Unnatural

by Joanna Chambers

  Unnatural

  Enlightenment

  Joanna Chambers

  Published by Joanna Chambers, 2018.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Unnatural (Enlightenment)

  Acknowledgment

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Author’s note

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  About the Author

  Unnatural

  CAPTAIN IAIN SINCLAIR has looks, charm, military honours—even the favour of the king himself. He has everything—everything, that is, except the friendship of the one man whose good opinion he has ever cared for, scientist, James Hart.

  James has loved Iain all his life, but after the last disastrous encounter between them, he vowed to accept no more crumbs from Iain’s table. If Iain cannot be the lover James wants, then James will have no more to do with him.

  Disenchanted with his career, and miserable without James in his life, Iain decides to leave military service and embark upon a new career in India. Before he leaves England behind, though, he is determined to try one last time to reconcile with his dearest friend.

  An invitation to a country house party from James’s sister provides the perfect opportunity to pin James down and force him to finally listen to Iain’s apology. But when Iain discovers that an apology is not enough—that James is not willing settle for less than a lover—he is forced to reconsider everything: his life, his future career, and most of all, his feelings for James.

  Unnatural

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 JOANNA Chambers

  2nd edition

  Cover art: Natasha Snow

  Editor: Linda Ingmanson

  Published by Joanna Chambers

  ISBN: 978-1-9997091-4-3

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or business establishments or organisations is completely coincidental.

  PLEASE DO NOT HARM the author’s livelihood by using file-sharing sites.

  Acknowledgment

  Thanks go to my husband for brainstorming science stuff with me, to my wonderful and endlessly encouraging crit partner, Carolyn Crane, and especially to Anyta Sunday who beta-read this book and helped make it an infinitely better story. Thank you!

  Chapter One

  Then: 1808

  21st July, 1808

  Wylde Manor, Derbyshire

  James Hart lay on his belly in the grass, cupping his chin in his hands as he stared at the pond skater balancing on the surface of the lake. He was fascinated by its long, splayed legs—they looked like the bendy stalks from the cherries he’d gorged on in the orchard earlier. He couldn’t wait to tell Papa about that observation.

  He marvelled at the little creature, how it just sat there, never sinking down into the water. Those cherry-stalk legs made tiny dimples on the surface of the lake but never broke through. The water bulged around the pond skater’s feet, looking oddly solid, like the jellies that Cook sometimes made for pudding. Experimentally, James crawled forwards and stretched till he was hanging out over the edge of the bank. Moving slowly, he lowered one finger towards the water. Could he make a dimple like that? He was just about to touch the lake’s surface when a voice behind him made him jump.

  “James, what on earth are you up to?”

  Startled, he twisted round, only to yell out as he unbalanced and toppled into the lake, catching a glimpse of Iain Sinclair’s shocked expression before the water closed over his head, filling his mouth as he gasped. Luckily, it wasn’t awfully deep this close to the edge, and when his feet touched the mud, he was able to launch himself upwards. Just as he was surfacing again—ready to swim the few strokes that would take him back to the bank—there was an almighty splash beside him, and a moment later, Iain Sinclair’s head appeared.

  “Hold on!” Iain cried and reached out. He grabbed hold of James’s sleeve, causing another wash of water to swamp him. “I’ll tow you back.”

  “Get off!” James spluttered, struggling to free himself. “I’m fine. I can swim back myself.”

  “Stop fighting,” Iain scolded him, beginning to swim. “I’m trying to help you!”

  “I don’t need your help!” James shouted, lashing out. His fist struck something hard, and Iain yelled, his grip loosening. Abruptly free, James sank and had to claw his way back to the surface, gasping and kicking and pawing at the water in a messy dog paddle of a swim that shamed him.

  When he finally reached the side, he clambered out, then stood there, scowling and dripping on the bank as the older boy climbed out after him, his face like thunder.

  “I was trying to save you, you ungrateful brat!”

  A thin trickle of blood ran from Iain’s left nostril, and James stared at it, feeling appalled and amazed at the same time. Had he—nine-year-old James Hart—just bloodied the nose of this thirteen-year-old god?

  James had only met Iain for the first time two days before. Their older sisters went to the same ladies’ seminary, and their mothers knew each other somehow. Having renewed her acquaintance with her old friend, James’s mother had decided to invite the Sinclair family to visit Wylde Manor for three weeks over the summer, a fact that James hadn’t been the least bit interested in until the Sinclairs actually arrived and he discovered that as well as four daughters, they had brought a son: Iain, a tall, well-made boy with dark chestnut-brown hair and the whitest smile James had ever seen.

  Iain was fascinating. Amazing. For the first two days, James had followed him around like a lamb, hanging on his every word and admiring his swiftness and strength and cleverness. Till last night, when his sister Marianne had teased him about it and made him feel like a baby.

  That was why he’d gone off on his own this morning.

