The Duke’s Perfect Wife

Chapter 5

The word echoed up and down the staircase, soaring to the painted cherubs that lurked at the very top of the house.

Silence.

Silence meant nothing. Hart took the stairs to the next floor two at a time.

One of the doors on the landing stood ajar. Hart shoved it open with such force that the door banged into the heavy bureau that partially blocked it.

Someone had moved excess furniture up here, and now the chamber was a jumble of bookcases, dressing tables, chests of drawers, and armoires. A velvet sofa, coated with dust, canted at an odd angle in the middle of the room.

Eleanor Ramsay looked up from where she’d been searching the sofa cushions, a cloud of dust around her.

“Good heavens, Hart,” she said. “You do make a lot of noise.”

Hart’s world took on sharp edges. Eleanor Ramsay could not be here, in this place with its horrible memories of anger, greed, jealousy, and fear. Eleanor here was like a daffodil in a quagmire, a fragile blossom all too easily pulled to its doom. He did not want this world, this part of his life, so much as touching her.

“Eleanor,” he said, voice tight with fury, “I told you not to come here.”

Eleanor shook out a cushion and plopped it back onto the sofa. “Yes, I know you did. But I thought I should get on looking for the photographs, and I knew that if I asked you for the key, you’d never give it to me.”

“So you went behind my back and asked Ian?”

“Well, of course. Ian is much more logical than you, and he does not bother me with pesky questions. I did not tell him about the photographs, if you are worried about that. They are quite personal, after all. It did not matter anyway, because Ian never asked me why I wanted to come.”

Hart gave Eleanor a look that had made Angelina Palmer drop her poised courtesan smile and whiten in fear. Eleanor merely stared at him.

On her head perched a pillbox hat with an absurd little veil. She’d pulled the dotted veil up out of her eyes, but not completely—it hung lopsidedly, dangling over her right brow. Her dark brown dress was filmed with dust she’d raised, and dust caught on her damp cheeks. One lock of hair had escaped her coiffure, a red snake dancing down her bodice. She was delightfully mussed, and dear God, he wanted her.

“I told you, I do not want you in this place,” he said. “Not now. Not ever.”

“I know.” Eleanor moved, calm as she pleased, to the bureau that blocked the door and leaned to open the bottom drawer. “I wasn’t silly enough to rush here by myself, if that is what is bothering you. I met my father and Ian at the museum, sent my father and Maigdlin home in your landau, and had Ian walk with me here. I’ve been watched over every step of the way.”

“What is bothering me is that I asked you not to come here at all and you flagrantly disobeyed my wishes.” His voice rang through the room.

“Disobeyed your wishes? Dear, oh, dear, Your High and Mighty Grace. I ought to have mentioned that I’ve always had trouble with obedience, but then, you knew that. If I sat quietly and waited to obey my father, I would long ago have become a dried-up skeleton on a chair. Father is very bad at making any sort of little decision, even including how much sugar he wants in his tea. And he never can remember whether he likes cream. I learned at an early age to not wait upon anyone’s permission, but simply to do.”

“And now you work for me.”

She rummaged in the drawer, not looking at him. “I’m hardly your servant, but the same principle applies. Were I to wait for your commands, I’d be in that little study with Wilfred, tapping my fingers on the desk, wondering when you would bother to appear. Even Wilfred wonders at your absences, and he is a man of few words.”

“In that study is exactly where I want you to be!”

“I don’t see why. Wilfred doesn’t really need me to type your correspondence. He gives it to me for something to do, because he feels sorry for me. My time is much better spent trying to discover who is sending the pictures and what they mean by it. And you could help me search instead of standing in the doorway shouting at me.”

She made his blood boil. “Eleanor, I want you out of this house.”

Eleanor blithely ignored him to open the next drawer. “Not until I’ve finished looking. There are many nooks and crannies and much furniture.”

Hart pushed his way around the bureau, seized Eleanor by her shoulders, and pulled her upright. She came up swiftly, one blue eye now completely shielded by the veil.

Before Hart registered that he did it, he skimmed his hands down her arms to her wrists and pulled them behind her back. He knew how to lock a woman’s hands, knew how to hold her still. Eleanor stared up at him, red lips parted.

Need streaked through him, a craving that closed him in razor-sharp claws. Hart studied the red lips that beckoned him, breasts rising against her tightly buttoned bodice, the lock of hair, fallen, gold red against her cheek.

