The Duke’s Perfect Wife

Chapter 17

Hart’s gaze was unfocused, his golden eyes glittering and moist. “You shouldn’t be out here,” he said. “It’s too damp. You’ll take sick again.”

Eleanor walked to him. Hart kept his hands on the plaque, as though loathe to take his fingers from the letters.

“What are you doing here?” Eleanor asked. “You have a perfectly good fire in your bedchamber. I saw it.”

Hart turned his face back to the tomb. “I was afraid.”

“Of what?” It was cold, which made her hurt arm ache, but Eleanor did not want to leave him here. “Tell me.”

“Losing you.” Hart looked at her again, his eyes anguished. “I was remembering you throwing the ring at me and telling me to go away, how arrogant I was.”

Eleanor shivered, thinking of that terrible day and how enraged and how proud they both had been. “That was a long time ago.”

“No, I’m still fucking arrogant. I should have sent you home when you came bleating to me about a job. But, no, I coerced you into staying with me, and you almost died for it.”

“Not everything in the world is your fault, Hart,” Eleanor said.

“Yes, it is. I manipulate the world, and then I suffer the consequences. Others more so than me.”

Eleanor’s gaze went to the tomb, where lovely, shy Sarah lay, along with her tiny son, Lord Hart Graham Mackenzie, one day old.

“You blame yourself for their deaths too,” she said softly.

“Of course I do.”

“Sarah would have died carrying someone else’s son,” Eleanor said. “It sounds cruel to say it, but she wasn’t strong enough to have a baby. Some women are not.”

“She didn’t want to have a baby at all. She hated being with child. She did it because that was what she’d been raised to do.”

True enough. Perhaps if Sarah and her son had lived, Sarah would have changed her mind about wanting a baby. Perhaps she would have realized how much she could love her son, and thereby brought Hart some measure of happiness.

Hart caressed the letters of baby Graham’s name. “Mac likes to say, We’re Mackenzies. We break what we touch. But this little Mackenzie… he broke me.”

Eleanor’s heart squeezed. When she’d received the black-edged card from Hart with the formal words, His Grace, the Duke of Kilmorgan, regrets to announce… she’d cried. Cried for Hart and for Sarah, and for the child who’d never grow up. She’d cried for herself, for what hadn’t been, and what could never be.

Hart finally let go of the letters. “I held him in my hands,” he said, showing her his broad palms. “Graham was so tiny, and he just fit into them. I held him, and I loved him.”

“I know you did.”

Hart looked at her, his eyes still dark in the lantern’s glare. “I never knew I could love like that. I don’t know to this day where the feelings came from. But looking at him—so small, so perfect… I realized, that moment, that I’d never entirely be like my father. I’d feared and fought being like him all my life, but when I looked at Graham, I knew I was safe from that. Because I could never hurt this little boy.”

Eleanor touched his arm, which was steely hard beneath his coat. “No.”

“He was so frail. I would have done anything in the world to keep him safe. Anything. But I couldn’t.” The pain in his eyes cut her. “I couldn’t save him, El. I should have been able to. I’m a strong man, the strongest I know. And I couldn’t save him.”

Eleanor pressed her forehead to his shoulder. “I know, Hart. I’m so, so sorry.”

He laughed a little, the sound bitter. “Do you know, people tried to tell me that Graham’s death was part of God’s plan and that he’d gone to a better place? I nearly punched someone for telling me that. A better place. Rot that. I needed him here.”

“Yes.”

“When I looked at Graham, I saw what I’d become. You showed me part of the truth when you threw me over, but this tiny boy made me face myself. The blackest, deadliest part of me.”

His words ran out, but Hart remained still, staring at his hands, head bowed.

Eleanor stepped in front of him and put her unhurt hand across his palms. “Come to the house,” she said. “You’re too cold out here. It’s time to get warm.”

Eleanor might wear the bandages, but he was the wounded one, Hart thought as he stripped back the covers on Eleanor’s newly made bed.

Under Eleanor’s heavy coat, she wore one of the old serge gowns she’d brought with her from Glenarden. She saw his frown as she slid off the coat and shook her head. “Did you think I’d go traipsing across your lawn in satin finery? That is the trouble with ladies’ gowns, terribly impractical for a good tramp.”

“Why the devil were you having a good tramp in the middle of the night?” Hart helped her extricate her arm from the sleeve. “Did you want to make yourself ill again?”

“I am perfectly fine, thank you very much, and I was looking for you.”

