The Duke’s Perfect Wife (MacKenzies & McBrides #4)(30)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

Eleanor had learned that Wilfred was a poor source of information about the Mackenzie family. The man refused to gossip about anything or anyone. This quality was likely why Hart had promoted him from valet to private secretary, but Eleanor found it quite inconvenient. Wilfred was discretion made man.

Wilfred was a human being some of the time, Eleanor knew. He had a daughter and a granddaughter in Kent and doted on them both. He kept their photos in his desk drawer, bought them chocolates and little gifts, and boasted of their accomplishments to Eleanor, in his quiet way.

However, Wilfred never spoke about his shady past when he’d been an embezzler; never mentioned a Mrs. Wilfred; and never, ever told tales about Hart. If Wilfred did not want Eleanor to know why Hart was sending one thousand guineas to this Mrs. Whitaker, Wilfred would take the secret to his grave.

Eleanor gave up, typed the address on the envelope—George Street, near Portman Square—and neatly folded the cheque inside the paper.

Perhaps Hart had found the source of the photographs. Perhaps he was paying the woman to destroy them or to keep quiet about them, or perhaps to persuade her to send him the rest.

Or Mrs. Whitaker might have absolutely nothing to do with the photographs.

Eleanor tucked the cheque into the envelope, closed it, and added the envelope to her stack of finished correspondence.

The house near Portman Square where Mrs. Whitaker lived was ordinary-looking enough. Eleanor studied it carefully as she strolled past for the third time.

Eleanor had used the pretense of doing some shopping to journey to Portman Square, timing the outing to coincide with Isabella returning to her own house to argue with the decorators. In order to lend verisimilitude, Eleanor wandered the shops on the square and nearby streets, buying little gifts for the Mackenzie children and their mothers. Maigdlin trailed her, carrying packages.

Eleanor had seen no activity at all in or around Mrs. Whitaker’s house in the hour or so she’d drifted up and down George Street. No maids cleaning the stoop or footmen walking out to pass the time of day with the maids next door. The blinds remained closed, the door firmly shut.

In order to linger on the street a little longer, Eleanor started browsing the carts of the street vendors, deciding to buy a present for Cameron’s son Daniel. That Daniel was now eighteen was difficult for Eleanor to swallow. He’d been a wild and unhappy child when Eleanor had first met him, always in some scrape or another, earning Cameron’s wrath. He’d resisted Eleanor’s attempts to be motherly, but he had shown Eleanor his collection of live beetles, which Hart had told her was an honor.

Daniel had turned out all right, she’d seen, despite growing up in a houseful of Mackenzie bachelors. He was settled at the university in Edinburgh now, and seemed happy enough.

Eleanor was startled out of thoughts of Daniel by the door of Mrs. Whitaker’s house opening. A footman, a large, beefy lad like Hart’s footmen, came out of it. At the same time a carriage pulled up, and the footman hurried the few steps across the pavement to open the coach’s door.

Eleanor stepped to a street vendor who sold little cakes and watched as a quick-walking maid emerged from the house, followed by a woman who must be Mrs. Whitaker.

The lady was not very tall, but she was voluptuous, a trait she did not bother to hide. Even her fur wrap, pulled on against the chill, was draped to show off her large bosom. She painted—she had deeply rouged cheeks and red lip color—and the hair under her highly fashionable hat was very black.

Mrs. Whitaker adjusted her skintight leather gloves, gave her footman a kind enough nod of thanks, and let him hand her into the carriage. Eleanor stared openly as the carriage moved off, bearing mistress and maid. The footman, looking neither right nor left, strode back into the house and shut the door.

“Good heavens,” Eleanor said to the man selling cakes. “Who was that?”

The vendor glanced at the retreating carriage. “Not the sort of woman I should be talking about to a lady, miss.”

“Truly?” Eleanor slid a coin to him, and the vendor put a warm, wrapped seedcake into her hand. “Now you do have me curious. Do not worry—I am quite long in the tooth and not easily shocked.”

“No better than she ought to be, and that’s the truth, miss. And the gentlemen what go in and out at all hours… Some of the highest in the land, would you believe?”

Yes, Eleanor would believe it. That Mrs. Whitaker was a courtesan did not surprise her in the least. That she was a very successful one showed in her expensive furs, elegant carriage, and high-stepping horses.

Eleanor hid her dismay by unfolding the paper that wrapped the cake and nibbling a corner. “Gracious,” she said.

“I do mean the highest,” the vendor said. “The things I could tell you. Princes go in there. And dukes, like that Scots one, what always wears his kilt. Why a man wants to wear a skirt, I couldn’t say. I’d think the cold would go right up his jacksie, wouldn’t you? Oh, begging your pardon, miss. I forget my tongue.”

“Not at all.” Eleanor smiled at him and took another bite of cake.

Curiosity certainly killed the cat. Mrs. Whitaker was a courtesan, and Hart Mackenzie had sent her a thousand guineas. For the photographs? Or for the usual reason a gentleman paid a courtesan?

Well, Hart was a man, his longtime mistress was dead, and gentlemen did have bodily needs. That was a scientific fact. Their gently born wives could neither understand these bodily needs nor were able to endure them, the scientists went on to say, because gently born ladies did not have the same needs.

Absolute nonsense. Eleanor scoffed at this fiction, and so did her father. The truth was that gentlemen visited courtesans because they enjoyed it. Ladies stayed home and endured their husbands straying because they had no choice.

Hart had never been a saint, and he was dedicated to no one at the moment. Eleanor should not condemn him.

And yet. Eleanor’s heart burned, and for a moment, the street blurred. Another conveyance came toward her while she stood unable to move, a dark square in her clouded vision.

The carriage solidified as it pulled to a stop in front of the house. “Speak of the devil,” the vendor said. “That’s his crest. The Scots duke’s, I mean.”

Eleanor’s vision cleared. There was no time to run and nowhere to hide. Eleanor scuttled to the nearest lamppost and put her shoulder against it, hiding her face to eat another bite of seedcake.

She saw square, polished boots stop in front of her, saw the hem of blue and green Mackenzie plaid above them. Her gaze moved from the kilt that hugged his hips to his crisp shirt under his open greatcoat to Hart’s granite face under the brim of his hat.