Elliot helped Juliana and Nandita into the cart’s narrow seats then took the rear one, which would be the muddiest. Nandita had to let go of the little girl to adjust her wind-whipped veils with shaking hands, and Juliana reached for the child.
She happily climbed into Juliana’s lap, and Juliana closed her arms around her. The little girl had dark hair and brown eyes, and her body was warm as Juliana gathered her up.
“What’s her name?” Juliana asked Elliot.
Elliot closed the rear door of the dogcart. “Priti.”
“Priti.” Juliana tried out the name, and Priti looked up in delight. “Fitting, because she is pretty.”
“Yes, she is,” Elliot said in all seriousness.
The cart jerked forward. Mahindar lifted his hand in a wave while his wife and mother continued to look about at their new surroundings.
What must they think of this place? Juliana had seen photographs and paintings of India, and this isolated corner of Scotland must be vastly different for them—cold woods climbing up high hills, farmers’ fields between mountains and the sea. No slow rivers, elephants, tigers, or jungle.
Priti gazed around with much more interest than did Nandita. The child’s skin was not as dark as Nandita’s, and strands of brown laced her black hair. Juliana wondered whether the girl’s father had been European, and if that was why Nandita had agreed to leave India with her sister and Mahindar. If her European husband was dead, perhaps Nandita had no one to turn to except Channan.
But Mahindar had said that Nandita’s husband had been arrested by British soldiers. Puzzling. Juliana would have to pry out the entire story later.
The dogcart bounced up a steep road paved with broken stones. The road turned to hard earth as they climbed into the hills, the track lined with rocks, heather, and greenery. The sea stretched to the east, sun touched and breathtaking.
The red-haired lad, who said his name was Hamish McIver, talked at them over his shoulder as he drove.
“The village is down there, m’lady.” Hamish swiveled in his seat, gesturing with a long whip. “Not much to it, but it does for us. There’s a pub, of course, and a brewery that used to belong to old McGregor. He sold it a few years back to some English people, and Mr. McBride, of course, has bought the house. The McGregors have been in these parts six hundred years, but McGregor’s skint and everyone knows it.”
The cart listed into the mud on the side of the track, and Nandita made a noise of terror.
“Watch the road, lad,” Elliot said in a quiet voice.
Hamish made an adjustment to the reins without concern. “My great-aunt, old Mrs. Rossmoran, lives down there.” Hamish nodded at a gate that sagged, half open, between two trees. “Half out of her mind she is, with only my cousin, her granddaughter, to look after her. She’ll be expecting a visit from you, m’lady, now that she knows the new laird’s taken a wife.”
Juliana stared at the gate as it dropped behind them. “Goodness, how does she know? We only married this morning.”
Hamish grinned over his shoulder. “Came over the stationmaster’s telegraph, didn’t it? Stationmaster’s son found me in the pub and told me, and we had a drink to your health, begging your pardon, m’lady. Someone would have gone out and told my cousin, who was doing her shopping, and she would have run back and told my great-aunt.”
The cart gave a large heave and dropped over a bump, and Hamish swung to face front again. Nandita squealed, and Juliana cried out with her, but Priti only laughed with the joy of a child.
They’d gone through an open gate and dropped down a foot from the eroding road to a wooden bridge. Hamish clattered the cart over this, while a river rushed below them in a great freshet.
Nandita grabbed the side of the cart, her eyes round, her veils fluttering about her face. The cacophony of the wheels on the boards along with the rush of river were loud, but Nandita’s voice rose above them. The young woman looked no older than the lad Hamish himself, perhaps nineteen or so, much younger than her sister, Channan. And she’d already lost a husband. No wonder she was so frightened.
“It’s all right, lass,” Hamish said as the cart clattered off the bridge. “No need to be afraid of the stream. There’s good fishing there.”
Nandita’s cries ceased now that they were on solid ground again, but her eyes remained huge.
“Elliot, can you tell her?” Juliana asked. “Tell her she’s safe.”
The cart hit a wide hole in the road just then, rocking them all. The latch on the door beside Elliot came open, the door flapping wildly.
“Elliot!” Juliana cried. She couldn’t lunge for him, because she had Priti, and Nandita was screaming again.
A less athletic man than Elliot would have been thrown free. Elliot gripped the cart, sinews standing out through his tight leather gloves. He maintained his balance, grabbed the flailing door, and closed and latched it again.
He turned to Nandita as though nothing remarkable had happened and began speaking to her, unhurried, in a language Juliana knew not one word of. Nandita listened, at last comforted by whatever he said. Her cries wound down, the road quieting as the river dropped behind them.
They came out of the woods and started downward, the road hugging the side of a steep hill. At the bottom of the hill was wide field of green, bordered by mountains marching in the distance and a sweep of sea far to the east.
At the end of the road sat the house.
It was was gigantic. And rambling. And ramshackle, crumbling all over in complete and utter disrepair.
Juliana put her hand to her throat, half rising in her seat. “Oh, Elliot,” she said.
Chapter 3
Five stories of house shot straight upward from a rectangular base, the wall covered with a fantastic arrangement of crenellations, windows, arrow slits, and little round towers that swelled out from unexpected places. A mansard roof, punctuated with tiny dormer windows, rose high into the sky.
This wasn’t a medieval castle. It was a wealthy man’s fantasy, built to impress the neighbors—a fairy-tale castle. Except that now the fairy-tale castle was a hundred and more years old, crumbling, stained, and moss covered, windows broken, bricks from the roof littering the yard before it like gray snow. The clearing that had looked immense during the drive down the hill now revealed that it once had been twice that size, with new-growth woods invading the previously extensive park and gardens.
Hamish stopped the cart close to the house, the horse stepping carefully around the fallen stones. Elliot opened the cart’s rear door and stepped down. He surveyed the colossus with his hands on his hips, a new light in his eyes. He looked…satisfied.
Hamish leapt to the ground from his high seat, and the mare lowered her head and started cropping grass. Elliot turned to help Juliana out of the cart, his hand warm in the cooling evening air.
Nandita took longer to climb down, fearful of putting her foot on the little step, even with Elliot to steady her. Finally Hamish reached past Elliot, slung one arm around Nandita’s body, and lifted her to the ground.
Nandita stared at Hamish in complete shock and brought up her veils to cover her face.
“Hamish, lad,” Elliot said in a quiet voice. “An Indian woman is not to be touched by anyone outside the family.” His tone was stern, but the look he gave Hamish was almost amused. “It could be the death of you.”
Hamish’s eyes rounded. “Oh aye? Sorry.” He looked at Nandita and said in a loud, slow voice, “Sorry, miss.”