“You found me.” Sick at heart, floundering. He’d turned, and there she’d been.

Tell her everything, Ian had advised.

Sorry, Ian. I’ve had enough heartache for one night.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Hart said.

Eleanor rose on tiptoe and kissed his lips. “You won’t.”

Did she say that because she trusted him, or because she was that sure of herself?

“I’ll leave you to sleep.”

Eleanor pressed another kiss to his lips. “No, indeed. Sleep with me.”

She left him to walk to the bed. In the circle of the fire’s warmth, she unbuttoned her gown and let it fall, then stripped off what little she wore under it. She hadn’t bothered with a corset or layers of petticoats for her stroll. Her round backside rose as she leaned down to pick up the dress from the floor. She smiled over her shoulder at him as she straightened up.

God help me.

Hart stripped off his coat and muddy shoes at the same time, nearly tearing the coat in his hurry. He shed waistcoat and shirt, undershirt and socks as Eleanor lifted her coverlet and got into the bed. She lay back against the pillows, her bandaged arm across the quilts, and watched Hart pull off his kilt and let it drop.

Her smile widened as her gaze went unashamedly to his naked arousal. She lifted the covers. “Come in and get warm.”

Hart slid in beside her, on her right side so he wouldn’t touch her bandages. He drew his fingers across her sleek shoulder, and kissed her skin.

Making love to her the conventional way might hurt her injury, but Hart didn’t mind being unconventional. He slid his leg across both of hers, putting them inside his bent knee. He kissed Eleanor’s lips, slow, light kisses, enjoying her softness.

She tasted delightful. Firelight brushed her skin, and her warmth beneath the covers was chasing away his bone-deep chill.

“Sit up,” he said.

Eleanor blinked. “Why?”

“Questions. Always the questions.” Hart kissed the bridge of her nose. “Because I want you to.”

Eleanor gave him a look that said he was hopeless, but she pushed back the covers and carefully leveraged herself to sit against the headboard. Her full, round breasts peeped above the quilts. Hart ran his finger over one areola, delighting to watch it tighten.

With an agility Hart didn’t know he still possessed, he positioned himself before her, on his knees. He spread her legs around him, then slid his hands under her thighs and lifted her forward. Eleanor gave a startled gasp as she came to him.

“Rest your hand on my shoulder,” Hart said. “Don’t hurt your arm.”

Eleanor laid the bandaged wrist on his big shoulder. Hart moved her legs over his thighs until she sat against him, chest to chest.

“Comfortable?” Hart asked.

“Very.” Eleanor put her good arm around him and pulled him into a warm embrace.

Hart tucked his hands back under her buttocks, lifting them the slightest bit, so that his very needy arousal could find the place she opened. “You’re wet for me,” he said.

She laughed, which made her move against him in the nicest way. “I’m straddling the most glorious, naked Highlander.”

Hart licked across her lips while he pulled her down onto him, his stiffness sliding straight into the goodness of her.

He nipped her neck, then licked to ease the bite. He wanted to suckle every part of her, could imagine the taste of her warm breasts, the skin of her throat, the heat between her thighs. He wanted to taste her and drink her and not stop.

Gently. She’s hurt.

Hart knew how to be gentle. Rough play had its place, but there were times when the softest love was the best.

Perhaps one day they could…

Tell her everything.

Eleanor touched his face, hers soft with pleasure, skimming her fingers along his unshaven jaw. She smelled of her lavender soap, the scent that broke him open inside.

Hart pushed into her warmth, feeling her close around him, encasing him a tight embrace. God, yes. Eleanor’s eyes slid closed, her head going back while she clutched his shoulder with her unhurt hand. Her nails creased his skin, the little moan in her throat exciting.

Hart and Eleanor were locked together, their bodies firmly against each other’s. Hart’s skin prickled, and Eleanor’s little sigh let him know she was feeling him.

He could stay here forever…

The small rocking motion formed a hot point around which Eleanor existed. It was an exquisite sensation, Hart inside her, their bodies pressed together, hips locked.

His eyes were dark in the dim light, pupils spreading as his passion took over. His face softened from its usual hard mask, his lips parting to let out an ah of satisfaction.

Hart’s entire body embraced her, sweat trickling along his skin. His muscles were firm, a joy to feel. He exuded power, and yet, his eyes had swum with tears while he’d traced the name of the son he’d lost.

You break me, Hart Mackenzie.

At the moment, he was watching her intently. As though to warn her that he was being kind now, but he was holding back. He could turn wild at any moment.

