Beatrice shook her head. Then she put a finger to her lips and cocked her head in a theatrical display of someone thinking hard. “Hmm,” she said. “Let us see. The first thing that springs to my mind is the fact that you, sir, are betrothed to a highborn woman. Promised to her, what is more, for years. Do you not think that she or her father might look at some strange English circus performer moving into your castle with somewhat of a skeptical eye?”
Jeames tried to maintain his air of incredulous disbelief that Beatrice could not see how easily she might stay in the MacKenzie castle with him.
“She would understand, once I had explained tae her the situation,” he said, mulishly.
“Oh, I’m sure she would,” Beatrice said.
How can she be so unmoved about this?
“I daenae understand this,” Jeames said, a note of frustrated anger creeping into his usually amiable voice. “If ye want tae stay, then stay!”
“Jeames!” Beatrice retorted, her own voice rising to combat Jeames’s aggrieved tones. “Jeames, you must stay here because you belong here. Your life is here. My life is out there, on the road, portioned out between a host of little towns and villages.”
“There’s nay reason why it should nae be here tae,” Jeames insisted. “If ye really wanted it tae be, it could be.”
“Oh, yes, and can you imagine how enjoyable that would be for me? It is one thing for a woman to give up all that she has known for the past fifteen years–to say goodbye to friends who are more like family now than her own parents were. But to give that life up, and then watch the person she–her only friend–marry someone else…”
What did she almost say?
Fresh tears sparkled once more in the corners of Beatrice’s lovely hazel eyes.
“That is more than is fair to ask of anyone,” she said.
Jeames ran a hand through his black hair. Scrunched his eyes up tight as he tried desperately to think of an argument against Beatrice’s leaving.
“Not to mention, what I would do if I were to stay here?” Beatrice said.
“But–but if ye were tae stay and–and–and train me faither’s horses, perhaps?” he said, scrambling for words. “Aye, what about that? If me faither employed ye tae train his nags? I’d wager that ye could train a horse a sight better than anyone else in these parts!”
Beatrice snorted derisively. She shook her head. She tilted it back and tried to blink back the tears that seemed intent on streaming down her face despite all she could do to stop them.
“Jeames,” she said. “Do not say such things to me! They’re cruel words, even if you don’t mean them to be. It is not the gentlemanly thing, to tantalize a woman with empty words of hope. I have spent more nights sleeping under canvas or the night sky than tiles or stone, and still I know this.”
“What if they were nae empty words?” Jeames insisted. “What if–”
“Stop, Jeames! Please, just stop!” Beatrice yelled. She leapt to her own feet, sending the breakfast tray crashing to the floor, its contents spilling across the stone floor and the rugs that covered it.
The two of them stood looking at each other. Beatrice was panting. Jeames could feel the muscles in his neck and shoulders straining. Both he and Beatrice had their fists balled into fists at their sides.
“Stay,” he whispered, through bloodless lips.
“Please, stop,” Beatrice said. The tears ran unchecked down her face now, though she was not crying. It seemed that hers was a hopeless and accepting sadness at a situation beyond her control.
“Stay,” Jeames said again, in defiance to her wishes.
“Do you know how much I wish I could? Do you know how much I’ve come to wish that you would ask me to, and I could accept?”
She ran her hands through her shiny brown hair.
Jeames reached out a hand to her, but Beatrice took a step back.
“No!” she said. “We can’t–this can’t happen. I’ll not allow myself to fall into the trap of hope.”
I’ll nae lose her. I will nae lose this woman. There must be some sort o’ way that we can stay taegether. Some way that won’t disgrace me, her or me clan’s reputation. But…how?
“I’m serious, Beatrice. Stay. We’ll figure out all the rest later. Ye heard me faither, he married fer love–took a floggin’ from his faither, but he did it. Why should we nae get a chance tae?”
Beatrice shook her head.
“It’s not just that,” she said. “There’s more. Things that I can’t…”
Daenae let yer head cool. Go and see yer faither. He will ken what tae dae. He’ll advise ye.
“Beatrice,” Jeames said, cutting her off. “The both of us ken that somethin’ has grown between us. There’s nay denyin’ it– be I betrothed to Margery Brùn or nae. What ye said, or almost said, in that abandoned cabin…The looks and the unspoken things we daenae say tae each other out o’ some sense of propriety…”
Beatrice stared beseechingly at him. There were more emotions and thoughts written across her face than Jeames had the time or inclination to decipher.
A rash mood was on him. He suddenly found himself not giving a damn about what anyone else thought of his feelings for this mysterious equestrienne.
Chance or Fate or Luck–whatever it was that brought her tae the clearin’ where I was sleepin’ that day, it did so fer a reason. Aye, it might be that the situation is about as hopeless as they come, but I must try. I cannae live me life forever wonderin’ whether we could have been taegether.
