Then Archer turned toward the doorway, and the room shifted.
Her daughter, River Burnett, entered first.
Iona knew her at once, though seven years had changed them both. River had been younger then, softer in the face, dressed more brightly, and with the heedless confidence of a daughter who had never yet thought to doubt the shape of the world she had been given. Now there was more composure in her, more woman than girl, and though her beauty remained, it had settled into something quieter. More watchful.
Lady Noor followed a step behind her.
Iona’s breath caught so sharply it almost hurt.
Noor had not changed. Not in any way that mattered. She was older, yes, though age had polished her rather than diminished her. She carried herself with the same measured grace Iona remembered, every line of her deliberate, every movement elegant enough to disarm and calculated enough to conceal. Her smile appeared before her eyes fully reached the room, and when they did, Iona saw at once what she had feared.
Noor looked at her as a woman looks at an inconvenience she expects to overcome.
She thinks I have told no one.The realization steadied and sickened her all at once.
As planned, Frederick did not go to her side. Not fully. He acknowledged River and Noor with the appropriate courtesy due Archer’s family. Iona did the same. The distance between her and her husband, the one they had allowed to show through the journey and had sharpened slightly upon arrival, now served them too well.
Noor noticed it immediately. Iona saw the satisfaction flash, quick and mean, at the back of her eyes before sympathy smoothed itself over her features.
“Me dear,” Noor said, as though the word were naturally hers to use. “It has been a long while.”
Iona inclined her head. “Me lady.”
River’s gaze had fixed upon her now with growing recognition. She took one small step nearer, studying Iona’s face as though trying to pull memory through years that had settled over it.
“I know ye,” River said slowly. “I do.”
Noor’s smile remained perfect. “Aye. She worked in MacFarlane Castle once.”
River’s brows lifted. “That is right. Iona.”
Hearing her own name in that room, in River’s voice, nearly unsettled Iona more than Noor’s presence had. There had been a time when she had thought River harmless. Kept apart from thetruth. Perhaps still was. That uncertainty made the whole thing feel more dangerous.
River looked genuinely surprised. “Why did ye stop working for us?”
Noor answered before Iona could.
“It was all rather unfortunate,” she said, her tone steeped in just the right amount of regret. “She left in distress. We worried for her, of course.”
Iona had to lower her nails into her own palm to keep her face still.
Worried for her.
The lie was so smooth it would have convinced anyone who had not lived beneath it. River turned toward her with a softness that seemed painfully sincere. “Were ye unhappy there?”
Iona looked at Noor then, not River. “I was nae well suited to remain.”
Noor’s mouth curved faintly. “Some girls are nae.”
The words slid between them with more meaning than anyone else in the room could have taken from them. As planned, Iona let a pause stretch just long enough to become noticeable.“Though I often wondered what became of some of the others,” she said.
Noor’s gaze sharpened.
River glanced between them. “Others?”
“Women in service,” Iona answered, forcing her tone into something almost careless. “There was always such change in the lower halls.”
It was just enough. Not a direct strike. Only an irritation. A reminder.