The thought excited her. “You feel good,” she whispered.

“You feel like fire, my wicked wife.” Hart licked her neck. “I want to love you the rest of the night and all through tomorrow.”

Yes. She wanted him inside her, wanted to hold him and have him hold her, where all was safe and warm.

He lifted a little, thrusting harder. “Don’t let me hurt you,” he whispered.

He’d never hurt her. Eleanor drew her good hand down his back, lightly scratching. Hart made a little noise in his throat, and when he looked at her, all traces of sorrow had gone.

“You make me glad I’m a sinner, Eleanor Ramsay.”

Eleanor couldn’t answer. Her arm throbbed, but she scarcely felt it as she held on to Hart, her husband. Every point of her awareness went to where they were joined, and she saw nothing, felt nothing, but him.

She was going to scream. And then her throat was hoarse as Hart laughed and called her his sweet, sweet lass.

“Eleanor, you unmake me.” Hart’s words were lost in his groan as he pushed up into her, holding her, and let go of his seed.

The feeling didn’t end. It went on, Eleanor squeezing him, Hart rocking into her, his arms around her to keep her from falling. They were locked together, one.

Hart stayed inside her as he quieted little by little, his face at last relaxed, the tension released from his body. Eleanor knew she was one of the few able to see this, the Scottish duke letting himself be at ease.

Hart kissed her, with the warm kiss of lovers who had found their all in each other. He held her in his strong arms, licking the trail of freckles that led down her neck, and she felt the scrape of his teeth.

When he at last lowered her to the pillows, Eleanor was half asleep. He withdrew, the friction of him going out almost as heady as it had been going in.

He eased Eleanor onto her side and pulled the covers gently around her, Hart warm at her back. His thigh moved between her legs, solid strength, which both excited and comforted her. Surrounded by that comfort, Eleanor dove into a profound sleep.

Hart jumped awake to a clatter, a crash, a sigh of exasperation, and a mutter of, “Oh, blast.”

He forced his eyes open. Sunlight streamed through the windows, landing on the warm indentation in the mattress where Eleanor had lain. The pillows bore her lavender scent, but Eleanor had gone.

Hart lifted his head, stifling a groan as his muscles protested. He found Eleanor at the foot of the bed in her dressing gown, trying, one-handed, to unfold something that looked like a cooking crane.

Hart rubbed his face, his hand finding deep stubble on his chin. “What the devil are you doing?”

Eleanor had mischief in her eyes. “Setting up the photographing apparatus. It’s a bit difficult one-handed. Perhaps you could help?”

Hart sat up. Eleanor beamed and went back to her task, as though it was perfectly reasonable for her to be wrestling with a camera the morning after making love with her husband.

“You want to take photographs now?” he asked.

“In truth, I wanted to take one of you lying uncovered in the bed, with you half on your side as you were. You looked beautiful with the sunlight on you. But I had to drop the tripod and wake you.”

“You were going to take photographs of me while I slept?”

She blinked, as though to say Why not? “Do not worry. I will show them to no one. They are for me to look at while you’re away in London winning your election or stuck in Parliament all day. I know you won’t be staying here much longer, so I must take opportunities as I can.”

Hart came out of the bed. Eleanor, unworried, kept rattling the tripod until Hart grabbed it out of her hands. “I’d thought you’d forgotten about this.”

“No, indeed. I am afraid I am going to be the sort of wife who refuses to let her husband run off to a mistress. If you see that I am adventurous enough to take nude photographs of you, perhaps you won’t need to turn to a courtesan like your Mrs. Whitaker.”

Hart opened the tripod with one yank and set it on the floor. “I told you, I have no interest in Mrs. Whitaker.”

“You will be away in London quite often, and you are a very passionate man.”

“Passions I control very well.” Except when I am with you. “Whatever you think of me, I am not a youth led by his desires. And I don’t intend to plant you here while I am in London. You’ll travel with me wherever I go.”

“Oh.” She looked surprised. “Will I?”

“Yes. It’s why I married you.” To keep you by my side, no matter what.

“I can see your point. I suppose you’ll look like a steady, married man if your wife is always at your elbow.”

“That is not the reason I had in mind, but believe what you wish. You can put away the camera.”

Eleanor unlocked and opened the camera in its mahogany frame. “I find the handheld cameras quite nice to use when my father and I are out in the woods, but I prefer the tripod when I take a portrait, so I don’t accidentally jiggle the image. Don’t you agree?”

