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And she had cried his name aloud in his own room, with the door unbarred, and liked it better than anything in her life.

Iona pressed her hands over her face. Her cheeks were burning again. She was beginning to enjoy him. The laugh, the fights, the way he went white at the scar when she smiled at another man. The way he had knelt.

Her father was coming to free her.

She lifted her head and looked at the shut lid of the chest, and her stomach went cold under the warmth.

Free her how?

11

Iona went down the west passage that morning to hide from her own husband, and the shame of it burned in her face before she had even reached the door.

She had heard his voice in the yard at first light, laughing at something Gavin said, and her whole body had gone hot under the blankets. Her mouth was still tender. Her father’s letter lay at the bottom of the chest under her old torn gown, and between the letter and the laugh she had not slept. So she had gone the long way, behind the hall, where he would not see her.

The rushes in the passage were fresh. The lamp in the bracket had been lit and had burned down in the night. Agnes had done it after all, and never said so to the Dunmore woman who had asked for it.

Morag was coming the other way with an armful of linen. She flattened herself against the wall to let Iona by, and kept her eyes on the sheets, and did not say one word. Not since the laird had roared at her in his own hall.

Iona knocked. “Come in,” said Lady Mairead, before her knuckles had left the wood.

Both shutters stood wide. The cup that had carried the eggs and warm milk sat empty on the chest, and Iona’s heart gave a small hard leap at the sight of it. Lady Mairead sat in her chair by the window.

“Ye came,” the lady said.

“I said I would, my lady.”

Lady Mairead did not answer. Her thin fingers had found a loose thread in the fringe of the shawl, and they worked at it, and worked at it, and her eyes stayed on the water. Iona sat on the stool and waited. She knew this quiet now. It was the place the lady went when the past came up the passage after her.

Then the fingers stopped.

“There’s a chest in the west rooms,” Lady Mairead said. “Up the stairs at the end of this passage. My rooms, once. Nobody has opened it since they brought Gregor home.” She turned her head, and her grey eyes were clearer than Iona had ever seen them. “I want ye to open it for me. I want ye to put on what’s inside.”

“My lady, I couldnae…”

“Ye could. Give me yer arm.”

She stood. She had not stood up out of that chair in Iona’s sight before, and she was taller than Iona had thought, and lighter, all bone under the shawl. Iona’s throat closed. She gave her arm.

The stairs were narrow and steep, and the dust on them lay thick as flour. Lady Mairead climbed them one at a time with her cold hand clamped on Iona’s wrist. At the top a door stuck in its frame, and Iona put her shoulder to it. The room beyond was big and bright and dead, the bed stripped, the hearth swept, a chest under the window with a cloth over it.

Lady Mairead pulled the cloth away herself. She lifted the lid, and the smell of lavender and old cedar came up into the cold air, and she took out a gown.

It was blue silk, pale as a summer sky, with silver thread worked at the neck and down the long sleeves. It ran through her thin hands like water.

“I was married in this,” Lady Mairead said.

Iona took a step back. “Then it’s no’ for me, my lady. I’m a Dunmore. Ye ken what that means in this house.”

“I ken what it means better than anybody in this house.” The lady held it out. “Put it on, lass, or I’ll sit down here in the dust and wait till ye do.”

Iona looked at the stubborn line of that mouth and saw where Alasdair had got his. A laugh caught in her chest. She turned her back, untied her apron, and pulled the brown working gown over her head.

The silk went on cool and whispering, and settled on her shoulders as if it remembered somebody. Lady Mairead laced it at the back with fingers that fumbled at every lace. It was a little long, but it fitted at the waist as if it had been cut for her. Iona smoothed her palms down the front of it and felt like a stranger in her own skin, a bride in a house that had wanted her, and tears came so suddenly that she had to look at the window.

“Turn around,” Lady Mairead said.

Iona turned. The skirt swung out wide and settled against her ankles with a hiss.