The Duke’s Perfect Wife

Chapter 14

The boat had drifted. Eleanor emerged from the cabin to find that they were floating in the middle of the wide canal.

“Hart,” she called in alarm.

Hart came out, devastatingly handsome in his shirt and kilt, his coat still somewhere below.

A rope stretched through the water between the bow and the bank. When Hart tugged at it, it came loose.

Eleanor put her hands on her hips. “I suppose the great Duke of Kilmorgan couldn’t remember to tie up the boat?”

Hart didn’t look the least bit ashamed. “My mind was on other things.”

Arrogant, sinful, smiling once more. The lonely, terrified man who’d said to her inside the cabin, I’ll never bear it if you go away again, had vanished. Hart Mackenzie had gotten his own way once more.

A lone rider came along the towpath, the man huddled in a greatcoat against the wind and rain. Hart cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “You there! Grab the rope!”

The man looked up, started, and slid off his horse. “Mackenzie? What the blazes are you doing in the middle of the canal?”

“Balls,” Hart said. “It’s Fleming.”

Eleanor peered through the rain and waved. “Please do pull us in, dear Mr. Fleming.”

“Don’t humor him,” Hart growled.

“We need his help, unless you want to float sideways all the way to Hungerford lock. The lockkeeper would laugh at us.”

Fleming moved to the rope and pulled it from the water, then started to reel them in, hand over hand. Hart lifted an oar that had been lashed to the cabin and used it to guide the canal boat back to the bank. The boat bumped gently, the canal water still. Hart tied the oar back in place as Fleming fastened the line to a tree stump.

Fleming had his hands out, helping Eleanor to damp land before Hart could reach her. Fleming looked from her to Hart, his dark brows lowering. “What the devil is this, Mackenzie? If you’ve despoiled her, I’ll shoot you like the mangy dog I know you to be.”

Hart stepped off the boat behind Eleanor and slid his arm around Eleanor’s waist. “Congratulate me, Fleming. Eleanor has just agreed to be my wife.”

Eleanor’s mouth popped open. Not exactly what she’d said. She’d agreed to stay when he’d given her that heartbreaking look and begged her to. In what capacity, they hadn’t yet discussed.

Fleming didn’t believe it either. His hand went to his pocket, drawing out the silver flask he always seemed to have on hand.

Eleanor knew that David realized quite well what they’d been doing on the boat. Eleanor and Hart were out here alone, the boat drifting. Eleanor had dressed with Hart’s help, but her collar was not all the way buttoned, her skirts still crinkled from lying on the floor. Hart was entirely in dishabille. When the wind opened Hart’s shirt, the tiny love bites Eleanor had given him were plain to be seen.

Hart did not bother to pull his shirt closed. “What are you doing in Berkshire, Fleming? You’re supposed to be minding the store in London.”

“I sent you a telegram,” David said. “But Wilfred telegraphed back that you’d vanished without a trace, so I thought I’d better come up and help look for you. The vote is tomorrow. Am I right to think that you want to be there for it?”

David spoke almost offhandedly, but there was a sparkle in his eyes. Hart’s answering smile bore an animation Eleanor hadn’t seen in him in a long time. “And do we have them?”

David’s smile was just as triumphant. “Oh, yes. Unless half decide at the last minute to betray us, we do.”

“You have what?” Eleanor asked.

She’d always liked that David didn’t insist that such discussions were not meant for ladies. He answered readily. “Bums on seats, my dear El. Bums on seats that will vote our way. Enough to overturn Gladstone’s bill and wipe him away with a vote of no confidence. It’s all over. He’ll have to call elections, our party will win a majority, and Hart Mackenzie will be prime minister of Britain, God help us all.”

Eleanor’s excitement rose. “Good heavens, Hart.”

“It has been a long time coming,” Hart said. The fire in his eyes belied the calm in his voice.

“But if Mr. Gladstone knows you will defeat him, why would he let it come to the vote?” Eleanor asked.

David answered before Hart could. “Because any more delay at this point makes our victory more certain. If he calls an election tomorrow, he might have a chance to return, although we don’t intend to let that happen.” David rubbed his hands together. “Hart Mackenzie will be back in Commons, to lead it this time. There are those still stinging from his whiplike wit from back when he was an MP. They breathed a sigh of relief when he took his title and went to the Lords. And now he’s returning. Ah, the delight.”

