Chapter 29
Eloise knew instantly that Jamie hated the idea. That alone made her more certain it was the right one.
She had hardly finished speaking before he started objecting. The force of his objection would have been enough to make her smile if the matter had not been so serious.
“No,” Jamie said with perfect matter-of-factness.
Eloise held his gaze across the study table. “That is not a reason.”
“It is enough of one.”
“No, it is not.”
Jamie set both hands flat on the desk as if he meant to anchor the entire room by force. “You are not going.”
“I am.”
“You are not.”
She folded her arms. “And who, exactly, is to stop me?”
He stared at her. That stare had intimidated footmen, stable hands, and one extremely ill-behaved spaniel, but she was too determined now to be overawed by it.
“The collector is looking for Lawrence,” Jamie said. “Lawrence knows that he is being watched. I am being watched. Logan is being watched when he leaves the estate. You are not to go wandering into Glasgow alone, asking dangerous men about dangerous debt.”
“I will not be alone.”
He looked toward Mrs. Maggie, who had been standing by the hearth, seemingly listening to two stubborn people work themselves toward inevitability. She did not look the slightest bit repentant when his eyes landed on her.
“I know Glasgow,” she said.
Jamie turned slowly. “That is not helping.”
“It is helping very much.”
“Mrs. Maggie …”
“I have a cousin there,” she said, refusing to be moved. “A respectable widow with a room to spare and neighbors who mind their own business. Two women traveling together raise no suspicion.”
Jamie pressed his lips together. Eloise saw it and pressed on before he could reorganize his objections.
“Then dislike it quietly and hear me out,” she said.
He looked as though he wanted to argue on principle alone.
She kept her voice even. “Lawrence is watching you. He is watching the men, the house, the movements of a viscount under pressure. He is not looking for a woman everyone now assumes has lost her position in a single public collapse.” She held his gaze. “I can do this.”
Jamie’s mouth flattened. “That is exactly what worries me.”
Logan, who had been leaning in the doorway with his usual ability to look simultaneously bored and alert, let out a breath. “I hate to say it,” he remarked, “but she is right.”
Jamie whirled to him. “You are not helping.”
“I did not say I was.”
“No. You simply arrived in time to agree with the most dangerous person in the room.”
Logan lifted one brow. “The most dangerous person in the room is the one who can talk a marquess out of his sense of self-preservation and then make me feel guilty for noticing it.”
Eloise smiled weakly.
Then Clara, who had apparently been listening from the open doorway without anyone noticing, stepped into the room with a basket on one hip and a weary look on her face.
“If Logan goes,” she said, “then I am going too.”
Jamie stared. “No, you are not.”
Clara set the basket down on the sideboard with a sharp thud. “Yes, I am.”
“You are not traveling to Glasgow because the rest of us cannot keep our heads.”
Clara set her jaw. “That is exactly why I am going.”
Logan looked at her in open disbelief. She glared back. “I do not trust any of you to eat properly while you are gone,” she said. “And if I must endure the journey, then at the very least someone in this household will be fed.”
Logan blinked. The silence that followed had the strange quality of a battle briefly halted by a remark too practical to attack.
Mrs. Maggie smiled with a faint hint of satisfaction. “That settles it.”
Jamie turned. “It does not settle anything.”
“It settles enough.”
Clara folded her arms. “If you want me to pretend I am not coming, then you may explain to me why a widowed cousin in Glasgow and a housekeeper from the estate should raise suspicion but a half-starved valet with too much courage and no discipline should not.”
Logan straightened. “I have discipline.”
Clara gave him a flat look. “That was not a compliment.”
Jamie pinched the bridge of his nose, looked at Eloise, then at Mrs. Maggie, then at Logan, then at Clara, who was already looking as though she had won the argument and was only waiting for the rest of them to admit it.
Eloise kept her tone calm. “This is the best option, and you know it. No one is watching me. No one is suspicious of me. If I find the collector and speak to him directly, it gives us the advantage. I will not go alone. Mrs. Maggie will be with me. I will give no names.”
Jamie looked as though he would protest again.
“You know it makes sense,” she said.
He did know it. That was the difficulty. After another long moment, he turned to Logan.
Logan lifted both hands in surrender. “I only said I would follow at a distance. I simply do not enjoy the thought of her entering Glasgow unaccompanied while all of us pretend we are not worried.”
