The Seduction of Elliot McBride hp-5

by Jennifer Ashley

“From the kitchen, I mean,” Mahindar said. “Food.”

  Juliana’s alarm dissolved. “You cooked many meals today. Food was going in and out. So many brought food—I doubt they were stealing it.”

  “Memsahib, please let me explain.”

  He had a point. Juliana closed her mouth and motioned for him to proceed.

  Except that he didn’t proceed. Mahindar stood still, his fingers curling again, his distress plain.

  Juliana said, “I assure you that whatever you tell me will not leave this room. If you don’t wish me to tell even Mr. McBride, I will not.”

  Mahindar sighed. “I wish to be mistaken about this. I very much wish it. I like him—he is so very eager even if he is clumsy sometimes. But he took a large plate of ham and six naan Channan had just pulled from the oven, and ran out the back door. He thought himself stealthy, and he was, because only my mother saw him. My mother, she told me.”

  Juliana had to smile. “If you are speaking of Hamish, perhaps he was simply hungry. He has been working hard.”

  Mahindar shook his head. “No, memsahib. He’d already eaten well. He wrapped these up and vanished with them, then came back soon after, trying to look innocent.”

  Hamish? Juliana wouldn’t have thought it of him. Hamish had told her he lived with his mother, sister, and uncle on a small farm, his father having died a few years ago. Juliana hadn’t heard that the McIver family was especially poor, but times could be difficult in the Highlands. Farming didn’t pay what it used to, sheep were usually owned by the large landholders, and many crofters continued to stream to the factories in Glasgow and the north of England to find steady wages.

  “Thank you, Mahindar,” Juliana said. “I will speak to Hamish and sort this out.” She put the lid on her inkpot and set aside her pen and her lists. “You need say nothing of this to him or Mr. McBride.”

  Mahindar looked both relieved and unhappy at the same time. “I do like the boy. He puts me in mind of myself as a youth. So eager to please, and I know that I was not always pleasing.”

  “I will take it up with him. You go and rest now. You’ve done so much today.”

  He looked surprised. “No, indeed, there is much more to be done. Much more. Thank you, memsahib.”

  Juliana waited until Mahindar had gone then went in search of Hamish.

  “Juliana.”

  Elliot’s voice rumbled through the narrow passage between main hall and kitchen as she walked there to look for Hamish. A moment later, Elliot was next to Juliana, pushing her up against the wall.

  He curved his body over hers, warmth surrounding her. Instead of speaking to her, perhaps asking where she was going, Elliot put his fist beneath her chin, tilted her head back, and kissed her.

  He crushed Juliana back against the wall, trapping her with his strength, and scraped his tongue between her lips. His mouth stole, commanded, left her breathless.

  As abruptly as the kiss had begun, Elliot eased it to its end. He looked down at her a moment, then he released her, dropped a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and faded away down the hall without saying a word. His kilt moved against his backside, the hem swinging with his stride.

  Juliana remained against the wall, knees weak, her hands pressing the cold stone to keep herself upright as she watched him go.

  She was still struggling for breath when Hamish himself came down the passage at his usual half run.

  “Hamish.” She made herself stand up straight. “Hamish, stop.”

  Hamish halted obediently, panting from his exuberant pace. “Yes, m’lady? Something I can do for you?” He sounded happy, not guilt stricken at all.

  Juliana groped for a way to broach the subject tactfully but decided that asking straight out was best. “What do you know about some ham and bread that’s gone missing?”

  Hamish regarded her in surprise. There wasn’t much light here, but Juliana could see by it that his blue eyes were guileless. “Nothing’s gone missing, m’lady.”

  “I’m afraid you were seen walking out with a large plate of ham and fresh-baked naan.” She gave him a little smile. “Or was Komal mistaken, and the goat ate them?”

  Hamish looked even more baffled. “Not the goat. She’s tethered in the kitchen garden, and I carried that food well away from her. No, I don’t think the goat got any of it.”

  Juliana blinked at him. “So you admit that you took it?”

  “Aye.” Hamish seemed unworried.

  “And what did you do with it?”

