The Seduction Of Elliot McBride(52)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

Juliana knew—and she knew Elliot did too—that Mr. Stacy wouldn’t simply leave. He’d come for a reason, and while that reason was not yet clear, if Mr. Stacy were anything like Elliot, he’d stick to his purpose.

The fact that the house began filling up with guests also might have triggered Stacy’s absence. First to arrive was Sinclair McBride and his two children, Andrew and Caitriona. Six-year-old Andrew took at once to Priti and her goat, while Caitriona, a dignified eight, preferred to sit in the drawing room and look at Juliana’s ladies’ magazines.

They were lonely children, Juliana sensed, though she soon learned why Sinclair called them ungovernable terrors. The day they arrived, Andrew managed to lure the goat upstairs and hide it in the tiny room Komal occupied. The shrieks and scolding went on for hours, the goat, bleating wildly, happy to escape. During all this Caitriona sat calmly in the drawing room, holding her large golden-haired doll, and quietly turned the pages of the magazine, uninterested in the entire affair—uninterested in everything.

Next to come were Ainsley and Cameron and their baby, Gavina. They were quickly followed by more Mackenzies—Lord Ian and his wife Beth, with their children, accompanied by Daniel Mackenzie, Ainsley’s grown-up stepson.

A gentleman called Mr. Fellows arrived quietly and alone the day after that, to Juliana’s surprise. She’d invited him, but he’d replied by return post that he might not be able to make the journey from London.

“I am so pleased you could come after all, Mr. Fellows,” Juliana said, coming into the front hall to meet him. “Your caseload has lessened?”

“No,” he said in the dry tone Juliana was to learn he used habitually. “Not really.”

Lloyd Fellows, a detective inspector for Scotland Yard, was a half brother to the Mackenzies, and shared their looks—dark hair with a touch of red, hazel eyes with glints of gold. His stance, his quiet gestures, and the way he bent his head to listen to her, put her strongly in mind of Lord Cameron.

Mr. Fellows was quite a good detective, Juliana had heard, though she’d met him only once before, at Hart Mackenzie’s wedding, and that only for a brief greeting.

“Well, I am pleased you took time from your duties for our first event as Mr. and Mrs. McBride,” she said.

“I’m afraid I didn’t come for pleasure, Mrs. McBride. I came in answer to your husband’s telegram.”

“Telegram?”

Mr. Fellows obviously had no intention of explaining what the telegram said. He looked about at the freshly cleaned stones of the hall and the varnished and repaired wood. “I heard the McGregor house was a run-down wreck. I’m pleased to see accounts were wrong.”

“We’ve done quite a bit of work since moving in, that is certain. Now, if you are looking for my husband, I believe you’ll find him at the river with Lord Ian. Fishing. A pastime they both enjoy, apparently.”

“Thank you.” Mr. Fellows gave her a little bow. “I will take myself there.”

He withdrew without further word. Very polite, yes, Juliana thought, but with a hardness about him that told her he had to make himself remember to be polite.

Fellows went, and Juliana returned to her other guests and the ongoing preparations.

Elliot found Lord Ian Mackenzie to be one of the most refreshing men he’d ever met.

Of the Mackenzie family, Elliot had only ever talked at length with Cameron, his sister’s husband, but he’d found Cameron too different from himself to form an instant friendship with him. He and Cameron could talk about horses, but Cameron raced expensive champions, while Elliot had confined his horse owning to useful farm animals. They both had traveled the world, but Cameron had always lived in luxury in the best hotels, while Elliot had eked out an existence either on army pay or on his own, living in hovels that he shared with reptiles and large insects.

Ian Mackenzie, on the other hand, was easy to be with. For one thing, the man didn’t feel the need to talk.

Ian also knew what fishing was all about. A man stood on the bank and cast his line, then waited in silence. He might lend a hand to his fellow fisherman then quietly return to his own line when the task was done.

Everyone else Elliot met wanted him to make small talk. Even McPherson and McGregor, though both were good-natured, expected Elliot to contribute to conversations and looked at him with puzzled patience when he did not.

Ian, on the other hand, just fished. And shut his mouth.

The two men hadn’t said a word to each other since Elliot had found Ian examining the fishing rods in the back hall of McGregor Castle that morning. Elliot had said, “Do you fish?” and Ian had nodded, brushing his fingers over a particularly good pole. “Come on then,” Elliot had said.

The two men had chosen poles and nets and gone down to the river, where they’d stood in silence ever since. Elliot pushed aside thoughts of Stacy and the horde of people about to descend on his home. Nothing existed but the quiet plop of hooks into water, the faint hum of flies, the ripple of a fish going for the bait.

Elliot had caught two fish, Ian three, when a figure in a dark suit, a garb more common to the dingy streets of London than the open Highlands, walked down the path to the flat bank of the river.

“Mr. McBride.” The man held out a hand. Elliot wiped the fishy dampness of his hand on his kilt and shook it. The man nodded to Ian, who acknowledged him only with a glance before going back to his fishing. “I’m Inspector Fellows.”

“I gathered as much,” Elliot said.

“I’ve looked into the matters you asked me to,” Fellows said. “I can tell you here, or we can…” He motioned toward Castle McGregor, the top spires of which were just visible through the trees.

“Here, if you don’t mind,” Elliot said. “If we return to the house we might be recruited to round up things for the jumble sale.”

Fellows acknowledged this with a half smile. “Ian can keep his own counsel,” he said with another look at Ian, who was far more interested in the river than their discussion.

“Archibald Stacy,” Fellows said. “Joined your regiment in 1874 and went to India. Was a subaltern.”

“Two years younger than me,” Elliot said. “I was a lieutenant by then. He was a good shooter already, so they had me help train him to be a sharpshooter. He learned quickly.”

“Left the regiment four years later, decided to try his hand at civilian life in India. But you know this too.”