Unlaced by the Highland Duke

by Lara Temple

  She was shivering and her eyes were damp; he knew he was going too far, but he could not stop. Not if the whole of Lochmore and McCrieff were standing around them baying for his blood. Right now he could not, would not stop. This was his. One last moment of something purely for himself. It was not even for Jo because he could not have her, but he could have this. Jo in his garden. He would never take anyone else here. Here, with her, he was completely himself. As she was. This was Jo—perfect, lovely, clever, impossible. His Jo.

  The kiss was hard and deep, his mouth capturing hers, his hands crushing her against him. Even as his body raged, his hands dragging at the dress that kept her from him, his mind was howling in agony that it could not be more than a moment.

  How was that possible? It was all wrong.

  ‘Jo. Oh, God, Jo. You’re mine. That is why you cannot stay. You know what will happen if you stay in the village. Every day I will have to stop Jamie from coming to see you. And every night I will have to stop myself from thinking—she is so close. In a little house in the village, alone in her bed, maybe thinking of this...’ His hand curved over her breast, his thumb flicking at her nipple, teasing it into a hard nub. She moaned and he scraped his teeth down the side of her neck, as if to punish her, then suckled the skin, adding heat to heat.

  ‘I will be thinking—I can walk there now. In my mind I can see every stone and tuft of grass and stalk of heather on the way. I’ll know that when your cottage comes into view I am only five minutes from being able to do this...and this... And I’ll have to lie there, in my bed, knowing that you are so close and as far from me as if you were a myth. And one day, you will meet another Alfred and I will have to watch...come to your wedding... God help me, I’m not strong enough, Jo. It will break me.’

  He held her against him, his lips on her hair, breathing her scent, trying to secure it in his mind.

  ‘When I’m sane I want you to find someone who will adore you, and care for you, and love you as you deserve to be loved, Jo. I want you to have a family...’ He felt her breath choke with the pain he knew she shared. He knew without looking her eyes were burning like his. ‘But it’s also a lie. I don’t want you to ever love anyone. I can’t bear to think of anyone... Oh, God, this is unbearable. I can’t do this. I need to go. Angus will see you back to the castle.’

  He strode away from the garden, from himself.

  * * *

  After a moment Jo sat on the bench, watching the purple cluster swinging a little in the breeze, like a brace of chimes.

  It didn’t help that for the first time she had heard a real echo of her feelings in his voice. That he might care...really care for her beyond the lust that had taken them by surprise. She knew that cleaving—the need for him to be happy and the fury that he might be.

  He probably would be in the end. Content at least. There would be other children and he would love them as much as Jamie and that would bring him joy and fill his life and one day he will wake up and perhaps discover he truly cared for Tessa.

  Her nails bit into her palms.

  He was right. To stay would be a worse torture than leaving. It would be a slow death, especially now that she knew he truly cared. She would be so tempted to use that against him, to bring him to her exactly as he had described. To take agonised pleasure in imagining him awake as she in the middle of the night, thinking of her while another woman slept beside him. Waiting always for the next chance encounter, building her whole life around the echoes of his.

  She could not stay.

  Chapter Thirty

  ‘Good day, Your Grace. Not that we are not honoured to see you again so soon after your last visit, but perhaps you should have sent word so we could prepare for your arrival...’

  Caught in his cloud of shame and misery, it took Benneit a moment to realise he was unwelcome. Lady Aberwyld was looking haughtier than usual, but her hands were pleating the fabric at the edges of her tambour frame and her cheeks were flushed.

  ‘I apologise for incommoding you, Lady Aberwyld, but I must speak with Lord Aberwyld. And Lady Tessa.’

  Her eyes flickered about the room, as close to panic as he had ever seen her.

  ‘Lord Aberwyld is out with the steward and dear Tessa is a trifle under the weather. Perhaps...’

  ‘No, I am not, Mama.’ Tessa entered the room, her voice and movements sharp.

  ‘Tessa! Return to your room immediately. Your father forbade you to leave it.’

