The Seduction of Elliot McBride

Chapter 25

Elliot told her. He started with Jaya and the fact that at first it had been almost a ménage à trois—he and Stacy had been young and found being lovers to the same woman exciting. Jaya had preferred Stacy, and when Stacy was slow to acknowledge his feelings for her, she came to Elliot.

Stacy had returned from a business trip to find Jaya giving him an ultimatum—he marry her or she would stay with Elliot. Stacy, realizing that he loved the woman, had grown angry at Elliot, thinking he’d tried to steal Jaya, then Elliot stepped aside and let Jaya leave with him.

Elliot had thought that the end of the matter. He and Stacy had gone north to Rawalpindi then to the borders of Afghanistan to meet with a trader who ran on up into the Hindu Kush and beyond to Samarkand. Elliot related to Juliana the attack on the English families, the plan to get them to safety, and Stacy abandoning Elliot to his fate.

As Elliot spoke it came back to him, all the things he tried so hard to push away. The beatings, the night they’d clamped his hands to a table and calmly pulled out his fingernails, one by one. How they’d beat him with metal rods until he couldn’t stop the screams.

They’d sometimes take him out of his cell deep in the tunnels and talk to him. Elliot understood them a little—their dialect had been similar to those in the northern Punjab. They’d thought him a British spy, and asked when the soldiers would come marching. They hadn’t believed Elliot when he said he knew nothing, neither did he care.

The torture, the alternate starvation and halfhearted feeding, the sleeplessness leading to long periods of unconsciousness had nearly killed Elliot. His captors expected him to die at any moment, they said, had even shown him the pit where they’d throw his body. Wild animals would find him there and tear him apart. They threatened to throw him in even before he was dead.

Elliot talked in a monotone, relating horror after horror, his eyes closing while his lips moved. He no longer saw the room, or heard the laughter outside, or felt the solidness of the floor beneath him.

He hadn’t realized that his words had drifted to silence. His eyes remaining closed, his lids too heavy to open.

Then he smelled the rosewater soap Juliana liked so well, sensed the brush of her on his skin. Her warmth slid along his body, and still he couldn’t open his eyes or reach for her.

“I never told them about you,” he said, his lips stiff. “They questioned me and tortured me, but I never once said your name. You were mine, my secret. The one thing they could never take from me.”

She skimmed her fingers up his arm under his loose sleeve. “I don’t feel worthy of that.”

“You were light and life. You are heat, and I’m so damn cold.”

Elliot opened his eyes. Juliana a hairsbreadth from him, surrounding him with her beautiful scent, her warmth. She was life, and home.

“How did you get away from them?” she asked, her voice holding a little tremor.

“They’d taught me to kill. When I helped kill some of their enemies, the leader started treating me better. Then one of the men became jealous of me, killed another, and blamed it on me.”

“Oh.” Juliana’s hands came to rest on his chest, fingers points of warmth through his shirt.

“I knew they’d come for me right away. I hid in the dark. They sent in only one man to fetch me, because they didn’t fear me enough. I had to kill him before he could make a sound. I dressed in his clothes. In the dark, I crept into the tunnel where they kept the guns and stole my Winchester back, and what was left of the ammunition.

“Someone saw me. I shot at him, and I ran. I disappeared into those hills so fast, I never looked back. I can’t remember most of that run, but they were after me.”

He felt a smile coming on. “But I was good. I always had been. I eluded them like an animal, laying false trails and crossing rivers, and praying I didn’t step on a cobra and end everything. I had to get back home. I mean to Scotland. Had to.” He brushed Juliana’s hair back from her face. “I had to get home to you.”

Tears trickled from her eyes. “I was so afraid every minute you were missing. I thought of you every day, every hour.”

“I think I knew that. I could see you so clearly, even in the worst of the dark.”

“How did you manage to get back to your plantation?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea, love. At some point, I crossed the border back into the Punjab, and kept wandering. I suppose I simply knew my way home. Mahindar says he found me about ten miles away from my plantation, crawling, half blind with infection. But he knew it was me.”

Mahindar had fallen to his knees and gathered Elliot, who was filthy and infested with vermin, to him and held him hard. The man had cried, rocking back and forth, saying over and over, Sahib, I have found you. I have found you.

Elliot vaguely remembered the kitchen of his plantation house, Komal and Channan exclaiming and crying, the three rushing to find water, food, clothing, a razor to remove the matted hair from his head and face. He remembered them showing him Priti, not two months old, and explaining that Jaya had died. Stacy had abandoned the child and gone who knew where, leaving Priti with Mahindar.

