Chapter 11
Eloise stood in the kitchen with both hands braced on the edge of the table. “I am tired of it,” she sighed.
Clara, kneading bread with grim concentration, did not look up. “Tired of what?”
“This.” Eloise waved one hand vaguely. “One night he is almost human, and the next he is colder than the sea in winter. He has not spoken to me directly in two days. Everything comes through Mrs. Maggie now. A note about the lesson schedule. A message about Duncan’s riding lessons.
As though I have become someone he can only address through an intermediary. ”
Clara snorted. “That sounds like him.”
“You say that as though it should comfort me.”
“It should not.”
“Then why say it at all?”
“Because it is true.” Clara shoved the dough down with the heel of her hand and folded it over again. “He has been like this since he came back from overseas. Warm, then cold. There is no pattern to it that I have ever found, except that warmth seems to frighten him more than coldness does.”
Eloise picked up her teacup and drank too quickly. The tea had gone lukewarm, and she scarcely noticed. “I do not understand how a man can be so capable of kindness and so determined to pretend otherwise.”
“That is not a contradiction,” Clara said. “It is just inconvenient.”
A footstep sounded in the corridor. Logan appeared with his teacup half raised in his own defense before Clara could speak.
“The kettle does not need supervision,” Clara said sharply.
Logan ignored her, though his lips twitched. He left a few minutes later with a satisfied air.
Eloise waited until the door shut behind him. Then she set her cup down with care. “Clara.”
The cook looked up.
“What happened to him at sea?” Eloise asked. “I do not mean the details. I want to understand why he seems so warm one day and so cold and distant the next.”
Clara’s hands froze on the dough.
“He came back different,” Clara said, after a long pause.
“You said that already.”
“Because it is the only true thing I can tell you.” Clara reached for the next loaf. “The accident is something I do not discuss in this house, and you need not ask me for the rest of it.”
“I was not going to.”
Clara studied her, then nodded slightly.
“I believe you.” She was quiet a moment longer, working the dough with less force than before.
“Logan stayed. He was there before, during, and after. Everyone else either did not know what to do with him or did not want to know. Logan is the only one who saw what happened and stayed.”
A small chill moved through Eloise despite the warmth of the kitchen. She thought of Jamie walking in the corridor at night with one hand trailing the wall.
She imagined the scarred side of his face in the moonlight, and the effort it took for him to open up to her in the library two nights before. He apparently had not told anyone else for a very long time.
Clara glanced at her, and her expression became gentler. “The kindness and warmth he showed you since you arrived is more than he has given anyone in two years, Miss Beauchamp. More than anyone.”
Eloise swallowed. “That does not make the retreat easier.”
“No,” Clara agreed. “It does not.” She dusted her hands on her apron. “Take it for what it is, all the same.”
There was no comfort in that answer. Only truth. Eloise supposed that would have to be enough.
***
After morning lessons, Eloise took Maisie outside while Duncan remained at the schoolroom table, bowed over his latest puzzle. He did not look up when they left, which meant he was either entirely absorbed or working very hard to appear so.
The grass had grown damp in the shaded parts of the grounds, but the upper path had warmed enough in the sun to make the air pleasant, and small flowers had begun opening along the bed near the wall. Maisie’s eyes brightened at once.
“Can I pick some?”
“Only a few,” Eloise said.
Maisie nodded solemnly and wandered off the path to gather stems with great seriousness. “This one is a buttercup,” she said, holding one up. “And that one is a little pink one. And that one is a star flower.”
“I do not think that is its real name,” Eloise said.
“Maybe not.” Maisie considered this without concern. “Clara knows some of the real names. And some I made up.”
“Ah. That explains the star flower.”
They walked farther. The garden ended at a sloping stretch of grass near the trees. Maisie gathered flowers as they went and pressed the best ones into Eloise’s free hand.
After a while, she drew a soft breath. “Do butterflies get scared?”
The question caught Eloise off guard. “I think they might,” she said.
“Even if they fly?”
“Being able to fly does not mean one is never afraid.”
Maisie nodded slowly, as though she had suspected as much and was pleased to hear it confirmed. “Do you get scared?” she asked.
“Yes,” Eloise said, because the question held no trap in it, only curiosity, and the truth seemed the only fair answer.
“At what?”
“At many things.”
Maisie seemed to find this sensible. “I get scared at night,” she said.
Eloise kept her voice calm. “Do you?”
The girl nodded. “The carriage. The loud sound.” She lowered her eyes and pulled a flower apart with her fingers. “When I wake up, I remember the wheels.”
Eloise crouched beside her without touching her, waiting until Maisie looked ready for it. “What do you do when you wake up scared?”
“I stay still.”
“That sounds very brave.”
“It is not brave.”
“Sometimes it is.”
Maisie thought about that, then sat down in the grass.
Eloise sat beside her. The sun warmed the back of her neck, and the flowers in her hand brushed lightly against her wrist while Maisie gathered a long stem of daisies and began looping them together with careful fingers, her tongue caught between her teeth the same way Duncan’s was over a puzzle.
When the chain was finished, Maisie lifted it carefully and, to Eloise’s surprise, placed it around her wrist.
“What is this for?” Eloise asked.
“For being brave.”
“I do not think I am especially brave.”
