The red setter had sat down a few feet behind Elliot. When it saw Juliana looking at it, its tail thumped against the path.
Elliot glanced at it and the tail thumped double time. “She’s one of McPherson’s. She must be after more ham.”
“Ham again? You’re becoming quite obsessed with it.”
“’Twas the same ham. I fed it to McPherson’s dogs.”
“So that’s where you got off to so early? Fetching it?”
“Watching to see who took it. But no one did. I decided the dogs might as well enjoy it.”
“Then you were mistaken about Mr. Stacy,” Juliana said. “He isn’t here.”
Elliot shook his head. “I’m not mistaken. My experiment proved it to me.”
“But if he didn’t come out for the food…”
“If the man lurking in the woods had been a tramp or a Romany, he’d have come for the food. Stacy knows better.”
“Oh.” Juliana’s nerves tightened again. “So by not seeing him, you know he is there.”
“Yes.”
Of course. So logical.
Elliot leaned to her, holding the rifle out of the way. His body heat touched her through his clothes, the cloth warmed by him. He kissed her, his unshaved whiskers rough on her lips, his skin smelling of wind, cold, and silk.
“Finish picking your vegetables,” he said. He kissed her forehead, lifted his gun, and strode into the house.
Juliana watched him go, the silk trousers clinging to the finest male backside God had ever created.
Elliot, knees drawn to his chest in the old tin bathtub, scooped water into the brass bowl and poured it over his head. Warm water rained down his neck and back, washing away dirt and suds.
He felt the draft though he hadn’t heard the door opening over the sound of the water. His head was bent over his knees, and he didn’t look up. He scooped up more water, his skin heating as he poured the water down his back.
“Come in, Juliana.”
The door closed, the draft vanishing. “How did you know it was me?”
He’d know her anywhere, anytime. “I recognize your step. I know what everyone’s sounds like.”
“I admit, there’d be no mistaking Hamish.”
No, she certainly wasn’t Hamish. As soon as Elliot had heard her walk into the room, as soon as her sweet scent had come to him on the draft, his erection had climbed high and stayed there.
Damn Stacy. Elliot could have spent the whole night wrapped around Juliana instead of sitting in a tree looking for the man.
Elliot’s eyes were tired from lack of sleep, and his fingers were starting to shrivel from the water, but his c**k was plenty awake.
He lifted his hand from the water, letting a stream of droplets fall on the rugs Mahindar had shoved around the bath. Elliot took Juliana’s hand and placed it on his cheek.
“I’ve shaved,” he said. “Not so much a barbarian anymore.”
Her cheeks went pink. “I like you a barbarian.”
Elliot’s body went tight, and his c**k was in danger of poking its way out of the water.
Juliana traced his cheekbone then moved her finger down to his lips. Elliot opened his mouth and gently bit her fingertip.
Juliana started, but she didn’t pull away. She watched in fascination as Elliot closed his lips around her finger and sucked.
“Please tell me,” she said, her eyes still on his mouth, “what happened to you in India. I want to understand.”
The trickle of good heat in Elliot’s veins started to ebb. He released her finger. “Not now.”
“This isn’t a whim of mine. I came up here on purpose to ask you.”
Elliot returned his hand to the side of the tub and closed his eyes. “I don’t want to go back there. I want to be here. With you.”
“I won’t insist on any detail that is too upsetting for you. But I want to know the gist. Please, husband. Let me understand.”
The word husband made the heat return. But Elliot’s fingers bit down on the tin bath, muscles bracing. “Mahindar…”
“I do not want to ask Mahindar. I want you to tell me.”
Elliot pried his eyes open but slid down to let his head rest on the back of the tub. “Why?”
“Because Mahindar knows only the story you told him. I’m certain you left things out.”
“Mmm. Probably.”
Juliana put her hand on her chest, over her heart. Her wet hand seeped a damp handprint onto her blue bodice. “I know what you experienced was terrible. I know it will hurt your pride to talk about such things with your wife…”
Elliot laughed, letting his eyes drift closed again. “Pride? Pride was ripped away from me a long time ago. Pride is worth nothing. Nothing…”
The word spun the cold of the mountains toward him, the sound of gunfire, the endless skirmishes between people who cared nothing for borders drawn by governments—theirs or that of the British Raj. Elliot hid in a crevice in the rock, next to Stacy, neither man worried. They’d be able to slip away in the darkness, back down the hills to safer ground. Served them right for not checking local gossip first.
Then there had been the families. The two stupid Englishmen and their wives in their topees, bringing their children and a few Hindu servants with them to explore paths Alexander the Great had trod.
Stupid Englishmen who thought the color of their skin and their nationality would save them. They’d been cut off from retreat down the pass, targeted by one of the tribes who didn’t give a donkey’s balls about their nationality. The tribal men had lived in their rock fortresses in the hills for centuries—even Alexander, one of the greatest generals in written history, had turned back from them.
Elliot remembered the fear, the screams of the women, the cries of the children. He and Stacy had come out of hiding and cleared the way down the pass. He’d told the idiots to run—slow, too slow.
Shots had rung out, and one of the ladies had been hit. Only wounded, by the grace of God, but her terrified screams had split Elliot’s ears for a long time to come.
He and Stacy had held a hurried conversation, deciding their strategy. They had to be drastic to get away at all. Elliot would hold down the tribesmen with his repeating Winchester, while Stacy herded the English families down the hill. Stacy would return when they reached safe ground, and cover Elliot’s retreat.
Only Stacy had never come back. Elliot had held off the tribesmen for a long time, they determined to get the crazy shooter in the pass. But finally, Elliot had run short of ammunition, and the tribesmen had overwhelmed him.