A couple of evenings later, Jeames knocked at the door of Beatrice’s room and asked her whether she’d care to join him downstairs for dinner.
“I see that yer ankle is well on the mend. Gettin’ stronger with each passin’ day. A wee trip down tae the dinin’ hall should pose no problem fer ye, should it?”
For some reason, he had half-expected her to decline his offer.
Perhaps it’s because ye’ve seen her reject Mr. Ballantine’s entreaties tae talk almost every single day since she arrived here?
He was on the verge of turning on his heel, when Beatrice said, “Of course, I’d like to come with you.”
Jeames blinked. “Right,’ he said, somewhat taken aback.
“Do you think that your father, or anyone else, will mind that I’m there?”
“Nay,” Jeames said, finding delight suddenly flushing through him with the same heady feeling that too much whisky can give a man. “Nay, lass, we keep a very informal table mostly. Tonight will be nothin’ special.”
Beatrice crooked an eyebrow at him–a look which precipitated Jeames into feeling as if his tongue had decided to sever all ties with his brain.
“Ah, I mean,” he said. “Nothin’ special, exceptin’ yer own presence now, Miss Turner.”
Beatrice grinned and slapped him unthinkingly on the chest. “Masterful recovery, Mr. Abernathy,” she said, her eyes gleaming with cheerful mischief.
Jeames’s heart swelled in his chest.
She really is like too much whisky, this lass. Intoxicatin’.
“Thank ye, Miss Turner.”
“Now, that you’ve succeeded in retaining your chivalrous reputation with me, would you mind waiting just a moment?”
“A moment?”
“Yes. I was not expecting you and would like a few moments to gather myself and make myself more presentable. I’d like to try and appear as little like a circus runaway as possible.”
“Very–”
The door shut in Jeames’s face.
“–good,” he finished.
Not too much later, Beatrice emerged.
She was wearing one of the gowns that, had Beatrice but known it, Jeames had had sewn for her. Her brown hair, instead of falling straight down to her shoulders, was twirled about her head in an intricate braid that both befuddled and delighted the eye.
Nae in twenty years could I learn tae dae that with hair.
Her tanned complexion, so at odd with the complexions of rest of the sheltered women that Jeames had had anything to do with growing up, set off the clear hazel eyes.
Jeames was not sure what it was exactly that Beatrice could have done in the short while he had been standing outside but, whatever it was, it left a marked impression on him.
She looks beautiful. And not just beautiful, but…strong. Commandin’. A woman in charge of her own destiny.
Beatrice beamed at him, and it seemed to Jeames that the torches in the corridor were dimmed, so radiant was that smile.
My good God, but if she was a Laird’s daughter there would be blood in the streets and highborn men ridin’ from across the Highlands tae ask fer her hand.
“Am I presentable?” she asked demurely.
“I…um…aye…ye look–ye look, um, bonnie. Bonnie as a Scotch thistle.”
“As a thistle?” Beatrice said, mock horror gilding her words.
Jeames felt himself coloring. “Aye,” he said, a little defensively. “What’s wrong wi’ thistles, pray?”
“Well, they’re prickly for one thing. Painful.”
Jeames shook his head. “Nay, ye’re lookin’ at ‘em from the wrong way, lass. There’s no finer flowerin’ plant in all o’ Scotland.”
“Really?” Beatrice asked him, dubiously.
“Understated much o’ the time. Strong. Able tae endure adversity. Requires respect when picking, unless ye fancy getting’ a wee jab. And, like I say, bonnie when they flower.”
“Well,” Beatrice said, looking thoughtfully up at Jeames. “When you put it like that…”
“Ye’ve never had the pleasure of crestin’ a rise on a fine day and seein’ a field of thistles spread out before ye, I assume?”
“No. No I have not.”
“Ah, well. Just ye wait. I hope that ye get the chance. It’s like the songs of the Scottish bards come tae life.” He cleared his throat. “And it’s a special flower to us, the thistle.”
Beatrice’s hazel eyes took on a lovely, liquid glow, as the sun fell outside and the torches in the corridor seemed to brighten.
“Is that right?” she asked, only the very hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Jeames could feel his palms tingling. The hairs on the back of his neck standing up like they did at the approach of a storm.
“Aye, well,” he stammered. “Legend has it that it was the thistle that, hundreds o’ years ago, warned the sleeping Scottish clansmen of the approach of Norse invaders.”
“And how did a flower warn these clansmen exactly?” Beatrice asked, interest flashing in her eyes.
She took a small step towards Jeames, and the Highlander felt flutters of nervous anticipation ripple through his stomach.
Jeames swallowed. His mouth was suddenly quite dry.
“One of the Norsemen,” he said, “supposedly stood on a thistle and screamed, alertin’ the clansmen to the attack.”
“See,” Beatrice said. “Spiky.”