The weeks between then and Elliot’s first convalescence in Scotland were a blur. Elliot moved in a daze, certain he was in the dream.

He’d realized one day, in Patrick’s house in Edinburgh, that he couldn’t hover in that bedchamber forever. He’d come up with a plan to bring himself back to life.

Juliana rested her head against his chest, her hands soft through his shirt, and Elliot rested his cheek against the scarf over her hair. She was everything he was not, whole and beautiful, kind and sensible. He might once have been charming as she’d claimed today, but he’d also been arrogant and confident that he could take on the world and win. Elliot had learned too late that he was as weak as those foolish English people who’d wandered too far into the Afghan hills, people he’d despised even as he’d helped them to safety.

“I’m not who I was,” he finished. “Sometimes I thank God for that. I lost most of myself in those caves as a prisoner. I’m not sure who it was who came out.”

“You’re Elliot,” Juliana said. “My Elliot.”

“Not what you thought you were getting, eh, lass?”

She raised her head, her eyes still wet. “You are too hard on yourself. You are exactly what I wanted.”

“I thought if I came here to this house and married you, I would get well.” Elliot knew the rest with certainty. “But I might never get well.”

“You will,” Juliana said with conviction. “I know you will.”

Elliot didn’t share her confidence. Telling her the story had drained him, and he had nothing left for hope for the future. Tomorrow he could hope again. Tonight…

Tonight he had to be lord of the manor and let dozens of people into his house to see what he’d done with it. Tonight he’d dance with his wife and show the world the woman he’d caught.

He tilted Juliana’s face up to his and kissed her.

Juliana rose on tiptoes into the kiss, seeking him, needing him. Everything Elliot had told her settled onto her like a black miasma. How a man could endure so much, how he could transition back to the calm, the everyday, was beyond her comprehension.

If she could wash it all away from him, she would. Juliana kissed his lips, running her hands over his broad shoulders. She marveled that such a strong man could have anything wrong with him at all. He’d returned to full health in the time he’d taken to recover and put his affairs in order. She couldn’t ever imagine him weak.

Only a man as strong as Elliot could have survived the ordeal, in any case. His ten months as a prisoner might have taken away his youth but hadn’t been able to break him, not completely.

Juliana sought him with hunger she didn’t understand. Her blood burned for him, but not for the pleasure he could give her. She wanted to give to him, to heal him. She needed to.

Juliana tasted the desperation in him, the pain and the hunger, as his kisses turned fierce. He’d been alone in the dark for so long.

Elliot stripped the silken scarf from her head, then the one she wore like a shawl. The light fabric slithered to the floor, brushing her arms as it went.

He undressed her then, a layer at a time, kissing what he bared as he peeled away her gown, her petticoats, her corset. His lips touched her neck, her shoulders, the inside of her wrists, her breasts, her abdomen as he knelt to loosen the top of her combinations. When Elliot slid her drawers from her, he leaned into her and kissed the join of her legs.

He got to his feet without continuing to explore her there, to her vague disappointment, and swept up the silk scarves on his way. Juliana expected him to carry her to the bed, but instead, he brushed the silk up over her bare buttocks and back.

The cool fabric whispered against her skin, her flesh rising in goose bumps. Elliot drew the silk down her breasts, his gaze dropping to them as her nipples hardened into tight points.

He guided her backward to the bed, then up onto the mattress, settling her on her back. He continued to glide the silk across her skin, teasing her nipples, her belly, the twist of hair between her legs.

He brought the silk to his lips and kissed it, then he laid it over her body while he shed his clothes.

The shirt and boots came off quickly, and Juliana watched with appreciation as he approached the bed, wearing nothing but his kilt. He unpinned it and let the folds drop, then slung the plaid on the bed to mix with the silk.

Elliot came down to kiss her. Juliana reached for him, but he evaded her, kissing her neck and throat, pinning her hands above her head to take his mouth down her body. He licked one nipple and drew it into his mouth, teasing with teeth and lips. He did the same to the other, taking more time with it. He lingered to nibble, tugging the nipple long, before he released it to lick it once more.

Elliot moved down to kiss between her legs again, but as her hips rose, Juliana wanting more, Elliot turned her over, to her surprise, and eased her onto her hands and knees. Her fingers and toes sank into the silk and wool on the bed, then Elliot came behind her, spreading her knees, his hand opening her, stirring her need.

Juliana felt his hardness against her entrance, strong and blunt, touching her lightly. She tensed, uncertain, then dragged in a sharp breath when Elliot pushed into her.

She felt not pain but impossible joy. He opened her, his hardness thick and long, the sensation incredible. Juliana uttered a cry, her climax already taking her, and Elliot had not even started to move.