“I imagine it will be quite entertaining,” Eleanor said. “My father will be certain to watch from the gallery.”

“David.” Hart said the word without inflection, but Fleming seemed to understand.

“Right. I’ll be up at the house, warming away the rain with some of your single malt. I intend to drink large quantities.” David caught his horse, mounted, and rode on up the towpath.

“You’ll be off to London with him, then,” Eleanor said, her voice too bright.

Hart cupped her shoulders, hands warm through her damp bodice. “Yes.”

“It’s everything you’ve worked for,” she said.

“Yes.” He circled his thumbs on her collarbone. “We’ll have the wedding at Kilmorgan. A large, showy affair to satisfy the general public. No eloping for the new prime minister.”

Eleanor found it hard to meet his gaze. His eyes blazed hot, determined, Hart the controlling master once again. “You’ll be far too busy to have anything to do with weddings at the moment, surely,” she tried.

“I’ll buy you the most ostentatious wedding jewels I can find and let the newspapers go insane. They can make our reconciliation a grand romance if they want, and we’ll give it to them.”

“Make a good show of it, you mean,” Eleanor said tightly. “It will help you with the election.”

“I don’t care about that. You’ll have to marry me this time, Eleanor. David will be telling the family any moment how he found us, and then we’ll never have any peace. They’ll know exactly what you and I were doing out here on this boat.”

“That’s Ian’s fault. He sent me to you when he knew you were alone.”

“Yes, my devious little brother manipulated things to his satisfaction. But we are stuck with it.”

“So, I must marry you to save my reputation?”

Hart stepped close to her. “Your reputation won’t be harmed. I’ll make certain the knowledge does not go outside the family. But I want you to marry me regardless. I need to take care of you.”

“You need to…”

“I will take care of you whether you marry me or not, but things will be easier if you are my wife. You need a husband, Eleanor, as much as I need a wife. When your father passes, you’ll have nothing. Glenarden will go to a cousin you barely know, and you’ll be turned out. What will you do then?”

“I’m proving to be very good at the typing machine.” Eleanor tried to make a joke, but Hart did not laugh.

“You will end up in a cheap boardinghouse full of dreary old women,” he said. “Prey for any man who decides that a lovely spinster is fair game. Or you’ll pass from country house to country house, living with friends, but I know you—you’ll feel horribly ashamed and believe you’re taking advantage of them.”

“When you put it like that, things do sound rather bleak.”

“They don’t have to be. Once you’re a Mackenzie, no one can touch you. Even being betrothed to me will have weight. You’ll never have to worry again, El. Neither will your father. And who knows, I might have given you a child today.”

Eleanor shook her head. “I did not conceive when we were lovers before, and I am rather long in the tooth now…”

“You never know, El. Today was an impulse, but you shouldn’t pay for it. Neither should a child. I’d want him to have a name.”

Eleanor heard the fervor in his voice. Hart wants a baby, she realized in surprise. Her heart warmed.

Hart’s hands were firm points on her shoulders, hot in the cold rain. “I will take care of you and any child—my name will take care of you.”

Eleanor’s mouth was dry, thoughts rising and dying in her head. “Any woman marrying you will have to become a grand society lady, the other half of your political career.”

“I know. I know that, El. But I can’t imagine anyone who would do better.”

A more skeptical woman might think Hart had seduced her today so he could have a hostess to entertain wives of the political gentlemen he needed to woo. But Eleanor hadn’t imagined the catch in his voice when he’d said, I’ll never bear it if you go away again, or the spark in his eyes when he’d a moment ago spoken of the possibility of a child.

She wet her lips. “It is much to ask.”

“Yes, it is.” Hart cradled her face in his hands, his thumb smoothing across her lower lip. “And I will do everything in my power to make sure you do not regret it.”

Eleanor looked into his eyes. She read the certainty of victory in the amber depths, surety that he’d win everything he wanted. And yet, behind it, she saw fear. Hart was poised at a crossroads—from this day forward, his life could go in any direction. And he was afraid.

