Not in sound alone, though the hall was full enough of voices and movement. It was the press of it that unsettled her. Conversation layered upon conversation, the scrape of chairs, the low hum of servants moving between tables, all of it settling around her like something she could not quite push away.
Iona sat where she had been placed beside Caitlin, with Ariella across from her and Frederick farther down the table. Jamie had been claimed between Ariella and Maxwell, who seemed content to divide their attention between the child and one another inequal measure. It should have been a comfortable arrangement. It should have allowed her to relax into the evening without strain.
Instead, her thoughts refused to settle.
The walk lingered with her in ways she had not expected. Not the path itself, nor the dogs, nor even Jamie’s laughter, though that had struck her more sharply than she cared to admit.
It was the quiet of it.
The ease that had crept in without her permission. The way Frederick had simply walked beside her as though that alone were enough.
But it was not enough because it could not be enough.
She folded her hands in her lap beneath the table, pressing her fingers together as if that might still the restless turning in her chest.
Ariella’s voice carried easily across the table. “Jamie, ye must tell me again how ye managed to convince Lennox to show ye the hounds.”
“I only asked,” Jamie said, as though that were explanation enough.
Maxwell snorted softly. “That man does nae yield anything without reason.”
“He did today,” Jamie replied.
Frederick’s voice came then, calm and measured. “That is because he was given instruction.”
Jamie brightened. “From ye?”
“Aye.”
There was something deliberate in the exchange. Iona felt it without needing to look directly at them. The conversation turned and shifted with a smoothness that was not accidental. Each question directed away from her. Each response crafted to hold attention elsewhere.
They were giving her space.
Ariella, with her light tone and easy laughter, drew Jamie further into talk of the coming child and what it might be like to have a cousin near in age. Maxwell added his own dry observations, which Jamie met with earnest rebuttal. Even Caitlin, who had earlier watched Iona with quiet curiosity, seemed content to allow the conversation to flow without drawing her in.
And Frederick…
Iona lifted her gaze at last.
He had not looked at her directly since they had taken their seats, yet she felt his awareness of her all the same. It was there in the way he guided the discussion, in the timing of his responses, in the subtle manner in which he ensured she was not pressed when her silence might otherwise have drawn attention.
He was shielding her, and the realization unsettled her more than anything else that day because she had not asked for it, and thus, she did not know what to do with it.
“Are ye unwell?” Caitlin’s quiet question brought her back at once.
Iona turned slightly. “Nay. Only…tired.”
Caitlin studied her for a moment, then inclined her head. “It has been a full day.”
Ariella glanced up then, her gaze flicking briefly toward Iona before returning to Jamie. “It has,” she agreed. “And tomorrow will be nay less so.”
The reminder stirred something sharp and unwelcome in Iona’s chest.
Tomorrow, Ariella and Maxwell would leave.
It meant the keep would grow quieter again, which one would think should have eased her warring mind, but it did not.
She found that she could not sit there much longer. The room pressed too closely. The thoughts would not settle. The weight of all that remained unsaid seemed to gather with every passing moment.