The Duke’s Perfect Wife

Chapter 3

“For you, my lady,” Hart’s perfect parlor maid said, executing a perfect curtsey.

The envelope read: Lady Eleanor Ramsay, staying at number 8, Grosvenor Square. Same printing in the same careful style, but no seal, no indication from whence the letter had originated. The envelope was stiff and heavy, and Eleanor knew what must be inside.

“Who brought this?” Eleanor asked the maid.

“The boy, my lady. The one who usually brings messages to His Grace.”

“Where is this boy now?”

“Gone, my lady. He delivers all over the square and up to Oxford Street.”

“I see. Well, thank you.”

Eleanor would have to find the boy and put him to the question. She went back upstairs, shut herself in her bedchamber, drew a chair to the window for the light, and opened the envelope.

Inside was a piece of cheap paper sold by the hundredweight at any stationery shop, and a piece of folded pasteboard. Inside the pasteboard card lay another photograph.

In this one, Hart was standing at a wide window, but what showed outside was rolling landscape, not city. His back was to the photographer, his hands on the windowsill, and again, he wore not a stitch.

A broad back replete with muscle slimmed to a backside as firm as firm could be. Hart’s arms were tight, taking his weight as he leaned on the windowsill.

The photograph was printed on stiff paper, much like a carte de visite, but without the mark of a photographer’s studio. Hart had likely had his own apparatus for taking portraits, and his former mistress, Mrs. Palmer, had taken them. Eleanor could not imagine Hart trusting such things to anyone else.

Mrs. Palmer herself had told Eleanor what sort of man Hart Mackenzie truly was. A sexual rogue. Unpredictable. Demanding. Thought it all an adventure, his adventure. The woman in the equation was simply means to his pleasure. She had not gone into detail, but what she’d hinted had been enough to shock Eleanor out of her complacency.

Mrs. Palmer had died two and a half years ago. Who, then, possessed these damning photographs, why was he or she sending them to Eleanor, and why had they waited until now? Ah, but now Hart was poised to push Gladstone out of his seat and take over the government.

The note was the same as the first. From one as wishes you well. No threats of blackmail, no promises to betray Hart, no demand for payment.

Eleanor held the letter up to the light, but she saw no sign of secret messages or clues in the thin watermark, no cleverly hidden code around the edges of the words. Nothing but the one sentence printed in pencil.

The back of the picture held no clues, and neither did the front. Eleanor fetched a magnifying glass and studied the grains of the photograph, on the off chance that someone had printed tiny messages there.

Nothing.

The enlarged view of Hart’s backside was fine, though. Eleanor studied that through the glass for a good long time.

The only way to speak to Hart alone—indeed, at all—was to ambush him. That night, Eleanor waited until her father had retired to his bedchamber, then she went to the hall outside Hart’s bedroom, one floor below hers. She dragged two chairs from the other side of the hall to the bedchamber door, one chair for Eleanor to sit on and one for her feet.

Hart’s house was larger and grander than most in Mayfair. Naturally. Many London town houses were two rooms deep and one room wide, with a staircase hall opening from the front door and running up through the entire house. Larger houses had rooms tucked behind the staircase and perhaps a second room in front of the staircase on the upper floors.

Hart’s mansion was wide and deep, having rooms on either side of the staircase as well as behind it. The ground floor held the public rooms—a double sitting room on one side, a grand dining room on the other, and a fairly large ballroom running across the back of the house.

The open staircase wound upward through the house in a large, elegant rectangle, the landings forming a gallery around each floor. The first floor above the ground floor held more drawing rooms, a two-room deep library, and another private dining room for the family. The next floor contained Hart’s large study, the smaller study in which Eleanor and Wilfred worked, and Hart’s bedchamber across the back of the house, where Eleanor waited now. She, her father, and Mac and Isabella, occupied rooms above that, with the top floor now holding a makeshift nursery and studio.

Eleanor sat with her back against Hart’s bedchamber door and stretched her feet across to the other chair. A gaslight hissed above her, and she opened a novel from the lending library and started to read.

The novel was a thrilling one, with a blackhearted villain determined to bring down the innocent heroine, the hero always stuck in a jungle fighting tigers or some such thing whenever the heroine was in trouble. Never around when you needed them, heroes. The hiss of the gaslight was soothing, the air warm, and her eyes drifted shut.

She jumped awake, her book falling with a crash, to find Hart Mackenzie standing over her.

