Miles’s face grew tight then his eyes moved to Angus and they grew wide. “And who might you be?”
“The McPherson,” Angus announced, his booming voice, which Jack had noted in his short time with the Scot always had a warmth underlying it no matter if he was booming, hooting or telling you ridiculous facts about his job.
Now, Angus’s voice was stone cold.
“I’ll bet you are,” Miles muttered, humour in his tone and not nice humour.
“Miles –” Jack started and his brother’s eyes cut to him.
“I just want to see if Belle’s all right,” Miles stated.
“I’ll save you the trouble,” Jack told him bluntly. “She’s not. She fell down the stairs, sprained her wrist, gave herself a concussion, split open her temple which called for five stitches and she lost our child. One isn’t ‘all right’ when that happens.”
“Jack –” Miles began.
“Time, Miles,” Jack interrupted. “We need time.”
Miles’s face turned obstinate. “I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
Jack lost his patience, leaned toward his brother and clipped, “And I’m telling you the right thing is to give us… some f**king… time.”
Miles glared at Jack, shifted his glare to Angus then back to Jack and he said tersely, “Tell Belle she’s in my thoughts.”
“I’ll be certain to do that,” Jack lied.
Without another word, Miles walked away.
“Who, on the good God almighty’s earth, was that?” Angus asked, watching as Miles disappeared.
“My brother,” Jack replied.
“You’re not close?” Angus asked.
“Not even a little,” Jack answered.
Angus pursed his lips as if he was trying to stop himself from talking then he said softly, “Bad seed, lad.”
“You can say that again,” Jack muttered under his breath and then turned and led the way back to the morning room.
* * * * *
After Jack and Belle had coffee with the assemblage, Jack escorted Belle and Lila to the stables. As Lila forged ahead, Jack and Belle walked silently, hand in hand. It wasn’t, Jack was relieved to note, one of their recent tense silences. Instead, Belle seemed more at ease. He knew this because instead of holding her body stiffly away from his, she walked close, her fingers curved around his palm, her shoulder brushing his arm.
He helped her up to the loft the way he’d done it the first time they were in the stables together, coming up directly after her, his hands under hers on the rails, his frame protectively close to her body.
Once in the loft, Jack realised that Belle hadn’t protested their ascent. In fact, at the base of the ladder, she’d simply glanced at him, waiting for him to come to her, expecting him to take care of her.
Instead of celebrating this crowning achievement in one of the myriad ways he would have preferred, he controlled his urge and looked around the loft.
Jack saw that, since the last time he’d been there, Lila had been busy. She’d taken over the space, swept it clean, there was another table filled with paint tubes and brushes, a bean bag and some rugs and there were half a dozen canvasses tilted against the wall, all of them covered. An unfinished one sat on one of now three easels set up by the sliding doors. And there were snapshots of the view taken at different times of the day and through different weather tacked to the walls.
The unfinished painting was, Jack was fascinated to see, going to be part of her storm series and even unfinished it was already spectacular.
After giving Belle a kiss which was more than a brush on the lips, deeper, longer, making a statement but not something which would cause her embarrassment in front of her grandmother, Jack left and went back to the house.
He found Angus and Cassandra and, in his study, he allowed Cassandra to take his hand.
The moment she did, Jack watched as she went into a trance for long moments, her eyes unfocussed, her face growing pale.