He leaned and took the curl in his mouth. Eleanor drew a breath, and Hart turned his head and caught her lip between his teeth.

Eleanor’s eyes were enormous this close to his. Gone was her defiance, her stubborn obliviousness. She focused on Hart and Hart alone, as he bit down on her lip, not brutally, but enough to trap her. Her breath was hot on his cheek, and her wrists were quiet under his hands.

Tamed? No. Never Eleanor. If she quieted in his skilled grasp, it was her choice to.

Hart could easily take her, now, perhaps across the top of the chest behind her. It would be quick and intense—a few thrusts, and Hart would be spent. They wouldn’t even have to undress. Eleanor would be his, again, inescapably.

Hart pressed a soft kiss where his teeth had scraped. Her lips were slightly salty with perspiration, silken soft, the warm tang of her mouth satisfying. He nipped her again, pulling her lip with his teeth, again gentling the movement by kissing where he’d bitten.

Eleanor moved her lips to kiss him back, her eyes closing to slits while her pink, soft mouth found his. Hart slanted across it, ready to lick inside, but Eleanor pulled back.

“Don’t.” Her whisper was quiet, and he wouldn’t have heard it had they not been this close. But no fear rested in Eleanor’s eyes. He saw sorrow and heartache instead. “It’s not fair.”

“Not fair?”

“To me.” Her lashes were wet.

Dark need tore at him. Hart gripped her wrists, but Eleanor didn’t flinch, didn’t move.

He was Hart Mackenzie, the Duke of Kilmorgan, one of the most powerful men in Britain, and Eleanor Ramsay had put herself into his power. Hart could do anything he wanted to her, up here, alone in this room.

Anything at all.

Eleanor’s eyes, one behind the pin-dot veil, one visible, stared into his. Hart dragged in a breath that burned fire, and made himself let her go.

His body fought him releasing her, and he backed a step before he turned away and leaned on the bureau. He pressed his fists to the wood, his lungs hurting, blood pounding through his body.

“Hart, are you all right?”

Eleanor looked up at him in concern. Still, she had no fear. Only worry—for him.

“Yes, I am all right. Why the hell wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you look very red and will break the wood if you’re not careful.”

“I’ll be better the minute you are out of this house!”

Eleanor spread her hands in her dove-colored gloves. “When I’m finished searching.”

Hart roared. He grabbed the chest of drawers and overturned it, the thing crashing to the floor. At the same time, the doorway darkened and Ian strode in, his Mackenzie scowl all for Hart.

Eleanor turned to Ian, giving him a bright smile. “There you are, Ian. Will you please take Hart downstairs? I will finish much more quickly if he’s not up here throwing the furniture about.”

Hart went for her. Ian tried to stop him, but Hart shoved Ian out of the way and lunged at Eleanor.

She shrieked. Hart didn’t care. He lifted her and tucked her over his shoulder, then he pushed past Ian—who had decided to step back and let this happen—and carried Eleanor bodily down the stairs.

“Ian, bring my package!” Eleanor shouted back over his shoulder. “Hart, put me down. This is absurd.”

Hart’s town coach was pulling to a halt under the gaslights, which were turning the now-misty air a sickly yellow. Hart at least set Eleanor on her feet before he guided her down the steps to the street, hand on her elbow, pushing her at the car-riage.

Instead of fighting him, Eleanor subsided after one “Really, Hart.” He saw her glance at the passersby and decide not to make a scene.

Hart shoved her into the coach that his footmen hastily opened. He climbed up beside her and directed his coachman to Grosvenor Square, knowing good and well that Eleanor would never stay in the carriage if he didn’t hold her there all the way home.

The pictures Eleanor had found at the shop were breathtaking. Hart in all his glory.

Eleanor sat alone at the table in her bedchamber that evening, the photographs spread before her. She was in her dressing gown, the new ball gown she’d wear tonight lying in emerald delight across the bed.

Ian, bless him, had brought the brown-paper package to her when he’d returned to Hart’s, again never asking what was in it. Eleanor waited for Maigdlin to go down to her supper before she cut the twine and unwrapped the box, laying out the photographs one by one.

There were twelve in all, six taken in the same room as the one in which he’d been looking out the window. The other six had been done in a smaller bedroom, the décor of which reminded her of the house in High Holborn.

