“For heaven’s sake, Father, don’t tell Hart,” Eleanor said. “He expects you to behave like a peer of the realm and travel about in luxury.”
“Whatever for? I see much more of the city this way. Do you know, someone in Covent Garden tried to pick my pocket? No one’s picked my pocket before. The thief was only a child, can you believe it? A little girl. I apologized to her for my pocket’s being so empty, and then I gave her the penny I was holding for the omnibus.”
“What on earth were you doing in Covent Garden?” Eleanor asked worriedly. “That’s nowhere near the museum.”
“I know, my dear. I took a wrong turning and wandered quite a long way. That is why I am so late getting home. I had to ask many a policeman for directions before I found the way.”
“If you took the carriage, you wouldn’t get lost,” Eleanor said, putting her arms around her father. “Or have your pockets picked. And I wouldn’t worry so.”
“Nonsense, my dear, the policemen are most helpful. You have no reason to fret about your old papa. You just get on.”
He had a gleam in his eyes, the maddening one that told Eleanor that her father knew full well what he was doing but would play the absentminded old man as much as he liked.
While her father busied himself at his museum or riding the omnibus, Eleanor worked on her ostensible duties. She found that she enjoyed typing the letters Wilfred gave her, because they allowed her a glimpse into Hart’s life, albeit his formal one.
The duke is pleased to accept the ambassador’s invitation to the garden party on Tuesday next.
Or,
The duke regrets that his attendance at the gathering on Friday night will not be possible.
Or,
His Grace thanks his lordship for the loan of the book and returns it with gratitude.
Polite nothings and very unlike Hart’s style of delivery. But Hart didn’t actually write the responses—he scrawled yes or no on letters that Wilfred vetted, and shoved them back at him. Wilfred drafted the replies, and Eleanor typed them.
Eleanor could just as soon have made up the words herself, but Wilfred, proud old soul, thought this duty was one of his raisons d’être, so Eleanor never offered to take over.
Just as well. She’d be tempted to type such things as: His Grace regrets he will be unable to attend your charity ball. Of course he won’t come, you silly cow, not after you called him a Scots turd. Yes, I heard you say that in Edinburgh last summer, and it got back to him. You really ought to guard your tongue.
No, better that Wilfred drafted the letters.
As for the photographs, Eleanor pondered what to do. Hart had said there’d been twenty photographs in all. Eleanor had been sent the one—she had no way of knowing whether the well-wisher had them all or only this one. And if only the one, where were the others? At night, alone in her bedchamber, she would take out the photograph and study it.
The pose showed Hart in perfect profile. The hand that leaned on the lip of the desk tightened all the muscles in his arm, his shoulder round and tight. Hart’s naked thighs held sinewy strength, and the head bowed in contemplation was by no means weak.
This was the Hart Eleanor had known years ago, the one she’d agreed without hesitation to marry. He’d had the body of a god, a smile that melted her heart, a sinful glint in his eyes that had been for her and her alone.
He’d always prided himself on his physique, kept fit by plenty of riding and walking, boxing, rowing, or whatever sport took his fancy at the moment. From what she’d glimpsed behind his kilt and coat, Hart had grown even more muscular and solid since this photograph. She toyed with the fantasy of snapping a photograph of him in this pose as he was now, and comparing the two.
Eleanor’s gaze finally roved to the thing for which she pretended she had no interest. In the picture, Hart’s phallus was partially hidden by his thigh, but Eleanor could see it—not erect, but full and large.
She remembered the first time she’d seen Hart bare—up in the summerhouse on Kilmorgan land, the folly that perched on a cliff with a wide view of the sea. Hart had removed his kilt last thing, his smile wicked when Eleanor realized he wore nothing under it. He’d laughed when her gaze couldn’t help but slide down his body to him erect and wanting her. She’d never seen a man unclothed before, let alone such a man.
She remembered the thump of her heart, the flush of her skin, the triumphant warmth to know that the elusive Lord Hart Mackenzie belonged to her. He’d laid Eleanor down on the blanket he’d thoughtfully packed for their outing and let her explore his body. He’d taught Eleanor all about what she liked that afternoon. He’d been right about everything.
Hart’s smile, his low laughter, the incredibly tender way he’d touched her had made her fall madly in love with him. Eleanor believed herself the most blessed of women, and she had been.
Eleanor sighed and tucked the photograph and her memories away, back into their hiding places.
She’d been living in Hart’s house three days when the second photograph came, this one hand delivered directly to her.
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 awa
y. 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.”