Chapter 18 #3
By the time they turned back toward the cove, the wind had begun to ease. The sail slackened a little.
The boat drifted in the calmer water near the shore, moving more slowly, the motion gentler and the silence close enough to feel shared rather than imposed. The children remained visible farther off, though no longer clearly enough to catch every movement.
Jamie lowered the sail partway and let the boat settle into the drift. He could feel Eloise watching the shore, but not him. Perhaps that was mercy. Perhaps not. He took a breath.
“I owe you an apology,” he said at last.
She turned her head immediately. But he kept his gaze on the water.
“For what I said about you walking with Lawrence.”
Her face was unreadable when he glanced at her again.
He went on before he could lose nerve.
“I was wrong to speak to you that way.”
Eloise still said nothing. Jamie might have been irritated with anyone else so unresponsive. But he knew that Eloise would speak when he was finished.
Jamie tightened one hand on the tiller, then forced himself to continue.
“I do not trust him.”
At that, she nodded silently.
“I do not trust the way he asks questions. I do not trust what he wants. I do not trust how he smiles when he wants something.” His jaw tightened. “I was trying to protect you.”
The words came out rougher than intended. He stopped, then corrected himself because it sounded too much like a declaration and too little like something he could safely own. “Not only you,” he said quickly. “The house. The children. The household.”
He was aware, painfully aware, of how little that sounded like the truth.
Eloise nodded again.
“I would not like a man like that to take advantage of someone I like as much as I like you.”
There it was. The thing beneath the thing. He liked her. He had not meant to say it that way at that moment, but there it was. The sentence stood between them in the boat where neither could pretend not to have heard it.
Eloise’s eyes had widened by the smallest degree.
He winced inwardly and tried to recover before the damage became irreparable.
“What I mean,” he said quickly, “is as a person. I would not like to see you badly treated.”
She looked at him with the sort of careful expression that suggested she had heard both versions and was taking in the truth in spite of his attempt to improve it. He regretted speaking at all. Then regretted trying to take it back. The apology seemed to have become no apology at all.
“Forget that,” he muttered, immediately wishing he had not.
Eloise’s mouth twitched. At last, there was a smile on her face, but only enough of one to keep the moment respectful.
“I accept your apology,” she said.
He looked at her, surprised. He had hoped she would see his sincerity. But he had expected her to give him another piece of her mind before she accepted his apology. Yet she had not. Her eyes were still without pity, but they were warm, if still guarded.
“Though I should perhaps point out that you seem to spend a great deal of time in Lady Catriona’s company,” she said softly. There was no accusation in her words. Simply truth, and perhaps an answer to what he had accidentally said.
He felt the answer rise at once, then stop because she looked a little too vulnerable in saying it. Not jealous or angry in the same way he had been. But there was gentle hurt, nonetheless.
She reached into her pocket suddenly, and he felt the shift in the subject before she even spoke again. He watched the movement.
She drew out a folded letter and held it toward him.
Jamie frowned. “What is that?”
“My father’s letter.”
He took it carefully. The paper was already opened and folded back once, then twice. He noted the handwriting. It was the careful, controlled script of a man trying to sound calm while being anything but.
He read the letter. Multiple times. The name. The warning. The debts. The clubs. The dangerous men. The picture aligned itself too quickly to be anything other than true.
Lawrence was not simply charming. He was not merely interested in the children’s welfare.
He was a gambler drowning in debt who had taken a sudden interest in orphaned trust funds.
The sick clarity of it hit hard enough to make Jamie sit back slightly.
The pieces were all there. Jamie finally understood why he had not trusted Lawrence.
He looked up at her across the small boat. The late sun was behind her now, catching the edges of her hair and turning them to amber.
Eloise met his eyes steadily.
“We need to find out exactly what he wants before he can act.”
Jamie’s mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
She did not hesitate. “I have an idea where to start.”
He studied her face.
“What?”
“The family solicitor.” The answer was immediate. Sensible. The sort of answer he should have thought of first. And it made him realize that they were no longer governess and employer. They were allies.
And given the sensitive nature of the feelings Jamie tried to deny were forming between them, he thought being allies might be the most dangerous thing right then.