Chapter 6
A week after Miss Beauchamp entered the household, Jamie noticed that the manor had begun to sound inhabited again.
Noise moved through the house, different from the typical sounds of servants crossing passages, grates being cleared, and doors closing.
Suddenly, the children laughed in the schoolroom.
Clara sang in the kitchen while she kneaded bread. Doors opened and shut with purpose. Light, energetic footsteps moved toward errands, lessons, and meals instead of along the same tired paths.
He told himself the change disturbed him. He preferred that explanation.
Logan appeared in the doorway of the study without knocking. That habit was not new. Jamie had accepted it as inevitable.
“You are lurking again,” Logan said.
Jamie did not look up from the ledger. “I am working.”
“You have been staring at the same column for twenty minutes.”
“I am thinking.”
“About the ledger?”
“About the noise.”
Logan leaned against the doorframe. “The laughter, you mean.”
“The disruption.”
“The laughter,” Logan repeated, pleasantly and without any intention of correcting himself. He crossed into the room and settled into the chair across the desk with the ease of a man who had not been invited and did not require an invitation. “The children have asked to go to the shore.”
Jamie looked up. “Have they?”
“Miss Beauchamp planned a lesson. Tide pools, coastal plants, shells.” Logan folded his hands in his lap. “She asked the children yesterday what they most wanted to learn, and the outing grew from that. Duncan was more alert than he has been in months. Maisie had opinions about seaweed.”
Jamie frowned. “I was not informed.”
“You were present when she asked the children,” Logan said. “In the corridor. You were listening from outside the schoolroom door.”
Jamie’s expression did not change. He returned his gaze to the ledger. “I was passing.”
“You were listening.”
“I was passing.”
Logan accepted this with visible patience. “I have offered to accompany them. Clara is packing a lunch and could use help carrying it down to the shore.”
Jamie looked up again. The look was deliberate. “Then help her carry it.”
“I intend to.” Logan remained composed. “I mentioned it in case you wished to come.”
“I have no interest in tide pools.”
“No.”
“I have work.”
“You have the same column of figures you have been staring at for twenty minutes.”
Jamie set his pen down. “I am not going to the shore to watch a governess teach my wards about seaweed.”
Logan answered by waiting. His silence filled the study better than argument could have done.
Jamie disliked that silence because Logan knew how well it worked.
“I have not slept properly,” Jamie said, after a longer silence than he would have preferred.
“No,” Logan agreed.
“The night walking does not help. I need clear air.”
“You do.”
“That is the only reason I would go.”
“Naturally.”
Jamie pushed back from the desk. “Tell Clara to pack extra bread. The children eat more than she expects.”
Logan stood with a smile he was only barely containing. “I will tell her.”
“And stop looking like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you have accomplished something.”
“I have only relayed information,” Logan said, and left before Jamie could find a satisfactory response to that.
The path to the shore crossed the far edge of the grounds. It descended through rough grass toward the cliffs. Before the first salt air reached him, Jamie had already decided the outing was a mistake.
Then the smell of the sea hit him properly.
He stopped on the path. Salt, cold wind, and open water reached him before he could guard against memory. The scent belonged to the life he had left, and neither ledgers nor closed rooms had dulled it.
Logan glanced over without comment.
“I did not come for the scenery,” Jamie said.
“No,” Logan agreed.
“I came for the air.”
“Of course.”
“Do not make it something it is not.”
Logan looked ahead at the path. “I never do.”
The path flattened near the shore. Pale, wet rocks stretched toward the water in rough shelves.
The children were already ahead. They had outpaced everyone with the fierce energy of people granted permission to run.
Maisie carried a small canvas bag over her arm.
Duncan had a stick and the look of a boy determined to appear above the lesson.
Miss Beauchamp walked a little behind them, bonnet tied securely, gloves already removed, pointing out something in the low scrub grass to Maisie while the child nodded with great seriousness.
Clara had reached the shore before them and stood on a flat rock above the waterline with the basket and the composed authority of a woman who had managed outdoor meals longer than any of them cared to admit.
Logan descended toward her with the basket under his arm. His purpose fooled no one, least of all Clara.
Jamie hung back.
Miss Beauchamp looked up as he reached the first shelf of rock.
“Good morning, my lord.”
Polite. Composed. No more or less than was required.
He nodded. “Miss Beauchamp.”
Maisie darted toward the nearest tide pool with her canvas bag. Duncan hovered at the edge of the rocks.
“Are we meant to collect only pretty shells?” Maisie asked.
Miss Beauchamp smiled. “Pretty shells may be collected, but useful observations matter more.”
“What is a useful observation?” Duncan asked.
“A useful observation tells us how a creature lives,” she answered. “Where it hides, what it eats, and what the tide leaves behind.”
Jamie moved toward the larger pools and chose a careful distance. The water was cold and clear. Small crabs moved between the rocks.
Miss Beauchamp led Duncan to the nearest pool. She pointed above the water, and Duncan listened with rigid attention.
“The pool seems small,” she said, “but the tide makes a little world and then withdraws.”
Duncan glanced at Jamie. “Does the sea do that to ships as well?”
Then he started asking questions.
“If you are at sea and the tide is pulling out,” Duncan said, “how far does it take a ship?”
Miss Beauchamp looked at Jamie.
Jamie looked at the boy. The question was not about tide pools. It was about the sea.
He crouched beside the pool. “That depends on where you are and what kind of ship.”
Duncan froze in the manner he did when interest caught him against his will.
“What if it is a frigate?” he said.
“A frigate has more draft than a sloop. She sits lower in the water, so the current works harder against her when the tide runs shallow.”
“How much harder?”
“Enough that a captain who does not account for it will find himself a quarter mile farther from his intended position than he planned.”
