Unlaced by the Highland Duke

by Lara Temple

  ‘She looks kind.’ She resisted the to urge to add—unlike Bella. She knew she was being unfair. Bella might have been spoilt, but she was not a bad person and she had charm in abundance. In her own way she had tried to be kind to Jo, and it was probably Jo’s own fault they had not succeeded in becoming more comfortable with one another.

  ‘My mother told me she planned to call me Marguerite,’ he said, a spark of laughter in his green eyes that dropped years from his face.

  ‘That would have been...unusual.’

  ‘She wanted a girl and she liked plant names. Unfortunately for her there were not many possibilities for boys, not to mention my father invoked his rights as clan chief and chose Benneit after his grandfather.’

  ‘What a pity. Think of the possibilities—Bluebell, perhaps. Or if you prefer something less feminine she could have chosen chervil or clove.’

  ‘Very amusing. She told me she suggested Rowan or Ash. I always thought if I had a daughter I would like to call her Marguerite.’

  The smile faded again and he moved away from the portrait and she leapt to the next conversational gambit.

  ‘You mentioned earlier I might be of some use with the accounts, Your Grace. I would be happy to try once I change.’

  His gaze swept over her dress and she wished she had not called attention to it. Her hems were damp and stained with sand and the less pleasant smears from where she had brushed against the kelp or mossy rocks. As she followed his gaze she wondered if the stains could even be removed. She ought to be more careful with her few dresses. Not that there was any need for her to be presentable. She would be seeing no one but Jamie and the servants. And the Duke.

  She sighed again and he stepped back as if from an unpredictable beast.

  ‘Perhaps some other day. I will send for you if there is a need. Now I suggest you join Jamie before he eats all your nuncheon. He is voracious after his trips to the beach.’

  He turned in the direction of his rooms without another word, leaving her to wonder again if she would ever quite understand the workings of Benneit Lochmore’s mind.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Where are they, Angus?’

  Angus poked his head out of Benneit’s dressing room, a stack of starched cravats over his arm.

  ‘They?’

  ‘Where is Jamie? I just went by the nursery. He’s not there.’

  ‘I don’t know for certain, lad. They’ve been all around. Took her to the stream this morning right after you left for The House. They sent leaf and stick boats over the waterfall to the Amazon in the north bay.’

  Benneit tugged at his cravat and tossed it on the bed. He was exhausted and worried and the carefree image Angus’s words evoked didn’t have the expected uplifting effect on his spirits.

  ‘It is afternoon now and it’s raining. I presume they returned safely from Brazil?’

  ‘Of course, Your Grace. They went to mark where those boats are likely to sail in the Map Room. Then they had nuncheon and went to the schoolroom to read and then the sun came out and they went to the copse to see how the birdhouse we finished building yesterday is faring and then they came back for Mrs Merry’s scones and then...’

  ‘Are you annoyed at me, Angus? Have I ruined too many cravats? Evicted too many tenants? Sold your unborn child to a lowlander?’

  Again Angus’s face poked out of the dressing room, this time scars first.

  ‘Ye sound a tad annoyed yerself, Your Grace.’

  ‘Since you only call me “Your Grace” when we’re in public or when you wish to goad me, you shouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘Mayhap that’s because this is the umpteenth time in the past three days you’ve asked me where they are. She’s a grown woman and responsible; she’ll not let Jamie stray. If ye dinna trust her, tell her to stay within the walls and be done with it. Or better yet, spend some time with them so you can see for yourself if she is trustworthy. Your Grace.’

  Benneit counted to ten. Then to twenty. Then he gave up and left the room.

  It was perhaps not provident that the first person he saw as he stalked downstairs was Mrs Langdale with Flops trailing in her wake.

  ‘Mrs Langdale!’

  She turned and Flops obediently flattened himself at her feet like a dropped muff, only his pink tongue visible through the mop of hair. In her grey frock and her hands clasped in front of her she looked even more like a demure nun. Two weeks ago he would likely have accepted that meekness at face value. Now he no longer was certain what she was. Misleading, certainly. A sham, most definitely.

  Perhaps he had miscalculated asking her to stay a whole month. She was taking up entirely too much space in the castle. Even though he had been absent most of the last three days, from the moment he returned in the afternoons it was evident she had infiltrated the workings of the castle as effectively as weevils burrowed into hardtack.

  ‘Yes, Your Grace?’ she prompted as he stood and seethed.

  ‘Where is Jamie?’

  ‘In the nursery, Your Grace.’ Her brows rose, fixing him with her Great Grey-Eyed Stare. Instead of disconcerting him this time, it added to his aggravation and he latched on to the only grievance he could reasonably find.

  ‘I hear you have been to the north bay.’

  ‘Did you, Your Grace?’

  ‘I believe I told you that was one place you were not to take Jamie, did I not?’

  ‘You did, Your Grace.’

  He clawed together the scraps of his control.

  ‘Then why, pray tell, did you take him there?’

  ‘I did not, Your Grace.’

  ‘Stop calling me...’ He dragged in an audible breath. ‘You just said you did take him there.’

  ‘No, Your Grace. You said you heard I took him there.’

