The Seduction of Elliot McBride

Chapter 20

Juliana stared at him with the surprise she did so well, the expression of not wanting to believe the horrors he told her. Her blue eyes went a bit wider for a moment. Elliot hated that, with everything he revealed, he’d shatter more and more of her innocence.

Elliot lifted his hands and looked at them, callused and worn, the fingertips scarred where they’d been cut off, the nails surprisingly whole for having been pulled out and grown back.

“They taught me how to put my hands around a man’s throat,” he said. “How to use my thumbs to crush his windpipe. How to press my fingers into his eye sockets and pull his cheekbones from his face. A man will fight so hard to live when he’s dying…”

Juliana’s hand went to her own throat, slender with a sweet dusting of freckles. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to,” she said.

“I helped them kill men in their rival tribe. They made me into an animal, and they laughed when their enemies died by my hands.”

“Oh, Elliot.”

At least she didn’t say, with the superiority of Mrs. Dalrymple or Mrs. Terrell, that the men he’d killed were only heathens and didn’t matter. They were men with lives and homes, with children and wives who’d wail in grief when they did not return.

“When it was over, they’d lock me back up again.”

Juliana came to him with slow steps, her gaze never leaving his face. She closed her hands over his, lifted each, and pressed a kiss to his scarred knuckles.

“I know you had no choice,” she said. “They would have killed you if you hadn’t done it.”

“But I should have refused. Obeying them makes me a coward by most standards. I should have resisted, even to death, before I did their work.”

Her warm tear trickled to the back of his hand. “You had no choice,” she repeated in a whisper.

It hadn’t seemed real, those swift, silent battles in the night, Elliot chained and made to defend the camp from their rivals. In the cold blackness, Elliot had fought men who’d tried to thrust knives into him, his fear and obsessive need driving him on. He’d fought them because he’d refused to give up and die.

“I had to live,” he said. “I was determined to live, whatever the cost.” He released her hands and brushed back a tendril of her hair. “To see you again.”

Juliana looked up at him, lips parted.

“It’s what drove me to live, lass, every minute of the day or night. To see you again. To hear your voice. To touch you…” Elliot drew his finger down her cheek. “They wondered at my resilience. They called me a demon or the walking dead, because I wouldn’t lie down and die. But I couldn’t. Not until I saw you again.”

More tears trickled down her cheeks. Elliot brushed one away with his finger.

“I didn’t understand myself what you were to me,” he said, “until I was in danger of never seeing your face again, or your sweet smile. Then I knew. You were my lass, Juliana. You always have been.”

“But you came home.” Juliana took a step back, pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve, and wiped her eyes. “You came home and never said a word to me.”

“I didn’t want you to see me until I’d healed. I was a broken man. But I realized I’d never heal until I returned to India and faced what I was, what had happened to me. Besides, Priti was in India. I didn’t intend to leave her there to be raised without a father. I went back to settle everything for once and for all before I returned to Scotland forever.”

“But I might have married Grant in the meantime,” Juliana said. She sniffled, swiped at her nose, and tucked the handkerchief into her pocket. “I accepted his proposal because I thought I’d never see you again. You might have been too late.”

Elliot let amusement slip through the shivering horror in his mind. “No fear of that. I had Ainsley keep an eye on you and tell me everything you did.”

“But…” Juliana looked bewildered. “When on earth did Ainsley find time to be your spy?”

“My sister is amazingly resourceful. And cunning. If she couldn’t speak to you herself, she’d recruit someone else to. And she reported everything to me. She didn’t know the whole of what I was up to, and I asked her not to tell you I was asking about you, and to trust me. She did, bless her. I knew exactly when you were to marry Grant Barclay, and exactly how much time I had to return to Scotland and prepare things to scoop you up. I knew you’d never change the wedding date—you schedule your life to the minute and follow it exactly.”

Indignation edged out her bewilderment. “Even so, you could have said something. When you were captured, when we thought you dead…They were the most awful months of my life. Nothing can compare. I cried all day in relief when I got Ainsley’s telegram that you’d been found and were all right. And then you never wrote, never called on me, never spoke to me, never sent a message.”

