Epilogue
A FEW WEEKS LATER
“Aye, it is exactly as I remembered it.”
Frederick glanced toward his sister as Ariella stepped more carefully than gracefully over a patch of uneven ground, one hand braced at the small of her back while Maxwell hovered near enough to catch her if the wind changed direction too sharply.
She had not lost any of her sharpness merely because she now carried a babe in one arm and looked half a breath away from ordering everyone around her into more sensible positions.
“I should hope so,” Frederick said. “The land has nae moved.”
“It could have,” Ariella replied. “A great many things seem capable of doing precisely what they ought not when men are involved.”
Maxwell adjusted the blanket folded over his shoulder and looked toward the rise above the loch with open approval. “It is good ground.”
“Aye,” Frederick said.
It was more than good. That was the truth of it.
The land stretched open and gentle between the castle road and the water, wide enough for a house, a small garden, a stable if needed, and whatever else might grow beside it in years to come.
The loch below lay silver-blue beneath the late afternoon light, still in some places, rippling in others where the breeze touched it.
To one side, a line of birch trees bent softly toward the shore.
To the other, the rise gave shelter enough that winter winds would strike less cruelly than they might elsewhere.
He had chosen the place carefully.
Now that they all stood within it, with blankets laid and food unpacked and the sound of familiar voices carrying over the grass, it felt less like land and more like a promise given shape.
Jamie was already halfway to the water before Iona called the child back.
“Nae so fast,” she said, one hand shading her eyes against the sun. “Ye nearly rolled down the hill the last time.”
“I did nae roll,” Jamie protested, turning in place with the offended dignity only a six-year-old could summon. “I took to the hill gracefully.”
Lennox, who had just accepted a basket from one of the servants, snorted aloud. “That sounds rehearsed.”
“It sounds inherited,” Caitlin countered in jest.
She stood a little apart from the others with a parasol she did not truly need, her expression composed despite the undeniable pleasure brightening it.
Lennox leaned toward her then, saying something too low for the rest of them to catch.
Whatever it was, Caitlin’s brows rose, and she angled her head toward him with the unmistakable look of a woman entertaining a dangerous idea on purpose.
Frederick narrowed his eyes slightly.
He did not trust any expression shared between those two in private.
Erin, meanwhile, had already wandered to the edge of the plot nearest the trees, her staff sinking lightly into the grass as she walked.
She bent once, scooped up a pinch of earth, and rubbed it thoughtfully between finger and thumb before muttering something in Gaelic too low and too old-sounding for anyone else to interrupt.
The wind shifted around her shawl as though in answer.
“She is blessing it,” Iona said quietly at his side.
Frederick looked toward the old healer. “Aye.”
“Do ye ken what she is saying?”
“Nay,” he admitted. “And I suspect she prefers it that way.”
Iona smiled faintly at that, then slipped her hand into his with the easy familiarity that still occasionally caught him unaware.
A few weeks had passed since the night at the hunting lodge, and still, there were moments when he felt the shape of his life as it now stood and found himself surprised by how much richer it had become simply because she was in it without fear.
Ariella came nearer then, carrying her babe with one arm and making Maxwell carry the rest of the burden without apology.
The child was wrapped in a pale blanket, dark hair already visible beneath the edge of the cap despite Caitlin’s insistence that no infant ought to be brought near open air without proper covering.
“This is the famous spot, then?” Ariella asked.
Frederick nodded. “It is.”
She looked past him toward the loch and let out a soft breath. “I can see why ye chose it.”
Maxwell adjusted the basket in his hand and added, “It would take a fool to build elsewhere.”
“That was nearly flattering,” Ariella told him.
Frederick merely winked over at his sister and chuckled.
His niece was now only a few weeks old and still possessing the solemn, perplexed expression of all very young infants, made a small protesting noise at being jostled. Ariella looked down at once and softened visibly.
“There now, sweet one,” she murmured. “Nay one is asking yer opinion yet.”
Jamie had reached them by then, slowed only slightly by curiosity. She peered up at the bundle in Ariella’s arms as though the baby might suddenly begin speaking if observed long enough.
“Is she still very small?” Jamie asked.
“Aye,” Ariella said. “Though she already believes herself important.”