Eleanor scrambled to her feet. Hart remained where he was, unmoving, his cravat off and dangling from one hand. He was waiting for her to explain herself—typical.

He was dressed in Mackenzie plaid and formal coat, his shirt open to reveal the damp hollow of his throat. His eyes were red-tinged with drink, his face dark with whiskers. He smelled heavily of cheroot smoke, night air, and a woman’s perfume.

Eleanor hid her dart of dismay at the perfume, and cleared her throat. “I’m afraid that the only way I can speak to you, Hart, is to lie in wait like a tiger… in a jungle. I wish to discuss the photographs with you.”

“Not now,” Hart said.

He shoved aside the chair and made to open his bedchamber door, but Eleanor stepped in front of him. “My, you are in a temper. You’d never speak to me about them, if you had your way. The house is asleep. We can be private. I have things to ask you.”

“Tell Wilfred. He’ll set an appointment with me.”

Hart opened the door and moved past her into his room. Eleanor marched in right after him before he could shut the door.

“I’m not afraid of your bedchamber, Hart Mackenzie. I’ve been in it before.”

Hart gave Eleanor a look that made her heart pound. He tossed the cravat and collar onto a chair and moved to a table and a decanter of brandy. “If you want it all over Mayfair that you chased me into my bedroom, by all means, stay and close the door.”

Eleanor left the door open.

“You haven’t changed the furniture in here either,” she said, keeping her voice light. “The bed is positively medieval. And quite uncomfortable as I recall.”

Hart slanted her another glance as he sloshed whiskey into a glass and clinked the stopper back to the decanter. “What do you want, Eleanor?” he asked, an edge to his voice. “I’ve had a hell of a night.”

“To talk about the photographs, as I said. If I’m to find them, or discover what this person means by sending them to me, I need to know more.”

“Well, I dinnae want to talk about the be-damned things right now.”

She started to answer, then stopped, taking in his dishevelment, his angry frown. “You are very cross tonight, Hart. Perhaps the lady disappointed you.”

Hart stared at her over the glass he’d started to raise. “What lady?”

“The one whose perfume you positively reek of.”

His brows went up. “You mean the Countess von Hohenstahlen? She’s eighty-two and drenches herself in scents that would make a tart blush.”

“Oh.”

Hart drank down the whiskey in one swallow. His face changed as the smooth Mackenzie malt did its work.

He clunked the glass to the table. “I’m tired, and I want to go to bed. We’ll speak in the morning. Ask Wilfred to make an appointment with me.”

Humph. As Eleanor turned to the door, she sensed Hart’s relief behind her that she was leaving. That relief made her angry.

Eleanor went on to the door, but at the last minute, she closed it and turned around. “I do not wish to wait,” she said.

Hart had thrown off his coat, and now, caught unawares, his eyes betrayed his exhaustion. “Christ, Eleanor.”

“Why are you so reluctant to speak of the photographs? They could damage you.”

Hart let himself collapse into a chair, kilt draping over his legs, and reached again for the decanter. A gentleman should never sit in a lady’s presence without asking her to sit first. But Hart simply poured himself more whiskey and rested his elbows on the chair’s arms as he lifted the glass.

“I would have thought you’d like to see me damaged.”

“Not like this. You don’t deserve to be laughed at. The queen would be quite disparaging, and she has much influence—although she and the Prince Consort used to collect photographs of nudes, did you know that? Not many have seen them, but she once showed them to me. She loves to talk about Albert. She rather worshiped him.”

Her words ran out as Hart watched her, his golden gaze hard on her.

“What do I deserve, then, lass?” His words slurred the slightest bit, which meant he was well on the way to being thoroughly drunk. Hart rarely showed any effect of drink, so when he did, he was already far past inebriation. “What do I deserve, Eleanor?”

She shrugged. “You deserved me to break the engagement. At the time. Perhaps you didn’t deserve me not forgiving you for as long as I did, or me being too proud to even speak to you. But it’s done. We both have gone on with our lives. Apart. As it was meant to be.”

“Was it meant to be?” His voice was low, soft, a Mackenzie man’s bedroom voice.

“We’d not have rubbed on well, and you know it, Hart.” She circled her thumb and fingertips together. “Too many sparks.”

“Aye, you’ve got fire in you, lass, that is true. A temper.” The delicious Highland accent broadened as more whiskey went into him. “And fire of another kind. I’ve not forgotten that.”

Eleanor had not forgotten either. Hart had known exactly how to warm her, how to run his hands down her body and draw her to him, how to make her instigate the first kisses. Hart had known how to touch her, what to whisper into her ear, how to let his breath linger on her skin.