Eleanor put her finger on one photograph and drew it to her. This one was different from the others, because in it, Hart wasn’t naked. Facing the camera full on, he wore only a kilt of Mackenzie plaid that sagged low across his hips. This photograph was also different, because here, Hart was laughing.

His smile lit his eyes and softened his face. One hand was on his waistband, and the other came up, palm forward, as though telling the cameraman—or woman, in this case—not to take the picture. The shutter had gone off anyway.

The result showed Hart as he truly was. Correction, Hart as he used to be—a devilish rogue with a charming smile. The man who’d teased Eleanor and winked at her, who’d called her wicked for wanting to be anywhere near a notorious Mackenzie.

Hart had laughed at her and made Eleanor laugh back. Hart had not been afraid to tell her anything—his ambitions, his dreams, his worries for his brothers, his rage at his father. He would come to her at Glenarden and lie with his head on her lap amidst the summer roses, and pour out his heart. Then he’d kiss her, lover’s kisses, not chaste courtship kisses. To this day, when Eleanor smelled red roses, she felt the smooth pressure of his lips on hers, remembered the dark taste of his mouth.

Memories flooded her, and her eyes filled. Hart had been such a devil, but full of life and hope, laughter and energy, and she’d loved him.

The man Hart had become no longer had the hope and the laughter, though he still had the obsession. Hart was driven—she’d read in the newspapers how he won gentleman after political gentleman to his side, making them want to follow him. Hart never had anything good to say about Bonnie Prince Charlie—the arrogant bastard who beggared the Highlanders—but Bonnie Prince Charlie must have had the same ability to make the skeptical believe in him.

But with Hart’s rise to power, more warmth had left him. Eleanor thought about what she’d seen in his eyes, both in the vestibule this morning when Hart had blocked her way out of his house, and this afternoon when he’d found her in the High Holborn house. He was a hard and lonely man, driven by anger and determination, no more smiling excitement, no more laughter.

Eleanor slid that photograph aside and drew the next one toward her. Hart still smiled at the camera, but with practiced deviltry. The kilt was off now, trailing to the ground from his hand.

He was a beautiful, beautiful man. Eleanor traced his chest, remembering what it had been to touch him. She’d gotten a taste of it this afternoon, when he’d held her arms behind her, his strength pinning her. She’d been at his mercy—she knew she’d not be able to walk away until he released her. Instead of growing afraid, Eleanor had felt dark excitement beat through her veins.

“Eleanor, aren’t you ready?”

Eleanor jumped as Isabella’s voice sounded outside her bedchamber door. Eleanor swept the photographs back into the box and was shoving the box into the bottom drawer of her dresser when Isabella Mackenzie entered in a swish of silver satin and taffeta.

Eleanor locked the drawer and dropped the key into the top of her corset. “Sorry, Izzy,” she said. “I was just finishing something. Will you help me dress?”

Hart knew full well the moment Eleanor joined the throng that filled his ballroom.

Eleanor wore green—a dark, bottle green gown with a neckline that plunged down her breasts and bared her shoulders. A bustle, more restrained than the gigantic ones worn by the other ladies, drew her overskirt back before spilling it to the floor in a soft wave of satin.

The style drew attention to her waist hugged by a small, tight bodice, and that in turn drew attention to the décolletage framing her full breasts. A necklace, a simple chain with an emerald drop, pointed to her cleavage. Emerald earrings dangled from her ears, as green as the dress.

Hart had been thinking about David Fleming, the MP who was Hart’s eyes and ears in Commons, and wondering how the man was getting on. Fleming tonight was using his art of persuasion to sway to Hart’s side one or two men on the fence about pushing a vote of no confidence on Gladstone. Hart knew the time was near when he could force Gladstone to resign, and either concede that Hart’s coalition had the majority, or call for elections, which Hart would make bloody sure he and his party won.

Get them over by any means necessary, Hart had told Fleming. Fleming, debauched but charming and devious as a snake, had assured Hart of his victory.

But once Eleanor entered the room, worry about Gladstone, votes, and victory dissolved to nothing.

Eleanor was radiant. Tonight was the first Hart had seen her in anything but the ugly cotton or serge dresses Eleanor wore buttoned up to tomorrow. The gown let her glow. Isabella must have either lent Eleanor the dress or bought it for her, but either way, the result was breathtaking.

