James met his gaze directly. “Nae to me,” he replied. The room grew stiller at that, the weight of his words settling across the table.
Gregory let out a slow breath. “Then she will be disappointed,” he said. “And we daenae ken how Cameron will react.”
“Leave it to me,” James said.
Gregory studied him for a long moment before responding. “Ye say that as though it solves the matter,” he said.
James’s expression did not change. “It does,” he replied simply. A few councilmen exchanged uneasy glances, but none spoke.
James felt the shift immediately, like a hardening knot beneath his ribs. He had not allowed himself to think too far ahead beyond Eloise, beyond the necessity of keeping her safe from Drummond’s reach. Now another thread pulled itself into the weave, one he could not ignore, Mairead.
“And what will ye say to her?” Gregory asked.
For a moment, James did not answer. His thoughts flickered unbidden, Mairead as a child running through these halls, Mairead sitting beside Jenny by the hearth, Mairead looking at him once with something steady and unspoken that he had never chosen to acknowledge.
He pushed the memory aside with effort. “The truth. It is all I will offer,” he replied.
The councilman nodded slowly, though his expression remained tight. “And the Camerons?” he pressed. “They will expect what they’ve always expected.”
James rose slightly from his seat, resting one hand on the table as he looked around the room. “Then I will speak to them as well,” he said. “I will not hide behind promises I never made.”
A murmur rippled through the council, though none dared openly challenge him.
Gregory watched him carefully. “Ye are certain this betrothal to Whitmore’s daughter is the path ye will stand by? It is nae too late to call it off,” he said.
James hesitated only briefly, though the answer felt more complicated than he wished to admit. Eloise’s face rose unbidden in his mind, the way she argued, the way she refused to bend easily, the way she looked at him as though she saw more than he wanted revealed. Then the fact that this was all a false betrothal and would not hold beyond the four weeks.
He pushed the thought down. “Aye,” he said finally. “Eloise is the chosen bride.”
For the first time, James wondered not how to control the situation, but whether it was already beginning to control him.
Gregory said one last statement. “Mairead is with her family now,” he said. “But she is due to return to Calibroch… and soon.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
How long before people find out we are lying?
Eloise sat by the window in her chamber. The castle beyond her walls was settling into its nightly rhythm, servants moving like quiet shadows, the distant echo of voices rising and fading. Yet her mind was not on the halls or the people within them. It was on James.
On the way he looked at her when he thought she was not watching. On the way his voice seemed to settle somewhere beneath her skin, lingering long after he spoke. She pressed her fingertips to her lips unconsciously, then frowned at herself.
“This is daft. He is nothin' to me. Merely a means to an end,” she muttered under her breath.
A knock sounded at the door, sharp enough to break her reverie. She straightened at once, smoothing her dress, her heart giving an unhelpful leap, expecting James.
“Enter,” she called, attempting calm, though her voice betrayed a flicker of anticipation she could not quite conceal.
The door opened, and Fiona stepped inside rather than James. Eloise’s shoulders dropped almost imperceptibly.
Fiona held a folded letter in her hands. “This just came for ye, Miss,” she said.
Eloise blinked, then took it quickly, her fingers brushing the parchment as though it might reveal its contents by touch alone.
“Thank ye, Fiona,” she said softly.
Fiona nodded and left without further word, closing the door behind her.
Eloise turned the letter over in her hands, expectation rising again, this time not for James, but for her father. Her breath caught slightly as she broke the seal, her mind already preparing for duty, apology, or reprimand.