Jeames managed a smile, though he couldn’t recall when he had last felt so flustered. “Ach, there are so many flowers that are just bonnie tae look at. Where ye see spiky, I see a plant both bonnie and useful.”
Beatrice laughed. “Well, you have more of an education that I have ever come close to having, and you make a pretty point. Shall we go then?”
“Go?” Jeames asked. He found that, now he had regained his footing somewhat in this conversation, he was finding the equestrienne woman’s proximity more than a little enjoyable.
Beatrice raised her eyebrows and snorted. “Um, to dinner?”
“Oh, aye. Aye, dinner. O’ course. Follow me.”
Jeames led Beatrice on the same route that they had taken on the few occasions that they had ventured outside the castle. This time though, instead of heading through the imposing wooden double doors that led out into the grounds, he led her down a stone-flagged corridor lined with expensive beeswax tapers.
Jeames could tell that, confident as Beatrice was (and she was a woman who spent much of her time performing in front of crowds of people on horseback) she was nervous. Her stream of good-natured ribbing petered out as they wound their way further into the keep.
Stopping before another set of double doors, Jeames turned to the young woman following behind him and smiled encouragingly.
“Daenae worry, lass,” he said. “Like I told ye before. It’s just a wee gatherin’ fer a few o’ the notables that live nearby. Nothin’ grand at all.”
Beatrice gave him a slightly queasy smile. “But, anyone who is here, your father, won’t he think it odd that you’re accompanying me, when you’re betrothed to another?”
Jeames shrugged indifferently. “I have always danced tae me own tune, lass. Always I have carried meself with dignity and treated others wi’ respect, as me faither taught me. Ye’re our guest here. We’ve made no secret o’ that–me faither least of all.”
He placed a big hand on her slight shoulder. Watched as she steeled herself.
“Ye’ve nay enemies here, lass. But if ye must find courage in somethin’, then why not treat it us just another performance?”
And, with those words of advice, he thrust open the door.
15
Beatrice needn’t have been worried about anything, with regards to her dining experience in the MacKenzie Castle that evening. She and Jeames were seated to the right of the Laird–a special seat being provided for Beatrice’s use.
“Miss Turner,” Laird Andrew Abernathy greeted her, “I’m so happy tae see ye up and about
again. I hope me son has been doin’ right by ye.”
Beatrice curtsied.
“Yes, thank you, your Lairdship. Jeames has been extremely kind. You’ve raised him very well.”
“Is she talkin’ about ye, lad?” the Laird asked, turning to his son. Jeames gave Beatrice an exasperated look.
“I am, um, not used to surroundings such as these, and so everything is all rather overwhelmingly and lovely compared with what I am used to. But I know well enough that your son is a fine man.”
The Laired beamed at this, as if the compliment had been made about himself and not his son. Beatrice supposed that, in a way, she was complimenting the older man.
“Please daenae stand on ceremony,” he said, and waved them to their seats.
The Laird, as many amiable and proud parents are prone to do, immediately launched into a detailed reminiscence of Jeames’s formative years.
Beatrice listened, captivated. The Laird was a fine storyteller, and Jeames’s evident chagrin only made the stories of him as a little boy all the funnier.
As she listened to Jeames’s father spin his tales, she observed the man himself. She saw much of him in Jeames: the same thick, black hair (though the Laird’s was liberally streaked with gray), the same powerful shoulders, the aquiline nose and strong chin.
One way in which they were not similar were the eyes. The Laird had eyes as gray as the Scottish storm skies, whereas Jeames’s were that deep, thoughtful brown.
When the Laird paused at the end of a story about Jeames and his first dog biting him on the behind, Beatrice mentioned this observation.
The Laird looked at her from under his bristling brows. Stroked his short beard as the eyes, so unlike his son’s, regarded her.
“Nay,” he said at last. “Nay, he has not me eyes, that is true. He’s got his mither’s eyes.”
Beatrice looked about the room. “And where is Her Ladyship?” she asked.
A cloud of grief scudded briefly over the Laird’s genial, weathered face.
“She’s gone,” he said simply.
Beatrice could have kicked herself. “I’m dreadfully sorry, Your Lairdship,” she said.
The Laird raised a pardoning hand. “Ye didnae ken, lass. There’s no harm in yer mistake. I just miss her, that is all. She was carried off by an illness in the night, five years ago. I feel it still, as if it happened only yesterday.”
“What was she like?” Beatrice asked, before she could think about the appropriateness of the question or of asking it of a Laird.
Jeames’s father smiled sadly. “She was like the sun. Vital. Crucial. Warm and bright. I married her out o’ love and in secret, which threw me faither into a fit o’ anger the likes o’ which I have never seen a man achieve since.”
“Did you know her a long time?” Beatrice asked.
“Ever since we were wee nippers. She was the child o’ one of me faither’s chief advisors.”
