Chapter 6

“El.”

Eleanor stopped at Hart’s voice from the landing below her. It was an hour since the mishap with Lady Murchison, and Eleanor had gone upstairs to find a shawl for a lady who complained of cold. Dancing and drinking continued in the ballroom below, a Scottish reel filling the hall with its happy strains.

The gaslights were low, Hart a bulk of shadow against deeper darkness. He looked like a Highlander lurking to strike down his enemies—the only thing missing was his claymore. Eleanor had seen a painting of Hart’s great-great-grandfather, Malcolm Mackenzie, complete with sword and haughty sneer, and she decided that Hart resembled him greatly. Malcolm had been a madman, legends went, a ruthless fighter none could defeat, the only of five Mackenzie brothers to survive Culloden field. If Old Malcolm had possessed even an ounce of the same determined focus as Hart, then Malcolm had been dangerous indeed.

Eleanor pasted on a smile and went down the stairs to him, arms filled with the shawl. “What are you doing up here, Hart? The ball isn’t over, yet.”

Hart stepped in her way as she tried to flow past him. “You are the very devil, Eleanor Ramsay.”

“For fetching a shawl for a chilly lady? I thought I was being kind.”

Hart gave her a look that held some of his old fire. “I had Wilfred write Lady Murchison a cheque for the dress.”

Of course, he would not have forgotten the little incident in the ballroom. “How thoughtful you are,” Eleanor said. “Wine does make a deplorable stain. Too bad, really—it was a lovely gown.”

Eleanor tried to duck around him again, but Hart caught her arm. “El.”

“What?”

She couldn’t read what was in his eyes, a stillness behind the gold. She thought he might harangue her about deliberately ruining Lady Murchison’s gown—the lady had conceded defeat when the soda wouldn’t wash out the stain, and had gone home. But Hart said nothing about that.

Instead he touched the emeralds dangling from her ear. “These were my mother’s.”

Hart’s voice went soft, his finger brushing Eleanor’s earlobe with equal softness. This is what Lady Murchison had longed for, Hart’s skilled touch, the way his voice could drop to gentleness, curling heat through the lucky lady’s body.

“Isabella insisted, I’m afraid,” Eleanor said quickly. “I wanted to refuse—they having belonged to your mother and all—but you know Isabella. She fixes on a thing, and she hears no argument. I would have asked you about it, but it was rather last minute, and you were already receiving guests. I can remove them if you like.”

“No.” Hart’s fingers closed on the earring, but gently, not pulling. “Isabella was right. They look well on you.”

“Even so, it was rather audacious of her.”

“My mother would have wanted you to wear them.” His voice went softer still. “She would have liked you, I think.”

“I did meet her, once,” Eleanor said. “I was only a child—eight years old, not long after my own mother passed—but we did get on rather well. She said she wished she had a daughter.”

Eleanor remembered the duchess’s sweet perfume, the way she’d pulled Eleanor into an impulsive embrace and hadn’t wanted to let her go. Hart’s mother, Elspeth, had been a beautiful woman, but with haunted eyes.

Hart looked a little like her, although Ian and Mac resembled her most. Hart and Cam had the look of their father, a big brute of a man who hadn’t liked Eleanor, but that had been fine with her.

Hart released the earring and raised Eleanor’s hand to his lips. He kissed the backs of her fingers, the heat of his mouth searing through the thin fabric of her gloves.

Eleanor stood very still, clutching the slippery folds of the shawl, heart hammering. Hart closed his eyes as he kissed her glove again, as though trying to absorb her warmth through his lips.

This afternoon, Hart had seized her in a forceful embrace, had pinned her wrists behind her in an impossible grip. He’d bitten down on her lip, but he hadn’t been teasing or playful. He’d had raw need in his eyes.

And Eleanor hadn’t been afraid. She’d known that Hart wouldn’t hurt her. Break her heart, yes; hurt her, no.

Tonight he was everything that was gentle. Hart touched her lip in the place he’d bruised it. Eleanor had covered the tiny bruise with a subtle amount of lip paint, but Hart knew exactly where he’d marked her.

“Did I hurt you?” he whispered, brows drawing together.

Eleanor couldn’t stop her tongue darting out to touch her lip. “No.”

“Don’t ever let me hurt you,” he said. “If I do anything you don’t like, you say, Stop, Hart, and I will. I promise you that.”

She shook her head. “You’ve never done anything I didn’t like.” She blushed as she said it.

Hart touched her upper lip. “I’m a wicked man. You know that. You know all my secrets.”

