Unlaced by the Highland Duke

by Lara Temple

  Another yawn cracked.

  ‘Exploring. I went to give back her shawly thing and saw her go down the forbidden stairs with a candle. I wanted to go, too, but I remembered I was to stay in the nursery so I came back. Dinna worrit, she’s brave...’ he murmured and sighed, sinking back into sleep.

  Benneit sat for another moment, his heart beating hard again, but for the wrong reasons.

  It had nothing to do with him. If she chose to disobey his very clear...his crystal-clear instructions not to enter the tunnels alone and with nothing but a candle that would probably not survive the first whisper of dank sea air that pierced the walls, anything that happened to her was her own fault.

  She’s brave.

  He found the lamp in his room and lit the candle in it, tucked a tinderbox into his pocket, cursing as he went. If he had an ounce of sense he would send Angus to find her. Or wait. In all likelihood she would return any moment. Even Jo would likely not find the tunnels appetising.

  She is brave. And curious. And quite angry with you at the moment.

  Any hope that thirty years had dulled the edge of his weakness was dashed within seconds of beginning his descent down the spiral staircase into the tunnels. He hated these stairs, narrow and choking and twisting into darkness. It was like being swallowed down the throat of a great beast. The world disappeared, shrinking to a small reddened pocket of candlelight glimmering on the damp stone walls.

  When he finally found her he would...do something.

  If he found her. If he ever escaped this hell.

  She is brave.

  Jamie’s quiet confidence, the ease of slipping into sleep because Jo is brave, gnawed at him as much as this beast inside him.

  They are only stairs. Only stairs. He knew where they began and where they ended. Had been up and down them dozens, hundreds of times before that horrible day and night. They would eventually end. They could not go on for ever, no matter how much every inch of his body was convinced he would never escape their stone belly.

  He leaned his hand on the wall—cold and damp and rough—he could feel his heartbeat in his palm—thudding like a hammer trying to break through this prison. He pressed harder and took another step, and another, counting them.

  He was pathetic, weak, unfit to be a Duke, a father. He could not even go down a stairwell without his heart thudding in his ears as if he had run ten miles. Even if he survived this hell, how would he find the strength to follow her into the tunnels?

  Damn her, damn her, damn her...

  The doorway. Thank God.

  He stumbled through it, the lamp swinging, but his heart hardly had time to sing its relief when it shrivelled again. Even after close to thirty years he recognised everything. Not that there was much to recognise—the passage was broad but ended in darkness, making it look a mile long. He could not even see the indentation of the passage to the Sea Gate, though with it locked for the night she could hardly have exited that way.

  He tried to focus on the tunnel itself, on how ordinary it was—merely a corridor like all the corridors in the castle. Darker and danker, certainly, but just a corridor. He kept his eyes on the floor and listened. Nothing.

  She has probably returned already. Turn back. It will be easier going up than down. In a few moments you can be back in your room, safe and warm.

  What if she is in here somewhere? What if she took one of the other tunnels to the cellars and is lost...? What if she has fallen?

  The crypt steps were narrow and uneven. He knew that all too well. She might find herself as he had, at the bottom, unconscious...alone...afraid...in the dark.

  He moved forward, his throat tight. He had no idea how long he searched or how far he descended into his own personal hell. Thirty years ago it had been cavernous, echoing, but now it was narrow and tight and every step he took felt like the walls were closing on him, would finally crush him.

  But he had to find her.

  Some sensible flicker in his mind finally lit into a spark and he stopped. In the silence, sound would carry far, even with these thick walls. He was a fool for not calling out her name from the beginning.

  ‘Jo!’

  The word exploded against the walls, tossed back and forth, taunting him.

  ‘Benneit? Benneit! Here!’

  He surged forward, almost dropping the lamp.

  ‘Jo?’ His voice was hoarse and he cleared his throat. ‘Call out again!’

