Unlaced by the Highland Duke

by Lara Temple

  ‘I am perfectly capable of making my own choices, Your Grace.’

  He sighed, a harsh exhalation that was more weary than impatient, and her defences crumbled. She was prickling again.

  ‘I am not being taken advantage of, Benneit. I enjoy sitting with Mr McCreary—I find numbers relaxing. They are so very...undemanding.’

  The harsh look on his faced melted into the smile that did so much damage and he moved forward. In the light coming from the doorway she could see how tired he looked. In another life, another body, she might have had the temerity to trace her fingers down his lean cheek, to comfort and soothe. But she was only Jo and she just clasped her hands and waited.

  ‘That is a novel way of looking at accounting. For myself I find numbers annoyingly demanding, especially when they insisted on heading in the wrong direction after the war. I am very glad the accounts have stabilised.’

  ‘Mr McCreary said there might yet be a revival in the prices of wool and kelp, but that struck me as hopeful.’

  ‘Since their substantial rise in the past was the outcome of war, I prefer to pursue other plans to help Lochmore prosper. Meanwhile I am very grateful for your help with McCreary, I am afraid he is tiring more and more easily.’

  ‘He is still very alert, but he could use some assistance. Perhaps you could hire a young clerk when I leave. I believe it would prove an economy in the long run and that way you would be freed from overseeing him. Alfred used to say he enjoyed life far too much to mar it with matters that bored or distressed him. I found it an admirable approach to life. Up to a point, of course.’

  ‘Up to what point?’

  ‘Well, by the time we wed he was quite deeply in debt, trying to expand his stables with very little attention to the cost. I did my best with the accounts and was quite hopeful we could balance out over time. And probably we would have, had he not died so suddenly. Still, at least he did enjoy his horses very much while he lived.’

  ‘And left you in debt.’

  ‘To be fair, the debtors could not touch my settlement, but nothing remained after the debts were settled and the entailed estates went to his cousin.’

  ‘I am sorry, Jo.’

  She shrugged. ‘I am still far better off than I was before my marriage so I have no reason to repine. You will be relieved to hear that despite your concerns on other fronts, and despite the falling prices of kelp and wool, according to the accounts the estate is still turning a nice profit.’

  ‘I am relieved to hear it. I would rather not end up like your Alfred.’

  ‘Dead? I sympathise.’

  ‘No! I meant in debt... Really, Mrs Langdale, you have a most inappropriate sense of humour at times.’

  ‘Raise your voice an octave, call me “My Dear Joane” and you would sound just like Lady Theale.’

  He straightened, but the stern line of his mouth wavered.

  ‘Are you doing this expressly, Mrs Langdale? You do that with Jamie, too, you know.’

  ‘Do what, Your Grace?’

  ‘Try to distract him from his woes. I assure you I can handle mine. I do not need to have magical mice dangled before me.’

  ‘I wasn’t...’

  ‘You most certainly were. And I thought we agreed you would forgo calling me “Your Grace”?’

  ‘You reverted to calling me Mrs Langdale first, I was merely being prudent and following suit.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘You did. I notice you do so when I vex you. Which is often.’

  His smile formed slowly and her heart pinched at the affection in his eyes. It should have warmed her, but it was like a slap, waking her with her foot poised off the edge of a cliff, wondering how she had gone so far. She didn’t want affection, she wanted to touch him, press her palm to the hard expanse of his chest and...explore him.

  He must have seen something on her face because he shook his head and cleared his throat and she stepped back from the cliff’s edge.

  ‘Speaking of prudence, Mrs Merry informed me that my aunt announced she will descend from her tower for dinner tonight which means we will have dinner in the hall. If you wish to claim the headache and avoid meeting Mad Morag, you have my permission. Unfortunately I cannot do the same. Her forays are as rare as a full week of sunshine, but if baulked of her prey, her hunger only increases. Will you join us?’

  ‘I admit to being curious about her and a little sorry for her. Mrs Merry and Beth only sigh and roll their eyes when she is mentioned. Surely she is not so objectionable?’

