“Is Mr. Stacy still alive?” Juliana asked.
Elliot shook his head. “I don’t think so. He left his plantation and went to Lahore, according to Mahindar, and Mahindar heard that he died in an earthquake there.” Elliot sloshed more whiskey into his goblet. “I told you, not a pretty story.”
“You are correct. Not for young ladies in a drawing room.”
“It is in the past. Gone.”
“I know.”
Elliot drank the whiskey and returned the glass to the table, obviously intending to say no more.
“Well,” Juliana said briskly. “Priti is a sweet girl, and I’m happy we can provide a home for her. I will have to look into clothes for her, and a governess, and we must make certain a nursery is put in order for her. Nandita is kind to look after her for now, but Priti should not live like a servant.”
“She doesn’t.”
Juliana set down her knife and fork exactly parallel across her plate. “What you mean, my dear Elliot, is that she lives the way you do, which means a bit rough. I don’t intend to break her spirit, if that’s what you fear, but she does need to learn manners, and English, and a good many things.”
“I’ll ask her,” Elliot said with a straight face.
“You should begin acknowledging her as a McBride right away, so that there is no question how you view her as she grows up. I warn you, it will not be easy for her, having an Indian mother, but we will do our best to smooth her way.”
“Thank you.”
The quiet gratitude sent a shiver down Juliana’s spine. Not Priti’s fault at all that she was the daughter of a courtesan two men had loved. The jealousy prickled again. Juliana would have to decide what to do about that—the affair had been so far in the past, after all. That Elliot had planned to take care of Priti no matter whose daughter she turned out to be mitigated the jealousy a bit.
“Yes, there is much to be done.” Juliana took refuge from her emotions, as always, by organizing. Organizing was such a comforting thing. “Not only for Priti, but for us as well. As soon as we are able, we must pay calls to everyone in the area. It’s our duty, and also our duty to host a gathering, perhaps on Midsummer’s Eve. That will indicate to the neighbors that we plan to settle here, and are not simply city dwellers looking to spend an idle week in the country. We’ll have a fête, and a ball. I shall have to find out what fiddlers to hire and where to obtain the food, which will all have to be local, of course. Perhaps you could…”
She noticed that Elliot had frozen in place, staring at her with an unfathomable look.
“Elliot?” she asked quickly. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t do well around people,” he said in a hard voice. “Not anymore.”
No, he didn’t. She’d seen that already, even with his own family. “That is the beauty of having a wife,” she said. “You have to do nothing but stand looking laird-like and letting the whiskey flow. I shall have to greet everyone and make sure they’re entertained. Trust me, much better for us to endure such a thing for a few hours than be talked about up and down the countryside. Don’t worry, Elliot. I will take care of it.”
She had no idea, Elliot thought, how absolutely beautiful she looked at this moment. Her blue eyes were shining under the light of the candles, her hair glistening as she moved her head. She talked rapidly and gestured with her plump hand, so happily dooming him with neighborly calls and a midsummer fête.
Easy to confess to the world, even to gentle and proper Juliana, that he’d sired a child on Jaya, who’d kept him warm when the cold winds came off the wall of mountains separating northern India from the world. Easy to admit he and Stacy had shared her between them at first.
That sin was so far removed from the terrible nightmare of being captured and displayed as a prize. So far removed from what the men of that fierce tribe had done to him, and had taught Elliot to do for them. He’d experienced slavery firsthand, when a human life was considered less important than an animal’s—when the whole of his history, from birth to present, meant nothing.
Elliot also couldn’t explain to Juliana that when he’d been their prisoner and slave, he’d forgotten all about Jaya. His time with the woman and Stacy, his years at the plantation, his friends there and in the army might have never existed. The only person he could hold on to, the only face he saw, was Juliana’s.
Juliana kept on chattering about the fête and jumble sales and conferring with the minister’s wife, but Elliot couldn’t hear her words. He was aware only of her voice, clear like a fall of rain.
He pushed aside the whiskey he drank too much of these days and rose from his chair. Juliana looked up at him in surprise, because of course a gentleman never left the table until the lady decided it was time for the women to retire to the drawing room.
Elliot reached the end of the table and pulled Juliana’s chair back. As she looked up at him in astonishment, he lifted her out of the ridiculous throne-like chair and set her down on a vast blank area of the table.
“Elliot, I don’t think…”
Elliot silenced her by kissing her. He drew his hands up under her heavy coil of hair, fingers loosening the silk of it.
In the dark cells he’d imagined this, remembering the soft of her hair when he’d touched it the night of her debut ball, before he’d shipped off the next day to join his regiment. He’d recalled he exact shape and touch of her lips from that brief kiss, the scent of her rose-soft breath.
She’d sustained him in the dark, and now he needed sustenance again.
Elliot drew his tongue across her lips, touching the moisture behind them when they parted. Juliana’s hands came up to cup his elbows, fingers sinking into his biceps through his coat.
He kissed across her lips, every inch of them, then moved to her cheek, kissing the skin he had the privilege to touch. In the darkness, in the pain, the memory of her kiss had wound comfort through the agony. She’d never know—he never would find the words to explain—how many times she’d saved his life.
I need you.
Elliot moved to the shell of her ear, brushing it with the tip of his tongue. Juliana made a soft noise in her throat as he closed his teeth on her earlobe.
He was seducing her again, but she’d seduced him every night of those months he’d been lost. He’d longed each day for the torture to cease, for his captors to ignore him for stretches of time, because then he could sink into a stupor and be with his visions of Juliana.
They never could make Elliot forget her, because they didn’t know about her. Her name had never crossed his lips. Juliana was his secret, his soul.
And now she was real.
He sucked her earlobe gently into his mouth, liking the way she shivered under his touch. He loved the scent of her, the taste of her, and he’d never be able to have enough.
Elliot kissed his way back to her mouth, one tiny kiss at a time, until he opened her lips and stroked across her tongue. He loved her tongue. He trapped it with his teeth, then he gently suckled it.
Juliana made another quiet noise of pleasure, and Elliot kept suckling, liking the friction, taste, and heat of her mouth. He let her go and reached for the whiskey decanter, pouring more into his goblet.
He touched the goblet to her lips until she took a little into her mouth, then he plunged his mouth across hers and scooped up the whiskey with his tongue.
Her eyes were soft when Elliot drew back. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Savoring you.”
“Oh.” Her flush, the little word, made his body tighten.
Elliot touched the goblet to her lips again. This time Juliana sipped then closed her eyes as Elliot imbibed the whiskey from her.
Again and again he slid the best McGregor single malt into her mouth; again and again, he drank from her. He was a man dying of thirst, and Juliana was his vessel.