Chapter 11

“You were supposed to burn this,” Hart said. He couldn’t get up, could not move, drained from what he’d just read.

Eleanor closed the door and came to the table littered with the letters. “I couldn’t, somehow.”

He noticed that she did not need to ask which letter he meant. “Why not?”

“I don’t know, really. I suppose, because, of all the people you could have told, you chose to tell me.”

“There was no other person,” Hart said. “No one in the world.”

It hung there. Hart closed the book and stood up, his feet heavy. He needed to touch her. She watched him come to her, said not a word when he cupped her face in his hands and leaned to kiss her.

She tasted of sunshine. Hart didn’t pause to wonder why she’d come upstairs, whether Isabella expected her to rush right back down. Hart only cared that Eleanor was here, that he had the warmth of her under his hands, the woman who knew his direst secrets and had never told a soul.

He felt strong again in her embrace, his hurts flowing away under Eleanor’s caress. He waited for dark needs to grip him, to ruin this moment, but they didn’t come.

He feathered kisses across her cheek, catching the freckles that he held so dear. “El…”

“Shh.” Eleanor pulled him all the way into her arms and rested her head on his shoulder. “Say nothing. There’s nothing to be said.”

Hart pressed a kiss to the top of her head, loving the satin warmth of her hair. His heart was sore, but Eleanor was soothing away the hurt.

“You pasted the photographs into a book,” he said. “A book about me.”

Eleanor raised her head. She caught the look in his eye, and her face flamed as red as her hair. “Well, I…”

Hart felt light as he watched her struggle for an explanation. He saw her go through several, then she grew redder still, and said in a tiny voice, “You are very fine to look at.”

Hart wanted to laugh, mirth being all the brighter after the memories the letters had forced upon him.

Eleanor frowned suddenly, touching his face where the chipped stone had cut him. “What happened?”

“Nothing important. Don’t change the subject.”

Her fingers were soft. “Even marred, you are a handsome man. You must know that.”

Many women had told Hart so, but he’d never let himself wallow in their praise. Riches and position could tinge the perspective, rendering the unpleasant beautiful.

“I don’t want you to keep the photographs Mrs. Palmer took,” he said. “Burn them.”

“Don’t be daft. They’re finely done. And besides, if I grow angry enough at you, I’m sure I could sell them for quite a lot of money.”

Hart lost his smile. “You would do that?”

She pretended to consider. “Perhaps, if you keep telling me not to search certain places for who sent them—or to do anything I please, for that matter.”

Her teasing melted him. “I was right. You are a bold lady. You haven’t changed since you lured me into that boating house.”

“Lured you? I believe I was minding my own business, and you stalked me there.”

“An argument that could last ages. But no matter.” He snatched up the book. “I’ll just burn the entire thing.”

Eleanor lunged for it. “Don’t you dare.”

Hart swung around and headed for the coal stove, its warm glow and Eleanor pumping life back into him.

Eleanor ran after him and grabbed the book, and Hart pretended to wrestle her for it. She knew he pretended, because Hart could have snatched the book out of her hands any moment he wanted to. She yanked, and he released it suddenly, sending her a few scuttling steps back.

She didn’t fall, because Hart steadied her as she teetered on her heels. He ripped the book out of her hands, dumped it to the writing table, and then caught her around the waist and lifted her with ease onto the bed.

Eleanor squirmed against him as he came with her onto the mattress. But she didn’t struggle as much as she perhaps should have, because Hart was laughing.

Hart, who never laughed these days, was doing it now as he lowered her onto her back, his kilt spilling over her skirts. His eyes sparked with deviltry, and he laughed.

Eleanor sank beneath him with pleasure but discovered an impediment. “Ow, oh. Dratted bustle.”

Hart locked his feet around hers and rolled over with her in the big bed. Eleanor landed on top of him, the bustle creaking as it righted itself like a ship from stormy water.

