Chapter 27
By the time the party ended, Eloise felt as though she had been flayed by courtesy.
The guests left in clusters, their voices low and urgent, their silks whispering against the hall floor. She heard her name more than once, though never clearly enough to know the direction of the conversation around it.
She heard Lawrence’s name too, and Jamie’s, and the brittle little pauses that told her the household would be alive with speculation for days.
She stood where she was until the last of the drawing room had emptied and then let Mrs. Maggie guide her away before she did something foolish, like collapse in the middle of the corridor.
Mrs. Maggie said nothing on the walk to her sitting room. That, somehow, was worse than if she had.
The room was warm when they entered it, lit by two lamps and the low glow of the fire.
Mrs. Maggie shut the door, crossed to the small table by the chair, and poured tea with hands so sure that Eloise wanted to borrow some self-assurance simply by looking at them.
She pressed the cup into Eloise’s hands and sat down opposite her. Still, she said nothing.
Eloise looked into the tea and saw her own face reflected in the dark surface, pale and shocked and more humiliated than she had been in years.
Her hands shook badly enough that she set the cup down immediately.
Mrs. Maggie pretended not to notice. That kindness was more unbearable than pity would have been.
Eloise stared at the tea until the silence became too much. “I have ruined everything.”
Mrs. Maggie’s face did not change.
Eloise swallowed and tried again. “Jamie’s reputation. The engagement. The children’s case.”
Mrs. Maggie gave a short, flat sound that might have been a sigh if she had allowed herself sentiment.
“The only person who ruined anything tonight was the man who weaponized a woman’s father against her in public and called it help for his friend.
” She did not look away. “He did it supposedly for his brother-in-law, and with enough sugar on it to make the room swallow it like a sweet.”
Eloise stared at the tea in her cup. Her throat tightened. She had been holding herself together by discipline and sheer force since the drawing room, and the humiliation still pulsed through her in waves.
She had expected blame. Perhaps not from everyone, but from herself at least, and from Mrs. Maggie too, if only because Mrs. Maggie was practical enough to dislike disorder. Instead, she had found fierce protection she was not prepared to deserve.
Her voice, when it came, was small. “Jamie looked as though I had betrayed him.”
Mrs. Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “No. He looked as though he had just learned the sharpness of the knife and did not yet know where to put his hands.”
Eloise could not answer that. She looked down. The fire popped softly in the grate.
Then, from the doorway, came a soft knock. Both women looked up at once.
The door opened before Mrs. Maggie could answer, and Jamie stood there in the hall with imposing stillness and an air that conveyed no-nonsense. For one second, he looked at Eloise only. Then at Mrs. Maggie. Then back again.
“I would like a moment alone with Miss Beauchamp,” he said.
Mrs. Maggie gave him a look that could have frozen the hearth fire. Then she stood. “I shall be right outside.”
Jamie nodded in the restrained way of his that meant he understood the warning and accepted it because he had no choice. Mrs. Maggie passed him with enough dignity to make him look almost young. When the door shut behind her, the room seemed to contract around the two of them.
Eloise remained where she was, her hands still wrapped around the cup. Jamie did not move at first. He looked tired, as though he and his thoughts had been at war for days, accomplishing only fatigue and strain on his body and mind.
He stepped farther in. Then he began at once, as though he had been holding himself still too long to remain so a second longer.
“The plan worked.”
Eloise looked up.
“Lawrence thinks I did not know your real name,” he said.
She stared. That was not what she had expected him to begin with.
“Which means Jonathan told him, believing it was a secret. We can use that.”
Eloise’s fingers tightened around the cup. Jamie did not wait for a reply. “Catriona came to my study the evening before the party. We spoke at length. She has known about you since the third day she was in the house.”
Eloise blinked. “Since the third day?”
He nodded. “She overheard one of the times we were in the study or the library together.”
The memory came to Eloise at once with painful clarity. The corridor. The open door. The way one could think oneself private in a room and still not be. She set the cup down carefully before her hands betrayed her further.
Jamie was still speaking. “She knew, and she chose not to say anything. The broken engagement was a performance. It was planned between us.” His voice stayed even, but she heard the strain behind it.
“We wanted Lawrence to believe he had won. We wanted him careless. We wanted him to remain long enough for us to undo him.”
Eloise bit her lip.
“But what about the court?” she asked. “Will they not view this turn of events as proof of Lawrence’s claims of instability?”
Jamie thought for a second before shaking his head.
“I do not know,” he said. “But I do know that Lawrence will begin to gloat after this evening. And with everything we know about him, we can assume that gloating will make him sloppy. He will say the wrong thing to the wrong person or trip himself up in court. Whatever the case, he will manage to sabotage his own claims. I am sure of it.”
For a second, Eloise only stared. Then she leaned back slightly in the chair. “That is a great deal more planning than I expected from a broken engagement.”
The corner of Jamie’s mouth moved, though it did not become a smile. “Catriona is very effective when she chooses to be.”
Eloise looked down at her hands. The humiliation of the evening had not vanished, but it had altered.
She had thought herself a fool, a disruption, a woman who had accidentally caused the ruin of a useful arrangement.
Now she understood she had been looking at the stage and not the machinery behind it.
She looked up again. “She told me that her connections were very close to learning more.”
Jamie nodded. “That fits.”
Eloise held his gaze a moment longer. There was something absurd about the fact that she had spent an hour believing she had destroyed everything, when in fact she had been performing a ruin that had already been arranged.
