Unlaced by the Highland Duke

by Lara Temple

  A plain Regency governess

  In bed with the duke!

  Part of The Lochmore Legacy: a Scottish castle through the ages! Unceremoniously packed off to Scotland to care for the Duke of Lochmore’s young son, practical widow Joane Langdale fears she will be ignored as always. But the deep connection and heated passion that develops between her and Benneit is far more dangerous! When Benneit is expected to propose to another, how dare Jo dream of becoming his duchess?

  The Lochmore Legacy

  One Scottish castle.

  Four breathtaking romances through the ages.

  The bitter feud between the Lochmore and the McCrieff clans is the stuff of legend. And Lochmore castle has been witness to it all: the battles, the betrayals, the weddings, the wild passions...

  But with the arrival of a new owner to Lochmore, the secrets buried deep in the castle are about to be revealed through four romances as we fall back in time through the Victorian, Regency, Tudor and medieval eras...

  Discover more in

  His Convenient Highland Wedding

  by Janice Preston

  Unlaced by the Highland Duke

  by Lara Temple

  A Runaway Bride for the Highlander

  by Elisabeth Hobbes

  Secrets of a Highland Warrior

  by Nicole Locke

  Author Note

  Unlaced by the Highland Duke is my eighth book, but on many levels it’s my first—my first Highlander, my first collaboration with other authors on a series and the first time I’ve written a child as a key character. I was scared of taking on each of these firsts but once I’d started, I fully and thoroughly fell in love with every aspect of this book.

  I loved working with the other authors on this series, who are also good friends of mine: Janice Preston, Elisabeth Hobbes and Nicole Locke. I couldn’t have asked for better partners on the rocky road to writing a romance.

  I loved researching it—from the harsh changes in the social fabric of the Highlands during this period to the minutiae of the kinds of plants that were introduced to Scotland to the production of whiskey (some research is tastier than others).

  But mostly I loved my characters: Benneit, the Duke of Lochmore, who is determined to do what’s right even though his soul is raging against it; Jo, the widowed companion whose composed surface is as different from what lies beneath as is possible; and Jamie, Benneit’s young son, who loves maps and beachcombing and hates shoes and staying put. They were just so right together that I had to run to keep up with the tussle and tangle of the story as it unraveled and raced all the way to their happy ending. I hope you feel like I do that they’re perfect for each other...

  Lara Temple

  Unlaced by the Highland Duke

  Lara Temple was three years old when she begged her mother to take dictation of her first adventure story. Since then she has led a double life—by day an investment and high-tech professional who has lived and worked on three continents, but when darkness falls she loses herself in history and romance (at least on the page). Luckily her husband and two beautiful and very energetic children help weave it all together.

  Books by Lara Temple

  Harlequin Historical

  Lord Crayle’s Secret World

  The Reluctant Viscount

  The Duke’s Unexpected Bride

  The Lochmore Legacy

  Unlaced by the Highland Duke

  The Sinful Sinclairs

  The Earl’s Irresistible Challenge

  Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies

  Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Heiress

  Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal

  Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

  Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards

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  To my Highland coconspirators—Janice, Elisabeth and Nicole. I always wanted to be one of the Four Musketeers—thanks for making that a joyful reality.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Excerpt from Miss Fortescue’s Protector in Paris by Amanda McCabe

  Chapter One

  London—1815

  ‘Lady Theale is here, Your Grace.’

  Benneit didn’t know what was worse—those words or the explosion of light that struck him as Angus hauled back the curtains. He groaned on both counts.

  ‘Aye,’ Angus replied and positioned himself at the bottom of the bed. With his scarred face he looked like one of the gargoyles carved on to the embattlements at Lochmore Castle come to perch by Benneit’s bed to remind him of his duty. Benneit shoved his head into his pillow.

  ‘What the devil does she want?’

  ‘Jamie.’

  Benneit tossed the covers aside and scraped himself off the bed.

  ‘Over my dead, drawn, quartered and pickled body.’

  Angus grunted. ‘Aye, lad. Shall I shave you?’

  It was more a suggestion than a question and, instinctively, Benneit dragged his hand over his jaw, wincing at the rasp.

  ‘No. She shall have to accept me in all my glory. What time is it?’

  ‘It is gone nine in the morning.’

  ‘Nine? Nine? I’ve barely slept three hours. What the devil is wrong with that woman?’

  Angus’s scarred face twisted into a momentary and awful grin.

  ‘You can sleep when you’re dead, Your Grace.’

  It was Benneit’s turn to grunt as he dragged off his nightshirt and went to the basin. There was a brutality to Angus sometimes and whether he meant to allude to Bella or not, it struck up her image, interred in the Lochmore family crypt. Eventually Benneit would be there, too. A fate worse than death... He breathed in to calm the reflexive queasiness at the thought, reminding himself that when that day came he would at least know nothing of it.

