“Nae one that ends this.”
The room went quiet.
Frederick looked at Archer then, expecting, absurdly perhaps, that the man would see reason enough to support him. Archer only folded his hands behind his back and said, “Whether I like the shape of it or not, she is right about one thing. We have a duty to the women already taken. And to those not yet taken.”
Frederick turned on him. “I did nae ask for your judgment on me wife.”
“Nay,” Archer said calmly. “But ye shall have it all the same. If she is the thread that draws Noor out, it is worth considering.”
“It is not.”
Iona’s breath hitched slightly at the force in his voice, but she did not retreat.
“She is nae bait,” Frederick said. “She is under my protection.”
“And those other women were under ours,” Archer answered. “Or should have been.”
The words landed harder than Frederick liked. Harder because they were not wrong.
Still, wrong or no, he would not have it.
“We leave tomorrow,” Archer continued. “We plan without her for now, but we daenae ignore what may be necessary.”
Frederick stared at him. “There is nay need for now. She doesnae come.”
Archer lifted one shoulder. “Then settle that between yerselves. I care only that by tomorrow morning I know whether I travel with a useful plan or a husband too distracted to keep his head.”
That earned him a dark look from Lennox and a colder one from Frederick, but Archer seemed not to mind either.
When he finally left, the study felt smaller than before.
Lennox, with more wisdom than Frederick was inclined to credit in the moment, followed soon after under the excuse of checking the guard roster. The door closed behind him, and the quiet that remained between Frederick and Iona was worse than the argument that had preceded it.
“Ye are wrong.”
He let out a slow breath through his nose. “Iona.”
“Nay. Daenae ‘Iona’ me as though that settles anything.” She stood by the chair still, hands tight at her sides, her whole bodyheld together by will alone. “This concerns me. It has always concerned me. I am done hiding from it while men decide what is best.”
Frederick crossed the room toward her and stopped close enough to force her to look up if she meant to keep challenging him. “What is best is keeping ye far from her.”
“What is best for whom?”
“For ye.”
“And if that isnae what I choose?”
His temper, which had been held by little more than force since morning, slipped.
“Then ye will listen to yer husband.” The words came out harder than he intended. Not louder. Harder. Heavy with command rather than care.
Iona stared at him. Whatever answer she had been prepared to give vanished from her face at once. The change in her expression was small, but he saw it. The hurt. The withdrawal. The way something bright and open in her closed with quiet finality.
“I see,” she said.
Frederick exhaled, already regretting the shape of what he had said, though not the substance. “Iona, I meant?—”
“Nay,” she said softly. “Ye meant exactly what ye said.”