“Very well, then. You decide where to be.”
Hart stood uncertainly, his brow drawn, his head bent a little in thought, his delectable body glistening with perspiration. Eleanor clicked the shutter.
Hart looked up swiftly. “I was not ready.”
“No matter. It will make a lovely picture.”
Hart started to laugh. Ah, there he was, the smiling, sinful man from the earlier photographs, the man who’d laid her down in the summerhouse and taught her not to fear passion.
“All right, minx. How about this?” Hart seated himself on the bench at the foot of her bed, folded his arms, and spread his legs.
“Oh, my.”
The first photos she’d taken would have an artistic touch, a nude man in the sunshine. This one would be blatantly erotic.
Hart Mackenzie was unashamedly naked, his arousal obvious, his smile challenging. He was daring her to have a maidenly fit of the vapors, to look away, to not snap the picture. Eleanor studied the full length of his phallus and clicked the shutter.
“Another like that,” she said, her body heating. “Perhaps with you leaning against the wall.”
Hart rose and sauntered across the room. He leaned on a blank space of wall near the door, folding his arms again. His cock stood out, ramrod straight.
“Stay there.” Eleanor moved the camera closer to him, settled it in, and took the picture. “I must have more.”
Hart laughed. Eleanor caught him like that in the next shot, laughing in true mirth, his body bared for her delight.
“Excellent. Now some with the kilt, I think.”
Hart let her take three more photographs. For two he stood bare-legged in his kilt; for the third, the kilt was off, Hart holding the folds to his abdomen while Eleanor photographed him in profile.
“Now another,” Eleanor began.
Hart snarled. He dropped the kilt, came to her, hooked his arm around her waist, and pulled her from the camera. “No more.”
“But I brought seven more plates.”
“Save them.”
Hart swept her from her feet, swiftly untying the tapes that held her dressing gown closed. He laid her on the bed and peeled the dressing gown from her, careful of her hurt arm. When he found her bare beneath, he smiled, and stole her breath.
Hart climbed over Eleanor, nuzzling the line of her hair, and then inhaling all the way down her body. Eleanor expected him to part her legs, to enter her, but instead, he tasted her.
He drew his tongue between her breasts and caught one of her nipples in his mouth. Fire blossomed from the point he suckled. Hart gave her other breast the same attention, then he kissed his way down her abdomen, licked her navel, and continued down to her thighs. He parted them, kissed the soft skin on the inside of either leg, then fastened his mouth over her tight little berry.
He’d never done that before. Eleanor gasped with the wild pleasure of it. The sight of Hart suckling her, his eyes closed, his hair mussed, made her crazy with passion. His tongue was hot, driving her wild. He had to stop, but Hart wouldn’t stop. He cradled her hips in his hands, opened her to him, and drank her in.
“Hart…”
More words left her lips, but they were incoherent. She rocked into the mattress, and his tongue went on torturing her. Eleanor tried to wriggle away, but he was too strong. She had to lie back and take him licking, suckling, making her insane with pleasure.
Just when Eleanor thought she’d die of joy, Hart lifted his beautiful mouth away, slid up her body, and entered her.
He was filling her now, her handsome, naked Highlander. He laughed at her at the same time he demonstrated how good pleasure could be.
His strokes were strong, his hand on her shoulder holding her down. But he was gentle, making sure he never hurt her, even as he neared his climax.
The combination of him being rough and careful at the same time sent Eleanor into another spiral of pleasure. Ecstasy ignited from where they joined and spread across her body. She shouted with it, and Hart’s shout joined hers.
“El, my El,” he crooned as they wound down. “Dear God, you make me wild.”
You make me understand love, Eleanor thought, then the world went away except for her husband lying on her in the sunlight.
Hart and Eleanor developed the photographs together, in a darkroom Mac had set up when he’d experimented with photograph art. Mac had decided that, while photography had its merits, he preferred to slap paint on canvas and had gone back to that.
Hart took Eleanor and her stack of plates to the darkroom, locked the door, and watched her competently print the images from the dry plates. One by one, the photographs of Hart emerged, his body in full sunlight, or he coyly hiding behind the kilt. He looked like a perfect fool, and it made him laugh. Eleanor ignored him and kept on developing. She finished the last plate, gazed at Hart holding his kilt over his front, and pronounced the proceedings satisfactory.
“Good,” Hart said. “Now that you have new photographs for your memory book, you’ll destroy the old ones.”
Eleanor wiped her hands. “Mmm, perhaps. I still have not found all of them. I will continue my quest.”
Hart stepped in front of her. “No.”
“Why not? It was Fenians who wanted you dead, nothing to do with the photographs. I imagine Mr. Fellows is already in London, mopping them up. The Fenians, I mean, not the photographs. The photographs weren’t the danger, and I am determined to find them.”
For answer, Hart closed his arms around her and showed her that darkroom tables could be put to more use than for developing apparatus.
The real world, unfortunately, intruded on Eleanor’s newfound marital bliss, and Hart went back to his study and his quest to win every politician in the land to his side.
