The Seduction of Elliot McBride (Mackenzies Series) (8 page)

The McGregor house would be more of a challenge, certainly, than her father’s elegant town house and small manor house near Stirling, but Juliana could do it, she thought. It was all a matter of organizing, and Juliana was most excellent at organizing.

She’d already begun making lists of things they needed to do, subdividing those lists into what must be purchased, what jobs could be left to ordinary laborers, and what jobs would take an expert’s skill, such as the bell system, which was in a complete disarray. To repair it, they’d have to find every rope in every pipe behind the walls and untangle the lot. But no matter—on the list the task went.

Juliana’s bravado flagged slightly as she walked back into the castle’s dusty interior. Hamish had tracked another layer of muddy boot prints in since the day before, but otherwise, all was as it had been yesterday—which meant a chaotic mess.

Because of the broken bell system, Juliana either had to shout for the staff when she needed something or go in search of them. As she reentered the morning room, she decided to do neither this time but carry the tea tray back to the kitchens herself. The empty things weren’t heavy, and Mahindar and his family had so much to do already.

She gathered up the cups and saucers, piling them neatly on the tray. If she fingered Elliot’s cup a little longer than the others, there was no one to see, was there?

When she entered the big kitchen with her tray, she was assailed by pungent aromas of food she couldn’t identify,
the scents odd but somehow mouthwatering. A pot simmered on the stove, Mahindar tending it, and Channan sat on her heels next to a large clay pot in the fireplace, poking at something inside.

Hamish was at the sink, scrubbing pots.

“Where is Nandita?” Juliana asked as she set the tea tray on the kitchen table. “Is she all right?”

They’d found her this morning, after a frantic search of the house, hiding in the boiler room. McGregor shooting off the gun had frightened Nandita badly—she’d been certain that soldiers had come to take them away. Channan and Mahindar had to talk to her for a long time before she’d come out again.

“She is with my mother,” Mahindar said. “She will be well.”

Juliana thought of the way Komal scolded Nandita, not to mention the way she’d chased McGregor back to his bedroom, and wondered.

“They are looking after Priti, then?”

Channan looked around from the fireplace. Mahindar shook his head. “No, Priti left with the sahib. He went walking in the hills.”

“With the shotgun.” Hamish didn’t lift his arms from sudsy water, but he cranked his head around for the announcement.

“Oh.” Juliana rolled her lower lip under her teeth. “Is…she all right with him?”

“Yes, indeed, certainly,” Mahindar said without worry. “The sahib always takes care of Priti.”

Juliana relaxed. Elliot did indeed seem to like the child, and she’d seen how gentle he could be with her.

“He is very good to her,” Juliana said. She lifted one of the teacups from the tray, admiring its fineness. Ainsley had been sweet to give them the set.

Mahindar looked surprised. “But that is only natural, memsahib,” he said. “After all, Priti is his daughter.”

Chapter 8

The teacup slid out of Juliana’s hands and fell down, down, to smash into fragments on the flagstone floor.

Juliana regarded it in dismay, while her heart pounded in her chest, and her face grew hot.

Channan said something admonishing to Mahindar, and the man looked unhappy and bewildered.

“His daughter?” Juliana said, swallowing on dryness. “With Nandita?”

“Nandita?” Mahindar looked surprised. “No, no. Nandita is not Priti’s mother. She is her ayah—as you say, her nanny—but we all look after Priti. No, her mother is dead, poor thing.”

“Oh.” Juliana’s thoughts fluttered around each other. She’d assumed Nandita the mother, because the young woman had been so attentive to Priti, and Channan had made clear her only children were grown sons. But Juliana had had no notion that Priti was
Elliot’s
. Elliot and…who?

She wet her lips. “Mr. McBride. He was married? In India?”

Channan and Mahindar exchanged a glance. Channan said, “He was not.”

Mahindar tried to drown her words with a string of Punjabi. Channan answered him as forcefully, then she turned back to Juliana.

“The sahib was not married to the lady,” Channan said. “She was the wife of someone else.”

Juliana couldn’t breathe. Her eyes begin to burn, her heart to beat painfully.

“You knew nothing of this?” Mahindar asked her in a faint voice.

Channan spoke to him rapidly and firmly in their native language, and Mahindar grew more and more embarrassed.

A lady did not break down in front of her servants in the kitchen, Juliana admonished herself. A lady shouldn’t even
be
in the kitchen, should never pass through the green baize door that separated the servants’ quarters from the rest of the house. Even though they were living rough here, and any green baize had worn to gray tatters long ago, Juliana should have observed the sanctity of the custom.

She held on to this idea, pounded into her head by her upbringing, to keep Mahindar’s revelation from overpowering her.

“You weren’t to know, Mahindar,” Juliana said. “Hamish, fetch a broom and sweep up the broken teacup.”

She walked away from them, her heel catching on one of the porcelain fragments and grinding it to powder.

Mahindar knew Channan was going to scold. And scold and scold. His wife was good at scolding him, but she only did when Mahindar deserved it, so it smarted doubly.

The sahib had never kept secret the fact that Priti was his child. But the man spoke so very little to anyone that most people did not realize that he’d fathered her. They assumed, as the memsahib had, that Priti was a servant’s
daughter. Mahindar never spoke of it to anyone himself, because both he and Channan knew how the English felt about half-caste children. The sahib, and Priti, would have an easier time of it if people didn’t know.

But Mahindar had assumed the memsahib would know. Mr. McBride had spoken of her often, describing her as a childhood friend, a young woman to whom he’d never had difficulty talking about anything and everything.