Eleanor looked down at him, her laughing, teasing Highlander, and fell in love all over again.

Hart skimmed his hands along her back, palms warm even through her clothes. She tried not to feel a tingle of excitement to feel his hardness obvious through his kilt.

She bent her knees and waved her feet in her high-heeled, buttoned boots. “I must get up. My governess taught me never to lie on a bed in my shoes.”

His smile turned wicked. “I’ll teach you to lie on it in nothing but your shoes.”

Pleasant heat spun through her. “That would be… very naughty.”

“Of course it would be. That is the point.”

Eleanor tapped the end of his nose. “I admit that when I am with you, I find myself becoming naughty indeed.”

“Good.”

“I must be a very bad woman, mustn’t I, to let you take such liberties?”

He grinned, his eyes alight. “El, your innocence rings to the skies.”

“Not so innocent.” She gave him a mock frown. “Remember that I grew up with a father who thought nothing of discussing the reproductive habits of every living creature—including human ones—over the soup.”

“Your mother must have been a patient woman.”

“My mother loved him to pieces.” Eleanor felt a bite of sadness as she always did when her mother came into her thoughts, the woman dying, ill, when Eleanor had been eight years old.

Hart’s eyes darkened. “I always envied you that. Your father and mother actually loving each other. Your happy childhood home.”

“Yes, it was happy,” Eleanor said. “And then sorrowful.”

Hart wrapped his arms around her. “I know.”

“At least Father and I have rubbed along well all this time. Which brings me around again to my knowledge of mating habits. You may think me innocent, but I am quite worldly, in my own way.”

“I know that. You keep nude photographs of a man hidden in your corset drawer.”

“Which you snooped through, drat you.”

“Giving me some idea of the state of your wardrobe. You have not instructed Isabella to dress you as I asked. Your gowns are horrible.”

“Well, thank you very much.”

He touched the pad of her lower lip. “Nip your pride in the bud, lassie. If you’re to parade about with this family, you’ll need decent clothes or you’ll stand out like a beacon. Isabella will outfit you and send me the bill.”

“Indeed, no. People will say I’m your fancy woman.”

He chuckled. “What an expression. I pay you wages.”

“For typing. An honest wage for an honest job.”

“Consider it a clothing allowance. I’ll not have my employees looking drab. My housekeeper dresses better than you do.”

“Insult heaped on top of insult.”

“Truth. Now I want truth from you—why did you keep all that trash about me?”

“To feed your pride, obviously.”

Hart laughed again. It felt good to have him shaking under her, true mirth in his eyes, not the bleakness she’d seen when she’d walked into the room. As though reading his letters had ripped the dressing from a wound, he’d bled, and now, she hoped to God, he could let himself heal.

Or at least lie on the bed with her and tease her as though they were dear friends or casual lovers. He’d been like this when he’d courted her, laughing, teasing, goading her into admissions one moment, becoming incredibly tender the next.

At this moment, he tickled her.

“Stop.” Eleanor drummed her hands on his chest. “No wonder people fear the great Hart Mackenzie—vote for me, or I’ll tickle you to death.”

“I’d do it, if it worked.” His smile faded. “Burn those photos, El. They’re terrible.”

On the contrary, they were beautiful. She did not at all like the fact that Mrs. Palmer had taken them, but Eleanor could find no fault with the results.

“No, indeed,” she said. “The well-wisher sent the photographs to me, not you, and I paid a solid guinea for the others. I’ll not burn them. They’re mine.”

Hart tried the scowl, the Mackenzie glare, the little growl. Heaps more effective if he hadn’t been flat on his back, his kilt spread, his hair a mess. As it was, Eleanor kissed the bridge of his nose.

“I’ll only get rid of them if they are replaced,” she said. “Use my clothing allowance to buy me photographing apparatus and have more photos done, ones only for me.”

Hart’s scowl died, and his eyes took on, of all things, embarrassment. “Who would take these photographs?”

