The Duke’s Perfect Wife

Chapter 4

Half of Hart’s staff looked utterly shocked to see His Grace charge down the stairs in kilt and open shirt, his face dark with beard and his eyes bloodshot.

They must not know him well, Eleanor thought. Hart and his bachelor brothers used to get falling-down drunk in this house, sleeping wherever they dropped. The servants either became used to it or found a calmer place of employment.

The servants who’d been with him a long time barely glanced at Hart, going on about their business without breaking stride. They were the ones who’d become inured to working for Mackenzies.

Hart pushed past Eleanor, his clothes smelling of stale smoke and whiskey. His hair was a mess, his throat damp with sweat. He turned in the foyer and slammed his hands to either side of the door frame, blocking Eleanor’s way out.

Eleanor had seen Hart this disheveled and hung over after a night of revelry before, but in the past, he’d maintained his wicked sense of humor, his charm, no matter how rotten he felt. Not this time. She remembered the emptiness she’d seen in him last night, no trace of the sinfully smiling Mackenzie who’d chased twenty-year-old Eleanor. That man had gone.

No. He was still in there. Somewhere.

Lord Ramsay said from behind Eleanor, “Eleanor has decided we should return to Scotland.”

The new, cold Hart fixed his gaze on Eleanor. “To Scotland? What for?”

Eleanor simply looked at him. The splintering of glass, the Get out! still rang in her ears. The words had cut her, not frightened her. Hart had been working through pain, and the whiskey had sharpened it.

Please, something in his eyes whispered to her now. Please, don’t go.

“I asked you, why?” Hart repeated.

“She hasn’t given a reason,” Lord Ramsay answered. “But you know how Eleanor is when she is determined.”

“Forbid her,” Hart said, words clipped.

Her father chuckled. “Forbid? Eleanor? The words do not belong in the same sentence.”

It hung there. Hart’s muscles tightened as he held on to the door frame. Eleanor remained ramrod straight, looking into the hazel eyes that were now red-rimmed and haggard.

He will never ask, she realized. Hart Mackenzie commands. He does not beg. He has no idea how to.

And there they always battled. Eleanor was not meek and obedient, and Hart meant to dominate every person in his path.

“Sparks,” Eleanor said.

Heat flared in Hart’s eyes. Hunger and anger.

They would have stood there all day, Hart and Eleanor facing each other, except that a large carriage rattled up to the front door. Franklin the footman, in his post outside, said something in greeting to the guest who stepped down from the carriage. Hart didn’t move.

He was still standing there, facing Eleanor in tableau, when his youngest brother, Ian Mackenzie, ran into the back of him.

Hart jerked around, and Ian stopped in impatience. “Hart, you are blocking the way.”

“Oh, hello, Ian,” Eleanor said around Hart. “How lovely to see you. Have you brought Beth with you?”

Ian prodded Hart’s shoulder with a large hand in a leather glove. “Move.”

Hart pushed away from the door frame. “Ian, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at Kilmorgan.”

Ian came all the way in, swept a gaze over Eleanor, ignored Hart, and focused his whiskey-colored eyes on a point between Eleanor and Lord Ramsay.

“Beth told me to send her love,” he said in his quick monotone. “You’ll see her at Cameron’s house when we go to Berkshire. Franklin, take the valises upstairs to my room.”

Eleanor could feel the fury rolling off Hart, but he would not shout at her with Ian standing between them.

Trust Ian to diffuse a situation, she thought. Ian might not understand what was going on, might not be able to sense the emotional strain of those around him, but he had an uncanny knack for controlling any room he walked into. He did it even better than Hart did.

Earl Ramsay was another who could diffuse tension. “So glad to see you, Ian. I’d be interested to hear what you have to say about some Ming dynasty pottery I’ve found. I’m a bit stuck on the markings—can’t make them out. I’m a botanist, a naturalist, and a historian, not a linguist.”

“You read thirteen languages, Father,” Eleanor said, never taking her gaze from Hart.

“Yes, but I’m more of a generalist. Never learned some of the specifics of the ancient languages, especially the Asian ones.”

“But we are going to Scotland,” Eleanor said. “On the moment. Remember?”

