The Seduction of Elliot McBride hp-5

by Jennifer Ashley

  Elliot closed his fingers around hers then seemed to realize that she stood there soaking wet. He released her, slid off his coat, and draped it around Juliana’s shoulders. The trapped heat from his body embraced her, surrounding her with his warmth and scent.

  “I was dreaming I was back in my cell, in the caves. Except that they made me say your name. I blurted out the secret of you. And they were going to take you from me.” Elliot gripped her shoulders through the loose coat. “They were taking you away from me. I can’t do this if they take you away from me.”

  “I’m here.” Juliana looked up into Elliot’s anguished eyes, his brows drawn down as though all the fury in the world coursed through him. “I’m here, Elliot. I’ve always been here for you. And I always will be.”

  Elliot gripped her shoulders even harder. His breath came faster, the fine rain dripping down his face.

  “I’ll always be here,” Juliana repeated. “Always.”

  “Why should you? He was right. I’m broken.”

  Juliana didn’t know who he was, but she knew the answer. “Because I love you. I love you my dearest, darling Elliot. I’ve loved you since the day you put the frog in my pocket, and kissed me to distract me from it.” She turned her head and kissed the hand that rested on her shoulder. “I love you, Elliot McBride.”

  When she looked up at him again she found his gaze burning into her. The wild look he’d had in the dining room was back, but she could see that he remained in the present, no flashing back to the past.

  A hoarse cry escaped his throat. Elliot dragged Juliana to him, his arms coming around her to hold her—tight, tight. He shuddered, then shuddered again, sobs choking out of him.

  Juliana clung to him, pressing her cheek to his. He rocked her in his arms, his tears mingling with the rain to wet her face.

  “Don’t love me,” he said. “Don’t.”

  “There is no do or don’t,” Juliana whispered. The mists dissolved and the rain came down faster. “I love you because I love you. I can’t help that.”

  His embrace nearly crushed her, his strong body shaking. “Never stop. Never stop loving me, Juliana.”

  “I never will.”

  Elliot raised his head. Tears streaked his face, his eyes were red-rimmed, and his face twisted in pain and hope. “I love you so much,” he said brokenly.

  Juliana’s own tears came. She brushed away his and kissed his lips.

  Elliot crushed her up to him, taking her mouth in a brutal kiss. Their mouths fused, heat to heat, lips touching, parting, gliding together. Never stop loving me.

  Never. Never. Gemma had said Juliana shouldn’t try to repair him. Juliana understood now.

  She didn’t need to be Elliot’s caretaker; she needed to be his friend and guide, his lover. She would anchor him when he rode the storm of his fears, listen when he needed to speak, and provide a safe haven for him when his journey was done.

  She loved him, and the kiss rode on the wings of their love together.

  A dog barked. Rosie ran to them, her red body soaked, and shook herself out all over them. Juliana broke the kiss to laugh.

  “No hope for this gown now,” she said over the rising wind.

  Elliot was looking up and past her, and Juliana turned. Down the path came lanterns, points of light in the darkness. They were all coming—Hamish, Mahindar, Channan, Nandita, Komal, McGregor, and Priti in Nandita’s arms. Even the goat, who shook her head at the rain.

  Their lanterns gleamed out in the darkness, falling on Juliana and Elliot in each other’s arms on the bridge.

  Mr. McGregor stopped the procession, holding his lantern high. “Well now,” he shouted, his grin gleaming hugely from his bearded face. “It appears as though the lad’s all right.”

  “Mahindar,” Elliot began. He drew a breath to say more, but he arrested it, let out the air he’d drawn, and simply looked at the man who had been with him through so much.

  “Come back to the house, sahib,” Mahindar said, raising his lantern high. “Come back to the house with the memsahib. It is warm there.”

  Juliana locked her hands behind Elliot’s neck and gave him another long kiss, her body warming at his hard kiss in response.

  “Let’s go home,” she said.

  The look Elliot gave her heated her to her toes. She snuggled into his coat, took his hand, and led him back toward the house, into its warmth and welcoming light.

  “Say it again.” Elliot heard the savagery in his voice, and he couldn’t stop it. “Say it again.”

