Chapter 24
Jamie pulled Jonathan aside the morning after his arrival, before the household had fully gathered itself. Mostly because he did not trust himself to survive it politely if Lawrence were present.
Jonathan looked sheepish the moment Jamie found him near the breakfast room, which would have been promising if sheepishness had ever translated into useful awareness.
It did not. Jonathan had the same fair hair, the same easy charm, and the same habit of appearing harmless that seemed to run through that side of the family like a cursed inheritance.
He brightened when he saw Jamie. “Cousin.”
Jamie stopped at the foot of the corridor. “You should have said you were coming.”
Jonathan blinked. “I did not think I needed to.”
“That answer is not helping you.”
Jonathan’s mouth twitched. “I did not expect to arrive and be received as though I had brought the plague.”
Jamie looked at him with open disbelief. Jonathan immediately lifted both hands. “Not plague. Apologies. That was too much.”
Jamie folded his arms. “Why are you here?”
Jonathan looked genuinely puzzled by the intensity of the question. “Lawrence invited me. A few weeks ago. He said he was visiting family and thought it might do me good to have a change of air. He mentioned the children. Said you could use family around you.”
Jamie went very still.
Jonathan, sensing he had stumbled into something more serious than expected, cleared his throat weakly. “That was kind of him, really.”
Jamie said nothing.
Jonathan glanced at him. “Was it not?”
Jamie had to work not to say no immediately.
“How well do you know Lawrence?”
Jonathan brightened in the way of a man hearing a question he believed he could answer easily. “Quite well.”
“From where?”
“The club.”
Jamie’s expression hardened. Jonathan nodded, oblivious. “Cards, racing, the usual things. He is excellent company in London.”
The words sat in the air between them. Jonathan was still talking, seemingly still unaware of Jamie’s altered disposition.
“He is very good at bringing people together. One meets him at one place, then another, then suddenly one has been invited to dinner and is talking to men one would not ordinarily have met.”
Jamie felt a cold knot forming between his shoulder blades. The club. Cards. He could already picture it. Lawrence smiling. Lawrence gathering names and habits and weaknesses over a table while everyone thought themselves entertained.
“How long have you known him?” Jamie asked.
“Years.”
“How many?”
Jonathan hesitated. “Perhaps six. Seven?”
“And you never thought to mention him before?”
Jonathan looked nonplused. “Mention him how?”
Jamie held his gaze. Jonathan’s expression slowly changed. Not all at once. A little at a time. He was not stupid, precisely. Merely late.
“You do not like him,” Jonathan said at last.
“That is obvious.”
Jonathan frowned. “He has always been pleasant to me.”
Jamie nearly said that was exactly the problem. “Did he say anything else when he invited you?”
Jonathan thought for a moment. “He said the household could use cheering up. He said the children had lost their parents and their uncle was too old to manage alone.”
Jamie’s mouth flattened. “Too old?”
Jonathan looked embarrassed. “That is not what I said.”
“No. But it is what he said.”
Jonathan hesitated again. Jamie could see the moment he realized there was a current beneath all this, that he had wandered into deep water with both hands in his pockets.
“He did say you might appreciate family,” Jonathan admitted. “I thought that was generous.”
Jamie looked at him in silence for several seconds. Jonathan, at last sensing the direction of the conversation. “What exactly is going on?”
Jamie did not answer at once. Jonathan would repeat it all to Lawrence if given too much. That was the problem with cousins like Jonathan. Friendly. Loyal enough in the ordinary way. Not sharp enough for strategy. Or for keeping their mouths shut when it mattered most.
So Jamie only smiled, though weakly. “I am glad you came.”
Jonathan blinked. That seemed to confuse him more than the hostility had. “Are you?” he said.
“Yes. Your visit is welcome.”
Jonathan looked relieved and suspicious all at once. “Then why did you look as though you might throw me into the sea?”
“Because I am not sleeping well,” Jamie said flatly.
Jonathan’s relief faded into concern. He glanced toward the breakfast room, then back. “Is there anything I ought to know?”
Jamie gave him a look that probably would have silenced a better man. Jonathan waited. “You should be careful what you say here for now,” Jamie said.
Jonathan straightened a little. “That sounds very solemn.”
“It should.”
The bell for breakfast sounded, sparing Jamie from further explanation. He started toward the room and then stopped.
