The Duke's Perfect Wife
“Are you certain you are feeling quite well?” Eleanor asked. “Ian told me you’d taken a blow on the head from the explosion.”
Hart laughed out loud. He was delectable all wet, his hair slicked with water, his big limbs hanging out of the tub. And the beard. It had startled Eleanor when he’d first stepped into the light, but the softness of it against her lips hadn’t been unpleasant at all.
“I’ve been mad my entire life,” Hart said. “Driven. To take care of my brothers, to make sure we survived, then to take care of the nation, the world if I could. I’ve been terrified that if I stopped, if something happened to me, everything would go to hell. But it hasn’t, has it? It’s wonderful. And I am so bloody tired.”
“But what about the elections? Your party will win. Everyone thinks so.”
“Fleming can lead them. He’ll be good at it, and he’s not a trumped-up aristocrat no one will listen to. He will give Gladstone a run for his money.”
“But if you come back, you can win. I know this.”
“No. I am finished.”
His laughter died into a relieved sigh. The mad light perpetually in Hart’s eyes was absent. At the moment, he was an ordinary man enjoying the simple pleasure of a bath.
“But what about Scotland?” Eleanor asked. “Returning the Stone of Destiny?”
“A stupid dream. The queen adores Scotland, and she’ll never let it go. The days of Highland might and Bonnie Prince Charlie are over, thank God. The strength of Scotland will return one day, but it will take time. I wanted to force it, but I might have made it worse. Look at the mess in Ireland.” Hart splashed more water over his body and rocked up out of the tub, water crashing back into it. “The Stone of Destiny will return to Scotland—someday. I feel it in my bones.” He grinned. “But not today.”
Chapter 22
Eleanor cared nothing at the moment about the elections, the Stone of Destiny, and Scottish pride. She saw only Hart, tall and wet and naked, rising from his bath.
Water darkened the hair on his head and his legs, and on that between his thighs. He was hard with wanting, his smile telling her he knew she liked what she saw. Hart might have said the world would go on without him, but his conceit certainly hadn’t diminished.
The days of worry, fear, hope, and dread washed over Eleanor in a great wave, and her bravado deserted her. She pressed her hand to her mouth as she ran at Hart and flung her arms around him.
Hart swept her up and into his wet embrace. Her dress got soaked, and she didn’t care.
“I thought you were dead,” she sobbed. “I didn’t want you to be dead.”
“I hurt every minute I was away from you, El. Every bloody minute.”
Hart carried her to the bed, coming down on it with her. He got her out of her clothes, tearing buttons from holes, hooks from fabric. Eleanor helped him, throwing off the last of her clothes, needing to be bare against him.
Hart entered her with a gasp of desperation, and then he stilled. They lay together, face-to-face on the high bed, Eleanor’s sobs quieting.
“Eleanor,” he whispered. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too.” Eleanor touched his hair. “I’m going to have a baby.”
Hart stared. “What?”
“A child. A boy, I’m fairly sure. Your son.”
“A baby?”
Eleanor nodded. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” He shouted the word, and at the same time, the golden eyes of Hart Mackenzie flooded with tears. “Why the devil should I mind? I love you, El, love you.”
He laughed as he said it, then he came into her. Eleanor wound her arms around him, laughing with him as he started to frantically love her.
When Eleanor woke, hours later, Hart was asleep facedown beside her, hugging a pillow, blissfully calm.
She loved this—the quiet of the room, the snap of the fire in the stove, she and her husband in a little nest shut away from the world. Only Ian Mackenzie knew where they were, and Ian would never tell.
Would this last? Eleanor wondered. When Hart went home to Kilmorgan, when the world realized he was still in it, would Hart remember his declaration tonight? Or would the world and his ambition swallow him again?
She wouldn’t let it. Ambition was all very well, but now Hart would have a family. She would make sure he never forgot that.
A warm touch on her abdomen made her jump. Eleanor looked down to see Hart’s hand on her belly, he watching her. His leg was twined with hers, a fine position.
“What are you thinking, El?”
Eleanor rearranged her expression. “I was wondering…”
“Yes, minx? What were you wondering?”
“What we did in Mrs. McGuire’s upstairs chamber. Do you remember?”
Hart’s growing smile told her he did. “It is burned on my brain. I could see you in the mirror. It was heaven.”
Eleanor’s face heated. “Is that the sort of thing you did at the High Holborn house?”
He lost his smile. “No.”
“Well, then, what did you do?”
Hart turned onto his back and scrubbed his hand over his face. “El, I do not want to talk about the house and what I did there. Especially not now.”
“Now is as good a time as any.”
“I was much younger then. The first time I lived there, I did not know you; the second time, I was consoling myself for loss. I was a different man.”