  ‘Benneit!’ Her voice shook. ‘It is so foolish, I went to look at the effigies in the alcove and I tripped over the stones from the old wall and the candle fell and I couldn’t find the exit and... Oh, I can see your light. This way! Oh, thank goodness, I was beginning to think I would have to spend the night here until someone realised I was missing and it is dreadfully chilly and I kept hearing things and even though I knew it was only my imagination it was terrifying. I know you will be angry at me and truly it was foolish...’

  The light entered the crypt and with a little cry she moved towards him and stopped at the bottom of the steps leading down, her hands clasped at her chest in an unconscious mirror of the effigies lying on the tombs in the alcoves along the walls. Behind her he caught a glimpse of his own hell—the effigies of his ancestors, the cracked lid of the empty tomb, and the shimmering glint of the clan brooch resting on the breast of the other, inhabited tomb. He looked away, fixing his gaze on her as she moved towards him.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Benneit. Please don’t be angry, at least not until we are above ground and in front of a fire. I’m freezing.’

  He placed the lamp on the floor very carefully and took off his coat, focusing on placing it on her shoulders. Her hands rose to hold it around her and his own hand grazed hers; her fingers were frozen and his were clammy and shaking. He leaned back against the stone doorjamb.

  ‘Benneit?’

  He tried to reach for the lamp, but it was very far away. He made another effort and managed to close his hand around the handle. Her hand closed on the handle as well.

  ‘Here, I’ll take it,’ she said, all panic gone from her voice and he closed his eyes, utterly humiliated but still unable to do more than stand there, his back glued to the wall, the stone cold and sharp through his linen shirt.

  Her other hand closed around his and he forced himself to look down at it. It was small and fine and there was a faint scratch near her wrist. He wanted more than anything to raise it to his lips and breathe in her scent, but she was pulling him forward and they climbed the stairs which thirty years ago had felt so high he had been certain he was falling to the bottom of the earth.

  He turned at the top stair of the crypt, the lamplight settling on the carved effigies of his ancestors once more. It was different from the image seared into his child’s brain the moment before the candle hit the floor all those years ago. Then it had been a stark mask of dark and light with the single brooch glistening atop the occupied tomb next to the empty broken one, like a cyclopean eye of a beast rising from hell. It was an image of evil and cruelty that was seared into his mind in the sudden and absolute darkness that followed the fall of his candle. And that darkness had lasted for ever.

  ‘Do you have any whisky in your rooms?’ Her question brought him into the present. Amazingly they were already in the small parlour connecting to his bedroom and the candle on the mantelpiece was only half-gone. It had not been an eternity, but moments. How was that possible?

  She took his other hand, looking up at him, her eyes wide and worried.

  ‘Benneit? Is there whisky here or shall I fetch some?’

  His hands tightened on hers. Don’t leave me, not yet.

  ‘In that cupboard.’ His voice was as rusty as the hinges on the gates to the north bay.

  ‘Go sit by the fire.’ She drew her hands from his and he let them go reluctantly and obediently went to the chair by the fire. The warmth,
his chair, his room and mostly her presence were cleaving their way through the darkness and the shuddering horror was beginning to dissipate at the edges, making more room for more humiliation. He rubbed his hands over his face, dreading what was to follow.

  ‘Here.’

  She handed him a glass and pulled a chair beside him.

  ‘Drink.’

  The welcome burn of whisky chased back more of the mist and he drank in silence, awaiting his fate.

  ‘I should have realised,’ she said. ‘By the cave. Even in the carriage on the way north. It did strike me as strange even then, but I was too caught up in... I’m sorry I was so blind, Benneit.’

  Oh, God, just leave me be.

  ‘Did something happen or was it always like that?’

  I don’t want to talk. Go away.

  He spoke anyway. ‘Same as you. My candle blew out exploring the crypt. I was four, perhaps five.’

  Her breath hissed inwards. ‘Jamie’s age. Were you there long?’

