The Duke’s Perfect Wife

Chapter 20

Eleanor.

Hart swam out of dreams to a gentle rocking. He opened his eyes, his head still pounding—sleep hadn’t helped.

He stared for a moment at the board ceiling a few inches above his eyes before he realized that he lay on a pallet with a quilt over him. A threadbare, dirty quilt, but a quilt nonetheless.

The space that held the pallet was narrow, cramped, and filled with oars, ropes, and a tangled net. A crawl space, really, one someone had decided to tuck him into as well.

Hart ran his hand over his face, feeling the scratch of a deep beard. How long had he lain here? One day? Two?

Eleanor. Ian.

He tried to sit up in alarm, and cracked his head on the low beam above his head. He dropped back to the thin pillow, head spinning again.

Hart made himself lie still. He needed to find out where he was, what had happened, how much time had passed, and what he could do. And most of all, he needed to get rid of this be-damned headache.

Taking stock, Hart realized that his coat was gone and so were his waistcoat and shirt. He could feel the warm folds of his kilt around his legs, but the only thing covering his torso was the thin linen shirt he wore under his garments. He wriggled his toes and found woolen socks, boots gone.

Whoever had robbed him were fools. The handspun wool of the kilt was more valuable than the cashmere coat and lawn shirt put together. Tartans, at least for his branch of the Mackenzie clan, were spun in the mountains near Kilmorgan by a family who allowed no one else to get their hands on the wool, not even other Mackenzies. A true Mackenzie tartan was a rare and valuable thing.

At this moment, though, if shrewish old Teasag Mackenzie had crawled in here, scolding Hart for getting her plaid dirty, Hart would kiss her.

He carefully got himself off the pallet and crawled toward the square of light at the wider end of the space. He looked out at the rain, a narrow, rocking boat, and the River Thames.

The light was gray, foggy, like a film over a window. Through it he saw the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the line of buildings to its right that was the city, and to its left, the Strand and the Temples. The river surrounded the boat, and the south bank was shrouded in mist.

Eleanor was out there in that city somewhere. Safe at home in Grosvenor Square? Or lying hurt, or dead? He had to know. He had to leave. He had to find her.

A child sat on the gunwale of the boat, picking through a net. Not mending it, Hart saw after a moment, but pulling things out of it. The lad would study what he’d found and either toss it behind him on the boat or throw it back into the river.

Hart moved, and stopped. His head still hurt like fury, and he couldn’t suppress a groan.

The lad saw him, tossed down the net, and scampered to the front of the boat and the cabin there. He returned in a moment with a man in a long coat and boots, with a lined face covered by a two-day beard.

The man casually pulled back his coat to show Hart a foot-long knife sheathed in his belt. The lad went back to the net, unconcerned.

“Awake are ye?”

Hart remembered the voice from his underground tomb. “You kicked the hell out of me,” Hart said. “Bastard.”

The man shrugged. “Easier to move you if you were out. Water was coming back.”

“That, and I offered you money.”

Another shrug. “Didn’t hurt. I could see you were rich, in spite of you not having any money on you. Me wife thinks you have plenty more at home.”

Home. I need to get there.

“You think I’ll pay you after you stripped me and sold my clothes?” Hart asked in a casual tone.

“Clothes were in tatters. Got a couple shillings for them from the rag and bone man. That pays for your passage on the boat. For saving your life, I’ll ask a bit more.”

Hart pulled himself all the way out of the hole. That effort took his strength, and he sat down hard on a chest shoved against the cabin’s outer wall. “You have amazing compassion.” Hart rubbed his temples. “Do you also have water? Or better still, coffee?”

“The wife is brewing some now. You let her have a look at that head of yours, then you’ll tell us all about who you are and where you want to be dropped off.”

Home. Home. Eleanor. But caution stopped his tongue. The bomb in Euston station had been planted when someone had known he would be there, meeting his wife. Ian had said that the man who’d set the bomb had died with it, but there would be others. The attempt coming after Darragh’s failure at Kilmorgan could mean more Fenians Inspector Fellows had missed, or another group deciding the Fenians had a good idea. If whoever it was discovered that the bomb had failed to kill Hart, they’d try again, or perhaps go after his family to flush Hart out of hiding. That could not happen. He would not let it.

The bank of the Thames was tantalizingly close. Hart rubbed his whiskered face again as he looked at it. His chances of reaching it if he swam for it, especially with the dent in his head, weren’t good. Plus, he could not be sure that the denizens who trolled the water’s edge for valuable flotsam wouldn’t simply shove a knife through his ribs as he lay recovering from the swim. His rescuer might be eager to stick him too. Men who ran up and down the river and combed the tunnels under London for treasure were a law unto themselves, standing firm against those who tried to come between them and their livelihood. Hart needed to wait, to watch, to plan.

