Chapter 14
A couple of days passed before Jamie admitted, privately and with some irritation, that the house had become easier to inhabit. Not peaceful. Never peaceful. But easier.
The children no longer moved seemingly expecting to be sent away at any moment. Maisie had begun to chatter again in the mornings. Duncan still wore the same suspicious expression to breakfast, but now he brought questions with him.
Clara had resumed her usual habit of complaining at full volume about everything from cracked dishes to cold floors to the general incompetence of mankind, which was not a perfect measure of serenity but was close enough for this house.
He stood in the schoolroom doorway and watched Eloise bend over Duncan’s chart.
His old naval kit had seemed a foolish thing to bring out of storage when she first suggested using it, but the boy had become nearly feral with delight over the charts, the measuring tools, the pair of compasses Jamie had not touched in years.
Duncan leaned over the table with fierce concentration, one hand planted on the edge of the chart while the other hovered over the line Eloise had drawn.
She was showing him how to plot a course properly, speaking softly while he followed every word with strained seriousness, clearly trying not to appear thrilled.
Eloise had one sleeve pushed up. Her fingers were smudged with ink, and when she brushed a strand of hair off her forehead, she left a streak of ink across her cheekbone.
Jamie had no idea when his attention had fixed there, only that it had. The streak should have meant nothing. Yet he found himself staring at it, thinking that it ought to be removed, and then thinking, more dangerously, that he would like to be the one to remove it.
Eloise looked up before he could retreat from the notion. Their eyes met, and time in the room seemed to stop for a moment.
He crossed to the table.
“Uncle Jamie?” Duncan looked up, startled.
Jamie ignored him. He raised one hand and, before he could reconsider the entire course of his behavior, brushed his thumb lightly across her cheek to clear the ink away.
Her breath caught. So did his. The contact lasted no more than a second, and yet it seemed to fill the room entirely.
Duncan stared. Maisie, occupied with her colored pencils across the table, did not look up, which was the only mercy in the moment.
Jamie withdrew his hand at once, aware of the heat climbing into his own face.
“Thank you,” Eloise said, after a moment, her voice a little too composed.
He gave a short nod and looked away first, because if he did not, he would become aware of every detail of her expression, and that would be unwise.
“Why did you do that?” Duncan asked.
“Because she had ink there.”
“She knows that.”
Eloise’s mouth twitched. Jamie looked at her and regretted that the shift in her expression was entirely too pleasant to witness.
“She did not seem aware of it,” he said.
Duncan accepted this with narrowed eyes, the way he accepted most things he found emotionally inconvenient, and Eloise cleared her throat and laid down her compass.
“Very well,” she said. “Since my dignity has now been compromised in front of the student body, perhaps the student body should be dismissed for a short interval.”
“Why?” Duncan demanded.
“Because I wish to speak with your uncle.”
“About me?”
“About several matters.”
“Like what?”
“Not your business.”
He looked between them with unusual suspicion. “That does not seem fair,” he muttered before he stood, gathered his chart with great protectiveness, and headed for the door. At the threshold he looked back. “Do not smear her with anything else.”
Eloise choked on a laugh. Jamie stared at the boy’s retreating back, and felt, against his own better judgment, a warmth he had no business feeling over such a small thing.
He turned back to Eloise. She had begun arranging the chart again, though the motion was absentminded, ink still tracing the edge of one knuckle.
“You should not have left that there,” he said.
“Left what?”
“The ink.”
Her brows lifted. “I was not aware I had summoned a correction.”
“You had not.”
“I see.” She folded her hands loosely on the table. “Duncan likes the chart very much. He has taken to it faster than I expected.”
“He likes feeling capable,” Jamie said.
“Yes. But I think you knew that already.”
He looked down at the chart, annoyed that she was right again. “He has been spending more time with me.”
“Has he?”
“Yes.”
“Is that a complaint?”
“No,” he said quickly, sounding more understanding than amused.
He had become aware, over the past few days, that he was attending dinner more often than he had in months.
The obvious explanation was Lawrence. That was part of it.
He told himself it was the sole reason. The truth was less convenient.
Duncan had begun sitting near him without being asked.
Maisie had started bringing him drawings after supper.
Eloise had made the children into people who seemed to expect him to remain in the room.
