The Seduction of Elliot McBride

  Elliot took Juliana’s hand again and towed her onward, through the kitchen, down the stairs in the back of the scullery, and to the darkness of the cellar and the heat of the boiler room.

  At least the boiler was working now. A red flicker came from the great hulk of iron in the corner, which would heat water for the kitchen, and with luck and time, the bathrooms upstairs. By this light, Elliot lit two candle lanterns and passed her one.

  Mahindar appeared in the doorway. “Sahib, why are you down here again?”

  Elliot handed Mahindar his lantern, shed his coat, pushed up his sleeves, and hauled open the heavy trapdoor.

  “Because I remembered why I came down here this morning.” He took the lantern back from Mahindar. “You stay up here,” he told the man. “I want someone to know where we are in case the door falls closed, and I can’t open it. Which is what happened to me this morning.”

  “Ah,” Mahindar said, as though that explained everything.

  “Juliana?” Elliot asked. “Are you willing to explore with me?”

  “Perhaps the memsahib will want to change her dress,” Mahindar said. “It is powerfully dirty down there.”

  Juliana glanced down at her rust-colored silk. She had liked the gown when she’d put it on, but now it was tainted by the fact that she’d worn it to meet the Dalrymples. Elliot was impatient, and Juliana didn’t want to take the time to go upstairs and change.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “After all, I’ve worn it once now.”

  The flippant remark did not have the desired effect. Elliot said nothing, and Mahindar looked distressed. “Wait, I beg you. Wait one moment.”

  He dashed off and came running back in less than a minute with a large, white, flapping garment. He set Juliana’s lantern on the floor, bunched up the garment, and dropped it over Juliana’s head.

  It was one of Mahindar’s, Juliana realized as she settled it, the long shirts that went over his white trousers. This one was clean and large enough to cover most of Juliana’s gown.

  “I don’t want to ruin it,” Juliana said.

  Mahindar waved that away and shoved the lantern back into her hand. “I have many. Go. Go.”

  Elliot lowered himself into the hole, set his lantern on the edge, and reached up to lift Juliana down with him.

  He had to stoop in the low room below, but this time, the closeness did not appear to worry him. As soon as Juliana had steadied herself next to him, Elliot led her onward.

  “I have something I must tell you,” Juliana said as she followed Elliot into the bowels of the old castle. “I’m afraid it concerns Mr. Archibald Stacy.”

  Elliot did not answer. He strode on quickly, despite having to bend head and shoulders, and Juliana hurried to keep up with him.

  “You are most exasperating, Elliot McBride,” she said.

  He reached back and took her hand again. “I know.”

  His strong grip was a lifeline, pulling her through the dark. Their lamps were weak, candles illuminating only small circles of space. Hamish had promised that kerosene was on its way to the house, although perhaps wax candles inside tin lanterns were a bit safer down in this unknown darkness.

  “Where are we going?” Juliana whispered. There was no need to whisper, but the dense warmth around them seemed to require it.

  Elliot answered in normal tones, sounding perfectly sane. “When I was a lad, I found the plans of the old castle in one of the books in Uncle McGregor’s library. The castle had been a giant of a place, with underground storage and living quarters, in case of siege. Uncle McGregor brought me down here and showed me a little of it then, and I started exploring it again after I bought the place.”

  “People lived down here?” Juliana shivered. Such a maze, the roof so low. It would have been appallingly dark, the inhabitants not having even the good candles she and Elliot carried now.

  “They lived here when they had to,” Elliot said. “Uncle McGregor says the McPhersons raided often in those days, and the McGregors would hide the women and children and anything else valuable down here.”

  “Mr. McPherson seems quite congenial to be descended from raiders. By the bye, he sends the message that you’re welcome to fish or shoot on his estate anytime you wish.”

  “Six hundred years ago, the McPhersons were brutal warriors, and so were the McGregors. It was a long feud. Times change; people don’t.”

  Whatever that meant, he didn’t explain.

