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And enjoying himself.
To be fair, since Jo had relieved him of the need to sit with McCreary over the accounts, the least he could do was spend some of that freed time with Jamie.
He wasn’t quite sure what he thought of Jamie’s insistence Jo accompany them even when he was present. He should find some politic way of reminding Jamie, and her, that she would not be staying. In a couple of weeks she would be gone and it would be only him and Jamie again. At least until he married.
He looked past them to the sea. It was calm today and the sun was shining. His project was proceeding apace, the engineers had approved the location and plans, and the banks received the investors’ funds. What had seemed a very precarious gamble just weeks ago now appeared not only feasible but sensible. He had everything to be grateful for and no reason to feel as if the world was closing in on him.
He turned his gaze from the horizon to the woman standing with his son on the beach. The hems of her skirts were dark and heavy with sea water and her hair was a tangle of wisps as the north wind made a mockery of her prim coiffure. She did not look much like Mrs Langdale, but more a girl herself, caught up in Jamie’s avid search for exotic discoveries. She looked like part of the Scottish landscape—an unyielding stoicism which hid a raw wildness. It was a peculiar combination. She was a peculiar combination. He had not understood her six years ago and he was not certain he was any closer today.
Not that he had bothered trying to fathom her peculiarity when he had met her that year he fell in love and wed Bella. But even then he had been aware she was different, a cuckoo in the cushy Uxmore nest—strange and strange-looking with her unrelenting grey eyes that would dip downwards in mock modesty. He had always felt uncomfortable around her. Rather as if a whole Greek chorus had entered the room and everyone was tensely awaiting its verdict.
She was definitely still a cuckoo, or a changeling, but at least now he could see that he had been quite correct to feel uncomfortable around her. All that thinking and feeling tamped under her prim exterior... He only wondered how she had kept her tongue safely between her teeth among the Uxmores.
‘Papa, look!’ Jamie held aloft what looked like a curved piece of metal, covered in slime and barnacles. ‘It’s a giant’s soup bowl from the Mosquito Coast!’
He met Jo’s laughing gaze and smiled.
‘I’m not eating out of that, thank you, Jamie.’
Jamie laughed and set it aside, plunging elbow deep into the mess of kelp. Jo stood, shaking out her skirts. They flopped wetly against her legs and she sighed, wiping her hands on them.
‘Beth and Mrs Merry will despair of me. Yesterday my other dress was rent from the brambles near the copse.’
‘Throw the blasted thing away,’ Benneit suggested and Jamie giggled.
‘You said blasted, Papa.’
‘So I did. But you are not allowed to say blasted until you are one and twenty.’
Jamie nodded and inspected Jo’s dress.
‘Papa should buy you a new dress like Aunt Morag said.’
‘Excellent thinking, Jamie. A consensus is forming.’ Benneit considered and rejected the idea of telling her he had already asked Mrs Merry to provide Angus with measurements the very day she agreed to stay at Lochmore. She had made no request, but it was clear she had almost no luggage when she arrived and it was unfair she had to stretch her meagre wardrobe for a whole month. Besides, he would not mind seeing her in something other than these grey sacks.
‘Nonsense. This is a perfectly serviceable dress,’ she replied.
‘Try for a little conviction, Mrs Langdale.’
‘Well, it is. Cousin Celia kindly had three such dresses made for me the winter I came to stay with her and they are very useful for travelling.’
‘Cousin Celia wouldn’t know a kindness if it popped out of her morning cocoa and bit her on the nose. She was securing your guilt even as she made you wear this unsightly uniform.’
Perhaps that was a trifle harsh, but she did not seem offended, she merely sighed and detached a strand of kelp from the hem.
‘Are you talking about Aunt Celia, Papa?’ Jamie asked and at that Jo sent Benneit a frowning look.
‘No, your father was talking of another Celia, Jamie.’