Mahindar braced himself for the scolding, but it didn’t come. Channan simply turned back to her tandoor and stirred the vegetables inside.

“I know, I know,” Mahindar said in Punjabi. “I am a fool.”

“I said nothing,” Channan said without looking at him.

“But you are right. I want him to be happy. I
need
him to be happy.”

“What happened to the sahib was not your fault. I have told you.”

Mahindar turned back to his pots of spices, reflecting mournfully that his supplies were too low. He’d become acquainted in London with another Punjabi who knew where to find the best Indian spices in the city. Mahindar had started sending the man money and a list of needs, and the man sent back, by special delivery, lovely jars of turmeric and saffron, the mixture called masala, and peppers that Mahindar could not find in the English or Scottish markets. He would have to write another letter to his friend and post it soon.

As always when Mahindar thought of what had happened to the sahib, and the enmity between Sahib McBride and Sahib Stacy, he felt remorse. He might have prevented the fight, might have prevented the journey into the wild lands during which the sahib had been stolen.

Mahindar had searched and searched after the sahib had disappeared, but hadn’t been able to find him. He’d searched every day. Those long months had been the worst time of Mahindar’s life.

“Not your fault,” Channan repeated.

Hamish, not understanding a word of what they said, swept the floor in a rush of energy, as he did everything else. “So Nandita doesn’t have any children?” the lad asked.

“No,” Mahindar answered, switching to English. “She was married very young—fifteen or sixteen she was, but her husband was a soldier. He was arrested and killed, sadly.”

“What had he done?” Hamish asked, the broom slowing.

“Nothing at all,” Mahindar said. “He saw someone else doing something they shouldn’t, so they came for him one night and pretended to arrest him for treason. They shot him like a dog.” He shook his head. “Poor little Nandita.”

“That’s terrible.” The broom stopped altogether, and Hamish leaned on it, his red brows drawn. “Is that why she was hiding in the boiler room?”

“She is afraid of soldiers and guns. They mean grief to her.”

“Poor thing.” Hamish’s sympathy glowed from him. “Does she speak any English?”

“She knows a few words only.”

“Well, I’ll just have to teach her then.” Hamish looked down at the broom, realized it was at a standstill, and began sweeping vigorously again.

Mahindar noticed Hamish hadn’t offered to teach Channan or Komal English. He went back to his spices, smiling to himself, feeling a little better.

Dinner was slightly delayed because when Elliot and Priti returned, they were covered from head to foot in black mud.

“What on earth happened to you?” Juliana asked, coming into the flagstone passage to discover the source of the delay.

She found Priti in the laundry room, standing inside the huge metal sink, Channan pumping water over her and
scrubbing her with a large sponge. Elliot, stripped to the waist, was standing at a smaller sink, with Mahindar scrubbing just as hard.

“Riverbank,” Elliot said, spluttering as Mahindar squeezed a giant sponge full of water over Elliot’s head. “I slipped in, and Priti fell in trying to rescue me. The bank we climbed out onto was this color.” He pointed to the tar-like mud on his kilt.

Juliana fought back the urge to laugh, and at the same time she didn’t know what to say to him. Elliot seemed relaxed, happy about his escapade with Priti and the comic way they looked.

Mahindar kept slopping the sponge, which was at least two feet wide, all over Elliot’s body. Elliot gleamed, wet, his arms glistening with water that pattered to the floor, the tattoo stark on his skin.

He grabbed the sponge from Mahindar. “Enough. Get Priti upstairs and dry.”

Mahindar relinquished the sponge with a sigh, as though realizing the limit to which Elliot would put up with his ministrations. Elliot scrubbed himself over, sloshing water onto his face and torso.

His kilt was drenched, and so were his bare legs, his boots left outside the back door. He snatched up a towel and rubbed his hair vigorously as he started out of the laundry room.

Juliana flattened herself against the wall in the passage between laundry room and kitchen as Elliot strode out, wearing only his kilt. He halted when he saw her, and he stepped close to her, his gray eyes glittering in the dim light of the hall.

Despite the toweling, Elliot was still wet, water beading on his lashes and dripping from the ends of his short hair. He said nothing, only leaned closer, closer. Now Juliana’s bodice was wet, the front of her skirt smudged with mud from his kilt.

His breath heated her lips, and his hands, one still holding the towel, went to either side of her. His gaze swept
downward, then he skimmed his lips from her forehead to her chin.

The light touches sent warm shudders through Juliana’s body, heat curling in her belly. She wanted to latch on to him and pull him close, despite her still-spinning thoughts, and rise to him for more of his kisses.

“Did you have a nice walk?” she babbled. “You and Priti? Besides falling into the river, I mean?”

Elliot didn’t answer. He skimmed kisses down her face once more then came to her lips, parting them with his. Juliana’s head went back to the wall, and Elliot slanted his mouth over hers, his heat and his body covering her.

He licked slowly into her mouth, coaxing her tongue over his in return. She tasted the water on his lips, the salt of his sweat, the excitement of him. The length of his hardness, firm through the wool of his kilt, unashamedly pressed her skirts.

Elliot eased the kiss to its close then touched his lips to the corner of her mouth and the tiny dimple there. Still saying nothing, he straightened up, hooked the towel around his neck, and walked away.

Juliana’s heart pounded, the heat between her legs incandescent. She clutched the wall, the only thing supporting her, while she watched his kilt swing against his bare legs as he strode back through the passage to the main house.

Juliana was still standing there when Channan came to her with a stiff brush, to clean the water and mud from the front of her frock.