A little too breathtaking. Hart couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Very tired of you borrowing my wife to hostess your boring parties,” Mac said, stopping next to Hart in a rare moment of empty space around him. “Between these blasted balls and musicales, and the decorators underfoot, I never see her.”

Hart didn’t pull his gaze from Eleanor as he took a sip of malt whiskey. “What you mean is you don’t have as much time to bed her as you’d like.”

“Can you blame me? Look at her. I want to kill any man who so much as speaks to her.”

Hart had difficulty dragging his gaze from Eleanor, but he conceded that Isabella, in a dress of silver and green that rested like a whisper on her slim figure, looked fine. Isabella always did.

Mac had fallen madly in love with the woman the moment he’d set eyes on her. It had taken his idiotic brother six years to learn how to love her, but thank God, that storm was over, their marriage now in a safe harbor. Isabella and Mac were radiantly happy, with Isabella busily taking care of Mac so Hart no longer had to.

Mac waved off a waiter who stopped with champagne, Mac now a teetotaler after years of nearly killing himself with drink. “What happened to your declaration that you’d be looking for your own wife?” he asked Hart after the waiter had whisked himself away.

Hart’s gaze slid back to Eleanor, who was greeting a marquis and marchioness like the old friends they were. Her eyes glowed as she talked, her gloved hands moving as she used them to emphasize her words. Her laughter pealed, and she turned to greet another, rather shy lady and draw her into the group, putting said lady at instant ease. That was one thing about Eleanor—she could charm the hide off Attila the Hun.

“Did you hear me?” Mac growled.

“I did hear you, and I told you to leave it alone.”

“You have Eleanor right in front of you. For God’s sake, kiss her senseless and send for the vicar. Then she can hostess your fˆetes, and Isabella can stay home with me.”

“Not for much longer,” Hart said mildly, still watching Eleanor. “You and Isabella will be running off to Berkshire, where the two of you can stay in bed all day and all night.”

“Because then you’ll turn Ainsley and Beth into your hostesses. You do know that your brothers are ready to lynch you, don’t you?”

“Having a lovely woman greet my guests is part of the plan,” Hart said. “Isabella understands that.”

Mac did not look impressed. “Hart, you’d schedule Christ’s second coming and have Wilfred send him an itinerary. You must learn to let things happen.”

Without waiting for an answer, Mac swung around and shouldered his way through the crowd, drawn back to Isabella.

Learn to let things happen. Hart took a sip of whiskey to hide his cynical laugh. What Mac did not understand was that Mac, Cam, and Ian led the lives they did now because Hart had refused to stand back and let things happen.

If Hart hadn’t orchestrated every detail of their lives, Cam and Mac might even now be trying to scratch out a living in some malaria-infested jungle or up in frozen Scotland farming the tough soil. Racehorses, art, women, and fine whiskey would be unheard-of luxuries.

And Ian? Ian would be dead.

No, Hart’s brothers did not know the extent of what he’d done, and Hart prayed they never would know. The only person who had any inkling was the lady in the bottle green gown smiling and talking with the guests, engaging them with her radiance. She was the only one in the wide world who knew the truth of Hart Mackenzie.

Eleanor watched Mac stride away from Hart, and Hart’s admirers surge around him to fill the space.

This ball was all about rewarding Hart’s staunch supporters and drawing more into the coalition party he’d formed, taking gentlemen away from Gladstone on one side, and from the Tories on the other.

The two ladies who slithered up on either side of Hart had no interest in politics, Eleanor was certain. The lady on Hart’s left was Lady Murchison, a viscount’s wife, the one on his right, the wife of a navy commander. The commander’s wife had her fingers firmly in the crook of Hart’s arm, and Lady Murchison skimmed her gloved hand surreptitiously down Hart’s back.

She wants to go to bed with him.

Of course she did. Who could resist Hart in his black coat and Mackenzie kilt, wool socks on his finely shaped calves? Hart went on speaking to the small group gathered around him, as though he never noticed the two ladies squeezing closer and closer to him.

Eleanor made herself turn away and beam smiles on the other guests. She was good at this—putting people at their ease, making certain everyone who wished to dance found the right partner, that the elderly guests weren’t set against the wall and forgotten. The turnout was quite a crush, though Eleanor knew the guest list was limited enough that those not on it would move heaven and earth to be on it. All part of the game to make Hart’s light shine the brightest.