He was not alone in his fear. Eleanor’s throat was tight, her knees weak, her limbs trembling as her entire life was swept away by the utterance of a few words.

“I suppose this means Curry has lost his forty guineas,” she said.

“Damn his forty guineas.” Hart pulled her to him and kissed her. His hard embrace told Eleanor she’d never get away from him again, and Eleanor, sinking into Hart’s wonderful warmth, was unsure she wanted to go.

When Eleanor and Hart reached the house, all was chaos. Romany children ran around the field, in spite of the rain, chasing or being chased by Mackenzie and McBride children. The Mackenzie dogs joined the Romany goats and dogs in the romping, barking or bleating nonstop. The children screamed with a sound that could peel paint from walls.

Fleming came to meet Hart and Eleanor, leading his horse, his flask still out. “Good God, it’s a massacre,” he said, taking a drink. Hart agreed with him.

The running children saw them and streamed their way, Aimee shouting at the top of her lungs. “Uncle Hart! Aunt Eleanor! Come and see our tent. It’s a real Romany tent.” The Romany children piled around her, some understanding her English, some not. They smiled up at Hart, black eyes dancing.

Adults came after the children—Mac, Daniel, Ian, Ainsley stopping to lift and cradle her crawling daughter, Gavina, named for the child Ainsley had lost. Ian’s son, Jamie, saw his father, waddled determinedly toward him, and threw his arms around Ian’s leg.

Ian’s eyes softened from his usual distant stare to focus on his son. He smoothed the boy’s hair, then let Jamie hang on to his boot as he walked, slowly, toward Hart. Jamie laughed, loving the game.

“What’s happened?” Ainsley asked, shielding Gavina from the rain. “Something’s happened, Eleanor. Tell.”

Ian stopped next to David and lifted Jamie, both to keep him away from Fleming’s horse’s hooves and to let Jamie pet the beast’s nose.

“Eleanor will marry Hart,” Ian said.

A huge smile blossomed on Ainsley’s face as Eleanor’s mouth popped open. “How on earth do you know that, Ian Mackenzie?” Eleanor asked.

Ian didn’t answer. Jamie went on petting the horse with his tiny hand.

“True?” Daniel demanded.

“Sadly,” Fleming answered. “I’m an unfortunate witness.”

“Next month,” Hart said in clipped tones. “At Kilmorgan.” He was very aware of Eleanor’s hand in the crook of his arm, her grip tightening as he spoke.

“Next month?” Ainsley said, eyes wide. “That’s very little time. Isabella will be incensed. She’ll want a grand wedding.”

Mac laughed out loud. “Good on you, Eleanor. You fixed him at last.”

“That’s twenty pounds you owe me, Uncle Mac,” Daniel said.

“And me, Mac Mackenzie.” Ainsley hoisted her daughter and made to turn away. “And twenty you owe Ian, and Beth. Teach you to bet against Eleanor.”

Mac kept laughing. “I am happy to lose. But I truly thought you’d give him the boot, El. He is such a bastard, after all.”

“She’s not at the altar yet,” Fleming said. “Double or nothing she comes to her senses before then?”

Mac waved him away, still grinning. “Learned my lesson. Never wager against anything that depends on Hart Mackenzie. He’s devious and underhanded, and he gets his way every time.”

“I say he won’t,” Fleming said in his lazy drawl.

Daniel pointed at him. “Done. I’ll take that wager. I say Eleanor gets him to the altar.”

Hart ignored them all. He turned Eleanor to him and pressed a casual kiss to her lips. Marking her as his in front of family, friends, and rivals.

Ian alone stayed quiet. But the look he sent Hart—one of determined satisfaction—unnerved Hart a bit. Ian Mackenzie was a man who always got what he wanted, and sometimes Hart wasn’t entirely sure what Ian wanted. But he knew he’d find out, and that Ian would win, whatever it was.

Gladstone lost his control of the government. In a loud victory, Hart’s coalition, led by David Fleming in Commons, defeated Gladstone’s weakly supported bill wholeheartedly. Gladstone, frowning his formidable frown, saw nothing for it but to dissolve Parliament and call for elections.

