Chapter 26
Jamie did not sleep the night before the party.
He sat in his study with the fire low and the papers spread before him, and every few minutes the same thought returned with unwelcome force.
The engagement was supposed to be the solution.
He had told himself that from the beginning.
It had been practical, clean, useful. A way to reassure the household, blunt Lawrence’s petition, give the court something it could not easily dismiss.
A way to protect the children long enough to force Lawrence into a corner.
Instead, it had begun to feel like the sort of solution that solved one problem by cutting out something essential.
Logan came to the study an hour after supper to go over the final arrangements, holding a list and looking as though he expected fussing but had no patience for it. Jamie looked up once, then returned to the page before him.
“You are late,” Jamie said.
“I am exact. You are unreasonable.”
“That is not new.”
“No,” Logan said, “it is not.” He laid the paper on the desk, glanced at Jamie, and immediately paused. Jamie hated that pause.
“What is it?” he said.
Logan did not answer right then. He looked at the room, then at Jamie again, then at the low fire as though deciding whether to be kind or direct. He chose direct, voicing his thought. “This engagement was supposed to be the solution.”
Jamie’s lips pursed. Logan waited. Jamie said nothing.
At last Jamie leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling for a second before speaking. “I love her.”
Logan did not move. The words floated through the room between them, serious and sincere, but light in their sentiment. Jamie heard them himself and felt grim relief that they were finally said aloud.
Logan met his gaze without surprise. “I know,” he said at last.
Jamie looked at him sharply. Logan’s mouth turned downward in resignation.
Jamie rubbed a hand down his face. “Then you know why I made the plan.”
“Yes.”
“She deserves better than half truths.” The admission came harder than he expected. “She deserves better than to be part of some scheme and a future built on concealment.” He looked down at the desk. “And if I cannot give her that, I have no business asking her to stand too close to me.”
The silence that followed was not comfortable. Logan leaned one shoulder against the edge of the desk and crossed his arms. “Deciding what someone else deserves is just cowardice dressed up as nobility.”
Jamie looked up sharply.
Logan’s gaze did not flicker. “You are not being noble. You are being afraid.”
Jamie snarled, irritated. “That is enough.”
“It is not.”
“It is when I say it is.”
Logan gave him a flat look. “You are not doing her any favors by deciding her life for her.” He pushed back from the desk.
“If you mean to make this easier, stop acting as though your own feelings are some sort of burden she should be spared from. Ask for forgiveness where it is due. Then change your attitude before you lose the chance to do either.”
He left before Jamie could answer. The door closed softly behind him.
Jamie stood in the middle of the room long after the silence returned. Logan was right, and Jamie hated it. Worse still, knowing the truth did nothing to make it easier to act on it.
An hour later, Catriona found him there.
She entered quietly and closed the door behind her calmly, seemingly too stubborn to be handled by noise.
She was still wearing the pale silver gown chosen for the party the next evening, sent up for a final fitting by the dressmaker.
The color suited her. It gave her an air of effortless refinement.
“You look as though you have been brooding at the wall for moral reasons,” she said.
Jamie gave a short, humorless breath. “I have been brooding at the wall for very bad reasons.”
“That sounds more honest.” She sat in the chair Logan had left empty and folded her hands in her lap. “I came because I suspect you have not slept.”
“I have not.”
“Good. Then we are both awake.” She glanced toward the desk. “I heard Logan leave in a mood.”
“He was expressing himself.”
“He often does.”
Jamie did not smile. Catriona watched him for a while. “You should stop pretending this is only about strategy,” Catriona said.
Jamie froze. She folded one leg over the other with easy confidence, as though what she was saying had already been spoken as fact.
“I have known since the third day how you feel about Miss Beauchamp.”
Jamie’s face grew taut. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.
Catriona lifted one brow. “There is no need to backtrack. I am not offended.”
“It is not …”
She gave him a small, dry look. “Do not say it is not what I think. I have been watching you, Jamie. I am not a fool.”
He exhaled through his nose and looked away.
“And frankly,” she said, “she may feel the same.”
That brought his gaze back immediately. Catriona smiled gently. “You seem surprised.”
He was. He should not have been. That made the surprise worse.