“You might have warned me.”
Jamie did not flinch, but there was remorse in his eyes. “I know.”
She stared at him.
“Catriona’s instruction was that you not be warned,” he said.
Eloise frowned. “Why?”
“The shock had to read as real. The whole room had to believe it.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “I was very convincingly devastated, then, was I not?”
Jamie’s face softened. “Yes.”
She looked away before her reaction could betray her.
Then back again. It was still the same man who had spoken to her in the boat, on the path, in the library.
Only now there was no audience, no performance, no engagement ring being returned before assembled witnesses.
He was looking at her with a steadiness she had not expected to feel so deeply.
“I do not care that Lawrence told the world your name.”
Eloise went motionless.
He held her gaze. You need not hide from the world anymore.”
Her breath caught.
“I like you, Eloise.”
The words were plain. He was not dramatic, and it was not a confession meant to be overheard.
His statement was simply a fact. She could not think clearly, and her tired mind began to think that she might have misheard him, that she was letting her imagination overwhelm her.
She nodded numbly, too uncertain of what was happening to speak.
His eyes stayed on hers. “I have liked you,” he said, taking a sharp breath, “since you asked me the names of the men who died.”
Eloise closed her eyes briefly. Not because she was angry, but because she did not trust her face. When she opened them again, she looked down at the teacup instead of at him. “We have a marquess to ruin,” she said, her voice even but strained.
They did not waste the rest of the hour on sentiment. They agreed on the performance first. In public, they would remain distant. The engagement had already crumbled in the eyes of the household, and that illusion would need to continue.
Lawrence must believe the break had been real enough to wound. He needed to think that Jamie was weakened, and that his claims to the court were now irrefutable. In private, however, they would share everything they learned.
Jamie sat across from her and laid out everything in careful terms. They would feed Lawrence just enough uncertainty to keep him comfortable, let him think he had fractured the household, let him imagine the worst of them if it made him less wary.
Eloise listened with the same practical attention she had used on the court documents, and Jamie found himself watching that steadiness in her with astonishment.
“Do you trust Jonathan?” she asked.
Jamie’s mouth tightened. “I trust that Jonathan is too foolish to lie well.”
That earned a brief look from her.
“Which is almost as useful,” he added.
Eloise gave a small exhale through her nose that might have been a laugh in another room. Then she nodded. “I shall start tomorrow.”
Jamie looked at her. “How?”
“A heartbroken woman confiding in a sympathetic cousin is the oldest play in the book. There is no reason to invent a better one.”
The room had grown quieter while they talked, as if even the fire wanted to listen. Then a knock came at the door. Eloise looked up at once. Jamie moved before she could ask anything, though she had already half risen from the chair. He opened the door just enough to see Lawrence in the hall.
Without instruction, Eloise slipped behind the cabinet near the wall where the door would not reveal her. Lawrence wore a look that had been carefully crafted to convey regret. He smiled in a way that no longer reached his eyes. “I was looking for you everywhere.”
Jamie kept his face blank. “Were you?”
“I wanted to apologize,” Lawrence said, his voice low and too smooth.
“For the manner in which this was handled tonight. I did not wish to force matters in front of our friends and peer. I meant only to protect the family. I thought it best not to let your kindness make the mistake of keeping a woman of such dubious background in a position she did not deserve.”
Eloise held her breath. What was he up to?
Lawrence’s gaze remained on him, pleasantly grave. “I hope you will understand. I know you would rather keep an empathetic character about you than appear harsh.”
From the cabinet, Eloise breathed once, very lightly.
Lawrence continued. “I am sorry the engagement collapsed the way it did.” That was the first part of the performance.
The second came a moment later. “I should have liked to think better of Lady Catriona. But I imagine you are lucky not to have married a woman who could leave so easily.” There it was.
The little barb. The attempt to make Catriona seem fickle, or lesser.
Eloise dared to peek out from her hiding spot. Jamie kept his face calm and gave Lawrence the appearance of weary courtesy. “That is generous of you.”
Lawrence’s eyes sharpened.
Jamie went on. “You have a way of making unpleasant information sound like a kindness.”
That was enough to make the marquess pause. But he quickly recovered. “I should not wish to overstay my welcome.”
“You will not.”
Lawrence lifted his chin. He seemed pleased to be leaving while the room still held uncertainty. He wanted to look magnanimous, disappointed but helpful, the one man standing between the household and chaos. That was why the performance had to continue a little longer.
When Lawrence finally left, Jamie stood in the corridor a moment longer, listening to the retreat of his footsteps.
Then he shut the door. The moment he did, Eloise stepped out from the cabinet.
She had gone pale from the strain of holding herself still while Lawrence spoke through the door, but it had left its mark around her mouth and eyes.
Jamie crossed to her, stopping only when he was close enough to speak quietly. “You should not have had to hear that.”
Eloise’s lips pursed. “I was already hearing it.” She folded her arms, then let them fall again. “I am more concerned with whether Jonathan truly thinks he helped.”
Jamie’s eyes sharpened. “He does.”
“Dreadful.”
“Yes.”
They stood in silence a second longer, both aware of the cabinet, the door, the hallway beyond, and the fact that they had just moved from performance into honesty.
“Lawrence thinks he is ahead, just as we hoped he would,” Jamie said.
Eloise nodded curtly. “Good.”
“He is not.”
“No.”
He shut the door behind him. And for the first time since the night of the engagement party, the room felt less like a place they were hiding in and more like one they had chosen together.