  ‘I know he did, but I saw Lochmore ride up. You may have disposed of my sisters as you saw fit, but I will not allow you to do the same to me. I wish to speak with Lochmore. Alone.’

  Lady Aberwyld surged to her feet, her cheeks purple with anger and fear.

  ‘Be silent and go to your room, you ungrateful child. You have everything...everything...offered you...’

  Tessa was nearly as red as her mother.

  ‘Not everything, ma’am. And not what is important to me.’

  ‘What do you know of what is important? I knew I should never have allowed you to spend that year with your aunt in Glasgow. She crammed your foolish head with girlish nonsense. This is real—you will marry Lochmore and be grateful to find yourself a bridegroom everyone in the Highlands will envy you for!’

  Tessa was breathing heavily.

  ‘I will speak with His Grace, Mother. Alone!’

  ‘You will do no such thing! Aberwyld!’ Lady Aberwyld gave a savage tug on the bell cord. ‘Lochmore, you will not listen to this foolish child. These are mere nerves.’

  Benneit had hardly dared breathe throughout the scene, but now he turned to meet Tessa’s stormy gaze.

  ‘Are they, Lady Tessa?’ he asked calmly, holding up a hand as Lady Aberwyld began answering in her daughter’s stead.

  Tessa raised her chin.

  ‘No. I told Father and Mother the night you left that I will not marry you. I shall not change my mind. We women have few enough prerogatives, but I believe we still possess this one.’

  ‘You do,’ he replied as calmly as his thudding heart allowed. ‘It was always your right. I would never wish for a bride that did not come willingly. And you deserve to want that of your bridegroom as well.’

  A sudden, surprising smile cleaved through her tension.

  ‘Precisely, Your Grace. I might have been willing to live in the shadow of the ghost of a beautiful countess, but not in the shadow of the live ghost of a woman I admire. I want more in life.’

  ‘You little fool,’ Lady Aberwyld wailed. ‘He might love her, but he will marry you. That is all that matters.’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’ Benneit and Tessa spoke the words in unison and suddenly the tension in them both broke like an ice floe setting loose on the loch.

  ‘Why did you come today, Benneit?’ Tessa asked, ignoring her mother. ‘To offer for me?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘To speak with you. To explain. To beg if need be. But to marry you if that was what you wanted and try to do my best by you. Jamie matters more than I do.’

  Her mouth wavered.

  ‘But that is why I cannot do it. I want someone to do that for me. To want me up to the edge of their honour.’

  The door opened and McCrieff strode in, his brow lowering ominously at the sight of his daughter and Benneit, his eyes wary as he absorbed Lady Aberwyld weeping into her handkerchief. But he visibly dragged a smile on to his ruddy face.

  ‘Lochmore!’

  Tessa stepped forward.

  ‘I told him I shan’t marry him, Father.’

  McCrieff gave the roar of a wounded bull and Benneit stepped between him and Tessa, but McCrieff merely raised his hands and grabbed his hair as if trying to pull it out by the roots.

  ‘Ignore her, Lochmore, these are naught by maidenly fears.’

  ‘I shan’t marry him.’ Tessa’s voice was calm and final and fo
r a moment she looked incredibly like her father—obdurate and solid. ‘I shall not yield.’

  ‘’Tis your fault! You spoilt her, Aberwyld!’ Lady Aberwyld moaned.

  ‘I spoilt her? I? You were the one set on sending her to Glasgow! The girl needs town polish, you said! Well, this is what you get!’

  Benneit and Tessa stood silent as battle waged between husband and wife. It raged for full five minutes before Lady Aberwyld withdrew, weeping into her handkerchief, her tambour frame bouncing to the floor.

  McCrieff rounded again on his daughter, but in a moment the fury deserted him.

  ‘Ah, child. Child... You’re a fool. You would be Duchess of Lochmore! My life’s dream.’

  ‘Yours, sir. Not mine,’ she answered simply.

  ‘I’ll send you away.’

