Archer, to his credit, spoke then of something entirely different, drawing River’s attention toward the table, toward matters of preparation for the coming ceilidh. Lennox offered some dry remark that gave Frederick reason to answer him. The room shifted around them in carefully arranged currents, everyone doing precisely what they ought.
And Noor never once stopped watching Iona.
By the time supper gave way to mingling and movement, Iona could feel the tension in her shoulders settling into ache. She did as they had agreed. She remained visible enough to invite opportunity. Distant enough from Frederick to support the illusion Noor had already accepted. Alone when possible, though never so long that Archer’s men could not track the line of her movement through the house.
It still felt like madness.
She had just stepped into a narrower side passage off the hall, one meant perhaps for servants carrying refreshed trays or noblewomen seeking a quieter path back toward the withdrawing room, when she felt rather than heard Noor behind her.
“I had wondered,” the older woman said softly, “whether ye had learned sense in all these years.”
Iona turned.
Noor stood a few paces away, hands lightly folded, the picture of composed grace. There was no witness near enough to overhear, only distant voices from the hall and the low flicker of torchlight along the stone.
Iona lifted her chin. “Perhaps I have.”
Noor smiled. “Nay. If ye had, ye would nae be here.”
The cold certainty in her voice pressed at every old fear Iona had thought she had mastered.
Noor took another step. “Look at ye. Fine gown. Good marriage. A child to soften the edges. And still ye cannae leave well enough alone.”
Iona fought to keep her breath even. “What happened to the missing women?”
Noor’s smile deepened by the slightest degree. “Straight to it. There is the girl I remember.”
“What happened to them?”
“Why?” Noor asked. “So ye may go trembling to yer husband and ask him to save them?”
Iona said nothing.
Noor’s eyes glittered. “Ah. Nay. Of course. Ye have told him nothing.”
That, too, was exactly as they had hoped. Iona forced herself to look not relieved, not encouraged, only tired and cornered.
“Would he believe me?” she asked quietly. “A servant against a lady’s word?”
Noor laughed then, low and genuine in its cruelty. “There now. At last, ye sound sensible.”
Iona hated how hard her heart was beating. “Then tell me.”
“Why should I?”
“Because if ye mean to threaten me, ye wish me to understand it.”
Noor tilted her head, considering her, and for one hideous moment, Iona saw the pleasure in it. Not merely in the advantage. In the game itself.
“They are where women are best kept when they forget their place,” Noor said. “Hidden and useful.”
Iona’s throat tightened. “Where?”
Noor stepped close enough that Iona could smell her perfume, the same faint floral scent she remembered from MacFarlane, the same scent that had once drifted down stairwells and across corridors while misery lived beneath it.
“In the old lower holding near the east tower,” Noor murmured. “Where else?”
The words struck through her like a bell. Noor’s smile did not waver. “Go there willingly,” she said, almost laughing now, “and I willnae go after yer bairn.”