Maisie frowned at her as though she had said something foolish. “You are. Because you are not afraid of Uncle Jamie when he is cross.”
Eloise did not move.
“That is brave,” Maisie said, with solemn confidence.
Eloise looked down at the daisy chain on her wrist and held it carefully in both hands, treating it like it had become fragile the moment Maisie trusted her with it. “I shall treasure this,” she said.
Maisie nodded, satisfied. “Uncle Jamie likes you.”
Eloise looked up so quickly she nearly laughed from the shock of it. “Does he?”
“Because he looks different when you are near.”
“How do you mean?”
Maisie leaned closer, lowering her voice though there was no one to hear. “He does not always look at people like he is trying not to be mad.”
Eloise laughed, softly, and Maisie looked pleased with herself before returning to her flowers, entirely content with her own assessment of matters. Eloise sat in the grass with the daisy chain around her wrist, holding it like it were made of gold.
***
By evening, the house had settled into a rhythm full of small sounds and movement. It felt like people had begun to occupy the rooms rather than simply pass through them.
The effect was visible at dinner. Clara brought extra bread without being asked. Maisie chattered more freely than she had in days.
Duncan sat slightly closer to Eloise than usual, one shoulder unconsciously angled toward her.
Logan appeared in the doorway after the first course, lingered to inquire about the pudding and whether the wine had been opened properly.
Eloise had every reason to believe his inquiries were nothing but an excuse.
Lawrence, seated near the head of the table with perfect ease, observed all of it with a smile pleasant enough that it ought to have been harmless. Yet it made Eloise uneasy regardless.
She noticed Jamie watching the same things she was with a neutral but fixed expression, and she wondered whether he saw what she saw. It was clear that Jamie was as scrutinous of the marquess as she had been. But why?
Lawrence raised his glass. “It is wonderful to see such a happy household,” he said, warmly enough to sound genuine. “It is unfortunate, of course, that it was formed by tragedy.”
The room went still.
Jamie looked up slowly. Eloise watched his jaw tighten and relax with the effort of carefully choosing his words.
“You find that unfortunate?” Jamie said.
“Surely you do as well,” Lawrence said, his smile unchanged.
“I find it unnecessary to speak of at dinner.”
“I meant no offense.”
The tone of Jamie’s reply made that impossible to believe, and Eloise, who had become reliably good at preventing small explosions before they grew larger, smiled. “My lord, you began a story the other evening that you never finished. Perhaps dinner is a safer place for an ending than for tragedy.”
Jamie turned toward her, and his sudden, sharp expression made her wonder immediately whether she had chosen the wrong moment.
“A story?” Lawrence said, looking interested.
“A naval one, I believe,” Eloise said, keeping her tone light.
“It was not finished,” Jamie said.
“The part you left off involved a storm, I think.”
“That is not much help.”
“I thought you might prefer to finish it.”
He did not answer immediately. The silence stretched long enough that she understood, too late, that the kindness of the offer had not seemed like kindness. “It does not matter,” he said, more sharply than the moment required.
Eloise froze, and she hoped the hurt did not show as clearly as it felt. The table went silent. Logan’s expression tightened from across the room. Mrs. Maggie lowered her eyes to her plate. Clara became suddenly absorbed in the roast.
Lawrence, to Eloise’s irritation, looked as though he had just witnessed a pleasing crack form on a polished surface.
“Very well,” Eloise said, composed, which felt worse than if she had said nothing at all.
Conversation resumed in fragments.
After a few minutes, Maisie looked up. “Can we go to the village carnival next week?”
The question came lightly enough to ease the room.
“The carnival,” Jamie repeated.
Duncan’s mouth danced.
“Please?” Maisie said.
“It will be crowded,” Duncan said.
“That is why it will be fun.”
“It will also be noisy.”
“More fun.”
“I believe the noise is part of the appeal,” Eloise said, and Jamie looked at her, and then at the children’s hopeful faces
“Yes,” he said.
Maisie gasped. Duncan looked suspiciously pleased.
“Will the carnival have music?” Maisie asked.
“Probably too much of it,” Clara said.
“And all the sweet treats you can imagine,” Logan said very unhelpfully.
That earned him a look from Eloise, and the moment pretended to pass.
Eloise remained aware of the small fracture created by Jamie’s sharp tone.
She understood that it had not been entirely Jamie’s doing, but that knowledge did not make it sting any less.
Then Lawrence set down his glass. “How delightful,” he said lightly. “I should be happy to escort Miss Beauchamp myself, if she would care for company.”
Eloise immediately felt the children glance toward her as Mrs. Maggie stood motionless, and Logan went quiet . Lawrence’s gaze remained on her, his smile easy, his tone polite enough that refusing it gracefully seemed nearly impossible.
“It would save you from navigating the village alone,” he said.
She glanced toward Jamie, searching for some indication of what he wanted her to say. His face had become blank. Eloise noted it was the blankness of effort, rather than indifference.
There was no comfortable way to decline. Not with Lawrence having left her no graceful path around the offer.
“Thank you, my lord,” she said. “That is very kind.”
Lawrence smiled and lifted his glass again, pleased.
Eloise did not look at Jamie again, though she was acutely aware of the wood creaking as his hand tightened at the edge of the table. Whatever passed through him in that moment, he gave it no further expression at all, and the dinner carried on around the silence between them.