“What does it mean?” Beatrice asked.
“The Reflection Garden, more or less.”
Beatrice looked around herself. The darkness drained much of the color that would doubtless have been in profusion during the day, but only went to emphasize the scents that pervaded the air. Beatrice thought she might recognize a couple of the perfumes; there was most definitely honeysuckle scaling the wall to her right, and she thought there might be some tufted vetch nearby.
They walked slowly about the garden, Jeames following Beatrice as she investigated little nooks and crannies.
“What is this little beauty?” she asked him, kneeling down to inspect a lovely flower she could just make out by the light of the moon. It had five white petals surrounding a golden center.
“Smell it,” Jeames told her, kneeling down beside her. He carefully plucked one of the flowers, taking care not to disturb the entire bush too much and held it out to her.
It looks all the more delicate in his strong, callused fingers.
Beatrice leaned forward, holding Jeames’s hand and sniffed at the flower. It smelled exactly life fresh honey taken straight from the apiary.
“Oh my, it’s wonderful!” she said, her lips brushing Jeames fingers.
“Aye, it was one of me mither’s favorites,” Jeames said, his dark eyes sparkling with memories and moonlight. “Grass of Parnassus it is called.”
“Who or what was Parnassus?” Beatrice asked him.
“It’s a mountain in Greece. It has two sacred peaks; one devoted to Apollo, the god of the Sun, and the other to Dionysus, the god of wine, pleasure, vegetation, and some other things I cannae recall just now. Legend has it that these flowers were much beloved by the cattle there.”
“They are beautiful,” Beatrice said.
She could feel Jeames eyes on her, boring into her, reaching for her thoughts and feelings.
“Beautiful,” he agreed.
They walked about the garden, stopping here and there so that Jeames could point out some flower of other; English stonecrop, maidenpink, fairy flax, and haresfoot clover.
“This is lady’s bedstraw,” Jeames pointed out, as they turned a sharp corner and Beatrice saw that the path ran out. They had come to a final space in the middle of which was set a statue of a woman, surrounded by a mass of flowers with dense fluffy heads that, though they looked silver in the moonlight, Jeames told her were golden yellow.
“Honey again!” Beatrice said, taking a deep breath.
She turned her playful hazel eyes on Jeames. “And why, sir, would you bring me to see a flower called lady’s bedstraw first, may I ask?”
Jeames grinned. “Ach, nay! Are me motives that transparent?”
Beatrice grinned back.
“Tis true that we used tae stuff matresses wi’ this sweet-smellin’ flower,” the Highlander said.
Beatrice noticed his mischievous smile had softened slightly and taken on a sad edge.
“But, this,” and Jeames indicated the statue. “Is where me and Faither likes tae think me mither’s spirit dwells.”
Beatrice suddenly understood. “That’s your mother?” she said.
“Aye.”
Without realizing that she had done it, Beatrice took the Scotsman’s hand in hers and clasped it firmly.
“And I thought that I might bring ye here so that she could meet ye.”
Beatrice looked at the statue. “Why me?” she asked.
Jeames sighed and turned to Beatrice. Her heart was struck by the tenderness in his eyes.
“Ah, she always had a bit of a sticky beak–always wanted tae ken what most occupied me mind.” He smiled at the memory. “Now she kens what occupies me mind these days.”
Beatrice did not know how to reply to this, so she simply squeezed Jeames’s hand.
“Beatrice?” Jeames asked.
“Yes?”
“Would ye care to have a wee nightcap wi’ me?”
Beatrice swallowed. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I would.”
Still holding hands, the two of them walked back through the perfumed oasis of the garden and into the castle.
They were halfway across the cavernous, dimly lit space of the entrance hall, heading for the stairs, when a polite cough sounded from out of the shadows.
“Ah, my my, what a sight for sore eyes!” came the deep, subterranean baritone. It was a voice made for the stage. A voice that Beatrice would have recognized anywhere.
She whirled about, detaching herself from Jeames’s arm as she did so.
“William!” she cried.
Mr. William Ballantine strode dramatically out of the shadows, where he had been sitting in a low armchair by a huge boar skin that was hanging on the wall.
“Mr. Ballantine,” Jeames said, clearing his throat and trying to rearrange his face from a sort of giddy joy at walking with Beatrice into one of polite reserve that befitted the son of a Scottish Laird. “I was nae made aware of yer presence, sir.”
“No,” Ballantine said. His face was lit by a wide smile and his eyes were fixed on Beatrice’s face. “No, I do beg your pardon, but I confess that I told your man, Ables, that I would see myself out. Then I stayed, as I could hear what sounded like the culmination to a rather splendid sounding meal taking place and thought that I might catch a glimpse of my dear Beatrice. And look, here she is!”
Ballantine stepped forward and clasped Beatrice by the shoulders.