  ‘I will leave you to be the judge of that. Feel free to exercise your Great Grey-Eyed Stare on her as much as you wish.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Hamish never permitted children at the table,’ Lady Morag announced as Ewan helped her into her chair on Benneit’s right. Benneit sent Jamie a reassuring look, but Jamie was occupied with something under the table and Benneit noted the suspicious snuffling there and sighed. Morag had never approved of dogs. Or of anything he could think of other than whisky.

  Without Morag’s presence he might even enjoy having dinner in the Hall with Jamie and Jo. But the way Morag was eyeing Jo he didn’t doubt his aunt was gathering ammunition for an attack. Perhaps it was best to draw her fire in advance.

  ‘My father might not have approved of children at the table, but he is dead, Aunt Morag. I make my own rules now. In fact, I might rethink who is and who isn’t permitted at the table.’

  ‘Impertinence!’

  ‘I agree,’ Benneit replied. ‘I am Lochmore now, Aunt Morag. Kindly remember that. Ewan, serve Lady Morag some of her favourite so she can drink to my health.’

  She snorted, but held out her glass readily enough. As soon as it was full she turned to inspect Jo again and Benneit braced himself. But Jo merely sat with her eyes wide and as clear as pools of silver and Morag visibly faltered for a moment before recovering.

  ‘I don’t like your dress,’ she announced in her gravelly voice.

  ‘Neither do I,’ Jo replied and Jamie giggled. To Benneit’s surprise Morag sniggered as well, casting him a sly look.

  ‘Have Benneit buy you a new one. He’s been well trained at that. His Selkie certainly had enough dresses to clothe all the women to Glasgow and back.’

  ‘She thinks my mother was a Silkie,’ Jamie whispered to Jo. ‘That’s a seal person who steals Scotsmen. Which means I am half-seal.’

  ‘Selkie,’ Benneit corrected, happy to entertain any distraction. ‘A silkie is a chicken from China with soft fur and black skin and bones. I saw one once in a fair in Cambridge. Some people say they are born of a rabbit and a hen.’

  Jamie’s eyes widened with wonder.

  ‘Is it true, Papa? Can a chicken be born of a rabbit?’

  ‘No, Jamie. Nor was your mother a Selkie, though I know that disappoints you. She was merely English.’

  ‘Bad enough,’ muttered Morag. ‘It’s time Lochmores stopped bringing brides from all corners of the earth. It all started with that Frenchie gel back when. Best marry a clanswoman this time, boy, not another Englishwoman or that gel McCrieff is parading for you.’

  Both Benneit and Jamie frowned at the old woman.

  ‘Does Aunt Morag mean Tessa McCrieff, Papa?’

  ‘I don’t know what your great-aunt means some days, Jamie.’ Benneit said deliberately and Morag cackled and dug into her soup.

  ‘I am taking Jo to the bay again tomorrow, Papa,’ Jamie announced. ‘Could you come this time?’

  The last two words struck hard, as did the lack of conviction in Jamie’s voice. It was like Flops’s faint pawing at his boot when he joined Jamie for his meal in the nursery—wishful, but resigned to being denied scraps. Benneit mentally ran through all the tasks that awaited him, but there was such a plea in Jamie’s voice he shoved them aside.

  ‘Yes, Jamie. I promise.’
<
br />   Jamie bounced in his chair with a little hoot and a sharp bark under the table alerted Morag to the presence of Flops, providing her with a whole new line of attack. But surprisingly the rest of the meal wasn’t as hideous as he had anticipated. Jo met Morag’s occasional shots across her bow with her quiet humour and Morag was betrayed twice more into her sniggering laugh, though her malice was never far from the surface and by the time the plates were cleared Benneit was only too happy to retire before Morag decided to bring out the heavy guns.

  ‘Finish your pudding, Jamie, and I’ll read you a story before bed.’

  ‘Can Jo listen, too?’

  Jo shook her head. ‘Tomorrow, Jamie. If you don’t mind I will retire early tonight. Our adventures have made me very sleepy. I am not a hardened explorer like you.’

