“Cleveland Bays?” Jeames asked.
“They’re English horses. Perfect for pulling carriages. Short legs in relation to their bodies, but they’re marvelously strong. They would be perfect for these rough Highland roads of yours.”
Jeames smiled at her. “Ye should tell him yerself when we sit down tae dinner this evenin’.”
Another of those fleeting looks of pain flashed across Beatrice’s face at this.
I just cannae understand it. The very mention of a simple domestic scene causes her pain. It’s as clear as day tae me that her heart yearns tae stay, but why will she nae listen to her own feelin’s is somethin’ that I cannae grasp.
“If ye want tae have yer dinner in the hall o’ course,” Jeames said, quickly. He did not want to come across as if he was treating her as if she was made of glass, but at the same time he wanted to make sure that he kept her in as happy a mood as possible.
Beatrice seemed to read Jeames’s mind, for she grinned sheepishly and said, “Of course I would like to join you and the Laird for the evening meal, if you’ll have me. I only have two nights remaining to me until I am back to circus fare. I think I am going to find that your hospitality has quite spoiled me.”
They began to meander their way slowly up to MacKenzie Castle. Jeames elected to take the longer route through the village. It was his favorite time of the day: dusk.
And as fine a dusk as one could hope fer.
The sky was fading from blue to a dreamy, pale purple, with only a few wisps of cloud smeared across the firmament, as if a giant hand had carelessly added them with a huge paintbrush. The birds were calling loudly to one another as they settled down to roost for the night – Jeames could hear the harsh cawing of a couple of rooks as they bellowed goodnight to each other.
“I love this part of the day,” Beatrice said in a faraway voice.
Jeames looked at her. She was ambling along next to him, staring up at the sky and around her at the houses and shops as they walked sedately along.
I could happily walk circuits around this village, until the night had fallen so completely that we could nae see each other, just so I could keep watchin’ her.
“That’s exactly what I was just thinkin’,” Jeames said.
Beatrice cocked one of those devastatingly pretty eyebrows at him.
When did I notice that women could have pretty eyebrows?
“Oh, I’m sure you did,” she said.
“I’m serious!”
Beatrice laughed. “I’m only teasing,” she said, giving his arm a poke. “Why is it that you like it so much then, hm?”
Jeames considered this. “I daenae think that I’ll be able tae explain it well enough tae get me meanin’ across,” he said.
Beatrice nudged him again. “No harm in trying,” she said.
Jeames watched the woodsmoke starting to drift lazy from a few of the chimneys of the houses in the village; people stoking up their fires so as to get their suppers on the go. Like all villages in those parts, the folk that lived at the feet of MacKenzie Castle mostly rose and went to bed with the sun.
Jeames listened to the rhythmic clanging of the blacksmith’s hammer echoing out from the other end of the village. Then he answered, “I think it’s because that, no matter what has taken place throughout the day, no matter what you may be dreadin’ on the morrow, for about an hour when dusk falls, the world seems tae stand still. Does that make sense?”
Beatrice nodded and moved closer to him. “It makes sense. For me, it just feels as if, just for a little while, peace reigns.”
Jeames and Beatrice walked down the street, their feet scuffing in the dirt of the road. Jeames felt that, maybe, if they took long enough on this walk back to the castle, they might somehow be able to delay the arrival of a future that neither of them really wanted.
He was totally unaware that many sets of eyes marked them as they passed by the houses and shops and workshops. The Laird’s son was well-known and well-liked by the local populace, and many villagers smiled to see him accompanying the mysterious Englishwoman that they said could talk to horses.
“So, Mr. Abernathy,” Beatrice asked, gently sliding her arm through his and moving still closer. “What do you have in store for me tomorrow? It being my final day and all.”
Jeames looked up at the almost perfectly clear sky. His eyes running first to the western horizon and then to the eastern.
God, if ye could see it that the weather stays kind fer tomorrow, I would be much obliged.
“Well,” he said, “I think it might be nice if ye indulged me and allowed me tae keep that a surprise from ye…”
* * *
The next morning dawned just as fair as Jeames had hoped that it would. The sky was just as clear as it had been the preceding evening. In fact, it was even clearer, due to the smattering of clouds that had been in the sky having obligingly disappeared.
Beatrice woke to a knock on the door of her bedroom not long after the sun had cleared the horizon. Without thinking–keen as she was to see Jeames on what was to be her last day–she got out of bed and hurriedly opened the door.
“Good morning!” she said, her tousled hair all over the place, her eyes a little bleary from sleep, but a radiant smile spread across her face.
“I–uh–good morning,” the Highlander said, standing in the doorway. Beatrice looked at the young man confusedly. He was standing in the doorway, looking some six inches over the top of her head and blushing a rather fetching shade of puce.