  “Elliot,” Juliana said as he took her onward through the darkness. “I know I am supposed to be an obedient wife, letting my husband decide my fate unquestioningly. But I’m afraid I never had good examples of obedient wives in my life. My mother did as she pleased. My stepmother is a bit more considerate of other people’s wants, but Gemma makes no secret of her opinions. So I must ask you—do you intend to live at Castle McGregor for the rest of your life, exploring the old castle and walking about the Highlands? Or may we, at some point, return to civilization? If only for a brief interlude? My wardrobe will soon be depleted at the rate we are carrying on.”

  Elliot straightened abruptly, and Juliana realized they’d stepped into a room whose ceiling rose high enough for him to stand at his full height. Juliana’s candle beam didn’t reach the roof, but she felt the vastness of wherever they were, the cool draft that meant clean air flowed from somewhere.

  “We won’t be returning to Edinburgh yet,” Elliot said absently, flashing around his lantern.

  “I do understand that too many people at once unnerve you,” Juliana said. “You have been out of the habit of seeing company, and people do tend to whisper about you. I know this. In fact, I’m very surprised you came to Edinburgh at all, though so fortunate for me to find you lurking on my wedding day.”

  “Of course I went to Edinburgh.”

  His voice held a sharp note, and Juliana found his attention fixed hard on her, his gray eyes glittering silver in the candlelight.

  “To attend my wedding?” Juliana asked him, her voice faint. “How civil of you.”

  She’d sent the invitation to Rona inviting The McBride Family. Juliana had told herself that she’d worded the missive that way because she had no way of knowing whether the three younger male McBrides would be in the country for the occasion.

  But Juliana knew she’d never have been able to pen an invitation to Elliot specifically. Keeping the request general, she’d avoided having to write Elliot’s name.

  Elliot’s hand, still around hers, gripped harder. “I didn’t go to Edinburgh to attend your bloody wedding. I went to stop it.”

  Juliana blinked. “To stop…?”

  His gray gaze was so sharp it cut. “Of course to stop it, lass. Do you think I’d allow anyone but me to marry my Juliana?”

  Chapter 13

  “But…” Juliana’s mouth went dry. His gaze was filled with hot determination, the Elliot who’d carved a place for himself in a faraway land and didn’t let nearly a year of imprisonment kill him. “If you didn’t want me to marry Grant, why wait until my wedding day to speak?”

  “Because I knew I’d have the best chance to win you if I stood up in the church and told the world that I had reason not to let you be joined to Barclay.”

  “What reason?” she asked, barely audible. A person could stop a wedding if they could prove that one party was already married to someone else, or that the two in question were too closely related, or that the marriage had been forced—none of which applied in the case of Juliana and Grant.

  “I would have said that Juliana was my lass, had always been mine. That I wasn’t stepping aside for any other.”

  He had more in his eyes than he ever said in words—raw pain behind the gray, the loneliness of a man who thought he’d be alone forever.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Juliana asked, voice still soft but thick with emotion. “Why didn’t you tell me when I was waiting to marry him, when I knew I couldn’t have you?”

  Elliot dropped her hand and flas
hed his lantern around again. “Because what would you have seen if I’d come crawling to you when I came home from India? A broken man, one afraid of the dark and equally afraid of the light. I was nothing.” His voice was fierce. “You’ve seen what I still do. You wouldn’t have wanted a husband like me—or ye’d have married me out of pity, and I couldn’t have stood that. I wanted to have something to give ye. A house, a husband who could walk upright most days…”

  Juliana stood still, unable to move. Her breath came sharply, cut off by the tight lacing of her corset. One thought stood out among the rest—she hadn’t known how Elliot had felt about her. All these years, when she’d thought of him, craved to be with him, knowing he was wandering the wide world, out of her reach—he’d been thinking of her.

  “You ought to have told me,” she whispered.

  Elliot didn’t change expression, but she saw the windows to his soul shutter to her again. “You know now.”

  He turned away, moving off into the darkness.