  ‘I know that. I hope somewhere not too wild. Seeing that I am already such a heathen.’

  His shoulders fell.

  ‘Will you not reason with her, Lochmore? This is your fault, you know. She thinks you are in love with that little Englishwoman. I told her it is different for men. Why, you could even bid your widow stay and we’d not say a word.’

  ‘Father!’

  ‘No, I couldn’t, McCrieff. Neither Mrs Langdale nor your brave daughter deserve such disrespect. I would not dishonour your family or a woman I care for in such a manner.’

  McCrieff sank into the chair vacated by his wife.

  ‘You young people with this nonsense of love. The world has become a foolish, self-indulgent place. Your father and I ought to have known better, too. Foolishness is clearly heritable.’

  ‘My father loved my mother very much,’ Benneit said with certainty, surprising himself.

  ‘Ay, and suffered every day for it. They fought like cats and dogs.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘And that is what you want?’

  ‘What I want matters only to me and, to a certain degree, your daughter. She is not a fool. She knows I will marry her if she demands I honour the unspoken agreement between our families. Jamie’s future rides as much upon upholding Lochmore honour as it now rides upon the future of the distillery which depends upon your goodwill. I will not put his future in jeopardy, no matter the pain it will cause me.’

  McCrieff’s smile twisted.

  ‘I have you at my mercy, have I not?’

  ‘You have. I came to throw myself at your feet even if Tessa had not spoken, so do not lay all the blame at her doorstep.’

  ‘My doorstep, you mean. I have proven a failure as a father.’

  ‘That is not true, Father,’ Tessa said, her voice cracking for the first time.

  ‘You’ll have to go away, girl. Your mother will make both our lives a living hell for a year at least.’

  ‘I am ready for that.’

  ‘Aunt Maura will have to take you. Perhaps you’ll mind her if not me.’

  Tessa’s eyes widened with barely repressed hope.

  ‘Mama will never allow me to return to Glasgow.’

  ‘I am still master in this house, am I not?’ McCrieff bellowed, thumping the armrests.

  ‘Of course you are, Papa. Thank—’

  ‘Be gone, girl! I don’t want to see you till you’re packed and ready to leave.’

  Tessa didn’t wait for more.

  ‘Tell her I wish you both happiness,’ she whispered to Benneit as she hurried by, her eyes laughing and full of tears.

  ‘Twenty per cent!’ Aberwyld growled and Benneit blinked, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  ‘Twenty what?’

  ‘Per cent. Of the distillery. That’s my price for letting you walk away with your honour and your conscience clean.’

  ‘You could ask for more than that, McCrieff,’ Benneit said truthfully.

  ‘I have my honour, too, Lochmore. Blast the both of you. It’s like a blasted curse ever since your ancestor Ewan stole Duncan McCrieff’s Frenchie bride. Every time our families look to mix their blood again, something blasts it all to hell.’

  Benneit had no patience for superstition, but in this instance he had no wish to argue against anything that gave McCrieff comfort.

  ‘Perhaps that is what it is. Perhaps we should accept fate and be content with what we have.’

  ‘If the two of you could have done that we wouldn’t be up to our necks in this bog. Ah, well, I can hardly blame you when I did something not very different when my father and your grandfather tried to create matches between your Aunt Morag and myself and between my sister and your father. It was wrong then and I’d be a hypocritical fool to play dog in the manger now. Though my present lady might not be all I hoped when I wed her, she’s a sight better than your aunt, Lochmore. Come drink with me, man, before you go. If I were you, I’d take that little Englishwoman of yours south for a time while I soothe my lady wife. Now drink up and make good your escape. Oh, and I’ll want the first ten cases of whisky from our distillery, mind you.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The nursery was empty and Benneit cursed. What a time for them to go wandering!

  ‘Angus!’ His bellow echoed in the stairway as he ran downstairs again. ‘Angus! There you are. Where the devil is Jo? I need to... What is wrong?’

