Awakening His Highland Soul (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance)

by Maddie MacKenna

  “Like what?” she asked. “What kind of things?”

  Jeames continued to look out on the foul swirling weather. “Well, just as this weather can be sad and beautiful at the same time, so a stag durin’ the rut can be majestic and murderous. The valleys and the hills around us can set a man free from all his cares when he walks there, but they can kill him quick as blinking if he forgets himself.”

  “You’re saying that things can embody opposites?”

  “I s’pose.”

  “Your father sounds like a wise man,” Beatrice said.

  I wonder what my father would have been like now, had he lived?

  “Aye, he is a sagacious man, fer sure.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “He told me that ye cannae have love without grief. He said that that was the very distillation o’ life in his mind.”

  Beatrice turned back to the view outside the window. “How so?” she asked.

  “I s’pose he meant that if ye lose somethin’ and daenae grieve, then ye did nae love it in the first place. He told me that anythin’, or anyone, ye love will eventually be taken from ye, but a man must ken that and love all the same. Fer it’s in the lovin’ that we find life’s greatest joy.”

  “You think that a little grief is a small price to pay for that joy?”

  “Aye, I dae.”

  They stared out into the cold, dismal weather together. Beatrice did not feel sad, whatever the Highland weather might have wanted her to feel. On the contrary, there was a quiet, warm glow of something that might have been hope burning away in her chest.

  It might very well be hope...hope at what the future might bring.

  Behind her, she felt the steady, reassuring presence of the stalwart Highlander. They were stood very close together. So close that, had she wanted, Beatrice could have leaned back and rested her head on Jeames’s chest.

  For now, though, they stood apart.

  Not touching. Not quite.

  * * *

  To Jeames’s surprise, William Ballantine visited the next day, too.

  Jeames was, once more, cordial when Ballantine was shown into his study by Ables. Jeames was already sequestered within this private room, pouring over some figures handed to him that day by one of his father’s stock agents.

  He rose when Ballantine entered, and guided him to a chair. However, he had no new tidings for the man. Indeed, he could not even show him to Beatrice’s chambers to talk with her.

  “Alas, I fear the sodden ride did her nay good, sir,” he said. “I went tae check on her this mornin’ and found her still abed with a head-cold.”

  Ballantine accepted this explanation with good grace and Jeames showed him the door, saying that he must excuse him as he had pressing business concerning the lambing figures handed him by the stock agent.

  Jeames had not lied. Beatrice was, in actual fact, in bed at that very moment. The physician was with her, applying her warm compress of herbs and honey around her throat.

  Jeames was extremely busy with his responsibilities as the Laird’s son over the next few days. Beatrice rested in bed, but Jeames made sure to have nightly reports brought to him by the physician.

  Bizarrely, Ballantine kept up his visits, even though either Jeames or the physician were obliged to rebuff him. They would tell him, politely, that Beatrice was still not in a state fit to be visited. However, the ringmaster would pop in every couple of days, asking to see his injured equestrienne, despite Jeames assuring him that he would send word the moment that Beatrice was well enough to see him.

  There is somethin’ strange with the man. Somethin’ that perhaps I am nae seein’. And why does the lass nae want tae see him if they’re as close as they both say?

  A few days later, when his duties allowed it, Jeames visited Beatrice in her chambers and told her of Ballantine’s dogged visits.

  “The man will nae heed me assurance that we shall send fer him when ye feel like ye are up tae the ask of speakin’ with him,” he said, pulling a chair up to her bedside.

  Beatrice looked a little wan. The cold that she taken had left her feeling weak and drawn and her ankle was propped on a pillow. She held her wrist close to her chest, and Jeames noticed that she tried not to move it.

  “He is a persevering man, that’s for certain,” she said.

  “I ken ye told me that ye’d like tae enjoy yer time here wi’ me– here, at me family’s castle, I mean–fer as long as ye can, but dae ye nae think that perhaps ye should talk to the man?”

  He watched Beatrice closely. His father had said to him that a truly great and successful Laird comes to read people with a steady eye. Andrew Abernathy was frequently telling his son that knowing someone’s heart was more valuable than knowing their mind.

  It seemed to him that once more she avoided his eye. She picked at the edge of her duvet, tracing the sharp line of bright sunlight that slashed across her bed through the open window. The smell of the distant pines and of wet grass wafted seductively through from outside.

  “I just don’t feel ready to face him,” Beatrice said. “Not yet. I know–I know that that must sound strange and mysterious, but being here is such a relief.”

  “Have ye come to dislike yer life in the circus, is that it?” Jeames asked, hesitantly. “Have ye had enough of horses and yer act?”

  “No, no! No, I still love what I do. It’s just…” Beatrice trailed off. Then she looked sharply at Jeames, biting her lip.

