Read The Seduction of Elliot McBride (Mackenzies Series) for Free Online

Little Juliana St. John?” Mr. McGregor came down the hall toward them. A kilt hung on the small man’s bony hips, topped with a loose shirt and a tweed coat that had seen better days. “I knew your granddad, lass. Last time I saw you was at your christening. You yelled the church down. Far too loud for a girl child, but then your mother was a madwoman.”
    Juliana choked back the first retort on her lips. He waselderly, she reminded herself, with the bluntness of the old. And he did still have the shotgun. “How are you, Mr. McGregor?” she managed.
    “I’m sixty-nine years old, young woman. How do you think I am?” McGregor looked past Juliana to the terrified Nandita hiding behind her. “Ye’ve brought your natives back with ye this time, then?”
    “You’ll like them,” Elliot said. “My manservant is a fine cook.”
    “Cook, eh?” McGregor kept staring at Nandita, who was trying to shrink into Juliana. “That reminds me, I’m hungry. Where’s that blasted lad with my supper?”
    “Hamish has gone back to the station to fetch my manservant and the rest of his family. And our baggage, with any luck.”
    “He couldn’t have fed me before he left? My family works this land for six hundred years, and now the laird is foisted off without a crust of bread?”
    “I’ll rummage for ye.” Elliot put his hand on the small of Juliana’s back and guided her toward the bedroom.
    McGregor’s outraged expression gave way to a sudden laugh. “Can’t wait to be at it, can ye, lad? Lovely bride like that—I don’t blame ye at all, m’boy.” Chuckling, he uncocked the gun and retreated to the room from which he’d sprung. He slammed the door so hard that bits of plaster floated down from the ceiling.
    Elliot remained in the hall, Priti still perched on his shoulders. “You rest,” he said to Juliana. “I’ll go down to the kitchen and fix Uncle McGregor some food.”
    “I thought you said you’d bought the estate from him,” Juliana said, confused.
    “Aye, but the rest of McGregor’s family are dead, and he has nowhere to go. He’d never manage in one of the estate cottages on his own. I told him he had a home here until he chooses otherwise.”
    Juliana let out a breath. “I understand, though I wish you had warned me. I thought my heart would stop. I suppose his staff won’t mind looking after us as well?”
    Elliot set Priti on her feet. “Uncle McGregor has no staff. Just Hamish.”
    “Oh.”
    Juliana had been raised in a house with no less than twenty people to take care of two. This place was immense and tumbledown, and Mahindar and his family couldn’t be expected to do everything themselves. Juliana saw, stretching before her, a great deal of planning and work.
    Elliot turned away. Priti jumped away from Nandita, who was trying to get her to stay in the bedroom, and ran for Elliot. “Kitchen!” she shouted.
    Elliot scooped her up again. “All right, Priti. Let’s go explore the kitchens.”
    He didn’t seem to mind the girl hugging him around the neck while he carried her down the hall, heading for the stairs.
    Juliana closed the door and looked at the bed, a monster of a thing crouched in the middle of the room.
    “Why put it there?” she asked out loud.
    Nandita stared at her, not understanding. Something in the corner caught Nandita’s attention, and she cried out, pointing.
    Juliana followed the young woman’s outstretched finger, then heard the rustling and skittering. “Ah,” she said. “That’s why.”
    A string of mice raced across the edge of the room from one corner to the other before plunging behind the skirting board. When Juliana turned back to Nandita, she found the young woman in the center of the bed, her arms curled around her knees, her colorful scarves covering her body.
    One of the mice chose to make a daring dash across the carpetless floor, heading right for Juliana. Juliana shrieked as loudly as Nandita had and scrambled to the center of thebed.