Juliana’s hand went to her own throat, slender with a sweet dusting of freckles. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to,” she said.
“I helped them kill men in their rival tribe. They made me into an animal, and they laughed when their enemies died by my hands.”
“Oh, Elliot.”
At least she didn’t say, with the superiority of Mrs. Dalrymple or Mrs. Terrell, that the men he’d killed were only heathens and didn’t matter. They were men with lives and homes, with children and wives who’d wail in grief when they did not return.
“When it was over, they’d lock me back up again.”
Juliana came to him with slow steps, her gaze never leaving his face. She closed her hands over his, lifted each, and pressed a kiss to his scarred knuckles.
“I know you had no choice,” she said. “They would have killed you if you hadn’t done it.”
“But I should have refused. Obeying them makes me a coward by most standards. I should have resisted, even to death, before I did their work.”
Her warm tear trickled to the back of his hand. “You had no choice,” she repeated in a whisper.
It hadn’t seemed real, those swift, silent battles in the night, Elliot chained and made to defend the camp from their rivals. In the cold blackness, Elliot had fought men who’d tried to thrust knives into him, his fear and obsessive need driving him on. He’d fought them because he’d refused to give up and die.
“I had to live,” he said. “I was determined to live, whatever the cost.” He released her hands and brushed back a tendril of her hair. “To see you again.”
Juliana looked up at him, lips parted.
“It’s what drove me to live, lass, every minute of the day or night. To see you again. To hear your voice. To touch you…” Elliot drew his finger down her cheek. “They wondered at my resilience. They called me a demon or the walking dead, because I wouldn’t lie down and die. But I couldn’t. Not until I saw you again.”
More tears trickled down her cheeks. Elliot brushed one away with his finger.
“I didn’t understand myself what you were to me,” he said, “until I was in danger of never seeing your face again, or your sweet smile. Then I knew. You were my lass, Juliana. You always have been.”
“But you came home.” Juliana took a step back, pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve, and wiped her eyes. “You came home and never said a word to me.”
“I didn’t want you to see me until I’d healed. I was a broken man. But I realized I’d never heal until I returned to India and faced what I was, what had happened to me. Besides, Priti was in India. I didn’t intend to leave her there to be raised without a father. I went back to settle everything for once and for all before I returned to Scotland forever.”
“But I might have married Grant in the meantime,” Juliana said. She sniffled, swiped at her nose, and tucked the handkerchief into her pocket. “I accepted his proposal because I thought I’d never see you again. You might have been too late.”
Elliot let amusement slip through the shivering horror in his mind. “No fear of that. I had Ainsley keep an eye on you and tell me everything you did.”
“But…” Juliana looked bewildered. “When on earth did Ainsley find time to be your spy?”
“My sister is amazingly resourceful. And cunning. If she couldn’t speak to you herself, she’d recruit someone else to. And she reported everything to me. She didn’t know the whole of what I was up to, and I asked her not to tell you I was asking about you, and to trust me. She did, bless her. I knew exactly when you were to marry Grant Barclay, and exactly how much time I had to return to Scotland and prepare things to scoop you up. I knew you’d never change the wedding date—you schedule your life to the minute and follow it exactly.”
Indignation edged out her bewilderment. “Even so, you could have said something. When you were captured, when we thought you dead…They were the most awful months of my life. Nothing can compare. I cried all day in relief when I got Ainsley’s telegram that you’d been found and were all right. And then you never wrote, never called on me, never spoke to me, never sent a message.”
“I know I did it all wrong,” Elliot said. “Ainsley would say I’m only a man after all. I did what I did because I didn’t want to give you the chance to say no.”
“So you came to my wedding to snatch me from the altar?”
“I’m a Highland barbarian. We steal our wives, didn’t ye know?”
“You are horrible.”
“I always have been.” He managed a grin. “You knew that.”
Juliana pressed her hands to her face. “Elliot, what am I to do with you?”
He couldn’t stay away from her any longer. Elliot took her hands, tugged her against him, and closed his arms around her. He laid his cheek against her fragrant hair, and let her warmth soak into his body.
Juliana relaxed with a sigh, and Elliot closed his eyes, focusing only on the heat of her against him, the softness of her under the stiff fabric of her dress.
“Elliot,” Juliana murmured after a while.
Elliot didn’t answer. He kissed her hair.
“What are we going to do about the Dalrymples?”
Poor Juliana. So worried about trivial matters. Elliot tilted her head back and briefly kissed her lips. “I might know someone who can assist.”
“Who?”
“Friend of a friend.” He kissed Juliana again, tasting the tea on her lips, and the cinnamon and pepper of the cake she’d nibbled.
The stain of the past slipped away, once again. The darkness was still there, ready to flow out and twine him in its net, but for now, closing and locking the door then unbuttoning Juliana’s dress was easing it away.
Elliot ended up sitting on the chair at the writing desk, she straddling his lap, he making made slow love to her, holding her.
In that quiet ecstasy, Elliot began to believe he could get well again. Maybe it would take a long while, and perhaps the memories would never entirely go away, but he would live. All he had to do was make love to Juliana, for now and for always, and he’d never fear anything again.
The work in the house continued through the afternoon and on into the evening. Elliot sent Hamish running to the village to telegraph London, then he took his rifle and went out looking for Stacy.
The red setter followed him, showing no sign of wanting to return to McPherson. Elliot didn’t want the dog to be hurt, but he knew Stacy. The man had a soft spot for animals, and wouldn’t hurt one to get to someone who’d enraged him. If he wanted Elliot dead, he’d confine his sights to Elliot.