  Juliana hurried after him, her heart pounding. She moved back and forth between elation and anger, bewilderment and wild happiness. Elliot, handsome Elliot, the lad she’d loved from afar, had wanted her all this time. She’d watched him swarm up the tree to retrieve the kite, secretly admiring how athletically his limbs moved, while pretending no interest at all. The firmness of his cheek under her lips when she’d given him the rewarding kiss had been imprinted on her thoughts for weeks afterward. The kiss he’d stolen when they’d danced at her debut ball had lingered for years.

  Her feet splashed in water, breaking her spinning thoughts. “Where are we now?” she asked, dragging up her damp skirts.

  Elliot flashed his lantern around. “If I am right, a cave in the side of the hill between the McGregors and the Rossmorans.” He took her hand again, his fingers warm.

  “Why is it wet?”

  “The tunnel runs along the river. The river might even cut into it.”

  Elliot led her along at a slower pace, lifting his lantern high and studying the ground before he allowed Juliana to move forward with him. The floor of the cavern sloped downward, the gleam of water trickling across the bottom.

  He moved confidently, and Juliana realized she should worry that Elliot wouldn’t know the way back. But she didn’t worry. He’d studied the plans, he’d previously explored the tunnels, and people in India had hired him for this very sort of thing—to explore, to discover things, to find the way for others.

  This Elliot exuded capable, quiet competence. The broken, wild-eyed man who’d looked at her a few moments ago and confessed he’d gone to Edinburgh to break up her wedding had gone.

  Elliot led her across the smooth stone floor to the higher end of the slope, the sound of water to their left. The draft Juliana had felt before strengthened, the breath of air refreshing after the dank warmth of the tunnels.

  Elliot walked her unerringly to a hole to the outside world. The opening, at Elliot’s head height, was covered with thick brush, bushes having grown right over it. Elliot blew out the candle in his lantern, handed the lantern to Juliana, and reached through the hole to break away branches.

  He easily tore off many of the thinner pieces of the brush, but the trunks of two bushes had spread themselves across the hole. Climbing out this way would be possible but a scratchy, tight fit.

  Elliot took both lanterns back from Juliana, blew out the candle in hers as well, and tossed the lanterns through the hole to the earth outside. He boosted himself a little way out of the hole then half climbed, half lifted himself over the remainder of the bushes. The spindly branches caught on his kilt and lifted it high over his hips as he worked his way through.

  “Elliot,” Juliana said in a small voice. “You know you are wearing nothing under that.”

  His taut thighs and strong buttocks worked to lift Elliot out of the hole before his entire body disappeared. Juliana stepped worriedly to the opening just as Elliot looked back inside at her, his smile full of sin.

  “I’m a Scotsman,” he said.

  Still flashing the wicked grin, he cleared more branches from the hole and reached for her.

  Juliana clung to him as she kicked and wriggled her way out, Mahindar’s shirt now torn and stained with dirt.

  The hole opened onto the sheer side of a hill. Elliot leaned against the almost vertical slope and helped Juliana find footholds, tussocks of grass that wouldn’t slip under her feet.

  They’d emerged to a treeless heath that was filled with rocks and bushes like those which had grown over the hole. The slope on which they stood ran steeply down to the rushing river below—one misstep could plunge her into it.

  Elliot was not about to let her go. He held Juliana with immovable strength as he guided her along their makeshift path, until they came to a true path that had been cut into the side of the hill. The sound of sheep bleating in the distance indicated what this path was likely for.

  Elliot settled Juliana against a large boulder that might once have been a standing stone, her feet on firm ground, then he climbed back up the hill. Juliana watched him cover the hole, replacing the branches and smoothing the earth.

  He retrieved the lanterns he’d tossed out and made his way back down to her, walking sure-footedly along the ridge to the path, never a misstep. He might have been walking on a wide, paved road for all Elliot noticed.

  He returned to Juliana’s boulder and leaned on it next to her. “This valley would have been a good place for the McGregors to come to evade the McPhersons,” he said. “The McGregors could have crossed the river and hidden in the meadows beyond without anyone realizing.”