Jeames turned on his heel. His face was set into a mask of determination.
“I’m goin’ tae see me faither,” he said, not so much to Beatrice, as to the world itself. “I’ll nae sit idly by and watch ye leave. Nae if there’s somethin’ I can dae tae make ye stay.”
He was out in the corridor before he knew what he was doing. Driven by anger and frustration and a sort of panic.
As the door closed behind him, he thought he might have heard Beatrice let out a sob at last.
And in that sob were mingled words.
“I can’t do this to them,” Jeames thought he heard her say.
17
Jeames found his father in the stables. The Laird was rubbing down a gorgeous gray gelding, murmuring softly to it as he ran a brush down the shining, muscular flanks of the creature.
“Faither–” Jeames began.
The Laird held up a hand, stopping the tirade of words that had been on the point of pouring out of his son’s mouth as effectively as if he’d clapped the hand across his lips.
“Count tae ten, lad,” he said. “I can feel the foulness of yer temper radiating off ye like heat from a stove.”
Jeames took a breath to start cursing his father for wasting time, but then a lifetime of following the Laird’s instructions took over.
“One…two…three…” he began.
The Laird waggled a finger at him. “In Gaelic,” he said.
Jeames scowled, but his father, who was now running another brush through the horse’s mane, did not see it.
“Aon…dhà…trì…”
Although he loathed to admit it to the Laird, this simple technique of his never failed to cool Jeames’s blood.
“…ochd…naoi…deich,” he finished.
The Laird set down the brush on top of a barrel and patted the gelding on its broad cheek. Then he reached down and took up a handful of hay and tossed it into the corner of the stall that the animal occupied. Brushing off his hands, the Laird turned to his son.
“Yes, lad?” he said, smiling.
“Faither, I’ve somethin’ I need yer advice on right urgently,” Jeames said.
Some of the furious fervor had left his words, but he still felt the passion to win his father’s approval of his impromptu scheme to wed Beatrice coursing through his veins like lightning.
The Laird cocked his head to one side (a gesture that reminded Jeames sharply of Beatrice) and regarded his son through his calm gray eyes.
> “Ye’ve somethin’ tae ask me advice over, dae ye?” he mused. “I wonder why it is then, that I get the distinct impression that ye’re about tae tell me somethin’ rather than ask me somethin.”
By God, the man can read me as easy as I can read deer tracks around a waterhole.
Jeames made sure that his chin was lifted proudly and his eyes staring directly into his father’s.
“It’s about the lass, Faither–Beatrice, I should say.”
“Aye,” his father said. “Aye, I thought it might be. I recognized that fire comin’ off of ye, didn’t I just.”
The Laird sat himself down on a hay bale with a soft sigh. He gestured for his son to pull one up for himself.
The stables were empty, save for the two of them, and were imbued with that unmistakable and distinctive peace which seems to hang around all stables like a sort of golden fog. Early morning sunshine streamed in through gaps in the wooden boards that made up the wall, making patterns of light dance across the straw-strewn floor.
“Well, lad,” the Laird said, taking a deep breath of stable air, “tell me what ye came gallavantin’ down here in such haste tae tell me.”
Jeames watched some dust motes float through a stripe of sunlight. Breathed in the calming scent of horses and harness and leather wax.
“I wish I could marry her,” he said, in a level voice.
The Laird did not say anything straight away. Rather, he just sat there and appraised his son, as he might a beef steer that he had a mind to purchase. Jeames could feel himself being weighed by those astute gray eyes.
“Marry her, ye say?” the Laird asked.
“Aye.”
“Oh, aye.”
The Laird scratched at his beard. “Is it just me imagination, or aren’t ye betrothed to another lass?”
Jeames ground his teeth at his father’s flippancy.
Can he nae see how serious I am about this? How close I am tae losin’ this lass. Things are already as bleak as they could be. I’m at me wits end and he’s jestin’?
Jeames knew that his father was testing him more than he was jesting.
“Aye, Faither,” he said, struggling to keep his Highland temper under control. “Ye’re nae mistaken on that score. Lady Margery and I have long had an understandin’, that is true. However, I think ye’d be the first tae admit that the friendship between Lady Margery and I has never been what ye might call warm.”
The Laird snorted softly. “Ye’ve kenned of each other a long, long while though,” the Laird said.
“Aye, it’s like ye say, yet still I ken her heart less well than I dae that of Miss Turner.”
The Laird nodded gravely. “Maybe, maybe,” he said, in an infuriatingly noncommittal fashion.
“That helps me little,” Jeames said.
The Laird actually laughed at this.
“Help ye? Lad, the moment ye walked through the stable door I kenned that ye had made up yer mind. I may nae have kenned what it was that ye’d made yer mind up about, but it was clear that ye would nae be swayed from yer course.”
