Chapter Sixteen #2
“All those days we were fed naught but boar and venison,” David went on mournfully, “and now I learn there was meant to be a betrothal feast to cap it all—good beef, spiced bread, ale enough to drown a man—and ye’ve seen fit to rob us of it.”
A short bark of laughter followed from somewhere in the Jamison ranks.
“By the saints,” David added, “that is a heavier offense than any whispered scandal, if ye ask me.”
Alexander MacTavish gave a short, derisive snort. “Aye, that’ll be the part the bards remember—how we rode all this way for unity and went home lighter by one feast and one alliance.”
“And heavier in grievance,” David Jamison added readily. “All because our esteemed brother couldnae keep his wits about him long enough to get through it.”
“Couldnae keep his hands to himself, ye meant to say,” Alexander supplied helpfully.
“I suppose,” David continued the harassment, “if one had to sacrifice a feast to a lass, ye could do worse.”
“Hard to fault a man’s taste,” Malcolm observed, joining in for once, “even if his timing’s shite.”
“Jesu,” David went on, like a dog with a bone on this subject, “I hope ye kissed her well enough to make it worth it.”
“Tell me ye dinna doom an entire alliance with a half-hearted effort,” Alexander furthered.
Jacob shot them all a murderous look over his shoulder, which only earned him a chorus of laughter.
Elena, riding a little behind with her mother, felt heat rise to her cheeks, unable to heed her mother’s whispered caution to ignore them.
Jacob faced forward again, jaw tight, but she thought she saw the faintest shake of his head, as though resigned to the fact that he would never hear the end of it.
Alexander was not done yet, though. “Waste of perfectly guid—”
“Cease,” came Liam’s directive. “?Tis nae a jest.”
“Aye, Da,” Alexander agreed with perfect solemnity. “More the grand, monumental disaster.”
Meggie stifled a laugh behind her hand. Isabel failed to stifle hers, letting it slip free briefly.
Even Gabriel shook his head, though a reluctant smile pulled at his mouth. “Yer tongues are likely to get yourselves killed one day,” he muttered.
“Aye, like as nae,” David said, “but I’d rather perish smiling than crying.”
Elena felt heat rise to her cheeks, but it wasn’t shame this time, but more an embarrassed fondness, looking at these young men who had grown up knit in each other’s lives, raised alongside one another, knowing each other’s faults and strengths too well to let scandal hinder their affection.
Jacob rubbed a hand across his face, and glanced sideways at his brother, David, who just appeared about to add to the ragging. “If ye open your mouth again,” he said, “I’ll bury ye into the next bog we pass.”
“Calm down there, lover,” David replied cheekily, maneuvering his horse a fair distance from his brother’s.
The wagon driver ahead of them chuckled. Isabel covered her mouth with her shawl to hide her amusement. Liam made a deep, grumbling noise that could have been disapproval, but he did not chastise further.
A few moments later, Elena saw him glance subtly at Jacob, the faintest nod of tolerance breaking through the last of his resentment.
Elena didn’t imagine it was a full pardon, not yet, but she deemed it a fine beginning.
THE FAMILIES MADE CAMP in a shallow hollow just off the road, where a young stand of spring-bare trees curved around a stretch of level ground and cut the worst of the wind.
The wagons were drawn into a loose ring, lanterns hung low from their sides and throwing soft amber light across the churned grass, while horses were tethered and watered at the perimeter.
Fires burned small and careful, more for reassurance than warmth, and even the women—Elena among them—had ridden until dusk, stiff and sore in their saddles, before retreating to blankets and the narrow shelter of the wagons.
It ought to have been peaceful, a simple night’s rest after a long road, yet the quiet carried a restless edge, as though no one entirely trusted sleep to keep what the day had stirred at bay.
Sleep eluded Elena with a deliberate cruelty. She lay on her side, chin burrowed to her collarbone, one fist curled under her jaw, the other clutching at the edge of the wool blanket, worrying a loose thread.
Isabel, beside her, was already well and thoroughly asleep, her breaths long and regular, her whole body slack with exhaustion; in the darkness, Elena could almost forget the lines of recent worry around her mother’s lips.
She watched them now in the faint shifting of the moon’s glow, how they faded when Isabel slept, how the years seemed to recede from her face in repose, leaving only the bright, gentle girl that must have once made her father fall so completely in love.
Elena envied her that peace, envied that she had no questions, that she knew already, and had no cause to doubt that she was well and truly loved.
Every effort to empty her head led only to its flooding: first with the bright, fierce memory of Jacob’s mouth on hers, the crushing certainty of his hands on her back, the greediness with which she had met him.
She was embarrassed only by how little embarrassment she felt.
And then, it was simply too easy, in the protective dark, to imagine herself back in the lee of the wall, her tentative hand finding the fabric of his shirt, feeling the heartbeat behind it.
The memory burned against the cold, and yet, the longer she dwelled there, the more the moment blurred at the edges, the more uncertain she became about what, exactly, it had meant.
She had loved Jacob Jamison so long, she couldn’t recall a time when she had not.
It was as if the feeling had slipped under her skin as a bairn and had grown roots there, deep and quiet and impossible to extricate.
But what now? The question hovered, unanswered and unanswerable.
Most of all, she tried and failed to imagine what Jacob thought, if he thought of her at all—did he relive their kiss as many times as she had?