Ian started for the staircase. “No, you will stay here in London until we journey to Berkshire. All of us. We go every year.”

Hart, breathing hard, watched his brother go up. “This year is different, Ian. I’m trying to force an election.”

“Do it from Berkshire,” Ian said, and then he was gone.

“It sounds the best arrangement,” Alec Ramsay said with his usual cheerfulness. “Franklin, take our baggage back upstairs as well, there’s a good fellow.”

Franklin murmured, “Yes, your lordship,” scooped up as many bags as his young arms could carry, and hurried up the stairs.

“My lady?” One of the housemaids came in from the vestibule, looking calm, as though Eleanor and Hart hadn’t started a row in the middle of the front hall. “Letter’s come for you. Delivery boy gave it to me.”

Eleanor thanked her and took it, making herself not snatch it out of the maid’s hand. Aware of Hart’s breath on her cheek, Eleanor turned over the envelope.

For Lady Eleanor Ramsay, staying at number 8, Grosvenor Square. Same handwriting, same paper.

Eleanor burst past Hart and through the vestibule before he could stop her, and ran outside into a cold wind. She looked frantically up and down the street for a sign of the delivery boy, but he had already disappeared into the traffic of the morning.

Eleanor sought Ian an hour later and found him in Hart’s study. Hart had left the house already, bellowing at Marcel to make him decent before he’d banged out to his club or to Whitehall, or wherever he’d gone. Hart never bothered telling anybody.

Ian sat at the desk, writing, and did not look up as Eleanor entered. His large frame filled the chair, his kilt flowing over his big legs. Across the room, his valet, Curry, stretched across a divan, snoring.

Ian did not look up when Eleanor approached the desk. His pen went on moving, swiftly, evenly, ceaselessly. Eleanor saw as she reached him that he wrote not words, but strings of numbers in long columns. He’d already covered two sheets with these numbers, and as Eleanor watched, Ian finished a third paper and started a fourth.

“Ian,” Eleanor said. “I beg pardon for interrupting…”

Ian continued to write, his lips moving as his hand roved down the page.

“Ian?”

Curry yawned, moved his arm from over his eyes, and sat up. “Give up, yer ladyship. When ’e starts with the numbers, there’s no talking to ’im until ’e’s finished. Fibrichi’s sequences or something.”

“Fibonacci numbers,” Ian corrected him without looking up. “That is a recurrence sequence, and I do those in my head. This is not one.”

Eleanor pulled a straight-backed chair to the desk. “Ian, I very much need to ask you a favor.”

Ian wrote more numbers, pen moving steadily, without pause. “Beth isn’t here.”

“I know that. She couldn’t help me with this anyway. I need the favor from you.”

Ian glanced up, brows drawing together. “I am writing Beth a letter, because she isn’t here.” He spoke carefully, a man explaining the obvious to those too slow to keep up with him. “I’m telling her I arrived safely and that my brother is still an ass.”

Eleanor hid her smile at the last statement and touched the paper. “A letter? But this is all numbers.”

“I know.”

Ian redipped his pen, bent his head, and went back to writing. Eleanor waited, hoping he’d finish, look up again, and explain, but he did not.

Curry cleared his throat. “Beggin’ your pardon, your ladyship. When ’e’s at it like that, you’ll not get much more from ’im.”

Ian didn’t stop writing. “Shut it, Curry.”

Curry chuckled. “Except for that.”

Eleanor drew one of the finished pages to her. Ian had written the numbers in an even, careful hand, each two and five and six formed in an identical manner to all the other twos and fives and sixes, the rows marching in exactitude down the page.

“How will Beth know what the numbers mean?” Eleanor asked.

“Don’t get the pages out of order,” Ian said without looking up. “She has the key to decipher it at the other end.”

Eleanor slid the paper back where she found it. “But why are you writing to her in code? No one will read these letters but you and Beth, surely.”

Ian gave Eleanor a swift glance, his eyes a flash of gold. His lips twitched into one of his rare smiles, which vanished as he bent over the numbers again. “Beth likes it.”

