Chapter 28
The performance began at breakfast. Jamie made certain of it.
He entered the breakfast room late enough to be noticed and early enough to control the room before it could control him. Eloise was already there when he arrived, seated near the middle of the table with the children, and the sight of her made his heart constrict.
He did not let it show. He gave her no more than a brief nod. Then, before she could say anything at all, he took his seat at the far end of the table and opened the paper he had no intention of reading.
Eloise did not move. She had better sense than to show surprise. Better sense than to show hurt. Still, he saw it in the smallest alteration of her hands where they rested near her plate, in the way she set her cup down a little too carefully after the first swallow of tea.
Jamie forced his eyes to the page.
Lawrence looked like a man enjoying a private joke.
He took in the distance between Jamie and Eloise and looked faintly satisfied, which was exactly what Jamie needed him to do if the plan was to work.
The marquess cut a piece of toast. “And when do you mean to dismiss her?” he asked with infuriating calmness.
Jamie did not look up right away. When he did, his voice was cold enough to make the words sound final. “I am not cruel.”
Lawrence’s brows lifted.
“Miss Lawing will remain while she is needed,” Jamie continued, his tone even. “When she is no longer needed, I shall see that she finds another post and leaves promptly.”
The words turned his stomach. There was no warmth in the answer.
There could not be. But pretending he cared no more for Eloise than he would about a maid he barely knew made him want to retch.
Lawrence seemed pleased by it, which only made the performance easier to maintain and more unpleasant to endure.
Jonathan, seated further down the table, looked miserable.
That was useful, too. His downtrodden expression said that he realized he had set a stone rolling and was now regretting the hill.
His eyes kept moving from Lawrence to Jamie and then away again, looking as though he wished to say something and had no courage for it. Wretched guilt made men talk.
Jamie kept his face straight. Lawrence took his coffee and smirked. “A practical arrangement. I approve.”
Jamie gave him only a cool glance.
The children, thankfully, seemed to understand nothing of the tone beneath the words.
Duncan was occupied with his food. Maisie was watching Jamie and Eloise in the way children do when they sense danger without knowing its source.
Eloise remained composed. Too composed. That was the hardest part.
He did not look at her more than was necessary. He had asked for it, had he not?
The illusion of distance, the appearance of withdrawal, the slow and deliberate breaking of what Lawrence expected to see between them. It was one thing to plan the thing. It was another to sit across the table and watch her bear it in silence.
He would make it worth the cost. He had to.
Lawrence asked another question, that time to Jonathan, and Jonathan answered with a voice that sounded too high. The man knew he had spoken too freely. Good.
The rest of breakfast dragged past. Jamie managed not to look at Eloise more than once.
That was just enough to let her know the frost was deliberate, and just enough to make it harder than he liked to keep from breaking character.
When at last the room began to empty, he rose as if he suddenly had somewhere more important to be and left without touching his coffee.
He had made it to the corridor before he heard Jonathan’s voice behind him. “Jamie.”
He turned slowly. Jonathan looked pale. Jamie crossed his arms and let a long, disappointed silence build between them before speaking. “I cannot believe Lawrence would do that publicly.”
Jonathan winced. “I know.”
Jamie kept his tone stern. “You clearly did not tell him it was to remain private.”
Jonathan looked stricken. “I did. I thought I did.”
“Then why did he speak as though the whole matter had been arranged for his amusement?”
Jonathan swallowed. “I do not know.”
That was not completely truthful. Jamie knew it.
Jonathan knew it too. He looked wretched enough that Jamie had to keep his temper in check.
Not because he felt forgiving, but because a wounded cousin was easier to work than an accused one.
He lowered his voice. “What exactly did Lawrence tell you?”
Jonathan blinked, then looked aside. “He said he needed to sort out the family finances.”
Jamie said nothing.
Jonathan rushed on because the silence was becoming too uncomfortable. “He said the children were well provided for, but that he did not trust the household not to complicate matters. He said there were people in London asking after him. He said he needed breathing room.”
Jamie’s nostrils flared.
Jonathan looked miserable, his ears already reddening. “He said he was not being open with everyone because he did not wish to alarm the family.”
Jamie kept himself under perfect control. “Did he say what he meant by breathing room?”
Jonathan hesitated. “No.”
Jamie nodded casually, as if none of it mattered much at all. But it mattered a great deal. He worked to keep his voice even. “You have done enough harm for one week.”
Jonathan looked as though he might be sick. Jamie let that happen. Then, he turned away before the man could begin apologizing in earnest. He did not have all of what he needed, but what he had would suffice. Jonathan had already begun to crack. That was very useful indeed.
If the breakfast was a performance, the rest of the day was one too. Jamie kept the children close where he could, though that part was no performance at all.
Duncan needed stability, not uncertainty.
