The Seduction of Elliot McBride hp-5

by Jennifer Ashley

  Nandita’s cries ceased now that they were on solid ground again, but her eyes remained huge.

  “Elliot, can you tell her?” Juliana asked. “Tell her she’s safe.”

  The cart hit a wide hole in the road just then, rocking them all. The latch on the door beside Elliot came open, the door flapping wildly.

  “Elliot!” Juliana cried. She couldn’t lunge for him, because she had Priti, and Nandita was screaming again.

  A less athletic man than Elliot would have been thrown free. Elliot gripped the cart, sinews standing out through his tight leather gloves. He maintained his balance, grabbed the flailing door, and closed and latched it again.

  He turned to Nandita as though nothing remarkable had happened and began speaking to her, unhurried, in a language Juliana knew not one word of. Nandita listened, at last comforted by whatever he said. Her cries wound down, the road quieting as the river dropped behind them.

  They came out of the woods and started downward, the road hugging the side of a steep hill. At the bottom of the hill was wide field of green, bordered by mountains marching in the distance and a sweep of sea far to the east.

  At the end of the road sat the house.

  It was was gigantic. And rambling. And ramshackle, crumbling all over in complete and utter disrepair.

  Juliana put her hand to her throat, half rising in her seat. “Oh, Elliot,” she said.

  Chapter 3

  Five stories of house shot straight upward from a rectangular base, the wall covered with a fantastic arrangement of crenellations, windows, arrow slits, and little round towers that swelled out from unexpected places. A mansard roof, punctuated with tiny dormer windows, rose high into the sky.

  This wasn’t a medieval castle. It was a wealthy man’s fantasy, built to impress the neighbors—a fairy-tale castle. Except that now the fairy-tale castle was a hundred and more years old, crumbling, stained, and moss covered, windows broken, bricks from the roof littering the yard before it like gray snow. The clearing that had looked immense during the drive down the hill now revealed that it once had been twice that size, with new-growth woods invading the previously extensive park and gardens.

  Hamish stopped the cart close to the house, the horse stepping carefully around the fallen stones. Elliot opened the cart’s rear door and stepped down. He surveyed the colossus with his hands on his hips, a new light in his eyes. He looked…satisfied.

  Hamish leapt to the ground from his high seat, and the mare lowered her head and started cropping grass. Elliot turned to help Juliana out of the cart, his hand warm in the cooling evening air.

  Nandita took longer to climb down, fearful of putting her foot on the little step, even with Elliot to steady her. Finally Hamish reached past Elliot, slung one arm around Nandita’s body, and lifted her to the ground.

  Nandita stared at Hamish in complete shock and brought up her veils to cover her face.

  “Hamish, lad,” Elliot said in a quiet voice. “An Indian woman is not to be touched by anyone outside the family.” His tone was stern, but the look he gave Hamish was almost amused. “It could be the death of you.”

  Hamish’s eyes rounded. “Oh aye? Sorry.” He looked at Nandita and said in a loud, slow voice, “Sorry, miss.”

  “She’s widowed,” Elliot said. He reached for Priti and swung her down from the cart. “Not a miss.”

  Hamish’s voice got louder. “Beg your pardon, ma’am.” He left her and climbed hastily back to the driver’s seat. “I don’t want to cause no one’s death. Especially not mine.”

  He turned the dogcart and slapped the horse into a fast trot, careening back out of the clearing. The cart slipped and slid on the narrow track as Hamish drove up the hill, the wheels rocking perilously close to the edge.

  The front door was not locked, and Elliot pushed it open. The vestibule beyond was empty, its once-ornate ceiling covered with cobwebs. Muddy boots, likely Hamish’s, had tracked the flagstone floor as recently as today.

  Elliot walked inside and opened the door on the other end of the vestibule to the house proper. The top half of the vestibule door held stained glass, but the glass was now so grimy that every pane was black.

  The inside of the house was much worse than the outside. In addition to the dust hanging thickly in the air, the walls were coated with cobwebs, and the grand staircase, winding upward from the great hall, was missing spindles and stair treads. A chandelier, a giant of a thing, all its candles gone, hung from a thick chain down through the middle of the open staircase.

