have annoyed her once. It only made her smile now.
“And if I had been?”
“Then I would tell ye the same.” He rested one hand against the stone beside her, “Choose what ye like.”
Iona opened her mouth to answer and then found, unexpectedly, that she could not.
Choose what ye like.
Such simple words. So plainly said. Yet they moved through her with a strange, quiet force. Her gaze drifted past him into the courtyard below, though she no longer truly saw it.
Jamie, with dolls spread about the bed as if such things had belonged to her all along.
Caitlin, laughing before luncheon, ribbons looped over one arm.
Erin, insulting half the keep while guarding them all more fiercely than any soldier.
Lennox, grumbling and obeying anyway.
Frederick here, beside her, speaking of their wedding as though there was no shadow left standing over it.
She felt safe in that moment, and the realization settled more deeply than she expected, and with it came another, gentler one that nearly undid her altogether.
She was also content.
Iona drew in a slow breath and looked at him again.
Frederick had gone still, as though he sensed the shift without knowing its shape.
“What is it?” he asked.
She shook her head once, because she did not yet trust her voice with all of it.
“Nothin’,” she said softly.
He studied her for a moment. “That is rarely true.”
“Aye,” she replied, her smile lingering. “But it is near enough for now.”
And when he reached for her hand, she gave it to him without a second thought.
“Erin.”
The name slipped softly through the narrow space of the doorway, careful enough not to wake anyone who might be passing in the corridor, yet not so quiet that it could be mistaken for a dream.
Erin did not startle.
She lifted her head from the pillow with the slow awareness of a woman who had learned long ago the difference between a harmless disturbance and one that required alarm.
The candle at her bedside burned low, casting a steady amber glow across the small chamber, enough to reveal Iona standing just inside the threshold, one hand still resting against the wood as though she had not yet decided whether she ought to have come at all.
“Well,” Erin said, her voice roughened by sleep but not unfriendly. “If ye are standing there like a ghost, ye may as well come in and be a proper one.”
Iona let out a quiet breath and stepped inside, closing the door gently behind her.
“May I,” she began, then faltered, her fingers curling lightly at her side. “May I sleep here tonight?”
Erin’s brow creased with concern that surfaced too quickly to be hidden. She shifted, pushing herself upright against the headboard, the blankets gathering loosely at her waist.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
Iona shook her head at once. “Nay. Nothin’ is wrong.”
“Then why are ye asking me for a place in me bed like a bairn who has seen a shadow move?”
The words were blunt, as Erin’s words always were, but there was no sharpness in them. Only curiosity, and beneath it, a quiet readiness to make room if it was needed.
Iona crossed the small distance between them and sat carefully at the edge of the bed, her hands folding together in her lap as though she needed something to hold.
“I daenae wish to be alone,” she said after a moment.
Erin studied her face in the candlelight. “Ye are happy,” she said, and it was not a question.
Iona let out a soft, almost disbelieving laugh. “Aye.”
“And yet ye are here?”
“Aye,” Iona said again, though this time the word carried something more uncertain beneath it.
Erin shifted slightly, making space beside her without comment. “Lie down then, and tell me what foolishness is chasing ye from yer own bed.”
Iona hesitated only a moment before she moved, easing herself beneath the covers beside the older woman. The mattress dipped with her weight, the familiar scent of herbs and dried leaves wrapping around her in a way that felt strangely comforting.
For a time, she said nothing.
Erin waited.
The silence stretched.
“I am happy,” Iona said at last, her voice softer now that she was lying in the quiet of the room. “Happier than I have been in a very long time.”
“Aye,” Erin said. “I gathered as much.”
“And it feels…” Iona paused, searching for the right shape of it. “It feels easy.”
Erin snorted quietly. “That sounds suspicious.”
Iona smiled faintly. “It does, does it nae?”
“Aye. Life rarely makes a habit of being easy for long.”
“That is just it,” Iona said, turning her head slightly to look at her. “I keep waiting for it to stop.”
Erin’s gaze softened, though she did not interrupt.
