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.
When the goblet was empty, Juliana smiled up at him, her blue eyes warm, her hair mussed. “You’re going to get me tipsy.”
Elliot kissed her one more time without answering. He skimmed his fingers down her throat, bare for evening, the creamy silk bodice hugging her shoulders and bosom. Female fashion had always baffled him—ladies were buttoned up to their chins during the day but décolletages might barely cover their nipples at night.
All the better for him. Elliot unhooked her bodice in the back and took the half sleeves down her arms, revealing the bow at the top of her corset, the coy lace of chemise beneath that.
Juliana’s father was a wealthy man, and Juliana wore rich clothing, all the way down to her skin. The silk of the bodice he parted caught on the rough tips of Elliot’s fingers, the lawn of the corset cover smooth and embroidered with silk flowers.
Elliot loosened the corset’s laces and pulled them out, opening the cage and lifting it away. The chemise beneath billowed free, its lawn folds as soft as the gown’s silk.
Easy to untie the ribbon holding the chemise closed and slide it down, bunching the fabrics of chemise and bodice at her waist.
Juliana watched him more in curiosity than trepidation as Elliot poured another measure of single malt into the goblet. He lifted it to her and trickled whiskey across her collarbone, the amber liquid trailing down to her bared breasts and abdomen.
Juliana gasped. “Elliot, my gown…”
Elliot barely heard her. He leaned down to her, licking the whiskey from her skin, following it to the heat between her breasts. He tasted and drank, closing his mouth over her breast to suck.
He left marks where his teeth and tongue had been, decorating Juliana’s bosom. She’d have to wear higher-necked gowns now, but Elliot didn’t care. She could wrap herself in a sedate package that she unwrapped only for him.
He licked her clean, slowly easing her backward onto the table, until she lay on the tabletop, her small bustle squashed to one side, her skirts rucked up.
He upended the rest of the goblet, lifting it high so the whiskey splashed down on her. Juliana squealed, then laughed.
She stopped laughing when Elliot leaned on top of her, licking, tasting, kissing her lips before moving back to lick every droplet from her breasts.
He paused at her nipples, light pink brown against her creamy skin. He scooped up the droplets there, then closed his mouth over each nipple in turn.
Juliana clung to the edge of the table, her legs parted around Elliot’s hips, a wild feeling building and building inside her. She felt it most between her thighs, but the hot tingling under his mouth made her almost as insane.
His eyes were half closed, his brows drawn in concentration. The hand over her right breast was scarred and hard, the back of it crisscrossed with scars and sun-streaked hair.
Juliana stroked the hair on his head, liking how the bristly ends caressed her fingers. He was more beautiful now, she decided, after being banged about and repaired, than he had been in his untouched youth.
Elliot raised his head, his eyes a flash of hot gray. His next kiss pressed her hard onto the table, Elliot coming full length on her.
He kissed her thoroughly, every stroke of his tongue, every caress of his lips deliberate, taking. Juliana chased his tongue with hers, wanton and not caring.
Just when she thought he’d back away, perhaps help her dress enough so they could go upstairs, Elliot pulled her upright by the wrists. He took her all the way off the table, standing her against him, while his hands went to the back of her skirt.
“I want this off,” he said. “All of it. I can’t touch you with this stupid bustle in the way.”
Juliana fumbled with the catches that fastened her bodice to her skirt, overskirt to underskirt, skirts to bustle.
The bustle itself Elli
ot loosened with impatient jerks to the hooks, and Juliana knew she’d be sewing them back on again later. He dropped the wire form to the floor, where it settled with a clatter much as Hamish’s bagpipes had.
Next came the drawers; easy to unbutton and slide off. Now Juliana was bare, in her dining room, exposed by the light of the few candles. She still wore her stockings, white silk tied with silk garters, and her favorite beaded slippers.
Elliot set her on the table again. His hand went to his waistband, and he unpinned the yards of tartan that wrapped his waist, to reveal himself hard and fully extended beneath.
He spread the plaid on the table behind Juliana and lowered her onto it, then he scooted her hips to the edge of the table, positioned himself, and slid straight into her.