Maisie needed routine, not whispers. Jamie took Duncan riding in the late morning and let Lawrence see it.
He read to Maisie before bed and did not bother hiding it.
He did both openly, because the children were not part of the masquerade, and because he would not let Lawrence think he had frightened the household into silence.
Duncan rode with fierce concentration, taking the reins with the grim seriousness Jamie associated with men on deck who refused to admit they were afraid of rough water.
“Easy,” Jamie said. “Do not fight the horse. Tell him where you mean to go.”
Duncan frowned. “It is not listening.”
“It is listening. You are speaking too loudly.”
The boy glanced up at him suspiciously. Jamie smiled a little. “Again.”
Duncan did again. The second time, he did it better. Jamie nodded once. “Well done.”
The child’s face broke into a flash of pride so bright that Jamie felt it more sharply than the words.
Duncan straightened in the saddle and tried very hard to look as though praise was an inconvenience.
He failed. Jamie put a hand briefly on the boy’s shoulder when he dismounted. Duncan did not shrug away.
At night he read to Maisie in the nursery until her eyelids finally began to droop. She sat against his side with a blanket around her, asked him three questions about the map he had shown her that afternoon, and yawned between the second and third. He answered them all.
She curled into sleep by the last paragraph and he kept his voice low until the end of the chapter, because she had told him once that she liked to wake up knowing the story had reached a proper stopping place.
When he carried her back to bed, he did not look at Lawrence in the corridor. That too was deliberate.
By the time he reached the study later in the evening, Logan was waiting.
He had a glass in hand, with composure that suggested he was preparing for impending aggravation. Jamie shut the door behind him. “You look pleased with yourself.”
“I am not pleased. I am observant.”
“That is worse.”
“Usually, yes.” Logan gestured toward the chair opposite. “I have news.”
Jamie sat.
“Miss Lawing has been walking in the gardens with Jonathan,” Logan said.
Jamie’s brow lifted. “Good.”
Logan gave him a long look. “Good?”
“They are playing the part.”
Logan leaned back. “Jonathan has been talking freely. London mostly. Clubs. Debts. Men Lawrence avoids. One club off Pall Mall, one near St. James’s, one private room in Mayfair. He says Lawrence owes money to men who no longer care for courtesy.”
Jamie listened closely.
“And Eloise? How is she doing?”
Logan’s answer came fast. “Calm as ever. Which is alarming, considering how convincing she is at being heartbroken.”
Jamie looked up sharply. Logan’s expression remained dry. “She is doing too well. That is how I know she is furious.”
He could imagine it. Eloise walking with Jonathan in the gardens, listening with that composed face she wore when she wanted nothing from a man except his information.
Jonathan, poor fool, probably spilling everything in a burst of guilt and vanity.
The thought should have amused him. It did, mostly, though it also made him profoundly uneasy in a way he did not care to examine.
Logan drained the rest of his glass. “Catriona’s letters arrived as well.”
Jamie looked at him sharply. “And?”
“A connection in Glasgow found the collector.”
Jamie tensed up. “Which collector?”
“The one with the reputation.”
That told Jamie what he needed to know. The man known by rumor. The one people in London spoke of only when they wanted to lower their voices. The debt collector who operated north through Glasgow and south through carefully selected intermediaries. The one Lawrence had not yet expected to matter.
Logan nodded once. “Catriona says she can be the one to approach him, but she may not succeed. She is not certain he will speak to her directly.”
Jamie frowned. “Why not?”
“Because he is not polite. And because he is a collector, not a gentleman.”
Jamie leaned back and thought quickly. Lawrence had debts in London and had fled into Scotland. That meant the petition had not been an opportunistic move. It had been one piece in a far larger flight.
“Catastrophic,” he murmured.
Logan lifted a brow.
“The debts,” Jamie said. “If he is fleeing London, they are not merely inconvenient.”
“Private lenders?”
“Likely.”
“Dangerous ones?”
Logan gave him a look that was a clear answer. Jamie frowned. “And the collector has been after Lawrence for months?”
“Yes.”
Jamie stared at the papers. “Then we can prove that Lawrence came here not only for the children.”
“No,” Logan said. “He came because Scotland was a place to hide while everyone back home grew tired of his excuses.”
That fit too neatly to be coincidence. The petition was not only about the children’s money.
It was about access, delay, buying time, keeping himself hidden long enough to sort out his own debts before anyone in London noticed he had gone.
A desperate man with a title could do more damage than a greedy one with leisure.
Jamie exhaled slowly. “Catriona’s connection cannot yet guarantee a meeting with the collector?”
“Not yet.”
“Then we try again if necessary.”
Logan nodded. “Anything else worth knowing?”
“Not tonight.”
Logan left, and Jamie sat with the papers a moment longer before rising. The trap had sharpened in his mind. They had enough.