The smile, the look, tugged at Eleanor’s heart. Even in the fleeting glance, she’d seen great love in Ian’s eyes, his determination to finish this letter and send it to Beth so she could enjoy decoding it. A way to tell her sweet nothings that no one else could understand. Private thoughts, shared between husband and wife.

Eleanor thought back to the day she’d first met Ian, when Hart had taken her to the asylum to see him. She’d found there a scared, lonely boy, arms and legs too large for his body, Ian enraged and frustrated because he could not make the world understand him.

Hart had been amazed that Ian had actually talked to Eleanor, had even let her slide an arm around his shoulders—briefly. Unheard of, because Ian hated to be touched.

That terrified youth was a far cry from the quiet man who sat here composing letters for his wife’s delight. This Ian could meet Eleanor’s eyes, if only for a moment, could let Eleanor in on a secret and smile about it. The change in him, the deep well of happiness he’d tapped, made her heart swell.

She also remembered the time that she and Hart had worked out a secret code between themselves. Nothing as elaborate as Ian’s number sequences, but a way for Hart to send Eleanor a message when he would be too busy to meet her that day. In whatever city they happened to be in, he’d leave a hothouse flower—usually a rose—lying in the corner of a garden where it would not be seen by the casual passerby. In London, it would be in Hyde Park at a certain crossing of paths, or in the garden in the middle of Grosvenor Square, under a tree nearest the center of it—Hart had made certain Eleanor had been given a key to the gardens very early in their courtship. In Edinburgh, he left them at their meeting spot in Holyrood Park.

Hart could have sent a note, of course, when he had to back out of an appointment with her, but he said he liked knowing she’d walk by their meeting spot and see the signal that he was thinking of her. Eleanor realized, of course, that he must have sent someone, an errand boy perhaps, to leave the rose for her, but it had never failed to melt her heart. She’d pick up the flower and take it home, keeping it to remind her of him until they met again.

The charmer, Eleanor thought. A way to disarm my anger whenever he had to put business first. The little flower with its hidden meaning had warmed her heart more than any apologetic note could have done, and he’d known that.

Even nowadays, the rare times she found herself in Edinburgh or London, she’d glance to that spot in Hyde Park or Holyrood, still looking for the sign. The pang when she did not see it always surprised her.

Eleanor sat for a time, letting the lump in her throat work out, while Ian went on writing, oblivious to her thoughts.

“I don’t see your key,” Eleanor said when she could speak again. “How do you know what numbers to write down?”

Ian shrugged. “I remember.”

Curry chuckled again. “Don’t look so amazed, your ladyship. ’E’s got a mind like a gearbox, and ’e knows every click it makes. It’s right frightening sometimes.”

“I can hear you, Curry,” Ian said, pen moving.

“Aye, and you know I don’t tell lies about you. Best just ask ’im, yer ladyship. ’E’ll be here awhile.”

Eleanor yielded to Curry’s wisdom. “The thing is, Ian, I want you to help me do something, and I don’t want you to tell Hart. I must ask that you promise to keep it from him. Will you?”

Ian said nothing, his pen scratching in the stillness.

“I’ll tell ’im to come ask you what you need,” Curry said. “When ’e’s come out of it.”

Eleanor rose. “Thank you, Curry. But not a word to His Grace, please. Hart can be… well, you know how he can be.”

Curry got himself to his feet and straightened his shirt. He cleared his throat. “A bit of advice, your ladyship,” he said. “Begging your pardon, and your pardon too, your lordship.” He turned his full gaze on Eleanor. “’Is Grace is a ’ard man, and ’e gets ’arder by the year. If ’e gets the prime minister– ship, the victory will make ’im like steel. I don’t think anyone will soften ’im then, not even you, your ladyship.”

Curry’s dark eyes held truth. He was not a finely trained servant from an agency, but a pickpocket Cameron had rescued from the streets years ago. Curry got away with his rudeness and outspokenness because he looked after Ian with as much tenderness as a father would a son. The brothers believed that Ian had survived the asylum because Cameron had sent Curry to him.

Ian finally set down his pen. “Curry doesn’t want to lose forty guineas.”

Eleanor stared at him. “Forty guineas?”