Beatrice smiled up into the tall ringleader’s face.
It is good to see those familiar features.
“Hello, William,” she said.
“Hello, my dear,” Ballantine replied. “I see that you’re well on the mend, though not completely well yet?”
Beatrice saw a glint in the man’s eye at these words.
“Not wholly so, perhaps,” she said.
Ballantine turned to Jeames.
“I see that ye have been taking especial care with my star, sir,” he said. “I thank you.”
“It has been nae trouble whatsoever,” Jeames managed.
Despite Ballantine being the Scotsman’s social inferior, the ringleader somehow exuded a special kind of majesty that eclipsed that of the Laird’s son.
“No,” Ballantine said, “I imagine it hasn’t. Beatrice is as tough as they come, as I told you before. As hard-working a young woman as had ever set foot in a ring, I wager. Not only that, but I love her as a daughter. I am in your debt for how you have looked after her.”
Jeames, still caught on the back foot, said nothing. He raised a deprecating hand. “Not a prob–”
Ballantine cut smoothly across him, surfing over his words like a seabird does a swell out in the ocean. “I would deem it a singular favor, Beatrice,” he said, in his deep earnest voice, “If you would consent to sit and talk with me a while.”
He cast an eye at Jeames. “In private, if that would be agreeable with you, sir?”
“Of–of course,” Jeames stuttered. “We’d just taken a turn around the gardens, the weather bein’ so agreeably clement. Please, Beatrice kens the way.”
Jeames gestured to the passageway that led off from the hall, the one that he and Beatrice had just come down. Then he nodded at Beatrice, holding her eye for a moment longer than, perhaps, was proper.
“Goodnight, Miss Turner,” he said.
Then he was gone, his heavy footfalls echoing off the stone flags and the corridor walls. William turned to Beatrice, held out an arm in much the same way as Jeames just had.
“Shall we, my dear?” he said.
16
Jeames rose with the sun the next morning. The pit of his stomach was filled with a sort of nervous apprehension, almost as if he had swallowed a heaped teaspoon of bees.
He had not slept well at all. His thoughts had been filled with Mr. Ballantine.
I wonder what he wanted with Beatrice. What had he spoken tae her about?
He had lain on his luxurious feather mattress, but sleep had not come until very late. Even after the few
hours of rest that he managed to glean, he did not feel refreshed. His thoughts had simply started up from where they had left off. Running over the ways in which Ballantine might decide to take Beatrice away.
Not away. Home. Dae nae forget that she is a guest here. And ye, ye are betrothed tae Lady Margery.
After he had risen and dressed, he tried to pass the couple of hours before he would usually have visited Beatrice by reading and taking a stroll about the castle grounds.
He stopped in at the kitchens and procured himself a freshly baked roll slathered with butter and honey and walked about muttering distractedly to himself.
When he finally thought that it might be a suitable hour at which to call on Beatrice, Jeames walked by the kitchens once more and picked up a tray of breakfast food. He then made his way to her chambers and knocked on the door.
To his gratification, Beatrice answered almost immediately and Jeames let himself in.
It looks as if I were nae the only one who struggled tae find sleep last night.
Beatrice was sitting in one of the low and comfortable armchairs by the glowing embers of the fire. The fact that she was attired in a fresh dress pointed towards the fact that she had slept and got changed, but there were also dark smudges under her eyes.
Jeames set the tray on the table at her elbow.
“Ye slept restlessly last night?” he asked. He realized that he might have phrased the question a little more delicately once he had spoken the words.
Beatrice did not seem to mind, however.
“No,” she replied simply, without looking at him.
Jeames eased himself down into a vacant chair and looked at the equestrienne carefully.
“I brought ye some breakfast,” he said.
Ye fool, she can see well enough that ye brought her food.
Beatrice did not answer. She continued to stare at the stonework above the fireplace; her expression vacant, her eyes twitching in a way that made Jeames think that she was seeing things in her mind’s eye.
“I spent me evenin’ tossin’ and turnin’ as well,” he ventured. “I daenae ken what could have caused it…”
Clumsy, lad. Very clumsy. Ye both ken well enough why ye would have enjoyed such a broken slumber.
Beatrice made no answer again, and so Jeames had one last stab at making conversation. “Ye should eat,” he advised. “Ye’ll feel better fer it. I did.”
Finally, Beatrice turned from whatever had been holding her attention on the wall and looked at him with a slightly glazed stare.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “What were you saying, Jeames?”
Jeames gave her an encouraging smile. “I said that ye should eat, lass,” he replied. He indicated the tray by her side. “I made sure that there were some good Scotch kippers fer ye this morning. Eat them afore I dae, eh?”
Beatrice blinked and reached for a bit of bread. She flaked some kipper out of its skin with a knife, buttered the bread and then added the smoked fish. Then she sat looking at the piece of bread for a while.
