The Seduction of Elliot McBride hp-5

by Jennifer Ashley

  Juliana touched Elliot’s arm. “He’s going to break hearts. As you did.”

  “There was only ever one lass for me,” Elliot said. He kissed the corner of her mouth, and the guests, watching avidly, cheered again.

  Elliot thought about what he’d said again much later in the night, when the guests had returned to McPherson’s or the village, and even Mahindar had been persuaded to bed.

  Juliana smiled sleepily at him as Elliot made love to her, his need so great. The erotic feeling of her around him sent all other thought away. Nothing existed but the pleasure, her tightness, the scent of her, the heat of their bodies together.

  Only ever one lass for me, he whispered to himself when he slid out of her and collapsed beside her, snuggling into her to sleep.

  Elliot had met only one other woman as resilient as Juliana—his sister, Ainsley—and even Ainsley thought Elliot ought to be locked into a quiet room and fed gruel. Juliana had faced everything Elliot had thrown at her with head up and no complaints, taking it all in stride. She was strong, beautiful, and his. He slept.

  Somewhere before the dawn, Elliot woke again. The night was still, the frogs silent, the room dark.

  Elliot lay on top of the covers, Juliana now spooned back into him. Her warmth was all he needed in the summer night.

  She was light. And life. He’d had a long climb and had a way to go still. But when he was wrapped in Juliana, all darkness vanished, unable to prevail.

  He’d sent Stacy out into that darkness.

  Rage answered. He left me to endure torture and fear and starvation. And he brought danger to Juliana. Stacy deserved whatever fate he found.

  Elliot had taught the man, befriended him, grieved with him when he grieved. Stacy was never the same after his wife fell ill and died. Illness could come so fast in India, then infection, and swiftly, death.

  Elliot remembered the night Stacy’s wife had drawn her last breath, how Stacy, only a lad of twenty-three, had held on to Elliot and wept.

  Stacy’s grief had turned to rage, but he didn’t have an enemy he could see to fight. Elliot had taught him how to turn his anger into honing his skills. He’d taught Stacy how to make the plantation work, which would have made young Mrs. Stacy proud.

  So many nights they’d spent in quiet friendship, getting drunk on whatever fermented beverage they could get their hands on, or simply sitting on the veranda in the dark. They’d talk, or they’d be silent, either one companionable. They were friends who knew what each other thought even before they’d said it.

  And then Jaya came and changed everything.

  She hadn’t meant to, Elliot knew now. But he and Stacy had been young, stupid, and arrogant, and they’d let her.

  Now Stacy was out in the night, followed by people wanting to kill him.

  Elliot let out a long breath. “Och, damn it,” he whispered. He rose from the bed and began to dress.

  Chapter 26

  Elliot pulled on his boots in the hallway then walked softly down to the end of the hall and tapped on a door.

  Fellows opened it almost at once, looking as though he hadn’t been asleep at all, in spite of the dressing gown he wore.

  “Come on a manhunt with me, Inspector?” Elliot asked.

  Fellows nodded in silence, closed the door, and was out again, dressed, before Elliot had returned from the kitchens with his Winchester. The two men left quietly through the back door, Elliot moving the gate carefully so it didn’t squeak.

  Once they were down the path, toward the roar of the river, Fellows finally spoke. “Who are we looking for?”

  “Stacy. And hired killers who want him dead.”

  “When we don’t have to be quiet, you’re going to explain to me why you know that and I didn’t.”

  “Stacy himself told me,” Elliot said. “Before I sent him to his death.”

  Fellows shot him a look out of canny hazel eyes but said nothing. They fell into step, Elliot leading the way along the river that led them to the house of Mrs. Rossmoran.

  A light in the window of the cottage told Elliot that Mrs. Rossmoran or her granddaughter was awake. Mrs. Rossmoran wouldn’t waste candles or kerosene on a sleeping house.

  Elliot knocked on the door, not too loudly, in case the elderly woman would become alarmed. Hamish opened the door, his face like thunder.

  “What de ye mean by it?” Hamish asked with a growl. “Sending that man here.”