He stilled inside her a moment, letting her get used to the fullness, the intense feeling of him in this position, then he began to move in and out.

Coherent thought deserted her. Juliana floated on feeling—of Elliot thrusting swiftly and fiercely, the pumping of his thighs against her buttocks, his fingers firm on her hips. Beneath her, both the rough of the kilt and the fineness of the silk rubbed her knees.

More sensations—his sweat dropping to her back, the intense heat of him against her legs, the sounds that came from his mouth. Not words, only sounds, a man in ecstasy.

Juliana’s throat was raw, and she realized it was from her own cries. She pushed herself back into him, wanting him, and she heard herself begging him. “Please, please, please!”

Elliot went faster and faster, until Juliana thought she would die. He had to stop…She hoped he never stopped.

Their bodies were slick with sweat by the time Elliot’s sounds became groans. The bed creaked, Elliot’s body hard against hers, and Juliana breathed in long, shuddering gasps.

Nothing genteel or soft and slow about this lovemaking. This was raw, brutal passion.

“God, Juliana.” Elliot’s last thrust pressed inside her while her body squeezed back into his. He trailed off into beautiful, musical words she didn’t understand.

Then he shuddered once, hard.

Juliana collapsed to the bed, her knees burning. Elliot withdrew from her and fell beside her, drawing her back against him with shaking hands.

He gathered her hair from her flushed face and kissed her cheek. She felt his pounding heart against her back, and his limbs, tangling hers, were hot.

The breeze from the window brushed their bodies, the sounds of the fête drifting to them.

Juliana drowsed, the brief lovemaking leaving her exhausted. Nothing had ever wound her up so intensely then released her so fast.

“What were you saying?” she asked. “The words?” He’d used the same language when he’d thrown phrases at Mrs. Dalrymple.

Elliot’s voice went into mock broad Scots. “Och, lassie, do ye nae ken the language of your ancestors? ’Tis Gaelic.”

“Is it?” She’d only ever been taught English, had been sent to an English school, and had been thrown together with people who wouldn’t dream of speaking anything but English, the language of money and success.

“Aye. ’Tis.”

Juliana traced his arm where it lay across his stomach, touching the tattoo. “How do you know it?”

“I know many languages. Gaelic, French, German, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi. I never knew what I’d need to be speaking.”

“What were you saying to me?”

Elliot kissed her temple, his lips warm and quiet with the intimacy of afterglow. “That ye were beautiful. And warmed me like nothing I’d ever felt. An toir thu dhomh pòg?”

Juliana smiled. “What does that mean?”

“Will ye kiss me?”

Her smile widened. “Yes.”

She turned on the pillow, liking how his eyes were half closed and relaxed, like an animal in repose. Elliot kissed her softly, his lips parted, again with the warm intimacy.

“Tha gaol agam ort,” he whispered.

She traced his cheek. “What is that one?”

Elliot closed his callused hand over hers, bringing her fingers to his lips. “Someday, I’ll tell you,” he said.

The midsummer ball went well until Mr. McGregor insisted he do a sword dance.

Juliana’s guests had come from as far away as Edinburgh, including the rest of the Mackenzie clan and Gemma, even the formidable Duke of Kilmorgan and his recent bride, Lady Eleanor. They were not all staying in the house, as only a few guest rooms were yet habitable, but McPherson had volunteered to put up most of them in his giant castle.

The ball was a full Highland party, with all the Scotsmen in great kilts. Pipers and fiddlers had come from Highforth and the next village; village men and women had volunteered to help Mahindar and his family with cooking and replenishing food and drink; and many of them joined in the dancing outside on the lawn in the long twilight.

Elliot looked much better when he at last came down. He’d donned his great kilt, the swath of plaid looped over his shoulder. Unlike the Mackenzie brothers, he wore no coat, and looked like a Highland barbarian of old.

The guests poured in, anxious to greet the McBrides, welcoming Elliot as part of McGregor’s family. It didn’t take long for the dancing to begin.

What always made Juliana’s heart swell about true Highland gatherings was that no one needed to be prodded to dance and have a good time. Partners were seized, circles formed, and dancing began.

As the newly married couple, Juliana and Elliot led the first reel. Juliana had only danced with Elliot once, at her debut in Edinburgh, where they’d done a stately waltz to the strains of Strauss. Now Elliot showed his true grace. He moved through the steps of the reel without missing a one, spinning Juliana and handing her off, and picking her up again without losing a measure.

