The Seduction of Elliot McBride hp-5

by Jennifer Ashley

  Both men stopped. “Saw who?” McPherson asked.

  “A man Elliot knew in India.”

  McPherson and McGregor exchanged a glance. “Lass,” McGregor said. “I hate to say it to ye, but your husband’s been acting a bit strange. Ye know he has. There’s no one more dangerous in the hills than the pair of us. And him.”

  “But I saw him. Priti—you saw the man here, didn’t you?”

  Priti looked up from feeding the goat a fat head of cabbage. She nodded then turned her attention back to her more interesting friend.

  “What did he look like?” McPherson asked, in the tone of someone humoring her.

  “Like a Highlander,” Juliana said impatiently. “In a kilt and boots, like one of the workers. But different. Like Elliot.”

  That’s what had struck her—while the men here were sunburned pink from working in the summer outdoors, Mr. Stacy’s skin had been burned deep brown, like Elliot’s. Both men had lived a long time in a country where the sunlight was far stronger than that of northern Scotland.

  “We need to find him,” she repeated.

  When the older men continued to look at her skeptically, she swung away in exasperation. “Fine, then I’ll find someone who will help me. Hamish!”

  She ran back toward the house. There were plenty of men there from the village and those who could be spared from their farms, all happy to earn the extra wages.

  Juliana ran to the top of the staircase and shouted down at them all. “Gentlemen. Lads. Stop!”

  One by one, they stopped hammering and pounding, looking around in curiosity to see what the lady of the house was screeching about. Hamish popped out from one of the upstairs rooms, hammer in hand.

  Quickly Juliana told them what she wanted them to do. “An extra jar of ale to the man who finds my husband.”

  Tools were dropped, and booted feet hammered on the stairs and the flagstone floor. The men eagerly raced out the door, scattering as they ran into the sunshine and wind.

  Juliana knew that they, like McGregor and McPherson, weren’t particularly worried about Elliot, but why give up the easy chance for some fine brew? She followed them down and out, but swept Priti up into her arms when the little girl wanted to go with them.

  “No, Priti, you stay with me.”

  Priti gave her a look of disappointment, then flung her arms around Juliana’s neck and kissed her cheek.

  Mahindar came out, followed by the three women, to find Juliana. “You are wise, memsahib. The sahib will not be in any danger now, not with thirty men searching the hills for him.”

  “Do you believe him, Mahindar? That Mr. Stacy has followed him here?”

  Mahindar looked troubled. “I do not know. The sahib has had waking visions before. Certainties that he was being followed or hunted. When he first came home, he was so very ill.”

  “What does Mr. Stacy look like? Does he have red hair? Very light red?”

  “Yes,” Mahindar said cautiously. “But so does almost every man working here.”

  He had a point. Because a Scottish man had a fading sunburn from India did not mean he was Mr. Stacy. Many gentlemen from England or Scotland went to the Raj—with the army, the civil service, or on their own to try to make a living.

  Then again, Juliana had made her decision what to believe, and she’d stick by it.

  She carried Priti inside, with Mahindar and family, to wait for the searchers’ return.

  The men came back at sunset, Elliot with them. Hamish declared himself the winner of the ale. The others good-naturedly debated that, except Elliot.

  Juliana had never seen Elliot furious before. When she’d known him during their youth, he’d been at his most smiling and charming, and since their marriage, he’d been quiet, or seductive, or silently withdrawn.

  Now his gray eyes sparkled with rage, and he stormed past his rescuers, took Juliana by the arm, dragged her into the dining room, and slammed the door on prying eyes. The setter, who’d been following him, scratched at the outside of the door and whined.

  Elliot ejected the bullets from his rifle, unloading it in angry silence.

  “I’m sorry,” Juliana said before he could speak. “I was worried about you. Mr. McGregor and Mr. McPherson said you’d rushed off into the hills after a man who apparently is not averse to shooting people.”

  Elliot slammed the unloaded rifle to the table. “And every single one of the men you sent after me might have been killed. Hamish might have. McGregor might have. What if I’d shot one of them by mistake? Or Stacy had?”