Clara nodded. “Excellent. Then I am going too.”
Logan looked at her. “You cannot simply keep adding yourself to the plan.”
“I can,” she said. “And I have.”
Mrs. Maggie’s lips twitched. Jamie looked as though every one of them had committed a private cruelty against him.
“Jamie,” Eloise said softly.
He looked at her. For a second she saw the tension beneath the anger, the fear he was trying not to admit. Not because he doubted her, but because he could not bear the possibility of losing her to risks he could not control.
“You need this more than you need my safety protected by your anxiety,” she said, not very gently.
Logan made a sound that might have been a cough disguising a laugh. Clara looked away to hide a smile. Mrs. Maggie, mercifully, did not.
Jamie finally exhaled. “Very well,” he said through his teeth. “But if anything goes wrong …”
“It will not,” she said.
He gave her a look that said he found her confidence deeply irritating and also terribly familiar. Then, at last, he nodded once.
The argument was settled. Or at least postponed until the next thing went wrong.
***
Glasgow was damp, gray, and full of the sort of purposeful movement that made everyone look as though they had somewhere more important to be than where they currently stood. That suited Eloise better than she expected.
She and Mrs. Maggie traveled first to Hamilton, where the cousin Mrs. Maggie had mentioned received them with brisk hospitality and one immediately practical question about whether they had eaten.
By the time they reached the city, Eloise had already decided she liked the woman. Her house was narrow, orderly, and warm in a way that suggested a life built from careful habits rather than grand income.
The cousin knew enough of the city to point them discreetly toward the kind of men who had offices near the river and debts that made them careful. There were two names mentioned. One was dismissed right away. The other sent Mrs. Maggie’s cousin into a brief, severe silence.
“That one,” she said at last, “will know where to find him if anyone does.”
Eloise did not ask how she knew. She did not need to.
By the time they found the collector, it was midafternoon.
The man did not look like a brute. That surprised her.
She had expected someone rougher, louder, more obviously dangerous.
Instead, he was hard in the practical sense.
Narrow-eyed. Controlled. A man who had built his life on discretion and the fear of others.
He wore no unnecessary finery and no visible threat beyond the one on his face.
He studied her after Mrs. Maggie’s cousin made the introduction. “You asked for me.”
Eloise nodded. “Yes.”
He gestured toward a small office and shut the door behind them. The room was plain. Sparse. A desk, a chair, papers stacked in carefully arranged piles.
He leaned against the desk and folded his arms. “Well?”
Eloise took a breath. “I know where a man you have been seeking for months is staying.”
He did not move. She did not give him a name. He did not even ask for one right then. Eloise wondered how many men he could possibly be hunting so fiercely that a name was secondary. “Where?” he asked.
Her pulse remained controlled. “That depends on what you intend to do with the information.”
He stared for a moment. Then gave a short breath through his nose. “You are cautious.”
“I am informed.”
“About me?”
“Enough.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “And if I told you I mean to collect what is owed?”
She looked at him steadily. “Then I would say that sounds like a matter for you.”
The office was too quiet. “What do you want in return?” he asked at last.
Eloise answered without hesitation. “For him to face consequences for his debts. Nothing more.”
That seemed to surprise him. He studied her for a moment. “You are not asking for money.”
“No.”
“Protection?”
“No.”
“Revenge?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Then why come to me at all?”
She considered him carefully. “Because if he has been hiding from a man like you, then I want that to matter.”
He looked at her as though she had said something far more useful than she intended. “How did you find me?”
“Women hear things that men assume they do not understand,” Eloise said.
He leaned back and considered as though deciding whether she was a fool or useful. “You want him found.”
“Yes.”
“You want consequences.”
“Yes.”
“And you have chosen me because you think I can provide them.”
“I know you can.”
He stared a moment longer, then gave the briefest nod. “Then I will take the information.” He held up one finger. “I will not promise mercy.”
“I am not asking for it.”
His eyes flickered with mild approval.
“Good,” he said. “Then we understand each other.”
He asked for the location. She gave it. The collector listened thoughtfully, as though deciding if he could believe her. “If he is where you say, he will not stay there long.”
Eloise nodded.
The man tilted his head slightly. “What do I call the woman who brought me this?”
Eloise held his gaze. “No name.”
He studied her again. Then gave a short nod. “All right. No name.”