  “I just mean that, well, I feel as if I’ve let William down. Falling for the first time in all the years I’ve been riding for his circus. It is a bitter truth to try and swallow.”

  “I’m sure that Mr. Ballantine does nae blame–”

  Beatrice shook her head.

  “Please,” she said to him, and Jeames recognized a faint pleading note in her voice. “If you consider me a friend, let us not talk about it anymore.”

  Naturally, questions piled into Jeames’s head. They seemed to jostle each other as they fought their way down from his brain and danced across the tip of his tongue. They clamored behind his teeth, begging to be asked.

  Why dae ye nae just tell me what is on yer mind? I shan’t judge ye.

  How many years dae ye feel ye owe this Ballantine, generous as he may be, before ye consider the debt ye owe him fer takin’ ye in as repaid?

  His breeding won out in the end, however. He had been asked to respect the young equestrienne’s privacy, and so he would.

  He sat back in his chair. His questions were tidied away to the back of his mind.

  “We are friends,” he said. “Most definitely. So, let us dae the intelligent thing here, and take each day as it comes.”

  Beatrice bestowed upon him a look of such appreciative contentment that Jeames was pleased that he had bitten his tongue.

  “Thank you, Jeames,” she said earnestly.

  Jeames smiled and went to retrieve the backgammon board. He settled it on the bed.

  “Now,” he said. “Let’s pay nay more heed tae the past, nor worry about the future. Let’s just play a game o’ backgammon and forget about the world.”

  He winked at her.

  “And I promise nae tae let ye win this time!”

  14

  The following days were pleasantly mild for the time of year in that part of the Highlands. Jeames organized a couple of excursions outside so that Beatrice could leave her room. They were nothing as adventurous as their ride almost a week before, but Beatrice enjoyed getting out of the confines of her rooms, nonetheless.

  Of course, those suites are not exactly what anyone could consider confined. Why, I think that at least five of my wagons could fit inside the bed chamber, and I doubt the bed itself would be able to fit inside my wagon at all!

  Beatrice was touched and impressed that Jeames refrained from asking her anything more about Ballantine or the circus. She knew that it must torment his mind to some degree (the forbidden fruit always seemed the most tempting, after al
l) but he never made a single, solitary mention of either subjects.

  He really is a good man. Respectful. Calm under pressure. Generous.

  She sighed inwardly as she listed off the Highlander’s qualities.

  I’m sure that he shall make Lady Brùn an extremely happy woman…

  When she was with Jeames, it was all too easy for her to forget that the affable, exuberant Laird’s son was betrothed to another woman. He did not really ever mention the other women, which struck Beatrice as rather baffling.

  After all we talk about almost every other subject under the sun. Yet when it comes to Lady Brùn, he always tactfully changes the subject.

  She and Jeames were sat together under the spreading canopy of a rather astoundingly pretty small-leaved lime tree. They were enjoying a picnic lunch provided by the incomparably efficient Ables, in the cool dappling shadows by its trunk.

  “Do you know,” Beatrice said, pushing aside the nagging and disappointing thoughts of Margery Brùn, “I do not think that I have seen this type of tree anywhere, but in this garden. Not since we left England and entered Scotland, at any rate.”

  Jeames raised an eyebrow at the observation and continued peeling the boiled egg in his hands. “Aye,” he said. “Tis a rare tree, this one. There are nae many in the Highlands–nae many in Scotland even.”

  “How do you come to have one growing here?” Beatrice asked, carving a slice off of an apple and popping it into her mouth.

  “A Laird–I forget who, so daenae ask–many, many years ago brought it hence. This particular tree, it’s said, is a holy tree and can ward away evil spirits.”

  Beatrice took another slice of apple, chewed thoughtfully and then said, “Do you believe that?”

  Jeames took a bite of the egg and let his eyes run up the trunk of the small-leaved lime and into its spreading boughs above.

  “I ken that there is much that I daenae understand,” he said simply. “Who’s tae ken whether this tree has such properties? Who really has the knowin’ of whether there are evil such things as evil spirits? At the end o’ the day, there’s nae a man nor woman alive that can say for certain one way or another.”

  Jeames popped the rest of the egg into his mouth.

  Beatrice thought about these words. “You’re quite right, Mr Abernathy,” she said. “But it is nicer, is it not, to think that the tree does watch out for evil spirits.”

  Jeames took a sip from the water-skin. “My thoughts exactly, Miss Turner,” he said.

  They lapsed into silence. Both of them content to sit and listen to the sounds of the bees droning above them, enticed to the tree by its sweet-smelling flowers.

  “It’s very valuable, ye ken,” Jeames said, after a few moments.