“Not really. I know that you like… games. I’ve come to understand that. Like the photographs. Though exactly what sort of games, I have always been curious to know.”

If she thought he’d tell her, here in the stairwell, she was disappointed.

“Not games,” he said. “Not with you. What I want with you…” His eyes glittered. “I want things I shouldn’t want.”

He cupped her cheek. She saw the pulse throb in his throat, his face suffuse with color.

Hart was holding himself back. Whatever thoughts were in his mind, whatever he wanted that he couldn’t say, he was stopping himself. The shaking of his fingers, the rigidity of his body, the way his eyes darkened in the shadows told her that.

He bent closer. Eleanor smelled his shaving soap, the whiskey he’d drunk, and faintly behind that, Lady Murchison’s rather dreadful perfume.

Closer still. Hart’s eyes closed as he touched his lips to the place he’d bitten her.

Eleanor’s chest hurt, and she stood still, astonished that she ached this much. Hart’s lips caressed, thumb at the corner of her mouth.

Eleanor raised herself up to him, tasting the bite of his tongue as it swept into her mouth. Gently, gently, Hart still holding back. His lips were smooth, dry where his mouth was wet. The wild taste of him was still familiar. The years fell away, and they fit.

Hart’s fingers were strong, hot points, his mouth even stronger. Eleanor melted against him, her body too warm, hungry for him.

Say, Stop, Hart, and I will. He meant she should say it if he locked her in place as he’d done this afternoon, rendering her helpless against him.

She was helpless now, and she had no intention of telling him to stop.

The shawl slid from Eleanor’s nerveless grip and pooled at their feet. Hart moved closer, his thighs pressing her skirt, his arm firm around her waist. Eleanor felt the hardness of him through layers of fabric, his wanting obvious. Her thoughts flashed back to the photograph of him laughing in nothing but his kilt, then his smile when he’d let the kilt drop.

He’d been beautiful. She wanted him to bare his body for her again—for her, and for no one else.

Eleanor knew exactly why Lady Murchison had let her hand wander to his backside. Eleanor slid her fingers there now, brushing past the formal frock coat and finding the finely spun wool of the plaid. Hart must be wearing something under it, but if so, it was something rather thin. Eleanor cupped the firmness of his buttocks, agreeable warmth shooting through her as she felt strong muscle beneath the wool.

Hart raised his head. His gentle look fled, and the sinful smile of the young Hart Mackenzie spread across his face.

“Devil,” he said.

“You are still rather attractive, Hart.”

“And you still have fire in you.” Hart brushed a fingertip over her lashes. “I see it.”

“On the contrary. Things have been rather chilly in Aberdeen.”

“And you came to London to warm yourself? Wicked lass.”

Eleanor squeezed his buttocks again, unable to help herself. “Why do you think I came to London?”

Uncertainty sparkled in his eyes, and his brows came down. Eleanor remembered the heady power she’d felt when turning his teasing back on him. Hart wasn’t used to that—he wanted to be master of all situations. When he didn’t know what Eleanor was thinking, it made him wild.

“Because of the photographs, you said. And you told me you wanted a job.”

“I could have taken a typing post in Aberdeen. I didn’t have to come all the way to London for it.”

Hart touched his forehead to hers. “Don’t do this to me, El. Don’t tempt me with what I can’t have.”

“I have no intention of tempting you. But you wonder why, don’t you? I see it every time you look at me.”

Hart’s hand came around her jaw again. “You disregard your danger. I’m a dangerous man. When I know what I want, I take it.”

“You didn’t want Lady Murchison?” Eleanor let her eyes go wide.

“She’s a harpy. The wine wasn’t necessary.”

“I disliked watching her touch you.”

Hart squeezed Eleanor’s mouth the slightest bit, making a pucker, which he kissed. “I like that you disliked that. Saving me for you to touch?”

Eleanor pressed his backside again. “It seems that you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind. I never minded.” Another soft kiss. “You have clever fingers, El. I remember.”

Eleanor wanted to collapse, like the shawl around her feet. Hart Mackenzie was expert at teasing—but what they’d shared in the past made this real. If she asked him, would he accompany her to her room on the upper floor, would he spend the rest of the night in her bed, while they remembered how they’d enjoyed learning each other’s bodies?

Before she could speak, Hart lifted her from her feet and sat her on the landing’s railing. Eleanor gasped, feeling empty air behind her back, but Hart’s strong arms held her safely. He pressed aside her skirts as he stepped between her legs, the shawl forgotten behind him on the floor.

“You make me come alive,” Hart said.

Eleanor’s voice shook. “Is that so bad a thing?”