“It is not that simple,” he said carefully.
“No,” Catriona said. “It is not.”
He turned away again. “I am not speaking of Eloise because this is difficult. I am speaking of the children. And the court. And the fact that Lawrence has already made his move.”
Catriona nodded once. Jamie rubbed a hand over his mouth, then dropped it. “If I were to speak honestly, I would tell you that I would not have asked this of you if I had thought there was another way.”
She watched him. He did not look at her. “And I would say that I am not certain what I am asking anymore.”
Catriona’s eyes gentled. “I came to Scotland with clear expectations, Jamie,” she said softly. “I shall leave with them intact.”
Jamie sighed softly, relaxing.
She folded her hands again. “I have spent the last fortnight making certain my own future will not depend on this arrangement. My jointure is sufficient for my needs. If I choose to remain engaged for a time, it is because I am choosing it.” She paused. “And because I am fond of you.”
The words landed cleanly. Not romantically, but kindly, which was somehow worse.
Catriona looked at him with no demand in her eyes.
“I have watched the way your face changes when Miss Beauchamp enters a room. The way it lights up even when you have been brooding and the way your eyes follow her across a room, even when you are speaking to someone else. I have seen enough to know no man directs that look at me, not even one who is fond of me.”
Jamie dropped his gaze.
“I want to help,” she said. “But the court officer’s papers removed any illusion that we were merely playing at a problem. Whatever arrangement we are pretending at, the consequences are not pretend. I would like this resolved as soon as possible. For the sake of everyone.”
She spoke with such practicality that he calmed a little. She reached for the tea she had brought with her, took a sip, and continued in the same tone. “My hunch is that Lawrence will retaliate for being thrown out of the house. He is too vain not to.”
Jamie clenched his jaw. “I thought the same.”
“I would be disappointed in you if you had not.” That got a thin smile from him. Catriona set the cup down. “When he makes his move, let him.”
Jamie frowned slightly.
“Let him do exactly what he plans,” she said. “Then I will play the part he expects.”
He stared at her. She lifted one shoulder. “I am very good at looking wounded in public.”
Catriona laughed.
“Then I shall be sure to be especially good at making you look wounded.”
Jamie smirked, but he found little amusement in the situation.
He believed that what they were doing was necessary, and both Eloise and Catriona knew what he was truly doing.
Yet he could not shake the guilt he felt, as though he was betraying the woman he loved and a dear friend who deserved the kind of love Jamie felt for Eloise.
Catriona leaned back in her chair when Jamie did not speak for a while.
“Tell me what you are thinking,” she said. “It cannot do any harm to talk through anything we think he might attempt.”
Jamie rested his hands on the table. “He may wait until the party itself.”
Catriona nodded. “That seems likely.”
“He may try to unsettle Jonathan first,” Jamie said. “A remark meant to provoke him.”
Catriona considered it. “Jonathan would react. Lawrence knows that.”
Jamie looked down. “He may try to turn the room against me. He could force an explanation that appears like concealment.”
Catriona’s voice stayed even. “And if that fails?”
“He will attack the engagement from another angle.”
Catriona sat forward slightly. “Then we prepare for each possibility.”
Jamie exhaled. “You are already thinking like an ally.”
“I am an ally,” she said. “So, continue.”
And continue, they did. They talked for another hour, mostly in circles, and always coming to the conclusion that they could prepare only so much because Lawrence was a variable in their performance they could not control.
And yet with Catriona’s confidence and problem solving, Jamie felt sure they could sufficiently trick the marquess.
***
The engagement party began with candles, music, and too many people in too many shades of silk. The house was alive with it. Light in every window. Voices layered over string music in the drawing room. The smell of beeswax, flowers, and the faint heat of too many bodies in too little space.
Catriona stood at the head of the receiving line in pale silver and looked exactly as a future viscountess ought to look.
Elegant, self-possessed, and impossible to fault.
Jamie stood beside her and did what he must. He greeted guests, smiled, accepted congratulations, and allowed himself to be watched.
Appearing calm was not difficult. He had become very good at that.
What was difficult was the sight of Eloise across the room. She stood with the children near the edge of the gathering, her hands folded before her, her face carefully unreadable. Maisie was close to her skirt.