“El.” Hart’s hand came down on her good wrist. “I told you my terms. Only if I get photographs of you.”

“You cannot possibly take photographs of me while my arm is in a sling. I would look ridiculous. Now, the light is very good, and we must take advantage of it.”

“Eleanor.”

“What are you afraid of, Hart? You’re a beautiful man with a beautiful body, and I wish to photograph it. It is the same as when my father finds a perfect specimen of a mushroom. Nothing for it but he must record it for posterity. Or at least for his own enjoyment. Besides, he often eats the mushroom. Please, return to the bed. I have loaded the first plate, and I am ready.”

How on earth Hart let her talk him into it, he never knew. He found himself lying back on the bed, his hands behind his head, while Eleanor tested light, peered through the camera, and tested the light again. She studied him a moment, lips pursed, then she picked up his kilt from the floor and draped it across his hips.

She went back to the camera and peered through. “Excellent. Please, do not move.”

Hart held his breath, knowing that one motion would cause a blur as the shutter opened to let in light. The shutter closed again. Eleanor pulled out the plate, set it aside, and put in another one.

“Some out of the bed now, I think.”

Hart smiled. “My wife, in dishabille, taking photographs of me in her bedroom. Decadent.”

“I think I’d like a view of your back,” she said, ignoring him.

Hart threw off the kilt and walked over to the window. This one was not as wide as the windows in his bedroom, but he preferred to be here, in Eleanor’s chamber. So much cozier than the grand salon that he slept in. Maybe he’d move in here instead of having her come to him.

He put his hands on either side of the window frame, presenting his back to her. Please God, don’t let anyone be taking an early-morning stroll.

“Delightful,” Eleanor said. “Stay there.”

He heard the click of the shutter, and Eleanor’s sigh of delight. “Another, I think.” More rattling as she changed the plate.

Eleanor looked through the camera’s lens and nearly swallowed her tongue. Hart stood in a beam of sunshine, light almost glowing on his bare body. He was all that was strength. The well-defined muscles on his shoulders smoothed down his back to form a pleasing triangle to his hips. His buttocks were tight and slim, a prefect complement to his thighs and taut calves. Even his heels pleased her.

Hart looked over his shoulder, arms bunching with the movement, his eyes golden in the sunshine. “Hurry, blast you. I think the ghillie is coming down the walk.”

“Perfect. Do not move, I beg you.”

Eleanor held her breath as she clicked the shutter. Hart was a burnished god, a Highlander of old come to sweep her away. Old Malcolm Mackenzie must have looked much the same, a hard, handsome fighting man, who’d been twenty-five at Culloden field. He’d eloped before the battle with Lady Mary Lennox, stealing her out from under her English family’s nose. Just like a Mackenzie—deciding what he wanted and taking it, even in the middle of war. From the stories Eleanor had heard, theirs had been a wild and passionate marriage.

Eleanor pulled the exposed plate out of the camera and picked up the next. Hart left the window in a hurry.

“That is the ghillie. We’ll do these away from the windows, if you please.”

Eleanor wanted to laugh. He sounded nervous, and she remembered how he’d voiced worry that his body would no longer please her. Poor Hart.

“Very well, then. You decide where to be.”

Hart stood uncertainly, his brow drawn, his head bent a little in thought, his delectable body glistening with perspiration. Eleanor clicked the shutter.

Hart looked up swiftly. “I was not ready.”

“No matter. It will make a lovely picture.”

Hart started to laugh. Ah, there he was, the smiling, sinful man from the earlier photographs, the man who’d laid her down in the summerhouse and taught her not to fear passion.

“All right, minx. How about this?” Hart seated himself on the bench at the foot of her bed, folded his arms, and spread his legs.

“Oh, my.”

The first photos she’d taken would have an artistic touch, a nude man in the sunshine. This one would be blatantly erotic.

Hart Mackenzie was unashamedly naked, his arousal obvious, his smile challenging. He was daring her to have a maidenly fit of the vapors, to look away, to not snap the picture. Eleanor studied the full length of his phallus and clicked the shutter.

“Another like that,” she said, her body heating. “Perhaps with you leaning against the wall.”

Hart rose and sauntered across the room. He leaned on a blank space of wall near the door, folding his arms again. His cock stood out, ramrod straight.

“Stay there.” Eleanor moved the camera closer to him, settled it in, and took the picture. “I must have more.”

Hart laughed. Eleanor caught him like that in the next shot, laughing in true mirth, his body bared for her delight.