  ‘Send Jamie to her until I’m ready—if he’s awake. After half an hour of his undiluted company she might think twice about this campaign to take him to Uxmore.’

  ‘He’s down there now, lad.’

  Benneit wiped the water from his face and glanced at Angus, meeting the twinkle in the giant’s blue eyes.

  ‘Great minds thing alike, eh, Angus?’

  ‘When they think at all, Your Grace.’

  Benneit sighed and returned to the freezing water.

&nbs
p; * * *

  ‘Good morning, Lady Theale.’

  ‘You need a shave, Lochmore.’

  Benneit stopped, gathered himself and the comment hovering at the tip of his tongue, and proceeded.

  ‘Had I been given more warning of your arrival I would have obliged.’

  ‘Had you been given more warning of our arrival you would have been halfway to the border by now.’

  Benneit advanced on the elderly lady seated in his favourite armchair, plucked her weathered hand from where it rested on her cane and raised it to his lips.

  ‘No, only as far as Potter’s Bar. Not even for you would I set off before dawn.’

  She sniggered and gave his face a small slap before he straightened.

  He turned to search the room for his son and stopped. The word ‘our’ hadn’t registered at first, but now it did. Jamie was seated on the sofa, his stockinged feet drawn up under him, and on the other side of his favourite book of maps was a woman.

  ‘Papa, she’s helped me find Muck!’ Jamie announced, bouncing a little on his knees.

  ‘Did she? That is indeed impressive. But can she help you find Foula? Good morning, Mrs Langdale.’

  ‘Your Grace.’

  Her voice was deep, but as bland as her grey wool dress—flat and without inflection. During Bella’s Season six years ago Mrs Langdale, then Miss Watkins, wore Bella’s cast-offs and, being shorter and less endowed, she always looked like a scrawny hen rolled in a bed of shredded peacock feathers—those ostentatious clothes coupled with her unremarkable looks had not been a good combination. She was unremarkable except for her deep grey eyes that Bella had laughingly called the ‘orbs of truth’.

  ‘No one can lie to Joane if she puts her mind to their speaking the truth. She only has to look at you and before you realise it, the words are out there. Papa said she would have been useful to Wellington during the war.’

  He remembered Bella’s assessment of her poor cousin because it struck him as very apt and one of Bella’s rare flashes of insight.

  ‘And how is Mr Langdale?’ he asked politely.

  ‘He isn’t,’ she replied.

  ‘Died two years ago,’ Lady Theale hissed. ‘Really, Lochmore!’

  He felt his face heat with unaccustomed embarrassment and he bowed.

  ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

  Mrs Langdale nodded without a word and the sting of heat on his cheeks spread. It was absurd that without any visible effort this mousy woman made him feel ten years younger in the worst possible way. He turned to Jamie.

  ‘Feet off the sofa, Jamie.’

  Jamie blinked at him and smiled, as if well aware this sudden interdiction was merely for his great-aunt’s sake.

  He stuck his feet out.

  ‘But I took off my shoes!’

  ‘Very proper,’ Mrs Langdale said.

  ‘It won’t do,’ Lady Theale announced.

  Benneit turned back to her. And so it began again. Since Bella’s death two years earlier, the Uxmores had made several valiant attempts to convince him Jamie would be better off in the care of their large and rambling family rather than alone with Benneit in Scotland, and every time Benneit sent them scurrying. Since his father’s death a year ago, their insistence lessened as they respected the period of mourning, but clearly they were only marshalling their troops. And their field marshal was Lady Theale, Lord Uxmore’s sister and the matriarch of that ambitious clan.

  ‘It is very kind of you to come all the way to town to see Jamie, Lady Theale, but we are departing for Lochmore tomorrow. There are matters I must attend to there and we cannot stay.’

  ‘Really? Is the entertainment in town running thin?’

  ‘Not at all, but it has been sufficient for my needs at the moment. Until next time.’

  Lady Theale bared her teeth. ‘Joane, I would like a private word with Lochmore. Take Jamie into the adjoining room.’

  Mrs Langdale stood.

  ‘Where is the wall map you mentioned, Jamie?’ she asked and Jamie hopped down.

  ‘It is enormous. But not as big as at home. Grandmama painted it for Papa when he was littler than me. And there are darts!’

  ‘Darts! Then I must definitely see it. Come.’

  ‘In his stockings, Lochmore!’ Lady Theale snapped as the door closed behind them.

  ‘What do you want, Abigail?’

  ‘You know what I want, Benneit. I want Bella’s boy to grow up like the son of a Duke he is and not like a wild animal.’

  Her voice faltered a little at his look.

  ‘At the very least he should have female guidance.’