What is wrong with him?
It was only then that she realized that she had hopped out of bed with only her rather thin and shapeless night shirt on.
Ah.
Shapeless the shirt might have been, but Beatrice was anything but. She looked down and saw how the gown clung to her in places that perhaps might not be quite so visible normally.
Still, it’s not like he has not seen, or at least felt, most of this before…
Beatrice did not know it, but she had become desensitized to seeing half-naked and naked people running around the place, thanks to her circus upbringing. There was always someone or, more often than not, multiple people midway through changing costume or applying body paint during a performance. There had never been any time to think it strange or inappropriate.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, turning red herself, despite her every effort not to. “Wait there and I’ll be dressed in a moment. Shall we breakfast here in the room, or did you have somewhere in mind?”
Jeames cleared his throat. “I was just thinkin’ that we would eat down in the hall and then ride somewhere I think that ye might quite enjoy,” he said. “If we have tae be back here fer just after luncheon then the sooner we get on the road the longer we can spend at the place I want tae show ye.”
Beatrice smiled at his discomfort, unable to stop seeing the irony of the situation. “That sounds very good, Jeames. I shall meet you down in the hall.”
The two of them ate a hurried and simple breakfast of bannocks and porridge washed down with ale. Then, Beatrice followed Jeames down to the stables and they mounted up. Jeames’s steed already had a bag strapped to the back of the saddle.
“Where are we going?” Beatrice asked. She had tried to find out what Jeames had in store for them, but the Highlander had remained reticent, answering her questions only with an enigmatic smile over his porridge spoon.
“Ye shall see soon enough, lass,” he said.
They rode out. It quickly became apparent that the day, apart from being cloudless, promised to be a warm one too. It was not long before Beatrice was loosening the shawl that she had wrapped around her against the possibility of a morning chill.
They rode at an easy canter along the road for a stretch, Jeames occasionally turning off down some lane or other. Gradually, the travelers that they passed periodically completely petered out and they had the road to themselves.
Just when Beatrice was going to remind Jeames that, if they did not
get to where they were going soon they would not have very long at whatever it was he was showing her before they would have to return to the castle, the Highlander reigned in.
“We’re going down here,” he said, indicating what looked like a game trail that disappeared through a hedge and descended a bank.
They hid the horses in a nearby stand of trees, though Jeames thought it very unlikely that anyone would be along. Dimly, as she waited for Jeames to finish hobbling their mounts, Beatrice became aware that she could hear the noise of rushing water coming from somewhere below them.
She followed Jeames along the track that wound down the steep bank, through a thicket of alders that was punctuated by the occasional willow and out onto a rocky flat. At this point Jeames, with his bag over his shoulder, turned and said, “Let me cover yer eyes.”
Beatrice nodded her permission and Jeames came up behind her and placed one broad hand over her eyes. The other sat gently on her hip and guided her about thirty footsteps further on.
Beatrice was smiling to herself. Never had she spent such time with a man before. Jeames brought her to a halt and uncovered her eyes.
Beatrice gaped.
“Goodness me,” she breathed.
22
For a while the two of them just stood there, taking the scene in. Jeames knew how Beatrice was feeling, he had been just as stunned by this secret place as she unquestionably was when he had stumbled across it whilst hunting boar.
They were stood on a sort of naturally occurring rocky platform that stuck out from the side of the bank. The bank itself dropped away and formed a low cliff, about four times the height of Jeames. At the bottom of this cliff was a pool of crystalline spring water, but the really fantastic part of the whole scene was that, directly across from where they now stood, a rivulet tumbled from a bank above and formed a thin waterfall that cascaded into the pool below.
“Goodness me,” Beatrice said again. “What a wondrous place!”
Jeames watched her taking it all in with wide eyes. He kept a careful eye on her as she approached the edge of the low cliff and looked down into the pool below.
“How deep is it?” she asked, in an awe-filled voice.
“I daenae exactly,” Jeames said, sneaking up behind her. “But deep enough tae jump into from here.”
He grabbed her by the hips and pretended to push her in. Beatrice shrieked, turned and slapped him hard on the chest.
“God, that scared me!” she said, over Jeames’s laughter. She swatted at him again. Keeping one eye on him, she peered back over the edge again. “You can’t be serious though.”
“About what?”
“Jumping in.”
“Nay, I’m nae jestin’ with ye. It looks shallow because the water is so clear, straight from the heart of the Highlands, but it must be twice as deep as I am tall, maybe more.”
Beatrice looked at him skeptically. “I don’t know if I can trust you now,” she teased.
“Dae ye nae?” Jeames asked.
“Not after almost pushing me to my doom!”