Chapter 10
Again the sensation of rightness filled Elliot, rising over even the excitement of the sex. Not that entering Juliana’s heat and moisture didn’t pleasure him. Mindlessly so.
She was desire and goodness, and she smelled of her glycerin soap, a touch of French perfume, and a woman wanting. The sight of his cock disappearing inside her, her wiry red hair damp around him, made Elliot’s blood and body scalding hot.
Juliana’s eyes grew heavy with passion, her breasts rising with her quickening breath. She had such beautiful breasts. Creamy and pale, her areolas like silk.
Juliana clung to him with fingers and thighs, their bodies twined and locked. Elliot was safe at last, in his haven inside her. If he could stay here always, he’d be well. Everything he’d done in the past would be erased, and there’d be only Juliana.
He rocked inside her, loving how her face softened in pleasure, how her hair tangled across his kilt on the table. She was spread for him, delectable, naked, his Juliana. He’d thought of her so many times, imagining doing just this, but the reality was a hundred times better than the fantasy.
The reality meant he could feel her around him, every texture and the temperature of her skin, and scent her longing, which drowned out every thought in his brain. He could taste her lovely skin, the smooth warmth of her areolas; hear the pretty noises she made that meant she found pleasure in what he was doing.
Every sense brought a different delight, but the whole of her was more beautiful than anything he could ever have imagined.
Cold suddenly poured over him, but it was only the sweat on his roasting-hot skin, the shaking deep in his body that meant release.
Elliot didn’t want release. He wanted to hang on, to be held in the cradle of Juliana forever.
He groaned, unable to stop what his body wanted to do, sorrow that it was over mixing with shuddering joy. He pulled Juliana to him as soon as he spilled his seed into her, and wrapped his arms around her, holding her as she clung to him.
“Elliot,” she whispered.
One word, quiet in the candlelit room, but it was enough.
Juliana was never sure how long they held on to each other. Her head rested on Elliot’s strong shoulder, and his heart drubbed and bumped beneath her ear. She kissed the skin beneath his lower lip, tasting salt.
He held her with arms that shook but would not let her go, or let her fall. Juliana wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she knew.
One of the candles hissed as burned wick fell into the wax, and rising wind outside rattled the old casements.
Other than that all was silent. Juliana felt like a fairy-tale princess in this old, false castle, and the knight who’d brought her here was showing her a world she’d never known. Locked away in his palace, she’d learned more in the last two days than she had in the first thirty years of her life.
Elliot’s body was as solid as the foundations of this house. And yet, she sensed his fragility. He could crumble at the right touch to the right place, just like some of the walls in this old place. Juliana had to make sure that the touch never came.
The passage outside the dining room suddenly filled with noise. An impossibly loud bang and crash of glass sounded, followed by pounding footsteps, then a shrill voice shrieking in Punjabi, and a man’s bellow.
Juliana raised her head in alarm. She and Elliot were both naked down to their socks, Elliot’s kilt spread like a tablecloth where he’d laid her down. Their clothes were scattered over the floor, and the room had only one door. Hiding or flight was impossible.
McGregor’s voice rose right outside the door. “You leave that be, woman! A man can’t be stifled in his own house.”
More invective coming from Komal, because that was the only person to whom the stentorian female tones could belong. Footsteps hurried along the passage, followed by the voice of Channan, obviously trying to quiet them down.
Elliot’s arms tightened around Juliana. “Don’t worry,” he said into her hair. “Mahindar will keep them out. He’s on guard outside the door.”
Juliana’s face heated. “Outside the door? But I sent him back to the kitchens.”
“Mahindar guards any door I am behind. He knows what might happen if I’m disturbed.”
“What might happen?”
He shrugged “I might hurt whoever comes charging in. If I’m not in my right mind, I can lash out.”
His mouth thinned to a hard line, resigned, as though he’d already decided it was useless to fight his madness. He’d accepted it and was doing what was necessary to live with it.
Somewhere inside the hard, scarred Elliot was the laughing youth Juliana had fallen in love with so many years ago. He was still in there…somewhere.