That same night, a brick crashed through Hart’s front room window in his Grosvenor Square house. That brick had a note wrapped around it, which proclaimed that the Duke of Kilmorgan was a marked man to the Fenians.

Hart tossed the paper into his desk drawer and told his majordomo to order the window repaired.

He was not so foolish as to dismiss the threat, however. He took double the guards when he went out anywhere in London and sent for Inspector Fellows. Eleanor, at least, was safely in Berkshire.

“Sit down,” Hart said irritably when Fellows arrived in Hart’s study in answer to his summons. “Don’t stand there as though you have a policeman’s baton shoved up your backside. You make me nervous.”

“Good,” Lloyd Fellows said. He took the chair but sat with his back upright, looking in no way obedient.

While Cameron, Mac, and Ian had accepted Fellows as one of their own without much fuss, Hart and Fellows still circled each other warily. They were about the same age, resembled each other, and both had worked very hard to get where they were in their own worlds.

“I understand that felicitations are in order,” Fellows said. The newspapers had blared it, even though the official announcement had not yet appeared. The Duke of K—will wed the daughter of a scholarly peer and take over England at the same time, one newspaper declared. Another said, The Scottish duke will marry his first sweetheart after waiting more than a decade. To be sure, one will never be able to say that they married in haste, repented at leisure. And other nonsense.

“Which means I am too busy to deal with these kinds of threats.” Hart handed Fellows the paper that had come through his window the night before.

Fellows took it gingerly and read it, brows rising. “Not much to go on. No one’s made much headway on the shooter either, I regret to say.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s Irishmen angry at a Scotsman, and I know finding them is a long shot. What I want is for you to keep them away from me. And on no account let them, or anyone else for that matter, touch my family.”

“A tall order. You mean you want a bodyguard.”

“I have bodyguards. I’ve left three to watch over Eleanor, and she’s with my brothers, who will take care of her for now. But I need to go about my business without hindrance. You’re canny, Fellows, and resourceful. You’ll do it.”

“You have a high regard for my ability,” Fellows said dryly.

“You pursued Ian and me for five years with a ruthlessness that would have made our father proud.”

“But I was wrong,” Fellows pointed out.

“So was I, in that case. This is where we are alike. When we are clearheaded, nothing can stop us. When we let emotion overcome us, we see nothing. I was blinded by worry for Ian and could not see the truth.” Hart stopped. “I still am.”

Fellows studied the paper again. “I take your point. I will see what I can do.”

Hart leaned back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his head. “You’re invited to the wedding, by the way. Isabella will send you a formal invitation.”

Fellows tucked the note into his pocket. “Are you certain you want me there?”

“It matters not what I want, or what you want. If you don’t come, Beth and Isabella, Ainsley and Eleanor will be most displeased. They will tell me so. Repeatedly.”

Fellows relaxed enough to laugh. “The great duke made nervous by his sisters-in-law and wife-to-be?”

“You’ve met them. Only very strong women can take living with Mackenzies, and so when one of us finds one…” He pretended to shudder.

“Your brothers seem pleased with themselves,” Fellows said. “And you are to wed your former fiancée. You should be the happiest man in the world.”

“I am.” Hart ignored the tightening in his chest as he said this. He’d coerced Eleanor into agreeing the same way he’d cornered Gladstone into a fight before the man was ready.

“You look it,” Fellows said without inflection. “I will be the only bachelor left. No wife to greet me on my return home, no sons to guide my doddering footsteps when I’m gray.”

“That is up to you. I imagine one of my sisters-in-law could find you a match if they put their minds to it.”

Fellows raised his hand. “No, no.”

“Be careful. They are determined women.”

Fellows nodded, then they both fell silent, uncertain how to end the conversation. They had once been enemies, they’d not yet become friends, and they were still not entirely comfortable with each other.

“You know, Fellows…” Hart began.

“No.” Fellows stood up, and Hart got to his feet with him. “I know what you are going to say. Do not offer me a post in the great Mackenzie empire. I am happy with the job I have.”

Hart didn’t ask how Fellows knew he’d been about to propose that Fellows work for Hart personally, to be in charge of keeping the Mackenzie family safe. The two men thought too much alike.