“Me, of course. I know how to work photographing apparatus. My father hired a camera once, and all the chemicals and machines for a darkroom, so we could make plates of local flora for one of his books. I quite enjoyed it. I’m a dab hand, I must say.”

“You can type, you can photograph. What can’t you do, paragon?”

“Embroider.” Eleanor wrinkled her nose. “I’m very bad at it. And I never did learn to play the piano. In the maidenly pursuits, I’m not much good. I seem to do better at masculine pursuits.”

Hart’s smile reappeared. “I’d say you were excellent at pursuing the masculine.”

“Oh, very funny, Your Grace. What about the camera?”

“You truly want to take photographs of me?” He sounded… shy.

“I do indeed,” she said. “Is that so difficult to believe?”

“I’m much older now.”

Eleanor let her smile grow. She moved her gaze over his face with its healing cuts, his throat damp behind his pulled-askew cravat, his broad chest under shirt and waistcoat, his flat abdomen. She knelt back to continue looking at him, taking in his tight hips and thighs outlined by the crumpled kilt. The plaid had dragged a little above his knees to show her brawny muscle above his thick wool socks.

She heaved a pleased little sigh. “I don’t see that there’s much wrong with you, Hart Mackenzie.”

“Because I’m fully dressed. Fine feathers.”

An intense and uncontrollable daring gripped her. Before Eleanor could stop herself, she grasped the hem of the kilt and inched it upward until it bared his thighs. Hart lay very still, one arm behind his head, as she looked him over.

“Nothing wrong there either,” she said.

“I ride every day.”

“Very commendable. A sound mind in a sound body. I think these will look quite nice in a photograph.”

Heaven help us, he was blushing.

“Are you that worried?” she asked.

“I was a young man when I was courting you.”

“And I was a very young woman. Although, you do have wrinkles.” Eleanor touched spiderweb lines at the edges of his eyes. She liked them, because it meant he smiled a little, at least.

“You don’t,” he said.

“Because I’m a bit plump. Were I a slender woman, I’d be an old stick by now.”

Hart touched her face with gentle fingers. “I’ve never seen you more gloriously beautiful.”

Eleanor’s heart sped, but she knelt back before the treacherous warmth he stirred might make her say something she’d regret. Slanting him a smile, Eleanor flipped the kilt up past his hips.

She stilled. “Oh.”

Hart’s eyes went dark. “What’s the matter, love?”

“I thought you would be wearing flannels. It’s rather cold.”

“I haven’t gone out this morning,” he said.

Hart’s shyness was gone, he once again turning the tables. He rested his head in his cupped hands and waited to see what she’d do.

Between his thighs lay the tight spheres of his balls, and above those, the length of him arced back against his abdomen, cradled by plaid.

“I wish I had the photographing apparatus now,” Eleanor said.

“Do you, naughty woman?”

Oh, yes. Hart would make a heady portrait—him lying back, his kilt crumpled around his hips to reveal his wanting while he watched her with warm eyes.

She’d learned his body a long time ago, becoming familiar with the scar that snaked up the inside of his right thigh, the way his hair curled along his legs, how one knee was not the perfect mirror of the other. The photographs didn’t show these small details; they were known only to the woman who had the privilege of gazing at him this close.

Hart said nothing, did nothing.

Eleanor touched the scar, finding the little ridge smooth and cool. Something sparked in Hart’s eyes as she traced the scar upward, but he remained still.

His skin was warmer closer to the join of his legs. His scar ended halfway up the inside of his leg, but Eleanor let her finger continue along the trail until she found the crease between ball and thigh. She caressed there a moment, the last safe place, and then moved her fingers to the shaft.

Hart’s body jerked the slightest bit. His gaze fixed on her, waiting.

Eleanor’s smile widened as she drew her finger up the length of him to his tip. His skin was smooth, hot, and at the same time, silken soft. Strength encased in a firm package.