“Then why d’ye think I’m here, if nae fer yer advice?” Jeames asked, disconcerted at how easily his father had read his innermost thoughts.
The Laird shrugged and twisted an ornate silver ring on his thick finger. It had an onyx stone set into it. Jeames knew that it had been a gift from his mother.
“I’m nae sure why ye’re here, lad. Fer me blessin’ perhaps?”
Jeames thought about this.
He might be right. Tae have me faither on my side has always been of the utmost import tae me.
“Then–then ye support me decision?” he asked hopefully.
The Laird sighed. “As yer faither,” he said. “I support every decision that ye make, so long as it brings ye joy. However, as a Laird I cannot say that I advocate this course of action.”
Jeames could not believe it.
After what he went through for and with me mither!
“But – but ye like her,” he stuttered. “I ken that ye like her – Beatrice, I mean.”
The Laird raised his eyebrows. “O’ course I like the lass, Jeames. She’s as fine a conversational companion as ye could want, and bonnie tae boot. But just because I like the lass does nae mean that I think weddin’ her is a prudent move when it comes tae the MacKenzie clan.”
Jeames gaped at him with all the dignity of a salmon that’s been tossed out of the loch and onto dry land.
“That’s what it means tae be a Laird, lad,” his father continued, laying a weathered hand on Jeames’s shoulder. “Ye must sometimes put aside what yer heart tells ye tae dae, and instead listen tae yer head. Ye ken what it is I’m tellin’ ye?”
Jeames shrugged the hand away and got to his feet. He was fuming now, the unfairness of his predicament smothering his brain in a hot layer of resentment. He strode up and down and then turned his ire on the Laird, who was still sitting on the bale of hay.
“Of all the people who I thought would understand me plight, I thought that ye at least would support me!” he snarled.
“I told ye, lad, I may well support it as yer faither, but I cannae condone it as a Laird. Ye can rail and gnash yer teeth at me all ye like, but that will nae change the facts.”
Jeames threw up his hands. “What good is it bein’ a Laird, if ye cannae even set the course of yer own life? If ye cannae dae as ye wish?”
His father gave him a maddeningly patient smile. “Ye and I both ken that bein’ able tae dae what we like is just an illusion, a veneer that the people we serve never seem tae be able tae peel away. I told ye early on that our lives contain less freedom than that of the lowliest beggar. Free ourselves of our possessions we might, but we’ll always be chained tae our duty.”
Jeames shook his head vehemently.
“Nay, I will nae believe that duty should trump love. I will nae let it!”
“Might be that ye have nae choice in the matter, lad,” the Laird said in a calm voice.
Jeames thumped his fist into a sack of grain that was stacked on top of a crate. “Margery does nae even want tae marry me! I see it in her every time that I’m near her. She cares fer me about as much as she might dae the average dog that wanders into her path. She bears me presence but does nae enjoy it.”
The Laird sighed once more. “Dae ye nae think that the lass might well be assailed by just the same doubts that beset ye, and that she is told much the same thing by her faither?”
“Gah!” Jeames thumped the sack of grain twice more in his frustration.
“Love often blinds us tae all else, lad,” the Laird said to him, getting to his feet. “It leads us, like a bull with a ring through its nose, onwards without a chance tae stop and think about what we’re doin’. It’s as dangerous a force as it is bloody wonderful.”
“That doesnae help me, Faither!” Jeames growled.
His father shook his head. “Nay, I daenae s’pose it does.”
The Laird walked the length of the stable, whilst his son ran his hands through his hair and tried to think how to go about resolving this suddenly far more complex problem.
“There’s another thing, lad,” the Laird said, returning to stand in front of Jeames.
“What?” Jeames asked.
“I’ll be frank with ye, as ye’re my blood and I want tae see nay harm come tae ye…”
Jeames, in no mood to tread delicately through a conversation, said, “Out with it, Faither, if ye please.”
The Laird gave him a warning glare at this rudeness and Jeames had the good sense to look ashamed of himself.
“Well, lad, I’ll tell ye this; there is somethin’ about that lass– Beatrice–that makes me slightly uneasy in me mind.”
Jeames bridled at this. “What the devil d’ye –” he began to say.
The Laird held up an admonitory finger and Jeames subsided.
“I mean, that there is somethin’ about her that sets warnin’ bells ringin’ somewhere in me guts. It’s hard tae des
cribe, but feels most like the feelin’ ye get just afore ye’re ambushed.”
Jeames snorted and shook his head. “Ye said yerself that ye liked her–”
“Aye, and I dae,” the Laird said. “I dae like her, indeed. But I’ve the feelin’ that there is more tae her than she is lettin’ on. She poses a threat tae ye, lad.”
“A threat? Danger?” Jeames could not keep the derision from his voice. “She could nae hurt me! Look at the size of the wee lass!”
Awakening His Highland Soul (Steamy Scottish Historical Romance) Page 16