  “He was here then?” Elliot looked around the small cottage, Fiona standing uncertainly in the kitchen, Mrs. Rossmoran sitting near the cold fireplace with a sharp expression.

  “He was,” Mrs. Rossmoran said. “I ken ye mean my lodger. Aye, he was here, but no more.”

  Elliot had thought as much when he’d logically run through the places Stacy could have hidden himself without starving. Poaching or hunting left a sign, and he’d not found a trace.

  Elliot handed Fellows his rifle and sat next to Mrs. Rossmoran. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”

  “Ye never asked. And he begged me not to tell ye. He was worried you’d kill him or have him arrested. That’s why he’s run off. He seemed a kind man. And you, Elliot McBride, are a bit touched.”

  “That is true.” Elliot shared a look with Fellows. “Mrs. Rossmoran, I want you and Fiona to come up to McGregor Castle. You’ll be safer there.”

  “No, indeed, young man. McGregor and I never saw eye to eye. His wife was my sister, you know.”

  Elliot hadn’t known that. “McPherson’s then. Stacy is in great danger, and I don’t want the people after him to come upon you.”

  Mrs. Rossmoran planted her cane. “This is my home. If people come here while I’m out, they might harm the place. It’s all I have.”

  Fiona watched worriedly from the kitchen. “Please, Gran.”

  “Hamish will send stout men to protect it while you’re away.” Elliot took her worn hand in his. “Please. I need you to be safe.”

  Mrs. Rossmoran watched him with shrewd blue eyes. “All right, lad. I’ll go to McPherson’s. But any man ye put in here to watch my house had better keep his hands out of the sugar barrel. Sugar doesn’t grow out of the ground, you know.”

  “Actually, Great-auntie…” Hamish began.

  Mrs. Rossmoran waved her cane at him. “Stop standing there with your mouth open and help me up. Bring all my shawls, Fiona. I don’t trust McPherson to have enough bedcovers to suit me.”

  Elliot waited outside to see them on their way while Fellows scouted around the house. When Hamish came out, Elliot caught him by the shoulder.

  “I know why your great-aunt said nothing. She does as she pleases. Why did you?”

  “I didn’t know.” Hamish glared back at the house, his anger so apparent that Elliot believed him. “I’d have told you, right away. My great-auntie can be powerful stubborn.”

  Elliot had no doubt. Inspector Fellows returned, saying he hadn’t found anything unusual near the house—no sign of hunters or intruders. They sent Hamish and his little party to McPherson’s and went off into the woods.

  Juliana awoke early in the morning to find herself alone. She wasn’t alarmed—Elliot often rose before she did to begin working with the men on the house.

  She went through her ablutions and descended the stairs. The massive chandelier still hung in place. They’d tried to fix the mechanism to lower it to replace the candles, but it was frozen with rust. Juliana had decided that hurrying it for the ball might end in disaster, so she had a man up on a ladder each day, cleaning and oiling what he could.

  As she reached the lower hall, she heard a knocking on the front door.

  A lady never answered the door of her own house. The footman did it, or a housemaid if a footman was not available.

  But neither Hamish nor Mahindar was anywhere in sight. The ladies of Mahindar’s family were not allowed to answer, according to Mahindar, because letting them do so would mean Mahindar hadn’t protected them from intruders.

  Julian
a ventured to the door, waving formality away. One could not stand on ceremony when one had no servants available. The visitor might simply be one of the guests returning from McPherson’s.

  Before she reached the vestibule, however, Mahindar hurried forward in a rush of cloth and soft footsteps. “Memsahib,” he said in horror. “No. Let me.”

  Juliana stepped back to let him run past her to the vestibule. He flung open the door to the last person Juliana wanted to see. Mrs. Dalrymple.

  “Morning, love,” she said. “I need to speak to ye if ye don’t mind.”

  Gone was the stiff-necked pose, the rather superior accent. Though Mrs. Dalrymple wore a well-made morning gown of gray cotton, she no longer looked like the prim and proper middle-class woman who’d tried to ignore everything Indian when she’d lived in India.