Eleanor was busy herself. Now that she was the Duchess of Kilmorgan, her correspondence had multiplied into a mountain, piling up all the more while she’d lain ill.
She had Maigdlin and a footman cart all her letters to the little sitting room off her bedchamber, and she sat at the writing table, sorting through the pile and trying to ignore the continued soreness of her healing arm.
She received many letters of congratulations on her nuptials along with wishes for her to get well, and of course, a growing stack of invitations. In the middle of the pile, Eleanor came upon a rather thick envelope of now-familiar stationery.
Her heart beat faster as she tore open the envelope and unfolded the paper inside. Inside this was a small tissue-wrapped bundle, tied with white ribbon. Eleanor hastily undid the ribbon and folded back the paper, and five photographs of the naked Hart Mackenzie fell into her hand.
Chapter 18
Eleanor fanned out the photographs across her writing table. The letter that had been folded around them was short, to the point, and badly spelled.
Many fellations on your weding, from one as wishes you well.
The writer meant felicitations. Another indication that she was unpolished and only basically educated.
Eleanor now had all twenty photographs. Again, no threats, no demands for money, nothing.
She rewrapped the photographs in the letter, returned to her bedroom to shove the bundle inside her remembrance book, and went in search of Ian.
She found him on the grand terrace that spread across the back of the house. Ian sat cross-legged in the middle of its marble expanse, playing soldiers with his son. That is, Ian was setting up carved wooden soldiers, and Jamie was cheerfully knocking them down.
“I say, the Battle of Waterloo would have been over quickly had Jamie been there,” Eleanor said.
Jamie picked up a French general, stuffed half of him into his mouth, and waddled toward Eleanor. Ian very gently stopped him and plucked the wet soldier out of his son’s mouth.
Eleanor sat down on the nearest marble bench. “Ian, I need you to tell me the names of all the ladies who lived in Hart’s High Holborn house.”
Ian wiped the soldier dry on his kilt while Jamie cli
mbed up to sit next to Eleanor. Ian put his big hand on the boy’s back so he wouldn’t fall.
“Sally Tate, Lily Martin, Joanna Brown, Cassie Bingham, Helena Ferguson, Marion Phillips…”
“Stop.” Eleanor raised the notebook she’d brought and started scribbling with a pencil. “Let me take it down.”
Jamie pulling on the pencil slowed things, but Eleanor managed to start the list of names. “Go on.”
Ian continued, naming every one. Further probing let Eleanor know that some were courtesans, some maids who worked in the house, one the cook. All had lived at Angelina Palmer’s at one time or another, some staying only days.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where they all are now, do you?” she asked, making notes.
Ian, being Ian, did. Jamie tired of tugging on Eleanor’s pencil and climbed down from the bench. Ian steadied him, then kept a sharp eye on him as Jamie toddled about the terrace, picking up fallen soldiers.
Several of the ladies had died, he said. Most still lived in London, though one had married and emigrated to America. Quite a number had married, it seemed. Of the lot, three lived in Edinburgh. One was still a courtesan living with her protector, one was a maid in a big house, and one had married a former protector.
Eleanor wrote everything down, not asking Ian how he knew all this. She had no doubt that what he told her was accurate. The letters had most likely originated in Edinburgh, and to Edinburgh Eleanor would go. “Thank you,” she said.
Ian, seeing that Eleanor had finished her questions, became fully absorbed in his son. Eleanor watched, content in the April sunshine, as Ian and Jamie set up the soldiers again, Ian lying on his stomach while Jamie worked his way around his large father.
When Jamie tired, Ian sat up and let Jamie climb onto his plaid-clad lap. Ian closed his arms around his son, and Jamie dozed, Ian gazing down at him with such intense love that Eleanor quietly rose and left them alone.
Eleanor found it easy to get herself and Hart to Edinburgh not a few days later, into the very house in which one of the maids from High Holborn now worked. A woman called Mrs. McGuire had hired the maid, and Eleanor found that she and Hart—now the most sought-after couple in Scotland—had already been invited to Mrs. McGuire’s next grand soiree.
Eleanor had met Mrs. McGuire many times. She was the wife of The McGuire—the leader of clan McGuire—though Mrs. McGuire had started life as an English viscount’s daughter, raised to fine society in London. By all accounts, Mrs. McGuire adored her Highland husband, and her Edinburgh galas had become celebrated.
She was a kindhearted woman as well, a friend to Eleanor’s late mother. Eleanor quite liked her. Why Mrs. McGuire had hired a maid out of a brothel remained to be seen.
Hart and Eleanor descended before Mrs. McGuire’s Edinburgh home to the carpet a footman had spread from carriage step to doorstep. The entire street stopped to watch the fine carriage, the splendid horses, and the most famous man in Scotland and his new wife arrive at their first outing together.
Mrs. McGuire was buried with her guests upstairs, and a plump maid with very black hair took Eleanor’s wraps in the relative quiet of the downstairs hall. When the maid passed Hart, he stopped, smiled at her, and gave her an unashamed wink. The maid blushed, but she shot him a sunny smile in return and winked back.