Beatrice leaned forward and pressed the Laird’s hand. “That’s a long time,” she said.
“Nay, not a long time,” the Laird replied, with a small smile. “Just a lifetime.”
The talk passed into happier waters. Mostly, it revolved around Beatrice’s skill with horses. It was apparent that the Laird had a great fondness for the creatures. When Beatrice mentioned that she had been impressed and had noted how fine the steed was that Jeames had transported her from the circus to the castle on, the Laird smiled.
“Aye, ye see, I daenae get about ridin’ as much as I did when I was a lad. I daenae have the time these days, nor does me body forgive a long day in the saddle quite as easily as it once did. Instead, I’ve taken tae breedin’ nags in me spare time.”
Beatrice caught a look from Jeames that said, as far as she could make out, that she had broken the dam and was now about to be drenched in talk whether she liked it or no.
Beatrice found that she did not mind, though the Laird monopolized the conversation from there on. He told her all about how he was refining the bloodlines in his horses, how he hoped that one day the horses of the MacKenzie clan would be considered to be the finest in all the Highlands – in all of Scotland even.
“You see, lass,” he said. “People will always need good horses, much as they need anythin’. And those that have the money, well, they will want the best nags. Tae have a good bloodline, good breedin’ stock, is tae have a commodity that’ll keep payin’ the holder of that bloodline through the years to come.”
It was an extremely convivial evening. Beatrice had been worried about a few things walking into the hall–the Laird being able to tell that she had very much warmed towards his promised son being not the least of them–but these worries soon evaporated. The food was excellent, the drink plentiful, and a minstrel roamed the hall serenading the company with gentle ballads.
All in all, when the dinner came to an end, Beatrice found herself more at peace with the world than she had been in a long time. When the Laird rose to go to his chambers, and the rest of the diners rose out of respect for him, she found that Jeames was close by her side.
The smell of him…The closeness…Maybe, it is just too much of that fine wine, but I feel…
“I was wonderin’,” Jeames said, bending so that he might speak into her ear and be heard over the clamor of the other diners heading off to bed or home, “whether ye’d like to take the air wi’ me?”
Beatrice looked up into the Highlander’s rugged face, the faint bristle of his unshaven cheeks catching the light of the torches burning around the walls. His lips were slightly parted, his even white teeth just visible. A strand of black hair hung down over one eye. Beatrice almost reached up to stroke it out of the way.
“Yes,” she said, curbing the urge to touch him. “Yes, I would like that. Very much.”
Jeames smiled. “Aye, ye never ken yer luck, the stars might be out.”
The two of them left the hall, Jeames pausing as he went to say goodnight to a few of his acquaintances.
Beatrice waited by the door for the Highlander to catch up with her, toying with the notion of hurrying upstairs to grab one of her shawls in case it was cold outside.
If you don’t, Jeames might lend you something of his again. His arm, maybe?
It was the sort of thought that she decided to attribute to a surfeit of drink, but she could not help but harbor the notion that she would have thought it even had she been as sober as a priest on Sunday.
Jeames appeared at her arm then.
“Are ye ready tae take a stroll, Miss Turner?” he asked. “D’ye need somethin’ warmer before we take the air?” He held out his arm in a gentlemanly fashion.
Beatrice laughed, for she felt as far removed from a lady as it was possible to be. Although, just then, dressed in her new gown, with good food and wine warming her insides, she was almost prepared to believe that she was a lady for this one night.
Not to mention this handsome, chivalrous man offering his arm to me.
She took the proffered arm in hers and grinned impishly.
“No need for something warm,” she said. “I’ve you, don’t I?”
Jeames’s mouth opened as if to reply, but it seemed as if he could find nothing to say in return.
His smile was enough of an answer to Beatrice though.
“Come,” he managed to croak, and led her out of the doors of the dining hall and out into the entrance hall.
Jeames led Beatrice through a passage and they stepped out into the invigorating cool of a garden that she had never been in before. Beatrice shivered, though not out of being cold.
“Are ye quite a’right, Beatrice?” Jeames asked.
“Yes. Yes, it’s just–well, this is a wonderful looking spot! Magical somehow.”
Jeames moved closer to her–an act that Beatrice recognized as a well-mannered man trying to comfort her without being so forward as to touch her. She had to smile to herself at this.
The gardens were clearly completely walled, but the walls themselv
es disappeared into the dark green shadows to either side of the door. Jeames closed it behind them and locked it with a key he pulled from his sporran.
“What is this place?” Beatrice asked. The hot flush of the wine in her cheeks contrasted pleasantly to the enjoyable coolness of the fresh Highland night air.
“It’s a private garden, used only by the Laird and his family,” Jeames told her. “It’s called Faileas Gàirdin.”
Awakening His Highland Soul (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance) Page 14
