'He married yesterday afternoon,' Cameron said. 'To a woman who was teaching him the piano.'
This was mad. It had to be a joke. 'Mrs. Mackinnon,' Juliana said without inflection. She remembered the woman with dark hair and plain dresses who had sometimes been at Grant's mother's when Juliana arrived. 'She's a widow.' A choked laugh escaped her lips. 'Not anymore, I suppose.'
'I told him he needed to have the decency to tell you himself,' Cameron said in his voice like rough gravel. 'So I brought him. Do you want to talk with him?'
'No,' Juliana said quickly. 'No.' The world started spinning again.
Cameron shoved his flask into Juliana's hand. 'Get that inside you, lass. It will lessen the blow.'
A proper lady did not drink spirits, and Juliana had been raised to be so very proper. But the turn of events made this a highly
Juliana tipped back the flask and trickled a bit of burning Scots whiskey into her mouth. She coughed, swallowed, coughed again, and dabbed at her lips as Cameron rescued the flask.
Perhaps she should not have drunk it. What Cameron had told her was starting to seem real.
Two hundred people waited in the church for Juliana St. John and Grant Barclay to wed, two hundred people who would have to be told to go home. Two hundred gifts to be returned, two hundred apologies to be penned. And the newspapers would certainly enjoy themselves.
Juliana pressed her hands to her face. She'd never been in love with Grant, but she'd thought they'd at least formed a friendship, a mutual respect for each other. But even that . . . Grant hadn't given her even that.
'What am I going to do?'
Cameron tucked the flask into his greatcoat. 'We'll take you home. I'll have my carriage pull up in the passage at the end of this walk. None need to see you.'
They were kind, Ainsley and Cameron--they were being kind. Juliana didn't want kindness. She wanted to kick and rage, not only at Grant, but at herself. She'd been so secure in her engagement, rather smug that she was in no danger of being left on the shelf. Not only that, she'd wanted the stability of a normal life, something she'd fought for all her life.
Her future had just crumbled to dust, her safe choice ripped from beneath her feet. Shock still rendered her numb, but she sensed regret coming hard on its heels.
Juliana rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled. 'Not yet. Please, give me a moment. I need to be alone for just a moment.'
Ainsley glanced into the courtyard, into which people were now emerging from the church proper.
'Not that way. There's a chapel down here. We'll keep them out.'
'Bless you, Ainsley.' Juliana could not unclench herself enough to give Ainsley the hug she deserved.
She let Ainsley guide her to the door of the chapel, which Cameron opened. Cameron and Ainsley stepped back, and Juliana went in alone, the door clicking closed.
The chapel was chilly but dim and peaceful. Juliana stood for a moment in front of the bare altar, looking up at the plain cross hanging above it, alone and unadorned.
Grant, married. To Mrs. Mackinnon.
Juliana now realized things she'd seen in the past few months but had paid no mind to at the time--
Grant and Mrs. Mackinnon side by side at Grant's mother's piano, their exchanged smiles, the looks between them. Grant gazing pensively at Juliana as though he wanted to speak to her about something important, and then making some joke or inane remark instead.
She knew now what he meant to say.
Scandal. Humiliation.
Juliana balled her fists, wanting to shout at Providence for being so aggravating. But, even in her agitation, blasphemy in a chapel seemed wrong.
She settled for storming into a pew, her ivory skirts billowing around her. 'Blast!' she said and slammed herself into the seat.
On top of something that moved. A man with long legs under a woolen kilt, a broad body that heaved up onto strong elbows. A man coming awake to find a hundred and twenty pounds of young woman in wedding garb sitting on his thighs.
'What the devil?' Gray eyes the same color as Ainsley's flashed in a face that was too tanned to have been in Scotland long.
Elliot McBride obviously had no compunction about blaspheming in a church. Or sleeping in one.
Juliana swiftly rose, but she couldn't move out of the pew. She stared down at Elliot as he levered himself partway up and leaned back into the corner of the pew, his booted feet still on the bench.
'Elliot?' Juliana asked, breathless. 'What are you doing here?'
'Trying to find some quiet,' he said. 'Too bloody many people about.'
'I mean, here in Scotland. I thought you were in India. Ainsley said you were in India.'
Elliot McBride was one of Ainsley's many brothers, a man the girl Juliana had fallen madly in love with about a hundred years ago. He'd disappeared to India to make his fortune, and she hadn't seen him since.
Elliot rubbed a hand over his stubbled face, though he smelled of soap and water, as though he'd recently bathed. 'Decided to come home.'
Laconic, that was the way to describe Elliot, the untamed McBride. Also large and strong, with a presence that knocked the breath out of her. It had been so when she'd been a child and he'd been the wild brother of Ainsley, and again when she'd been a proud debutante and he'd attended her coming-out ball in his army regimentals.
Juliana sank to the pew again, at the end of it, beyond his feet. High in the tower of the main church, bells rang, striking the hour.
'Aren't you supposed to be in there, lass?' Elliot asked. He removed a flask from his coat and sipped from it, but unlike Cameron, he didn't offer her any. 'Getting married to whatever his name is?'
'Grant Barclay. I was to have been Mrs. Grant Barclay.'
The flask stopped halfway to his mouth. '
'No,' Juliana said. 'Apparently, yesterday, he eloped with his piano teacher.'
It was all too much. Strange laughter welled up inside her and came pealing out of her mouth. Not quite hysterics, but a hearty laugh she couldn't stop.
Elliot lay still, like an animal deciding whether to attack or run. Poor Elliot. What must he make of a woman who'd jolted him out of his sleep by plopping down on him and then laughing uncontrollably because her fiance had abandoned her?
Juliana's laughter eased off, and she wiped her eyes with her fingertips. Her dark red hair was tumbling down, one of the yellow roses Ainsley had tied into it falling to her lap. 'Stupid flowers.'
Elliot sat frozen, his hand gripping the back of the pew so hard he was surprised the wood didn't splinter. He watched as Juliana laughed, as her glorious hair fell to her bared shoulders. She smiled though her blue eyes were wet, and the hands that plucked the flower from her lap were long fingered and trembling.
Elliot wanted to put his arms around her and cradle her close. There now, he'd say.
But Elliot knew that if he made the mistake of touching Juliana, he wouldn't stop at comfort. He'd tilt her head back and kiss her lips, as he'd done at her debut ball, the night she'd permitted the one kiss.
They'd both been eighteen. Before Elliot had gone to hell and back, that chaste kiss would have been enough for him. This time, it would not be enough, not by a long way.
He'd kiss down her pretty throat to her bosom, nuzzle her gown's neckline with its points of lace, and feather kisses to her shoulders. Then he'd lick his way back up to her ripe lips, seam them with his tongue, coax her to let him inside.
He'd kiss her with long, careful kisses, tasting the goodness of her mouth while he held her and did not let her go.
Elliot would want to take everything, because Lord only knew when he'd have the chance again. A broken man learned to savor what he could when he had the opportunity.