The guests laughed and clapped, dancing around them. Daniel Mackenzie was the most enthusiastic, his youth letting him jump higher and swing ladies harder than his uncles, who were more absorbed in their wives. Only Ian Mackenzie didn’t dance, preferring to sit with his wife and his children or hold his son’s little hands when the boy wanted to dance to the music.

Mac Mackenzie joined his nephew Daniel in exuberance, his wife, Isabella, laughing at him, her color high and eyes sparkling. The duke, Hart, was quieter, but the look he gave Eleanor was so loving that Juliana’s eyes moistened.

She wanted to have with Elliot what the Mackenzie brothers and their wives had. They had full trust, confidence, love. They enjoyed being together and watching each other. Yet, they didn’t lose anything in each other, each of them having their own wants, their own enjoyments. But together, each couple seemed to be stronger than the sum of their parts.

Maybe, in time, she and Elliot could find that too.

The ballroom, still a bit barren with no drapes on the windows or pictures on the walls, resounded with energy. Music filled it with a wall of sound, the dancers’ laughter resonating over it. McPherson danced with all the ladies, matching Daniel for enthusiasm.

McGregor, well gone in whiskey, shouted, “Bring the swords!”

Hamish fetched them from who knew where, a traditional claymore and scabbard he set in a perfect cross in the cleared corner of the ballroom. Elliot broke from his two brothers and Gemma to move across the room to it. Before he could reach it, McGregor motioned for the pipers to play.

He started off well enough. Mr. McGregor knew the steps, if he couldn’t bounce very high, and touched his feet quickly and surely into the squares formed by the crossed blade and scabbard. But then the fiddlers sped up and the pipers followed suit, playing faster then faster.

McGregor roared as he tried to keep up, stamping to either side of the blade, jumping higher, the ribbon in his Scottish bonnet flapping. The guests applauded their approval.

Then his foot came down wrong, the sword skittered, McGregor’s legs split, and he fell flat on his back with a grunt.

Juliana ran to him, but Elliot was there in front of her. McGregor allowed himself to be helped to his feet, then he threw Elliot off. “Leave me be, nephew. I’m fine.”

But he did let Juliana lead him out of the ballroom, and when he reached the hallway, he began to limp. “Bloody sword. In my day, they were made so they didn’t move.”

Komal appeared out of the shadows to grab McGregor’s other arm. She started scolding right away in both Punjabi and the few words she’d learned in English.

Juliana relinquished him. McGregor didn’t seem to mind so much to lean on Komal while she led him down the hall toward the kitchen.

Juliana returned to Elliot, who watched from the doorway, and he put his arm around her to draw her back into the light and chaos of the room.

Debate had started about who should next attempt the sword dance. “Elliot,” his older brother Patrick’s voice rose. “You used to do it, and do it well.”

“A dozen years ago,” Elliot shot back, but the crowd took up the cause.

“Go to, McBride!” Mac Mackenzie shouted, and Daniel echoed him. Applause and yells urged him on.

“All right.” Elliot held out his hands, motioning them to stop. “Play it slowly,” he said to the piper.

The piper blew into the bag, filling the room with sound. When the musicians were ready, Elliot bowed, then he started.

He hadn’t done this dance in years, but it came back to him. He leapt left, then right, his arm coming up for balance. Around the four sides of the sword and scabbard, outside the cross at first, left then right, his leaps high, kilt moving. Then inside the cross, toe and heel, flat foot stamp and toe. In and out, front and back, left and right.

The guests clapped along, and the men shouted encouragement. Elliot let himself rest on the cushion of music as his feet did the work.

The mind was a strange place. He hadn’t done this in years, and yet, it all came back, steps learned long ago as a careless youth. His whole past was there, waiting for him to find it again.

The piper and the fiddler sped up. Elliot sped up too, to more applause and cheers.

Then the piper sped again. Elliot shouted, and he danced back from the swords, laughing and panting. “Enough!”

Juliana caught him as he backed away—what a fine feeling to yield to the softness of her. Daniel was pressed forward, told to show them what he could do.

Daniel made his bow, winked at the ladies, and proceeded. He began the dance as Elliot had, first outside the cross, then in between the blade and scabbard, his feet flashing back and forth. When the music sped up, so did Daniel, and Elliot joined the crowd in urging him on.

“Daniel does well,” Juliana said into Elliot’s ear as the piper played as fast as he could, and Daniel’s feet moved precisely in the complicated jig.

“He’s eighteen,” Elliot said. “I’m thirty.”

“Well, you did your best.”

Elliot looked down at her sly smile and sparkling eyes and kissed her. The guests whooped. At the same time, Daniel finished the dance, bowed, and flashed his grin at every young lady in the room.

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.