The words lodged in Jacob’s mind, heavy and immovable.
He looked back at Elena then—not at the lad beside her, but at her face as she listened, bright and animated, mayhap unaware that her future had been arranged without her.
Something settled in him at that moment, quiet and final, eclipsing all the foolish notions that had been stirred in his head since he’d come last week to Wolvesly, the ones that had struck him the instant Elena had strode into the hall, no longer the girl who'd chased after him with skinned knees, but a beguiling young woman whose smile he found himself seeking across crowded rooms.
He did not belong in whatever bargain would one day be struck. Whatever plans were being laid for her life, he was not part of them.
By the time Wolvesly faded behind him a fortnight later, the truth had settled, not kindly, but as a matter of fact.
Some things were not meant to be, but only imagined.
ELENA WOKE WITH THEpeculiar, disorienting sense that something fundamental had shifted while she slept, as though the world had quietly rearranged itself in the night and left her to discover the change by degrees. It took her several heartbeats to remember what it was—what had been undone—and when thetruth settled in, it did so not with elation but with a cautious, almost startled relief.
She was no longer betrothed.
Word had come late the night before, delivered quietly by her mother after the household had begun to settle: Lord Hamilton had withdrawn from the contract, choosing prudence and pride in equal measure. The alliance as intended, with the MacTavish/Hamilton betrothal at the heart of it, would not proceed—but neither, Isabel had told her, was the summit a total loss. Some of the Lowland lords had nonetheless pledged their support to the cause, to Liam and Gabriel specifically, agreeing to stand with the Highland chiefs against the long grind of English aggression and the slow erosion of their own lands.
It was, Elena understood, the sort of compromise men of power called a victory. Isabel had assured her that her father considered it a win.
But the most pressing matter: she was no longer expected to wed Thomas Hamilton.
The knowledge sat strangely in her chest, light and heavy all at once. She had prepared herself, over many months, to do her duty as she had been taught: to marry where she was told, to lend her name and her future to an alliance that mattered far more than her own wishes. She had never specifically thought of rebellion—even yesterday—had only been resigned. And yet, now that the bond had been severed, she could admit—if only to herself—how ill the prospect had always rested with her. Not Thomas alone, for she had not found him wholly disagreeable, but what the marriage would have required of her: the quiet extinguishing of a hope she had never spoken aloud, but which she had guarded as treasure for so many years.
Not that she imagined there truly was hope now, not where Jacob Jamison was concerned.
That truth returned with uncomfortable clarity as she dressed and made her way down into the courtyard, the morning air hanging damp and chill beneath a low stretch of gray sky. The MacTavish and Jamison households were already gathering, horses fitted, wagons loaded, outriders mounted and waiting, the business of departure carried out with an efficiency that bordered on careful avoidance.
No one had said the words aloud—you must leave—but they had hovered nonetheless, unspoken and unmistakable. Lord Strathfinnan’s message the night before had been delivered with brittle courtesy, his farewell as stiff as his posture, while Thomas had kept his eyes resolutely averted, wounded pride clinging faithfully to him—by her mother’s account.
Now, in the pale morning light, the dismissal felt sharper still.
Elena stayed close to her mother while across the yard, Jacob moved among the Jamison horses, checking girths, tightening straps, his manner composed and intent on anything that did not require him to look her way, it seemed. If he had noticed her at all that morning, she could not tell. He passed within a few strides of her without pause, without the smallest acknowledgment, and the familiar, foolish ache stirred in her chest despite everything she told herself.
Freedom did not feel as she had imagined it might.
Once they passed beyond the estate’s outer boundary and the castle receded behind a curtain of mist, the tension did not immediately lift, but something in the air shifted—just enough that breath came easier. The company rode in a loose formation now, MacTavishes and Jamisons intermingled, the women mounted among them rather than set apart or in carriages, cloaks drawn close against the damp morning air.
From her place beside her mother, she saw Jacob urge his horse forward, closing the distance between himself andher father with careful deliberation. He drew level with Liam’s mount and began speaking to him, keeping his voice low, his posture respectful. Her father did not turn at once, but Elena caught the slight tightening of his jaw.
They spoke for several moments as they rode on, heads inclined just enough to keep their words private. Elena could not hear a single syllable, but she could guess well enough at the substance of it. Jacob’s shoulders were squared, his expression sober, the look of a man offering something that could not be softened by charm or haste. An apology, she thought. Or an accounting. Perhaps both.
Liam listened without interruption, his gaze fixed ahead, giving nothing away. When at last he inclined his head—once, sharply—it told Elena very little, except that whatever had been said had been received, if not happily.
Jacob fell back then, resuming his place among the Jamisons as though nothing of consequence had passed between them.
They rode mostly in silence for a time. Then, inevitably, the brothers noticed the heavy quiet—and did what brothers did best.
From a few paces back, David Jamison’s voice rose with deliberate cheer, pitched just loudly enough to carry. “Well then,” he called, “I ken I canna speak for the whole company, but I’ve a grievance to lay at your feet, Jacob Jamison.”
A few heads turned.
“All those days we were fed naught but boar and venison,” David went on mournfully, “and now I learn there was meant to be a betrothal feast to cap it all—good beef, spiced bread, ale enough to drown a man—and ye’ve seen fit to rob us of it.”
A short bark of laughter followed from somewhere in the Jamison ranks.
“By the saints,” David added, “that is a heavier offense than any whispered scandal, if ye ask me.”
Alexander MacTavish gave a short, derisive snort. “Aye, that’ll be the part the bards remember—how we rode all this way for unity and went home lighter by one feast and one alliance.”