  “Took it around to the footbridge path, to the hill above my great-aunt’s cottage. Ye go around from the castle and cut left before the road reaches the river…” He pointed with his muscular arm down the passage in the general direction of Mrs. Rossmoran’s cottage.

  He was describing the path Elliot and Juliana had taken to walk back home yesterday afternoon. “You were taking the food to Mrs. Rossmoran? You ought to have asked me—I would have had a basket made up.”

  Hamish looked baffled again. “It wasn’t for me great-auntie. I left it on the path, like he told me to.”

  “Like who told you to?”

  “Himself.”

  Juliana stared. “Let me make sure I understand you, Hamish. Mr. McBride told you to take this food out to the path and leave it there? What for?”

  Hamish gave her a shrug that said the ways of lairds were unfathomable to him. “Don’t know. Me grandmum used to leave bowls of milk out for the wee folk. So they wouldn’t steal nothing else if ye did, ye understand. The bowls were always empty in the morning.”

  “No doubt,” Juliana said. “But a platter of ham and a pile of buttered Indian bread are a bit different from bowls of milk.”

  “Aye.” Hamish’s brows drew down again. “But I didn’t ask. The laird’s business is none of mine.”

  “Never mind, Hamish,” Juliana said. “I will take care of it. But if Mr. McBride asks you to leave food out for the wee folk again, do come and tell me.”

  “He asked me not to, m’lady. Wouldn’t have now, except ye pried it out of me.”

  “Nevertheless, you will.”

  Hamish met her gaze, weighing obedience to the laird against obedience to the lady. He heaved a sigh. “Yes, m’lady.”

  “Good. Thank you, Hamish.”

  Hamish’s grin widened. He touched his forehead in a rough salute, turned, and galloped on toward the kitchen.

  Juliana tamped down her misgivings and went in search of Elliot.

  Uncle McGregor had all but dragged Elliot into the old billiards room at the end of the wing of the ground floor. Several billiards tables reposed here, only one of which was uncovered. The others were cloaked in huge dust sheets with accompanying layers of dust.

  “While your wife is busy worrying about the ballroom and the reception rooms, let’s not forget the refuge for the husbands, eh?” McGregor said. “When she has her grand fête, the put-upon clansmen will need a place to retreat.”

  Elliot opened cupboards in search of the cue sticks. He knew from the tedious balls he’d attended with his regiment that most husbands had no interest in gatherings that the ladies so loved, let alone any interest in dancing with their own wives. The gentlemen sought escape in cards and billiards, as McGregor said.

  Poor bastards. The last thing Elliot wanted was escape from Juliana. He’d dance with her as much as she wanted. He felt whole and strong in her arms—why would he bypass any chance to have that? When he’d seen her in the passage earlier, he hadn’t been able to resist stopping to steal a kiss. Why say an inane Good afternoon. How are you? when a heady kiss was so much more satisfying? The fact that Elliot could kiss Juliana any time he wished was a thing worth celebrating.

  “Many’s the night I whiled away the time in here, with my university mates,” McGregor was saying, a wistful note in his voice. “I hated McPherson then, wouldn’t let him in the door. Funny, he’s the only one left now. Only one who stood by me when my lady passed on and the money ran out…”

  Elliot
found a wooden box of billiard balls along with the cues and carried them to the table. “My old mates are either dead or have buried themselves in the regiment, never to emerge.”

  “Aye.” McGregor shook his head while he took balls from the box and rolled them onto the table. “When we’re young, we think it will last forever.”

  Elliot wasn’t ready to become moody and nostalgic yet. He wanted many more years with Juliana before it was time to reminisce in the billiards room with the next generation.

  Juliana walking in, her eyes bright, her cheek smudged with dust, was one of those things he planned to reminisce about.

  “Mr. McBride,” she said. “May I speak to you?”

  Mr. McBride. So formal. Elliot thought about the billiards table behind him, pictured seating Juliana on its edge, her skirts up around her thighs. She could call him Mr. McBride all she liked while she smiled at him with desire in her eyes.

  McGregor chuckled. “I told you, I swear by the conservatory. Nooks and crannies and comfortable benches.”