Curry turned brick red and didn’t answer. Ian said, “The wager that Hart will marry you. We made it at Ascot in June. Curry wagered forty guineas that you will say no. Ainsley wagered twenty on yes, and I wagered thirty. Mac said he bet thirty-five that you’d plant your heel in his backside. Daniel said…”

“Stop!” Eleanor’s hands went up. “Are you telling me, Ian Mackenzie, that there’s a wager going around about whether I will marry Hart?”

“Sorry, your ladyship,” Curry said. “You wasn’t supposed to know.” He shot Ian a glare.

Eleanor curled her hands to fists. “Is Hart in on this?”

“’Is Grace declined to participate,” Curry said. “So I’m told. I wasn’t there at the original wager. I came in after, like, when it went ’round the servants. But what I heard was that ’Is Grace mentioned the possibility of marrying, and your name came up.”

Eleanor lifted her chin, her heart pounding. “Absolute nonsense. What was between me and Hart was long ago. Finished.”

Curry looked embarrassed but not ashamed. Sorry he’s been caught, but not sorry he made the wager. “As you say, your ladyship.”

Eleanor made herself march to the door. “Please send word when you’re finished, Ian, and we’ll talk then.”

Ian had gone back to writing. Whether he’d heard Eleanor, she couldn’t be certain.

Curry made a perfect butler’s bow to her. “I’ll tell ’im, your ladyship. Leave it to me.”

“Thank you, Curry. And I will see to it that you win your wager.” With another glare at the small man, Eleanor lifted her chin, swept out of the room, and closed the door with a decided click.

Blast you, Hart Mackenzie, Eleanor thought as she strode down the Strand, the maid assigned to look after her hurrying in her wake. Starting a wager that you’ll marry me. She gathered from Curry’s explanation that Hart had thrown out the announcement like a fizzing bomb and stood back to watch what happened. That would be just like him.

She stopped and looked into a shopwindow, trying to catch her breath. She’d hopped out of the landau near St. Martin’s Lane, to the maid’s dismay, hoping a brisk walk would soothe her temper. It hadn’t quite worked.

As she looked at the secondhand clocks displayed, Curry’s exact words came back to her—’Is Grace mentioned the possibility of marrying, and your name came up.

The Mackenzie brothers had been quite keen that Eleanor should marry Hart when Hart first courted her, had rejoiced when Eleanor had accepted him. They’d been vastly sorry when Hart and Eleanor had parted, but Mac and Cam had told her, privately, that though they were unhappy about her decision, they completely understood. Hart was an arrogant bully and an idiot, and Eleanor was an angel for putting up with him as long as she had.

Perhaps the brothers had taken Hart’s suggestion that it was time he married again to mean he’d set his sights on Eleanor. Wishful thinking and high hopes. Hart, she was certain, had never mentioned a name. He’d have been too careful for that.

She would have to quiz Isabella closely about it. Isabella had much to answer for over this wager, and so did Ainsley, Cameron’s wife. Ainsley was one of Eleanor’s oldest friends, but neither she nor Isabella had bothered to mention this family betting pool to Eleanor.

Eleanor walked on, her anger somewhat lessened but not quite. She decided to push her troubling thoughts aside and focus on her errand at hand.

She’d decided to follow up on her idea that the photographs might have been found in a shop. People sold off photographs all the time to collectors or photography enthusiasts either privately or through shops dedicated to photos or photographic equipment. The Strand had several such places. Eleanor decided it worth her while to find out, subtly, whether any of them had acquired a collection of photographs of Hart Mackenzie in his altogether, and if so, to whom they’d sold them on to.

The first two shops Eleanor entered turned up nothing, though she found a landscape photograph she bought for a tuppence to put in a little frame for her desk.

A bell tinkled as Eleanor pushed open the door of the third shop, which was dusty and dim. Her maid, a young Scotswoman called Maigdlin, plopped herself down on a chair just inside the door, sighing in relief. She was a bit plump and disapproved of tramping through streets when there was a perfectly good landau handy.

Eleanor seemed to be the shop’s only customer. The sign on the window announced that the proprietor specialized in photographs and other ephemera of actors and famous aristocrats. Boxes upon boxes stood on long tables, and Eleanor started patiently looking through them.

