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Iona came back and knelt beside the chair, and before she could think better of it she took both of those thin hands in her own.

They were like ice, and stiff, and the bones in them felt as light as a bird’s. Pity closed on Iona’s chest so hard it hurt. She folded the lady’s hands between her palms and began to rub them, hard and brisk.

Lady MacVey went rigid. For a moment Iona thought she would pull away. Then the stiffness went out of the thin fingers, and the lady let her hands lie where they were.

“Ye’re very bold,” she said softly.

“So yer son keeps telling me, my lady,” Iona said.

The corner of Lady MacVey’s mouth twitched. It was nearly a smile, and it made her look years younger, and Iona found herself smiling back before she could stop it.

She stayed. She had not meant to. She pulled the stool over from beside the chest and sat with the lady’s hands in her lap.

“There’s a lass in yer hall with a bucket,” she said, “who cannae carry it ten steps without drowning somebody’s skirts.”

Lady MacVey’s eyes went down to the wet hem. “Yours,” she said.

“Mine. And nobody has lit the lamp in yer passage.” Iona plucked at the sodden wool. “At home I’d have had somebody’s ears for it.”

“At home,” the lady said slowly. “And who taught ye to keep a house?”

“My mother,” Iona said. “And then nobody. I learned the rest by getting it wrong.”

“And who keeps it now, with ye here?” the lady asked.

Iona’s hands went still on the thin fingers. She thought of the linen press at Dunmore, and the torn sheet she had never put away, and her father in his chair waiting for someone else to decide. “I dinnae ken,” she said. “Nobody, I suppose.”

“Then we’re a pair,” Lady MacVey said. “For nobody keeps me either.”

“Then somebody should,” Iona said.

“Getting it wrong is the only way anybody learns anything.” Lady MacVey looked toward the open window. “When I was young and got things wrong, I used to throw things.”

“I threw yer son’s inkwell at him,” Iona said.

The lady turned and stared at her. Her hands were warm now between Iona’s own.

Boots came along the passage outside, quick and heavy.

Iona’s heart jumped into her throat. She knew the stride before the door crashed back against the wall. Alasdair filled the doorway, his black hair still damp from the well. He looked at his mother’s hands in Iona’s lap, and the old scar went white and tight.

“Get up,” he said. “Get away from my mother.”

Iona did not get up. She felt the lady’s fingers twitch in hers, and she held them tighter.

“I said get up.” His voice was low and shaking with anger. “Who told ye she was here? Who sent ye?”

“Nobody sent me,” Iona said. “I found her.”

“Found her.” He came a step into the room. “Ye came hunting. Ye heard there was a widow at the end of the passage, and ye thought ye’d sit at her feet and weep with her. And then she’d come to me and ask me to be gentle with the poor Dunmore lass. Is that yer father’s game? Find the soft place in a MacVey house and put yer thumb in it?”

Beside her, Lady MacVey flinched at the name Dunmore as if he had struck her. Her eyes closed, and pain cut deep into her face.

The blood went up into Iona’s face so fast her ears rang. She let go of Lady MacVey’s hands, gently, and came up off the stool, and the stool went over behind her with a clatter. She crossed the boards until she stood right under his chin.

“My father sent me nowhere,” she said. “Yer King sent me. You carried me. If ye want somebody to blame, look in a glass.”

“I’m looking at who I blame.” He did not step back. He bent his head so that his breath was on her face. “Ye’ve yer brother’s grave to settle with me, and dinnae tell me ye’ve forgotten it. And now I find ye in here with yer hands on her. What else am I to think?”