Her feet splashed in water, breaking her spinning thoughts. “Where are we now?” she asked, dragging up her damp skirts.
Elliot flashed his lantern around. “If I am right, a cave in the side of the hill between the McGregors and the Rossmorans.” He took her hand again, his fingers warm.
“Why is it wet?”
“The tunnel runs along the river. The river might even cut into it.”
Elliot led her along at a slower pace, lifting his lantern high and studying the ground before he allowed Juliana to move forward with him. The floor of the cavern sloped downward, the gleam of water trickling across the bottom.
He moved confidently, and Juliana realized she should worry that Elliot wouldn’t know the way back. But she didn’t worry. He’d studied the plans, he’d previously explored the tunnels, and people in India had hired him for this very sort of thing—to explore, to discover things, to find the way for others.
This Elliot exuded capable, quiet competence. The broken, wild-eyed man who’d looked at her a few moments ago and confessed he’d gone to Edinburgh to break up her wedding had gone.
Elliot led her across the smooth stone floor to the higher end of the slope, the sound of water to their left. The draft Juliana had felt before strengthened, the breath of air refreshing after the dank warmth of the tunnels.
Elliot walked her unerringly to a hole to the outside world. The opening, at Elliot’s head height, was covered with thick brush, bushes having grown right over it. Elliot blew out the candle in his lantern, handed the lantern to Juliana, and reached through the hole to break away branches.
He easily tore off many of the thinner pieces of the brush, but the trunks of two bushes had spread themselves across the hole. Climbing out this way would be possible but a scratchy, tight fit.
Elliot took both lanterns back from Juliana, blew out the candle in hers as well, and tossed the lanterns through the hole to the earth outside. He boosted himself a little way out of the hole then half climbed, half lifted himself over the remainder of the bushes. The spindly branches caught on his kilt and lifted it high over his hips as he worked his way through.
“Elliot,” Juliana said in a small voice. “You know you are wearing nothing under that.”
His taut thighs and strong buttocks worked to lift Elliot out of the hole before his entire body disappeared. Juliana stepped worriedly to the opening just as Elliot looked back inside at her, his smile full of sin.
“I’m a Scotsman,” he said.
Still flashing the wicked grin, he cleared more branches from the hole and reached for her.
Juliana clung to him as she kicked and wriggled her way out, Mahindar’s shirt now torn and stained with dirt.
The hole opened onto the sheer side of a hill. Elliot leaned against the almost vertical slope and helped Juliana find footholds, tussocks of grass that wouldn’t slip under her feet.
They’d emerged to a treeless heath that was filled with rocks and bushes like those which had grown over the hole. The slope on which they stood ran steeply down to the rushing river below—one misstep could plunge her into it.
Elliot was not about to let her go. He held Juliana with immovable strength as he guided her along their makeshift path, until they came to a true path that had been cut into the side of the hill. The sound of sheep bleating in the distance indicated what this path was likely for.
Elliot settled Juliana against a large boulder that might once have been a standing stone, her feet on firm ground, then he climbed back up the hill. Juliana watched him cover the hole, replacing the branches and smoothing the earth.
He retrieved the lanterns he’d tossed out and made his way back down to her, walking sure-footedly along the ridge to the path, never a misstep. He might have been walking on a wide, paved road for all Elliot noticed.
He returned to Juliana’s boulder and leaned on it next to her. “This valley would have been a good place for the McGregors to come to evade the McPhersons,” he said. “The McGregors could have crossed the river and hidden in the meadows beyond without anyone realizing.”
“But then they’d have abandoned the castle to the rival clan,” Juliana said, following his gaze across river. “Do you think any of McGregor’s wild ancestors would have done that?”
“No, but they’d have sent away the women and the wee ones. The families could have lived off the land in that valley a long time, in the warm months.”
