“Of course, yes, as we’ve all heard,” Lady Hamilton cut in, with the air of brushing aside a detail she found already settled. “But what I wish to know, my dear—”
“It was really quite fortunate,” Meggie continued, entirely undeterred, “that he happened upon her when he did.”
“Providence, I said,” Isabel added at once, looking across Elena to Meggie with a bright nod. “What else would place your Jacob so near at exactly the right moment, ready to give aid to my dear Elena?”
She pressed a hand to her chest, her tone rich with feeling. Elena hardly recognized her mother then; she had never heard such artifice pass Isabel’s lips.
“At precisely the moment,” Isabel went on, “when Elena was in the greatest need.” She extended a gracious hand toward Lady Hamilton. “And your Thomas, too, of course,” she said sweetly, as though careful not to exclude him from the tale.
Lady Hamilton cleared her throat and shifted in her seat, turning her head this way and that. “Yes, well—Thomas being as he is—refined by his education at university and not...” She paused, fumbling, her gaze flicking between Isabel and Meggie as she searched for a word that would not offend.
“Nae trained by the sword,” Isabel supplied helpfully, with unmistakable pride, “as our lads were.”
Meggie nodded once in agreement.
Lady Hamilton nodded as well, though more slowly. “Yes. Trained by the sword. Thomas was a sickly child, you see,” she offered, as though that might excuse matters, before hastening to correct herself. “But of course he is well past all that and—”
She faltered, then seemed to read the room at last, and refrained from making her son the subject of the conversation again.
“But you, my dear,” Lady Hamilton said after a moment, plainly unsatisfied, “you are remarkably composed. I should have been hysterical.”
Elena managed a polite smile. “There was little time for it.”
Lady Hamilton pressed on regardless. “I cannot imagine how you are not senseless with fright—quite undone by it all.”
“My fear was greatest when I was first taken,” Elena said, truthfully and without ornament. “Over the days that followed, it lessened.”
“And why is that?” Lady Hamilton prompted.
“I knew I was safe with Jacob Jamison.”
A fainthmmwas the only reply to that. The questions continued all the same—persistent, probing—though Elena could not have said what, precisely, the woman hoped to extract.
A quarter hour into the interrogation, Isabel had had enough, and rose to her feet.
“Lady Hamilton, I believe that is enough recounting for one day,” she said gently but firmly. “My daughter appears to be wilting. She needs rest.”
Lady Hamilton sighed, though she did not argue. “Of course. Of course. Another time, perhaps.”
Meggie played along, helping Elena to her feet, rolling her eyes once her back was turned to Lady Hamilton.
Elena murmured her thanks, inclined her head politely, and allowed herself to be ushered from the solar between her mother and Meggie. The door closed behind them with a soft, final click.
For a few steps, none of them spoke.
Then Elena said quietly, “What was that about?”
Meggie snorted under her breath. “She wanted a story she could repeat.”
“A neat one,” Isabel added, her tone dry. “With heroes placed properly, and nae inconvenient truths to trip over.”
Elena frowned. “Why?”
Meggie glanced at her. “Because people like Lady Hamilton prefer events tidied up—fear made interesting, danger made distant, and no doubt, her son not painted as the coward.”
“A tale,” Isabel said, touching Elena’s arm, “a tale told often enough becomes the established truth. She wants to decide what that will be.”
Elena let out a slow breath. “I dinna give her much.”