“Eat, Beatrice,” Jeames said, a slight crease between his eyes the only outward sign of his concern. “Eat and then tell me what is so occupyin’ yer mind.”
Beatrice shrugged and popped the morsel of food into her mouth. She chewed slowly and swallowed. Then she turned her tired hazel eyes on Jeames.
“You cannot tell me that you can’t hazard a guess at what it is that has kept both of us up half the night, surely?” she asked in a weary voice.
Jeames shifted in his chair. “Aye,” he said, searching the exhausted young woman’s face with his eyes. “Aye, I can hazard a guess. Though, I think that what kept me up might be slightly different as tae what kept ye awake.”
Beatrice nodded and broke off another piece of bread. “Speak plainly, Jeames. Let’s not confuse each other more than necessary with riddling words.”
Though her words were short and to the point, Beatrice’s tone was still friendly under the tiredness.
“Well, in that case, Miss Turner,” Jeames said. “I think that the obvious answer is that I was kept awake by all the things that I imagined ye and Mr. Ballantine might talk about, whereas ye were kept from sleep by what he actually said tae ye.”
Despite her evidently lackluster mood, Beatrice gave Jeames a small smile.
It cannae be usual, tae feel as if ye have been given a gift just by someone smilin’ at ye.
“Well, I’d say that you’re definitely close to the mark with that insight, Mr. Abernathy,” she said. “Not in the gold though. I was hoping for something a little less general in your observation.”
“Ah, well, ye see, I might nae appear it at first,” Jeames said, a slightly mocking smile playing around his own lips. “But I’m very prone tae superstition, and I didnae want tae get tae close tae the mark in case I somehow made me guess come true.”
Beatrice swallowed another piece of kipper. The crooked smile that she wore faded slightly from her lips. She gave Jeames a look that seemed to pierce him clean through.
“What was your guess?” she asked him.
“Me guess was that Mr. Ballantine had come tae tell ye that the circus was movin’ on,” Jeames said softly. To his embarrassment he found that his voice had a slightly husky edge to it. He cleared his throat. “He came last night tae tell ye that it was time fer ye tae go.”
To his utter consternation and disappointment, Jeames watched as Beatrice’s eyes filled with tears. It was a grievous thing to see in a young woman so resilient and strong.
Jeames had absolutely no idea what to say.
There’s as sure a sign as any that me guess was as close tae bein’ right as makes nae difference.
Beatrice pressed her lips together. It looked to Jeames as if she were willing herself not to start sobbing, taking some time to get her body under control. She was shaking slightly, as if she was being wracked internally by the sobs that she would not allow to escape into the open.
After a moment or two, Beatrice swallowed and sniffed. A couple of tears tracked down her face, but she dashed them away with the back of her hand.
“So,” Jeames croaked, in a voice that sounded unlike his own. “I s’pose that me guess was closer tae the mark than I thought?”
Beatrice exhaled and took a steadying breath.
Jeames’s heart seemed to sink into the soles of his boots as she gave a brief nod.
“I would–I would hear ye say it, if ye would, Beatrice,” he said in his raspy and strained voice.
Beatrice gazed imploringly at him. Jeames–although it might just have been wishful thinking on his part–almost got the impression that she was trying to communicate something to him through her eyes alone.
“Yes,” she said. “You’re right.” She tried, bravely, to smile. “Although, if you’ll allow it, William said that we could have until the end of the week until I had to go…”
The end of the week…And then what? She’ll be gone? Lost along some road or other?
A belligerent streak of stubbornness resided in every Highlander, and Jeames Abernathy was no different.
Faced suddenly with losing this woman, this refusal to accept the obstacle that Fate had laid in his path blazed up in him. He had come to care for Beatrice far more than he would have thought possible, after waking up to find her watching him through the trees that day in the wood, and he rebuffed the idea of letting her go without a fight.
“If I allow it?” he said, allowing his exasperation at her words to get the better of him for the moment. “O’ course, I’d allow it, lass. Allow ye tae stay fer the remainder o’ this week. I’d just as much have ye stay fer the remainder o’ the year.”
Beatrice smiled at him. “And I’d rather stay until then, too,” she said.
“Then why dae ye nae stay then?” Jeames blurted out, his voice bouncing off the stonewalls of the room. “Why nae stay fer as long as ye like? It’d be nae trouble, and–before ye say it–it’d be nae imposition either. Ye saw how highl
y me faither thinks of ye. One more person in this great castle is nae goin’ tae make any difference…”
He realized that he had started gabbling. He also became aware that he had, at some point, got to his feet.
Beatrice was looking at him with a mixture of wonder and humor on her face. She smiled sadly.
“If only it was that simple,” she said.
“How is it nae?”
Awakening His Highland Soul (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance) Page 15