  ‘Are you saying you did not take him there?’

  ‘I am saying as little as humanly possible at the moment, Your Grace.’

  Benneit pressed his hand to his brow. He felt physically hot with frustration and fury. He had been utterly right about this woman. She was a menace, a bane, one of those Highland curses that clung as stubbornly as a good Scottish feud. Centuries ago he could have sent her to plague the McCrieffs and they probably would have settled their feud just for the price of taking her back, saving the two clans generations of grief.

  ‘Come with me, Mrs Langdale.’ He moved towards the stairs and stopped. She had not moved. ‘Pray accompany me to the library, Mrs Langdale.’

  ‘Of course, Your Grace.’

  ‘Benneit.’ The name exploded from him and she blinked and something, a fugitive glimmer of laughter, narrowed her eyes for a moment and softened the prim mouth. Not a Highland curse, but an English garden pixie sent north to work away at the Scottish fortitude from within.

  ‘You are a menace, Mrs Langdale.’

  ‘And you are jealous, Your Grace.’

  ‘Jealous!’

  ‘As green as the glen. And it serves you right.’

  She walked past him down the stairs and after a moment of stunned shock he followed her.

  ‘Jealous of what?’

  ‘Jealous that Jamie and I are outside enjoying ourselves while you are either cooped up like the saddest of counting-house clerks or off on errands from dawn till dusk simply because you don’t trust anyone. Well, hardly anyone. You trust Angus, but there is a limit to the amount of responsibility that poor man can shoulder. I think you trust Ewan and Mrs Merry, but I am not quite certain of that.’

  They reached the library and she stopped in the middle of the room. He remained standing by the door, his mind searching for a reasonable response to this barrage. He fell back on pettiness, regretting the words even as he spoke them.

  ‘You are correct, I trust Angus and he told me you were sailing stick boats in the north bay.’

  ‘No, he did
n’t.’

  ‘Yes, he...’ He pulled himself short. How the devil did she make herself sound so reasonable while he felt reduced to the level of Jamie?

  He wasn’t jealous. He was tired, worried, on edge. Ever since they returned to the castle, it was worse than ever and building. It should be quite the opposite—he was coming closer and closer to solving Lochmore’s woes. He should be delighted with himself. In a year or two all his concerns for Jamie’s future might be put to rest. But he didn’t feel delight. Just growing gloom, a sense of something slipping out of his grasp—the future solidifying into stone—hard, grey, unyielding. Just like the castle.

  She took a step forward, unclasping her hands and raising them slightly in a peculiar show of concession.

  ‘We sailed them down the small waterfall into the north bay. We never went down the cliff path and Angus was with us so I am quite certain he reported accurately, though he, too, might have wished to goad you a little. He worries about you, too.’

  He worries about you, too.

  The words flicked at him, but he shook them off.

  She might have wished to goad him, but it certainly was not out of worry, unless she was beginning to consider him one of her charges to prod into correct behaviour. He did not need people worrying about him.

  ‘Angus is a natural worrier. I apologise for...accusing you.’

  ‘Apology accepted, Your Grace. Is there anything else you wished to say to me?’

  He searched his mind for something. She had reclasped her hands, now like a pupil patiently but hopefully awaiting dismissal. Contrarily he decided to thwart that unflatteringly obvious wish to escape his presence.

  ‘Sit down for a moment. Please.’

  He indicated the armchair by the fire and she sat. Against the warm burgundy brocade her grey dress looked glummer than ever. It was a pity she did not wear livelier colours; something that would not contrast unfavourably with her soft complexion and grey eyes. It might help, too, if she stopped dragging her hair back into that uncompromising bun. It had looked far more appealing that first night when they arrived, tied back with a ribbon and still damp from her bath. Jamie was right, her hair was a pretty colour—not wheat but barley just after harvest, no longer brittle, softening as it passed its prime.

  ‘Yes, Your Grace?’

  He started at the prompt.

  ‘I hate when you call me that. How the devil do you succeed in injecting so much contempt into a title?’

  Her eyes widened in surprise.

  ‘Contempt?’

  ‘You hardly even realise it, do you? Is this another of your tools of quiet insurrection? Like the great grey-eyed stare?’

  Her cheeks turned gently pink. Even her blushes were restrained. What would it take to unravel her? Force that blush into real heat?

  She unclasped her hands and ran them down her thighs, an unconscious gesture of discomfort that relaxed him. It was ridiculous to take her so seriously and unkind to challenge what few weapons she had in this hostile world.

  ‘I apologise, Mrs Langdale. I have no right to berate you. In truth, I am very grateful you are here with Jamie. As you can see I am very busy and likely to remain so for the upcoming weeks and the fact that we have passed several days without Jamie throwing one of his tantrums, or at least without my knowing of any tantrums, is reason for celebration. It also leads me to realise that his difficult behaviour is indeed the result, at least in part, of loneliness. A child his age should not be alone... I mean, without steady companionship. I am not enough for him any longer.’

  The truth of that struck him. For two years—no, longer—practically since Jamie’s birth he had become utterly involved in his son’s life, setting them up as a unit apart. In the year since his father’s death something was beginning to shift and it was as unsettling to him as it probably was to Jamie.