Eleanor opened her mouth to demand what it was all about, but Hart had already turned to greet some of his cronies, and was swept up the stairs with them. Maigdlin was herding her into a withdrawing room so she could repair any damage the short journey from Isabella’s Edinburgh house might have done to Eleanor’s hair and gown.
Before Eleanor could decide how she felt about Hart’s blatant exchange with the maid, the maid herself entered the withdrawing room, came straight to Eleanor, and dropped a perfect maid’s curtsey.
“Your Grace.”
Maigdlin glared like a she-bear ready to defend her cub. “The cheek of you. You don’t speak to a duchess without her permission, you ignorant woman. What do you want?”
“It’s all right, Maigdlin,” Eleanor said quickly. “It’s Joanna Brown, isn’t it?” From the High Holborn house.
The maid curtseyed again. “Yes, Your Grace.” She had an English accent, from somewhere in London’s darker environs, Eleanor thought. “I know it is bloody cheek, but might I have a word with you? Private like?”
Maigdlin gave Joanna a look of high disdain, but Eleanor held up a reassuring hand. “Of course. Maigdlin, will you stand outside so that we are not disturbed?”
Maigdlin’s outrage was obvious, but she set down the brushes she’d taken from Eleanor’s case, curtseyed stiffly, and glided out the door, as though determined to show Joanna that at least one of them had manners. Indeed, if Eleanor had been a stickler for rules, she could have Joanna sacked for deigning to approach her, let alone speak to her. But Eleanor had never been one to bother with rules, especially when they got in the way of what she wished to do.
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” Joanna said as soon as they were alone. “But I know you saw that wink, and I wanted to explain to you, so as you’d not have the wrong idea.”
Eleanor looked her over. Joanna had black hair and blue eyes and was not long past her first youth, perhaps thirty at most. She had a winsome smile, and her eyes sparkled with animation.
“All right,” Eleanor said. “But first, I must ask you. What do you know about photographs?”
The maid’s smile deepened. “Many things, Your Grace. You got them, then?”
Eleanor stopped. “You have been sending me the photographs?” She thought of the ill-spelled missives, always with the closing, From one as wishes you well. The words went with the warm woman who stood before her now.
“Goodness,” Eleanor said. “You did lead me on a merry chase. Why did you send them?”
Joanna curtseyed again, as though she couldn’t help herself. “Because I knew they’d take you to him. And see—you’re married to him now, and he looks ever so much better, doesn’t he? Now about that wink, Your Grace, it don’t mean nothing. He does that because he’s a kindhearted man. It’s sort of a signal, a joke between us, really.”
“A joke.” This was the first time in memory that Eleanor had heard someone refer to Hart as a kindhearted man. “Has it to do with the photographs?”
Had Hart told Joanna to send them? It would be like him, to confound and tease Eleanor with the photographs and at the same time pretend he cared nothing about them. Hart Mackenzie needed a good talking to.
“No, no,” Joanna said. “Them’s two separate things. If you’ll listen, Your Grace, I’ll explain.”
Eleanor nodded, curbing her impatience. “Yes, indeed. Please do.”
“Blame my forwardness on me upbringing, Your Grace. I grew up in London, in the east part of it, near St. Katherine’s Docks. That was all right, but my father was a lout and a layabout and my mother didn’t amount to nothing, so we were poor as dirt. I decided I’d clean up and learn my manners and become a maid in a Mayfair household, maybe even a lady’s maid. Well, I didn’t know nothing about training or references, I was that green. But I did my best, and I went and answered an advertisement for a position. Name of the lady what hired me was Mrs. Palmer.”
“Oh, dear.” Eleanor saw a glimmer of what was coming. “You didn’t realize she was a procuress?”
“Naw. Where I came from, bad girls were obvious, flouncing about the streets and such, and what wicked tongues they had on them! But Mrs. Palmer spoke quiet like, and her house was large and filled with expensive things. I didn’t know at the time that ladybirds could be so lofty and thought I’d landed in clover. But that went away as soon as she took me upstairs, where she and another lady were in a bedroom. The things they told me they wanted me to do would make you faint, Your Grace. I might have grown up rough, but I was at least taught good from bad. So I said I wouldn’t, no matter how much they slapped me, and then Ma Palmer grabbed me and locked me in a room.”
Eleanor’
s hands closed to fists, the pity she’d held for Mrs. Palmer, which had diminished over what the woman had done to Beth, diminished further. “I am sorry. Go on.”
“Well, Ma Palmer let me out again later that night. She said she had to get me cleaned up, because the master of the house was coming. I thought she meant her husband, and I couldn’t imagine what sort of man would marry someone like her. So there I was, washed and brushed, with a brand-new frock and cap, told I needed to bring the tea things into the parlor. Well, that didn’t sound so bad, and maybe Mrs. Palmer would behave herself in front of her husband. Cook put together the tea tray, and I made sure it was all pretty and carried it into the parlor. And he was there.”