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Jo returned to Benneit’s chair at the desk. She brought the maligned ledger back to face her and stared at it blindly.
In less than a day her life was transformed. She was a magical mouse and her Summer’s Solstice transformation was far better than any devised in her mind. Benneit had saved her life, danced with her and shown her a level of bliss she had not the slightest idea existed. It was thrumming through her like a chaotic mixture of the elements, jostling and dragging her towards what was either heaven or hell and she did not care. By some wondrous magic he wanted her. Perhaps the magical Minerva existed after all and had placed a spell on him? She laughed at the absurdity, but it was only marginally less fantastical than the thought that he wanted her...and with such passion. Or did all the women he enjoyed feel just this heat? See that blaze of lust in his eyes as they mutated from jade to razor-edged emerald?
She shut her eyes and brought back the image of Benneit leaning over her, his gaze and then his body scorching and devouring. It might be wrong, but she wanted it so very badly. She wanted him. She wished he had taken her right here in the study. Anywhere he wished.
Another image came—of Benneit with her on the Devil’s Seat, the stone warm and hard beneath her bare back, the grating of sand as their legs... She breathed deeply, blinking it away.
He was breaking through every one of her defences, but she still ought to be careful with her fantasies. She would see him tomorrow, but it would be in the home of the woman he was already pledged to, formal engagement or not. She must not begin to imagine a future with him. He was offering her a very temporary affair, that was all. He was on edge, concerned about his future on so many levels, and she was conveniently there, a distraction.
Worse, a convenience.
A convenience, again.
How useful you are, Jo. How accommodating, how soberly utilitarian, how...stupid.
Falling in love with Benneit Lochmore was the very definition of stupidity.
In love.
There was no hiding from that truth any longer. It wasn’t only the joy he gave her, it was him. He had brought her back to life, like a house re-inhabited, doors and windows set open to the world, light streaming in so she could see herself and, strangely enough, through his eyes she liked what she saw, even the flaws of faded carpets and outmoded furniture. She wanted so desperately to do the same for him, make him see himself as she saw him—complex, generous, troubled, honourable and so full of the feeling he kept it deep underground, like a shameful secret. She wanted to make him happy.
She might be stupid, but she was also blissfully, foolishly alive. And terrified.
Chapter Twenty-Six
This carriage ride from Lochmore to McCrieffs’ was utterly different from the ride from London just a few weeks ago. She was different. She had grown up more in these weeks than in the past two years.
Jamie was different, too. He leaned against her unashamedly as they wove stories together about the stark countryside they passed. Her heart ached, but she didn’t once consider putting him away from her. She knew it was wrong of her to go to the McCrieffs’, but she did not want to lose a single moment of Benneit’s and Jamie’s company.
‘There’s the McCrieff keep!’ Jamie bounced on the carriage seat, looking very neat and proper and grown up. He had not even kicked off his shoes and he reached up to touch the hair Nurse Moody had slicked to one side. She looked out the carriage window at the structure now partially visible as they came down a rise. She could not see much of the keep through the window, but though it looked smaller than Lochmore, it gave the same impression of heavy stone and glum foreboding.
‘Oh, and there is Papa!’
Jo turned to follow his pointing finger and saw the men on horseback coming down from the rise behind the keep. Benneit was immediately recognisable, taller and much darker than the other men. Her body lit from inside with a harsh snap of nerves, crowding with memories of his body, his touch. She turned to inspect Jamie, busying herself with him and calming her breathing as the carriage drew to a halt.
‘Papa!’
Jamie launched himself at Benneit as he opened the carriage door and over Jamie’s dark hair she met his gaze, warm with pleasure and, despite her pain, she smiled back. In her mind she closed that circle by reaching out and taking Benneit’s hand. In a world of her making that would be her right. This would be her family. But it wasn’t and within moments she was being led away by a maid while Jamie and Benneit remained with the McCrieff brothers.