“I’ll help you, for Lady Eleanor’s sake,” Fellows went on. “But understand this—I worked a long time to become an inspector, I enjoy being a policeman, and I’ll not give up my career because you beckon.”

Hart raised his hands. “Well and good. But, if ever you need it, the offer stands.”

“Thank you.” Fellows nodded once and turned to leave.

“Wait, Fellows. I need to ask you a question.”

Fellows turned back, trepidation in his stance. He wanted to be elsewhere, that stance said, but he waited politely.

“How would you trace a letter?” Hart asked. “Find out who sent it to you, I mean?”

Fellows blinked at the question, then considered. “I’d have a look at the envelope. Find the postman who delivered it, trace the letter’s steps backward. Why? Have you been receiving threatening letters in the post?”

“No,” Hart said quickly. Fellows’s eyes narrowed, scenting the half lie. “Suppose I know the city from which the letter originated? Edinburgh, say?”

“Ask questions at the post office there. Station yourself outside said post office and watch to see if that person returns to send another.”

“Sounds tedious.”

“Most policing is tedious, Your Grace. Tedious, hard work.”

“So it seems. Thank you for your help, Fellows. And when you receive Isabella’s invitation to my wedding, for God’s sake, answer that you’ll attend.”

Fellows gave him a mirthless smile. “I long to say no, and watch the fireworks go off around you.”

“They’d go off around you too. Don’t think they wouldn’t. The ladies would be disappointed, and you’d never hear the end of it.”

“Hmm. Then I’ll respond correctly.”

“See that you do.”

Fellows nodded again, and took his leave.

The High Holborn house was as quiet and dusty as it had been a few weeks ago when Hart had found Eleanor there. He conceded that Eleanor was right about the fact that the house might hold a clue to whoever was sending the photographs. That did not mean, however, that he’d let her back in here.

Hart stole a few hours away from election hysteria a few days after his meeting with Fellows to take his coach to High Holborn and enter the house alone.

Ian wanted Hart to tell Eleanor all about his life here. Hart realized that was why Ian had let her come here in the first place. She should know all of Hart, Ian had intimated, down to the bottom of his grimy soul.

Hart stood in the bedroom filled with jumbled furniture, where Eleanor had busily searched. He remembered her red gold hair under the pillbox hat, the veil that drooped over her eye, her maddening but warm smile.

“I can’t do it, Ian,” he said out loud.

Hart was not ashamed of his proclivities, or what he’d done in games of pleasure. But he thought of how Eleanor had looked at him on the canal boat, with desire in her eyes, and trust, and languid delight. He needed nothing more, he thought.

Why shouldn’t that be enough, Ian Mackenzie?

You need to show Eleanor the house. Once you tell her everything about it, you will know.

No. Ian was wrong. Some things were better left buried.

He quickly made his search, discovered nothing, quit the house for Bond Street, and bought Eleanor the largest diamond necklace he could find.

Eleanor’s wedding day dawned fair and clear, a soft Scottish April morning, the only clouds well beyond the hills surrounding the Kilmorgan estate.

Eleanor stood in her room while Isabella, Beth, and Ainsley dressed her from the skin out in wedding finery. Silk camisole and drawers, new corset with pretty pink bows down the front, a long bustle to hold the many yards of wedding satin, a silk bodice that hugged Eleanor’s shoulders and buttoned snugly up the back. Seed pearls and lace adorned the bodice, and yards and yards of cascading ruffles and lace spilled down the front of the skirt. The skirt caught in a gentle pouf over the bustle, with roses, both silk and real, adorning it. From there the fabric flowed to the ground, ending in a three-foot train covered with seed pearls and lace.

Maigdlin smiled as she put another pin into Eleanor’s glossy red hair. “You’re pretty as a picture, lass—my lady. Pretty as a picture.”

“Absolutely beautiful.” Isabella stood back, hands clasped, and surveyed her work. “I want to throw my arms around you and eat you up, but I spent two hours getting you to look like this, El, so I will refrain.”

“Hugs afterward,” Ainsley said cheerfully. She sat on the bed, doing last-minute sewing on Eleanor’s veil. “And wedding cake—a nice, tasty one with plenty of currants and candied orange. On the happiest day of your life, you should enjoy your cake.”

