Simon is home when the women return; a surprised Julia quickly lies that Seema ran away, and they were out looking for her. Lovat doesn’t really believe them but also doesn’t really care, because he’s got news: He took Inverness for the Crown, Brian broke ranks with him, and they’re about to have a guest (though he doesn’t say whom). Oh, and he also instructs them to find another maid who’s willing to warm his bed. (Ew.) In the kitchen, Davina and Julia run into Maisri, who’s there for a reading and whipping up some spiced wine at Lovat’s request.
The guest turns out to be — you guessed it — Ellen, who is salty at being brought to the castle against her will. Simon lies that he was just trying to keep her safe, now that she’s family and all. Of course, Ellen doesn’t believe him. She calls him a traitor to the Jacobites (“a devil in a red coat”) and confronts him about trying to ruin her reputation; he apologizes. Then he cordially invites her to stay for a meal before he brings her home. “Let’s make the best of it,” he says, smiling, “for Brian’s sake.”
Everyone sits for the meal. Julia and Ellen make a show of reminding each other they met at Braemar, and not about how their real bond came when Julia conjured a fake hymen for the redhead outta strawberry pulp and sheer will. When Davina enters to serve the food, there’s a sweet moment in which Brian’s mom and his wife realize they’re face-to-face for the first time in this new arrangement; they smile sweetly at each other.
Before long, though, Ellen starts to feel terrible, and Julia isn’t doing well, either. Maisri enters and sits at the table, makes an oblique reference to Ellen’s having “something of Brian’s” and then takes the redhead’s hand: “Life’s promise holds fast, but death’s call must be answered,” she intones. But she does reassure everything that Brian is still alive out there.
By the third time Lovat suggests that everyone drink the wine, Julia realizes that the drink has been tampered with. And Ellen, who has turned the color of three-day-old eel, starts to panic: From the puddle of blood amassing under her chair, it seems she’s hemorrhaging. In despair, she tells Davina and Julia that she’s with child.