The Seduction Of Elliot McBride(14)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

His mind gave him back the next thing, the bliss of Juliana’s heat, her touch, the scent of her surrounding him. A moment, that was all, of drowning in her and forgetting everything.

But the darkness had decided to rob him of even that. It wanted to take Juliana away from him, snatch back peace as Elliot reached for it.

No. I need this.

He plunged into the bath, letting it bite his flesh and the scars on his back. Mahindar knew better than to try to wash Elliot or help him into or out of the tub. Elliot soaped himself down, getting plenty of water on the floor, then curbed his impatience to lie back and let Mahindar shave him.

Mahindar finished as quickly as he could, unhappy he couldn’t wrap Elliot’s face in a hot towel and perhaps finish with a massage. Elliot ignored the man’s complaints, rubbed himself dry, and dressed.

Hamish was clattering around the hall below, making a great deal of noise when Elliot descended, but Elliot couldn’t stop to decide what he was doing. He noticed that a fist-sized hole had been punched into the lacy stonework of the ceiling, only a few inches from the big chandelier.

Elliot barreled into the morning room to find three elegant ladies in the act of lifting teacups. A clock somewhere in the house chimed three. Ainsley smiled at him, and Rona, his prim sister-in-law, gave him a look of appraisal.

Juliana studied Elliot over the rim of her cup, then she set the cup back down, her eyes full of concern.

Did he look that much like hell? He should have glanced into a mirror, but the bedchamber had none, and Elliot had learned to avoid mirrors. He trusted Mahindar to make sure his clothes were straight but never bothered anymore with anything beyond that.

“Here you are, Elliot,” Ainsley said, her voice overly bright.

“Yes, here I am. Where else would I be?”

He heard the growl come out of his mouth, but he couldn’t stop it. Ainsley, his tomboy sister, was resplendent in some creation of cloth that subtly changed hue when she moved. Rona, plump and regal, wore a dark dress she’d assumed befitted her age of fifty-odd, with a cap of ruffles, bows, and floating lacy bits. All his life, Elliot had seen Rona in some kind of cap—plain ones and Sunday best, caps for calls and for receiving calls, for visiting one’s doctor and for shopping. Whenever he thought of Rona, his first vision was of caps.

He took all this in swiftly, then observations were shoved to one side of the room, and the only being who existed was Juliana.

Her lawn gown was cream colored with thin black piping outlining her bodice, placket, collar, and cuffs, the skirt deeply ruffled down the front. A high collar framed her chin, softening her face and emphasizing the slight dimple in the left corner of her mouth. She’d woven a cream-colored ribbon through the dark red of her hair, little ringlets left to float from her forehead and the back of her neck.

She resembled the china figurines he’d seen in shops throughout Europe, elegant ladies frozen forever in time, their porcelain hands plucking at swirling porcelain skirts.

Except that Juliana didn’t have the coldness of porcelain—she was warm flesh, breath, and life.

She watched him with blue eyes that reminded him of cornflowers, or maybe the sky in springtime. Only the women of Scotland had eyes that color. Juliana was of this place, Elliot’s home.

“Elliot,” Juliana said. Her sweet voice rushed at him. “Rona has come for the rings.”

Rings. Elliot looked at his left hand, which sported a thick gold band. He remembered pushing Juliana’s ring onto her hand, telling her he plighted her his troth. His truth, his fidelity.

As though he could conceive of touching any woman but her. Ever. For any reason.

“I presume,” Ainsley broke in, still speaking in that overly cheerful sickroom voice, “that you thought to order rings for yourself.”

He had. He now remembered telling Mahindar, before going into the church to wait for Juliana, to send to the family’s jewelers for rings to be made. Remembered Patrick, his kindhearted brother, pulling Elliot aside and closing into his hand two cool rings, which had not left the fingers of Patrick and Rona since their marriage thirty years ago.

“It’s taken care of,” Elliot said. He tugged the wedding band from his finger, went to Rona, dropped it into her hand, and pressed her fingers closed around it. “Thank you.”

Rona’s eyes shone with brief tears, then she tucked the ring into a little pouch. It clinked against another, and Elliot saw that Juliana’s finger was already bare.

“We thank you,” Juliana said, pouring out a fourth cup of tea. “It was kind of you.”

“Entirely logical,” Rona said, pretending the tears had never manifested. “Nothing else to be done. Elliot, what are you going to do with this awful house?”

Elliot watched Juliana pour his tea, her hands competently balancing the cup on the saucer, steadying it perfectly under the stream of hot liquid. She set the fat teapot back on the tray without wincing from its weight and lifted the dainty silver tongs from the sugar bowl.

Here she faltered—a woman ought to know what her husband took in his tea, but Juliana and Elliot had never had tea together. At least, not since they’d both been fourteen.

Rona leaned forward and whispered, “One lump, dear.”

“Actually, I prefer it with no sugar at all now.” Elliot reached for the cup in Juliana’s hand.

She held the saucer so daintily that his big fingers were in no danger of touching hers. He changed that by folding his hand over hers and slipping the cup and saucer out of her grasp.

Juliana’s lips parted, and heat swam in her eyes. It matched what was in his blood. The entirety of last night was returning with a vengeance.

Elliot needed to sit down—next to her. But Juliana was perched on the front edge of a narrow armchair, her bustle filling the rest of the seat. There was a perfectly good love seat in the room, but that was occupied by Rona and Ainsley, sitting side by side. Two more chairs and an ottoman completed the circle around the tea table, the rest of the furniture in the room covered with dust sheets.

Elliot hooked his leather-shod foot around the ottoman and dragged it close to Juliana’s chair. He sat down on it, settling his kilt, his knee firmly pressing Juliana’s, and balanced the delicate cup and saucer in his big hand.

Ainsley and Rona watched him intently, but Elliot was only aware of Juliana, her warmth, her nearness, the rightness of her.

“Where did you dig these up?” Elliot said, lifting his cup to study it. The porcelain was fine and almost paper-thin, the flowers painted on it with a skilled hand. These teacups had been turned out in some factory in England or Germany at great expense. “They were never in Uncle McGregor’s crockery cupboard.”