Juliana took in the beauty of the scene, the river rushing below them—the same one that had frightened Nandita so when they’d clattered over the bridge. Mr. McGregor and Hamish both claimed that the river teemed with fish, and in the folds of the valley, the McGregor women and children of old would have found berries and other sustenance. In peaceful times, they’d have explored the valley that rolled between the hills, and would have known exactly where to hide when battle came.
“I’ll wager there are bushes plump with berries down there now,” Juliana said, her mouth starting to water. “How about it, Elliot? Shall we bring back a bucketful and teach Mahindar how to make raspberry fool?”
“We don’t have a bucket.”
Juliana lifted the white shirt and made a bowl of it. “I used to do this with my pinafore when I was a girl at my father’s manor house. I’d bring home plenty of bright red berries, half of which I ate on the way. Drove my governess wild.”
Elliot didn’t look at her, but a faint smile crossed his face. “The Juliana I knew always had her pinafore neat and clean. Never a hair out of place, following all the rules.”
“That was the Juliana I showed to company. When I was alone in the woods, I was a bit more lackadaisical. No one to see me, you see.”
“I wasn’t company. I was the unruly brother of your friend.”
“Perhaps, but when Ainsley paid a call, or I called on her, things had to be done properly. She laughed at my insistence on etiquette, but she played along.”
“The fact that you convinced Ainsley to do anything by the rules is a bloody miracle,” Elliot said, with the fondness of an older brother for a harum-scarum sister.
“I remember she rather enjoyed raiding the pantry when we were at school. I thought her audacious, but she never minded sharing the spoils. But she turned out all right, didn’t she? Happily married now, with a child of her own and another on the way.”
“I want children.”
Elliot’s blunt statement made her stop. The sun was descending behind the hills to their right, casting shadows over the river below. Elliot looked down the hill at the roiling water, bracing himself on the boulder. The sun slanted from the jagged mountain to sharpen his face and outline his body in a faint glow.
When he looked at Juliana again, the liquid light brushed the fine net of scars that ran from his temple into his hair. “Many children,” he said.
“I see.” Juliana’s heart thumped. “Is that why you rushed to Edinburgh to stop my wedding and steal the bride?”
“No, to take you away from that twit, Barclay. Lucky for him, he’d eloped, so I didn’t have to kill him.”
“Kill him?”
“For his sake, I hope he took his pianist back to England. He embarrassed you, and I’m not forgiving him that.” Elliot looked off into the distance again. “I didn’t realize I wanted more children then.”
“But you realize it now?”
“Something Mrs. Rossmoran said to me today put it in mind.”
“Mrs. Rossmoran…” Juliana blinked. “You spoke to her today? When I stopped, her granddaughter said she was poorly. Is she all right?”
“Mrs. Rossmoran is the hardiest woman in the Highlands. She had her granddaughter lie because she didn’t want to see Uncle McGregor.”
“Oh.” Juliana rearranged her ideas about the frail old Highland rose. “I’ll remember to make my next call alone, or with you. She apparently doesn’t mind seeing you.”
“Today, she didn’t. Next time might be different.”
Juliana waved her
hands in exasperation. “Anyway, because I didn’t see Mrs. Rossmoran, we went right on to the Terrells, and I need to tell you what happened there. The Terrells have some friends named Dalrymple, and I’m afraid they believe you killed Mr. Stacy.”
He didn’t look at her. The only indication that Elliot had heard her came from a faint twitch of brows.
“Elliot?”
“Who knows?” he said slowly. “I might have.”
Juliana had opened her mouth to agree with him that it was absurd, and the words got tangled up. “I know…she could not…What? But you said yourself that Mr. Stacy had disappeared when you went back to your plantation, and you never saw him again.”
“Never saw him again that I remember,” he corrected. “Mahindar told me he’d been reported dead in Lahore, but that was when I was very ill, and I have little memory of anything I did during that time.”
“But Mahindar would know,” Juliana said. “He nursed you, didn’t he? He’s been with you through everything. Perhaps you ought to tell me exactly what happened to you.”