“That sounds like this family,” Lennox muttered from behind Caitlin.
Caitlin did not even glance at him. “We are important.”
The picnic Frederick had ordered was spread gradually over the blankets while the light remained kind.
Bread, cheese, cold roasted meats, apples, berries, and sweet cakes Jamie had already spotted and been denied twice before the meal had properly begun.
The servants withdrew after setting the final basket down, leaving the family and their closest companions alone with the land and the hour.
That had been deliberate as well because Frederick had wanted privacy for this.
He watched Jamie as she crouched near the edge of the largest blanket, arranging pebbles beside one another in some private system known only to herself.
Her hair had grown longer now, enough that it caught the sunlight in soft brown-gold strands where the old white streak at Frederick’s own temple had begun to show itself in her more clearly.
Every time he looked at her, the feeling returned.
Wonder first. Then gratitude. Then the old ache of everything they had nearly lost.
He glanced at Iona.
She did not know yet what this ground was to be truly for, and what this afternoon was. They had spoken of the possibility. Circled it from different sides. And then Frederick had deliberately let the conversation die out, in hopes of making today a surprise for her.
It had been secret planning, approvals, and correspondence that he had kept hidden from her. Waiting for the perfect time.
Now the ground felt steady, but first, he knew they had to settle things with Jamie before he could announce to his family what they were truly doing out here on this undeveloped plot of land.
Frederick crouched beside Jamie. “Come here, lass.”
She looked up immediately, suspicious only because his voice had turned more serious than usual. “Am I in trouble?”
“Nay.”
“Then why are ye saying it like that?”
Iona came down beside them before he could answer, settling in the grass with her skirts gathered neatly and her eyes on their daughter rather than on him. That was for the best. He found himself wanting Iona too much, still, whenever she looked at him with that quiet trust in her face.
“We wished to speak with ye,” Iona said gently.
Jamie looked from one parent to the other, then abandoned the pebbles with unusual promptness. “About what?”
Frederick sat on the grass rather than standing over her. He had no wish to make the moment feel like a judgment. “About the years before ye remember them clearly.”
Jamie’s expression changed at once, not into fear, but into that serious listening face she had when something mattered.
“You have kent for a while,” Iona said, “that I kept ye hidden.”
Jamie nodded.
“And that I was running from someone bad,” she added quietly.
“Aye,” Frederick said. “That part is true.”
Jamie folded her hands into her lap. “Was it Lady Noor?”
It did not entirely surprise him that she knew the name, but hearing it in her small voice tightened something in him all the same.
“Aye,” Iona answered. “It was.”
Jamie considered this, her brows drawing together. “Because she wanted to hurt me.”
Iona’s mouth softened with pain and pride at once. “Because she wanted control. And because I had helped women she had harmed. I feared that if she found us, she would use ye to punish me.”
The child looked down at the grass for a moment, digesting that in the quiet, unadorned way children sometimes did when given a truth they could not yet hold all at once.
“So ye ran?”
“Aye,” Iona said.
“And Da didnae ken?”
Frederick answered that himself. “Nay. I didnae ken then.”
Jamie’s gaze lifted to him. “But if ye had kent, ye would have helped us.” The certainty in her voice cut through him.
“Aye, lass,” he said. “I would have.”
She blinked hard once. Then again. When she spoke next, her voice had grown unsteady in spite of her obvious determination to keep it otherwise.
“Ye both did a great deal for me.”
Iona reached, at once, for her hand, but Jamie leaned into both of them at once, all awkward limbs and fierce feeling, and Frederick opened his arm instinctively to make room.
“I am sorry ye had to be afraid,” Jamie whispered. “And I am glad ye found each other. And me.”
Ariella made a small sound somewhere behind them that might have been laughter, pressed hard against tears. Caitlin had gone suspiciously quiet. Even Lennox, who usually found sentiment an invitation to mischief, said nothing at all.
Frederick held his daughter closer and looked over her bent head toward the loch, toward the land that might one day hold a house of her own if she wished it, toward the place where fear no longer ruled them.
“We found our way,” he said quietly.
Jamie nodded against him as though that answered everything.
Perhaps, for now, it did.