  Doors led from the great hall to rooms both large and small. Juliana glanced inside a few, seeing that some contained furniture covered in dust sheets, others no furniture at all. The grimy windows and waning light made the house darker, and Juliana tripped.

  Elliot instantly steadied her. Juliana caught his arm, finding it hard as steel under his coat. “Good heavens, Elliot, what on earth made you purchase this house?”

  “Uncle McGregor needed the money,” Elliot said. “I didn’t mind helping him out. I stayed here off and on as a boy. Always had a fondness for the place.” He looked up the staircase. “I had Hamish fix up a bedchamber for us. Shall we go find it?”

  Priti darted around them for the staircase, Nandita calling out desperately to her. Elliot stepped into the little girl’s path and swung her onto his shoulder, saying, “Uuup we go.”

  The child’s English seemed to be better than Nandita’s. She clapped her hands. “Yes, yes. Up!”

  Elliot took the stairs to the next floor, in no way unbalanced by his burden. Juliana followed, watching anxiously, but the stairs were solid. The entire house was very…solid. Nandita came close behind Juliana, and thus they all ascended.

  On the first floor, Elliot walked around the gallery and headed down a wide hall. This house had once been very grand, with high, ornamented ceilings and intricate carving on dadoes and cornices. Elliot started opening doors, revealing more furniture under dust sheets like crouching gray humps. The fourth door he opened finally emitted light and warmth.

  A fire danced on a brick hearth of an old-fashioned fireplace, the most cheerful thing Juliana had seen since entering the house. A massive bed stood in the middle of the floor, rather than against a wall, the mattress a bit sagging, but at least it was whole, and covered with a clean quilt. The floor had no carpet nor the bed any hangings—nor did the windows have drapes—but compared to the rest of the house, the room was palatial.

  Before Juliana could step inside the welcoming room, a door banged open down the hall. Nandita shrieked, and even Priti let out a squeak of alarm.

  A stentorian voice roared down the passage at them. “What th’ devil are ye doing in my house? Get out, the lot o’ you. I have a gun, and it’s loaded.”

  The small, wiry, elderly man who strode into the hall did indeed have a shotgun in his hands, and he stared down its long barrel at them. He had a white beard and thick sideburns, and from this hairy face blazed dark eyes with plenty of life in them.

  “I’ll shoot you, I tell ye. A man’s allowed to defend his own household.”

  “Uncle McGregor,” Elliot said in a loud voice. “It’s Elliot. I’ve brought my wife.”

  The man lowered the gun but didn’t put it down entirely. “Och, so it is you, lad. Thought it might be burglars. This is herself, then? Little Juliana St. John?” Mr. McGregor came down the hall toward them. A kilt hung on the small man’s bony hips, topped with a loose shirt and a tweed coat that had seen better days. “I knew your granddad, lass. Last time I saw you was at your christening. You yelled the church down. Far too loud for a girl child, but then your mother was a madwoman.”

  Juliana choked back the first retort on her lips. He was elderly, she reminded herself, with the bluntness of the old. And he did still have the shotgun. “How are you, Mr. McGregor?” she managed.

  “I’m sixty-nine years old, young woman. How do you think I am?” McGregor looked past Juliana to the terrified Nandita hiding behind her. “Y
e’ve brought your natives back with ye this time, then?”

  “You’ll like them,” Elliot said. “My manservant is a fine cook.”

  “Cook, eh?” McGregor kept staring at Nandita, who was trying to shrink into Juliana. “That reminds me, I’m hungry. Where’s that blasted lad with my supper?”

  “Hamish has gone back to the station to fetch my manservant and the rest of his family. And our baggage, with any luck.”

  “He couldn’t have fed me before he left? My family works this land for six hundred years, and now the laird is foisted off without a crust of bread?”

  “I’ll rummage for ye.” Elliot put his hand on the small of Juliana’s back and guided her toward the bedroom.

  McGregor’s outraged expression gave way to a sudden laugh. “Can’t wait to be at it, can ye, lad? Lovely bride like that—I don’t blame ye at all, m’boy.” Chuckling, he uncocked the gun and retreated to the room from which he’d sprung. He slammed the door so hard that bits of plaster floated down from the ceiling.