Had he kept his distance deliberately today, a performance to appease her father and his?
Or was it something else entirely—regret, perhaps, that made him unable to meet her eyes throughout the day?
Restless, she turned onto her back and watched the canvas above her, the subtle bulge of each rib, the way the night’s moon cast a faint amber glow through the weave.
She could hear, just barely, the low hum of conversation from the men’s side of camp, punctuated by the soft nickering of horses and the occasional rattle of tack.
Somewhere, a man coughed and shushed himself.
Isabel stirred once, rolling onto her stomach, and let out a low, contented sigh.
She lay there, counting slow breaths, until at last the air inside became too close, too thick with unspoken words.
With a care born of years tiptoeing around Wolvesly at night, Elena eased up from the bedding, gathered her cloak about her shoulders, and slipped out through the canvas flap.
The night air, damp and sharp, hit her with a jolt of clarity.
Outside, the world had gone mostly quiet.
The campfires were banked low, only a few embers glowing under careful watch.
The horses, tethered along the perimeter, shifted and stamped their hooves, tails flicking at invisible pests.
The wagons, arranged in their haphazard ring, loomed like silent sentinels.
Elena pulled the cloak tight at her throat and stepped into the hush, letting the darkness swallow her; she had not intended to go far, merely to walk the stiffness from her legs and to clear her head before surrendering again to the confusion inside her.
But as she made her slow, meandering circuit around the camp, she heard voices—two of them, speaking low but with the intentness of men who would not risk being overheard. She stopped, nearly stumbled, and listened.
Her father’s voice, low and weary. Gabriel Jamison’s, quieter still, but intent.
She slowed at once, instinct tightening her steps even as curiosity pulled her forward.
The sound of their voices—serious, measured, unguarded—made it impossible to turn away.
She moved carefully toward them and stopped behind a low outcrop of stone where the lantern light fell short but the words carried clearly.
“I dinna doubt he would speak to ye,” Gabriel was saying. “Jacob’s never been one to leave a mess unattended.”
Elena cringed. A mess?
Liam let out a slow breath. “Aye. He rode up beside me once we were clear of Strathfinnan and said his piece plain enough.” He paused and cleared his throat, spitting off to the side.
“He apologized with nae hedging. Said he accepted full responsibility for what happened in the lee, and that he would nae see Elena bear the cost of it.”
Elena’s breath caught.
“He told me,” Liam went on, “that he was prepared to wed her at once, if that was what was required to keep her name clear of scandal.”
Gabriel shifted his weight. “He means to do right by her.”
“I dinna doubt that,” Liam said at length. “He’d stand to it, if it came to that. He made that much clear enough.”
Gabriel shifted his weight slightly. “Aye. He’s never been one to flinch from what he believes is owed.”
“Nae,” Liam agreed, his voice measured, almost weary. “And that is nae small thing. There are men who would have looked for a way around it, but he dinna.”
A pause followed, long enough to stretch thin, to Elena’s way of thinking.
“A shame, though, done this way,” Gabriel said carefully, choosing his words as one might choose footing on uncertain ground. “?Tis a hard foundation to build a life on, when a man steps forward because he must.”
Liam let out a breath through his nose. “That’s just it.”
Neither spoke for a moment after that, the silence likely pressing more heavily on Elena than either of them.
“We’ll see what the morning brings,” Liam said finally. “There’s nae sense binding anyone to words spoken under pressure.”
Gabriel inclined his head. “Aye. Let the night pass.”
Elena stepped back then, careful and silent, the weight of what she had heard pressing down on her chest as she retreated toward the wagons.
The night air felt sharper now, as though the cold had finally found her.
She climbed back into the wagon and lay rigid beneath the blankets, staring into the darkness while her mother slept on, unaware.
Of course Jacob had offered marriage—to save her.
That’s what he did, what he’d always done—he saved her.
He would do what honor required, what duty demanded, what necessity dictated.
In every memory she had of the boy, the youth, the man, Jacob Jamison was always the first to step between harm and another, always ready to shoulder whatever had to be borne.
In dozens of small, unremarkable ways, Jacob had always chosen the burden—never once thinking it might be possible to simply refuse.
So yes, it made perfect, devastating sense that he would go to her father and offer himself up like a sacrifice.
He would bind himself to her for a lifetime if it was required, would shoulder a scandal for her sake, would trade away his own freedom to see duty done.
The knowledge landed on her with the crushing weight of inevitability, and for a moment, she hated him for it—hated his sense of responsibility, his relentless, suffocating goodness.
Why could he not be reckless and selfish and choose her because he wanted her and not because honor demanded it?
But she knew the answer. She had known it since childhood, since the first time she watched him stand his ground against some childish injustice with his jaw set and his eyes gone dark and unreadable.
Duty would always come first, and if there was any room left for his own heart, it would be the narrowest of margins.
And suddenly, all the lovely, wild possibility of the day before—the hope she’d dared to feel in the lee, the electricity that had sparked up between them curdled into something sharp and unpleasant.
She wondered if that was why he’d kept his distance all day—so that he would not have to see her, would not have to play directly for her the reluctant but dutiful hero.
She lifted her hand to her lips, remembering the certainty of his kiss in the lee, and felt it shift painfully, reshaped now by the knowledge that what he had to offer her was protection, not choosing.
Tomorrow, she knew, she would look at him differently—not because she cared less, but because she understood that he did.