  Their bodies dripped, but with sweat now, not rain. Outside the wind had risen, the summer storm howling in to drive away the mist. Alone in their bedchamber, Elliot had stripped off Juliana’s wet clothes, his own landing with hers on the floor. The bed rocked now with his onslaught, Elliot loving her with the fury of the storm.

  “I love you!” Juliana cried.

  Darkness swirled through Elliot’s mind, but it was the hot darkness of climax. Juliana’s shout wound him tighter, Elliot barely hanging on.

  “Again!”

  “I love you!” Juliana opened her eyes, her laughter ringing up to him. “I love you, Elliot McBride.”

  “I love you.” The words came out in a rush, wildness washing over him. “I love you, Juliana. My lass, my own sweet lass. Sweet, holy God.”

  His seed shot from him, finding home in Juliana. Elliot’s hips rocked against hers, his sweat and her honey where they joined.

  The wind slammed into the house, and Elliot thrust for the last time, burying himself inside her. He groaned again, fire flickering on the edges of his vision.

  Juliana skimmed her hands down Elliot’s body, touching him everywhere, her face relaxed in the warmth of passion. Her hair was a mess, curls awry, her naked body the best place his could be.

  “Say it again,” he said, kissing her swollen lips.

  Juliana smiled, the smile languid now, and brushed her fingertips over the base of his neck. “I love you.”

  Did the words sound best when they burst out of her in passion, or said sweetly in aftermath? Or whispered into his ear while she’d held him as he’d wept?

  Elliot would make her say it in all ways, in every room in the house—and on the grounds, in the dogcart, in the train when they finally went back to Edinburgh. In every place they ever were throughout their lives, Elliot would make it his quest to discover where and how the words I love you, from Juliana’s lips, sounded best.

  “I love you, my wife.” He let his voice go soft. “Tha gaol agam ort.”

  A smile spread across her face. “Is that what that means? I love you?”

  “It does.”

  “Then…Tha gaol agam ort. Did I say it correctly?”

  Hearing the words, in beautiful Gaelic, while she lay under him in bed was undoubtedly the best of all.

  “Ye did, lass. Tha gaol agam ort-fhèin. I love you too.” He kissed the line of her hair. “Thank you.”

  “Mmm. For what? Letting you teach me Gaelic?”

  “For all of it.”

  Juliana knew what he meant. Elliot loved that he didn’t have to explain himself all the time to her. She understood.

  Juliana touched the tip of his nose, and gave him her most beautiful, warm, and loving smile. “In that case, my love, my bonny husband…You’re welcome.”

  Chapter 30

  FOUR WEEKS LATER

  Elliot found Juliana in the morning room, July’s warm air carried on a light breeze through the window. She was elegantly beautiful in her pale lawn gown buttoned all the way up her throat, her hair dressed casually in a twist of curls.

  As usual, she had a notebook open on the table beside her and a pile of letters and cards on a second table. Ink, paper, and blotting paper were spread out before her, waiting for her to cover them with her practical words.

  Elliot walked into the room and closed the door behind him. “Good afternoon, my wife.”

  Juliana scribbled something into her notebook and looked up at him
. She took him in—his boots and kilt, a loose coat slung over a loose shirt—and flashed her beautiful smile. “Good afternoon.”

  “We’re going on a picnic,” Elliot said.

  “How delightful.” Juliana wrote down another note. “Who is going? You and Priti? Or Uncle McGregor and Mr. McPherson? Or—”

  “You and I.”

  Juliana’s brows rose, her pen stopping. “Are we? When?”

  “Right now.”

  Juliana looked at him in bewilderment. “On the moment? I’ve just started my correspondence.”

  “On the moment. Right now. Put down your pen.”

  “But I have all this to finish.”

  Elliot started for her. Before he could reach her and snatch the pen from her hand, Juliana quickly laid it down and rose to her feet.

  “Very well,” she asked. “But may I ask why?”

  “Why the picnic?” Elliot shrugged. “Why not?”

