The Seduction of Elliot McBride (Mackenzies Series)

by Jennifer Ashley

  Ainsley and Rona looked at her, blinking a little as they rearranged their ideas.

  What had they expected? That Elliot had run off with a struggling Juliana over his shoulder to ravish her in a castle in the woods? To keep her prisoner here, the poor, naive beauty who hadn’t the faintest idea how to handle Elliot the beast?

  They did think that. Dear God. Their faces made that plain enough. Elliot’s temper rose, but Juliana’s quiet, clear tones cut through.

  “I quite understand.” She poured more tea, every movement connecting with Elliot’s body in some way. She dropped in two lumps of sugar and topped the tea with a dollop of cream, her arm, side, or bosom touching him at any given moment. “You are concerned for your brother, and our marriage was very hasty.” She gave them a little smile. “Well, it was hasty on Elliot’s part. I was for marriage, obviously, no matter which groom turned up.”

  Ainsley raised her teacup in salute. “Bravo, Juliana. May Mr. Barclay’s wedding bed be filled to the brim with bedbugs.”

  “Ainsley,” Rona said, though it was apparent she agreed. “For shame.”

  “Nonsense, Mr. Barclay is the one who should be ashamed,” Ainsley said. “How lucky that Elliot turned up to save the day.”

  “Not luck,” Elliot rumbled. “Mahindar and whiskey.”

  “Then thank heavens for Mahindar and whiskey,” Ainsley said.

  “My point is that everything has turned out for the best,” Juliana broke in. “Elliot and I live here now. Pity us if you like, but there it is.”

  The two ladies blinked again. Ainsley and Rona had come rushing out here, like fairy godmothers to Cinderella, to rescue the fair maiden, only to find the fair maiden sitting before them, her back straight, primly telling them to go away. Juliana faced his sister and sister-in-law like a terrier confronting bloodhounds, and the bloodhounds weren’t quite certain what to do.

  Elliot stood up. He didn’t want to, because he liked the warmth of Juliana against him, but this circle of femininity had gone on long enough.

  “Fetch your husbands,” he said, “and either stay for a proper visit or scuttle back home. I will remain here, Juliana with me.”

  Ainsley gave him a look of exasperation, while Rona merely raised her brows.

  Elliot saw from their expressions that their next strategy would have been to bring Patrick and Cameron in on the matter. Elliot isn’t well, they’d say, and shouldn’t be left up here on his own. Do talk to him.

  “But only if Patrick and Cam want to play billiards, shoot, or drink. I don’t need to be mollycoddled by the men of the family either.”

  “Did you want us to leave on the moment, dear brother?” Ainsley asked. “I haven’t finished my tea.”

  Elliot growled. The windows had been opened to let in the breeze, but he could feel nothing of it. The indoors sometimes pressed in on him, and it started to press in on him now.

  They could never understand—and Elliot couldn’t make them understand—the little piece of darkness that gnawed away in the back of his brain and never went away. It had started while he was buried underground, in a place where time was nothing, where hunger and thirst were the only indication he was still alive. In a place where the strongest of men became raving lunatics, the darkness crouched, waiting to drag him back down to it.

  I am not there. I am here.

  Mahindar had taught him to say that when the darkness started to come. Elliot repeated it silently now, his jaw clenched, while the three ladies stared at him in consternation.

  He had to leave. Now.

  Elliot realized he still held his untouched teacup. He thrust it at Juliana, who took it quickly, before he strode out of the room.

  He knew the ladies would put their heads together after he was gone and discuss what had just happened. Juliana’s defense of him warmed him a little—she’d been eager to go back to Edinburgh with Ainsley, but she’d changed her intent the moment she’d realized that Elliot wasn’t ready for her absence.

  Elliot knew, logically, that they couldn’t stay at Castle McGregor forever, but he could make decisions about that later. Much later.

  For now, he only wanted to walk.

  As Elliot entered the kitchen, Hamish jerked up from where he was pumping water into the sink, blue eyes widening. Mahindar was busily going through the pantry, making disparaging noises, and Channan sat quietly at the table, cutting up vegetables and plopping them into a bowl.

