The Seduction of Elliot McBride hp-5

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Mr. Stacy was reported dead in Lahore, after an earthquake that unhappily took quite a few lives,” Fellows went on. “Right before you returned to Scotland.”

  “He was gone from home before that,” Elliot said. “I got back to my plantation after my escape in October of that year, and Stacy was already gone. So my manservant informs me. I don’t have much memory of the time.”

  “Interesting that Stacy traveled to Lahore,” Fellows said. “Your plantations were closer to Pathankot, nearer the native state of Chamba, to the east, is that right? I consulted a map,” Fellows added in his dry tone as Elliot felt mild surprise. To many Englishmen, India was all one place, the same no matter where one traveled. They didn’t know about the vast differences in climate, weather, vegetation, animals, and people. Englishmen were still shocked at the change when they traveled from someplace like Bengal to the northern Punjab.

  “If you are asking me why he went to Lahore,” Elliot said, “I have no idea. He had business interests in Rawalpindi, but none in Lahore as far as I know. As I said, I wasn’t very coherent when I returned, and I’d of course been gone for nearly a year.”

  Fellows acknowledged this with a nod. He didn’t exclaim in sympathy at Elliot’s laconic statement of his time in captivity, which Elliot appreciated.

  “An investigation was carried out when Stacy went missing after the earthquake, of course,” Fellows said. “By the local British authorities. He’d been seen there quite obviously before the earthquake, but not afterward. Bodies were recovered from a collapsed building, but too battered to be identified, and witnesses put Stacy in that area that day. A death certificate was issued, and the case closed.”

  “How thorough was the investigation?”

  Fellows shrugged. “From the report I read, and answers to cables, I’d say not very thorough. But I can’t blame them—things must have been in chaos. But Stacy never came forward to announce he’d survived.”

  “A man can make certain he’s presumed dead,” Ian said, casting his line back into the water. “If he wants everyone to think he is.”

  Fellows looked at Ian in surprise. “You have experience of this?”

  Ian pulled in his line and cast it out again, the quiet swish the only sound as they waited. Elliot thought Ian wouldn’t answer, but then he said, “A man at the asylum had himself declared insane to get away from an uncle who was trying to kill him. The uncle wanted his inheritance.”

  “The uncle got it then,” Fellows said. “If this man was declared mad, the money would be passed to the uncle as soon as he was committed.”

  “He didn’t care. He wanted to stay alive.”

  “Hell of a way to do it,” Fellows said. “Mr. Stacy could have done a similar thing—taken advantage of the confusion after the earthquake and lain low. If he knew the area and the people and how to blend in, no one might notice him slip away. A report would be filed declaring him officially missing or dead. End of the matter.”

  “Though I don’t know why Stacy would want to be thought dead,” Elliot said. He stood his fishing pole on its end and worked out a small tangle of line. “Or why he’d come here to watch me.”

  “That I don’t know. Would you like to hear more?”

  Fellows sounded patient, but Elliot knew that putting together what information he had gathered had taken the man much time and trouble.

  “I would. I thank you for this.”

  “It is my job. And your sister can be…very persuasive…when she wants a thing done. A man calling himself Mr. Stacy and fitting his description took rooms in a boarding house in London a few months ago. He never gave the landlady any trouble, she says, and then one day he went out and didn’t return, leaving his things behind. But he’d paid up a few more months in advance, so the landlady didn’t worry.”

  “Did anyone see him leaving London? Traveling to Scotland?”

  “Of course not. Only in fiction does the detective find the helpful porter who remembers every person who gets on and off every train between here and London.”

  “In other words, he’s gone to ground,” Elliot said.

  “Waiting for your wife’s fête to end before he hunts you again?” Fellows asked. “Kind of the man.”

  “I’m sure he intends to strike at the fête. Strangers roaming the grounds, everyone welcome, perfect opportunity.”

  “I suppose your wife cannot be convinced to cancel it.”

  Elliot let himself smile. “My wife is very determined.”

  From the water, Ian laughed. It was a warm laugh, though he didn’t look up from his line. “My Beth is like that.” The fondness in his voice could not be clearer.