Duncan frowned with such concentration that Jamie knew he was storing the answer and forming three more questions. “And if the wind is also against?”
“Then the captain is having a very unpleasant morning,” Jamie said, and the boy’s mouth twitched.
Jamie felt a sharp pull beneath his ribs at that. Small, sudden, and unwelcome.
Duncan asked twice more. Each question grew more exact.
“How does a captain know where he is if the sky is covered?” Duncan asked.
“He uses soundings, currents, charts, and every sign the water gives him,” Jamie said.
“Could you do that?”
“Once,” Jamie said.
Jamie had known that hunger as a boy. He had stood on a dock and watched a frigate leave harbor, certain that any future worth having would be found from a deck.
Knowing it left him uneasy.
Maisie appeared at his elbow without any warning, holding a shell out toward him with both hands.
He looked at it. Then at her.
“This one is for you,” she said.
“Why?”
She weighed the question with appropriate gravity. “Because it is a good shell.”
He took it. The shell was smooth and pale, ridged along a single edge, cold from the water. Maisie watched his face for a moment with the attentive patience of someone waiting for a verdict.
Then she went back to the water.
She returned a few minutes later with another shell. Then another. Each was placed into his hand with care. Each came with an upward glance, as though she waited for approval.
“Is this good as well?” she asked.
“Very good,” Jamie answered.
Maisie nodded. “Then I shall find another.”
He closed his fingers around the shells. Each small gift struck him with more force than it should have done.
He had been holding shells for several minutes when conversation on the rock behind him drew his attention.
Logan had positioned himself beside Clara with the lunch basket. He unpacked each item with needless care, as though cheese and bread demanded naval skill.
Clara watched him for a moment. “I have managed picnics without naval assistance for ten years,” she said.
“That must have been difficult,” Logan said.
“It was perfectly straightforward.”
“I am only trying to help.”
“You are only trying to linger.”
Logan looked up from the basket. “I am following orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“The orders of a man who told me Clara needed help with the basket.”
Clara’s expression did not quite manage to stay as flat as she intended. “And you believed that?”
“I chose to.”
Clara turned to the bread, but her mouth softened. Logan resumed his useless care over the lunch and looked pleased with himself.
Jamie looked away from them. Miss Beauchamp did the same.
Their eyes met across the rocks. Amusement showed in her face, and he knew she saw it in his.
For a heartbeat, the distance between them vanished.
They were two people sharing a private joke beside the sea.
The ease of it unsettled him, and he looked away.
After lunch, the children demanded a game. Logan divided them into teams with brisk naval authority.
“I shall be captain,” Maisie declared.
“Captains are usually chosen for experience,” Duncan said.
“Then Lord Macalpine must be captain,” Logan said.
Jamie narrowed his eyes. “Lord Macalpine is not playing.”
“Then he may be admiral from a distance,” Logan replied.
Miss Beauchamp watched from the edge of the rocks with an expression of genuine pleasure and no apparent wish to hide it.
Jamie stood farther back. He was not participating. He had told himself that twice already.
Logan altered the course. The children veered. The rush of feet drove the game straight toward him.
He stepped backward to avoid Duncan. His boot came down at an angle on a wet stone. The stone moved beneath him.
He lurched forward.
His hands caught Miss Beauchamp’s arms. Her hands closed on his sleeves. They regained their balance together. They were too near.
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
Her eyes moved, as they sometimes did when people first encountered him at close range. Yet they did not move away from the scars. They did not flatten into careful politeness.
Her gaze moved to the scars directly.
She studied the marks along his neck and jaw with the same open attention she had given the tide pools. Not horror. Not pity. Not the false calm he had seen too often in drawing rooms after his return.
She simply looked, and simply saw him.
As though the scars were part of him, not a verdict.
The contact lasted only seconds. The sea moved behind her. The children shouted farther down the beach. The shells pressed against his coat pocket.
Then, he let go of her arms.
He stepped back too quickly for courtesy.
“I am fine,” he said.
“I did not suggest otherwise,” she answered. Her voice remained even, but confusion crossed her face before she hid it.
Logan glanced over. “Everything all right?”
“Yes,” Jamie said, and walked away to the far edge of the beach.
Behind him, the children resumed the game. Logan redirected them with practiced authority. Miss Beauchamp said nothing, which was worse.
He stood at the water’s edge and looked out to sea. He had allowed himself to be seen, and the cost of it struck him only after he had stepped away.
The rest of the outing shortened because he made it so. He watched from a distance and spoke to no one.
“Will you not join us?” Maisie called.
“No,” Jamie answered.
Duncan tossed a shell into the sand. “He never does.”
The words struck harder than Duncan knew.
Miss Beauchamp did not call to him and did not ask him to join. She went back to the children and continued as though his withdrawal were ordinary and required no comment.
That was considerate of her. He hated it.
He left before the game was finished.
He walked back up the path without announcing his departure. Some distance along it, he stopped and turned.
Below him on the shore, life continued without him. Logan and Clara remained near the rock. The children raced across the sand. Miss Beauchamp stood at the edge of the water, her face turned toward the path.
She was watching him go.
Her expression was too far away to read clearly. Still, he knew faces. Her look was not anger. It was not pity. It did not belong to indifference.
He turned away and finished the climb.
He walked the rest of the way to the house with one hand raised against the wind. The other pressed, without thought, against the scarred side of his face. Familiar marks. Familiar damage.
On the beach, for a brief accidental moment, she had regarded those scars as if they interested her.
He had felt the wall come down.
He had felt himself begin to forget what he was.
By the time the house came into view, he had raised the barrier again. He knew how to build it. The alternative was more dangerous than any battle he had survived.
He would not let it happen again.