  He went to the window. The study was one of the few rooms on this level he had an unobstructed view of the water. It was raining again and the horizon was blurred into the sky. They might as well have been underwater, or in the clouds. Somewhere closed in, sealed off. He moved away, towards the fire, aware she was watching him, a slight frown between her delicate brows.

  Her ease struck him again as peculiar. She might be a widow, but she was still young and he was not accustomed to young women watching him with such blatant ease unless they were intent on attaching his interest.

  ‘Jamie is a lovely boy,’ she said. ‘But it is natural he needs more companions. There is nothing wrong with that, Your Gr—’

  She flushed, clearly uncomfortable with his title after his previous comment, making him feel even more like a churlish fool. Why the devil did he keep flying off the handle with her?

  ‘I apologise. I should not have said what I did earlier, but I would still prefer you call me Lochmore rather than “Your Grace”. No, I would prefer Benneit, but I dare say that is too informal for your proper English soul. In any case, it is rather pointless to insist on formality. As you can see the castle is rather sparsely inhabited.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed that.’ She smiled. ‘It is rather nice.’

  ‘Nice?’

  ‘Yes. There were always at least two or three dozen servants at Uxmore and even I could not keep track of some of the under-footmen’s names, they changed so often. I find this skeleton crew quite relaxing. Everyone is so...comfortable with each other.’

  He laughed.

  ‘I am impressed you found a virtue in it. Or is this another Mrs Minerva fabrication?’

  ‘I am quite serious. It reminds me a little of the parsonage where I grew up. It was a tiny little hamlet, but everyone was very much part of our little world.’

  He sat down, curious.

  ‘How did you come to live with the Uxmores?’

  ‘My father died when I was eleven and the living at the parsonage went to another man. My mother and I went to live with Lady Theale. When my mother died Lady Theale sent me to Lord Uxmore’s household to help with the children.’

  ‘How old were you when you went to the Uxmores?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  Her eyes no longer met his. It was almost schoolgirl’s recitation, without inflection. She might not be an actual servant, but it was servitude none the less. No wonder she had adored her Alfred—he must truly have appeared like a knight in shining armour out of any young girl’s dream. And but for a trick of fate and her husband’s pointless accident she would be still a contented wife and probably a mother of her own children. The gap between that possibility and her reality must rankle all the more now that it had been snatched from her.

  ‘Is that all, Your—Lochmore?’ She stumbled over the name, drawing out the last syllable as if unsure how to pronounce it, and it ended in a near purr. The hair on his nape rose and he shifted in his armchair.

  ‘I suggest we abandon formality while we are at the castle. It is not as if there is anyone here to insist on proprieties. Call me Benneit and I shall follow Jamie’s lead and call you Jo. Joane does not suit you.’

  Perhaps he should not have added that, even if she herself made that point. But then she smiled, that sudden full-bloom smile that had made him first think of a garden pixie—mischievous, whimsical, bursting with life. Her lips looked fuller when she smiled, warmer and softer to the touch. Then it was furled back, but a smile remained, hovering and tentative.

  ‘That would be easiest. But I reserve the right to resort to “Your Grace” when I see fit.’

  ‘You mean when you wish to goad me.’

  ‘Precisely, Benneit.’

  It was only marginally less unsettling than her pronunciation of Lochmore, but he smiled at her determined grasping at his olive branch.

  ‘Well, if you do resort to it, be warned I might retaliate with Cousin Joane.’

  Her little nose wrinkled.

  ‘I hate that
most of all. I shall have to dole out my taunts with care, then.’

  ‘That is all I ask. Or better yet, desist altogether.’

  She stood, shaking out her sack skirts, and instinctively he stood.

  ‘No, then you would have no excuse to lose your patience with me and that would make you even crosser.’

  She was gone before he could respond, which was just as well. He turned to the window. The grey skies were turning to dusk and the fire was fading. It was too late now, but tomorrow he would make the effort to return in time to read Jamie a bedtime story.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘I thought we were riding to the village, Jamie.’

  ‘There’s another path.’ Jamie’s eyes slid away from hers as he urged his pony onwards down the left side of the fork in the road.

  Jo cast a glance back at the village of Lochmore and nudged her steed into motion, wondering what Jamie was up to. He had sulked all morning and so she had finally given in and agreed to ride with him to the village, but now it appeared he had other plans in mind.

  She liked the village and it certainly looked inviting in the sunshine. The sky was as clear as a bolt of silk and the turquoise blue was reflected in the bay where a few fishing boats lingered. The rest were dots on the ruler-straight horizon separating blue from blue. Pretty cream-coloured houses lined the port and radiated out in a series of small winding roads and a wide white-watered burn spilled into the bay, marking the edge of the village beyond which a forest rose up towards the mountains in the distance.

  For a moment she remained caught in this perfect image, wondering what it would be like to live in such a place. A small house of her own. Perhaps a friend or two. She was an impecunious widow, so surely social conventions would not bar her from forming friendships outside her own class? Perhaps a place like this even needed a schoolmistress? Would the Duke object if she chose to stay in his domain?