  Jamie’s mouth sagged at the corners and Benneit steeled himself, but his son merely turned back to his plate. Lady Morag stood.

  ‘I’m done, too. Too much excitement. And I don’t like the dog sniffing at my shoes. Filthy things, dogs.’

  ‘That is our cue to retire, Flops. Come, Flops,’ Jo said quietly and the dog shuffled out from under the table and panted up at her. ‘Goodnight, Lady Morag. Your Grace. Lord Glenarris.’

  At the door Lady Morag waved her on and Jo, with a glance back at Benneit, left the hall.

  ‘Got the dog doing as she says, too, eh?’ Morag said as the door closed behind Jo. ‘Too clever by half, Miss English.’

  ‘Goodnight, Aunt,’ Benneit replied, but Jamie leaned forward, his elbows on the table.

  ‘It’s good to be clever, Aunt Morag. Why do you say it like it’s bad?’

  ‘Clever is good,’ Morag answered. ‘Too clever comes back to bite you, boy.’

  Jamie giggled.

  ‘Jo doesn’t bite. I like her. Please be nice to her so she’ll stay, Aunt Morag.’

  Lady Morag shrugged.

  ‘I won’t be nasty. That’ll have to do. She won’t stay, though. Won’t be room for two women when the McCrieff wench moves in.’

  Benneit watched the door close behind her, keeping a firm hold on his temper.

  ‘Shall we go upstairs, Jamie?’

  Jamie hopped down from his chair, beaming.

  ‘Yes, let’s, Papa.’

  As they left the dining room Benneit took Jamie’s hand and the boy leaned his head for a brief moment against his arm.

  ‘Don’t worry, Papa. I shan’t listen to Aunt Morag. I don’t think she is half as clever as Jo. Will you marry Lady Tessa?’

  Benneit’s heart gave a convulsive thud and then paused for a little too long.

  ‘I don’t know yet, Jamie,’ he lied. ‘Would you like having brothers and sisters?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think so. I would be a big brother then, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘You would.’

  Jamie fell silent until they reached the nursery. He stopped in the middle of the room as Benneit went to take the book from the shelf.

  ‘Shall I have to leave my room?’

  Benneit turned in surprise.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you have another boy,’ Jamie clarified.

  ‘No, of course not. There are plenty of rooms. Your room is yours, Jamie. Come here.’

  Benneit sat on the bedside and Jamie sat beside him.

  ‘What if I don’t like them?’

  ‘I think you will, most of the time. Sometimes you won’t. I never had brothers or sisters and I always wished I had. I was very jealous of your mother because she had two brothers and two sisters. She probably would have told you that there were some days she did not like them because they could be annoying, but she always loved them. Just as she always loved you.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Good God, yes. You were too young to remember, but never doubt that. Never doubt that I love you, too, above everything.’

  ‘More than your own papa?’

  ‘More than him. That is what happens when you have children.’

  ‘Then why aren’t I enough?’

  Benneit’s throat clenched at the need and fear squeezed into that simple question. He wrapped his arm around Jamie’s shoulders.

  ‘I know it is hard to understand, Jamie, but I want you to have more than I had. Brothers and sisters will be part of you for your lifetime. You will have to trust me that they will add more to your life than take away from it. Imagine—you can take them down to the bay and show them your treasures and read stories with them and teach them how to find everything on the map.’

  ‘Like you and Jo do with me.’

  He gave Jamie’s arm a little rub and picked up the book.

  ‘Like that. Do you remember where you reached in the book?’

  ‘Jo put a leaf in to mark our spot. Right there.’ He pointed to the protruding tip of a dried leaf. ‘Don’t forget to put it back after you read so I can tell her where to continue.’

  ‘I won’t forget, Jamie.’

  ‘You will come with us tomorrow to the beach? You did not just say that?’

  ‘I promise. Now hush and listen.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Benneit stood on the big flat stone that lay at the foot of the rock fall, watching his son and Jo sifting through a clump of dark brown kelp.

  For the third day in a row.

  Somehow after joining them the day following the disastrous dinner he found himself promising to join them the next day. Today he didn’t even have the excuse of having promised. He had been on his way to the stables when he saw them on the beach and here he was.