Stage actors were popular here, with entire boxes devoted to Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry. Photographs of Wild West traveling shows livened up one corner, with Buffalo Bill Cody and a string of dancing girls and trick ropers filling one box, another holding American Indians of various tribes in exotic costume.

Eleanor found pictures of prominent Englishmen on a table against the far wall—an old one of the Duke of Wellington with his characteristic nose, quite a few of Mr. Gladstone and the now-deceased Benjamin Disraeli. Pictures of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort were popular, along with photographs of the Princess Royal, the Prince of Wales, and other members of the queen’s large family. Another box was filled with photographs from The Great Exhibition.

Eleanor found several of Hart Mackenzie, Duke of Kilmorgan, but they were formal portraits. One was fairly recent—Hart standing tall in full Scottish dress, old Ben at his feet. One was a picture of him from the chest up, his broad shoulders filling the frame. The last was of Hart seated regally on a chair, his arm resting on the table beside him. He focused his eagle stare on the camera, eyes catching anyone who looked at him.

“Duke of Kilmorgan, miss? He’s very popular with our customers.”

Eleanor jumped as a tall, narrow-limbed young man with a pointed face and dark eyes looked at the photographs in her hand. She couldn’t help noticing that the angle of his glance took in the curve of her bodice and lingered there.

Eleanor took a step to the side. “You don’t have many of him.”

“Because his photographs sell as quick as we get them in. The young ladies, they find him handsome.”

Of course they did. How could they not? Even the stiff poses didn’t mar the attractiveness of Hart Mackenzie.

“I have others if you want to see them.” The clerk winked. “More discreet photographs, as they say. In the French style.”

Eleanor’s heart beat faster. The clerk was a bit repulsive, but Eleanor could not afford not to check what he had. She pulled the veil of her hat over her eyes and tried to appear shy. “Perhaps I ought to have a look at them.”

“In the back.” The clerk gestured toward a curtained doorway. “This way, miss.”

Eleanor looked at the heavy velvet draperies that blocked all view of the back room. “Can you not bring the photographs out to me?”

“Sorry, miss. Shopkeeper would have my head. He sells the things, but they stay in the back.”

He kept his arm out, pointing at the curtain. Eleanor drew a breath. She needed to know. “Very well. Lead on.”

The shopkeeper grinned, charged over to the doorway, and held the curtain up for her. Eleanor made a staying gesture to the maid and ducked into the back room, trying not to sneeze at the dust when the clerk let the drape fall.

The dim room looked innocuous—nothing more than a jumble of tables and boxes and much dust. Eleanor tried, and failed, to stop another sneeze.

“Sorry, miss. Here we are.”

The clerk pulled a pasteboard box out from the bottom of a haphazard stack and opened the lid. Inside lay a cluster of photographs, all of Hart, all showing much skin. Eleanor shook the box, scattering the photographs across its bottom and counted about a dozen of them.

Eleanor looked up and found the clerk standing an inch from her. He was breathing hard, his face perspiring.

“Are there any more?” she asked him in a businesslike tone.

“No, miss, that’s all.”

“Did you have more before? I mean, has someone else bought any others?”

The clerk shrugged. “Don’t think so. Shopkeeper bought these a while ago.”

“Who sold them to him?” Eleanor tried to keep the excitement from her voice, not wanting to arouse his suspicions. Or arouse anything else for that matter.

“Don’t know. I wasn’t here then.”

Of course not. That would have been too helpful.

Why no one had found or purchased these since their arrival was explained by the chaos of the room. The photographs would have been difficult to chance upon in this jumble, and if the proprietor refused to bring them to the front, a person would have to ask for them specifically.

“I’ll take them all,” Eleanor said. “These and the three I found in front. How much?”

“A guinea for the lot.”

Her eyes widened. “A guinea?”

“Told you, His Grace of Kilmorgan is popular. Now if I could find some of the Prince of Wales in his altogether, I could fund my retirement.” He chuckled.

“Very well. A guinea.” Hart had already started giving her wages for typing, but Hart could pay her back for this.

The clerk reached for the box. “I’ll just wrap that up for you.”