A lady should know nothing of men before her wedding night, but Eleanor had known everything about Hart Mackenzie. His well-muscled, hard body, the old scars that crisscrossed his back, the fire of his mouth on hers, the skill of his hands as he’d unbuttoned and unlaced her clothes.

Thrice he’d seduced her, and thrice she’d let him. Once at the summerhouse, once in this bedroom, and once in his bedchamber at Kilmorgan. They were betrothed, she’d reasoned. Where was the harm?

Hart sat in the chair across the room, drinking whiskey, but he might as well have been next to her, drawing his fingers down her spine again, making her shiver like he used to.

Eleanor forced the pleasant memories away. She needed to stay focused, or she’d fall at his feet and beg him to make her shiver again. “About these photographs,” she said. “I saw nothing in either of them to give me a clue as to who sent them.”

He came alert. “Either of them? There’s another?”

“I received it this afternoon. Hand delivered to me here. I haven’t had the chance to question your delivery boy as to who gave it to him.”

Hart sat up in the chair, no longer looking inebriated. “Then that person knows you are here.”

“Gracious, the whole of England must know. Lady Mountgrove will have told everyone in it by now. She saw you bring me here, remember? To be sure, she’ll have been watching this house to see whether I left it again. Which I have, of course, but then I come right back. And stay.”

“I’ll question the delivery boy.”

Eleanor shook her head. “No need. The photographs are being sent to me. I’ll question him.”

Hart set the glass on the arm of the chair. “This person knows who you are and where you are, and I don’t like that.” He held out his hand. “Let me see the photograph.”

“Don’t be silly, I don’t carry it about with me. It’s upstairs in my chamber, hidden with the other. I can tell you that the picture is much the same as the first, except that you are looking out a window. From what I could see through said window, I believe you were at Kilmorgan Castle.”

He nodded. “Busy proving that the house was mine, I suppose. Showing myself that I wasn’t afraid to do anything in it.”

“The house wasn’t precisely yours at the time,” Eleanor said. “Your father must still have been alive then.”

“Alive, but away. A good time to do as I pleased.”

“The photographs are very well done, you know. Quite artistic. The pictures the queen and Prince Albert collected are also very tasteful, though it’s not the same thing. You posed for yours, yourself. The queen would never forgive that—a duke acting as a common artist’s model? Did Mrs. Palmer take all of them?”

“Yes.” The word was terse.

Eleanor opened her hands. “You see? This is exactly the sort of information I need. Mrs. Palmer might have left the collection to someone, or someone might have found them after her death. You really ought to let me into that house in High Holborn where she lived to look around.”

“No.” A loud, blunt, final syllable.

“But it’s not a bawdy house anymore, is it?” Eleanor asked. “Just a property you own. You sold the house to Mrs. Palmer, and she willed it back to you. I looked that up. Wills are public records, you know.”

Hart’s hand clenched around his glass. “El, you are not going to that house.”

“You ought to have put up my father and me there, you know. It would be much handier for the British Museum, and I could search it from top to bottom for more photographs.”

“Leave it alone, Eleanor.” His voice was rising, the fury unmistakable.

“But it’s just a house,” she said. “Nothing wrong with it now, and it might hold a vital clue.”

“You know good and well that it’s not just a house.” The anger climbed. “And stop giving me that innocent look. You’re not innocent at all. I know you.”

“Yes, I am afraid you know me a bit too well. Makes talking to you dashed difficult sometimes.”

Eleanor had a little smile on her face, making a joke of it, and Hart couldn’t breathe. She always did this, walked into a room and took the air out of it.

She stood primly before him in her blue dress that was out of fashion and simply made, her eyes ingenuous as she announced she should look through the house in High Holborn, the existence of which had wedged them apart.

No, not wedged. Batted Hart aside like a cricketer whacking one all the way into the tea tents.

Eleanor had been quite decorous about it after her initial outburst, she with all the right on her side. She could have sued Hart for taking her to his bed, for ruining her, for violating any of the numerous terms in their complicated betrothal contract.

Instead, she’d said good-bye and walked out of his life. Leaving a great, gaping hole in it that had never been filled.

Hart had forgotten all about the pictures until Eleanor turned up a few days ago to slide one across his desk to him.

“If this person is a blackmailer, El, I want you to have nothing more to do with it. Blackmailers are dangerous.”

Her brows rose. “You’ve had dealings with them before, have you?”