“Yes.” His jaw tightened. “I succeed because I focus. I fix on one thing and do anything to obtain that thing. Come hell or high water. You…” He held her with one arm while he touched a finger to her lips. “You make me break that focus. You did it before, and you’re doing it now. I should send you back down to the ballroom and out of my sight, but right now, all I want to do is count your freckles. And kiss them. And lick them…”

Hart brushed a kiss to her cheekbone, and another, and another. He was doing it, kissing every one of her freckles. Eleanor leaned back in his arms a little, knowing he wouldn’t let her fall.

She felt hot, wild as he always had made her. Eleanor the prim and proper spinster, helper to her widowed father, paragon of Glenarden, knew she’d let Hart do to her anything he wanted, and worry about consequences when it was time for consequences.

His lips found hers again, his strong, mastering mouth caressing. Eleanor wound her arms around him and let herself kiss him back. Their mouths met, and met again, the soft noise of kisses drifting through the stairwell. Eleanor twined one leg around his and slid a slippered foot up his hard, hard thigh.

He drew back a little, eyes glinting with his smile. “There’s my wicked lass,” he whispered. “I’ve never forgotten you, El. Never.”

Eleanor felt as wanton as he called her. But what of it? They were rather elderly, weren’t they? A widower and a spinster, past the age of scandal. What harm was a little kissing on the staircase?

But this was not harmless, and Eleanor knew it. Her twining leg opened her to him, and Hart knew how to step between her so that his hardness wedged exactly to the right place…

“Mackenzie?” A voice drifted upward through the banisters, one slurred but holding a note of surprise.

Eleanor gasped and jumped, and would have fallen but for Hart’s iron-strong arms around her. The real world swirled back at her like a cold wind, but Hart merely raised his head and looked down the stairs in impatience.

“Fleming,” he said. “What do you want?”

“Many apologies for interrupting,” came the sardonic reply. “Put it down to my remarkably bad timing.”

Eleanor recognized the voice. He was David Fleming, one of Hart’s oldest friends and political cronies. When Hart had begun courting Eleanor, David had declared himself in love with Eleanor as well—openly and without shame. To his credit, he’d never tried to interfere with the courtship or steal Eleanor from Hart, but after Eleanor had broken the engagement, David had rushed to Glenarden and asked Eleanor to marry him. Eleanor had given him a polite, but firm, no.

She liked David, and she’d continued on friendly terms with him, but he enjoyed drinking and dicing to the point of debauchery. His love of the political game was the only thing that kept him from pursuing his vices into oblivion, and Eleanor feared what would happen to him when the political game no longer held his interest.

“If you can tear yourself away, Mackenzie,” Fleming drawled, “I have Neely in my coach. I’ve done as much as I can, but I need your touch to bring him in. Shall I tell him to return at a better time?”

Eleanor watched Hart change from the wicked young man she’d been in love with to the hard, passionless politico Hart had become.

“No,” he said. “I’ll be right down.”

David took a few steps forward, face coming into the light. “Good God, that’s Eleanor.”

Hart scooped Eleanor from the railing, and she landed on her slippered feet, skirts falling decorously back into place.

“I know who I am, Mr. Fleming,” she said as she snatched up the fallen shawl.

David leaned against the wall below, brought out a silver flask, and took a drink. “Want me to beat on him for you, El? After we land Neely, of course. I need Hart for that. I’ve had a devil of a time getting him this far.”

“No need,” Eleanor said. “All is well.”

She felt David’s keen, dark stare on her all the way from the ground floor. “I love to hate him,” he said, gesturing at Hart with his flask. “And hate to love him. But I need him, and he needs me, and therefore, I will have to wait before I kill him.”

“So you’ve said,” Eleanor answered.

Eleanor did not look at Hart as she went down the stairs, but she felt his heat behind her. David put away the flask, took Eleanor’s elbow when she reached the last stairs, and guided her the rest of the way down.

“Honestly, El,” he said. “If you need protection from him, you tell me.”

Eleanor stepped off the final stair and withdrew from his grasp. “Do not bother about me, Mr. Fleming,” she said, flashing him a smile. “I am my own woman, and always have been.”

“Do I not know it.” David heaved an unhappy sigh and lifted Eleanor’s hand to his lips.

Eleanor gave him another smile, withdrew, and hurried back to the ballroom with the shawl, never looking back at Hart. But she felt Hart’s gaze on her, felt the anger in his stare, and hoped he would not take out that anger on poor Mr. Fleming.

David Fleming’s coach was ostentatious, like himself. The prim Mr. Neely, a bachelor of Spartan habits, looked out of place in it. He sat upright, his hat on his rather bony knees.

