by Lara Temple
She did not know if it was intentional, but it was unbearably effective. He spoke to her only when necessary, but when he joined them on the beach he would sometimes take her arm to help her over the rock fall, or grasp her waist to pull her away from the rising tide.
He was always polite to her and sometimes she thought he had accepted her rejection in good form, perhaps with a bit of piqued pride. But sometimes, when his fingers took her arm, she felt a ringing tension in the body next to hers, the kind of beating pressure like the waves crashing against the cliffs below the castle.
He never looked at her in these moments as she struggled to keep from turning to him and weeping out her need and pain. His eyes remained blank and his mouth a straight, uncompromising line. But sometimes, after she moved away, she would feel the sharp green jab of his gaze in her back, like a blade piercing her. Sometimes it felt like hate.
On each occasion of these brief touches, she was shocked by the speed with which her body clamoured for more. The heat was like a wild animal inside her—Benneit’s touch unlatched its cage and it leapt through her, hot and desperate, leaving her insides scratched to ribbons as he turned away, his face a mask.
He never returned with her and Jamie through the Sea Gate tunnel but would walk back along the beach and up the other path to the stables. She would turn and watch his solitary figure on the sand, his dark head bowed, his hands deep in the pockets of his coat as if cold despite the unseasonably warm summer weather.
Once, she turned back and he was still watching them and, though she could not see his expression with the sun in her eyes, her breath had stopped. It was all her own invention, no doubt—the confusion, the agony, the bone weariness of holding it inside. To imagine she saw any of her own suffering in the dark figure standing so still on the sand was folly. Yet, she almost moved towards him when Jamie called to her impatiently, reminding her of the world.
And it became harder, not easier, as the days passed.
* * *
On the day that marked a month since her arrival at Lochmore, she went with Angus and Jamie to The House to bid farewell to the engineers who were departing for Glasgow for a couple weeks to oversee purchases. Benneit was already at The House and when they came through the gardens Jamie ran ahead in search of his father. Angus turned to her as she paused and she smiled.
‘You go, Angus. I will linger in the garden a little. It is so peaceful.’
‘You need some of that, lass. I’ll send Jamie for you when nuncheon is served.’
Her eyes burned at the kindness in his voice, but she couldn’t answer. She was not surprised Angus saw through her. There was no judgement, only sorrow in his voice, and it threatened to unravel her flimsy defences. She sat on the wooden bench in the vine-covered bower where the laburnum was in glorious bloom, its clusters of yellow flowers as bright as the sun.
She knew immediately by the footsteps that it was Benneit coming up the path from The House. She stood, wishing she could sink into the vines and disappear. She was at her breaking point; she should not be with him alone. She tried to push her way between the vines to the small path that led around the house, but the branches caught at the ribbons of her bonnet.
With a muffled curse she tugged at them, but it was too late. Large, warm hands brushed hers away, turning her. His face was as masklike as ever, his eyes hooded as he began disengaging the ribbons from their green captors. He was standing so close that if she just bent her head it would rest against his chest. His arms brushed hers as he worked at the ribbon and she watched the shifting speckling of sun on his coat as the wind teased the bright yellow flowers in the vines above them. The garden was in summer bloom, a raw jumble of flowers and trees, the scent of pink jasmine entwined with richer honeysuckle. But she only smelt him—his warm musk scent with a cool earthiness beneath it.
She kept as still as a statue, breathing him in, her hands itching with the need to rise and feel him, drag up his shirt and scrape up his skin, mould over the hard planes of his stomach and chest, the silky straight dark hair that teased a line downwards. Then the ribbons fell free, but though he dropped his hands, he did not move back. She watched his chest rise and fall, faster and shallower than before, felt the shadow as his head lowered towards hers. There was an ache at the pit of her stomach—every part of her was clenching, gathering as if for a leap across a ravine. Her own breath was non-existent.
She had no idea what would have happened if Jamie had not come rushing out, his shoes crunching on the gravel. When she dared look at Benneit again as they joined the engineers for nuncheon in the sun parlour he was as calm as always—a polite, attentive, amusing host. There was no sign that moment had been anything other than him helping her with her bonnet. Still, he came to sit beside her at the modest table, his thigh so close to hers she felt her legs sucked towards its warmth, the heat like a contagion between her thighs, rising to her breasts like a devious tide no matter what she did to try to stop it.
As they rose from the table the side of his knee brushed hers and she could not help looking towards him and he did not mask his expression swiftly enough. It was there—the tension in his mouth and cheekbones and something very like fury in his quickly veiled eyes.
When he came out to put Jamie on his pony for the ride back and Angus helped her into the saddle she dared look at him again and before he turned from her she saw not anger or resentment, but confusion and such weariness on his face that whatever part of her heart remained shielded from him surrendered.
Would it be so terrible to give and take comfort? There was so little time left. Were scruples and honour and self-respect so important?
Jamie tucked his hand into Benneit’s where it rested on the saddle.
‘You promised you’d come with us to the north bay when the tide is out. There will be new treasures after the storm last night.’