Too bloody many times. “Attempting to blackmail the Mackenzie family is a popular pastime,” Hart said.

“Hmm, yes, I can see that. I suppose there are those who believe you’ll pay to keep your secrets out of the newspapers or from being whispered into the wrong ears. You and your brothers have so many secrets.”

And Eleanor knew every single one of them. She knew things no one else in the world did.

“All these blackmailers have one thing in common,” Hart said. “They fail.”

“Good. Then if this is a blackmailer, we will see him off as well.”

“Not we,” he said firmly.

“Be reasonable, Hart. Someone sent the photos to me. Not to you, not to your enemies, not to your brothers, but to me. I think that has some significance. Besides, why send them at all, free and clear, with no demands for money?”

“To show you that they have them and make demands for the rest.”

She nibbled her lip. “Perhaps.”

Hart did not give a damn about the bloody photographs right now. Not with Eleanor rolling her red lip under her teeth and making Hart want to bite it for her.

“You are cruel, El.” His voice went quiet again.

Her brows drew together into a delicious little frown. “Cruel? Why on earth do you say that?”

“You haven’t spoken to me for years. Suddenly you gallop down to London declaring you’re here to save me like some benevolent angel. Did you turn around one day last week and decide that you’d forgiven me?” He could hope.

“Of course not. I began to forgive you years ago. After Sarah died. I felt so horrible for you, Hart.”

He stopped, cold working its way through the whiskey. “That was nearly eight years ago.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“I never noticed you forgiving me,” he said, his voice tight. “No letters, no visits, no telegrams, no declaration to my brothers or Isabella.”

“I said that’s when I began to forgive you. It took much longer than that to make all the anger go away. Besides, you were Duke of Kilmorgan by then, well ensconced behind ducal barriers, and quite on your way to wresting power from anyone who had it. You also returned to Mrs. Palmer—I may live in a backwater, but trust me, I am well informed of all you do. And the third reason I never made indication is because I had no idea whether you’d care for my forgiveness or not.”

“Why would I not care?”

The empty look in his eyes made Eleanor go soft. Going soft was dangerous around Hart Mackenzie, but drink had erased his hardness, letting her glimpse inside his shell.

She found it alarmingly blank. What had happened to him?

“You courted me to gain influence over my father’s connections and cronies,” she said. “I knew that. It is the same reason you married Sarah, and I imagine the same reason you’ll take your next wife. Whether or not I forgave you all your past sins might not have held the remotest interest for you.”

Hart came out of the chair. Eleanor backed away. She wasn’t afraid of him, but he was drunk, she knew she easily angered him, and Hart was a very large man.

“I told you,” he said. “Nothing I said to you while I was courting you was a lie. I liked you, I wanted you…”

“Yes, I did rather enjoy being seduced by you.” Eleanor held up her hand, palm out, and unbelievably, he stopped. “I forgave you, because we were both very young, very arrogant, and a bit stupid. But life moves on. I am likely one of the only people to know how much of a blow Sarah’s death was to you. And your son’s death. And, indeed, Mrs. Palmer’s. She was rather awful, and I am very angry with her for what she did to Beth and Ian, but I know you cared for her. Losing someone you’ve cared about for a very long time is quite painful. I do feel sorry for you.”

“Mrs. Palmer died two years ago,” he said rigidly. “We are still not up to the present day.”

“I am trying to explain. Why on earth would I think you would be pleased for me to turn up on your doorstep, bleating that I’d forgiven you? The photograph was a godsend, because it gave me the excuse to come here. I did not lie when I said money was a bit tight, so I thought I might as well ask you for a job to go with it. You gave me that hundred pounds last year, but such things don’t last forever, and the house needed many repairs. Going hungry so that your loved ones can eat sounds romantic, but I assure you, it quickly becomes tire-some. Your cook is quite gifted. I’ve feasted well these last few days.”

“Eleanor. Stop.”

“But you did ask me…”

“For God’s sake, will you stop?”

Eleanor blinked at him, but when he only closed his mouth, she drew a breath.

“Very well,” she said. “If you’d prefer me to be succinct, I am here because: item one, I need the position; item two, I’m annoyed that someone would try to hurt you by means of the photographs; item three, I would like us to be friends, with no hard feelings between us.”

Hart clutched the empty glass until the facets pressed into his fingers. Her eyes were enormous, blue like delphiniums in the sunshine.

Friends, no hard feelings.