“The male’s organ stiffens,” she said. “So that he might penetrate the female’s softest place and enter her for his purpose.”

“Bawd,” Hart said, voice rough. “Who taught you such talk?”

“A scientific journal.”

Hart’s laughter shook him, but not enough to make Eleanor’s fingers slide away. “I hope you damn well don’t whisper such things to any other man, especially not in that sweet voice.”

“Only to you, Hart. Only ever to you.”

He stilled. “Eleanor, you are killing me.”

She lifted her hand away. “Shall I stop?”

“No!” Hart grasped her wrist, grip biting down, then he stopped himself, deliberately uncurling his fingers. He tucked his hand behind his head again, but she saw it shaking. “I don’t want you to stop,” he said. “Please.”

It was very difficult for this man to say please. Eleanor put her finger to her lips, hesitating as though pondering what to do. Hart watched her, his entire body tense.

Eleanor rested her hand on him again. Again he jerked, Hart trying to contain his reaction.

She glided her palm up the length of him, exactly as he’d showed her that long-ago day in the summerhouse. Hart sucked in a breath, body rigid. Eleanor brushed her palm over his tip and then slid her hand back down.

“Oh, God, Eleanor… lass.”

The groan nearly undid her. Eleanor stroked him again, this time a little faster. Hart grew even harder under her touch, and Eleanor warmed with the power of it.

“El. Sweet El. Holy Christ.”

Hart’s hands tightened to fists, as though he stopped himself, with great effort, from reaching for her.

In the summerhouse and the bedchambers, they’d undressed before intimate touching had commenced. Eleanor had not known how exciting things could be when they both remained fully clothed. What a delicious discovery.

Hart, for his part, was making all kinds of discoveries. That Eleanor was more beautiful than ever, that he wasn’t quite dead, that her touch was incredible. Despite Eleanor’s assertions, she was innocent, and her little smile opened up every devilish part of him.

The wild feeling in his cock spread down his body and up again into his heart. Hart was going to die of this. Hart the master, the all-powerful, surrendered to his lady’s touch.

God, it was glorious.

“Eleanor,” he said breathlessly. “You undo me. You always have.”

“Shall I stop?”

Look at her, playful and challenging, utterly innocent and wicked at the same time. He’d let her walk away from him, because he’d been stupid, and young, and too bloody arrogant. He’d never let her walk away again. Even if he had to lock her into this chamber with him for the rest of their lives, he’d keep her with him, always.

It would not be so bad an existence. His servants could cut a hole in the door to pass them food and drink, and maybe Hart would remember to eat it.

“Never stop,” Hart heard himself say. “Never. Please. Oh, dear God.”

He rose on his elbows, unable to stay flat against the pillow. He watched the hand that pleasured him, with small, feminine fingers that were proving to be very, very clever.

“Take me all the way, El. Please, or you’ll kill me.”

Eleanor knew what he meant. She did have knowledge, because Hart had taught it to her a long time ago.

Eleanor lay down at his side as she kept up the beautiful friction, and Hart wrapped his arm around her. Her head rested on his chest, and strands of red gold hair snaked across his black coat. Hart stroked her, keeping his touch gentle.

Darkness rose, but Hart fought it down. He wanted this to be simple, light, a woman pleasuring him because she wanted to pleasure him.

Basic physical need took over. His mind blanked to all but the scent of Eleanor’s hair, the glorious feeling of her fingers, her warmth at his side. Nothing but her and him, sensation, wanting.

His hips moved. “Eleanor.”

He scooped her up to him and thrust his mouth over hers just as it ended. Heat scalded his thighs, but the sensation went on and on. Hart kissed Eleanor’s mouth, and she moved her lips in greedy response.

“Lass, what you do to me.”

Eleanor’s eyes were half closed, lovely blue between black lashes. Hart’s words ran out, and he simply kissed her.