  Her softly lined face looked more that of a harmless, middle-aged woman who went to the market with a basket on her arm. Also, her strained proper accent had gone, and now she sounded as though she’d come straight from the backstreets of Glasgow.

  “Come in,” Juliana said.

  Mahindar looked unhappy, but Juliana wanted to hear what the woman had to say. She led Mrs. Dalrymple to the morning room and bade Mahindar bring them tea.

  “I won’t stay long,” Mrs. Dalrymple said, sitting in the same chair she had occupied a week ago. “I just came t’ give ye warning. Not that one,” she said quickly as Juliana’s brows went down. “Ye see, lass, I know ye’ve tumbled on t’ us. Me husband came across Mr. Stacy’s death certificate when he was working for the civil service in Lahore. He heard tell that your husband had turned up after being missing, crazy as a loon. So George stole the certificate. When we came back to Glasgow, me husband asked about and learned that Elliot McBride had purchased a house up here in Highforth. I’d never heard of th’ place, but George says we were goin’. He decided that if your husband was out of his wits, maybe George could make you or his family believe he’d murdered Stacy and get some money out of ye.”

  “But Mrs. Terrell described you as a friend,” Juliana said, keeping her anger in check with difficulty. “You knew her?”

  “Mrs. Terrell.” Mrs. Dalrymple dismissed her with a wave of her hand. “She’s a simple one. I convinced her that her mother and mine had been great friends. Easy to do while I dithered at the post office and managed to steal letters of likely ladies in the area. So Mr. and Mrs. Dalrymple were invited to stay.”

  “Well, I am sorry we disappointed you,” Juliana said stiffly. “Neither I nor my husband were willing to pay you any of your blackmail.”

  Mrs. Dalrymple winced. “Oh, I don’t like that word, love. Sounds so nasty. Mr. Dalrymple and I, we provide a service. You’d be amazed at the things people get up to—rich ladies who steal from any house they enter, proper husbands who keep a bit on the side, upright clerks and bankers who skim out of the till. They get away with it—theft, adultery, embezzlement, and now we thought murder. The law can’t touch these people, but we make them pay. ’Tis only right—they’ve committed crimes after all.”

  Juliana forbore to point out that blackmail was also a crime. In any case, the Dalrymples, or whatever their true names might be, never took the evidence of the wrongdoings to the police.

  She grew impatient. “Why did you come to see me today?”

  “Well, first I wanted to make my apologies. We had no idea that Mr. Stacy was alive, and your husband entirely innocent. We were so glad to learn it. ‘Emily,’ Mr. Dalrymple said to me, ‘I’m that glad we were wrong about Mr. McBride. He’s a fine Highland gentleman.’”

  “What is this warning?” Juliana asked in a hard voice.

  “Because we stole the death certificate and asked questions about Mr. Stacy and Mr. McBride along our way here, I’m afraid we inadvertently alerted some very bad men as to their whereabouts. But I wanted you to know that Mr. Dalrymple and I had nothing to do with that. We might ask people for what they can give—a contribution, if you like—to apologize for the wrongs they’ve done, but we never harm anyone. I know you have a man from Scotland Yard staying with you, but if anything happens to Mr. Stacy or your husband, it’s nothing to do with us. That’s why I want to warn you, to put you on your guard. I can tell that you are a sweet, respectable lady, and you and your husband should take care.”

  Too late for that. Hamish came barreling down the back hall, bellowing at the top of his lungs, “Mahindar! M’lady! Mr. McGregor! Mr. McBride went out to chase brigands in the woods!”

  “There, you see?” Mrs. Dalrymple stood up. “Well, I’ve done me duty. ’Tis nothing on me and m’ man, remember. I’ll go and leave you to it.”

  “No,” Juliana said. Her sharpness made Mrs. Dalrymple jump. Juliana pointed at the chair. “You will sit down and tell me every detail you know about these very bad men, and you will stay there until my husband and Mr. Stacy come home in safety. Hamish—run back to McPherson’s and tell him all about it.”

  “I’ve just been. He’s coming over. And all the Mackenzies.”

  “Good. Then wake up every man in this house and tell them to come and talk to me. We are going to find my husband and these assassins and end this, for once and for all.”