  Elliot and Fellows watched Ian until he turned away, his kilt moving in the breeze, to find another fishing spot a little way down the bank.

  “He’s a different man,” Fellows said in a low voice. “Since he married.”

  Elliot could say the same about himself. In the scany fortnight he’d had a wife, the tightness in his body had begun to unwind. The nightmares still came, but he woke from them to Juliana’s soothing hand, her voice, her kiss…

  Fellows snapped fingers in front of Elliot’s face. “You still with me, McBride?”

  Elliot drew a breath, and forced himself not to slam the man’s hand out of the way like an irritated tiger. “Thinking of wives.”

  “Hmm.” Fellows’s brows lifted and he looked away, as though he were thinking of someone too. “Do you want to know about this Dalrymple?”

  “Yes. What did you find out?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I found no evidence that a George Dalrymple, married to an Emily Dalrymple, exists.”

  “Then who the devil is he?”

  “Who knows? If he tried to blackmail you then he’s a crook or a confidence trickster, and such people often take false names.”

  “Dalrymple somehow got himself a copy of the death certificate declaring Stacy dead, but Stacy shot him before he could give it to me.” Elliot wondered whether Stacy had not wanted Elliot to see the paper or whether Stacy had just been annoyed at Dalrymple. He’d aimed for Dalrymple’s hand, nothing more. “The Dalrymples have been keeping themselves to themselves since the event, I’ve noticed.”

  “I’ll have a look at him, though,” Fellows said. “I might recognize him. I have a good memory.”

  Ian laughed again from down the bank, this one short, and possibly ironic.

  “Anything else?” Elliot asked.

  “That is all I’ve discovered so far.”

  “That’s a hell of a lot.” Elliot started winding up his line. “I thank you.”

  Fellows watched him in surprise. “You are returning to the house? What about the jumble sale?”

  “I’ve only been married a short while,” Elliot said. “But I’ve learned the importance of keeping the lady happy.”

  Fellows nodded, brows rising, and Ian’s laughter floated back at them once again.

  Fellows fell into step with Elliot as he shouldered his pole and sought the path to the house, but Ian remained, fishing in silence, paying no attention to the others’ departure.

  The grounds were full of people when Elliot and the inspector returned. Hamish, out of hiding now that the storms were over, was busy walking about and glaring at everyone. Elliot had emphasized to Hamish that if he saw anyone at the fête he didn’t recognize, he was to run and find Elliot.

  “No one out of the ordinary,” Hamish said as Elliot approached him. “No one I’ve never seen before.”

  “Good lad. Keep watching.”

  “Aye, sir. Mrs. McBride is looking for ye though. She’s a bit upset.”

  Elliot handed Hamish his fishing pole and followed the lad’s pointing finger to Juliana. She did look harried, tendrils of her hair sliding from her coiffure, her skirts whirling as she turned this way and that to direct, point, explain, argue.

  Elliot watched her a moment, enjoying the sight of her flushed cheeks and excited eyes. Hamish might say she was
worried, but Elliot saw a woman doing what she loved best.

  “There you are, Elliot.” Juliana swung to him as he approached. “I need you to man the jumble sale table. Mrs. Rossmoran is feeling ill.”

  “Is she all right?” Elliot asked, concerned, then twitched his brows together. “You asked Mrs. Rossmoran to run the jumble sale table?”

  Juliana’s look said that Elliot was a hopeless simpleton. “No, I was to look after it. But Fiona now must stay home and take care of her grandmother. Ill, my foot. Mrs. Rossmoran doesn’t like fêtes and didn’t want to be left on her own while Fiona came. Anyway, Fiona was to be the fortune-teller, and now I will have to do it, but I need someone to watch the table. Don’t worry. The jumble sale is very simple. Stand behind the table, put the money in the tin, and don’t let anyone walk off with the things.” Juliana started for the house, and threw over her shoulder, “And do try to sell things. The money is for the church roof. You are charming. Charm them.” And she was gone.