  A lifetime.

  He had probably slept some of it, out of sheer exhaustion, and had been asleep when they first came looking. It had been the servants’ voices calling for him, but they had capped his horror—in his child’s mind the effigy had risen, a vision from hell, calling his name as it came to claim him and keep him there for ever, in darkness.

  ‘A night and a day. My parents had been fighting, again, and I ran away. I should have made my protest clearer because my father thought I was at The House with my mother and she thought I was with him at the castle. I wanted to go somewhere that would make them angry, but then I fell down those blasted stairs and my candle went out. They never looked for me until the next day and even then it took them hours to think of the crypt. I remember it was already evening when they found me because the first thing I saw when we reached the nursery was the sunset.’

  ‘A whole... Oh, my God. I was only there a few moments and I was ready to scream. And you were four. Oh, Benneit...’

  She had his free hand pressed to her cheek. He could see into her mind. She was with that boy, another Jamie, her heart weeping for the horrified little Benneit. He was erased, reduced to that weak, terrified child. He jerked his hand away.

  ‘I told you not to go there!’

  ‘I know it was foolish, but I...’

  ‘But you wanted to defy me. First you don’t come down to our guests and then you go to the one place...the one damned place I told you not to go!’

  ‘They were not our guests, they were your guests, and, yes, I dare say I did want to defy you, but I never meant...’

  He slammed his glass down on the small table by his armchair and stood.

  ‘You don’t, do you? You don’t mean to strip everything away, right down to the cracks and the flaws, but that is what you do time and again.’

  ‘I can see why your fear of enclosed places makes your life difficult, but it doesn’t diminish you, Benneit.’

  He groaned and turned away, dragging his hands through his hair.

  ‘Can you not leave me a shred of dignity?’

  ‘It seems to me you have quite a few shreds of dignity. Perhaps even a few too many.’

  ‘Damn you, Jo.’

  She stood as well, her hands clasped before her, her eyes wide and worried. He wanted to chase away that worry, but he also wanted her to suffer as he was suffering. It was not possible that all the agony was his alone.

  He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know anything any more. This is what she had reduced him to. To one Great Big List of Things He Did Not Know.

  Except for her. He knew he wanted her.

  He laughed and turned away.

  ‘Maybe you do mean it,’ he said, not even bothering to hide his bitterness and pain. He was beyond that, beyond anything. He didn’t care any longer. ‘Maybe underneath all that show of understanding you enjoy watching me squirm. Torturing me like you have this week.’

  ‘I haven’t...’

  ‘Yes, you have. Don’t lie. You know how desperate I am to touch you, to be close to you, how unbearable it is just to feel your arm under my fingers, watch you smiling at Jamie, your eyes lighting up for him, for Angus, even for Mr Warren and Mr Carruthers, but you won’t even look at me. You don’t laugh with me anymore. Does it make you feel powerful to reduce me to this? How do I know you don’t take perverse pleasure in watching me writhe in this purgatory?’

  ‘It’s not true. Benneit, you do not...you cannot believe that.’

  ‘I don’t believe much any longer. I have been so abysmally wrong in the past. Why not about you?’

  * * *

  Jo’s heart was thudding so hard she could barely hear him. She was terrified and exultant all at the same time.

  She could not mistake the raw heat in his eyes. It was not just anger and disgust at her and at himself, but the same cavernous need that was eating away at her.

  She did not care any longer that it was wrong.

  It was so natural that he appeared when she needed him. But to know he had come at such a cost to himself... How could he not see how magnificent he was? That this rescue, against his nature, against his fear, was more precious to her than anything? It was one thing to have dragged her out of the water; it was another thing entirely to follow her through the gates of his personal hell.

  Her hero.

  If she could have saved him that agony she would, but since she could not, she was glad she had shared it, even if he hated her for it.

  She held out her hands, but he stepped back, his face still harsh with anger.

