AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I see.’ She did see. It was not merely clan politics or personal preference behind the upcoming marriage, but the key to Jamie’s future.
‘I should not be telling you any of this—no one but Angus and a representative of mine in London knows the whole of it, not even McCreary. I know I can trust you not to speak of this, but I need you to understand why I cannot be there for Jamie as I would wish at the moment.’
From two inches high she felt herself begin to expand again at his confidences.
‘I will do my very best, Your Grace. But I can be of help with McCreary at least. Won’t you make use of me there?’
She held out her hand without thinking and he took it and smiled, then completed her pleasant agony by raising and brushing his lips lightly across her knuckles, his breath whispering against the sensitive skin between her fingers.
He remained like that for a moment, suspended.
‘You always smell of roses.’ The words were only a murmur. It could have been an innocuous observation, but her body reacted as if he had somehow magically made her clothes slither to the ground, her breasts tightening, readying themselves to be touched. A burst of Jamie’s laughter came from down the hall and Benneit let go of her hand and went to the door.
‘Come. Angus will likely have set aside some tarts to fortify you and Jamie on the ride back. I must still review some documents when I return to the castle, but I promise to read Jamie a bedtime story today. You may commend my obedience now, Mrs Langdale.’
She preceded him out the door, but kept her head down, still too shaken to jest. She wished she could be worldly. No doubt someone like Bella would have taken such a comment and gesture in her stride, made light of it, perhaps flirted a little and moved on. He probably thought her terribly gauche, just as she was six years ago. She tried to think of something light-hearted, but instead the question popped into her head.
‘Who is Braw Tumshie?’
‘How do you...? Oh, yes, Jamie. Come with me. I will introduce you.’
He clasped her elbow and guided her outside, round the corner of the house to a low wall with a gate with stone steps leading downwards to a stone and wood zoo surrounded by a lush garden.
‘Tumshie means turnip. The lion in the back there was named Tumshie after the shape of his head.’
The lion named turnip stood in a corner, shaded by the trees and the back of a vine-draped bower, his head a little raised as if catching a scent. His body was a combination of a gnarled trunk and slate-like stones, and his mane a fine web of interwoven branches. The eyes looked like obsidian, pitch dark but so deep she could feel their sadness. At its feet was a pile—mostly of stones, but also the broken arm of a toy, a few pieces of metal and other oddments. Clearly Jamie’s offerings.
‘Who made these marvels?’
Benneit surveyed the garden and for a moment she thought he would not answer.
‘My father built this house for my mother. She was English and loved gardens, but her efforts to bring her plants to the castle knot garden in the inner bailey failed. She brought a horticultural friend of hers here and he identified this place as the most auspicious and she decided this would be her garden retreat. After I was born she became ill and that was when my father built this house for her in the image of her childhood home. It was outrageously extravagant, but it became her retreat and now it is mine.’
‘She made these?’
‘Yes. Like Jamie, we would gather driftwood from the beaches and she would make these.’
‘And she painted the maps. She was very talented.’
‘Unfortunately. Come, we should return.’
She touched the tips of the webbed mane.
‘Why unfortunately? You should be proud.’
‘Her horticultural interests were tolerable, barely, but a Duchess of Lochmore playing with sticks and stones was not a source of pride, Mrs Langdale. It was bad enough that she was English.’
‘Is that you or your father speaking?’
The fury was so immediate she stepped back. She had not seen that expression before. She had seen him surly, annoyed, sometimes angry, but never furious. It was an answer in itself. He bent and picked up a stone and for a moment she had an absurd image of a biblical stoning of wayward, outspoken women, but he merely balanced it on the rump of a miniature horse. He did not speak, just stood turning and twisting the balanced stone, and she decided to press her advantage.
