The Duke’s Perfect Wife (MacKenzies & McBrides #4)(67)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

Eleanor wrote everything down, not asking Ian how he knew all this. She had no doubt that what he told her was accurate. The letters had most likely originated in Edinburgh, and to Edinburgh Eleanor would go. “Thank you,” she said.

Ian, seeing that Eleanor had finished her questions, became fully absorbed in his son. Eleanor watched, content in the April sunshine, as Ian and Jamie set up the soldiers again, Ian lying on his stomach while Jamie worked his way around his large father.

When Jamie tired, Ian sat up and let Jamie climb onto his plaid-clad lap. Ian closed his arms around his son, and Jamie dozed, Ian gazing down at him with such intense love that Eleanor quietly rose and left them alone.

Eleanor found it easy to get herself and Hart to Edinburgh not a few days later, into the very house in which one of the maids from High Holborn now worked. A woman called Mrs. McGuire had hired the maid, and Eleanor found that she and Hart—now the most sought-after couple in Scotland—had already been invited to Mrs. McGuire’s next grand soiree.

Eleanor had met Mrs. McGuire many times. She was the wife of The McGuire—the leader of clan McGuire—though Mrs. McGuire had started life as an English viscount’s daughter, raised to fine society in London. By all accounts, Mrs. McGuire adored her Highland husband, and her Edinburgh galas had become celebrated.

She was a kindhearted woman as well, a friend to Eleanor’s late mother. Eleanor quite liked her. Why Mrs. McGuire had hired a maid out of a brothel remained to be seen.

Hart and Eleanor descended before Mrs. McGuire’s Edinburgh home to the carpet a footman had spread from carriage step to doorstep. The entire street stopped to watch the fine carriage, the splendid horses, and the most famous man in Scotland and his new wife arrive at their first outing together.

Mrs. McGuire was buried with her guests upstairs, and a plump maid with very black hair took Eleanor’s wraps in the relative quiet of the downstairs hall. When the maid passed Hart, he stopped, smiled at her, and gave her an unashamed wink. The maid blushed, but she shot him a sunny smile in return and winked back.

Eleanor opened her mouth to demand what it was all about, but Hart had already turned to greet some of his cronies, and was swept up the stairs with them. Maigdlin was herding her into a withdrawing room so she could repair any damage the short journey from Isabella’s Edinburgh house might have done to Eleanor’s hair and gown.

Before Eleanor could decide how she felt about Hart’s blatant exchange with the maid, the maid herself entered the withdrawing room, came straight to Eleanor, and dropped a perfect maid’s curtsey.

“Your Grace.”

Maigdlin glared like a she-bear ready to defend her cub. “The cheek of you. You don’t speak to a duchess without her permission, you ignorant woman. What do you want?”

“It’s all right, Maigdlin,” Eleanor said quickly. “It’s Joanna Brown, isn’t it?” From the High Holborn house.

The maid curtseyed again. “Yes, Your Grace.” She had an English accent, from somewhere in London’s darker environs, Eleanor thought. “I know it is bloody cheek, but might I have a word with you? Private like?”

Maigdlin gave Joanna a look of high disdain, but Eleanor held up a reassuring hand. “Of course. Maigdlin, will you stand outside so that we are not disturbed?”

Maigdlin’s outrage was obvious, but she set down the brushes she’d taken from Eleanor’s case, curtseyed stiffly, and glided out the door, as though determined to show Joanna that at least one of them had manners. Indeed, if Eleanor had been a stickler for rules, she could have Joanna sacked for deigning to approach her, let alone speak to her. But Eleanor had never been one to bother with rules, especially when they got in the way of what she wished to do.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” Joanna said as soon as they were alone. “But I know you saw that wink, and I wanted to explain to you, so as you’d not have the wrong idea.”

Eleanor looked her over. Joanna had black hair and blue eyes and was not long past her first youth, perhaps thirty at most. She had a winsome smile, and her eyes sparkled with animation.

“All right,” Eleanor said. “But first, I must ask you. What do you know about photographs?”

The maid’s smile deepened. “Many things, Your Grace. You got them, then?”

Eleanor stopped. “You have been sending me the photographs?” She thought of the ill-spelled missives, always with the closing, From one as wishes you well. The words went with the warm woman who stood before her now.

“Goodness,” Eleanor said. “You did lead me on a merry chase. Why did you send them?”

Joanna curtseyed again, as though she couldn’t help herself. “Because I knew they’d take you to him. And see—you’re married to him now, and he looks ever so much better, doesn’t he? Now about that wink, Your Grace, it don’t mean nothing. He does that because he’s a kindhearted man. It’s sort of a signal, a joke between us, really.”

“A joke.” This was the first time in memory that Eleanor had heard someone refer to Hart as a kindhearted man. “Has it to do with the photographs?”

Had Hart told Joanna to send them? It would be like him, to confound and tease Eleanor with the photographs and at the same time pretend he cared nothing about them. Hart Mackenzie needed a good talking to.

“No, no,” Joanna said. “Them’s two separate things. If you’ll listen, Your Grace, I’ll explain.”

Eleanor nodded, curbing her impatience. “Yes, indeed. Please do.”

“Blame my forwardness on me upbringing, Your Grace. I grew up in London, in the east part of it, near St. Katherine’s Docks. That was all right, but my father was a lout and a layabout and my mother didn’t amount to nothing, so we were poor as dirt. I decided I’d clean up and learn my manners and become a maid in a Mayfair household, maybe even a lady’s maid. Well, I didn’t know nothing about training or references, I was that green. But I did my best, and I went and answered an advertisement for a position. Name of the lady what hired me was Mrs. Palmer.”

“Oh, dear.” Eleanor saw a glimmer of what was coming. “You didn’t realize she was a procuress?”

“Naw. Where I came from, bad girls were obvious, flouncing about the streets and such, and what wicked tongues they had on them! But Mrs. Palmer spoke quiet like, and her house was large and filled with expensive things. I didn’t know at the time that ladybirds could be so lofty and thought I’d landed in clover. But that went away as soon as she took me upstairs, where she and another lady were in a bedroom. The things they told me they wanted me to do would make you faint, Your Grace. I might have grown up rough, but I was at least taught good from bad. So I said I wouldn’t, no matter how much they slapped me, and then Ma Palmer grabbed me and locked me in a room.”