  “Rest easy, Hamish, lad,” Elliot said. “I don’t have any knives. But I want a gun.”

  Any other time, he might laugh at the way Hamish first relaxed then went ramrod straight with fear again. But he didn’t have the patience.

  Mahindar backed out of the pantry. “Memsahib took it from Sahib McGregor and had me lock it away,” he said.

  “Then unlock it.” To Hamish’s continued stare, Elliot went on, “For rabbit, or game birds. There’s not much to eat, and my brother and brother-in-law might be joining us for supper.”

  “Supper for six?” Mahindar rubbed his bearded chin as he always did when agitated. “That is much to ask, sahib.”

  “Send to the pub for the meal then.” Elliot waited, and Mahindar hurried to a cupboard, unlocked it, and lifted out the shotgun and a box of shells. Elliot tucked shells into his sporran, checked the barrels and mechanism, laid the unloaded gun over his arm, and walked out the back door.

  No one followed him, thank God. The wind was brisk, the sun high, clouds gathering above the towering mountains. Rain would come later, but not now. Wild country was what he needed. To be alone in it, what he wanted.

  A small, muddy figure darted at him as he passed the garden gate. “Come!” Priti held up dirty hands to him, an eager smile on her face.

  Something inside Elliot untwisted, and the darkness receded a little, snarling in frustration.

  He reached down and scooped up the little girl, settling her on his shoulder, keeping her well away from the gun.

  Priti balanced herself without worry, happily holding on to Elliot as they started up the path to the hills.

  This child had never known fear. Elliot swore with everything within him that she never would.

  When the ladies finished their tea and rose to leave, Juliana said, “I think you should return to Edinburgh. Today, I mean. Without dining with us.”

  “Nonsense,” Rona said briskly, but Ainsley, with eyes so like Elliot’s, gave her a nod.

  “I think I understand.” Ainsley came to Juliana, took her hands, and kissed her cheek. “He’s my brother, but he’s your husband now, and you need to learn the lay of the land. But if you ever need us, you telegraph. And I promise we will come for a nice long visit once you have settled.” She gave Juliana a grin. “You’ve married into a very large family, and this house, unfortunately for you, is big enough for all of them.”

  More kisses, and a stout hug from Rona. “Look after my lad,” she said. “And make certain he looks after you.”

  Juliana said a few more reassuring things then walked with her guests out the enormous front door and down the overgrown walk. The two ladies had come on foot, the skies so fair, though Juliana cast a wary glance at the thunderheads on the horizon. The weather could change quickly in the Highlands.

  She waved her guests away at the gate then turned alone to her new home, pausing to take it in.

  The castle and grounds truly were beautiful. Sunlight touched the pile of house, rendering it golden and hiding the gaps in the stone. Behind the house rose the mountains, liquid light shimmering in their folds, and to the east lay the slice of sparkling sea.

  Time to make the place livable. Juliana had kept house for her father since the tender age of eight, when she’d realized that her flibbertigibbet mother, who preferred shopping, gossiping, and dosing herself with laudanum to running a household, would never be able to cope. Juliana had learned much from the butler and housekeeper, who’d become her friends, and after Mrs. St. John’s death when Juliana had been fourteen, Julian
a officially ran the household. Gemma married Mr. St. John right after Juliana’s twentieth birthday, but Gemma had been wise enough to let Juliana carry on, never ousting her from doing what she loved.

  The McGregor house would be more of a challenge, certainly, than her father’s elegant town house and small manor house near Stirling, but Juliana could do it, she thought. It was all a matter of organizing, and Juliana was most excellent at organizing.

  She’d already begun making lists of things they needed to do, subdividing those lists into what must be purchased, what jobs could be left to ordinary laborers, and what jobs would take an expert’s skill, such as the bell system, which was in a complete disarray. To repair it, they’d have to find every rope in every pipe behind the walls and untangle the lot. But no matter—on the list the task went.