  “I assumed they’d all make so much noise they’d announce their presence long before you saw them. Mr. Stacy would run away, and you’d grow exasperated and come back home with them. Which you have.”

  “Bloody hell, Juliana. What did you think I meant when I said Stacy was fucking dangerous? He could have shot any or all of the fools you sent after me, and they’d drop without knowing what hit them. He’s a trained sharpshooter. Hell, I trained him.”

  Juliana lifted her chin. “I return to my theory that Mr. Stacy would find it more expedient to go back into hiding. And I was right.”

  “But you might not have been right, love. McGregor insists it was a poacher with a stray shot. It wasn’t. No poacher around here uses bullets like this.” He reached into his sporran and dropped a bit of metal onto the table. “This is a cartridge for a custom rifle, like mine, not a common shotgun.”

  Most bullet casings looked alike to Juliana, but she nodded at it. “Yes?”

  “Your lackeys surrounded me and bade me come back with them like a pack of nursemaids.”

  “I can’t help what they thought,” Juliana said, still studying the shell casing. “And I’m sorry. But I would rather see you walk home, angry at me, than be carried home on a litter, hurt, maybe dead.”

  Elliot’s silence made her raise her head. He wore a bleak expression, his anger winding down into weariness. “Ye don’t believe me, do ye, lass? Ye think your husband’s a madman, like they do. McPherson is ready to throw me into a padded room.”

  “No, I…”

  His lips tightened. “Don’t pretend, Juliana.”

  “I’m not pretending. I believe you. Now you need to believe me.”

  Elliot stopped, his expression still grim.

  “’Twas not an easy decision,” Juliana said. “You may believe me on that point too. But I weighed all the possibilities against what I had observed myself and drew the conclusion that you are not mad. Not about this anyway.”

  His eyes glinted. “Did you make a list?”

  “In my head. Yes, I did.”

  “Not about this anyway?” he repeated.

  “You know perfectly well what I mean. Whenever you talk to me of Mr. Stacy, you sound quite sane. Did he really shoot Mr. Dalrymple?”

  “In the hand. It was a magnificent shot.” Elliot reached into his pocket. “But I think he was anxious to get rid of this.”

  He dropped a piece of paper onto the table. The paper was damp, the ink blurred and illegible.

  “What is that?”

  “Death certificate. Dalrymple claims it is. It has to be a forgery, but it’s hard to tell now.”

  Juliana touched it. “Mr. Dalrymple had this?”

  “Mr. Dalrymple is a petty blackmailer. He wants money out of me to keep quiet that I killed Stacy. He’s gambling on me being so insane I don’t remember anything I do.”

  “Well, it’s nonsense. Mr. Stacy is alive and here. I saw him.”

  “What?”

  “In the garden.” Juliana told him of the encounter, and her conclusion that the man had been in India.

  “Damn it.”

  “You can’t be everyplace at once,” Juliana said. “Besides, he did nothing. He looked at Priti, then looked at me, then ran off when I called him by name.”

  “Damn it to hell,” Elliot said feelingly. He added a few more expletives that gentlemen should never use in front of ladies, and segued into languages she didn’
t know.

  “He did nothing. He looked at me most peculiarly, and at Priti, but did and said nothing.”

  “Son of a…” More expletives. Elliot came to her. “Don’t go near him. Don’t leave the house. Give up your soiree until I’ve found him.”

  “Midsummer’s Eve fête and ball,” Juliana corrected. “Which is next week. And no, I won’t give it up.”

  “Until I’ve found him, I said.”

  “Elliot,” Juliana said with patience, though his warmth close to her was most distracting. “The supplies are arriving. The house—at least the public spaces—will be ready. The invitations have been sent and replies received. The villagers are excited about the fête. I cannot possibly cancel everything now.”

  “Postpone, I meant,” Elliot said, his jaw tight.

  “It amounts to the same thing. I have only just now finished sending out all the letters to my wedding guests, explaining my change of circumstance and apologizing for saying I’d marry one man and marrying a different one on the same day. Therefore I refuse to let one mad Scotsman—I refer to Mr. Stacy, not you—make me send out more letters explaining that, I’m very sorry, but the first event I am hostessing at my new home must be postponed. I will not do it. I will not let Mr. Stacy force me to do it. I will not let you force me to do it.”

