by Lara Temple
‘There must be an easier way. Do turn your back and I shall slide down carefully.’
‘Why should I turn my back?’
‘Because I am likely to end up in an ignominious heap at the bottom and I prefer to have no witnesses.’
‘It would be ungentlemanly of me to leave you to such a fate. Step over on to that next rock and give me your hand.’
‘Why?’
‘Trust me.’
‘I finding trusting no one to be a prudent way to live, Your Grace. Do kindly turn around.’
‘No. Give me your hand.’
‘I am beginning to see precisely what you meant by horrid behaviour.’
‘Very well. Go ahead.’
He turned and waited, alert to any sounds of slippage.
‘Benneit?’
‘Yes?’
‘I think I will need some help. It did not look quite so high from below.’
She stood with one foot outstretched, as if about to dip her toe into the water. From this vantage point he could see again the elegant line of her stockinged ankle and calf disappearing under the darkness of her skirts. His hand twitched at the sight, his body tightening.
‘Benneit?’
He forced his gaze up, annoyed at this recurring foolishness. He held out his hands and after a moment’s hesitation she leaned forward and placed her hands in his.
‘Now close your eyes and jump.’
‘Jump?’
‘Trust me.’
She breathed and jumped. She was so light it was easy to swing her on to the sand as he had done for Jamie a dozen times. Like Jamie, she laughed, her gaze rising to his, all her apprehension flown in the pleasure of the moment.
‘I felt like a bird!’
He was about to jest that sometimes she looked like a watchful grey sparrow, but at the moment she didn’t look at all like one. She looked alight, no longer merely Jo, but Joy. Now he could see the happy girl she had been, daydreaming and helping her father with the chaos of children that must have been as drawn to her as his Jamie was.
As he was...
Her lips were parted, a strand of hair fluttering across them, beckoning. He could almost feel the soft brush of that strand against his own lips, silky warm and scented with roses. Could almost feel the slip of his fingers as he tucked it behind her ear, the moment before his mouth would find hers.
That kiss felt inevitable, as inescapable as the tide. He was already drawing her towards him, when she took her hand from his to brush away the hair flicking at her cheeks.
‘Jamie will be so happy you have returned. We thought you would return tomorrow and he has been on his best behaviour after his promise to you when you left.’ Her words were so practical and disconnected from his momentary loss of sense he felt a dozen times a fool for his strange lapse. He let go of her other hand and began walking up the shore with her.
‘He has missed you very much,’ she added after a moment.
‘I missed him as well,’ he answered, his throat tight against the need to ask if she had missed him, too.
Because he had.
At the foot of the cliff path he stopped. She did not look at him and he was almost glad.
‘You go up by the Sea Gate, but I must stop at the stables for a moment. Tell Jamie I will join him for luncheon and that he and Flops are to leave me something to eat. I’m hungry.’
Chapter Eighteen
Jo stared at the shelves in the small dressing room adjoining her room.
‘Beth...’
‘Yes, Mrs Langdale?’
The maid’s carefully subdued excitement was answer enough, but Jo asked the question anyway.
‘Beth, where are my clothes?’
‘Mrs Merry had Ewan take the other dress to Widow McManus, the one without the mud stains. She said you wouldn’t be needing it now you have new clothes.’ The maid’s voice practically glided off the last two words, full of soulful yearning. New clothes.
Not just new clothes, but colourful clothes. Not a grey in sight, not even lavender, though there was a lilac blue folded neatly under a pale creamy yellow and, on a shelf of its own, was a gown in an exquisite pale orange shot with gold thread that glistened even as she watched, taunting her. She caught her hand halfway towards this marvel and snatched it back.
‘Where did they come from?’
‘Why, from Glasgow, Mrs Langdale. Mrs Merry gave Angus your measurements a while back, and His Grace and Ewan collected them now during their trip. There is even a ball gown, the orange one. Lochmore colours. For the ball.’
‘For the ball.’ Jo couldn’t seem able to say anything of any sense. She knew the castle was preparing for a special event, but somehow it had not registered that this had anything to do with her.
‘Why, yes. It is Summer Solstice tomorrow. The feud ball,’ Beth prompted a little worriedly, as if Jo truly had forgotten the upcoming ball that turned the usually subdued castle into a hive of activity.
‘The feud ball.’
Beth appeared to interpret Jo’s blank repetition as confusion about the concept and hurried into an explanation.
‘Aye, it is meant as a time for the families to lay down arms and work through differences. Well, the old Duke and McCrieff would not always see eye to eye, to say the least, and for quite a few years there was no ball. But Lady Glenarris insisted it start again after she had the Great Hall made into a ballroom. She did love a good ball and she wore such fine gowns... This year there will be another. People will arrive tomorrow from miles and miles which is why we have extra hands from Kilmarchie and Crinan. Everyone is most excited. Here. This will be your gown.’
Beth unfolded the orange dress with reverence and Jo stared, bemused, at the soft fall of shimmering fabric. Now she could see the fine embroidery of stars along the bodice and waist and the trimming of the short, puckered sleeves.
