Chapter 25 #2
She glanced at him carefully. The wind tugged at the edge of his coat. He was composed, but there was something in his face that looked unguarded in a way she saw more often on the water than on land.
“You seem different when you are away from the house,” she said, because the silence invited it and because she was tired of feeling careful.
His gaze sharpened slightly. “Do I?”
“Yes. Less like a man trying to carry the whole world on his shoulders.”
He did not answer immediately. The horse lowered its head to graze at the edge of the path, and the quiet between them stretched in a way that felt charged without being unpleasant.
“When this is over,” Jamie said softly, still looking at the ground and not at her, “I will let you go.”
The weight of the words was immediately painful.
“You should not think I have forgotten what you want,” he continued, still not looking up. “You wanted a home. A family. A place that felt like one.” A pause. “When all this is done, you should go and find it.”
Eloise could not answer right away. She wished, briefly and very sharply, that he would look at her.
Because if he did, she thought she might see the thing behind the words.
The thing he had not said. The thing she was beginning to suspect he did not yet know how to say.
That he did not want to let her go. But he had said the opposite with such care that challenging it felt impossible.
She did not know what to do with the tenderness of that sentence or the sorrow beneath it. So she said nothing.
Because she said nothing, he gave her an odd, brief look and seemed to understand he had gone further than he intended. The moment changed. Neither of them could recover it completely.
Still, it remained with her as he stepped back and let the horse move on a little farther down the field. For a few more minutes they spoke of nothing significant. The weather.
The stable boy. The children’s lessons. Each sentence sat where the real one ought to have been. Each one was a careful avoidance. She knew it. He knew it. The air between them was now full of things neither had said, and both of them had heard.
***
Two days before the party, the carriage arrived.
It came up the drive with the authority of the court behind it. Eloise saw it from the corridor window and felt the whole household focus on the sound. A solicitor stepped down first, carrying papers with a severe, official air.
A court officer followed. Then Lawrence, standing grave and composed at the front door as though he were merely receiving guests. He was not. Eloise knew that instantly.
The entrance hall filled quickly. Jamie was already there when she reached the foot of the stairs, rigid beside Catriona.
Lawrence stood just behind the officer and solicitor, his expression smoothly hiding supreme smugness.
Duncan had moved immediately in front of Maisie, his jaw set. Maisie had gone pale.
Eloise stepped forward before anyone else could speak.
The court officer looked at her. She kept her voice calm. “I am the children’s governess. May I examine the papers and speak?”
He hesitated. Before he could answer, Catriona spoke from Jamie’s side, her voice low and unchallengeable. “Of course she may.”
That settled it. The officer gave a stiff nod and handed the documents over.
Eloise took them to the nearest table under the hall lamp. The paper was colder in her hands than she expected. She read the order, then read it again. Her face remained composed. What mattered was not the tone. What mattered was the content.
“A temporary removal order on grounds of immediate danger requires evidence of immediate danger,” she said clearly.
Maisie’s eyes widened, and she looked from Eloise to Jamie.
“What does that mean?” the girl asked.
Lawrence leaned slightly toward the children with a smile so practiced it looked almost paternal.
“You need not be frightened,” he said. “This is only formal adult talk. You will be coming with me today, and the arrangements will suit you far better than you expect.”
Maisie pressed herself hard against Eloise’s skirt. Duncan’s head snapped up at once.
“We are not going anywhere,” Duncan said.
Lawrence’s expression did not falter, which was immediately enraging. “The court has agreed it is in your best interest, I am afraid.”
“The court has not seen us,” Duncan said. His voice was even, which was somehow more alarming than if it had cracked. “You have never seen us. Not long enough to know what is best for us.”
Lawrence opened his mouth. Jamie stepped forward so quietly that the movement seemed inevitable rather than sudden. “That is enough,” he said, and the tone was the tone of the quarterdeck, not raised, simply final. “Do not speak to them any more.”
Lawrence looked at him with arrogant patience. “I have only come to assist the process, Jamie.”
“You have come to take children who are not yours,” Jamie said.
“The court would disagree.” Lawrence’s eyes moved briefly toward Eloise, who was still reading. His mouth shifted by a fraction. “Your governess may review the documents as long as she wishes. The order remains the same.”