  He was not accustomed to being herded by a pocket-sized pixie and yet that is precisely what was happening. Though the world was knocking at his door and the fate of Lochmore hung heavy on his shoulders, here he was, spending a third morning this week exploring the bay.

  And enjoying himself.

  To be fair, since Jo had relieved him of the need to sit with McCreary over the accounts, the least he could do was spend some of that freed time with Jamie.

  He wasn’t quite sure what he thought of Jamie’s insistence Jo accompany them even when he was present. He should find some politic way of reminding Jamie, and her, that she would not be staying. In a couple of weeks she would be gone and it would be only him and Jamie again. At least until he married.

  He looked past them to the sea. It was calm today and the sun was shining. His project was proceeding apace, the engineers had approved the location and plans, and the banks received the investors’ funds. What had seemed a very precarious gamble just weeks ago now appeared not only feasible but sensible. He had everything to be grateful for and no reason to feel as if the world was closing in on him.

  He turned his gaze from the horizon to the woman standing with his son on the beach. The hems of her skirts were dark and heavy with sea water and her hair was a tangle of wisps as the north wind made a mockery of her prim coiffure. She did not look much like Mrs Langdale, but more a girl herself, caught up in Jamie’s avid search for exotic discoveries. She looked like part of the Scottish landscape—an unyielding stoicism which hid a raw wildness. It was a peculiar combination. She was a peculiar combination. He had not understood her six years ago and he was not certain he was any closer today.

  Not that he had bothered trying to fathom her peculiarity when he had met her that year he fell in love and wed Bella. But even then he had been aware she was different, a cuckoo in the cushy Uxmore nest—strange and strange-looking with her unrelenting grey eyes that would dip downwards in mock modesty. He had always felt uncomfortable around her. Rather as if a whole Greek chorus had entered the room and everyone was tensely awaiting its verdict.

  She was definitely still a cuckoo, or a changeling, but at least now he could see that he had been quite correct to feel uncomfortable around her. All that thinking and feeling tamped under he
r prim exterior... He only wondered how she had kept her tongue safely between her teeth among the Uxmores.

  ‘Papa, look!’ Jamie held aloft what looked like a curved piece of metal, covered in slime and barnacles. ‘It’s a giant’s soup bowl from the Mosquito Coast!’

  He met Jo’s laughing gaze and smiled.

  ‘I’m not eating out of that, thank you, Jamie.’

  Jamie laughed and set it aside, plunging elbow deep into the mess of kelp. Jo stood, shaking out her skirts. They flopped wetly against her legs and she sighed, wiping her hands on them.

  ‘Beth and Mrs Merry will despair of me. Yesterday my other dress was rent from the brambles near the copse.’

  ‘Throw the blasted thing away,’ Benneit suggested and Jamie giggled.

  ‘You said blasted, Papa.’

  ‘So I did. But you are not allowed to say blasted until you are one and twenty.’

  Jamie nodded and inspected Jo’s dress.

  ‘Papa should buy you a new dress like Aunt Morag said.’

  ‘Excellent thinking, Jamie. A consensus is forming.’ Benneit considered and rejected the idea of telling her he had already asked Mrs Merry to provide Angus with measurements the very day she agreed to stay at Lochmore. She had made no request, but it was clear she had almost no luggage when she arrived and it was unfair she had to stretch her meagre wardrobe for a whole month. Besides, he would not mind seeing her in something other than these grey sacks.

  ‘Nonsense. This is a perfectly serviceable dress,’ she replied.

  ‘Try for a little conviction, Mrs Langdale.’

  ‘Well, it is. Cousin Celia kindly had three such dresses made for me the winter I came to stay with her and they are very useful for travelling.’

  ‘Cousin Celia wouldn’t know a kindness if it popped out of her morning cocoa and bit her on the nose. She was securing your guilt even as she made you wear this unsightly uniform.’

  Perhaps that was a trifle harsh, but she did not seem offended, she merely sighed and detached a strand of kelp from the hem.