  “But then they’d have abandoned the castle to the rival clan,” Juliana said, following his gaze across river. “Do you think any of McGregor’s wild ancestors would have done that?”

  “No, but they’d have sent away the women and the wee ones. The families could have lived off the land in that valley a long time, in the warm months.”

  Juliana took in the beauty of the scene, the river rushing below them—the same one that had frightened Nandita so when they’d clattered over the bridge. Mr. McGregor and Hamish both claimed that the river teemed with fish, and in the folds of the valley, the McGregor women and children of old would have found berries and other sustenance. In peaceful times, they’d have explored the valley that rolled between the hills, and would have known exactly where to hide when battle came.

  “I’ll wager there are bushes plump with berries down there now,” Juliana said, her mouth starting to water. “How about it, Elliot? Shall we bring back a bucketful and teach Mahindar how to make raspberry fool?”

  “We don’t have a bucket.”

  Juliana lifted the white shirt and made a bowl of it. “I used to do this with my pinafore when I was a girl at my father’s manor house. I’d bring home plenty of bright red berries, half of which I ate on the way. Drove my governess wild.”

  Elliot didn’t look at her, but a faint smile crossed his face. “The Juliana I knew always had her pinafore neat and clean. Never a hair out of place, following all the rules.”

  “That was the Juliana I showed to company. When I was alone in the woods, I was a bit more lackadaisical. No one to see me, you see.”

  “I wasn’t company. I was the unruly brother of your friend.”

  “Perhaps, but when Ainsley paid a call, or I called on her, things had to be done properly. She laughed at my insistence on etiquette, but she played along.”

  “The fact that you convinced Ainsley to do anything by the rules is a bloody miracle,” Elliot said, with the fondness of an older brother for a harum-scarum sister.

  “I remember she rather enjoyed raiding the pantry when we were at school. I thought her audacious, but she never minded sharing the spoils. But she turned out all right, didn’t she? Happily married now, with a child of her own and another on the way.”

  “I want children.”

  Elliot’s blunt statement made her stop. The sun was descend
ing behind the hills to their right, casting shadows over the river below. Elliot looked down the hill at the roiling water, bracing himself on the boulder. The sun slanted from the jagged mountain to sharpen his face and outline his body in a faint glow.

  When he looked at Juliana again, the liquid light brushed the fine net of scars that ran from his temple into his hair. “Many children,” he said.

  “I see.” Juliana’s heart thumped. “Is that why you rushed to Edinburgh to stop my wedding and steal the bride?”

  “No, to take you away from that twit, Barclay. Lucky for him, he’d eloped, so I didn’t have to kill him.”

  “Kill him?”

  “For his sake, I hope he took his pianist back to England. He embarrassed you, and I’m not forgiving him that.” Elliot looked off into the distance again. “I didn’t realize I wanted more children then.”

  “But you realize it now?”

  “Something Mrs. Rossmoran said to me today put it in mind.”

  “Mrs. Rossmoran…” Juliana blinked. “You spoke to her today? When I stopped, her granddaughter said she was poorly. Is she all right?”

  “Mrs. Rossmoran is the hardiest woman in the Highlands. She had her granddaughter lie because she didn’t want to see Uncle McGregor.”

  “Oh.” Juliana rearranged her ideas about the frail old Highland rose. “I’ll remember to make my next call alone, or with you. She apparently doesn’t mind seeing you.”

  “Today, she didn’t. Next time might be different.”

  Juliana waved her hands in exasperation. “Anyway, because I didn’t see Mrs. Rossmoran, we went right on to the Terrells, and I need to tell you what happened there. The Terrells have some friends named Dalrymple, and I’m afraid they believe you killed Mr. Stacy.”

  He didn’t look at her. The only indication that Elliot had heard her came from a faint twitch of brows.

  “Elliot?”

  “Who knows?” he said slowly. “I might have.”

  Juliana had opened her mouth to agree with him that it was absurd, and the words got tangled up. “I know…she could not…What? But you said yourself that Mr. Stacy had disappeared when you went back to your plantation, and you never saw him again.”