Chapter 24 #2
He watched Catriona continue the conversation with Jonathan and forced his expression to remain steady.
The table moved on around him. Maisie tried to give Duncan a piece of bread and failed because Duncan had already decided not to be caught wanting it.
Logan kept one eye on Lawrence. Jamie kept both on the room.
***
Long after the household had gone to bed, Jamie still had not slept. He sat in the study with the fire reduced to embers and stared at the dark window until the room became so quiet that every movement of the house beyond it seemed magnified.
He wanted to go to the library. That was the problem. At this hour, however, the library made him think of Eloise. The window seat. The low fire. Her voice in the dark. He did not want the memory. So instead, he went to the back garden instead.
The night air was cold enough to make the flowers hold their shape in the dark.
But his decision proved moot as he saw a shadow in the darkness.
He stopped when he reached the bench. Eloise was there.
She sat with a book in her lap and the expression of a woman reading without seeing a single word. They both went still.
Jamie considered retreating. She looked up first.
“My lord.”
“I can go,” he said automatically.
She had already half risen. “You should not.”
“Why not?”
“It is your estate.”
He almost smiled. Neither of them moved. The silence was heavier than it should have been.
Finally, he sat. Not beside her. A little away. Enough distance to be safe, if safety were possible. He could feel her presence in the dark, steady and quiet and more difficult than if she had been angry.
He did not look at her at first. Then he took a slow breath. “Eloise.”
The name fell into the empty air. Not Miss Beauchamp. Just Eloise. She stiffened very slightly. She took a shaky breath. “Please. Do not.”
He turned his head toward her. She had not moved, though the moonlight touched one side of her face and made the expression there impossible to read. He knew what she meant. And he could not ignore the hurt he felt at her rejection.
He thought again that he ought to leave. Then thought better of it. He had already spent too many nights avoiding the places she might be. The distance had become its own kind of punishment.
“We need to keep the household looking stable,” he said quietly, looking for any excuse to remain there and talk to her.
Eloise nodded once.
“It is not enough to have the engagement announced.”
“No.” The word came flat.
She had become more careful around him since the announcement. He understood why. “The court will want appearances,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And Lawrence will only get more difficult.”
Eloise folded her hands over the book and looked down at it. “Yes.”
They sat in silence for another moment. Then, almost as if speaking to the garden rather than him, she stared out into the distant darkness. “I have been thinking about law. More than usual. I keep wondering what matters most to the court. What they see first. What they can be made to care about.”
Jamie looked at her. In the moonlight she seemed quieter than she had in the house. Not distant. Only careful.
“You think differently when you are angry,” he said.
She glanced at him. “That is not a compliment.”
“It was not meant as one.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, and he felt the familiar pull of wanting to smile too. Neither of them did, and it made his heart ache. The conversation drifted after that. Not away. Around.
They spoke of Duncan’s lessons, the charts, Maisie’s drawings, a tenant farmer’s lame horse that had become the subject of considerable debate in the kitchen.
None of it mattered, and Jamie could not recall much of it the moment he rose from his seat.
Each sentence was a placeholder, a thing spoken because the real thing could not be said.
Then her book slipped from her lap. He reached for it at the same moment she did. His knuckles brushed the inside of her wrist. The contact was brief. Accidental, if one wished to lie. Eloise pulled her hand back at once. He did the same.
The silence that followed was absolute and loud. Jamie could hear the wind in the branches above them, the distant shift of the sea beyond the house, his own breathing.
After what felt like a full minute, he took another deep, slow breath. “You should not be here with me at this hour.”
She did not look at him when she answered. “I know.”
Once more, neither of them moved to leave. The cold began to bite first in the fingers and then deeper. Jamie watched as Eloise made greater efforts to warm her hands, as though she was determined to remain outside no matter how cold it became.
However, the cold seemed to be what finally made her stand. She walked past him close enough that he could have reached for her. He did not. He knew she knew that, too.
At the terrace she stopped. The moonlight caught the side of her face and the line of her shoulder. She did not turn around.
“I am glad it was Catriona,” she said quietly. “I could not bear it if it had been anyone less worthy.”
The words felt like broken glass shoved into his chest. He did not know what to answer.
She gave him no chance. And because he knew her, he understood she was speaking as much to herself as to him.
She left after that. The sound of her footsteps faded quickly.
Jamie remained in the garden a long time after.
It was well past midnight when Jamie finally rose to go in. That was when Lawrence found him in the corridor, waiting just beyond the library door with the air of someone who had timed the moment deliberately.
Lawrence’s smile remained pleasant, though the warmth in it was entirely gone. “Viscount,” he said.
Jamie stopped.
Lawrence folded one hand behind his back and leaned lightly against the wall. “I wanted to congratulate you properly on the engagement.”
Jamie said nothing.
Lawrence’s smile widened by a fraction. “I should think the children are relieved.” The remark was mild. A little too mild. “And of course the court will be reassured to see the household settled.”
Jamie did not answer.
Lawrence’s gaze remained easy. Then, he smirked. “I do hope you will keep me informed. It would be a shame for the family not to gather properly before the children are placed elsewhere.”
Jamie’s expression did not change. The remark was subtle enough to pass as concern. Not subtle enough to be innocent.
Lawrence smiled. “I should expect a court order soon enough. Before the party, perhaps. One has to keep appearances in order, does one not?” His tone remained conversational. “You know how it is. Children move quickly when the proper paperwork is in motion.”
The threat was not loud. It did not need to be. Lawrence had made it sound almost like advice.
Then, he smiled coldly, with a faint lift of the brow. “And of course I am very much looking forward to meeting Eloise’s family.”
The emphasis on family was deliberate. Lawrence’s eyes remained on him, too calm by half. He was smiling still. Almost kindly. As though he were discussing introductions, not leverage. As though he knew something and was inviting Jamie to guess.
“You may not have chosen her for the engagement, but I suspect you have seen more than enough of each other to make the household rather interesting,” Lawrence said, in a tone that could have been mistaken for humor by anyone not listening carefully.
His mouth quirked. “You are a gentleman, Jamie. Best to keep being one.”
Then he smiled, almost lazily, and walked away down the corridor with the easy step of a man who believed himself already several moves ahead.
Jamie stood still long after he was gone. The game had changed. He could feel it. And for the first time since the petition arrived, he was no longer entirely sure what Lawrence knew, what he suspected, or what he intended to do with it.
He stared after Lawrence until the corridor seemed darker than it had any right to be. Then turned back toward the stairs with the distinct and unwelcome certainty that the next move would matter more than any of the ones before it.