A look at the man’s unconcerned face as he disappeared into the forward cabin told Hart that his rescuer had no idea who he was—a wealthy man, that was all. Hart would need to make certain he never did find out.

Hart watched the child a little longer, then he reached down and picked up part of the net. He extracted a copper coin from the thin rope and tossed it to the boy’s growing heap. “You missed this.”

The boy snatched up the penny, peered at it, nodded, and let it drop. He’d collected coins, links of chains, a tin box, a necklace of shells, and a tin soldier. Hart picked up the soldier.

“Highland regiment,” he said, tossing it back down. He continued looking through the net, and the lad didn’t object.

“You’re a Scot?” the boy asked.

“Obviously, lad.” Hart played up his accent. “Who else would be lost in the sewers in a tartan?”

“Dad says they shouldn’t come down here if they don’t understand the streets of London.”

“I agree w’ ye.”

By the time Dad returned with a mug of coffee, a handkerchief over it to keep the rain out, Hart had added another shell, a ha’penny piece, and a broken earring to the boy’s pile.

The wife came out with him, a sturdy woman in a bulky sweater with black hair under a fisherman’s cap. She sat down with a bowl of water and a cloth and started dabbing Hart’s head.

It hurt, but his skull throbbed less now than it had underground. Hart gritted his teeth and got through it.

“Now, then,” the man said. “Who are you?”

Hart had decided what to tell them—exactly nothing. At least for now.

He exaggerated a flinch as the wife probed the wound at the base of his skull. “That’s th’ trouble,” he said in a careful voice. “I don’t remember.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t remember nothing?”

Hart shrugged. “It’s a blank. Perhaps I was robbed, hit on the head, and shoved down a shaft. You said I didn’t have money with me.”

“That be true.”

“Then that’s likely what happened.” Hart fixed his gaze on the man, telling him without words that it would be to his benefit not to question the story.

The man looked back at him for a long time, his hand on the hilt of his knife. Finally he nodded. “Aye,” the man said. “That’s what happened.”

The wife stopped dabbing. “But if he don’t remember who he is, how is he going to pay us?”

“He’ll remember, sooner or later.” The man took a pipe from his coat and shoved it into his mouth, showing missing teeth. “And the longer it takes, the more he pays.”

“But we ain’t got room,” the wife said in worry.

“We’ll manage.” The man took his pipe from his mouth and pointed the stem at Hart. “You stay, but you earn your keep. Don’t care if you’re a lord. Or a laird, I guess the Scottish call them.”

“Not the same thing,” Hart said. “A lord has been given a title by a monarch. A laird is a landholder. A caretaker of his people.”

“That so?” The man brought out a pouch of tobacco and stepped under the cabin’s eave to fill his pipe without rain dropping in it. “How do you remember that but not your name?”

Hart shrugged again. “It came to me. Maybe my name will too.”

The man slowly filled the pipe, then put the pipe into his mouth. He took out a box of matches, struck a match against the cabin wall, and touched the spurting flame to the bowl. He sucked and puffed, sucked and puffed until smoke rolled from the pipe, pungent against the smell of the river.

“Got another pipe somewhere,” the man said, seeing Hart’s gaze.

“Coffee is fine for now.” Hart took a sip of it. Very bitter, but thick enough to cut the haze in his head.

The man pulled out a dented flask, put a drop of brandy in his cup of coffee, and added some to Hart’s. “The name’s Reeve. The lad there is Lewis.”

Hart took another sip of coffee, fortified now with the brandy.

“I got something he can do,” Mrs. Reeve said to Hart. She pointed at the cabin. “Two buckets of night soil need emptying.”

Hart laid down the net. “Night soil.”

“Aye.” Mrs. Reeve’s dark blue eyes met his, daring him. Lewis didn’t register an expression. Reeve said nothing but looked on in amusement.

Earning his keep.

Hart let out his breath and got to his feet. He ducked into the cabin, removed the indicated buckets from the rear, and came back out with them. While Reeve watched with obvious enjoyment, the Duke of Kilmorgan, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the empire, trudged down the deck of the boat to empty buckets full of English shit.

The search for Hart Mackenzie, Duke of Kilmorgan, went on for a while longer, but the police, and the journalists with them, soon concluded that he was dead. He’d been left down in the tunnels, which the rain had washed clear. Sooner or later his body would turn up floating in the Thames.