  “Pardon?” Beatrice asked. Her thoughts had been wandering dangerously close to the sore subject that was Margery Brùn again. The thought of her was painful, in a dull way, but Beatrice could not help but go back to examine it. It was very much like when she had had a sore tooth as a girl: despite the stabbing discomfort, she had been unable to resist probing at it with her tongue.

  “I said, the tree is very valuable,” Jeames said.

  “Why?”

  “Because of its timber. It doesnae warp like most other woods. It’s a living fortune, this tree is.”

  “How has it managed to survive for so long, if it could have made one of the Lairds a heap of coin?” Beatrice asked.

  “I s’pose that just because a person can do somethin’ doesnae mean that they should dae it,” Jeames replied.

  He sighed deeply. Beatrice got the impression that the Scot had something gnawing away at the back of his mind.

  Emboldened by how close they had become in so short a time and, more pertinently perhaps, by the skin of wine they had shared with their meal, Beatrice asked the question that had been niggling at her all day.

  “Jeames, why is it that ye never talk of Lady Margery?”

  She was laying on her back, on the woolen rug that Jeames had brought along with the picnic basket, staring up at the swaying branches above her. She could not see his expression. She heard the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing catch for an instance, though.

  “Talk about her?” Jeames asked.

  “That’s right.”

  Now that Beatrice had broached the subject, she suddenly felt a lot braver about discussing it.

  “With all due respect tae ye, Beatrice, there’s nae much tae talk about, regardin’ Lady Margery.”

  A frown creased Beatrice’s forehead.

  If this conversation was taking place under the canvas roof of the circus, I wouldn’t be having to tread delicately around the issue like this. Are common folk coarser, or do we just have less patient when it comes to these sort of games?

  “Of course there’s something to talk about,” she said. “How could there not be? You’re betrothed, aren’t you? Surely that is worth talking about?”

  Jeames did not answer, but Beatrice could feel him squirming on the rug.

  “Aye,” he said, somewhat stiffly. “We are betrothed, that’s true.”

  “Well?” Beatrice asked.

  “Well, what?”

  Beatrice rolled her eyes and propped herself up on her elbows. She winced slightly as she shifted her wrist.

  “How did you meet? How did it all come to be? Tell me the story, Jeames.” Beatrice raised a shapely eyebrow at him. “You said we were friends, didn’t you? What are friends if you cannot talk to them about such things?”

  Jeames let out another heartfelt sigh, which Beatrice would not have been surprised to see rustle the leaves above their heads.

  “Well, truth tae tell, there’s nae much to the story,” he said. “We both are the the only offspring of our parents. Both our faither’s are powerful Lairds in their own rights. We’ve kent each other since we were bairns, and I believe that the pact between our faithers was made early.”

  “Why so early?” Beatrice asked.

  “It’s a fine way tae ensure peace between two clans, betrothin’ two heirs to one another.”

  “And, um, how do you get on?” Beatrice asked, the wine not completely robbing her of her sense of class distinction.

  This man is, when you look at it straight on, the heir to some of the finest land in the Scottish Highlands, and you… Well, you can ride a horse quite well.

  “After knowing each other for so many years, surely there is a strong friendship between you, if nothing warmer?”

  Beatrice was a perceptive woman. You had to have a sensitivity when it came to the feelings of other creatures if you wanted to be a truly good equestrienne. She could feel Jeames’s struggle, as he strove to speak his heart to her, without speaking ill of the lady in question.

  “Lady Margery is…Lady Margery has…The thing about Lady Margery is that…”

  Beatrice lay a hesitant hand on Jeames’s shin.

  “Excuse me for saying so, Jeames,” she said. “But it does not seem to me that you know Lady Margery any better than I do.”

  Jeames looked down at Beatrice’s hand. Her tanned skin contrasting fetchingly with the green of his kilt hose.

  Then he started to laugh. Slowly and quietly at first, but sooner spluttering and coughing quite loudly.

  It was such an infectious and jolly sight that Beatrice found herself unable to do anything but join in.

  “Ah, good grief!” Jeames gasped after a few moments. “Strike me dead, but if ye aren’t the most muddlin’ and bold woman that I’ve ever met, Beatrice Turner!”

  “I rather hope that that is meant as a compliment in your strange and uncouth Scottish way?” Beatrice teased him.

  Jeames took a deep breath. “Oh, aye,” he said. “Aye, absolutely. I cannae think of any higher praise than that, I daenae think.”

  They looked at each other for a long while, tears of mirth sparkling in each other’s eyes.

  Running her gaze over the handsome, rugged face of the Highlander, Beatrice felt something stirrin
g within her breast. A new feeling that brought to mind visions of a golden fern frond uncurling. It was something fresh and new and good, something that she had not felt before in her life. It scared her and enthralled her in equal measures.

  Oh goodness, this could make things much more complicated. What did Jeames say that his father told him? Where there is love, there is grief also?

  * * *