“Forgive the coach,” Fleming said from the opposite seat as Mr. Neely glanced about in distaste. “My father was avaricious and flamboyant at the same time, and I inherited his fruits.”

Hart, for his part, couldn’t catch his breath. Having Eleanor warm in his arms, she looking up at him with absolute trust, had crashed into him and made everything else as nothing. If Fleming hadn’t interrupted, Hart would have taken her tonight. Perhaps there on the stairs, with the possibility of one of the guests looking up and seeing them rendering it doubly exciting.

His hardness had deflated a bit when David had called up the stairs, but thinking about Eleanor on the railing, her foot sliding up to his backside, was making it rise again.

Pay attention. We throw the net over Neely, and he brings in his dozen staunch followers, wrenching them away from Gladstone. We need him. Fleming was right to fetch me—he’s too decadent for Neely’s taste.

The reformed Hart Mackenzie, on the other hand, who rarely touched a woman these days, could win over a prudish bachelor. Nothing like a rake who’s seen the error of his ways to excite a puritan.

Neely gave David a disapproving look as David lit a cigar, leaned back, and inhaled the smoke with pleasure. David rarely bothered controlling his appetites, but Hart knew that David had a razorlike mind behind his seeming depravity.

“Mr. Fleming believes he can purchase my loyalty,” Neely said. He made a face at the smoke and coughed into a small fist.

David had nicely primed the target, Hart saw. “Mr. Fleming can be crude,” he said. “Put it down to his upbringing.”

Neely gave Fleming an unfriendly look. “What do you want?” he asked Hart.

“Your help.” Hart spread his hands, the words coming easily to his lips while his body sat back and craved Eleanor. “My reforms, Neely, will strike to the heart of matters dear to you. I hate corruption, hate looking the other way while human beings are exploited in the name of enriching the nation. I’ll stop such things, but I need your help to do it. I can’t work alone.”

Neely looked slightly mollified. Hart knew better than to appeal to him by promising gains of power or wealth—Neely was a well-off, upper-middle-class English gentleman with strong ideas about one’s place in society. He disapproved of David’s wild lifestyle and Hart’s vast estate, but he didn’t condemn the two men entirely. Not their fault. Hart was a duke, David the grandson of a peer. They belonged to the aristocratic classes and couldn’t help their excesses.

Neely also believed that the duty of the higher classes was to better the lot of the lower classes. He wanted them to remain peasants, of course, but happy and well-cared-for peasants, to show the world at large that the English, at least, still practiced noblesse oblige. Neely would never dream of drinking a pint “down at the pub” with a coal miner or hiring a Cockney pickpocket to be a valet to his brother. But he’d certainly fight for better wages, lower bread prices, and less dangerous working conditions.

“Yes, well,” Neely said. “You have put forth some excellent ideas for reforms, Your Grace.” He wet his lips, gaze darting first to David, then Hart.

David caught the look and shot Hart a glance. “Perhaps we can sweeten the pot, eh?” David asked. “I sense that you wish to ask us something. You’re in confidence here. Words will go no further than the three of us and these walls.” He patted the cushioned velvet beside his head.

Hart expected Neely to ask for another tax on the aristocracy or their help on a pet project, or some such, but he surprised them by saying, “I wish to marry.”

Hart raised his brows. “Do you? My felicitations.”

“No, no. I mean, I wish to marry, but I am afraid that I am acquainted with no eligible, unmarried ladies. Perhaps, Your Grace, with your wide circle, you could introduce me to someone suitable?”

While Hart hid his annoyance, David took a pull of his cigar, removed it, and looked through the smoke at Hart. “Perhaps Lady Eleanor could help? She knows everyone in the country.”

Neely perked up at the mention of a title. “If this lady would be so kind?”

David stuck his cigar back into his mouth, and Hart gave him an irritated glance. While Eleanor acknowledged that many women of her class married to make social or financial connections, she might not be best pleased at being asked to introduce the prissy and snobbish Neely to one of her friends.

“I have to caution you,” Hart said to Neely, “that even were Lady Eleanor to agree to help, whether the young lady in question accepted your offer of marriage would be entirely up to her. A marriage is too nebulous a thing to guarantee.”

Neely thought about this, and nodded. “Yes, I see. Well, gentlemen, I will consider things.”

Hart felt the fish slipping away. But he had no interest in scouring England to find this man a bride. He’d have to resort to threats, not exactly what he wanted to do this night either.

Before he could speak, David blew out smoke and said, “Tell us what you really want, Neely.”