Only Ian Mackenzie did not give up. He went out every morning at first light, often not returning until the wee hours of the morning. He’d eat in silence, with Beth watching him worriedly, sleep a few hours, and then go out again. When asked about his progress, Ian would repeat his mantra that he would find Hart, and nothing more.

David Fleming, Hart’s second-in-command, stepped in to lead the coalition party. Election campaigns went on, and even without Hart, the coalition had strength. Mr. Fleming was certain of a majority, the newspapers said. Unfortunate that the duke would miss the victory he’d spent years preparing for, but that was the way of the world.

The newspapers also reported that the duke’s wife staunchly refused to wear black until she had proof of her husband’s death. Brave, beautiful lady.

Eleanor also refused to stay home and wring her hands. Each day she walked through the park in the center of Grosvenor Square, the key to its gates in her pocket. She’d make for the tree nearest the center of the park where the curving walkways came together. Her heart fell every afternoon when she found no flower waiting for her in the appointed spot.

Her common sense told her that if Hart had been able to come to the little park and leave their signal that he was well, he’d have simply come home. But Eleanor looked, every morning. Every afternoon, she pulled on gloves and hat and rode to Hyde Park in Hart’s landau. She’d descend and stroll along the walks to the crossing paths in the middle, but again, she found nothing, no sign that Hart had been there.

She would find nothing, she knew. Hart might have forgotten all about the silly signal, in any case.

But she took comfort in the ritual, in the hope that the next time she walked to any of their agreed-upon places, she’d find Hart’s sign that he was all right. She clung to the hope. She needed it.

Meanwhile, the tragic death of the duke and the grief of his family moved to the back pages of the newspaper, while dire news about General Gordon and the Sudan took the front. The journalists didn’t care about Hart, Eleanor thought in disgust. They only wanted a juicy story.

The rest of the family decided to return to Kilmorgan, and asked that Eleanor come with them. Cameron was especially grim.

“Dad might have to be duke now,” Daniel whispered to Eleanor as they held a family conference in Hart’s drawing room. “He doesn’t want to be.”

“He won’t,” Eleanor said. “I’m going to have a baby.”

The room went silent. The Mackenzies stopped jabbering among themselves and turned eyes to her—green, dark blue, and shades of gold. They were all there—Cam and Ainsley, Mac and Isabella, Daniel and Beth. Only Ian was absent, on his ever-vigilant search for Hart.

“For God’s sake, tell me it’s a boy,” Cameron said. “Hart wouldn’t be that cruel, to disappear and not leave behind a boy.”

“Leave her be, Cam,” Ainsley said. “How can she possibly know?”

“I’m certain it is a boy,” Eleanor said. “I sense it. My father would say that was ridiculous, of course, but…”

She faltered. Eleanor had kept up her resolution that Hart had survived—he was so strong, how could he not? She’d kept it even knowing she hadn’t told him about the baby. She hadn’t been certain at Kilmorgan, but every day that passed brought more certainty, as did her sicknesses in the mornings, of late. Eleanor was never sick.

She’d been looking forward to telling him. She’d imagined Hart’s joy, his hope. He’d have Wilfred send the formal announcement to the newspapers, and Eleanor and Hart could celebrate privately…

I will not break down. I will not give up hope. If I give up, then that means he is truly gone.

Daniel, next to Eleanor on the sofa, heaved himself at her and enclosed her in a warm hug. “Ian will find him, and so will the tenacious Fellows. You’ll see.”

Eleanor fought back her tears. If one tear came, then a flood would.

Beth said, “It’s doubly important that you come with us to Scotland, El. We’ll keep Hart’s baby safe at Kilmorgan.”

“No.” Eleanor shook her head. “If he’s found, I want to be here, to go to him right away. He’ll need me.” And if he were found near to death, she’d never forgive herself if she weren’t there to say good-bye.

Cam and Mac watched her, they looking so like Hart and yet so different. Hart’s nephew, again similar and yet different, had left school in Edinburgh to hurry to help her. Their wives—her closest friends—knew what they’d feel were it their Mackenzie lost and gone. Eleanor’s heart swelled with the love of this family.

On the other hand, she would not let them herd her off to Scotland and seclude her. They ought to know her better than that, by now.

At last, they stopped trying to convince her, even Beth realizing it was useless.

Later, after the family had gone, Eleanor retreated to her bedchamber, retrieved her memory book from her drawer, and opened it to the photographs of Hart. She’d pasted the ones she’d taken at Kilmorgan onto the pages following the older ones.

Eleanor studied them all, first those of Hart young and such a devil, his body beautiful. In the photograph of him in his kilt, Hart laughed out of the picture, his hand out to stop the photographer.