  ‘He has his nursemaid.’

  ‘Nursemaid! She must be seventy if she’s a day. That boy needs someone young and with the energy to see him through the next couple of years until he is sent to school. Or better yet, send him to school at St Stephen’s as you were and, as it is a mere ten miles from Uxmore, we will be at hand to visit when necessary. It is still an excellent institution and will prepare him well for his role. Your father and mother approved of it, so I see no reason to cavil at their choice. I am sure had Bella lived she would have advised you the same. She always meant to maintain close ties with the family, as you are well aware. This would fulfil all their wishes.’

  Benneit turned away, locking his jaw against the fury her words evoked. Better yet... What the devil did she know about sending a child hundreds of miles away from everything he cared for simply so he could become her idea of a proper Duke?

  ‘My father and mother did not send me to St Stephens at five years old to prepare me for my role, but to get me out from underfoot so they could concentrate on making each other miserable without any assistance on my part. As far as I am concerned, the same does not apply to Jamie. He will learn to be Duke of Lochmore by understanding Lochmore down to its last acre and tenant, not by being caned by a brutish headmaster and bullied by upper-form boys.’

  Lady Theale inspected the head of her cane and sighed.

  ‘Your mother was one of my closest friends, Benneit, and since it was through me that she met your father, I confess to a sense of responsibility. I am the first to admit that, though she was a brilliant woman, she had a volatile temper and was not...warm. Unfortunately your father was much the same which made for a tumultuous union. However, despite their failings, they cared deeply for each other and cared for you as well, though I dare say they were not adept at showing it.’

  ‘I am not asking for sympathy, Abigail. For the very last time, I will not, ever, cede Jamie to be taken to Bella’s family. He is my son, my family, and I am his. No one will ever love him as I do. Do you understand what that means?’

  ‘It may surprise you, but I do. You always were the closest to him. Made Bella jealous, the two of you, even as young as he was. Said you loved him more than you did her and that, believe me, was a cardinal sin to someone like Bella. But that is not the point. I admit when she died I thought it would be best to have the boy with us. A babe is not an easy endeavour for a man alone and in that great big draughty monster of a castle... Well, it stood to reason. But I’ve come to see that however surly you may be, it is not too much to his detriment to be raised by you. Therefore I have decided to leave him with you.’

  ‘Generous!’

  ‘On one condition...’

  ‘There are no conditions, Abigail. You have no authority to impose conditions and neither does Lord Uxmore. I want Jamie to know and love Bella’s family and they are more than welcome to visit us in Lochmore or in London, but that is as far as your power extends. I am tired of this brangling.’

  ‘You look tired of more than brangling, Benneit. Do you still miss her so that you can find no better way to pass your time than hiding up in the freezing hills or burning the candle at both ends here in town?’

  ‘I am perfectly well and so
is Jamie. And, aside from his dislike of carriages, he comes to no harm being in town with me. If I bring a female to Lochmore, whether it be as mother or companion, I will be the one to choose.’

  ‘I would have hoped so, but thus far for the past two years all you have done is indulge yourself with your high flyers. Who is it now? Lady Atkinson? Or was that your last visit to town? And if you must indulge, need you drag the poor boy all that long way? Surely your aunt can see to him at the castle?’

  ‘Good God, I wouldn’t leave a rabid dog in Morag’s care. Besides, she doesn’t want anything to do with Jamie—she stays in her corner of the castle and only raises her nose sufficiently from her glass of whisky to complain her stock of spirits is running low.’

  ‘That bad? All the more reason to have a stable female presence—’

  ‘Lady Theale,’ Benneit interrupted. ‘You are the uncontested general of the Uxmores, but Bella is gone and you have not and never will have any authority over Jamie. If you push me much further on this you will find out precisely what Bella meant when she called me unbearably stubborn.’

  Lady Theale surprised him by smiling.

  ‘I think I have a fair assessment. Bella never did really have your measure, you know. She thought you were what she and everyone saw on the surface—the handsome, charming and wealthy future heir to a dukedom. That is the way with people who are so accustomed to receiving whatever they want from birth.’

  He laughed, a little bitterly, and she shook her head.

  ‘I was referring to Bella, not to you. But whether you wish to hear it or not, I am right about Jamie. Keeping him with no companionship but your own in that great echoing monstrosity of a castle is no more a wise solution than the path your parents chose for you, Benneit.’

  He sat, rubbing at his stubble. Lady Theale might be a busybody, but she was not a fool and she genuinely cared for Jamie. He sighed.

  ‘If it soothes your nerves, I agree he needs female companionship and, more importantly, he needs siblings. Therefore I have decided to wed again.’

  ‘You have? Who?’

  ‘This time someone who won’t mind the freezing hills or sacrificing her figure for her offspring.’