“I know I did it all wrong,” Elliot said. “Ainsley would say I’m only a man after all. I did what I did because I didn’t want to give you the chance to say no.”

“So you came to my wedding to snatch me from the altar?”

“I’m a Highland barbarian. We steal our wives, didn’t ye know?”

“You are horrible.”

“I always have been.” He managed a grin. “You knew that.”

Juliana pressed her hands to her face. “Elliot, what am I to do with you?”

He couldn’t stay away from her any longer. Elliot took her hands, tugged her against him, and closed his arms around her. He laid his cheek against her fragrant hair, and let her warmth soak into his body.

Juliana relaxed with a sigh, and Elliot closed his eyes, focusing only on the heat of her against him, the softness of her under the stiff fabric of her dress.

“Elliot,” Juliana murmured after a while.

Elliot didn’t answer. He kissed her hair.

“What are we going to do about the Dalrymples?”

Poor Juliana. So worried about trivial matters. Elliot tilted her head back and briefly kissed her lips. “I might know someone who can assist.”

“Who?”

“Friend of a friend.” He kissed Juliana again, tasting the tea on her lips, and the cinnamon and pepper of the cake she’d nibbled.

The stain of the past slipped away, once again. The darkness was still there, ready to flow out and twine him in its net, but for now, closing and locking the door then unbuttoning Juliana’s dress was easing it away.

Elliot ended up sitting on the chair at the writing desk, she straddling his lap, he making made slow love to her, holding her.

In that quiet ecstasy, Elliot began to believe he could get well again. Maybe it would take a long while, and perhaps the memories would never entirely go away, but he would live. All he had to do was make love to Juliana, for now and for always, and he’d never fear anything again.

The work in the house continued through the afternoon and on into the evening. Elliot sent Hamish running to the village to telegraph London, then he took his rifle and went out looking for Stacy.

The red setter followed him, showing no sign of wanting to return to McPherson. Elliot didn’t want the dog to be hurt, but he knew Stacy. The man had a soft spot for animals, and wouldn’t hurt one to get to someone who’d enraged him. If he wanted Elliot dead, he’d confine his sights to Elliot.

Elliot found no sign of Stacy that day, however. Perhaps the man had given up and retreated.

Elliot had been keeping his ears open for news of any stranger staying in the area, but heard of no one unusual arriving of late, besides himself. He’d considered the possibility that Stacy might try to enter the house under the pretext of being a worker, but McGregor and Hamish knew every man for miles by sight, and Mahindar knew Stacy by sight. None of the men was Stacy.

When the workers went home to supper and bed, Elliot locked the doors of the castle with the giant keys then bolted them. After that he collapsed into bed and slept hard, his arms around Juliana.

In the wee hours of the morning, McGregor roused him to do some fishing.

Elliot took his rifle with him as well as his poles. He’d use the opportunity to search again.

McGregor took him along the river to the west, where it cut through the steep hills to fetch up into slower, more placid pools on McPherson’s land. Here McPherson met them.

The setter, who’d followed Elliot, wagged her tail and sniffed McPherson, then went back to circle Elliot.

“I seem to have stolen your dog,” Elliot said. “Or she stole me. I’m not sure which.”

“I can spare her,” McPherson said in his booming voice. “If she likes ye, why not? Ye need a dog in that great house of yours.”

The setter followed Elliot to the deeply shadowed spot where he quietly cast his line. From there Elliot could see up and down the river and into the hills, where a hunter might sit with a rifle similar to Elliot’s. The setter chased a few butterflies on the bank then settled down to watch the fishing with sleepy eyes.

The quiet of the valley was perfect. The river burbled into pools, the fish flipped and swam, and gratifyingly took bait. McPherson and McGregor caught several fish quickly, but Elliot had none.

Elliot didn’t care. The point of fishing, he’d decided long ago, was to wait in cold water up to the knees and watch the eddies swirl by, the line dangle, and shadows move and dance. Fishing meant standing with a friend in silence with nothing needing to be said.