She turned from that to the photographs she’d taken of him in his kilt at Kilmorgan. She traced the one of him holding his kilt over himself, hiding little. The next one was of him leaning, bare, against the wall, laughing.

The flash of vision came to her of Hart over her in the dark, his body against hers, whispering, I need you, El. I need you.

Eleanor’s resolution cracked, and she lay across the book and sobbed.

Eleanor loved him. She’d lost Hart, and she loved him so much.

She thought about how she’d found Hart at the tomb of his son, tracing the letters of the lad’s name. Remembered him with head bowed, his hand on the cold stone—proud, proud Hart—anguished that he hadn’t been strong enough to save little Graham.

Eleanor put her hand to her abdomen, where life had begun to stir. Her child. Hart’s son. Tears flowed faster.

She heard someone enter the room, but she couldn’t lift her head. Maigdlin, she thought, but the tread was wrong, as was the scent of cigars and wool.

The chair next to her creaked and then a broad hand touched her arm. Eleanor pried open her eyes to see Ian next to her, his hand unmoving. Ian, who rarely touched anyone but Beth.

Eleanor sat up and snatched up her handkerchief. Ian smelled of the outdoors, of coal smoke and rain. “I’m sorry, Ian. This is not me giving up hope.” She drew a long breath. “It’s me feeling sorry for myself.”

Ian didn’t answer. He was staring at the book, still open to the page with Hart naked, his kilt on the floor.

Face heating, Eleanor closed the book. “Those are…”

“The photographs Mrs. Palmer took of Hart. Good. She gave them to you.”

Eleanor sat back, her lips parting. Joanna had said that an unknown someone had sent the photographs to her with instructions to post them to Eleanor at intervals.

Not Hart. Ian.

“Ian Mackenzie,” she said.

Ian met her gaze for a fleeting moment, then studied the patterns on the cover of the memory book.

“You sent the photographs to the maid Joanna,” Eleanor said. “You did, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens, Ian. Why?”

Ian traced the gold curlicues that lapped and overlapped and twisted back along themselves across the book’s cover. He said, without glancing up, “Mrs. Palmer had others. I couldn’t find them. I was afraid they’d end up in a newspaper, so when Mrs. Palmer died, I searched the house for them. But someone had gotten there before me, and I only found the eight, stashed behind a brick in a chimney. I kept them a while, then decided to send them to Joanna.”

“And told her to send them on to me?”

“Yes.”

He went back to tracing the pattern. Over and over, staring at it without blinking, his body still except for the tracing finger.

“Why?” Eleanor asked, a little more sharply than she meant to.

Ian shrugged. “So you’d go to Hart.”

“I mean, why now? Why not when you first found the pictures after Mrs. Palmer died? And why use Joanna as the go-between?”

“Joanna likes Hart. She’d want to help him.”

He fell silent, and Eleanor regarded him impatiently. “You didn’t answer my first question.”

Ian sometimes did that. He’d answer what he wanted to and ignore the rest. He used that method to get around his inability to lie.

But this time, he said, “I did not send the pictures when I found them, because Hart was too busy then. He would not have paid enough attention, and he would have lost you again.”

“Well, you cannot tell me he is less busy now. He is about to become prime minister.”

Ian shook his head. “I waited until he finished all his plotting. Now it’s almost over. Hart won’t be prime minister long. He’ll fall.” Ian wrenched his gaze from the pattern and fixed it directly on Eleanor. “And he’ll need you.”

Eleanor, caught by the golden depths of Ian’s eyes, could not look away. “What are you talking about? His coalition is strong, the newspapers are full of it. Even without Hart here, they’ll win the majority. His party will rule.”

“Hart will be a bad leader. He wants everything his way, all the time. All must obey.”

“He’s bad at compromise, you mean.” Eleanor had to agree with Ian, there. The word compromise hadn’t been invented for the likes of Hart Mackenzie.

“I know what you mean, Ian,” she said. “Hart has large ideas and doesn’t notice the smaller problems of ordinary people. Not until it’s too late, anyway. Like he didn’t notice the Fenians until they tried to kill him. And then he had the gall to be surprised.”

Ian continued to gaze at her, unblinking, as though mesmerized by her eyes. Eleanor waved her hand in front of his face.

“Ian.”

Ian jumped and looked away.

Eleanor pushed the memory book aside. “You sound very certain that you will find Hart. Almost as though you already have found him. Do you know where he is?”

Ian went silent again, his gaze moving past her to the window and the darkening fog beyond. He studied it for so long that Eleanor began to believe he did know and was trying to decide whether to tell her.

Then Ian rose. “No,” he said and walked out of the room.