  ‘Am I to wish you happy, Your Grace?’

  ‘What? What has happened? Where is Jo? Where is Jamie? Is something wrong?’

  ‘Jamie is in the Map Room. There is nought wrong with him but a broken heart.’

  ‘What the devil are you going on about? Where is Jo?’

  ‘I’d say halfway to Inveraray.’

  ‘What? What the devil is going on? Angus!’

  ‘Don’t go howling at me, Your Grace. There’s a letter for ’ee in the study.’

  ‘Don’t turn your back on me, Angus. Why did she leave?’

  ‘Mayhap she didn’t wish to remain here so as to have to raise a glass for you betrothing yourself to another. You didn’t even have the guts to tell her you were off to the McCrieffs! She had to hear it from Beth, who heard it from the stables. She begged me to take her to put her on the post in Kilmarchie, but I told her I’d not lend my hand to that nonsense and she said she’d walk if need be. So I had the carriage brought round. She told Jamie some fib about her family needing her and was off an hour ago. So—am I to wish ye happy?’

  Benneit strode into his study.

  ‘I’m not marrying Tessa McCrieff. I went there to beg her to release me. Blast you, you should not have let Jo leave. Have Lochlear saddled right away. I’ll ride across the glen.’

  The letter lay in the middle of his desk and he opened it, furious, scared, but still stubbornly elated. His heart was soaring like a hot air balloon—she would not have run if she did not care. In an hour, less if he was lucky and the glen not sodden from rain, he would reach her and tell her precisely what he thought about her running away. But first he would make it abundantly clear to her she was staying. No, first he would beg her to tell him he was not wrong in his belief that she cared as much as he did. He needed to see her when he spoke the words. See the truth in her eyes, whether it took him to heaven or hell.

  He unfolded the letter and read.

  Dear Benneit,

  Beth told me where you have gone, so it is time for me to leave.

  I should end my letter here and thank you for everything—tell you to take good care of Jamie, though I know you will. And say Godspeed and congratulate you.

  But I cannot say that and I cannot stay. Not one moment longer. I know this is the right path for you, but if I were wealthy and beautiful, or even merely pretty, I would fight for you and tell Tessa McCrieff she cannot have you.

  Yet I can offer you and Jamie nothing but what I am. No, even that you have taken from me. You have stripped me of my armour against the world and now instead of thinking I speak, and instead
of wanting I am beginning to make demands, and this is dangerous.

  If I stay a moment longer I might begin to beg when I have never, ever begged for anything in my life.

  You will feel guilty, I know, even hurt, and perhaps responsible, and you will consider coming after me. But if you dare... If you dare I will blacken your eye, Benneit Lochmore.

  You have your pride and I have mine. I am writing this to you because I must, and because even though we cannot be friends you are my finest friend. I will take this loss and make even more of myself now because of you—not less because of this pain I am taking with me.

  Jamie is upset and hurt, but Tessa McCrieff is a good person and will be a good mother and I believe he will become attached to her. You are and will be an excellent father. The very best. Please don’t ever doubt that. This is one of the things at the very top of my List of Things I Know to be Absolutely True.

  Goodbye, Benneit. It will only ever be you, mo chridhe.

  ‘Papa?’ Jamie stood in the doorway. His cheeks were marked with streaks of drying tears and strangely Benneit noticed he was wearing shoes. Flops’s muzzle was pressed against his hand, gently licking.

  ‘I tried to make her stay, Papa. She said she couldn’t. I don’t understand why.’

  Benneit covered his eyes for a moment, then strode towards Jamie, swinging him into his arms.

  ‘It is my fault, Jamie. But I will make good. I need to leave now and fetch her back. Don’t you worry. I’m bringing her back to stay, Jamie.’

  ‘To stay? For ever? She won’t leave?’

  ‘Not if I can help it. I must go now and hopefully we will be back by nightfall. You will be laird while I’m gone and make certain all is well and ready for our return. Understand, Lord Glenarris?’

  Chapter Thirty-Two