  “I didn’t need you to save me,” James said now. “I’m not a baby. I can swim.”

  “It’s nothing to do with how old you are or whether you know how to swim,” Iain snapped. “Lots of people who can swim end up drowning. It happens all the time.”

  James was about to argue with that when he noticed that Iain’s eyes were glittering, his cheeks flushed. He didn’t look angry so much as upset. As though he might cry or something awful like that. Wary now, James bit back the retort that had been hovering on his tongue and said instead, quietly, “I’m sorry about your nose. I didn’t mean to bloody it.”

  Iain frowned at that. He touched his hand to his face, groaning when he saw the blood on his fingertips. “Oh, damnation,” he groaned and began to grope in his pocket, finally pulling out a sodden handkerchief.

  He held it up, and lake water dripped out of it. “Sodden,” he said ruefully. “Just like the rest of me.” He squeezed most of the water out, then used the damp square to wipe up the blood. “Mama will be furious,” he added when he’d dealt with his nose. “This is my new coat.”

  The coat was a proper grown-up one. Iain dressed like a man in pantaloons and coat and waistcoat, not like James, who was wearing one of his
skeleton suits today. He hadn’t even thought to argue when Rose had buttoned him into this one, with its silly frilled collar, this morning. He never thought much about what he wore. But now, looking at thirteen-year-old Iain, he felt like an infant.

  “Will you be punished for it?” he asked. He tried to sound unconcerned, but in truth, he felt guilty. Iain had got wet because of James, and he didn’t like to think of the older boy getting a thrashing over it.

  “Only if Papa finds out,” Iain said with a rueful grin. “If I can sneak in, our maid, Lydia, will help me. It’ll be easier to do that if I dry the worst off just now.”

  James watched while Iain pulled off his coat and waistcoat and shirt, laying them out to dry in the sun. Though lean, Iain had broad shoulders and wiry, muscular arms. To James’s eyes, he looked much bigger and stronger than the two stable boys who were similar in age.

  “Aren’t you going to take your clothes off to dry?” Iain asked as he spread out his shirt on the grass.

  James wrapped his arms around his thin, skinny frame and hurriedly shook his head. “No,” he said. “They can dry on me.”

  If Iain had been one of James’s sisters, he’d likely have started nagging him about getting a chill or some such thing, but Iain just shrugged and continued with his task, so James returned to the edge of the lake to look in the water again.

  A minute later, Iain lay down beside him. “What are you looking at?” he asked.

  “I was watching a pond skater before I fell in,” James said, eyes still on the water. “I’m looking for another one now. Or something else good.”

  “I’d like to see that,” Iain said, which sent a sudden rush of pleasure through James. The thought of showing something to Iain that might interest him was heady indeed.

  They stared at the water together for what felt like ages. Other than the drone of insects and the occasional distant lowing of a cow, there was perfect silence. The sun shone warmly down on them, drying their damp backs, but the ground beneath them was cooler, the grass still damp from the unrelenting rain of the week before.

  “Look,” James whispered at last. He pointed carefully at the water.

  “What? I don’t see anything.”

  “It’s not a pond skater, it’s a water boatman.” James moved his finger closer, cautious not to startle the creature away. “Look, it’s under the water, lying on its back looking up at us.”

  Iain was silent for a bit, staring, then he hissed, “Yes, I see it!” He sounded excited, and James wanted to grin at having caused that excitement. He found that he didn’t want to give his pleasure away, though, so instead he peered at the water boatman even more closely, admiring the perfect oval of its little body and the symmetry of the long legs it used to propel itself around.

  “Noto-necta glau-ca,” he said haltingly into the silence.

  “What?”

  In his peripheral vision, James saw that Iain had turned his head to look at him, but James kept his gaze on the water boatman. He wasn’t just “looking at” the insect, he reminded himself—he was observing it. That was what Papa always said. James might still be wearing a lacy collar, but he wasn’t a baby playing in the mud. He was a naturalist, like Papa, and one day, when he’d studied all the species in Papa’s books, he’d find new species that no one had ever named before.

  “Notonecta glauca,” he repeated more firmly, even though he wasn’t entirely sure he was pronouncing the words properly. He added, carefully, “That’s its Latin name. It comes from the hemiptera order.”

  “The hema-what?” Iain asked. He was laughing again, but it didn’t sound like unkind laughter.

  “Hemiptera—it’s an order of the insect class. Pond skaters are in the same order as water boatmen, actually.”

  When Iain stayed silent, James finally turned to look at him, finding the older boy staring at him with what looked like amazement.

  “How old are you?” Iain asked.

  James flushed hard. He wasn’t particularly tall for his age, and with his frilly collar, he wondered how young Iain imagined he was.

  “Nine,” he replied in small voice. “Ten in January.” Too old for skeleton suits.

  “Bloody hell!” Iain exclaimed. “You know Latin better than me, and I’m thirteen!”