He saw no sign and felt no sensation of a watcher in the woods. Stacy wasn’t there. Perhaps he’d given up and gone. Or perhaps Elliot was mistaken, and Stacy had never been there in the first place.

Elliot knew he had been, though.

“Who the devil is that?” McPherson’s voice rang out over the water and the fish darted for cover.

McPherson was shading his eyes against the intense morning sun to watch a man walk down the hill toward them. The visitor wore a frock coat, trousers, and a stovepipe hat, a costume more suited to strolling about a city park than tramping through the wilds of Scotland.

“Dear God,” McGregor said. “It’s that Dull Pimple chap. Haven’t we had enough of them?”

“I didn’t invite him,” McPherson said.

“Ye don’t think I did, do ye? Here, you.” McGregor cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted across the river. “Go away. Ye’re upsetting the fish.”

Ignoring McGregor, Mr. Dalrymple slipped and slid down to the bank and around a clump of trees to make straight for Elliot.

“Mr. McBride?” the man asked. “So pleased to make your acquaintance. George Dalrymple. Your boy said I might find you here.”

Hamish. Well, the lad wasn’t to know.

“I have something to discuss with you,” Dalrymple said.

The man had a Scottish name, but he sounded as though he’d tried very hard to erase anything Scottish about him. Elliot resisted the temptation to speak to him in Gaelic for the humor of it, but he did let his Scots accent become broad.

“Do ye now?”

“Yes, and I think we both know what it is.”

“I cannae think what.”

McGregor and McPherson watched from across the river, standing side by side, but Elliot signaled them to stay where they were. He’d either send Dalrymple home or push him into the water, he hadn’t decided which yet.

Dalrymple gave Elliot a pained smile. “My wife told me you seemed a rather simple man. And, by the way, you must excuse her for yesterday. She does get rather upset. We were both so fond of Mr. Stacy, you know.”

“He never mentioned ye,” Elliot said. “So he must nae have been fond of you.”

“We became rather more attached to him when you…ah…disappeared. He was quite worried about you.” Mr. Dalrymple’s smile remained, but his eyes were hard. “I realize you claim not to remember anything about Stacy’s death, but we are prepared to tell the police that you killed him.”

“You’re right. I don’t remember.”

“Nonetheless, we have ascertained that this is what happened. As my wife promised, we have begun an investigation.”

Elliot cast his line into the water again, gently flicking his wrist just right…just right. The fish were nowhere in sight.

“Very civil-minded of ye,” he said to Dalrymple.

“I understand, of course, dear fellow. You weren’t right in the head at the time. There’s speculation you still aren’t, though you seem much better.”

“Thank ye.”

“And all this must be upsetting for your wife, who is from one of Edinburgh’s most respectable families, I hear.”

“She is, aye.”

“I know you would like to spare her undue distress.”

Elliot took his gaze from the gently bobbing line and looked fully at Dalrymple. The man’s pale face was beaded with sweat in the sunshine, his features too perfect and delicate for this climate. If he’d been in India as he claimed, time had erased whatever effects the sunshine there had made on him.

“Be clear about what you’re saying,” Elliot said. “I’m interested.”

Dalrymple smiled. “We’re both men of the world, Mr. McBride. We’ve seen privation, and we’ve seen wealth, the extremes of each, haven’t we?”

“Aye.”

“I know that you…acquired…quite a bit of wealth for yourself. Hence your purchase of an estate in the Highlands.”

“Aye.” Elliot did not like the implication that he’d gained his fortune by anything other than backbreaking work, but he let it go. Not worth the bother.

“If you wish me to be plain, then I will be.” Dalrymple cast a glance across the river at McPherson and McGregor, and lowered his voice. “You are unwell, and your wife is a pretty creature, and quite respectable. I’m certain that for a sum we can agree upon, the investigation into Mr. Stacy’s death can lead nowhere in particular, or be withdrawn altogether.”