The night stretched on around her, silent and waiting, as she stood caught between them.
15
Morning came softer than the night had allowed her to expect.
Iona entered the dining hall with Jamie at her side, her gaze moving instinctively to the far end of the table where Frederick had sat the day before. The place was empty. The absence struck her before she could stop herself from noticing it.
Caitlin looked up at once, her expression warm. “Good mornin’.”
“Good mornin’,” Iona replied, guiding Jamie toward the table.
“Frederick has already been taken from us,” Caitlin continued, a hint of amusement in her tone. “He, Lennox, and Maxwell have shut themselves away in the study. Clan matters, I expect. They will emerge only when they have argued themselves in circles and decided they have solved something important… or when it is time for Maxwell and Ariella to depart.”
Jamie climbed onto the bench. “Will they fight?”
“Nay,” Caitlin said. “At least nae with swords. Nae this early in the day.”
Iona allowed herself a small smile as she took her seat, though her attention lingered on the idea of him behind closed doors, deep in discussion, fully in his element. It reminded her, uncomfortably, of the parts of his life she did not yet understand. The parts that had nothing to do with her, or Jamie, or the strange, shifting ground between them.
Jamie reached for a piece of bread, already distracted. “Can we go see the dogs again?”
“After ye eat,” Iona said.
Ariella entered not long after, Maxwell’s absence noticeable in the way her gaze flicked briefly around the room before settling. She greeted Caitlin, then smiled at Jamie, who returned it with unguarded enthusiasm.
Iona watched her for a moment. There was something about Ariella that put others at ease without effort. It was not softness, not entirely. There was strength there too, quiet but steady, as though she had learned how to hold both without conflict.
An idea came to Iona then, sudden but not unwelcome.
“Would ye like to see the healer’s garden?” she asked, knowing full well that Ariella had grown up there, but had not quite seen all of the improvements that Erin had already made to it.
Ariella’s brows lifted slightly. “I would.”
Jamie brightened immediately. “There are plants that smell terrible.”
“There are plants that heal,” Iona corrected.
“They smell terrible first,” Jamie insisted.
Caitlin laughed softly. “Go on, then. It will do ye good to be out before the men return and begin pacing the halls as though the world depends on their next decision.”
They left the hall together, stepping out into the morning air that carried the faint sweetness of growing things. The path to the healer’s garden curved along the inner wall before opening into a quieter space set apart from the main grounds. It was smaller than the rest of the estate, enclosed by low stone and carefully tended. Rows of herbs and flowering plants spread in neat lines, their scents mingling in the air.
Erin was already there.
She stood near one of the beds, sleeves rolled and hands deep in the soil, as though the earth itself might yield answers if sheworked it long enough. She glanced up as they approached, her gaze sharpening briefly before recognition softened it.
“So ye have found me,” she said. “And brought company.”
“Aye,” Iona replied. “This is Lady Ariella.”
Erin inclined her head, not overly formal but respectful. “Then ye are welcome.”
“And this must be the healer I have heard so much about,” Ariella said.
Erin gave a small huff. “I have nae done enough to earn that much talk.”
Jamie had already begun drifting toward the far side of the garden, drawn by something unseen.