  Juliana sent him a surprised look. “The conservatory will not be ready for anyone for a time. I have sent away for many new hothouse plants. I assure you, it will be a fine place by the time of the midsummer fête.”

  McGregor kept on grinning. “I love a practical woman.” He rolled the last balls onto the table and started out of the room. “You have your chat. Don’t tear the cloth on the billiards table. It’s the one thing I’ve kept intact.”

  He went off and shut the door behind him, his chuckles following him.

  Juliana’s rust and brown dress set off her red hair and blue eyes, even if the gown was buttoned to her chin. Juliana, who followed all the rules, would change into her evening dress for dinner, perhaps the off-the-shoulder shimmering blue one. Elliot could eat his dinner while imagining pouring another dollop of fine whiskey across her breasts.

  Elliot couldn’t stop himself going to her, meeting her halfway into the room, couldn’t help brushing back a tendril of hair that had come loose. The kiss he’d claimed in the passage had fired his blood, and he’d not yet cooled.

  “Elliot, did you hear me?”

  “No. What did you say, love?”

  “I said that Hamish has told me an extraordinary thing. He says you had him take a platter of ham out to the woods and leave it there. Along with some naan.”

  “Aye.” Elliot nodded as he brushed back another tendril of her hair. “Good. I’m glad he remembered.”

  “But whatever for? Do not tell me you’ve put it by in case you grow hungry during your next tramp through the woods.”

  She looked so indignant that Elliot had to smile. “It’s not for me.”

  “Who then? And anyway, animals will get it if you had Hamish leave it beside the path.”

  “He bagged it and strung it up in a tree. That is, that’s what I told him to do.”

  Juliana’s stare tried to penetrate his fog, to find its way to the real Elliot. He knew she wanted that, but the real Elliot had been lost a long time ago.

  “Please tell me what for. A tramp?”

  “For Archibald Stacy,” Elliot said. No use in lying or telling Juliana pretty stories. “He’s come for me.”

  Chapter 16

  Juliana stared at him, worry in her pretty eyes. She was trying to decide whether to believe him. Didn’t matter—Stacy was there, whether Juliana believed Elliot or not.

  “Mr. Stacy is dead,” she said. “You told me so. Mrs. Dalrymple told me so.”

  “I said that I assumed him dead because he’d vanished from his home, and Mahindar heard a story that he’d died in Lahore. Obviously the story was wrong.”

  “What about Mrs. Dalrymple? She is adamant that you murdered him.”

  “Mrs. Dalrymple knows damn all,” Elliot growled.

  Elliot watched Juliana try to catch her spinning emotions and make her practical nature deal with this new development. This made her the opposite of Elliot, who’d given in to letting his emotions do whatever the hell they wanted. Trying to suppress them only made him crazier.

  Juliana didn’t like her emotions slipping out at all, he’d seen. She wanted order, not chaos. Elliot would have to show her one day that a little chaos wasn’t so bad a thing.

  “Well,” Juliana said. “If Mr. Stacy is alive and has come to Scotland, then we must show him to Mrs. Dalrymple so she will stop putting about the preposterous story that you killed him.”

  “It might not be that simple.”

  “Why not? Presumably Mr. Stacy is hungry, or you’d not have left him the food. We’ll invite him to the house for a meal.”

  She didn’t believe him, or at least didn’t believe in the danger. “Stacy has come to kill me. To hunt me. He hasn’t shown his face to me yet, but I know it’s him.”

  “But if you have not seen him, how can you be certain?”

  Elliot turned away. He ended up at the billiards table where he rolled a white ball across with his hand, unerringly striking a red. “Difficult to explain, love. Stacy and I were trackers and sharpshooters in the army. Every tracker has a style, and I recognize his. I taught him most of what he knows.”

  “Do you mean like a hunter can tell what animal is in the brush from its spoor?”

  He smiled at the billiards table. “Yes, but I’d rather not have to check his spoor.”

  “Elliot.” Juliana came up behind him, her skirt rustling like soft leaves. “Are you certain?”

  “Very certain, my love.” Elliot turned and rested his hands on her corseted waist. “I wish I weren’t.”