Elliot paused, but when Juliana thought he would begin pouring out the whole tale, he only said, “Have Mahindar tell you. He will be more coherent.”
“But if you had done such a dreadful thing, even if you didn’t remember, Mahindar would know about it. And he’d have told you.”
Elliot shook his head. “Mahindar might have kept it from me. From everyone.”
“Why on earth would he do that?”
“To protect me. If I don’t know what I’ve done, I won’t rush out and turn myself in to the police.”
He was far, far too calm about this. “Well, I refuse to believe it,” Juliana said. “What reason would you have for killing Mr. Stacy?”
Elliot’s shoulders went up in a small shrug. “Maybe I was taking my revenge on him.”
“This is all absurd. I will ask Mahindar to tell me the truth.”
“He lies for me very well. And to me.”
Juliana lifted her chin. “Not to me, he won’t. But we must do something about the Dalrymples. We cannot have the police rushing up here to arrest you.”
Elliot’s eyes narrowed as he at last looked at Juliana fully. “I agree. I’ve never heard of these Dalrymples.”
“They claim they lived in India and were great friends of Mr. Stacy. And that they’d met you at least once.”
“Stacy never mentioned them. And I never met them.”
“Interesting.” Juliana tapped her lip. “I believe we should learn more about them, and I believe I know who to ask. Now then, you said, before you dragged me through the caves, that you remembered why you’d come down to them this morning. What did you mean?”
“I’m not sure now. I had an idea, but…”
Juliana folded her hands. “I’d be ever so interested to learn, now that I’ve climbed through all the caves and am dirty and scratched.”
Elliot turned and looked straight at her, all interest in Mr. Stacy, the Dalrymples, and their horrible accusation gone. “But I’d rather go back to talking about children.” His focus was entirely on her again, penetrating any barrier Juliana might have raised, bypassing any stray thought. “I want children, and I want them with you. Do you want them with me?”
His look was heart-stopping. Juliana’s body warmed, the breeze in the shadows becoming nothing.
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
Chapter 14
The little smile she gave him when she answered, half coy, half innocent, made his blood incandescent.
He did not want Juliana involved in his past, did not want it to touch her. Juliana was his now, his future.
Elliot turned to face her as she leaned against the boulder, one of his knees going between her legs, leaned down, and kissed her.
She tasted of dust and the wind of the late afternoon. Her skin was damp with perspiration, cheeks streaked with dirt. She was achingly beautiful.
Elliot hadn’t bothered with breeches beneath his kilt, the weather being so warm. Juliana’s comment on his naked state below the tartan had twisted heat through him. She liked to look at him, had no embarrassment about her husband’s naked body. He’d always known she wasn’t a vaporish miss, and he loved her for it now. His cock bumped Juliana’s skirt through his plaid, wanting to be inside her, wanting them to be naked on the ground on this quiet, wild hill.
Dangerous. But he knew the watcher was gone, the noises of the countryside normal. Birds flitted in the brush and rabbits rustled, not worried about Elliot and Juliana.
Juliana’s mouth held warmth, her lips more skilled at kissing him now. She shaped them to his, and her tongue flicked across Elliot’s without him having to coax.
His cock tightened even more. He wanted her tongue on it, her lips closing around him while he skimmed his hands through her hair and thrust gently into her mouth. But that was the skill of a courtesan. Elliot would teach it to her, but not here, not yet.
Elliot broke the kiss, liking how Juliana kept her hands clasped behind his neck, her eyes half closed, as though not wanting to let him go. Her mouth was moist and red, and Elliot kissed it again.
Then he gently untwined her grip and sank down to kneel in front of her. Elliot bunched her skirt in his hands, the hem damp and muddy now, and pushed it upward.
Juliana reached down. “Elliot, what are you…?”
Elliot lifted the skirt and petticoat all the way to her hips. The bustle she wore today was smaller than her evening one, the stiff shaper plumping her skirt out at the back with a soft linen panel in the front.