  “Dear God, are you telling me that a bloody fête is more important than a sharpshooter hiding out in the woods?”

  Juliana opened her eyes wide. “Yes. It is quite the most important point in our lives. If we let gentlemen like Mr. Stacy—and, I might add, Mr. Dalrymple—prevent us from carrying out events crucial to us and our marriage, then where would we be?”

  Chapter 22

  How do you wrap me around your finger, Juliana McBride? Her eyes sparkled with resolve and stubbornness, her lips quivering from her stout declaration.

  I love you with every breath I draw.

  Elliot caressed her cheek then leaned down and kissed the soft lips he’d been longing to taste all day.

  “Then I’ll just have to find him first,” he said, his lips a breath from hers. “Don’t send half the village after me this time.”

  Her stubbornness dissolved to worry, and that worry touched his heart. “Be careful.”

  “Always, love.” He kissed her again, then released her with reluctance to retrieve his rifle.

  Juliana believed him. Elliot’s heart sang it as he left the room—finding the entire household, including the dog, gathered in the passage outside the dining room. They collectively tried to pretend they were doing something else when he emerged, but Elliot strode past them, unseeing.

  She believed him. The rest of the world thought Elliot irretrievably mad, but Juliana had decided to trust his word.

  She’d just given him the most beautiful gift he’d ever received.

  The day of the midsummer fête dawned promisingly enough. The weather was calm, the sky arched blue overhead, and only a few white clouds drifted over the highest hills.

  Juliana gave the fine weather the merest glance, relieved the rain had stopped. Rains had swept over the house two nights running, as had high winds and wild lightning. Hamish had been convinced he’d seen a ghost again and refused to leave the kitchen, despite all Juliana’s efforts.

  And Elliot had hunted Mr. Stacy. Elliot had gone out walking the hills, even in the bad weather, but he’d never found trace of his prey. Either Mr. Stacy had gone to ground, or he’d left the area entirely.

  Juliana knew—and she knew Elliot did too—that Mr. Stacy wouldn’t simply leave. He’d come for a reason, and while that reason was not yet clear, if Mr. Stacy were anything like Elliot, he’d stick to his purpose.

  The fact that the house began filling up with guests also might have triggered Stacy’s absence. First to arrive was Sinclair McBride and his two children, Andrew and Caitriona. Six-year-old Andrew took at once to Priti and her goat, while Caitriona, a dignified eight, preferred to sit in the drawing room and look at Juliana’s ladies’ magazines.

  They were lonely children, Juliana sensed, though she soon learned why Sinclair called them ungovernable terrors. The day they arrived, Andrew managed to lure the goat upstairs and hide it in the tiny room Komal occupied. The shrieks and scolding went on for hours, the goat, bleating wildly, happy to escape. During all this Caitriona sat calmly in the drawing room, holding her large golden-haired doll, and quietly turned the pages of the magazine, uninterested in the entire affair—uninterested in everything.

  Next to come were Ainsley and Cameron and their baby, Gavina. They were quickly followed by more Mackenzies—Lord Ian and his wife Beth, with their children, accompanied by Daniel Mackenzie, Ainsley’s grown-up stepson.

  A gentleman called Mr. Fellows arrived quietly and alone the day after that, to Juliana’s surprise. She’d invited him, but he’d replied by return post that he might not be able to make the journey from London.

  “I am so pleased you could come after all, Mr. Fellows,” Juliana said, coming into the front hall to meet him. “Your caseload has lessened?”

  “No,” he said in the dry tone Juliana was to learn he used habitually. “Not really.”

  Lloyd Fellows, a detective inspector for Scotland Yard, was a half brother to the Mackenzies, and shared their looks—dark hair with a touch of red, hazel eyes with glints of gold. His stance, his quiet gestures, and the way he bent his head to listen to her, put her strongly in mind of Lord Cameron.

  Mr. Fellows was quite a good detective, Juliana had heard, though she’d met him only once before, at Hart Mackenzie’s wedding, and that only for a brief greeting.