  Juliana cast a glance at her paper-strewn tables. “I have much to do, Elliot. When I hire a secretary, perhaps I can leave whenever I like…”

  Elliot caught her hands and pulled her away from the tables. “Not when you hire a secretary. Now. I’m going to sway you away from your papers, lists, and organization. I’m going to thoroughly seduce you from it, my wife. Right now.”

  He saw her soften, the desire glow in her eyes, the spark of mischievousness he’d always sensed in her, even when he was slipping the frog into her pinafore pocket. She hadn’t screamed and tried to beat it away from her. She’d calmly dipped her hand into her pocket, released the poor thing into the grass, and walked away, giving Elliot a superior look over her shoulder.

  Juliana still had the mischievousness, but her frantic fears that the world would condemn her if she slipped in any point had kept her from enjoying it.

  Elliot wanted to teach her to find and revel in that part of herself again.

  “All right then. A picnic.” Juliana turned for the bellpull. “I will have Mahindar fix us a basket. I’m sure he will make up a splendid one.”

  “No.” Elliot stepped in front of her, blocking her way. “No basket. We see what we find on the way. No planning. No organizing. No lists.”

  Her lips parted. “Oh.”

  “Turn around.” Elliot caught her shoulders and gently turned her in place. “Out the window. Pick a direction down the path. That is where we’ll go.”

  She hesitated, ready to argue again. Elliot leaned down and bit the shell of her ear. “Go,” he said.

  Juliana sped away to the windows. She stepped out of the longest one and hopped down to the path that ran around the house. There she paused, looking around, trying to decide which direction to go.

  Elliot stepped out after her, took her arm, and tugged her with him down an overgrown path leading east. “This way.”

  “I thought I was supposed to choose the direction.”

  “You were debating which was the best way to go. Making lists of for and against in your head. Weren’t you?”

  “Um. Yes.”

  “This direction is random. We go.”

  They couldn’t walk side by side down the narrow walk, but Elliot didn’t mind coming behind Juliana, where he could observe her small bustle swaying as she went.

  The walkway led to the path that skirted the river and wended its way to the footbridge to Mrs. Rossmoran’s cottage.

  As they rounded a bend, Elliot caught sight of movement in the brush. He hesitated, the wary hunter in him returning, but then he recognized the rough McIver kilt Hamish liked to wear, and the colorful silks of Nandita’s scarves. The two were standing in the shadows, very close together.

  Elliot watched them for a moment, their innocence reminding him of when he and Juliana had shared their first dance, then he turned away and caught up to Juliana.

  The river rushed beneath them as they walked over the footbridge together, as strongly as it had the night Elliot had stood on the larger bridge, looking over the water in black despair.

  He hadn’t had any thought of ending his life that night—though he knew Mahindar still believed he had. Instead, the endless rush of sound had caught at him, making Elliot stare into the river’s depths while he fought his demons in the dark.

  Mrs. Rossmoran and Fiona were both home. “Bannocks?” Fiona asked in answer to Elliot’s question. “Aye, baked this morning. And shortbread from yesterday.”

  Fiona made them up a bundle in the kitchen, while Mrs. Rossmoran sat in her usual chair and regarded them all imperiously.

  “So, you’ve decided to live, have you, young Elliot?”

  Elliot slid his arm around Juliana’s waist. “I have.”

  “Hamish says you look much better,” Mrs. Rossmoran said. “Act much better too. Haven’t tried to strangle anyone in a while. You’ve made a good choice in wife.” Mrs. Rossmoran gave Juliana an approving glance. “I said that from the start. And when you have a few babes in the nursery, ’twill be even better. But mind Hamish. He’s growing smitten with that young Indian girl who came with your manservant. He brought her to visit the other day. Sweet young lady, after she got over her shyness. Her English is improving as well. I gather she had an unhappy time of it in India, poor soul.” She sighed. “Why anyone wants to live any place but Scotland, I don’t know.”

  Fiona brought them their package, giving Juliana a wink and a smile. “Off you go.”

  Elliot took charge of the bannocks and shortbread and led Juliana away.

  As they headed for the path that ran along the Rossmoran side of the river, Elliot heard Mrs. Rossmoran say to Fiona, “Do you think she is increasing? She had the look of it. Next spring, there’ll be a new McBride, you mark my words.”