Ian was absent tonight, but this was not to be wondered at. Ian hated crowds. Isabella said that when Beth was with him, Ian would walk through fire—or even a crowd—as long as his wife was by his side.

I cannot blame him, Eleanor thought as she moved about, chatting to all and sundry. People liked to stare and point at Ian. The Mad Mackenzie, they called him, a bit unfairly. He married that little half-French nobody, they’d whisper. The poor woman must have been desperate for a husband.

Not so poor, and not so desperate. Beth had inherited a large fortune before she’d married Ian. But Eleanor knew the way of the world—some whispered out of annoyance that Beth hadn’t married into their family, thus bringing them all that lovely money.

Eleanor did enjoy the chance tonight to catch up with some of her girlhood friends. These ladies were married now and preoccupied with worries about finding good nursemaids or their sons’ first ventures into public school. And, of course, because Eleanor was still unmarried, they wanted to matchmake.

“You must join us for our boating party, dear El,” one lady said with undisguised fervor. “My brother and his closest friend have just returned from Egypt. Baked quite brown—you’d hardly know them. What stories they tell! Quite fascinating. I’m sure they would be interested to see you.”

“My father would enjoy hearing their stories,” Eleanor said. “He loves travel, as long as he’s not required to move far from his armchair.”

The lady laughed, but her eyes were bright with determination. “Well then, you must bring your dear father along. We’ve missed him so.”

More such offers were forthcoming, all couched as outings that wouldn’t be the same without Eleanor. And, of course, a bachelor brother, male cousin, and even a widowed uncle would make up the party. Eleanor’s acquaintances, it seemed, had decided that their goal before the Season ended was to Get Poor Eleanor Married Off.

Through it all, Viscountess Murchison clung to Hart’s side. Mr. Charles Darwin might have claimed that human beings had descended from apes, but Lady Murchison’s ancestors must have been barnacles.

As Eleanor watched, Lady Murchison let her hand inch down until it rested on Hart’s plaid-covered backside. Hart was too savvy to jump, but he turned a hint to his left, which forced Lady Murchison’s hand to slide away.

Did the lady look disappointed? Not at all. She laughed and sent him a merry glance, looking all the more resolute.

Wretched cow.

Eleanor made her way toward Hart, pausing in each cluster of guests to chat and listen, admire and congratulate, advise and console. The ballroom floor was full of whirling couples, but Hart remained firmly on the sidelines, the duke famous for never dancing at his own balls.

Bustles were such cumbersome things, Eleanor thought as she pressed her skirts to slide between bedecked ladies. Fashion this year seemed to dictate that the female of the species should strap long shelves to their backsides and fill them with giant bows and large velvet roses. Perhaps we should add tea things or a row of books, Eleanor mused as she squeezed through yet one more clump of ladies.

She popped out between the group tight around Hart and people clustered next to it, trying to get close to him. Somehow, she managed to jostle the arm of a tall gentleman who held a full glass of bloodred claret. He lost his hold on the goblet, which teetered and danced on his fingertips.

And then, disaster. The glass tumbled from his hand and flipped end over end on its way to the floor. Ruby liquid arced through the air and came down all over the front of Lady Murchison’s silver satin bodice.

Lady Murchison shrieked. The gentleman with the claret gasped and started babbling shocked apologies. Eleanor pushed through, gloved hands pressed to her cheeks. “Oh, dear. You poor, poor thing.”

Lady Murchison’s face went ugly green as she let go of Hart, who’d taken a large handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to her. The bodice was ruined, a bright red blotch spreading on it like blood from a wound.

Eleanor seized Lady Murchison’s hand as she lifted the handkerchief. “No, no, don’t brush it—it will set the stain. We will find a withdrawing room and send for your maid and some soda water.”

So speaking, she dragged Lady Murchison away, the tall gentleman still apologizing in anguish. Lady Murchison had no choice but to go with Eleanor. Everyone was staring, exclaiming, giving Lady Murchison murmurs of sympathy.

Everyone, that is, except Hart. He sent Eleanor a penetrating look even as he snapped his fingers for a footman to run for the soda. Hart’s look told Eleanor that he knew exactly what Eleanor had just done and exactly why she’d done it.