Hart glanced at David in surprise, then he wondered how he’d missed the signs. Neely was nervous, far more than a man wishing to be introduced to the right woman.

Hart’s head was not in this game tonight. Of course not. His thoughts were on the stairwell with Eleanor, her instant but innocent response, the taste of her mouth, the scent of her skin…

“You were about to ask for something else, before you settled on the safe topic of marriage,” David said, dragging back Hart’s attention. “Confess. You’re among friends. Worldly friends, at that.”

In other words, you can be honest with us, because we’re as bad as any gentlemen could be. You cannot possibly shock us.

Neely cleared his throat. He started to smile, and Hart relaxed. David had found a point of comradeship with him. Now to bring the fish into the boat.

Neely looked at Hart. “I want to do what you do.”

Hart frowned, not understanding. “What I do?”

“With women.” Neely’s eyes took on a hopeful light. “You know.”

Oh, dear God. “That was in the past, Mr. Neely,” Hart said coolly. “I’ve reformed.”

“Yes. Very admirable of you.” Neely drew a breath. “But you’d know where I can find such things. I like the ladies. I like them very much, but I’m a bit shy. And I have no idea which ones to approach for… certain things. I met a fellow in France who told me he put a halter on one and rode her like a horse. I’d like… I’d like very much to try something like that.”

Hart struggled to hide his disgust. What Neely asked for was nothing like the exotic pleasures Hart had learned and enjoyed. Neely asked for what he thought Hart enjoyed—using women, perhaps hurting them, for his pleasure. What Neely meant was a perversity, and not at all the art Hart practiced.

What Hart did was about trust, not pain—Hart promising the most exquisite joy to the woman who surrendered to him absolutely. He’d schooled himself to understand exactly what each woman wanted and exactly how to give it to her, and how to ease her back safely in the end. A lady never needed to fear when she was in Hart’s care.

However, the art could be dangerous, and an inexperienced pervert like Neely could truly hurt someone. The thought that Neely assumed Hart enjoyed handing out pain annoyed him. The man was an idiot.

But Hart needed the man’s votes. He swallowed his anger and said, “Mrs. Whitaker.”

“Ah.” David smiled and gestured with the cigar. “Excellent choice.”

“Who is Mrs. Whitaker?” Neely asked.

“A woman who will take good care of you,” Hart said. Mrs. Whitaker was a courtesan who knew how to contain overexcited men like Neely. “David will see you to her house.”

Neely looked eager and fearful at the same time. “Do you mean on the moment?”

“No time like the present,” Hart said. “I will leave you in Mr. Fleming’s hands. Good evening, Mr. Neely. I must return to my guests.”

“Quite.” Neely made a bow in his seat but did not extend a hand. He’d never think it proper to offer to shake hands with a duke. “I thank you, Your Grace.”

David and Hart shared another glance, and Hart opened the door. He climbed with relief out of the smoky carriage as David stretched his legs across the seat Hart had vacated and crossed his ankles, the very picture of decadence. A footman shut the door and the carriage rolled away.

Hart’s breath steamed in the chill of the night, but his house glowed with light and warmth. Music, voices, and laughter poured out the front door.

Hart strode into the house much more willingly than he’d walked out of it. He wanted to see Eleanor. Needed to see her. Needed her warm blue eyes and her wide smile, her effusive chatter like sudden rain on a dry, hot day. He wanted her beauty to cancel out the ugliness of Neely, wanted to return to the innocent pleasure of kissing her freckles, which had tasted honey sweet.

There she was, in the bottle green that for some reason brought out the blue of her eyes, the emerald earrings that had belonged to his mother dangling from her ears. A strange relief wafted over Hart when he looked at her, as though the ball, the meeting with Neely—all of it—was nothing, and only Eleanor was real.

She was chatting animatedly—nothing shy about Eleanor—to ladies and to gentlemen, gesturing with a furled fan she seemed to have acquired. Or perhaps it had dangled from her wrist the entire night; Hart couldn’t remember. The closed fan became a perfect horizontal as she moved her hand to make a point, then the fan came up to touch her lips.

Hart went rock hard. He stopped in the doorway to the ballroom, one hand on the door frame to keep himself from falling over.

He wanted Eleanor for all those dark pleasures he’d scorned Neely for not understanding. He wanted her surrendering to his hands, trusting him with everything she had, while he took the fan and touched her with it. He wanted to see her astonishment when she discovered how profound the pleasure of simple touching could be, the depth and breadth of it.

He wanted it now.

Hart pushed himself away from the door frame, giving cursory nods to those who tried to gain his attention, and made his way to Eleanor.