  Elliot took Juliana’s hand and led her on.

  Elliot had lied when he’d said the picnic idea was completely spontaneous and unorganized. In truth, he had a goal in mind.

  He’d found the place while exploring the land, looking for Stacy—who was still a guest of McPherson, though he was on the mend. Elliot and he had begun repairing things between them, talking of old times and new, Stacy planning what he’d do when he recovered. In London, Fellows had put in motion ways to keep Jaya’s brothers at bay. Fellows’s half-brother, the Duke of Kilmorgan, had much influence in politics, and ambassadors had talked to the ruling prince, who decided he didn’t like members of his extended family going after Britons. Jaya’s brothers had been called home, and there they stayed. Stacy could now live his life again, out of hiding. He would stay in Scotland, he said, and try to carve a place for himself.

  Elliot found that talking to Stacy helped. He was learning how to remember the past without fighting it, without fearing it would destroy him. Perhaps one day, Elliot’s memories would be distant enough to no longer threaten. He knew it would take him a long time to reach such peace, but he had everything he needed to begin.

  The place Elliot had found was a hidden meadow, surrounded by thick trees. The last few days had been rainless, so the grass was dry though still a deep green. Heather swayed across the meadow, rippling purple, interspersed with tiny white and gold flowers to make the place seem to sparkle.

  When Elliot folded back the last branch to let Juliana through from the overgrown path, she gasped in delight.

  “Beautiful.” She ran a few steps and spun around, laughing. “This was no arbitrary direction, Elliot McBride. You brought me here on purpose.”

  “That is true.” Elliot walked unerringly to the base of a tree and fetched a bundle of blankets that he’d asked Hamish to leave there for him.

  “Trickster,” Juliana said, but she was still laughing.

  “Only in part. I’m trying to demonstrate that you can throw off your shackles and enjoy yourself once in a while. The world will not stop if you do.”

  Juliana watched him spread out the blankets, her hands on her hips. “Oh, very well. I know I can be a bit zealous about organizing. But I like it.”

  “I’m not demanding you give it up ever
y day.” Elliot stretched out on the blanket. “Just every once in a while.”

  Juliana carefully collapsed next to him, leaned down, and kissed his lips. “I think I don’t mind.” She looked at their bundle. “We have food. But nothing to drink.”

  “We can take a drink from yon river,” Elliot said. When Juliana blinked, he grinned. “Or wait for Hamish to bring the jugs of water and wine as I asked him to.” He ran his hand down Juliana’s bodice to rest his palm over her abdomen. “I told him to give us an hour or so alone, first.”

  Juliana’s cheeks went pink. “An excellent idea.”

  “I brought something else.” Elliot reached into the pocket of his coat for the box that Mahindar had handed him this morning and opened it.

  Inside, on a bed of velvet, lay two rings. One was a wide gold band; the other, a narrower band encrusted with sapphires.

  Juliana took a quick breath. “Ours?”

  “I told Mahindar what to order the day of our wedding. They’re finished, and here.” Elliot drew out the smaller ring, lifted Juliana’s left hand, and slid it onto her third finger. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

  Juliana studied the ring, her smile happy. She took the man’s ring and slid it onto his finger.

  “With this ring, I thee wed.”

  Elliot couldn’t stop his smile. The cool band was heavy on his finger, clasping him just right, belonging there.

  He took Juliana’s hand again and kissed it, right over the ring. Then he pressed their hands together on her belly.

  “Is Mrs. Rossmoran right?” he asked. “Is there a wee one?”

  Juliana went quiet, and for a moment, Elliot’s heart squeezed with worry. Then she smiled. “She is.”

  “Dear God.” Elliot’s lungs ceased to work. He tried to say a few more things, such as, I’m going to be a father again. You’ve made me so happy, love. Do you think it will be a boy or girl?

  All he could do was roll onto his back and stare up at the blue sky and sunshine.

  Priti’s birth had occurred while Elliot had been imprisoned, her existence unknown to him until Mahindar had sprung it on him, releasing an ember of joy and wonder. This was the first time Elliot would be a father alongside the child’s mother, watching Juliana carry it, being there when the baby came into the world.