  Elliot remained in the hall, Priti still perched on his shoulders. “You rest,” he said to Juliana. “I’ll go down to the kitchen and fix Uncle McGregor some food.”

  “I thought you said you’d bought the estate from him,” Juliana said, confused.

  “Aye, but the rest of McGregor’s family are dead, and he has nowhere to go. He’d never manage in one of the estate cottages on his own. I told him he had a home here until he chooses otherwise.”

  Juliana let out a breath. “I understand, though I wish you had warned me. I thought my heart would stop. I suppose his staff won’t mind looking after us as well?”

  Elliot set Priti on her feet. “Uncle McGregor has no staff. Just Hamish.”

  “Oh.”

  Juliana had been raised in a house with no less than twenty people to take care of two. This place was immense and tumbledown, and Mahindar and his family couldn’t be expected to do everything themselves. Juliana saw, stretching before her, a great deal of planning and work.

  Elliot turned away. Priti jumped away from Nandita, who was trying to get her to stay in the bedroom, and ran for Elliot. “Kitchen!” she shouted.

  Elliot scooped her up again. “All right, Priti. Let’s go explore the kitchens.”

  He didn’t seem to mind the girl hugging him around the neck while he carried her down the hall, heading for the stairs.

  Juliana closed the door and looked at the bed, a monster of a thing crouched in the middle of the room.

  “Why put it there?” she asked out loud.

  Nandita stared at her, not understanding. Something in the corner caught Nandita’s attention, and she cried out, pointing.

  Juliana followed the young woman’s outstretched finger, then heard the rustling and skittering. “Ah,” she said. “That’s why.”

  A string of mice raced across the edge of the room from one corner to the other before plunging behind the skirting board. When Juliana turned back to Nandita, she found the young woman in the center of the bed, her arms curled around her knees, her colorful scarves covering her body.

  One of the mice chose to make a daring dash across the carpetless floor, heading right for Juliana. Juliana shrieked as loudly as Nandita had and scrambled to the center of the bed. Nandita reached for her, the two ladies hugged each other, and Juliana began to laugh, peal after peal that wouldn’t stop.

  Elliot found the kitchen easily enough at the end of a long passage. An echoing room, it had been kept in some repair—the stove shiny and the coal bin stocked, the cabinets fitted with latched doors to keep the mice from the food.

  The room was gloomy, the sun finally setting behind the mountains. Elliot lit candles, reflecting that he’d have to send Mahindar back to the village for kerosene and some lamps. It would be a long time before gas was laid on at the McGregor house.

  Two worktables ran the length of the big kitchen, the end of one cleaned and sanded enough for using. Elliot set Priti down on one of the two stools there and began rummaging for food. He could at least take McGregor some toasted bread and cheese if nothing else. A good bottle of whiskey or a pint of ale might ease the man’s temper as well.

  The dismay in Juliana’s voice when he’d told her there was no staff but Hamish had been sharp. When Elliot had first visited this house, he’d seen its potential, not its flaws. A place where he could retreat from the world and lick his wounds.

  He could restore it himself—he didn’t mind hard work. He also knew that the villagers would welcome the extra wages for helping him. Elliot had enough money to employ them all. The fortune he’d amassed in India, which had continued to build even when he’d been in prison, was now vast.

  When Elliot had picked this house, he’d pictured himself sharing it with Juliana, the only woman he’d have considered marrying, even though she’d been betrothed to another.

  What I asked, Elliot, was whether you would marry me. The question had dangled in front of him like a lifeline. He’d clutched it, desperately hanging on, not letting go.

  He’d never let go.

  Elliot sliced bread with a knife that had only a few crumbs clinging to it. He handed one slice to Priti, who gnawed on it then made a face. The child didn’t like English or Scottish food, but she’d have to put up with it until Mahindar could make his marvelous butter naan or delicious roti.

  Mahindar and family had not accompanied Elliot on his first trip up here to buy the estate, and Elliot knew that the state of the kitchen would draw Mahindar’s dismay. But Mahindar had worked miracles before.