It was not a small thing. He did not intend to say so aloud, but she caught him off guard. “You seem less displeased by it than you did a week ago,” she said.
“I am grateful,” he said, surprising himself by answering honestly.
Her hands went completely still.
“You have helped them,” he said. “And you have given me a way back to them too, which I did not know I needed until you showed me.”
The room seemed to cease existing around them. He had not entirely intended to say that much aloud, and her expression warmed.
“Duncan sat beside me at dinner last night,” he said, pressing forward because the words had already begun. “He chose the seat without being told.”
“Mostly your doing,” he added, when she did not argue the point. “Maisie brought me drawings after supper. Several horses. And one impossible cat.”
Eloise laughed softly. “That sounds like Maisie.”
“The children are easier around me when you are here,” he said.
“You think so?”
“Yes. Because they trust you.”
She glanced down, not embarrassed, only thoughtful, and Jamie studied her face and found, to his annoyance, that he wanted to touch the last trace of ink on her cheek again. He folded his hands behind his back instead.
“You should have asked for a better room,” he said abruptly.
“What?”
“Your room. There is a draft.”
“I assure you it is warm enough.”
“That is not the answer I meant.”
“What answer did you mean?”
He hesitated. “That if you need anything else, you should say so.”
She blinked, and for a second, he thought she might laugh. Instead, she looked at him with a softness that disarmed him more than laughter would have. “Thank you,” she said.
He nodded and turned to go before he remained too long after admitting that much sincerity.
“My lord,” she called, before he reached the door.
He paused.
“Duncan was very pleased by the chart,” she said. “He would not admit it. But he was. Quite pleased.”
That was all. It felt sufficient. He nodded once and left before the schoolroom became too bright for the expression he was beginning to wear.
***
Logan found him later in the study, just after breakfast, looking irritatingly pleased with himself, which was rarely a good sign.
“If you are here to complain about the wine, speak to Clara,” Jamie said, without looking up.
“I am not here about wine.” Logan crossed the room and shut the door behind him. “A carriage has come up the drive. I do not recognize the crest.”
Jamie looked up fully at that.
“Mrs. Maggie does,” Logan said.
The study door opened again before Jamie could ask further. Mrs. Maggie entered with her familiar, no-nonsense expression.
“Lady Catriona Drummond has arrived,” she said. “She is asking to pay her respects.”
Jamie went completely still. He had not heard that name in years within his own house.
Catriona Sinclair. Catriona Drummond now.
Widowed, if the rumor that had reached him last autumn was true.
He remembered her as sharp-eyed and easy in conversation, kind in the manner of someone who noticed things without making a display of noticing them.
She had been one of the young women his father had once considered for him, before the Navy, before everything.
He had liked her well enough. She had not frightened him, which, in those days, had been a kind of praise.
“Shall I show her into the drawing room?” Mrs. Maggie asked.
“Yes,” Jamie said.
Mrs. Maggie nodded and left.
“Well,” Logan said. “That was interesting.”
“You are not helping.”
“I did not say I meant to.”
Jamie stood alone in the study after Logan left as well, and admitted, because there seemed no reason not to be honest with himself, that the name had bothered him more than he liked.
Catriona was exactly as he remembered, and not. Widowhood had refined her rather than softened her. Her gown was elegant but practical, her hair arranged with simple neatness, her face composed with perfectly natural grace.
She rose when he entered and offered her hand with a calm that matched her face.
“Jamie.”
The sound of his name from her was strange. Familiar enough to be disorienting. “Catriona.”
She smiled, and it was a real smile, not polished or measured. “I hope I have not arrived at a bad time.”
“You have arrived.”
“A fair answer.” She sat when he gestured, and he remained standing a moment longer than necessary, recovering from the odd sensation of being looked at by someone who had known him before the scars became the first thing anyone noticed.
“I was visiting my aunt in Inverness,” she said, “and found myself uncomfortably near enough to think I ought to call. I wished to pay my respects in person, and to say how sorry I am about your sister.”
“Thank you,” Jamie said.
Her gaze moved briefly to the left side of his face. It paused there and then moved away. No flinch or visible discomfort. That, unexpectedly, made him more aware of the scars than if she had recoiled.
“Will you stay for dinner?” he found himself asking.
She blinked, then smiled. “If I am not imposing.”