  Juliana’s bravado flagged slightly as she walked back into the castle’s dusty interior. Hamish had tracked another layer of muddy boot prints in since the day before, but otherwise, all was as it had been yesterday—which meant a chaotic mess.

  Because of the broken bell system, Juliana either had to shout for the staff when she needed something or go in search of them. As she reentered the morning room, she decided to do neither this time but carry the tea tray back to the kitchens herself. The empty things weren’t heavy, and Mahindar and his family had so much to do already.

  She gathered up the cups and saucers, piling them neatly on the tray. If she fingered Elliot’s cup a little longer than the others, there was no one to see, was there?

  When she entered the big kitchen with her tray, she was assailed by pungent aromas of food she couldn’t identify, the scents odd but somehow mouthwatering. A pot simmered on the stove, Mahindar tending it, and Channan sat on her heels next to a large clay pot in the fireplace, poking at something inside.

  Hamish was at the sink, scrubbing pots.

  “Where is Nandita?” Juliana asked as she set the tea tray on the kitchen table. “Is she all right?”

  They’d found her this morning, after a frantic search of the house, hiding in the boiler room. McGregor shooting off the gun had frightened Nandita badly—she’d been certain that soldiers had come to take them away. Channan and Mahindar had to talk to her for a long time before she’d come out again.

  “She is with my mother,” Mahindar said. “She will be well.”

  Juliana thought of the way Komal scolded Nandita, not to mention the way she’d chased McGregor back to his bedroom, and wondered.

  “They are looking after Priti, then?”

  Channan looked around from the fireplace. Mahindar shook his head. “No, Priti left with the sahib. He went walking in the hills.”

  “With the shotgun.” Hamish didn’t lift his arms from sudsy water, but he cranked his head around for the announcement.

  “Oh.” Juliana rolled her lower lip under her teeth. “Is…she all right with him?”

  “Yes, indeed, certainly,” Mahindar said without worry. “The sahib always takes care of Priti.”

  Juliana relaxed. Elliot did indeed seem to like the child, and she’d seen how gentle he could be with her.

  “He is very good to her,” Juliana said. She lifted one of the teacups from the tray, admiring its fineness. Ainsley had been sweet to give them the set.

  Mahindar looked surprised. “But that is only natural, memsahib,” he said. “After all, Priti is his daughter.”

  Chapter 8

  The teacup slid out of Juliana’s hands and fell down, down, to smash into fragments on the flagstone floor.

  Juliana regarded it in dismay, while her heart pounded in her chest, and her face grew hot.

  Channan said something admonishing to Mahindar, and the man looked unhappy and bewildered.

  “His daughter?” Juliana said, swallowing on dryness. “With Nandita?”

  “Nandita?” Mahindar looked surprised. “No, no. Nandita is not Priti’s mother. She is her ayah—as you say, her nanny—but we all look after Priti. No, her mother is dead, poor thing.”

  “Oh.” Juliana’s thoughts fluttered around each other. She’d assumed Nandita the mother, because the young woman had been so attentive to Priti, and Channan had made clear her only children were grown sons. But Juliana had had no notion that Priti was Elliot’s. Elliot and…who?

  She wet her lips. “Mr. McBride. He was married? In India?”

  Channan and Mahindar exchanged a glance. Channan said, “He was not.”

  Mahindar tried to drown her words with a string of Punjabi. Channan answered him as forcefully, then she turned back to Juliana.

  “The sahib was not married to the lady,” Channan said. “She was the wife of someone else.”

  Juliana couldn’t breathe. Her eyes begin to burn, her heart to beat painfully.

  “You knew nothing of this?” Mahindar asked her in a faint voice.

  Channan spoke to him rapidly and firmly in their native language, and Mahindar grew more and more embarrassed.

  A lady did not break down in front of her servants in the kitchen, Juliana admonished herself. A lady shouldn’t even be in the kitchen, should never pass through the green baize door that separated the servants’ quarters from the rest of the house. Even though they were living rough here, and any green baize had worn to gray tatters long ago, Juliana should have observed the sanctity of the custom.

  She held on to this idea, pounded into her head by her upbringing, to keep Mahindar’s revelation from overpowering her.