Eleanor reluctantly put the box into his hands and stood by while he folded brown paper around it and secured it with twine. She took the package he handed her and headed for the curtain, but the clerk stepped in front of her.

“The shop shuts for tea, miss.” His gaze roved down her primly buttoned bodice. “Perhaps you could stay and share it with me. We could look at more photographs together.”

Most decidedly not. Eleanor gave him a sunny smile. “A kind offer, but, no. I have many errands to attend to.”

He put his arm across the curtained door. “Think about it, miss.”

The clerk’s arm was thin, but Eleanor sensed a wiry strength in this young man. She was highly aware that only she and Maigdlin were in the shop, aware that she’d voluntarily gone alone into the back room with him. If Eleanor screamed for help, passersby were as likely to condemn her as to help her.

But for years, Eleanor had dealt with the inappropriate advances of gentlemen who thought her fair game. After all, she’d been engaged to the notorious Hart Mackenzie and afterward had retreated home to look after her father, never to marry anyone else. Had Mackenzie ruined her? Not a few people speculated on this. On occasion, a gentleman would do his best to find out.

Eleanor smiled up at the clerk, putting on her best innocent expression. He started to bend to her, lips puckered in a ridiculous way. He even closed his eyes, the silly man.

Eleanor ducked under his rather musty-smelling arm, spun herself out the doorway, and slammed the heavy velvet drape back into him. The clerk shouted and fought the dusty folds. By the time he’d untangled himself, Eleanor had slapped her coins onto the counter and was heading out the front door.

“Come along, Maigdlin,” she said as she hurried to the street. “We’ll go and have some tea.”

“My name’s Mary, my lady,” the maid said, panting behind her. “Housekeeper should have told you.”

Eleanor set a brisk pace west along the Strand. “No, it isn’t, Maigdlin Harper. I know your mother.”

“But Mrs. Mayhew says I should go by Mary. So the English can pronounce it.”

“Absolute nonsense. Your name is your name, and I’m not English. I’ll speak to Mrs. Mayhew.”

The maid’s disapproving look softened. “Yes, my lady.”

“Now, let us find some tea and sandwiches. And heaps of seedcake. His Grace will pay for it all, and I intend to enjoy myself.”

The house in High Holborn looked the same as it had the night Angelina Palmer had died, the night Hart had walked out of it forever.

The house was to let, but none had taken it this Season, perhaps because it lay too far from fashionable quarters for the rent Hart was asking. Or maybe he’d set it so high because he truly did not want anyone here. The house should sit empty until its ghosts died.

Hart told his coachman to return for him in an hour. The town coach rumbled away, and Hart opened the front door with his key.

Silence met him. And emptiness. The downstairs rooms had been cleared of furniture, save for a stray piece or two. Dust hung in the air, the cold heavy.

He’d not wanted to come here. But Eleanor’s assertion that a clue to the photographs might be found in the house made sense. Hart did not trust anyone in his employ enough to confide in them about the photographs, and he certainly didn’t want Eleanor there, so he’d come himself.

As he climbed the staircase he’d lightly run up as a younger man, he fancied he heard whispers of laughter, the trickle of whiskey, deep voices of his male friends, the high-pitched chatter of ladies.

The house had at first been a nest for Angelina Palmer, when Hart had been proud to be only twenty and yet to have caught such a ladybird. The house had then become his refuge. Here, Hart had been master, his brutal father far from it. The old duke hadn’t even known of the existence of the place.

The house had also become a point of contact during Hart’s rising political career. Hart had hosted gatherings here in which alliances had been formed and plans made, which resulted in Hart now being at the head of his coalition party. Here, Hart had celebrated his first election to Commons at the tender age of twenty-two, he unwilling to wait until he inherited his seat in the Lords to start telling Parliament what to do.

Here, also, Angelina Palmer had lived to please Hart. When Hart’s friends had gone, and he and Mrs. Palmer were alone, Hart had explored the darker side of his needs. He’d been unafraid to experiment, and Angelina had been unafraid to let him.

