Lara Temple - Unlaced By The Highland Duke

‘Jo! Jo! Did you see that?’ Jamie struggled to snake a hand out from Benneit’s grasp and Benneit turned his head to see Mrs Langdale, cloaked but bareheaded, holding the railing as she made her way in their direction. A shaft of alarm coursed through him. She should be below decks where it was safe. He tightened his hold on Jamie, afraid he would try to run to her.

The ship pitched again and she stopped, turning to watch the surge of the wave as it closed on them. For one panicked moment Benneit thought she would let go of the railing and retreat, which would be the worst possible thing to do. But she held firm, silhouetted by the rise of spray, a grey-on-grey figure except for the flash of her flaxen hair about the elfin face raised to the elements. As the wave fell away she turned to them, but instead of the fear he expected he saw a mirror of the exultation he felt in every muscle of Jamie’s body. Her eyes were laughing and her lips parted. She looked nothing like Bella’s drab and silent cousin or the prim and proper Widow Langdale.

She managed the final yards to their more sheltered hideaway, lowering herself to sit on the deck beside the coil of rope. Her face was wet with spray, her eyelashes spearing drops of mist.

‘Do you like it, Jo?’ Jamie’s question was so loaded with yearning she laughed.

‘It is amazing . I thought the whole ship would turn over like a tortoise on its back!’

‘You should have stayed below,’ Benneit said above the roar of the wind.

‘I could not bear it any longer.’ Her hand tightened on the rope as the ship began to tip again, but her eyes were bright and laughing still. ‘It was like being inside a barrel rolling down a hill. I would rather have to run atop it than be bounced about inside.’

Jamie laughed as well and swiped the damp from his face. Benneit tucked his son’s arm back inside the cover of his cloak.

‘Here comes another, hold on.’

* * *

At some point in the hour that followed, as they were buffeted by waves coming around the sound, he began laughing with them. The sailors, hurrying about their business, gave them a wide berth. The sensible passengers were where they ought to be—cowering below decks. The weak-minded and the young and the foolish could do as they wished and be washed overboard if that was what God and Neptune willed.

The waves calmed as they approached Crinan, and Jamie snuggled deeper into the cavern of Benneit’s cloak, resting his cheek against his chest, his eyelids drooping. Benneit stroked the damp from his cheek and Jamie sighed. The clouds, too, lost their vigour, thinning and showing blue at their edges, and even the sun struck through occasionally, raising chestnut lights in Jamie’s dark hair. Benneit was so tempted to kiss his son’s head, but held back. What he did in private was different from what he showed in public. Instead he turned to Mrs Langdale.

‘Your clothes must be soaked through. You can ask Angus to bring your portmanteau so you can change before we proceed.’

It was a perfectly practical statement, but somehow it felt far too intimate. The thought of her plain grey dress soaked with sea water all the way to her skin, the spray she wiped from her pink cheeks mirrored elsewhere, soft and curved and moist... He shifted his leg and turned away, shocked by the surge of heat that struck through him at the image, the sensation of his hands joining hers in peeling back the damp fabric from her shivering skin. She made it worse by laughing, the same warm tumbling laugh like the fall of surf on the beach. He moved Jamie away slightly as if to remove him from the contamination of his thoughts.

‘It is mostly my cloak. I had no idea sailing could be so marvellous. When I return to England I would like to do so by sea if I may?’

‘If you wish.’

She struggled on to her knees and, as the ship gave a gentle roll on a swell, she pitched against his shoulder, her hand steadying herself by grasping his arm as she sank back down.

‘I’m so sorry. My leg buckled; it is all tingling.’

‘You sat too long in one position. Stretch it out,’ he advised, tightening his arms around Jamie.

She did as she was told, stretching out her legs, the damp hems of her skirts catching at her calves. She did not even notice as a sailor walking by slipped and skimmed into the railing at the sight, barely catching himself before hurrying on. Benneit looked away as well. Whatever those horrid grey gowns advertised, they were clearly not a good representation of at least part of this woman’s anatomy. Her ankles and calves were as fine and shapely as a Roman sculpture—slim, delicate lines that promised a mixture of fragility and strength. It was impossible not to wonder if the rest of her continued that promise.

‘Try to walk a little. That might help.’ It might help him at least.

She stood, thankfully leaning on the railing rather than on him. She gave a childlike little grunt, but proceeded towards the gangway to the cabins. He did not turn to watch her go, but from his line of sight he could see the sailors who had been working aft were watching her all too readily. He glared at them and they went back to their tasks.

‘Survived it fairly this time, didn’t we, lad?’

Benneit turned from the window overlooking the bay. It was a corner of comfort in the monstrosity that was Lochmore Castle—that view over the inlet and the steel and indigo sea beyond it, the fall of the cliffs towards the wide sandy shore that stretched until the rock fall crowned by the Devil’s Seat. In the afternoon there was a moment of stillness to the sight, between the winds of the morning and the excitement that always struck the water before nightfall. At this moment the elements rested, even the waves looked languid and half-hearted and he could see beyond them to the distance, to the point where his domain ended and the world began.

‘We did, Angus. I told you it would become easier as he grew older.’

‘’Tweren’t only that and you know it.’ Angus grunted as he threw back the cover of the trunk and began taking out linen.

Benneit ignored his comment and focused on Angus’s methodical actions. For such a large man his movements were graceful, but then a man who had dealt in gunpowder for many years during the war would have to be dexterous. Angus never spoke of it, but Benneit knew from another soldier from Lochmore land that the explosion that had marked Angus’s body was not his fault. Somehow, unlike so many others who returned from the war, Angus had kept his calm centre, but his very contentedness to remain at Lochmore and not stretch his horizons as he had when he joined the army was telling. Benneit never pried or pushed, but sometimes he wondered if he should.

Angus and he had always been fast friends despite the difference in their age and stations. There had been few boys his age near Lochmore and, until he was sent away to school in England, Angus had been his closest friend. And despite his parents’ concerns, every time they returned to Lochmore they picked up the threads of their friendship, disregarding time passed and social barriers.

‘You shouldn’t be doing that, Angus. That is Ewan’s duty.’

‘Clears my mind. Simple things.’

Benneit nodded and looked back out the window. Downstairs a stack of not-so-simple matters was awaiting in the estate room, alongside his long-suffering steward, McCreary.

‘You should go to The House in the morning before McDreary snares you in his net. Clear your mind,’ Angus continued behind him.

‘I might.’

‘She’ll keep an eye on Jamie.’

‘No doubt.’

‘You’ll be eating up here or downstairs?’

Benneit hesitated and Angus shut the trunk.