“I keep thinking,” Iona continued, her voice growing quieter as the truth of it unfolded, “that something will happen. That I have overlooked something. That this… this peace will be taken from me because I was foolish enough to believe I could have it.”
The words hung between them, fragile and honest in a way Iona had not allowed herself to be in some time.
Erin let out a slow breath through her nose.
“That is a habit,” she said. “Nae a truth.”
Iona’s fingers tightened slightly in the blanket. “It has been truth before.”
“Aye,” Erin said. “And it has made ye expect it always will be.”
Iona did not deny it.
“It is difficult,” she admitted, “to believe that I may simply have this. That I may be… content, and nothing will come to take it away.”
Erin turned her head more fully toward her then, her eyes clear despite the late hour.
“Ye think happiness must be paid for,” she said.
Iona swallowed. “Aye.”
“And that if ye daenae see the price yet, it will be demanded later.”
“Sure.”
Erin studied her for a long moment, then reached out and flicked her lightly on the arm.
Iona blinked. “What was that for?”
“For being foolish,” Erin said.
Iona let out a small, startled laugh. “I thought as much.”
“Listen to me,” Erin continued, her voice firm now in a way that left little room for argument. “Ye have lived through enough hardship to earn every bit of ease that comes to ye now. Ye daenae need to fear it away before it has had a chance to settle.”
Iona’s eyes stung unexpectedly.
“It does nae feel earned,” she said.
“That is because ye are still measuring it against what ye have lost,” Erin replied. “Stop doing that.”
Iona turned her face into the pillow slightly, as though the motion might hide the way her throat tightened.
“I daenae ken how,” she admitted.
“Aye, ye do,” Erin said. “Ye have already begun.”
Iona frowned faintly. “How.”
“Ye came here,” Erin said simply. “Instead of lying awake in yer own bed, chasing shadows, ye came to someone who would tell ye that ye are being ridiculous.”
That drew another quiet laugh from her, though it trembled at the edges.
“I suppose that is true.”
“It is,” Erin said. “And ye are.”
Iona shifted closer without quite realizing she had done so, her shoulder brushing lightly against the older woman’s arm.
“Thank ye,” she murmured.
“For what?”
“For taking me in,” Iona said, her voice soft but steady now. “For being kind to me when ye didnae need to be. For… all of this.”
She gestured vaguely, though there was no need to name it.
Erin’s expression softened further, though she would never have called it that herself.
“I did what was needed,” she said.
“Nay,” Iona replied. “Ye did more than that.”
She turned then and wrapped her arms around Erin in a sudden, unguarded embrace, holding her tightly in a way that spoke of gratitude far deeper than the words she had chosen.
Erin made a low, startled sound.
“Well now,” she muttered. “There is nay need to suffocate me in the middle of the night.”
Iona laughed against her shoulder. “I am nae suffocating ye.”
“Ye are attempting to,” Erin said. “Release me before I am forced to complain properly.”
Iona loosened her hold, though her smile lingered as she settled back beside her.
They had only just grown quiet again when another small knock sounded at the door.
Both of them turned.
“Ma?” came Jamie’s voice, soft and uncertain.
Iona sat up at once. “Come in, mo chridhe.”
The door creaked open, and Jamie slipped inside, her hair loose around her shoulders, her eyes bright in the candlelight.
“I could nae sleep,” she said, stepping closer. “Can I stay with ye?”
Erin let out a long, exaggerated sigh.
“Of course ye can,” she said. “There is always room for one more body in a bed that was meant for one.”
Jamie climbed up eagerly, settling between them with a contented hum, her small hand finding Iona’s sleeve as though it belonged there.
“It is cramped,” Erin muttered, adjusting the blankets. “And I will hear about it from me bones in the morning.”
Jamie giggled.
“So grumpy,” she whispered.
“I am nae grumpy,” Erin said.
“Aye, ye are,” Jamie replied.
Iona laughed softly, the sound warm and unguarded as she drew her daughter closer and let herself settle into the narrow space between them.