Jeames nodded thoughtfully. “That is somethin’ we shall have tae remedy then isn’t it?”
Without further ado, Jeames started to unwind his plaid from around his chest.
“What are you doing?” Beatrice asked.
“Showing ye that ye can trust me word,” Jeames explained in a matter-of-fact tone. He undid his sporran and handed it to Beatrice. Then he kicked off his shoes, pulled off his stockings, unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it over his head.
He saw Beatrice’s eyes run over the hard muscles of his chest and stomach, taking in the few scars that crisscrossed it. She pointed to one puckered scar up near where his shoulder met his chest.
“Bit clumsy aren’t you?” she said.
“Aye, a little bit sometimes.”
“Where is that one from?”
Jeames fingered the scar absently. “It was the first lesson I learned in me first ever pitched battle against a rival clan,” he said.
“What was the lesson?” Beatrice asked.
“That as clever and skilled and quick as I thought I was, I couldnae outrun or out-think an arrow.”
Beatrice’s mouth opened in surprise. “You were shot?” she said, in a slightly less confident voice than usual.
Jeames shrugged. “That’s the Highlands, lass. Beautiful and cruel, breathtakin’ and unforgivin’. Mistress to all that walk her hills.” He flashed her a smile. “Ye, ah, might want tae avert yer eyes fer this next part.”
“What–oh!”
Jeames unfastened his kilt and let it drop to the floor at the same time that Beatrice clamped her eyes shut. Then he turned and, without a moment’s hesitation, leaped from the cliff. He fell for a short time, reveling in the freedom of it, in the rashness of this naked deed, and then plunged into the cold water.
Was there anythin’ better than Scottish mountain water fer clearin’ a man’s head? I doubt it!
He came to the surface, his black hair plastered over his face. He pushed it away and stared up at the cliff and saw Beatrice’s head peeking over.
“You’re alive?” she called down.
“For me sins.”
“But, how do you get back up?”
Jeames pointed off to his left where some trailing creepers, the roots of trees and a few rough steps showed where people climbed back out of the swimming hole.
“I’m nae the first tae have found this place,” he said, as he trod water. “If ye daenae fancy a dip then ye can come down this way tae.”
“Is there anything delicate in this bag?” Beatrice asked.
“Oh, aye, I’ve got the family crockery in there,” Jeames called up.
The bag came flying down and landed with a dull thud on the bank next to the pool.
Then something else fluttered off the cliff above.
What is that?
Then Jeames realized just what the thing was.
Beatrice’s gown. That means–
The lithesome shape of the naked equestrienne launched into space. Jeames just caught a flash of a shapely buttock before she was lost in the glare of the sun. Then there was a splash about ten paces from him and Beatrice surfaced.
“My God!” she said, breathlessly. “It’s bloody fr-freezing!”
Jeames laughed. “What are ye talkin’ about, lass? It’s good enough fer a bath, is it nae?”
He got a face full of water in response as Beatrice splashed him.
For once, Jeames’s natural gentlemanly instincts deserted him and, before either of them knew it, they were splashing and yelling at each other with childlike abandon. Their voices echoed off the rock walls above them, bouncing back and forth until the whole place sounded like it was filled with people.
Jeames found himself laughing and spluttering and splashing around blindly, having more innocent, plain fun than he could remember having in a long time.
Might have a wee bit tae dae with who I am here with, maybe?
Jeames was not aware of Beatrice ceasing to splash. One minute he was having water flung in his face and the next, with a banshee shriek, she had flung herself into his arms.
The initial impact of her lithe body hitting him ducked him under briefly. In that moment, surrounded by the cold water, bubbles and the touch of slippery skin against his, Jeames was able to figure out what was going on.
He surfaced to find himself nose-to-nose with the English equestrienne. Water dripped down from her scalp, down her tanned face, clung to her eyebrows. Jeames could feel the softness of her breasts pressing against his chest as he held her in his arms and trod water for the both of them.
“So,” Beatrice said. “How long do you think you can support the both of us?”
Jeames could count every one of her long eyelashes. Could see that she had a teardrop shaped bit of darker brown in the hazel iris of her left eye.
“If it meant that we got tae stay here fer as long as I could, I’d try fer a year or so,” he said,
only half-jokingly.
Beatrice leaned forward and kissed him. Her lips touched his with the delicacy of a falling leaf at first, though it was not long before she pressed herself up harder against him, their lips squashing together. Her arms were around his neck, her legs entwined around his waist.
Jeames had to use one arm to stay afloat, but the other slid down Beatrice’s wonderfully smooth back, feeling the goose bumps from the cold water under his fingertips. It came to rest at the top of her firm backside.
Awakening His Highland Soul (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance) Page 21