The happiest day of her life. Eleanor’s throat was dry, and a cold pain had formed in her stomach.

She’d barely seen Hart since the heartbreaking morning in the canal boat, and the happy celebration with the family and the Romany later.

Hart had returned to London immediately with David to overturn Parliament while Isabella had swept Eleanor, Beth, and Ainsley into the most hurried, intense, and agitated planning Eleanor had encountered in her life. No expense to be spared, nothing too extravagant—but tasteful, everything had to be perfectly tasteful. Nothing ostentatious or vulgar for the new Duchess of Kilmorgan.

Eleanor had seen Hart alone only once since then, when he’d returned to Berkshire for a day and given her the ring. Eleanor twisted it on her finger now, the diamonds and sapphires catching the light, the same ring he’d given her the first time. She’d thrown this at him in the garden of Glenarden the day Eleanor had sent him packing.

“I thought you’d given this to Sarah,” she’d said as Hart slid the cool band onto her finger.

Hart’s voice had gone quiet, his warm hand cradling hers. “I only ever gave it to you. I bought a new one for Sarah. This ring belonged to my mother.”

“Like the earrings.” Those reposed in Eleanor’s jewel box, wrapped carefully in tissue.

“Exactly. She’d be pleased with you.”

Eleanor thought of the gentlewoman who must have felt lost and alone in the family of unruly boys and men. At least the duchess would have had no shame in her sons, had she lived to see them grow up.

“I’m happy to wear it for her,” Eleanor said.

“Wear it for me too, damn it.” Hart turned her hand over and kissed her fingertips. “Try to look happy that we’re marrying at last.”

“I am happy.” And she was. But…

Hart had grown so distant. He was busy and preoccupied, true, because of everything happening in London. But she’d thought, that rainy morning on the bank of the canal, that she’d at last reached the real Hart buried under layers of pain and heartache.

She had found him, she knew it. But then he’d gone again.

Eleanor had looked over their clasped hands and the sparkling ring, straight into his eyes. I’ll not be your perfect wife, Hart Mackenzie, obeying you because it’s my duty. I’ll search until I find you, and I’ll make you stay this time. I swear this.

The wedding took place in the ballroom. Isabella had not wanted to take a chance with the changeable weather to have the ceremony in the garden, and the family chapel was too small. But as the weather had stayed clement, she’d ordered all the doors opened, and a breeze from the famous Kilmorgan gardens wafted up and into the house.

The Scottish minister waited at one end of the room, and the rest of the ballroom overflowed with guests. Isabella, happy that at least one of the Mackenzie brothers was having a proper wedding, had invited the world. Peers of the realm, ambassadors, minor royalty, and aristocrats from every European country, Highland lairds and heads of clans, and The Mackenzie himself with his wife, sons, daughters, and grandchildren.

Local people and friends of the family filled out the rest: David Fleming, Ainsley’s brothers, Isabella’s sister and mother, Lloyd Fellows. Lord Ramsay’s friends and colleagues, who ranged from Scottish ghillies to learned professors and the head of the British Museum. Rounding them out were Eleanor’s girlhood friends with their husbands. The Mackenzie children and the two McBride children had been allowed to come, supervised by Miss Westlock and Scottish nannies in the back.

The front corner of the room had been partitioned off with chairs and velvet ropes. Behind this barricade sat the Queen of England herself. She was in black, as usual, but wore a plaid ribbon pinned to her veil, and her daughter Beatrice was in Scots plaid.

In deference to the queen, everyone stood.

Every person in the room, including the queen, turned to stare as Eleanor entered on her father’s arm. Eleanor halted for an instant, all those eyes on her unnerving.

They were speculating—why had Eleanor Ramsay changed her mind after so many years and agreed to marry Hart Mackenzie? And why had he decided that a spinster of thirty-odd years, daughter of an impoverished and absentminded earl, was a better match than the quantity of eligible ladies in Britain? A marriage of convenience—it had to be.

“The best thing is to ignore them,” Earl Ramsay whispered to Eleanor. “Let them think what they want and pay no attention. I’ve been doing that for years.”

Eleanor dissolved into laughter and kissed the earl on the cheek. “Dear Father. Whatever would I do without you?”

