Then she stepped forward.
“Jamie…” she began, and stopped.
Frederick’s expression shifted, not with impatience, but with focus. He moved a fraction closer, not crowding her, but closing the distance enough that she would not need to raise her voice.
“What about the child?” he asked.
Her eyes lifted to his then, and whatever hesitation had held her broke.
“Jamie is a girl.”
The words landed between them, simple in their shape and yet carrying the weight of everything that had been withheld.
Frederick did not respond at once.
He felt the shift before he fully understood it, pieces falling into place with quiet precision. The way Jamie had moved, quick but measured. The moments of hesitation that had never quite aligned with what he had assumed. The sharpness in the child’s awareness, the guarded edges that had not been fear alone.
It made sense.
More than that, it settled something that had not been entirely right from the beginning.
Iona mistook his silence.
“I didnae tell ye because I had to protect her,” she said quickly, the words rushing now as though she feared she had waited too long. “I couldnae risk anyone kenning. Nae when I didnae ken who might come looking or why. A lass alone is easier taken. Easier sold. Easier?—”
She broke off, her breath catching.
Frederick’s gaze sharpened slightly at that.
“I understand,” he said.
She blinked at him. “What?”
“I said I understand,” he repeated, more firmly.
Something in her shoulders loosened, though not entirely. The fear had not yet left her.
“Ye are nae…disappointed?” she asked.
The question struck him as so misplaced that it took him a moment to answer.
“Disappointed?” he repeated.
“Aye,” she said, her voice quieter now. “That she is nae what ye thought.”
Frederick exhaled slowly, something close to irritation flickering beneath the surface.
“What I thought,” he said, “was that there is a child under me protection who deserves to be safe.”
He held her gaze. “That has nae changed. It is only that I feel… It is as if…” Frederick cut his thought off, and his brow furrowed at once.
Iona searched his face as though expecting to find some hidden edge beneath the words. When she did not, her expression shifted, uncertainty giving way to something softer, but no less intense.
A small sound escaped her then, almost a laugh.
“As if…” she continued, a faint disbelief threading through her tone. “Ye should have noticed before now?”
“Aye,” he said through gritted teeth..