  Chapter 23

  Standing at the jumble sale table gave Elliot a fine view of the grounds and all the people on them. Juliana and her recruits had transformed the flat space below the house to a fair of booths, awnings, tables, ponies, children, men, women, dogs, and one goat.

  The table had been placed on a little rise at one end of the grounds, and from there, Elliot could keep watch over every person who strolled about, played games, bought tea and real Scottish scones, or darted into shadows between tents. He saw Hamish in one of these shadows, but the lad was pointing out things to Nandita, his voice loud, words slow while he explained the fête to her.

  The fortune-teller’s tent, fully enclosed in bright red fabric, lay a few yards to the right of the jumble sale table. People lined up outside the tent, ducking in one at a time to have Juliana read their palms for a penny.

  It was a fine idea, that tent. Elliot would like nothing better than to slip inside, pull the curtains closed against the world, and shut out all but himself and his beautiful wife.

  Something cold and wet touched his palm. Elliot looked down at the red setter, who thumped her tail and grinned hopefully up at him.

  “No scones here,” he said. “Sorry.”

  He scratched her head. McPherson was generous to give him the dog, or at least let her live with them for the time. Elliot had decided to call her Rosie.

  “How much is the pig?” a small voice asked.

  Elliot looked down to see a girl child, her red hair as bright as Rosie’s, staring up, wide-eyed, at Elliot, who towered over her.

  What must she see? A huge man with close-cropped light hair, a hard face, and eyes like winter ice. Couldn’t be a very pleasant thing for a child. Priti didn’t mind Elliot, but Priti was used to him, and his daughter was worryingly fearless.

  Elliot came around the table and crouched down to put himself at the girl’s eye level. Giants weren’t as frightening face-to-face.

  Elliot lifted the little porcelain pig from the table. “This one? For you, nothing. Consider it a gift from Mrs. McBride.”

  The little girl shook her head decidedly. “No, me mum says I have to pay for it. It’s for the church roof.”

  Elliot recognized Highland strength in her eyes—she was afraid of Elliot the tall McBride, but she would have her pig and contribute to the church roof, damn anything in her way.

  “How much do you have?” Elliot asked her.

  The girl opened a rather dirty palm with two coins on it. Elliot took one of them.

  “A farthing for a pig. A perfect price.”

  He deposited the pig into the girl’s hands. Satisfied, she gave him a big smile, turned around, and scurried back to her mother.

  “Ye have the touch, ye do,” a male voice said.

  Elliot rose to his feet and faced the grin of his sister’s stepson, Daniel Mackenzie.

  Daniel was eighteen, broad and tall like his father, though he hadn’t quite grown into the massive man Lord Cameron was. Daniel’s body was still a little lanky, but in a few years’ time, the son would closely resemble the father.

  “I used to have the touch,” Elliot corrected him. He rearranged a few things on the table to fill in the gap where the pig had been.

  “I’d say ye still did. Ye’ve been recruited then?”

  “Commanded. Got used to it in the army.”

  “No general can compete with our ladies, though, can they?”

  “I’ve never met one who could.”

  Daniel’s grin widened. He resembled his father, yes, but he didn’t have the darkness in his whiskey-colored eyes that Cameron once had, a darkness that had been driven away by Ainsley. Elliot still saw the shadows in Cameron but not in Daniel.

  But then, Daniel was young, and life hadn’t thrown tragedy at him yet. Elliot had been much the same at eighteen.

  Daniel looked over the collection of knitted pen wipers, doilies, an odd assortment of porcelain figurines, a clock that had stopped working, books without spines, and whatever other things people had found in their attics and contributed to the cause.

  Daniel lifted the clock and looked at it with a practiced eye. “Ye have your work cut out for ye.”

  “Mrs. McBride will want it all gone.”

  “I’ll take this off your hands at any rate.” Daniel peered inside the clock. “I always need spare parts.”

  “For clocks?”

  “For whatever gadget I’m trying to put together. I’m an inventor. I already have a patent on a new pulley system for trams.”