She held out a salve, with a smile, offering peace. She knew more about him than anyone else in the world, including his brothers, and she’d just said she was sorry for him. Here he was, then, the beast in the tower with the princess petting his head.

“As for the photographs.” Eleanor’s voice cut through his drink-soaked brain. “Who knew about them besides you and Mrs. Palmer? I still think I ought to go to the house in High Holborn and look about, or talk to some of the ladies who used to live there—”

“No, you will bloody well leave it alone!”

Eleanor looked at him, her lips parted, surprise in her eyes, but no fear. Eleanor had never feared him, something that had amazed and intrigued the young Hart. The entire world thought him dangerous, unpredictable, terrifying, but not Eleanor Ramsay.

Now she was ripping the bandages off his wounds, making the blood flow anew, when Hart didn’t want to feel anything ever again.

“Eleanor, why are you in here, making me talk about all this? Making me think about it?” And he was too drunk to stop the whirling memories.

“Oh, dear.” She took a step toward him. “Hart, I am sorry.”

Eleanor reached for his hand. Hart felt the air between her fingers and his warm, as though they touched before the contact. Anticipation. He needed her touch.

Eleanor stopped the movement and let her hand fall, and something inside him screamed.

His idea that he could coolly court her again was insane. Hart could never be cool with her, never.

Eleanor said nothing. One red gold curl drooped over her forehead, the only strand not tightly braided in place.

Hart wanted to thread his fingers through her hair and pull it loose, feel it tumbling over his hands. He’d scoop her to him and stop her words with kisses. Not tender, sweet kisses but needy, demanding ones.

He needed to taste her, to find her fire, to not let her leave this room tonight. He wanted to loosen the prim bodice and scrape his teeth across her bare shoulder, wanted to leave his mark on her white throat.

He imagined the salt scent of her skin, her pleasant moan as he licked her, the dark jolt in his heart as she put her hands up to protest.

If he kissed her, he’d make her stay, have her bodice crumpled around her waist, her corset unlaced. He’d touch her in slow strokes, hands on her body, relearning her heat.

He’d held back with her when they’d been engaged, but Hart knew that if took her this night, he’d not hold back. He was drunk, frustrated, and in deep pain. He’d teach her things that would shock her, and he’d not let her go until she’d done them back to him.

His need tightened like a net around him, a need he’d not felt in years. His wild sexual yearnings had vanished into the vast emptiness that was Hart Mackenzie, or so he’d believed. That need snaked through him now and mocked his self-control.

The yearnings didn’t go away, he realized. They only went dormant. Until tonight when they were kicked into roaring by black-lashed eyes and a curl against a sweetly freckled forehead.

“Get out,” Hart said in a harsh voice.

Eleanor’s red lips popped open. “What?”

“I said, get out!”

If she stayed, Hart wouldn’t be able to stop himself. He was too drunk for control, and God only knew what he’d do to her.

“Gracious, Hart, you have turned hard.”

She didn’t understand how hard. Picturing himself pinning Eleanor on the bed, holding her by her wrists drawn over her head, feeling her soft breath while she moaned in pleasure—had him hard as granite.

“Get out, and leave me alone.”

Eleanor didn’t move.

Hart snarled, turned, and hurled his crystal goblet into the fireplace. Glass shattered and leftover droplets of whiskey sprayed, the fire catching them and bursting into tiny blue flames.

Hart heard Eleanor’s swift footsteps behind him, felt the draft as the door was flung open, heard the click of her heels in the gallery. Running. Away from him.

Thank God.

Hart let out his breath, closed the door, and turned the key in the lock. He moved back to the decanter and poured another large measure of whiskey into a clean glass. His hands were shaking so he could barely raise the glass to his lips to drink.

Hart opened his eyes to sunshine pounding through the window and a sound in his head like a saw scraping granite.

He was facedown on the bed, still in shirt and kilt, a whiskey glass an inch from his outstretched hand. The last swallow had spilled from it, leaving a sharp-smelling spot on his coverlet.

Hart’s mouth felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton, and his eyes weren’t focusing. He made the supreme effort of raising his head, and discovered that the sawing sound came from his valet, a young smooth-mannered Frenchman he’d hired when he’d promoted Wilfred, stropping a razor over a steaming bowl of water.

“What the devil time is it?” Hart managed to croak.

“Ten o’clock in the morning, Your Grace.” Marcel prided himself on speaking English with no trace of accent. “The young lady and her father are packed and ready. They’re downstairs waiting for the carriage to take them to the station.”