The Duke's Perfect Wife

Fellows strode to them. “Mackenzie, the law isn’t for you to take into your hands. I need to know these contacts. I can’t go back to my chief inspector and tell him that I let you send a violent criminal off to America with a slap on the hand.”

“You know that once he tells us what we need to know, his life won’t be worth anything,” Hart said. “If his colleagues don’t come for him, he’ll go to Newgate and be hung or shot for treason.”

“Rewarding him by sending him to America to live with his sister won’t exactly reform him, will it?”

Eleanor broke in before Hart could answer. “Neither will hanging him, Mr. Fellows. He’s only a boy. He’s nothing more than a trigger, like an extension of the pistol. I’m willing to give him a chance, if he helps you find those who want Hart dead.”

Darragh sat silently through the exchange, fear large in his eyes. It was beginning to dawn on him, Hart saw, how he’d been used. “I’m not a trigger,” he said in a small voice.

Eleanor smoothed his hair again. “Best you keep your head down and mouth shut, lad. Or Inspector Fellows will be driving you away in a cart with bars on it. Your only chance is to do what His Grace tells you.”

Darragh blinked back tears. “But I can’t… tell.”

“Mackenzie,” Fellows said, voice strained, “I understand your tactics. I even admire you for them, but you’ll cost me my job.”

“Hart will never let it come to that.” Eleanor smiled sweetly at Fellows, then Hart. “Will he?”

“No,” Hart said. “The Home Office will answer to me soon enough, Fellows. You’ll keep your job. Especially if you are instrumental in rooting out a cache of Fenians.”

“Then that’s settled,” Eleanor said. “Perhaps you should give Darragh some tea before you start with the questions. He looks all in.”

Hart put his hand under Eleanor’s arm and lifted her from the chair. “You are the one who is all in. The boy will be fine. You are going back to bed.”

“I am rather tired.” She sagged, and Hart slid his arm around her waist. “You must give me your word you won’t hurt him,” she said.

“He’ll stay intact. Fellows, keep the boy here while I take Eleanor upstairs.”

Fellows glared at him. He looked so much like their father when he did that.

Eleanor’s legs buckled, and Hart swept her into his arms and carried her out. The anteroom and halls beyond were empty, Isabella having the sense to herd the remaining guests into the garden for an alfresco dinner.

Hart carried Eleanor through the enormous front hall, still decorated with swags for the wedding, and up the stairs. The giant vase that always stood on the hall table today was filled with pink roses and lily of the valley.

Eleanor smiled at Hart as he carried her upward, her eyes sleepy blue slits. She touched his chest, the diamond and sapphire engagement ring glittering next to the plain gold of the wedding band. Eleanor Ramsay. His wife.

“Don’t be too long,” she murmured. “It’s our wedding night, remember.”

Eleanor rested her head on Hart’s shoulder and went sweetly to sleep.

Hart Mackenzie was an arrogant son of a bitch who would never change.

Lloyd Fellows stormed away from Hart’s study several hours later. Hart had carried his wife to her bedchamber—what a tender husband—and then returned to put Darragh through it. Hart was expert at twisting information out of anyone, and he’d twisted it out of Darragh. He’d never even touched the lad. Darragh had given up the names of the leaders and where they met in London and in Liverpool.

Fellows doubted they’d still be there. They’d have heard from one of their own that the assassination attempt was a failure and that Darragh had been taken. They’d still be in the area, though, and now Fellows knew their names. It would not be long before he found them.

He admired Hart and at the same time wanted to strangle him. Hart Mackenzie had grown up with every privilege, while Lloyd Fellows had grubbed for himself. Fellows had worked hard all his life to take care of his mother in the back streets of London while Hart had slept between soft linen sheets and eaten food prepared by celebrated chefs.

Now Mackenzie, instead of staying at his injured wife’s bedside, had sat in his opulent study and done Fellows’s job. Better, probably, than Fellows could have.

It rankled. Never mind that Hart had given Fellows enough information with which to return to London and start rooting out the madmen who thought nothing of shooting into crowds and blowing up railway lines. Fellows would nab them and get all the glory. Hart would let him. That rankled too.

To relieve his feelings, Fellows stormed into a room at the end of the hall, unaware even of where he was going in this colossal house.

“Oh,” said a female voice.

Fellows stopped, his hand on the door handle, and saw a young lady standing unsteadily on a ladder, her hands full of garlands. She was definitely teetering, the garlands rendering her unable to steady herself. Fellows hurried to her and kept her from falling by putting strong hands on her hips.

“Thank you,” she said. “You did make me jump.”

She was Lady Louisa Scranton, Isabella Mackenzie’s younger sister. The dress beneath Fellows’s hands was a dark blue silk, the hips beneath that supple.

Fellows had met Lady Louisa on several occasions at Mackenzie gatherings but had done no more than exchange polite pleasantries with her. Louisa much resembled her sister, Isabella, with brilliant red hair, green eyes, a curving figure, and a red-lipped smile.