“That is nae what I asked,” she replied.
At length, he said, “I will see that nothing like this happens again.”
It was not a promise of change. Only of arrangement.
Elena inclined her head once, acknowledging exactly what he had—and had not—offered. “Verra well,” she said, stepping past him toward the door, the movement itself a quiet dismissal.
“Oh—yes. Of course,” he said, startled into motion, following after her though he did not quite clear the threshold. “I had thought, perhaps, we might walk a little—nothing strenuous. Only about the bailey. With guards, of course.”
“Nae,” she said, cutting in before he could build the suggestion further. “I dinna think I’m up for that today.”
She kept the rest to herself—the sharp, instinctive refusal that rose in her mind.
He accepted her answer with visible relief, possibly attributing it to fatigue, or lingering shock, or mayhap any explanation that did not require that he look inward. “Then another time,” he said. “Perhaps after the meal tonight.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed, not even bothering to smile politely, as she might have once done.
She closed the door behind him and stood there for a moment, hand resting against the wood.
It was not anger she felt, exactly, but a dull astonishment at how thoroughly he had missed the point, at how obtuse he obviously was.
And she knew, with a clarity that brought no comfort at all, that it had changed very little—the truth was she was beginning to dread Thomas’s company. Her heart, whether she wished it or not, had already begun to turn elsewhere.
Or mayhap, it had simply never turned away from Jacob.
After the missteps thus far today—and it was so early yet—Elena was sorry that the rest of her morning was just as trying.
She was summoned, along with her mother and Meggie Jamison, to Lady Hamilton’s solar shortly after the household stirred in earnest. The chamber sat high in the east-facing tower, warm with late-morning light and scented faintly of beeswax and dried lavender. Cushioned benches lined the walls, and a small table had been laid with wine, sweet biscuits, and preserved fruit.
Lady Hamilton received the trio with effusive concern.
“My dear Elena,” she said at once, rising from her chair and taking both of Elena’s hands in her own. “You cannot imagine the distress your disappearance caused. We were beside ourselves.”
Elena inclined her head politely. “You are kind, my lady.”
“Now,” Lady Hamilton continued, guiding her firmly toward a seat, “youmusttell us everything. From the very beginning. I cannot abide gaps in a story, especially one so dreadful.”
Elena felt her shoulders tighten beneath her gown. She glanced briefly at her mother, but Isabel merely offered a small, steadying nod, saying nothing.
So Elena began where it started, telling of her stroll with Thomas in the orchard, of being taken unawares.
“Yes, yes, my dear,” Lady Hamilton chirped. “My son has told me all this, and of his heroics—fruitless though they turned out to be—trying to save you.”
Elena clenched her teeth and somehow managed to keep her lip from curling, and a rebuke from bursting forth.
Her mother, seated directly on her left, laid her hand over Elena’s, squeezing gently, a warning mayhap.
“Oh, but Lady Hamilton,” Isabel said, lifting her chin, “I pray, let us nae make my daughter relive the trauma of it.”
“No, of course not,” Lady Hamilton agreed readily, her eyes widening as though she, too, wished to be spared any truly dreadful account. But then she leaned forward, a spark of almost girlish eagerness lighting her expression. “The men, though—the English raiders—were they terribly brutal?”
“They were determined,” Elena replied with care.
“And you escaped how, precisely?”
“With help,” Elena said blandly.
Meggie Jamison took a measured sip of her wine before setting the cup aside. “My son, Jacob, witnessed Elena’s abduction,” she said, smoothly redirecting the focus. “He was able to—”
