The Seduction Of Elliot McBride

“Do not go out exploring yourself, Juliana.”

From the flash of guilt in her eyes, Elliot knew Juliana had been intending to do exactly that. He briefly wondered why the marriage ceremony bothered to contain the wife’s promise to obey her husband—he hadn’t met a woman yet who followed it.

“Pretend to believe me and stay safely indoors,” he said. He’d already told Mahindar to keep a close watch on Priti, and not to let her venture out the back door alone.

Juliana studied him, her blue eyes drawing him in, then finally said, “Very well.”

Of course, her ready capitulation, made in that soft voice, aroused his suspicions. “I mean it, lass. Whether you believe I’m insane or not, I want you safe.”

Juliana’s chin came up. “You asked me to believe you. Now I ask you to believe me. To err on the side of caution is not a bad thing. I wouldn’t wander about the land alone, in any case. What if I fell into a bog?”

Elliot suppressed a shudder, not needing that worry to go along with everything else. He didn’t fear so much what Stacy would do to him, but if anything happened to Juliana…

He’d rather go back to his horrible dark cell and the tortures there than let Juliana come to harm.

Elliot stilled at the thought. This was the first time he’d ever considered such a thing. His body and mind had been broken, but he realized on a sudden that his physical pain would be nothing to what could be done to his heart if something happened to Juliana.

He leaned to Juliana and kissed her again, savoring the heat of her against the length of his body. If Elliot lost her, if she were hurt…

He’d die.

Elliot pulled her closer, caressing the tension from the back of her neck as he deepened the kiss.

Never let her go, never lose her. They hadn’t been able to take her from him. He would let nothing take her now.

Elliot had to make himself release her. He knew Juliana wanted to get back to her organizing. She took refuge in her lists and schedules in the same way he took refuge in whiskey and in her.

Besides, keeping her here and playing out his fantasies would involve tearing the cloth on the billiards table, no doubt of that.

Elliot watched her walk away from him after she gave him one last kiss on the cheek, her small bustle swaying as she went. The driving need he felt to protect Juliana at all costs gave him several degrees of strength.

He remained staring for a long time at the door through which she’d strolled, examining this new feeling, watching the fragile spark of hope grow in the darkness like an ember gently blown to life.

Elliot did not come to bed that night. Juliana lay faceup on the mattress alone, contemplating the ceiling beams above her. She’d looked over swatches a draper from Aberdeen had brought her, trying to decide what to hang on the bed, once she could convince the mice to move out. For now, though, the bedposts were bare, like leafless trees.

The sun set and the moon rose, and still Elliot did not come.

She’d last seen him at supper, which McGregor attended. McGregor had glared suspiciously at the meal Mahindar had brought, declaring that lentils and curried chicken made a man weak. McGregor had repeated that several times as he ate every bite.

Elliot and McGregor had discussed shooting for the entire meal, and afterward, Elliot offered to show McGregor the Winchester rifle he’d ordered from America some years ago. Juliana had left them to their talk while she went on with her lists for the house, the fête, the ball, and the rest of her life.

Now she rested her hands on her chest and thought about what Elliot had told her about Mr. Stacy.

Juliana contemplated two choices. First, to believe that someone, whether it be Mr. Stacy or another, was indeed hiding in the woods east of the house, above the river. Or, second, to believe that Elliot was not quite sane after all.

She’d seen no evidence of the watcher Elliot had described, and he’d made her promise not to go out and look for any. This did not mean, Juliana thought, that she could not send others out to look for evidence for her. But then, if Mr. Stacy was as dangerous as Elliot claimed, she risked sending Hamish or Mahindar into peril.

Juliana had asked Hamish if, when he’d gone down to see his great-aunt after supper, he’d noticed whether anyone had taken the food he’d hung in a tree. Hamish had told her that the bag was still there, swinging heavy, untouched. He’d hung it well out of reach of foxes, he’d explained proudly, just as Mr. McBride had told him to.

So, there it was. Elliot was leaving food in the woods with no sign that anyone was there to take it.

Juliana had no idea exactly what he’d suffered during his capture in the Afghan mountains, or what he suffered now, or to what degree. She had seen Elliot sink into a stupor from which he couldn’t be awakened, had twice seen him believe himself back with his captors and try to fight them.

Now Elliot believed a man from his past had returned from the dead to stalk him.

This belief, though, was a little different. Elliot had stood before Juliana, his eyes clear, fully aware he was in the here and now, and told her of his suspicions. He believed the man in the woods was a Scotsman he’d known in India, not one of his tribal captors. Elliot had warned her of the danger to her, and to Hamish and others—he was not focused on the danger to himself.

Juliana sorted her thoughts into neat lists, for and against. On one list, her husband was correct; on the other, he was letting the terror he’d suffered in the past guide his mind.

Tears slid from Juliana’s eyes to the linen pillowcase as she stared up at the ceiling and made her choice.