  Hamish’s eyes rounded. “Aye, m’lady.” He disappeared to do her bidding.

  Elliot and Fellows moved swiftly and silently across the land, following the trail Elliot had picked up. Elliot’s tracking ability came back to him as had the steps to the sword dance. Inspector Fellows had been hunting criminals in London for years and could move as quickly and quietly as Elliot.

  The trail took them north across the hills and down into the next valley. The ocean was to the east of them, the land sloping out of uplands to farms and flat land by the sea.

  Stacy would have led them that way and then doubled back, if Elliot were any judge. The rising sun spilled over the sea, anyone heading east walking into the large ball of light.

  Elliot knew exactly where Stacy would head. A twinge of dread went through him, but Elliot motioned Fellows to follow him back toward the hills.

  The trees closed around them again, cutting off the view of the cultivated lands and the cottages, civilization gone. The passes from Afghanistan to the Punjab were like that, knives of land that masked the view of anything but the steep cliffs to either side.

  However, those roads came out of stark mountains to river valleys of amazing beauty. Elliot had been stunned by the glories that had existed outside the tunnels where he’d been buried, as he’d slunk back home like a wounded animal. Evil should not exist in that much beauty.

  It had been cold there as well. Elliot had had only vague ideas of the seasons when he’d been held captive, but he remembered weeks of icy cold wind.

  Here, summer made the air soft, but under the trees, cool mist gathered. The feeling of alertness as Elliot tracked was the same, though, the calm wariness, the warm sweat on his back, the controlled breathing that let him walk for long distances without becoming exhausted.

  The fact that he was walking through damp leaves in Scotland instead of dry, cold mountains made no difference. Every rock and tree was either concealment or a hidden danger, each an obstacle to be assessed, traversed, then watched. All as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

  Elliot made for the entrance to the tunnels closest to the edge of the hills. He knew Stacy had used them for cover and likely was there now.

  He held a whispered conversation with Fellows about what he wanted to do, and approached the first tunnel cautiously. The entrance could barely be seen, covered with brush, weeds, and a fallen limb of a tree.

  But Elliot had scouted these on his many walks around the estate in the last couple of weeks, taking note of every possible entrance to Castle McGregor. He knew he hadn’t missed any.

  The first sign that someone had passed that way came at the tunnel’s opening. The brush had overgrown it, but someone had cut away the natural brush and replaced it with care.

  Elliot moved the branches
as quietly as he could, while Fellows kept watch. When Elliot had cleared a space, he dove inside in one quick movement, crouching beside the opening so he wouldn’t be shown against the light outside.

  Fellows followed, copying his movements. Elliot waited until his eyes became used to the dark, then he walked forward.

  As they moved through the damp caves, Elliot sensed the darkness inside him hunkering down in the corner of his mind, waiting to pounce.

  His heartbeat quickened, and the perspiration that clung to his back began to trickle down his spine. The wet of it was clammy and cold, and his pulse pounded in his temples and made his head ache.

  Not now. Right now, he had to find Stacy. He had to find Stacy and get the thugs chasing him arrested. Whatever was between himself and Stacy, they would have to work through it, but first he had to save the man.

  Elliot hadn’t had the chance to explore every bit of the maze of these tunnels. The ceiling on this part of it was low, and he and Fellows had to walk half bent over. Elliot’s rifle would be useless down here, the walls too tight for any close shooting, but he had a knife, and Fellows was armed with a pistol, a good Webley.

  Elliot knew men were down here with them. He found no sign, just as he’d never seen sign of Stacy in the woods, but he knew.

  The darkness in his mind laughed at him. It was there, and it didn’t care how dire was the situation. The waking visions or the sudden dizziness that stole his breath could rear up at any time, ripping away everything but stark animal panic.

  Elliot drew a long breath and tried to fight it off. If killers were under the house, that meant that everyone in the house was in danger. Elliot had tried to seal off all entrances to the old castle from above, but that was before he’d known professionals had come here to kill Stacy. They might have been working at opening up those places while Stacy hid at Mrs. Rossmoran’s and Elliot helped Juliana with her fête.