‘See how light it is?’ Beth’s voice sank into a whisper and Jo succumbed and touched. It was as soft as a feather and she drew her fingers back guiltily. She could not possibly accept this. Angus had explained about the ball but foolishly she had never realised she was to attend. For the simple reason that she had nothing suitable to wear.
And now she had.
Except that she didn’t.
She looked down at her grey dress which, despite drying while she was on the Devil’s Seat, was rumpled and the hems stained white with salt water. It was horrid and would need washing, but it was still serviceable.
And it was hers.
These dresses were...
‘I’ll help you out of that dress, now, Mrs Langdale. Once you’ve bathed I think you should wear the blush muslin. It will look very fine with your eyes and hair. I know you prefer to do your own hair, but if you don’t mind, I’ll dress your hair, too. I’m good, miss. I used to dress Her Ladyship’s hair and hers was almost as long as yours, though not so thick.’
As Beth went about realising her plan, Jo did what she had learned to do years ago when the world swept her along. She stepped outside herself and allowed the current to carry her body while her mind alternately fretted and fled. Usually it resulted in her mind throwing up its hands and giving in, but as she sat before the dressing-table mirror, suffering the unfamiliar tug and pull of another person’s hands in her hair and staring at the familiar yet foreign woman being formed in front of her, her ability to divorce herself evaporated.
‘That looks much better. You look right lovely, Mrs Langdale.’ Beth sounded surprised, which stung nerves already raw and jangling.
‘Yes. Thank you, Beth.’
It was only as Beth went towards the dressing-room door, Jo’s old dress draped over her arm like a depleted sack of flour, that a spark lit deep inside Jo.
She was angry.
‘Beth. That dress. When it is clean I want it back.’
‘It is mine, Beth.’
Beth glanced down at the dress she held.
‘Of course, Mrs Langdale. If you wish.’
Jo nodded. At least Beth understood. Benneit Lochmore on the other hand... He might mean well, but she was angry. He might have better taste, or more money, or better intentions than Cousin Celia, but she was angry.
Very angry.
It felt so good to be so angry.
Halfway down the stairs she spotted Angus just exiting the estate room and hailed him. He stopped and stared as she descended the last stairs.
‘Mrs Langdale...!’
She ignored the admiration in his voice.
‘Where is he, Angus?’
His brows rose into the fall of his ginger hair, his eyes darting to the estate room, and he shifted as if to block her passage.
She moved past him and opened the door. The Duke and McCreary were bent over some papers and Lochmore looked up with a frown. As with Angus, surprise blanked his expression.
‘I would like a word with you, Your Grace.’
Mr McCreary scrambled to his feet and hurried past her with a murmured greeting. Lochmore leaned back in his chair, his hand playing with his quill, the feather moving round and round in slow, tipsy circles as she approached the desk. It only occurred to her as she stopped that he had not risen on her entry. He appeared to realise it at the same time because he dropped his quill and stood so abruptly he bumped into the desk, which gave a protesting squawk against the floorboards.
‘Yes?’
‘I am not a serf, Your Grace.’
‘I... No, you are not a serf, J—Mrs Langdale.’
‘You appear to have forgotten that small fact when you took upon yourself to dispose of my...of my whole wardrobe and have Angus—Angus—give my... How dare you?’ She was sputtering with fury, but she could not help it. She felt she was quite literally steaming.
‘I did no such thing. I asked Mrs Merry to dispose of the evidence of Celia’s spite. And unless wearing those hideous sacks was part of some secret plan of penance, you should be thanking me for doing so.’
‘You arrogant...high-handed... I should be hitting you over the head with a piece of Jamie’s driftwood!’
‘Go fetch some. I’ll wait right here. Better yet, use one of these ledgers. Lord knows they are dense enough.’
She did not know what to do with herself. The image of launching herself across the desk like a vicious beast came to mind, as did sitting down in a puddle of perfect muslin and crying her heart out.
‘You look lovely in that gown. Why are you so upset?’ It was the softness of his tone, and the true puzzlement beneath, that broke her.
She marched to the door, but the words left her anyway.
‘I expected better of you.’
Somehow he reached the door before her. He was looking a little angry himself and also, more surprisingly, hurt—rather like Jamie when she scolded him.
It wasn’t his fault. He was too much the Duke to understand the emotions of someone like her.
She picked up the fabric of her skirt, the cloth so lovely beneath her fingers it cracked her heart all over again as part of her begged her not to be so petty, so stiff, just to take for once and expect nothing else.
‘It is lovely, lovelier than I have ever had. But it is no better than Celia, even if it was done out of pity and not spite. You walked right over me, Your Grace. Just like everybody else.’
Even as she spoke the words, watching his face harden, she knew she was a fool for ever voicing something so revealing.
‘That was not my intention,’ he answered. ‘You have been a good friend to Jamie and I thought it only proper to show a sign of appreciation. I thought you would be pleased.’
She abandoned her foolish quest.
‘Thank you, Your Grace. They are lovely. All of them. Please thank Angus for me as well.’ She continued towards the door and, after a slight hesitation, he moved aside and she left.
* * *
The door closed behind her and Benneit resisted the urge to open it again and slam it as hard as he was able.