  Again, that rush of pleasure ran through him. Iain hadn’t been about to sneer—he was impressed.

  “I don’t know much Latin,” James replied modestly. “Mr. Brownhill hasn’t hardly taught me any yet. But I know lots of plant and animal names. I learned them from my papa.” He paused, then added proudly, “He’s a naturalist. I’m going to be one too, when I’m grown up.”

  Iain looked gratifyingly impressed at that. “My father doesn’t do anything,” he said. “Not anymore. He has the estate, of course, but Mr. Merton looks after that.”

  “What does he do all day?” James asked, genuinely puzzled. “My papa has an estate too, and he always seems busy with books and things to do with it. But he also collects specimens and looks at them through his microscope—he lets me do that with him. And he writes notes and letters to other naturalists.”

  Iain shrugged. “Mama says Papa’s a gentleman,” he said, as though that explained everything. “I don’t see him much anymore—he spends most of his time in London now. He only comes up to Northumbria now and then, and when he does, he just sits in his study and drinks.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do, when you’re grown up?” James asked, eyeing the older boy and thinking privately that it looked as though that would be very soon. Then he realised what he’d just said and blushed. “Not drink, I mean,” he said. “Be a gentleman.”

  Iain shook his head. “No, my brother Alasdair will inherit the estate.”

  “Why?” James asked. “Is he the oldest?” James was the youngest in his family, but Papa said he would inherit Wylde Manor because he was the only boy.

  “Yes,” Iain said, staring down at the lake.

  “Oh,” James said. “I didn’t realise you had a brother.”

  “I had two brothers,” Iain replied. “Till Tom died.”

  James glanced at the other boy. Iain was staring at the surface of the lake, though James had the feeling he didn’t really see it.

  “What happened to him?” he asked.

  Iain turned his head to meet James’s gaze. He looked calm.

  “He drowned.”

  James felt a horrible pang of guilt, remembering his words from before.

  I’m not a baby. I can swim.

  He stared at the older boy in horror, not sure what to say.

  Iain didn’t seem to expect him to say anything. He turned his head back to gaze at the water again. “I was with him,” he said softly. “I didn’t realise. He wasn’t thrashing around or calling out. He was just sort of bobbing there, with his mouth open.” He paused, his throat working as he swallowed hard. “Then he slipped under. It was only when he didn’t come up that I knew something was wrong. I swam down under the water to try to find him, but I couldn’t. There were lots of weeds, so it was difficult to see. I had to get out and find someone to come and help.” He paused, then added, “But of course, he was already dead by then anyway.”

  James felt like crying. He didn’t know what to say, and he worried that if he opened his mouth, he’d sob like a baby. So, he just stared at Iain with stinging eyes and waited.

  Eventually, Iain glanced at him again. “Tom could swim,” he said. “I don’t know why it happened. I was playing in the shallows, and he was playing on the rope swing, jumping off into the deep bit of the river, over and over. I only looked over because he’d stopped making any noise, and when I turned round—” He broke off and shook his head. “Well, I already told you.” He gave a soft kind of laugh, but it didn’t sound even a bit funny. More like a sad sound.

  “Sorry for being a brat before,” James whispered. “When you tried to rescue me.”

  Iain gave him a sad sort of smile. “That’s all right,” he said. Then
he sighed and said, “Why don’t you tell me about this water boatman.”

  Relieved by the change of subject, James did as Iain asked. He pointed out how much the hind legs of the insect looked like oars—hence the name—then explained about the boatman’s predilection for eating tadpoles, and its tendency to bite when attempts were made to pick it up. After a while, the insect skimmed away, and James looked at Iain again, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation.

  “So, if you’re not going to be a gentleman like your papa, what will you do?”

  Iain turned on his back and looked up at the very blue sky. It was the same colour as his eyes, James thought.

  “Papa intended me for the Church. Tom was going to join the army, as the second son. Now that Tom’s gone, I’ll probably join the army instead.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  Iain gave a small smile. “More than the Church,” he said. “Besides, I love horses. So I’ll probably join the cavalry.”

  James could see Iain as a cavalry officer. Could see this tall, handsome boy in a uniform, on a fine horse, with a sabre in his hand. Smiling that dazzling smile. The thought made his chest ache in a way he wasn’t sure he understood.

  “The only trouble with the army,” he pointed out practically, “is you have to fight in wars. You could die in battle.”

  Iain just shrugged. “There are worse things,” he said. “At least if you die in the army, everyone says you’re a hero.” He paused, adding, “And your family can be proud of you that way.”

  James wasn’t sure that having his family being proud of him would make up for being dead, but he wanted Iain to stop looking so sad, so he nodded in agreement.

  He found he didn’t like seeing that sad look on Iain’s face at all. He wanted to see excitement there again, like when he’d first pointed out the water boatman. After a brief hesitation, he said, shyly, “I know where there’s some dragonflies. Do you want to see?”