“Has the marquess told you that Catriona and I are engaged to be married?”
Jonathan grinned and shook his head.
“No,” he said. “That is wonderful news.”
Jamie looked at his cousin with both sympathy and annoyance.
“The engagement party will be soon.”
Jonathan looked startled. “Already?”
He appeared to be doing arithmetic with the information and not yet succeeding. “Oh,” he said at last. “Well, Congratulations, I suppose.”
Jamie did not answer that either. He turned toward the dining room with the distinct impression that he had done nothing useful at all.
That was not entirely true. He had learned that Lawrence had invited Jonathan weeks ago and seemingly had not mentioned the petition.
That alone was not proof. It was enough to make him more irritated than before.
He would need to watch Jonathan. He would need to watch Lawrence. He would need to watch everyone. And, inconveniently, he would need to do it while pretending to be a man about to marry Catriona.
***
At dinner, Lawrence had arranged everything so deliberately that Jamie wanted to break something. He did not. He sat down. That was the only outward response he allowed himself.
Jonathan had been steered into the seat beside Eloise with such easy efficiency that it might almost have passed for coincidence if Lawrence were not the one smiling in the center of it.
Jonathan looked only pleased to be included. He turned toward Eloise almost immediately and began asking questions about her family, her schooling, her background. The questions were harmless in tone.
Exactly the kind Lawrence had stopped asking himself once he understood she would not be useful to his purposes in the same way.
Lawrence had found someone else to dig. And oblivious Jonathan was merely making conversation.
Jamie believed that his cousin meant no harm with his visit.
He did not suspect that he was working for or with the marquess in any capacity.
But he could not relax around Jonathan until he knew for sure.
Across the table, Logan was watching Lawrence with the still, night-watch gaze he had once used on storm decks. Jamie looked up and their eyes met. The exchange was brief. Enough. They both understood the shape of the problem.
Lawrence, apparently sensing the shift, turned with his usual ease and smiled toward the middle of the table. “We are becoming rather crowded, are we not?” he said lightly. Then, almost casually, he shrugged. “Having your valet serve as a footman does seem a little poor looking.”
Logan’s expression did not change. Only his eyes did.
Catriona, seated near the center, lifted her wine and drank without visible reaction. Then she turned toward Jonathan with perfect calm. “Lord Jonathan, I wonder whether you might assist me with something.”
Jonathan straightened at once, pleased to be asked. “Of course.”
She smiled. “Where did you meet Lord Feversham?”
Jonathan grinned.
“White’s,” he said. “Not long after I began doing business with Lord Chesterfield, if I recall correctly.”
Catriona nodded indulgently.
“Are there any clubs you could call your favorites?” she asked. “Clubs that you and Lord Feversham often visit?”
The room changed. Not visibly. But Jamie felt it.
Jonathan lit with interest. “I can think of three,” he said. “One near St. James’s, another off Pall Mall, and one private room above a gaming house in Mayfair.”
Catriona nodded as though he had provided something interesting rather than something potentially dangerous.
“Thank you.” She took a sip of wine and then, with perfect ease, changed the subject.
“My cousin in Glasgow has only just written to me. She says her husband has taken to recommending all manner of new accommodations for his business associates.”
The sentence sounded like nothing. Jamie knew better. Catriona had drawn a fact from Jonathan and moved on before he could understand what he had given.
He watched her across the table. Her grace and composure unsettled him.
There was intelligence there. Patience. A cool efficiency that made her more formidable than she seemed at first glance.
Jamie found, unexpectedly, that he admired it.
And then, with an ache that sat low in him, another truth followed.
She would have made a remarkable wife. Not only for the court.
For any household. Just not mine. She is not the one who should be my wife.
He did not silence the thought. He was no longer pretending otherwise.
The engagement was a tactic. A necessary fiction built to protect the children, alter the court’s perception, and buy him enough time to expose Lawrence’s motives before the petition moved against him.
Every time he looked at Catriona, however, he felt the blunt edge of what he could not have.
And behind it all, the other truth he was trying very hard to ignore.
Eloise was still the wound beneath the plan.
He could not have her. Not now. Not while this house was in motion and Lawrence was circling and the children’s future still uncertain.
And not ever, if she genuinely does not want me, he thought.
That thought also refused to be dismissed.