Chapter Two
The great hall buzzed with chatter and laughter by the time Elena took her seat at the high table.
Lord Hamilton gestured toward the ornate chair at his right, and Thomas eagerly settled beside her.
Just before supper, Lady Hamilton had escorted him to Elena’s chamber for a casual reintroduction before their public appearance.
Standing there, he had been a blend of shyness and eagerness, his genuine smile and effortlessly charming demeanor putting her at ease.
Elena felt a wave of relief wash over her; he was as handsome as she remembered, with light brown hair that glimmered in the torchlight and warm eyes that sparkled with kindness.
From this elevation, she could see the tops of heads—her father's dark hair, her mother's carefully coiled chignon—clustered at a table far below. Her fingers tightened on the carved armrests, disliking being so distant from her family. She’d not ever in her life taken supper so far removed from her family. Every time she swallowed, the weight of the silver pendant at her throat—a long-ago gift from her mother—seemed to press a little harder against her skin. Wolvesly’s hall had never arranged her this way, lifted and displayed.
At Wolvesly, meals had been a family affair, her elbows brushing Michael's as they leaned in to share whispers, her father's raised eyebrow carrying entire conversations across the table.
Here, the high table seemed to demand a different sort of daughter.
One who sat with her spine straight, hands folded in her lap, waiting for conversation rather than starting it.
One who smiled and nodded at the proper moments, who occupied her ornate chair like a carefully arranged ornament rather than a living, breathing person.
Across the breadth of the hall, her family sat lower, where the MacTavishes properly belonged among allied chiefs and visiting men of consequence.
Liam MacTavish carried weight in the Highlands, but this far south, in a castle that had hosted councils before Liam MacTavish had been a man grown, influence sat differently.
Her father was honored, but he was not the lord of this place, and Elena’s position at the high table did not pull him upward with her.
She could see them, though. Liam’s dark head was bent toward her mother, listening as she spoke, as though the press of the hall did not exist. Alexander sat to her father’s left, alert and half-listening even when he looked relaxed, while Michael sat beside Isabel.
Michael shifted now and again, gaze scanning the room the way he always did.
When her parents straightened, some jest passed between the four of them that sparked laughter, and Elena felt a pang of longing, a newfound distance she hadn’t anticipated.
Thomas spoke to her now and again, and she answered him; she was grateful for his company.
He was attentive in a way that did not demand performance from her, quick to fill a silence with something gentle rather than anything that demanded too much of her.
He asked for her opinions on the weather at Strathfinnan versus that of Wolvesly, on whether she preferred the old Hamilton family crest or the new one designed by an Italian artisan, and on the merits of Highland honey versus Lowland.
She found herself answering easily, surprised by how little effort it took to bask in such undemanding attentiveness.
He leaned slightly toward her when someone farther down the table spoke too quickly, murmuring a name or title that helped Elena keep her bearings.
It was kindness, and she did not dismiss it, not entirely.
Try as she might, however, her eyes betrayed her; they wandered again and again to the distant table where her family sat, where her father’s laughter sounded more than once and Alexander at one point attempted to balance an entire flagon of wine on his nose.
Isabel's laugh burst forth, then caught in her throat as she darted glances at the surrounding tables, her cheeks coloring at her eldest son's antics while the other noble mothers looked on.
Each time Elena looked, she was met with some bright little reminder of the world she was leaving behind: the way Michael drank his wine in two gulps and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, or how her mother tilted her head to the right when she wanted her way with her husband.
The intensity of Elena’s scrutiny did not escape Thomas, for he slowed his speech and gave her the space to observe.
After a while, though, it seemed Thomas grew weary of her silence, her pointed inattention.
“You’ve gone quiet,” he said, not accusing, only observant. “Am I boring you already?”
Elena drew a steady breath and turned back to him, determined to do better, recalling her manners. “Not at all,” she replied. “I was only thinking how different this feels from Wolvesly. Supper there is rarely so... orderly.”
“Should I perceive that as a compliment?” he asked, amusement touching his kind eyes.