It was peaceful here. The house was quiet, he and she close, Hart kissing Eleanor on her bed on a rainy London morning.

She touched his face as they kissed, saying nothing. Sweet kisses. No hurry.

“You soothe me,” he whispered.

Her eyes softened. “I’m glad.”

Time flowed by. Hart and Eleanor were nose-to-nose, kissing, touching, enjoying the silence.

They lay together in quiet enjoyment, until Wilfred’s dry cough in the hall invaded the peace, reminding Hart of the real world waiting for him. He wanted to tell the real world to go hang.

Eleanor, sensibly, fetched a towel from her washstand and brought it back to the bed. Hart wiped her hands and himself with the linen, then kissed her as he slid from the bed, the heavy folds of his kilt once more falling to cover him.

When he married her, they would have many more days like this. No matter how busy their lives became, no matter how many people vied for their attention, Hart would make certain that the duke and duchess often retired from the public eye to lie together in joyful silence.

It was all he could do to make himself leave the room, and her, his heart full.

Eleanor blew out her breath as Hart closed the door. She went to her washbasin and bathed her hands and face in cool water, fetching yet another towel from her cupboard.

She was still shaking. What had possessed her? But it had been beautiful.

She went to the writing table, where Hart had left the book, and began gathering up the letters to return to their hiding place. Not many seconds later, she found herself sitting down to flip through the pages of the memory book, back to the photographs.

She smiled. Hart might insist he was past his first youth now, but he’d looked quite fine on her bed with his kilt bunched around his hips. Better even, than he had years ago. He’d filled out, his body reaching the potential his younger features had promised.

She sighed and began gathering the letters again. She unfolded the letter she’d found Hart reading and skimmed through it, her heart aching for him all over again.

Hart was right; she ought to have burned it. But Eleanor had reasoned the likelihood small that anyone would find the hidden letter in her out-of-the-way abode on the Scottish coast. The servants never touched her belongings, and her father went rarely to her bedchamber. She’d not thought about the letters tucked into the book as she’d packed for London; she’d simply not wanted to leave the book behind.

But Eleanor understood the danger of keeping the letter. Hart shooting his father had been an accident, she was certain—they had wrestled for the shotgun, and it had gone off. What had been in Hart’s mind the split second between the gun landing in his hands and the shot flying out of it was between Hart and God.

Whatever had happened, the duke’s death had brought Ian home to safety. But if Hart’s enemies ever got hold of the letter, it could spell disaster for Hart.

Eleanor marched to the stove and opened its door. “Let that be an end to it,” she said, using the words Hart predicted she would, and consigned the letter to the flames.

The shooting attempt made Hart rethink the travel arrangements to Berkshire. Hart would not be staying at Cameron’s the entire month anyway, as he usually did, but traveling back and forth to London as he could.

Train stations were extremely public places, full of opportunities for crazed assassins to fire at people. Hart agonized over the decision but concluded that Eleanor and her father well might be safer in public, with Mac to guard them, than they would alone in a coach on some empty stretch of country road. Hart would keep them safe by not traveling with them at all.

He climbed to the top of the house the day before they were to depart, having been told that the entire family and Eleanor were taking nursery tea in the room that had been set aside for the children.

When he entered, Eleanor looked up from sinking her teeth into a cream-slathered scone. Hart stopped. The sudden vision of him licking the cream from her lips made him dizzy for a moment.

When he could see again, he took in Mac sitting at a table with Eileen, Isabella next to him, Robert in a baby chair. Eleanor crammed in beside them at the table, while the nanny, Miss Westlock, supervised from a bench on the other side of the room. Aimee sat on a window seat with Lord Ramsay, the earl showing Aimee fossils he’d brought with him from Scotland.

Hart dragged his gaze again from the smear of cream on Eleanor’s lips and addressed Mac. “I’m leaving for Berkshire this morning. I have errands to run along the way, so I’ll take the coach. The rest of you will travel down by train tomorrow afternoon.”