“Muddle along, I expect. Now let’s get you married off so I can go home in peace.”

Thinking of her father returning to Glenarden alone—with Eleanor not there to take tea with him, to listen to him read from the newspapers, to discuss bizarre and esoteric topics with him—made her eyes fill. Though she reminded herself that her marriage ensured that her father could go on writing his obscure books and eating scones with his tea in a well-repaired house, saying good-bye to him would hurt.

Eleanor lifted her chin, following her father’s advice about ignoring everyone, and she and her father walked forward.

Eleanor swished past them all in her glorious dress, following Aimee, who scattered rose petals along the way. There was no music, Isabella declaring that it was not in the best of taste. The orchestra would play afterward.

Isabella, Beth, and Ainsley stood in the front row near the queen, all three radiant and smiling at Eleanor. On the other side of the aisle, mirroring them, stood Mac, Cameron, and Daniel, tall and formidable in kilts and black coats, the plaid of the Mackenzies swathing their shoulders. They were proud and handsome, with eyes of various shades of amber—Daniel and Cameron, the same height now, looked heartbreakingly alike. Mac reached around the earl and clasped Eleanor’s shoulder, gladness and strength pouring through his touch.

At the very front of the room, standing to one side of the minister, stood Ian Mackenzie, Hart’s second, also dressed in kilt and plaid. Ian glanced once at Eleanor before his gaze was pulled back to that which he liked to look at most: his wife.

Next to Ian, Hart. Hart’s gaze fell on Eleanor, and the world went away.

He wore his kilt and plaid, the ducal sash of the Kilmorgans across his chest. He’d brushed back his dark red hair, which emphasized his hard, handsome face, honed with time and the brutal decisions he’d had to make. Ian at Hart’s side was as handsome as his brother, but Hart commanded the room.

Hart had won. Everything. The dukedom, the nation, his wife.

Eleanor curtseyed to the queen, and her father bowed, then the earl relinquished Eleanor, looking quite cheerful about it, to Hart.

She whispered to Hart as he took her hand, “Don’t look so bloody pleased with yourself.”

Hart’s answer was a smile, wicked and swift.

The ceremony began. Hart stood like a rock at Eleanor’s side as the minister droned the service in a thick Scots accent. The room was warm from the heat of pressing bodies, and droplets of perspiration slid from under Eleanor’s veil and down her cheek.

When the minister asked whether anyone knew of a reason why Eleanor and Hart could not marry, Hart turned and glared down the room so intensely that Daniel and Mac both chuckled. No one answered.

The ceremony was far too short. Eleanor found herself saying her vows, promising to give herself entirely to Hart and to let him worship her body, in sickness and health, in good times and terrible ones, through thick and thin, forever and ever, amen. Hart’s smile when he cupped her face in his hands to kiss her was triumphant.

Eleanor Ramsay was married, and now the Duchess of Kilmorgan. The orchestra played, and over it, Eleanor heard Daniel shout, “That’s forty guineas you owe me, Fleming.”

David shrugged, looking none too worried, and pulled out a sheaf of banknotes.

Quite a lot of money seemed to be changing hands. The three Mackenzie men were the worst, but even Patrick McBride, Ainsley’s oldest brother, was collecting banknotes, and so—the cheek of her—was Ainsley. Daniel seemed to have placed the most bets, followed by Mac, who had switchedsides and wagered that Eleanor would see Hart fairly married.

“I ought to have formed a pool,” Eleanor said to Hart. “I might have won a bundle.”

Before Hart could turn Eleanor and parade her back down the room, Ian stepped close and touched Eleanor’s elbow. “Thank you,” he whispered, and then he was gone, back to Beth and to scoop up his children.

Hart propelled Eleanor through the parted crowd, his arm around her as though he’d never let go of her. His pace was animated, his eyes sparkling.

As they cleared the crowd at the back of the room, a youth darted in through the open French windows. Eleanor saw everything in slow motion, as the lad, perhaps twelve or so and wearing horse boy’s livery that looked too large for him, stared at Hart in rage and then absolute terror. The boy reached a hand into his open coat, brought out a revolver, and fired it straight at Hart.