Of all the ungrateful, petty, aggravating, impossible, nit-picking...
What the devil was wrong with her? Any normal female would have been gushing with thanks and admiration. Bella would have certainly showed her approval of such a gesture. Had demanded it often enough, in fact.
For a moment when Jo had entered the study, he had suffered a moment of complete disorientation. He had known immediately it was Jo and yet he hadn’t recognised her. It was amazing what a decent gown and a different arrangement of hair could effect.
As she strode towards them, her chin up, her cheeks warm with colour—anger, he realised now—and her grey eyes shining—with fury, evidently—for a moment he had a mad image of her coming right up to him and demonstrating her appreciation in a very physical manner.
It was only a momentary thought. His rational mind had immediately rejected the idea that the proper widow Langdale would indulge in such a gesture, even for a brace of new gowns, but the image lingered and took a while to be beaten back under the barrage of her accusations. That juxtaposition made it all the worse.
I expected better of you.
Well, he had expected her to be happy that he had taken the time and effort... Well, told Angus and Mrs Merry and Beth to take the time and effort, with his money, to make her happy and a little more comfortable while she stayed with them. That was the very last time he bothered on her account, that was certain.
In fact, it would serve her right if he had Mrs Merry give all those new gowns as well to Widow McManus. Let her stay in her shifts and see how she enjoyed that! Her trips down to the beach with Jamie would not be quite so comfortable.
His mind generously offered up that image. Now that he had a better idea precisely what lay hidden beneath the grey sacks, it happily proceeded the next step to imagining her in even thinner muslin and that muslin conveniently dampened by the licking waves and plastered against her by the north wind. It also removed Jamie from the image so that she stood alone on the beach, very straight, looking up at him where he stood on his rock, her eyes as grey and deep as the sea.
‘Hell,’ he muttered as the image filled him with unwelcome heat. He shut his eyes harder and tugged at his hair again, but the tide was rising, swirling her skirts about her legs, and she wasn’t moving, so naturally he bent down to help her up on to his rock and to safety as he had that day on the beach. Except that this time he did not let go, he was standing on the rock with her, and it was a very modest little rock and he had no choice but to hold her quite close, one hand sliding over her warm curves to cup her bottom, pulling her closer as his head lowered to taste that lovely pink bow of a mouth that kept torturing him...
He shoved his hands through his hair again, pulling at it in frustration.
‘Benneit?’
‘What?’ he growled as Angus stepped into the study and closed the door.
‘Is aught wrong? Did you have words with Mrs Langdale?’
‘Why?’
‘I came by her and she thanked me for the gowns and I said it were you, not I, that should be thanked and she looked fit to cry. Not like her at all. Knew she’d crack at some point. You can only fit so much whisky in a cask before it starts to leak.’
‘What the devil does that even mean? And, no, I did not have words with her, she had words, and plenty of them, for me. Far from thanking me, apparently I am merely another petty, inconsiderate slave master and she a meek and put-upon serf. Meek! She’s as meek as the worst of the McCrieff juggernauts! If ever I’ve seen a woman falsely advertised, that is Mrs Joane Langdale. She won’t rest until she has the whole of Lochmore dancing to her tune, as subtle as it is. No wonder the Uxmores wanted her shunted off to the Antipod
es. And to think, I felt sorry for her and was thinking my sister-in-law Celia a vindictive little cow. What a fool I was. Well, I can safely send my conscience scurrying back to its cave. That is the last time I exert myself on behalf of that ingrate.’
Angus’s brows climbed higher and higher into his brow as Benneit’s tirade advanced.
‘That bad, eh? Still and all, I did tell you not to send her own clothes away until she was ready. People with damn all in the world can be picky about what they have.’
‘You did not...’ Benneit paused at the memory that Angus had suggested precisely that. ‘I cannot abide people who say “I told you so”.’
‘Aye, people who think they know better than others can be a right nuisance.’
‘Are you trying to pick a fight, Angus?’
‘I thought you could do with a round or two out in the yard. You’re wound tighter than a top lately.’ Angus inspected his ham-sized fists and grinned. ‘I think we take our differences outside. You strike wide when you’re angry and I’ve a score to settle with you over our last bout.’
Benneit looked down at the books.
‘McCreary will cry if we don’t finish all this before the end of the month.’
‘McCreary will cry if you snap at him like that. Besides, you owe the servants some entertainment, they’ve scrubbed the castle from tower to gate getting all ready for the ball.’
Benneit tugged at his cravat.
‘A few quick rounds back of the stables. And don’t let the young fools bet above their means.’
‘I’ll have a word with the lads. Oh, and I’ll try and spare yer pretty face. You don’t want to show a black eye to the McCrieffs.’
‘I’d try and spare yours, too, if only I could tell it apart from your arse.’
‘Just for that I’ll have you flat on yours, young lad.’
‘We shall see, old man. Lead on.’
Chapter Nineteen
‘Jo! Come see. Papa is winning! I think...’
‘Winning what?’
Jo moved towards where Jamie was leaning against the nursery window. For a change, Flops was alert, half-standing with his paws pressed against the window by his master’s side, his huffing breath clouding the glass.