“Absolutely,” Elena assured him. “At home, Alexander would have by now stolen plenty of food off Michael's trencher and Michael would have retaliated by replacing Alexander's wine with vinegar when he wasn't looking.”
Thomas laughed. “Then I count myself fortunate not to be seated among them.”
“You would survive,” she said. “But only barely.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said after a moment, his tone simple and sincere. “I worried the journey might be unpleasant so early in the season. I wasn’t sure if winter still had a grip up north.”
Elena glanced toward the high windows where hard rain now slashed at the glass.
"The mountains at home still wear their white caps, but each day of our journey south brought warmer air.
At least the skies held their peace until we crossed your threshold," she said, smoothing her skirt. "A kindness I dinna take for granted."
“That is something, at least,” he replied.
“A new place takes time to settle into. If there’s anything you need, you have only to say so.
” When he only stared at her, still smiling gently at her, Elena knew her first bit of discomfort, to be stared at so unabashedly.
She glanced over the crowded hall, catching several pairs of eyes on her, and confessed to Thomas, “I still feel as if I’m sitting on a shelf. ”
Thomas’s mouth twitched, amusement tempered with understanding. “A handsome shelf,” he said, then added more seriously, “but I take your meaning.”
“It is no one’s fault,” Elena said, because it was true and because she refused to sound petulant. “It is only...” She searched for the right word and found herself settling on honesty. “At Wolvesly, I ken everyone and they me, and nae one stares.”
He nodded once, as though that made sense to him. “When the meal is done, you’ll be able to slip away from the dais, and might wish to rejoin your kin for a bit.”
Elena’s smile warmed, genuine once more, encouraged by his consideration. “Ye are verra kind to me, Thomas, and I thank ye.”
“Father assures me that keeping my wife content is the surest path to my own happiness,” he said simply, shrugging his lean shoulders.
“Yer da is then the most sensible of men,” she decided, and she laughed quietly, but with real appreciation.
Rain continued to strike the high windows in steady sheets, and when the great doors opened to admit late arrivals, the wind pushed cold air into the hall with them. It was during one such opening—between courses, when the servants were clearing trenchers and the noise dipped—that the room shifted.
“Ah, the Jamison,” mused Lord Hamilton, sending Elena’s gaze sharply and with anticipation to the door.
As the great doors swung open, rain-soaked and brightened by the flickering torchlight, the atmosphere in the hall shifted. Elena's breath caught in her throat as the Jamison family stepped inside, shaking off the chill of the storm.
Gabriel, tall and commanding, entered first, his rugged northern appearance exuding a quiet strength that drew the eye, much as her own father’s presence did.
Beside him, Meggie moved with grace, as if her hair and cloak were not plastered to her skin.
Elena’s lips parted, not having seen Jacob’s mother in more years than she could count, but recalling Meggie’s kindness and warmth, aware of her own mother’s enduring friendship with Jacob’s mother.
Following closely were David and Malcolm Jamison, the latter much more uncomfortable with so many eyes on him than the former.
Then Jacob Jamison stepped into the hall behind his parents and brothers, and Elena’s body betrayed her before her mind could intervene.
He was rain-darkened and travel-marked, his cloak still fastened at his shoulder, his hair slightly mussed by wind.
He was taller than she remembered, broader through the chest and shoulders, closer to the size of his father, and he moved with the certainty of a man comfortable in his own skin.
His grace was neither showy nor loud, but simply present in a way that drew the eye whether one meant to look or not.
For a heartbeat, Elena forgot to breathe.
His gaze swept the room—banners, tables, faces—and found the high table with apparent purpose, so quickly it made her stomach tighten.
Their eyes met. Neither blinked, and neither looked away in haste either.
Recognition passed between them in a brief, clean line—enough that her cheeks warmed —and then he turned his gaze onto Thomas, but only briefly before he bent an ear to something his brother, David, was saying.
Elena kept her face steady, wore no expression at all. She drew a slow breath through her nose and set her hands neatly on her lap as though nothing had happened at all.