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‘Jamie was so happy to come here and he clearly adores these sculptures. He sees all this for what it truly is—a wonder. It lit him up from inside when we found the perfect treasure to bring to the turnip lion. Don’t turn that into something shameful for him as he grows.’
‘Do you know I considered sending you back to London in Carlisle, Mrs Langdale?’
‘Only in Carlisle?’
‘Blast you, Jo. Why can you not mind your own business?’
‘I won’t say another word.’
‘I would as soon believe Napoleon is delighted to find himself on St Helena as believe that,’ he muttered, but the anger was gone and he gestured back towards the house.
Jamie jumped down from his seat by a laden table in a lovely room with a view of the sea. She smiled reassuringly at him, but it was his father’s face he sought and Benneit swung him into his arms.
‘Have you eaten it all or left us anything, Jamie?’
Jamie’s face relaxed, his arms curving cautiously around his father’s neck. Benneit sat with him on the window seat and extracted the stone from his pocket.
‘Now show me the dragon’s eye again. Here in the light.’
Jo sat silently as Jamie’s pent-up worry spent itself in a tumble of chatter. Benneit listened, his eyes on his son, half-smiling, but there was a look in his eyes that brought a bruising ache to Jo’s heart. She wondered if the sadness she saw there was for Jamie, himself, Bella, or perhaps all of them.
How much did he miss her glorious, beautiful cousin? She had always presumed he must be heartbroken to lose someone so lovely and accomplished and charming and...perfect, but with each passing day she found it harder and harder to reconcile the Benneit before her with Bella’s husband.
‘Will you pour, Mrs Langdale?’
She started and glanced up at Angus as he placed the tea tray on the table.
He was smiling and there was a complicity in his blue eyes that made her smile back.
‘With pleasure, Angus.’
* * *
In the end Benneit chose to ride back with them to the castle. Jamie rode in the lead, stopping his pony occasionally to search for more treasures. The sun was directly overhead and the flat, flat sea looked so inviting she wished they could just keep riding straight into it.
‘Can one swim here?’ she said into the silence and Benneit laughed.
‘If you don’t mind freezing your... If you don’t mind freezing. This isn’t Brighton.’
She sighed.
‘I went swimming once with Alfred. In Torquay. We went there right after our marriage and it was wonderful. There is nothing like it. I wish I could do that again, even just once.’
He did not answer, just paused where the path was closest to the cliff and looked out over the stretch of sea. She stopped as well, wondering if she had said something wrong. Perhaps she had reminded him of his own marriage and loss. The thought doused her pleasure.
‘Lady Theale said she plans to find you a husband,’ he said to the horizon.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Lady Theale said...’
‘No, I heard you, I merely... Did she?’
His mouth softened once more. ‘Don’t glare at me. I am merely repeating what she said.’
‘How generous of her.’
‘She should find you a prince. You do a marvellous impression of affronted royalty.’
‘No, she should find herself something more productive to do than meddle in...’ She snapped her mouth shut.
‘My sentiments precisely. As they were one morning three weeks ago when she dropped you on my doorstep.’ His smile took the sting out of his words.
‘You can always drop me right back. The moment you wish me to leave, you have merely to say so.’
‘Prickly, prickly,’ he admonished, laughing, his eyes as green as the hills behind him, softening the austere planes of his face. A wave of answering happiness swept through her, shocking her. It was both foreign and utterly familiar, tossing her back years and years to warm summer afternoons playing with her friends in the orchard behind the vicarage.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Do you know, I don’t believe I ever saw you smile once all during that Season in London, which is a pity. It is a potent entity, that smile. Were you afraid of stealing Celia and Bella’s suitors away if you did?’