  “Well, I am pleased you took time from your duties for our first event as Mr. and Mrs. McBride,” she said.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t come for pleasure, Mrs. McBride. I came in answer to your husband’s telegram.”

  “Telegram?”

  Mr. Fellows obviously had no intention of explaining what the telegram said. He looked about at the freshly cleaned stones of the hall and the varnished and repaired wood. “I heard the McGregor house was a run-down wreck. I’m pleased to see accounts were wrong.”

  “We’ve done quite a bit of work since moving in, that is certain. Now, if you are looking for my husband, I believe you’ll find him at the river with Lord Ian. Fishing. A pastime they both enjoy, apparently.”

  “Thank you.” Mr. Fellows gave her a little bow. “I will take myself there.”

  He withdrew without further word. Very polite, yes, Juliana thought, but with a hardness about him that told her he had to make himself remember to be polite.

  Fellows went, and Juliana returned to her other guests and the ongoing preparations.

  Elliot found Lord Ian Mackenzie to be one of the most refreshing men he’d ever met.

  Of the Mackenzie family, Elliot had only ever talked at length with Cameron, his sister’s husband, but he’d found Cameron too different from himself to form an instant friendship with him. He and Cameron could talk about horses, but Cameron raced expensive champions, while Elliot had confined his horse owning to useful farm animals. They both had traveled the world, but Cameron had always lived in luxury in the best hotels, while Elliot had eked out an existence either on army pay or on his own, living in hovels that he shared with reptiles and large insects.

  Ian Mackenzie, on the other hand, was easy to be with. For one thing, the man didn’t feel the need to talk.

  Ian also knew what fishing was all about. A man stood on the bank and cast his line, then waited in silence. He might lend a hand to his fellow fisherman then quietly return to his own line when the task was done.

  Everyone else Elliot met wanted him to make small talk. Even McPherson and McGregor, though both were good-natured, expected Elliot to contribute to conversations and looked at him with puzzled patience when he did not.

  Ian, on the other hand, just fished. And shut his mouth.

  The two men hadn’t said a word to each other since Elliot had found Ian examining the f
ishing rods in the back hall of McGregor Castle that morning. Elliot had said, “Do you fish?” and Ian had nodded, brushing his fingers over a particularly good pole. “Come on then,” Elliot had said.

  The two men had chosen poles and nets and gone down to the river, where they’d stood in silence ever since. Elliot pushed aside thoughts of Stacy and the horde of people about to descend on his home. Nothing existed but the quiet plop of hooks into water, the faint hum of flies, the ripple of a fish going for the bait.

  Elliot had caught two fish, Ian three, when a figure in a dark suit, a garb more common to the dingy streets of London than the open Highlands, walked down the path to the flat bank of the river.

  “Mr. McBride.” The man held out a hand. Elliot wiped the fishy dampness of his hand on his kilt and shook it. The man nodded to Ian, who acknowledged him only with a glance before going back to his fishing. “I’m Inspector Fellows.”

  “I gathered as much,” Elliot said.

  “I’ve looked into the matters you asked me to,” Fellows said. “I can tell you here, or we can…” He motioned toward Castle McGregor, the top spires of which were just visible through the trees.

  “Here, if you don’t mind,” Elliot said. “If we return to the house we might be recruited to round up things for the jumble sale.”

  Fellows acknowledged this with a half smile. “Ian can keep his own counsel,” he said with another look at Ian, who was far more interested in the river than their discussion.

  “Archibald Stacy,” Fellows said. “Joined your regiment in 1874 and went to India. Was a subaltern.”

  “Two years younger than me,” Elliot said. “I was a lieutenant by then. He was a good shooter already, so they had me help train him to be a sharpshooter. He learned quickly.”

  “Left the regiment four years later, decided to try his hand at civilian life in India. But you know this too.”

  “I had no trouble helping an old friend.”

  Fellows’s expression didn’t change. He was a man doing his job, an expert at turning up solid information. But Elliot sensed a curiosity in the hazel eyes that would lead the man to make more connections than someone simply taking down facts.