Angelina at first had assumed that Hart, still at university, would be too young and inexperienced to prevent her from straying with whatever gentleman she wished. But when Hart discovered her transgressions, Angelina for the first time had seen Hart change from laughing, devilish rogue to the hard, controlling man he would become. Hart had looked her in the eye and said, “You are with me, and no other, whether I see you every night or once a year. If you cannot obey that simple stricture, then you will go, and I will advertise the vacancy of your position.”

He remembered Angelina’s reaction—irritation, then surprise, then shock when she realized he meant it. She’d humbled herself, begged his forgiveness, and Hart had taken his time about granting it. Angelina might be the older of the pair, but Hart held the power. Angelina was never to forget that.

Later, when Angelina had sensed that Hart was growing bored and restless, she’d brought in other ladies to keep him entertained. Anything, Hart realized now, to prevent him from leaving her.

Hart reached the first floor of the house, fingers skimming the banisters. The day Angelina had ruined his betrothal to Eleanor, Hart had quit the house and never lived there again. He’d sold it to Angelina—through his man of business—telling her to do whatever she liked with the place.

Angelina had turned it into an exclusive bawdy house that accepted only the best clientele, and had done very well out of it. Hart had returned for the first time five years later, right after Sarah’s death, seeking refuge from his grief.

Hart walked down the hall toward the bedroom where one of Angelina’s girls had died, his footsteps reluctant. Behind that door, he’d found Ian asleep and smeared with the young woman’s blood. He remembered his dry-mouthed terror, his fear that Ian had committed murder. Hart had done everything in his power to protect Ian from the police, but he’d let his deep-seated fear blind him for years as to what really had happened in that bedroom.

He shouldn’t have come here. The house held too many memories.

Hart opened the door to the bedroom, and stopped.

Ian Mackenzie stood in the middle of the carpet, gazing up at the ceiling, which was painted with nymphs and cavorting gods. A mirror hung on the ceiling, right over the place the bed used to be.

Ian stared up into the mirror, studying his own reflection. He must have heard Hart come in, because he said, “I hate this room.”

“Then why the devil are you standing in it?” Hart asked.

Ian didn’t answer directly, but then, Ian never did. “She hurt my Beth.”

Hart walked into the room and dared put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. He remembered finding Angelina with Beth, Beth barely alive. Angelina, dying, had told Hart what she’d done, and that she’d done it all for Hart. The declaration still left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“I am sorry, Ian,” Hart said. “You know I am.”

Eye contact was still a bit difficult for Ian with anyone but Beth, but Ian took his gaze from the mirror and directed it at Hart. Hart saw in Ian’s eyes remembered fear, worry, and anguish. They’d almost lost Beth that night.

Hart squeezed Ian’s shoulder. “But Beth’s all right now. She’s at your house in Scotland, safe and sound. With your son and baby daughter.” Isabella Elizabeth Mackenzie had been born late last summer. They called her Belle.

Ian ducked out from under Hart’s hand. “Jamie walks everywhere now. And he talks. He knows so many words. He’s nothing like me.” His voice rang with pride.

“Why aren’t you in Scotland with your beloved wife and children, then?” Hart asked.

Ian’s gaze drifted to the ceiling again. “Beth thought I should come down.”

“Why? Because Eleanor was here?”

“Yes.”

Dear God, this family. “I wager Mac rushed out and sent Beth a wire as soon as Eleanor turned up,” Hart said.

Ian didn’t answer, but Hart knew the truth of it.

“But why have you come here, today?” Hart went on. “To this house, I mean?” Ian was sometimes pulled to places that had frightened or upset him, such as his father’s private study at Kilmorgan, where he’d witnessed their father kill their mother in a fit of rage. After Ian’s release from the asylum, Hart had found him in that room many times, Ian sitting huddled behind the desk where he’d hidden that fateful day.

Ian kept his gaze on the mirror as though it fascinated him. Hart also remembered that, because Ian had trouble with lies, he’d learned to be very good at simply not answering questions.

Oh, bloody hell. “Ian,” Hart said, his rage boiling up with nightmare force. “Tell me you didn’t bring her here.”

Ian finally looked away from the mirror, but he never looked at Hart. He wandered across the room to the window and peered out at the fog, his back firmly to his brother.

Hart swung away and strode into the hall. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Eleanor!”