“Excellent. Now some with the kilt, I think.”

Hart let her take three more photographs. For two he stood bare-legged in his kilt; for the third, the kilt was off, Hart holding the folds to his abdomen while Eleanor photographed him in profile.

“Now another,” Eleanor began.

Hart snarled. He dropped the kilt, came to her, hooked his arm around her waist, and pulled her from the camera. “No more.”

“But I brought seven more plates.”

“Save them.”

Hart swept her from her feet, swiftly untying the tapes that held her dressing gown closed. He laid her on the bed and peeled the dressing gown from her, careful of her hurt arm. When he found her bare beneath, he smiled, and stole her breath.

Hart climbed over Eleanor, nuzzling the line of her hair, and then inhaling all the way down her body. Eleanor expected him to part her legs, to enter her, but instead, he tasted her.

He drew his tongue between her breasts and caught one of her nipples in his mouth. Fire blossomed from the point he suckled. Hart gave her other breast the same attention, then he kissed his way down her abdomen, licked her navel, and continued down to her thighs. He parted them, kissed the soft skin on the inside of either leg, then fastened his mouth over her tight little berry.

He’d never done that before. Eleanor gasped with the wild pleasure of it. The sight of Hart suckling her, his eyes closed, his hair mussed, made her crazy with passion. His tongue was hot, driving her wild. He had to stop, but Hart wouldn’t stop. He cradled her hips in his hands, opened her to him, and drank her in.

“Hart…”

More words left her lips, but they were incoherent. She rocked into the mattress, and his tongue went on torturing her. Eleanor tried to wriggle away, but he was too strong. She had to lie back and take him licking, suckling, making her insane with pleasure.

Just when Eleanor thought she’d die of joy, Hart lifted his beautiful mouth away, slid up her body, and entered her.

He was filling her now, her handsome, naked Highlander. He laughed at her at the same time he demonstrated how good pleasure could be.

His strokes were strong, his hand on her shoulder holding her down. But he was gentle, making sure he never hurt her, even as he neared his climax.

The combination of him being rough and careful at the same time sent Eleanor into another spiral of pleasure. Ecstasy ignited from where they joined and spread across her body. She shouted with it, and Hart’s shout joined hers.

“El, my El,” he crooned as they wound down. “Dear God, you make me wild.”

You make me understand love, Eleanor thought, then the world went away except for her husband lying on her in the sunlight.

Hart and Eleanor developed the photographs together, in a darkroom Mac had set up when he’d experimented with photograph art. Mac had decided that, while photography had its merits, he preferred to slap paint on canvas and had gone back to that.

Hart took Eleanor and her stack of plates to the darkroom, locked the door, and watched her competently print the images from the dry plates. One by one, the photographs of Hart emerged, his body in full sunlight, or he coyly hiding behind the kilt. He looked like a perfect fool, and it made him laugh. Eleanor ignored him and kept on developing. She finished the last plate, gazed at Hart holding his kilt over his front, and pronounced the proceedings satisfactory.

“Good,” Hart said. “Now that you have new photographs for your memory book, you’ll destroy the old ones.”

Eleanor wiped her hands. “Mmm, perhaps. I still have not found all of them. I will continue my quest.”

Hart stepped in front of her. “No.”

“Why not? It was Fenians who wanted you dead, nothing to do with the photographs. I imagine Mr. Fellows is already in London, mopping them up. The Fenians, I mean, not the photographs. The photographs weren’t the danger, and I am determined to find them.”

For answer, Hart closed his arms around her and showed her that darkroom tables could be put to more use than for developing apparatus.

The real world, unfortunately, intruded on Eleanor’s newfound marital bliss, and Hart went back to his study and his quest to win every politician in the land to his side.

Eleanor was busy herself. Now that she was the Duchess of Kilmorgan, her correspondence had multiplied into a mountain, piling up all the more while she’d lain ill.

She had Maigdlin and a footman cart all her letters to the little sitting room off her bedchamber, and she sat at the writing table, sorting through the pile and trying to ignore the continued soreness of her healing arm.

She received many letters of congratulations on her nuptials along with wishes for her to get well, and of course, a growing stack of invitations. In the middle of the pile, Eleanor came upon a rather thick envelope of now-familiar stationery.

Her heart beat faster as she tore open the envelope and unfolded the paper inside. Inside this was a small tissue-wrapped bundle, tied with white ribbon. Eleanor hastily undid the ribbon and folded back the paper, and five photographs of the naked Hart Mackenzie fell into her hand.