Benneit smiled, closing his hand on Jamie’s.
‘Did I promise?’
‘You know you did, Papa! And Lochmores always keep their word, don’t they?’
Benneit nodded, his smile fading.
‘Yes, Son. I will come. I must speak to Mr Warren first, but take the horses back to the stable and meet me at the top of the cliff path.’
Jamie grinned and nudged his pony forward.
* * *
Jamie clambered over the large stones and stood poised, hand outstretched like a captain of a ship sighting land. Benneit stood a little to the side, his hands on his hips as he looked out over the waves. Jo probably should have left Jamie with him at the top of the cliff path, but now that her resolve was weakening, all she wanted was the opportunity to tell him she had changed her mind. If he was still interested...
‘See, Jo?’ Jamie prompted and she focused back on him. ‘That’s the cave where I went with Angus before London and we found the great big log washed in by the tide. I think it came all the way from the Amazon. Maybe it is still there.’
He ran ahead even as Benneit turned and reached out for him. It was a peculiar gesture, a grasping of the air, and she looked up to Benneit’s face. He looked dazed and very pale beneath his sun-warmed skin. Her own agony forgotten, she turned to him, touching his sleeve.
‘Benneit?’
He didn’t appear to hear her, but then his gaze focused again. He glanced down at her hand and in a convulsive gesture he grasped it and moved forward, pulling her with him.
‘Jamie, come back!’
Jamie stopped at the mouth of the cave.
‘I want to see if the log is still there, Papa!’
‘No. Come back here now.’
‘I’ll only look...’
‘I said no!’
‘But, Papa...’
‘Jamie! Come back now or you’ll spend the rest of the day in the nursery!’
‘Benneit...’ Jo began tentatively, but his hand tightened on hers, his voic
e a snarl.
‘Stay out of this.’
Jamie stood unmoving, staring back at his father, his smile gone, his face as stony as Benneit’s. They looked remarkably alike now, all trace of Bella’s beauty wiped away by the obdurate glare they shared.
‘Jamie.’ Benneit’s voice was low, but there was such menace in it Jo was not in the least surprised when Jamie continued towards the cave. Benneit dropped her hand and bounded forward as if stung. He reached Jamie in seconds, picking him up, and Jamie squirmed in his arms, his fists flailing in a silent battle. Benneit just shifted him, hauling him on to his shoulder, his arm pinioning his legs as he turned and strode back to the path. Jamie fought and cursed, his tantrum in full bloom, but Benneit ignored him, his long legs eating up the distance all the way to the castle.
* * *
When they reached the nursery he lowered him gently, but Jamie immediately kicked out, catching Benneit in the shin, before retreating to the corner by his shelves.
‘Blas—You will stay here for the rest of the day, James Hamish Lochmore.’
‘I hate you,’ Jamie spat, flinging himself on his bed.
Benneit turned and, seeing Jo, herded her out of the room.
‘You will not go to him today. I will not have him disobeying me like that.’
‘I don’t think...’
‘Good. Don’t. For once don’t think and just do as you are told. He is my son and I am telling you as clearly as possible so not even you can misunderstand my meaning. You will not go into the nursery today. Just...stay away!’
He strode off down the hallway, a column of fury and something else she could not understand. She glanced at the closed door, so tempted to defy him, but instead she went to her room. She might think him mistaken, but it was not her role to make that judgement. Had she been Jamie’s mother she might perhaps...
She closed her door, each beat of her heart a palpable ache. She had not expected to fall in love with Lochmore and his son.
How would she survive leaving?
* * *
She heard the cough in the corridor but it did not immediately draw her out of her brown study. The second one did, though. It was deliberate, fake and Jamie’s.
She opened the door and the light spread out into the darkened corridor like a fan. At its tip was a rounded bundle. She inspected Jamie’s hunched back, his arms hugging his legs.
‘What are you doing out there, Jamie?’
One shoulder rose and fell.
‘Won’t you come inside? It is cold in the corridor.’
He shook his head.
She sighed, considering her options. She returned to her room, took a heavy shawl from her chair and went to place it around Jamie’s little shoulders.
‘There is a nice fire in my parlour and I was about to send for some chocolate. If you wish to join me, you may.’
She returned to her room and pulled at the bell cord and waited.
‘There’s a bundle at yer doorstep, Mrs Langdale,’ Beth announced when she entered, her mouth prim.
‘I know, Beth. Could I bother you for two cups of chocolate and perhaps some biscuits?’
Beth nodded and smiled.
* * *
She was still smiling when she returned with a laden tray.
‘Still there, the bundle. Stubborn like his father. Here you are, Mrs Langdale. Mayhap this will do the trick.’
Five long minutes later the door to the parlour opened, paused and opened further. A very stubborn boy.
He did not speak as he joined her at the table, or as he took his cup and drank with all the enthusiasm of a man contemplating entry to debtors’ prison, but the chocolate went down, as did the biscuits.
‘I should return to the nursery now.’
‘That is probably best.’
‘I only wanted to see if the log was there.’
