The Duke's Perfect Wife

“Hugs afterward,” Ainsley said cheerfully. She sat on the bed, doing last-minute sewing on Eleanor’s veil. “And wedding cake—a nice, tasty one with plenty of currants and candied orange. On the happiest day of your life, you should enjoy your cake.”

The happiest day of her life. Eleanor’s throat was dry, and a cold pain had formed in her stomach.

She’d barely seen Hart since the heartbreaking morning in the canal boat, and the happy celebration with the family and the Romany later.

Hart had returned to London immediately with David to overturn Parliament while Isabella had swept Eleanor, Beth, and Ainsley into the most hurried, intense, and agitated planning Eleanor had encountered in her life. No expense to be spared, nothing too extravagant—but tasteful, everything had to be perfectly tasteful. Nothing ostentatious or vulgar for the new Duchess of Kilmorgan.

Eleanor had seen Hart alone only once since then, when he’d returned to Berkshire for a day and given her the ring. Eleanor twisted it on her finger now, the diamonds and sapphires catching the light, the same ring he’d given her the first time. She’d thrown this at him in the garden of Glenarden the day Eleanor had sent him packing.

“I thought you’d given this to Sarah,” she’d said as Hart slid the cool band onto her finger.

Hart’s voice had gone quiet, his warm hand cradling hers. “I only ever gave it to you. I bought a new one for Sarah. This ring belonged to my mother.”

“Like the earrings.” Those reposed in Eleanor’s jewel box, wrapped carefully in tissue.

“Exactly. She’d be pleased with you.”

Eleanor thought of the gentlewoman who must have felt lost and alone in the family of unruly boys and men. At least the duchess would have had no shame in her sons, had she lived to see them grow up.

“I’m happy to wear it for her,” Eleanor said.

“Wear it for me too, damn it.” Hart turned her hand over and kissed her fingertips. “Try to look happy that we’re marrying at last.”

“I am happy.” And she was. But…

Hart had grown so distant. He was busy and preoccupied, true, because of everything happening in London. But she’d thought, that rainy morning on the bank of the canal, that she’d at last reached the real Hart buried under layers of pain and heartache.

She had found him, she knew it. But then he’d gone again.

Eleanor had looked over their clasped hands and the sparkling ring, straight into his eyes. I’ll not be your perfect wife, Hart Mackenzie, obeying you because it’s my duty. I’ll search until I find you, and I’ll make you stay this time. I swear this.

The wedding took place in the ballroom. Isabella had not wanted to take a chance with the changeable weather to have the ceremony in the garden, and the family chapel was too small. But as the weather had stayed clement, she’d ordered all the doors opened, and a breeze from the famous Kilmorgan gardens wafted up and into the house.

The Scottish minister waited at one end of the room, and the rest of the ballroom overflowed with guests. Isabella, happy that at least one of the Mackenzie brothers was having a proper wedding, had invited the world. Peers of the realm, ambassadors, minor royalty, and aristocrats from every European country, Highland lairds and heads of clans, and The Mackenzie himself with his wife, sons, daughters, and grandchildren.

Local people and friends of the family filled out the rest: David Fleming, Ainsley’s brothers, Isabella’s sister and mother, Lloyd Fellows. Lord Ramsay’s friends and colleagues, who ranged from Scottish ghillies to learned professors and the head of the British Museum. Rounding them out were Eleanor’s girlhood friends with their husbands. The Mackenzie children and the two McBride children had been allowed to come, supervised by Miss Westlock and Scottish nannies in the back.

The front corner of the room had been partitioned off with chairs and velvet ropes. Behind this barricade sat the Queen of England herself. She was in black, as usual, but wore a plaid ribbon pinned to her veil, and her daughter Beatrice was in Scots plaid.

In deference to the queen, everyone stood.

Every person in the room, including the queen, turned to stare as Eleanor entered on her father’s arm. Eleanor halted for an instant, all those eyes on her unnerving.

They were speculating—why had Eleanor Ramsay changed her mind after so many years and agreed to marry Hart Mackenzie? And why had he decided that a spinster of thirty-odd years, daughter of an impoverished and absentminded earl, was a better match than the quantity of eligible ladies in Britain? A marriage of convenience—it had to be.

“The best thing is to ignore them,” Earl Ramsay whispered to Eleanor. “Let them think what they want and pay no attention. I’ve been doing that for years.”

Eleanor dissolved into laughter and kissed the earl on the cheek. “Dear Father. Whatever would I do without you?”

“Muddle along, I expect. Now let’s get you married off so I can go home in peace.”

Thinking of her father returning to Glenarden alone—with Eleanor not there to take tea with him, to listen to him read from the newspapers, to discuss bizarre and esoteric topics with him—made her eyes fill. Though she reminded herself that her marriage ensured that her father could go on writing his obscure books and eating scones with his tea in a well-repaired house, saying good-bye to him would hurt.

Eleanor lifted her chin, following her father’s advice about ignoring everyone, and she and her father walked forward.