Juliana had no illusion that she was special enough or wise enough to save him. She only knew she had to try. The man crying out to her in silence needed no less.
The bang and crash turned out to have been a glass-doored breakfront in the drawing room, now lying facedown, the glass smashed. Juliana gathered the story in bits and pieces.
McGregor had been searching the cabinet for a stash of cigars he’d sworn he left there fifteen years ago. Being of small stature, he’d stood on a chair to search the upper shelves, then decided to climb on the breakfront itself to search its top recesses.
Komal, entering the drawing room on some errand, had seen McGregor on the top of the breakfront, and started scolding him. When McGregor had tried to jump to the ground, his kilt had caught on a finial on the breakfront’s top. His weight had jerked the cloth free, and he’d sprung clear, but the breakfront had overbalanced and the entire thing had come crashing down.
Komal had started shrieking at McGregor, and the two had stormed through the halls, shouting at each other, neither understanding a word of what the other was saying.
“I’ve been laird here forty-five years,” McGregor said, poking the air with a finger partly bent from rheumatism. “Forty-five years. I will nae be chased around me own home by a pack of godless, screaming savages.”
“We are Sikh, sahib,” Mahindar said, offended. “We have a god.”
“You cannae deny that that woman is a screaming savage.”
“She is old, sahib.”
“Old?” Behind all his white hair, McGregor’s face turned chartreuse. “She’s no older than I am. Do ye mean that people of my age are raving mad? Say so and be done, damn ye.”
Juliana stepped forward. “Mr. McGregor…”
“And don’t ye try to placate me, young woman. I know all about the ways of beguiling women. My wife, God rest her soul, excelled at turning a fellow up sweet. I know all the tricks of females.”
“Uncle McGregor.” Elliot’s strong voice rolled through the hall as he emerged from the dining room, having resumed his shirt and kilt, his coat slung over his arm. “There’s a fine stash of whiskey down in the cellar. Why don’t you come and help me sample it?”
McGregor drew himself upright, his voice winding down to mere loudness. “Now that is the first sensible suggestion I’ve heard all evening.”
He turned and stalked down the hall. When Elliot caught up to him, McGregor said in what he thought was a quiet tone, “Got a leg over in the dining room, eh?
Mrs. McGregor and me, we favored the conservatory. Had many a fine night under the moonlight there.” His chuckle faded away as Elliot ushered him into the cellar stairs and shut the door behind them.
He knew they were searching for him. He’d found a place to hide, down in the bowels of the earth, in a part of their warren-like prison even they didn’t know about. Some tribe had carved these caves deep into the hills in a time forgotten, and Elliot took refuge in them now. The doors he’d been locked behind were ancient and rusted, the locks easy to break, but there was no way out of the tunnels, and his captors knew it. The only opening to freedom led to a guard with a rifle.
Early on, Elliot had watched one poor fellow prisoner struggle out into the light and air, only to hear the crack of a rifle and the man’s muffled scream. The gunshot hadn’t killed him instantly. He’d lain under the baking sun and slowly bled to death over the next full day, begging for water or, for God’s sake, for the guard to shoot him again.
His had been the last human face Elliot had seen for weeks after that. His captors ignored him, occasionally remembering to throw in bread and some fetid piece of goat meat to keep him alive.
The head tribesman wanted Elliot alive, though, because he wanted to play with him. The head man hated all Europeans, blaming them for any and all chaos he could see from his mountain perch.
Elliot had found places to hide in their own tunnels, holes so tiny and foul that no one but the desperate could live in them. They knew he was in there, trapped like a fox in his den, and they knew he couldn’t get out. They’d hunt for him when they wanted him, and they were hunting him now. Elliot heard them calling, passing above his hiding place, their voices filling the spaces.
He crouched into the hole, feeling no glee at evading them, wanting only peace. But the pain kept knocking at him. His kilt warmed him, but his fingers were cold, bloody cold.
They’d pulled off his nails, one by one, for the enjoyment of it. Elliot had refused to scream or make a sound, which had disappointed them, so they’d thrown him back into the cell and taken away his water.