“Coach?” Mac said. He licked clotted cream from his thumb and shook his head at his daughter. “Eileen, please don’t put butter in your brother’s hair.” He looked back at Hart. “Hadn’t you better come with us?”

“I told you, I have errands…”

Eleanor glared at him. “Hart, we know.” She lifted a copy of a gossipy newspaper from the chair beside her and held it up to him.

“How the devil did that rag get into the house?” Hart growled. “Mac?”

Mac looked innocent, but Eleanor’s face was bright with rage. “You lied to me when I asked how you hurt yourself. You said it wasn’t important. How could you? You were nearly killed.”

Hart touched his face where the cuts were fading. “It isn’t important. The man was a terrible shot, and I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t tell you because I don’t want the lot of you fussing.”

“Fussing? Hart, this is dangerous. This is something you tell your family. And your friends.”

“Which is exactly why I don’t want any of you with me!” Hart’s voice rang as he lost hold of his patience. “If the man is such a bad shot, I don’t want my family and friends to become accidental victims when he misses me. Eleanor, you and your father will travel with Isabella and Mac, and I will go with my bodyguards and Wilfred. Wilfred used to be in the army. He knows how to duck.”

Eleanor’s stare turned icy. “Do not try to make a joke of this. I suppose you did not even talk to the police.”

“I did, as a matter of fact. I asked Inspector Fellows to look into it, because if anyone can scare up a culprit, it is our favorite Scotland Yard detective. But he doesn’t have much to go on, only a few chipped bricks. And the man might not have been shooting at me in particular, but at anyone coming out of the building.”

Lord Ramsay broke in. “You must understand that the thought of you traveling alone makes us uneasy, don’t you, Mackenzie? You in a coach? On an empty road between Reading and Hungerford?”

“I will not be alone. I hire former pugilists as footmen for their large bodies and quick reflexes.”

“Which did not help you the night you were shot,” Eleanor pointed out.

“Because that night I was not paying attention.” He’d been thinking about Eleanor in a corset, her hair up, high-heeled ankle boots on her feet. “Now I’ve been warned,” he said.

“Hardly reassuring.” Eleanor’s eyes still held anger. “But I suppose we’ll never talk you out of it. You will send a telegram the moment you arrive, won’t you?”

“El,” Hart said.

“No, never mind. Ainsley will do it. Please make certain you inform Cameron of the problem. Or Cameron might take umbrage, and he’s larger than you.”

Hart didn’t bother to keep the irritation from his voice. “Leave it, Eleanor. I will see you in Berkshire.”

She scowled at him, but Hart only saw her in his heady vision of the corset and boots, made more erotic by a liberal addition of clotted cream. He turned away and made himself walk out the door.

Eleanor had always loved Waterbury Grange, Cameron’s Berkshire estate, though she’d not visited it in ages. Cameron, second-oldest brother of the Mackenzie family, had purchased it shortly after his first wife had died, saying he wanted somewhere far from the place in which he’d spent his unhappy marriage.

Green fields stretched to wooded hills, and the Kennet and Avon Canal drifted lazily along the edge of the property. Spring meant lambs staggering after mothers across the field, and foals keeping close to the mares that wandered the pastures.

Mackenzie family tradition brought them to Waterbury every March. There the brothers, and now their wives and children, would watch Cameron train his racers while they withdrew from the eyes of the world. Here was their chance to be a private family for a short time before Cameron took his three-year-olds to Newmarket.

The house was old, a shapeless pile of golden brick, but from what Ainsley said in her letters, she’d been busily redecorating the inside. Eleanor looked forward to seeing her progress.

But when Eleanor, her father, Isabella, Mac, the exuberant children, their robust nanny, and old Ben climbed down from the carriages that brought them from the train, it was for Hart to meet them at the front door of Waterbury Grange and tell them that Ian had gone missing.