  Elliot found another knife and a square piece of yellow cheese. The stove wasn’t stoked, so McGregor would have to eat his bread cold.

  The knife went through the hunk of cheese at the same time Elliot heard a faint step behind him. A stealthy step of someone who did not want Elliot to know he was there. It wasn’t Juliana, who smelled of rose water, nor was it Mahindar or one of his family. Nor was it McGregor, who pounded about like a troop of soldiers.

  All this flashed through Elliot’s thoughts before his mind went blank. Heat came rushing at him, the flat heat of summer in the dry lands. There was no shadow, no concealing cover. He had to run, run for his life, but it was all open, nowhere to go.

  And someone was behind him. There was no getting away—Elliot had to turn and fight. Bile rose in his throat. He’d have to kill or die.

  Elliot shouted as he spun around, grabbed the muscular intruder, shoved him across the kitchen, and plunged the knife at his attacker’s throat.

  Chapter 4

  Elliot’s captive yelled. And yelled and yelled. Over the noise came the familiar voice of Mahindar.

  “No, no, no, no, sahib! You must not!”

  Yes, he did. Elliot had to kill, he had to get away…

  A big hand landed on his arm, stopping the knife. “No, sahib. You are safe now. This young one, he is a friend.”

  Elliot blinked. And blinked again. Mahindar’s dark face swam to him through the gloom, the man’s kind brown eyes full of distress.

  Under Elliot’s hand, a body struggled, and someone gasped for air. Elliot’s vision cleared, and he found that he held young Hamish, the bread knife about to nick the skin of his throat.

  Mahindar stood beside Elliot, one hand on his arm. Behind Mahindar were his mother and wife; beyond them, Priti, still chewing her bread while she looked on with round eyes.

  And then the clatter of feet in the passage, and Juliana’s worried voice. “Is everything all right? I heard shouting. Elliot?”

  Damn, damn, and damn. Why the devil had Hamish tried to creep up on him like that?

  “Sahib, you really must give me the knife.”

  Elliot growled. He shoved Hamish away from him and tossed the knife to an empty table, then stormed out the kitchen’s back door into the gathering dusk of the Scottish evening.

  Juliana remained in place for one moment, then she started for the open door. “Elliot…”

  Mahindar stepped in her w
ay. “It is best to let him go, memsahib. One never knows what he might do when he is like this.”

  “But what is the matter? Hamish, what did you do?”

  “Nothin’!” Hamish adjusted the collar of his shirt, his eyes still huge. “I didn’t do nothin’, promise ye, m’lady. I came in same as always. Then I saw Himself, and I thought, Mr. McBride, he’s a rich man and a gentleman, and I work for him now. So maybe I should walk a bit quieter than I usually do. Mr. McGregor says I’m like a drum brigade. I was tryin’ t’ be dec’rous.”

  “He does not like anyone walking softly behind him,” Mahindar said. “Better you be a drum brigade.”

  “Why doesn’t he?” Juliana asked. “Mahindar, what is the matter? Please, tell me.”

  Mahindar looked sad. “The sahib is very ill. He is much, much better now, but when we found him after he escaped his jail, he was a raving madman. We cared for him for a long time before he was able to speak to us and tell us what happened. The poor man went through a great ordeal. He is very strong, and very brave.”

  Juliana looked past Mahindar to the overgrown path outside the open back door, night at last falling. “Will he be all right?”

  “Yes, indeed. The best thing for him is to walk about by himself. He will come back, as you British say, right as rain.”

  “You’ll make certain?” Juliana asked.

  “Yes, memsahib. I will do that. Now, my wife will take you up and put you to bed. Nandita, when she is terrified, is useless, but I will make her and Priti go to sleep. Things will be well in the morning.”

  Juliana was not certain they would be, but she consented to walk back upstairs with Channan, who made her way robustly through the dark and dirty house. Mahindar’s mother—Komal—came behind, saying nothing but looking about her with the same interest as she had all day.

  They found Nandita still in the middle of the bed, hugging herself. After a few words from Komal, Nandita scrambled off the bed and scuttled from the room. Juliana heard Mahindar calling Nandita from downstairs, and Nandita’s running footsteps, heading toward him.