“He is afraid of her.”
Iona bit the inside of her cheek. “Hush.”
“I am nae afraid of that old batty woman,” Lennox said without turning.
“Aye, everyone kens that ye are,” Erin replied. “And it keeps ye tolerable. So, daenae go around denying anything at all, Lennox Mathias Cochrane. I saw ye into this world, I can easily see ye out of it.”
And in the heartbeat of spare time in which this conversation was carrying on, Iona let out a hearty laugh, and Lennox grabbed the stools at once.
“Iona, the flowers will wilt if they are handled so often,” Caitlin said as she entered back into the room, not unkindly, though there was a note of urgency beneath it as she adjusted the garland once more.
“I have hardly touched them,” Iona replied, though even as she said it, she realized her fingers were still lingering along the stems.
“Aye, but ye have moved them three times already,” Erin added from her chair. “Things do nae improve simply because ye keep shifting them about.”
“I am only trying to make it right,” Iona said, a sharper edge slipping into her voice before she could stop it.
“It will be right,” Caitlin said gently. “It already is.”
Iona let out a breath that came faster than she intended. “It does nae feel right. There are too many choices. The flowers, the table, the dresses, the food. Every time I think something is settled, there is another question waiting behind it.”
The room stilled, if only for a moment.
Caitlin’s hands lowered slowly from the garland.
Erin watched her with narrowed eyes, not unkind, but attentive.
Iona pressed her lips together, the weight of her own tone settling in too late. “I am sorry,” she said quickly, her voice softer now. “That was nae meant for either of ye.”
“It was meant for the situation,” Erin said. “We ken it just as well, lass.”
“Aye,” Caitlin added, stepping closer. “And the situation is a happy one, even if it is a busy one.”
Iona nodded, though her chest still felt tight. “I ken. I do.”
And that, perhaps, was the strangest part of all.
She felt him arrive before she saw him. Iona turned slightly to take in the sight of him. His gaze moved across the room first,taking in Caitlin among ribbons, Erin upon her throne by the window, Lennox burdened with furniture, Jamie on the bed with a doll tucked beneath her arm. Then he looked at Iona.
The room shifted quietly around that look.
He crossed to her with the same calm purpose he brought to everything else, though the warmth in his eyes belonged to no laird conducting household business.
“I have come to rescue ye,” he said.
“From what?” she asked.
He glanced over her shoulder toward the room at large. “From all of this.”
Caitlin made a disbelieving sound. “She is the bride. She is meant to be in the middle of all this.”
“Aye,” Frederick said. “And she is already being ordered about by three people and a fourth who claims nae to be afraid of an old healer.”
Lennox, still holding a stool, muttered, “I said nothin’ of the kind.”
Frederick ignored him and turned back to Iona. “Come with me.”
She frowned faintly, though more from surprise than resistance. “Where?”