  “You weren’t to know, Mahindar,” Juliana said. “Hamish, fetch a broom and sweep up the broken teacup.”

  She walked away from them, her heel catching on one of the porcelain fragments and grinding it to powder.

  Mahindar knew Channan was going to scold. And scold and scold. His wife was good at scolding him, but she only did when Mahindar deserved it, so it smarted doubly.

  The sahib had never kept secret the fact that Priti was his child. But the man spoke so very little to anyone that most people did not realize that he’d fathered her. They assumed, as the memsahib had, that Priti was a servant’s daughter. Mahindar never spoke of it to anyone himself, because both he and Channan knew how the English felt about half-caste children. The sahib, and Priti, would have an easier time of it if people didn’t know.

  But Mahindar had assumed the memsahib would know. Mr. McBride had spoken of her often, describing her as a childhood friend, a young woman to whom he’d never had difficulty talking about anything and everything.

  Mahindar braced himself for the scolding, but it didn’t come. Channan simply turned back to her tandoor and stirred the vegetables inside.

  “I know, I know,” Mahindar said in Punjabi. “I am a fool.”

  “I said nothing,” Channan said without looking at him.

  “But you are right. I want him to be happy. I need him to be happy.”

  “What happened to the sahib was not your fault. I have told you.”

  Mahindar turned back to his pots of spices, reflecting mournfully that his supplies were too low. He’d become acquainted in London with another Punjabi who knew where to find the best Indian spices in the city. Mahindar had started sending the man money and a list of needs, and the man sent back, by special delivery, lovely jars of turmeric and saffron, the mixture called masala, and peppers that Mahindar could not find in the English or Scottish markets. He would have to write another letter to his friend and post it soon.

  As always when Mahindar thought of what had happened to the sahib, and the enmity between Sahib McBride and Sahib Stacy, he felt remorse. He might have prevented the fight, might have prevented the journey into the wild lands during which the sahib had been stolen.

  Mahindar had searched and searched after the sahib had disappeared, but hadn’t been able to find him. He’d searched every day. Those long months had been the worst time of Mahindar’s life.

  “Not your fault,” Channan repeated.

  Hamish, not understanding a word of what they said, swept the floor in
a rush of energy, as he did everything else. “So Nandita doesn’t have any children?” the lad asked.

  “No,” Mahindar answered, switching to English. “She was married very young—fifteen or sixteen she was, but her husband was a soldier. He was arrested and killed, sadly.”

  “What had he done?” Hamish asked, the broom slowing.

  “Nothing at all,” Mahindar said. “He saw someone else doing something they shouldn’t, so they came for him one night and pretended to arrest him for treason. They shot him like a dog.” He shook his head. “Poor little Nandita.”

  “That’s terrible.” The broom stopped altogether, and Hamish leaned on it, his red brows drawn. “Is that why she was hiding in the boiler room?”

  “She is afraid of soldiers and guns. They mean grief to her.”

  “Poor thing.” Hamish’s sympathy glowed from him. “Does she speak any English?”

  “She knows a few words only.”

  “Well, I’ll just have to teach her then.” Hamish looked down at the broom, realized it was at a standstill, and began sweeping vigorously again.

  Mahindar noticed Hamish hadn’t offered to teach Channan or Komal English. He went back to his spices, smiling to himself, feeling a little better.

  Dinner was slightly delayed because when Elliot and Priti returned, they were covered from head to foot in black mud.

  “What on earth happened to you?” Juliana asked, coming into the flagstone passage to discover the source of the delay.

  She found Priti in the laundry room, standing inside the huge metal sink, Channan pumping water over her and scrubbing her with a large sponge. Elliot, stripped to the waist, was standing at a smaller sink, with Mahindar scrubbing just as hard.

  “Riverbank,” Elliot said, spluttering as Mahindar squeezed a giant sponge full of water over Elliot’s head. “I slipped in, and Priti fell in trying to rescue me. The bank we climbed out onto was this color.” He pointed to the tar-like mud on his kilt.