  ‘Don’t play with me, Jo. I don’t want your comfort.’

  ‘I don’t want to comfort you, Benneit. I want to make love to you. I’m tired of trying to do what is right. I cannot bear being here any longer and not being yours. Please, Benneit.’

  ‘No. I may have discovered stores of restraint I never knew I possessed, but they are all but depleted after this hellish week. I won’t have your conscience on mine as well, Jo. If that is how it is to be then you had best start running. Fast. Stay or run, but choose.’

  She placed her hands on his chest as she had wanted to in the garden, moving them softly upwards, her fingers lingering on the hint of roughness of his chest hair under the linen, the hard, smooth line of his collarbone.

  ‘Every night I imagine doing this,’ she whispered. ‘Every night I imagine you touching me. I told myself it was enough to have felt it once, your body against mine. But that is a lie. I want you. For however long we have left. I want this.’

  His hands covered hers, closing on them painfully, his shoulders hunching.

  ‘God, Jo. I could climax just listening to you. I hear you in my dreams, feel you against me. I wake up hard as granite and with your scent lingering and I dread the sun rising because it means I must go through another day making believe I’m not aching to touch you.’

  She rose on tiptoe, brushing the tense muscle in his cheek with her mouth, his stubble tingling on her lips.

  ‘And I ache whenever you accidently touch me...’ she murmured, kissing a trail along his jaw, hovering at the corner of his mouth where a muscle was twitching.

  ‘There is nothing accidental about it. You’ve reduced me to the level of a green youth, brushing against you because I can’t think of anything else to do.’

  She leaned against him, her breasts pressing against his chest, and his arms finally went around her, hesitant for a moment before closing hard around her, a groan rising through him as he pulled her against him, burying his face in the curve of her neck. His arousal was hot and hard against her stomach and she shivered with anticipation.

  ‘A well-endowed youth,’ she gasped as his teeth grazed the side of her neck. ‘And growing...’

  Something between a laugh and a groan escaped him and he hauled her into his arms, striding t
owards his bed. He stood for a moment holding her above it, his eyes emerald bright. Then he lay her down, very gently, and bent to kiss her.

  It went on and on, from soft butterfly brushes of his lips to his tongue teasing, sweeping against hers, coaxing her into a response that coursed through her body. It was in complete contrast with the desire that was flashing through her, nervous and demanding.

  He neither joined her nor undressed her, just rested his fists on the bed as his mouth seduced, plundered, caressed and coaxed her until she was panting, her hands pulling at his shoulders to bring her to him, her heels pressing into the bed.

  ‘Benneit, please. Please.’

  ‘Soon. I want you to need me as much as I need you. I want you flayed in the same agony you reduced me to.’

  ‘I am, I am... Oh, God, hurry!’

  ‘Not a chance in hell.’

  He undressed her just as slowly, stopping only to help her fevered attempts to do the same to him. If she hadn’t seen the green flames in his eyes, the tension in the lines bracketing his mouth, she might have been afraid at the difference in their passion, but she knew his control was in accord with his need. She could feel it in the heat of his skin, the staccato rapping of his pulse. His breathing was as short and shallow as a man caught by fever and everywhere she touched she felt his muscles flinch and watched his eyelids dip as if in pain.

  If she hadn’t felt his tension she might have thought he was toying with her. But though she might mistrust his words, she felt a passion that matched hers in every tense line of his body and face.

  When they were finally naked, his eyes stripped her again, raking over her body with an appreciation and pleasure that soothed her doubts.

  ‘You’re beautiful, Jo. Beautiful and mine.’ His voice was harsh, filled with the same demanding accusation she had mistaken for hatred. She didn’t even question the lie—right now she was beautiful. As exquisite as he. She drew him down against her, luxuriating in the slide of his body against hers, the landscape of soft and hard, smooth and rough. She wanted to absorb him, pull him into her and never let go.