The officer blinked. Eloise turned a page. “This is a list of household features the petitioner finds aesthetically displeasing.” The room went very still. She looked up at the officer. “Where is the stated danger? I am looking for it and cannot find it.”
The solicitor shifted uncomfortably. Lawrence’s expression could have been mistaken for polite attentiveness to anyone who did not know what he was up to.
“I believe the documents speak for themselves.”
“They do,” Eloise said, glaring at Lawrence. “They speak of a list of household features the petitioner finds aesthetically displeasing.” She turned a page. “I am looking for the stated danger and cannot find it.”
Believing he had already won, Lawrence gave Eloise a smug grin that was as smooth as his voice. “There is the question of stability. Of appropriate oversight. Of a household that cannot, by any reasonable measure, offer what these children require.”
“What children require,” Duncan said, from behind Eloise, “is to be left alone.”
Maisie had not spoken again. She stood with both hands in Eloise’s skirt and looked at Lawrence, the set of her jaw suggesting she had already decided what she thought of Lawrence and did not intend to be persuaded otherwise.
Lawrence glanced at her. His smile remained in place. “Maisie, my dear. You will understand when you are older.”
“I understand now,” Maisie said. “And we will never go with you. Never. Uncle Jamie will never let us go.”
The hall went very still. Eloise was proud of the bravery with which Maisie spoke. But the heaviness in her heart tried to steal her breath. She could not allow herself to consider that Jamie might not have a choice in the matter. Not if their plans to discredit Lawrence failed.
Lawrence said nothing for a second. The court officer looked between them. For the first time, Lawrence looked less patient than annoyed. But he fixed his expression before the court officer looked at him again, making Eloise’s stomach churn. Eloise pressed on before Lawrence could speak again.
She turned to the date at the top of the petition. “This was filed before Lord Feversham set foot on the estate.” The court officer frowned. “Which means the petitioner attested in writing to conditions he had not personally witnessed.”
Lawrence’s eyes narrowed. She did not stop.
She turned to the trust filing, read through the pages carefully, then looked at the officer.
“The guardian named in the father’s will is entitled to reasonable notice and an opportunity to respond before any extraordinary order regarding the trust.” She let the sentence hang in the room. “Where is the opportunity to respond?”
The officer looked toward the solicitor.
The solicitor looked toward Lawrence. Eloise’s pulse beat very hard, but her voice remained level.
“There is no cited immediate danger. No direct evidence. No witness statement from a person present at the relevant time. No substantiated claim of harm. And the petition was filed before Lord Feversham arrived here, meaning much of this appears to be written from observation at a distance rather than from fact.”
A silence followed “We will return the matter to the judge,” the court officer said, looking increasingly uncomfortable.
The words landed with a collective release. The order was not immediate. The trust was not stripped. The children were not removed that morning. It was not yet a victory, but it was a good sign.
Eloise lowered the paper carefully.
Maisie ran to her and buried her face in her skirt. Eloise bent, one hand going to the child’s hair. Duncan’s rigid shoulders loosened in a visible wave.
Jamie turned to Eloise. He did not speak. He did not need to. The gratitude in his face was so clear it struck her harder than any words would have done. She felt it and looked away before the room could become too much.
His voice, when it came, was low and fierce. “Lawrence.”
The marquess turned. Jamie’s face was static, but harder than steel. “You will pack your things. You will find another place to stay.” Each word came clipped and certain. “The war has started.”
No one moved.
Catriona, behind Jamie, placed one hand lightly on his arm.
It was a brief, calming gesture. Yet it registered in the room as the gesture of a fiancée shouldering her place beside him.
Then she stepped half a pace aside, enough that the line of sight from Jamie’s eyes to Eloise’s remained unobstructed.
Eloise saw the movement.
She did not know what to do with it. For one moment, the room held everything all at once. The children. The papers. The defeat of the petition. The engagement. The hand on Jamie’s arm. The steadiness in his face when he looked at her. And Lawrence, grave and watching, already recalculating.
Eloise felt her own breath catch. Whatever came next, it would not be easy.