‘I know. Perhaps your father was worried, especially after my foolishness in falling in the water the other day.’
He finally looked at her.
‘That was foolish. I would not go there when the tide is rising. It wasn’t rising then.’
‘Well, fathers sometimes worry more than they need. It is hard to know just how much worry is right.’
‘He was angry, not worried.’
‘It looks the same from the outside, Jamie. He was very angry at me when I worried him.’
He shrugged, his little shoulders barely shifting her shawl, and she was not certain she had quite made her point, but it would have to do.
‘Come, I will see you to the nursery.’
At the nursery doorway she stopped and smiled.
‘Your father did tell me not to go in.’
Jamie’s mouth relaxed, hovering on the edge of a smile as he slipped inside, closing the door. Beth was waiting in her room, a peculiar expression on her face. Jo wondered if perhaps Beth, too, felt she was overstepping her boundaries with Jamie. But then the maid smiled and the thought fled.
‘Malcolm McCrieff and his wife are below, Mrs Langdale. Stopped by on their way to Kilmarchie. Feeling at home already, the McCrieffs,’ Beth said, her voice a little acid. ‘His Grace requests you join him.’
There were limits. Sitting tamely in the drawing room after Benneit’s tantrum while he entertained his future brother-in-law was the definition of several steps beyond her personal limit.
‘I have the headache, Beth,’ she said with dignity.
‘I’ll tell Angus. His Grace won’t be happy, though. He’s in a mood and it will be a wonder if he doesn’t bite someone’s head off before a new day rises.’ Beth’s sigh robbed her words of their disrespect.
Jo waited for the door to close and wondered if that would be the end of it or whether Benneit would storm up there with demands as he had at the ball. In his present state of mind he appeared capable even of that. And if he came to her room she might burst into tears.
She stood. She would not sit there waiting for the axe to fall. If he could not find her, he could not make demands and she could not make an utter fool of herself. There was one place she was quite certain no one would look for her. Just for an hour or so she could be assured of being left utterly alone.
She lit a candlestick and left her room.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Finally. He thought they would never leave. Malcolm McCrieff would be just like his father one day—when he sank his teeth into a topic it was like sitting through the speeches of three of the most tedious orators at the House of Lords. How the McCrieff women sat so placidly while they droned on... It would drive him mad. Tessa McCrieff might be lovely, sweet and the perfect wife for the Duke of Lochmore, but each step closer to his fate rang with a visceral resistance to it.
He couldn’t do it.
He was glad Jo had not joined them in the end. It had been pure bloody-mindedness on his part to even send for her after his outburst which had capped the most hellish week of his existence. He had merely...
Wanted her. Whatever he could have of her. Even silent, disapproving, distant, he wanted to be with her. However much time was left he needed to be with her even if it was destroying him from inside. It was not her fault, but it felt like it was. Everything felt like it was her fault—the inescapable need to be with her, to touch her. He had been so close to losing his control that morning in the garden. Having her so close, he could see the faint freckles on the bridge of her nose, the curve of her cheeks, the nearly transparent hairs shivering with her heartbeat at her temples. He had been so hungry for her, his blood felt like molten steel, burning its course through his veins. If not for Jamie, he might have broken right there—gone down on his knees and begged for scraps...
He picked up his glass of whisky, put it down. Perhaps he should go spend the night at The House. Get away from all of them and especially from the temptation to go to Jo’
s room, slide under the covers and find her soft, warm... Make her shiver as she had moments before abandoning herself to bliss. Slide his fingers over every disapproving line of her lovely body and coax it back to him. Taste her, inch by inch, until she called his name, not in condemnation, but with that breathy need for him. He wanted to be inside her when he brought her to climax. Deep inside her so that her soft moans and that cataclysmic arrival at heaven would be his.
He closed his eyes at the memory. Just thinking of her made him hard as a log himself.
Blast the woman.
He should at least apologise for his behaviour that afternoon. Then go to his rooms and lie awake as he had every night of the past week.
But he had to see her first.
At her door he hesitated, but his body didn’t and he knocked softly before he could change his mind.
‘Jo?’
Silence.
He drew a deep breath and opened the door. The fire was still going, but the room was empty and the parlour beyond it as well. On the table he saw the tray, the two empty cups of chocolate and the plate with crumbs and some of his heat migrated to anger.
He went down the hall to the nursery. Jamie was there, asleep, a tight ball under his covers, a smudge of chocolate at the corner of his mouth.
Benneit sat carefully on the bed and touched the smudge gently. Jamie’s eyelids fluttered open.
‘Sorry, Papa.’
Benneit’s eyes stung.
‘No, I’m sorry, Jamie. I was too harsh. I love you, you know.’
Jamie nodded, snuggling closer, his hand searching for Benneit’s, and when it was secured he closed his eyes again.
‘Was Jo here?’ Benneit asked, hating himself.
Jamie shook his head and yawned.
‘I went to her. We had chocolate and she sent me back.’ He opened his eyes again. ‘She didna’ disobey you, Papa.’
‘Don’t worry, Jamie. All is well. Do you know where she is, then?’