He unfastened the hooks and pulled the bustle from her. He’d have to start dictating that she didn’t wear a bustle at all when they knew they’d be alone.
Elliot next undid the drawstring of her lawn drawers and tugged them down.
He barely heard her faint noise of protest. He studied his warm-scented Juliana, hair fiery red between her thighs, the curls already moist. He leaned forward and kissed her, breathing her in. “You’re wet for me.”
One slender finger traced his temple. “I cannot seem to help it.”
“I like you wet for me.” Elliot drew his tongue down the seam of her cleft. “I like tasting you.”
Her fingers moved in his hair, less controlled. “Someone might come.”
“Warn me.”
Elliot didn’t care if they did. Let these Highland people see him on his knees loving his wife. They’d know she belonged to him, know he’d go after them if they harmed her in any way.
Elliot held her skirts bunched in his hands. Smooth cotton brushed his face as he leaned into her, tongue dancing along her opening.
Juliana moved her feet apart without him asking. She smelled of honey and salt, and her own nectar. Elliot drew some onto his tongue, pausing to savor it.
Her little berry firmed as he breathed on it. Elliot, hands full of fabric, slid his tongue over her, opened his mouth to reach more of her. Her legs moved apart still farther, and there was her moisture, sweet and made for him.
“Dripping wet,” he murmured. Her swift intake of breath made him ache.
He thrust his mouth over her and drank. His tongue moved, his throat worked as he drew her into him. This woman was beauty in all things—heat, sex, innocence.
When he and she had been young, and Elliot had first become aware of the amazing eroticism of women, he’d fantasized about her. The day he’d helped her with the kite in the tree, when they’d both been sixteen, and she’d raised on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, he’d not only fallen in love with her, he’d wanted her in the most basic, primal way.
Her demure look, the blush as she pulled away from the kiss…She’d been so innocent. He’d wanted her bodice sliding down to her waist, baring the pink of her nipples, wanted her flush to deepen as he pushed up her skirts and did what he was doing now. He’d wanted to lay her down in that meadow and show her what it meant that they were man and woman.
Elliot had watched her run off, back to the children she’d
been entertaining. But in his mind, they’d remained hidden behind the shrubbery, Elliot thrusting hard into her, claiming her, marking her, making her his.
“Mine,” he whispered now. He couldn’t help himself.
He licked and nipped her, and Juliana made sharp little noises, feminine and sweet. Elliot’s cock was pounding, but he ignored it to bask in the taste that was Juliana.
She rose on her tiptoes, her hands still in his hair, small fingers clenching. Elliot barely felt the tugs; he was surrounded by her and drowning in her. Her thighs were hot against his face, and he could scarcely breathe, but he didn’t care.
With his eyes closed, there was only darkness and the scent and taste of Juliana, the sound of her finding her highest pleasure.
She arched against him, betraying that she wanted his mouth. Elliot rewarded her, flickering his tongue inside her until more of her liquid flowed into him.
“I can’t…I can’t…”
Elliot held the fabric of her skirts against her body, tightly out of his way, as he drank her down.
Juliana drooped against the boulder, her legs bending. She swayed, her hands landing on Elliot’s shoulders to keep herself from falling.
Elliot finally granted her mercy. He wiped his mouth on a fold of his kilt and got to his feet, letting her skirts fall, and he plunged his mouth over hers. She kissed him back with strength that made his heart ache.
“We need to get indoors,” Elliot said. He kissed her hair, her face, her lips again. He needed to be inside her, needed it now.
“We’ll have to walk,” Juliana said. “I do not believe I can crawl back through the tunnels.”
“Then we walk.”
Elliot snatched up her bustle, grabbed her firmly by the elbow, and strode away with her, in search of the shortest route back to the house.
The summer sun didn’t set until after ten. Juliana lay naked in the big bed with Elliot, the last light of the day caressing the long planes of his body.
Elliot wasn’t asleep. He skimmed his fingertips down her damp side and around her breast, thumb finding and teasing her nipple.
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