  A sharp mind. Elliot’s mind at eighteen had been filled with visions of glory in the regiment, of conquering a nation, of the praise of a beautiful woman when he finished.

  “Five shillings for it,” Daniel said, digging into his pocket and dropping the coins in the money box. He shrugged at his extravagance. “It’s for the church roof, I’m told.”

  “I thank you,” Elliot said gravely. “My wife thanks you. The church roof thanks you.”

  Daniel chuckled then studied Elliot with the same scrutiny he’d given the clock. “How is married life, eh? Ainsley said she’s relieved you’ve got someone to look after you.”

  “Did she? But my sister enjoys playing nursemaid.”

  “Aye, she does. She’s me mum now, and is good at it. I like to call her Mum in front of people. It makes her wild.”

  Ainsley was only eleven years older than Daniel. Elliot shared a grin with him.

  He glanced again at the fortune-teller’s tent, where lads from the village were waiting for the lovely Juliana to run her fingers over their palms, and his grin vanished.

  “Daniel,” he said. “Help me shift this lot.”

  Daniel followed his gaze to the tent. “Aye, Mrs. McBride is doing well in there. Promised me all kinds of riches and beautiful women. She’s got the touch too.”

  “We’ll sell everything on this damned table,” Elliot said. “The minister will die of happiness.” And then Elliot could go into the fortune-teller’s tent and kick out the eager crofters’ sons.

  “The fair Juliana might kiss us,” Daniel said. “Me on the cheek, of course, like a good auntie.”

  “Shut it, and sell things,” Elliot growled.

  Daniel joined him behind the table. For the next hour, the two of them held up objects and, like the best hawkers in Covent Garden, cajoled people to come and buy them. Daniel was good at it, and Elliot lost the avoidance of people he’d had since his imprisonment and remembered what it was to be young and brash.

  “A pen wiper, dear lady,” Daniel said, holding up a round piece of knitting for a woman with a basket on her arm. “Why not two, or three? Ye have more than one pen, surely.”

  “A glass vase, lad,” Elliot said to a young man. “To put wildflowers in for your lady. Ye can barely see the crack here. Ye fill this with flowers from yon meadow, and she’ll be baking ye oatcakes in no time.”

  The table quickly became popular, the villagers drawn to Daniel’s and Elliot’s outrageous style. The la
dies, in particular, flocked to them, blushing under Daniel’s blatant flirtation.

  The contents dwindled, and the tin box for the money filled up. When Elliot and Daniel were down to the last two or three items, they decided to hold an auction. They sold an old bonnet for thirty shillings, the most dismally cracked porcelain vase for twenty, and a pair of misshapen antimacassars for a guinea. Daniel raised his hands at the end.

  “We’re all done, ladies, thank you! And the minister thanks you.”

  “Yes, very well done, brother dear.” Ainsley came out of the crowd, her little girl, Gavina, on her arm. She kissed Elliot’s cheek. “Juliana will be pleased.”

  “’Tis what he’s hoping.” Daniel chortled.

  Elliot secured the lid on the box of coins and handed it to Ainsley. “The villagers were generous.”

  “Of course they were. Two handsome Highlanders in kilts begging the ladies to give them their coin? They could not resist. You wouldn’t even have had to give them the things. Which, by the way, they’ll simply bring back to contribute to next year’s jumble sale.”

  “Och,” Daniel said in dismay. “I might go to America instead.”

  “If I’m recruited, you are too, lad,” Elliot warned. He gave Daniel a thump on the shoulder, left the table, and headed for the fortune-teller’s tent.

  No one was waiting outside it at the moment—the villagers had all collected at the jumble sale table and hadn’t drifted back to the tent yet.

  Elliot raised the flap, walked inside, and found Archibald Stacy sitting on a chair in front of his wife.

  Juliana watched Elliot change from her husband who’d obviously slipped inside to dally with her, to a cold being of ice. His warm smile vanished, and his gaze became fixed, every bit of heat in him dying.

  He didn’t ask how Stacy came to be there—Elliot would discern that Stacy had pulled up a stake in the back of the tent and ducked inside while Juliana was busy ushering out another villager.