  “Well, if you are right that he is here, at least it means you didn’t kill him.”

  “Yet. I might have to.”

  “No, you must call the constable and the magistrate. If you believe Mr. Stacy has come to harm you, he must be rounded up and arrested at once.”

  “No,” Elliot said sternly. “The constable is a lad no older than Hamish, and Stacy would make short work of him. If I start a manhunt, Stacy will either slip the net or hurt those who get in his way. I don’t want anyone here in danger because of him. Let me do this my way.”

  “By leaving him food?”

  Elliot knew he had to be patient with her. Juliana didn’t understand, and he couldn’t force her to understand. “You will have to trust me.” He moved his hands under the swell of her breasts. “I’ll let him harm no one. I know what he’ll do, and I know how to coax him out.”

  Juliana wet her lips. Elliot knew the thoughts she struggled through. He’d seen it in the eyes of everyone he’d spoken to since he’d escaped from his prison, including Mahindar. The painful doubt, the question—was Elliot truly mad?

  Elliot was mad; he knew that. Else he’d not have the dreams, the flashbacks, the certain panic that he was still trapped inside the cell, even after all this time. He couldn’t explain that the thing he dreaded most was to wake up one morning and discover that this—what he had now—was the dream.

  He was mad, yes. But not about this.

  “Elliot?” Juliana’s voice held a note of uncertainty. Elliot realized he’d gone stone still, staring past her at nothing.

  He said, “McGregor and I today found all the entrances to the house from the tunnels below and stopped them up.” In some cases, timber had sufficed, in others, he’d had the men screw down iron plates.

  “Stacy will not get into the house,” he continued. “Whatever he and I have to settle, we’ll do out there. But you need to stay indoors, and not go out, not without me.”

  Her eyes widened. “My dear Elliot, I cannot remain confined to the house. I have too much to do. I will have to go into the village for things for the fête, or perhaps to Aberdeen.”

  Elliot shook his head. “Until this is resolved, send Hamish with instructions, or one of the other men.”

  “And when might everything be resolved?”

  “I can’t know. However long it takes me to find Stacy and face him.”

  Again Juliana gave him her assessi
ng stare, trying to cover emotion and uncertainties with practicality. “In that case, please tell him to resolve this before my fête and ball. I’ll not have him ruining my debut event at Castle McGregor.”

  Elliot touched his fingers to her chin and pressed a swift kiss to her lips. “I’ll be sure to tell him.”

  Juliana softened her impatient look into a smile then made to turn and leave the room. Elliot stopped her with a firm hand on her arm.

  “Do not go out exploring yourself, Juliana.”

  From the flash of guilt in her eyes, Elliot knew Juliana had been intending to do exactly that. He briefly wondered why the marriage ceremony bothered to contain the wife’s promise to obey her husband—he hadn’t met a woman yet who followed it.

  “Pretend to believe me and stay safely indoors,” he said. He’d already told Mahindar to keep a close watch on Priti, and not to let her venture out the back door alone.

  Juliana studied him, her blue eyes drawing him in, then finally said, “Very well.”

  Of course, her ready capitulation, made in that soft voice, aroused his suspicions. “I mean it, lass. Whether you believe I’m insane or not, I want you safe.”

  Juliana’s chin came up. “You asked me to believe you. Now I ask you to believe me. To err on the side of caution is not a bad thing. I wouldn’t wander about the land alone, in any case. What if I fell into a bog?”

  Elliot suppressed a shudder, not needing that worry to go along with everything else. He didn’t fear so much what Stacy would do to him, but if anything happened to Juliana…

  He’d rather go back to his horrible dark cell and the tortures there than let Juliana come to harm.

  Elliot stilled at the thought. This was the first time he’d ever considered such a thing. His body and mind had been broken, but he realized on a sudden that his physical pain would be nothing to what could be done to his heart if something happened to Juliana.

  He leaned to Juliana and kissed her again, savoring the heat of her against the length of his body. If Elliot lost her, if she were hurt…

  He’d die.

  Elliot pulled her closer, caressing the tension from the back of her neck as he deepened the kiss.