The Duke’s Perfect Wife (MacKenzies & McBrides #4)(77)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

Eleanor studied them all, first those of Hart young and such a devil, his body beautiful. In the photograph of him in his kilt, Hart laughed out of the picture, his hand out to stop the photographer.

She turned from that to the photographs she’d taken of him in his kilt at Kilmorgan. She traced the one of him holding his kilt over himself, hiding little. The next one was of him leaning, bare, against the wall, laughing.

The flash of vision came to her of Hart over her in the dark, his body against hers, whispering, I need you, El. I need you.

Eleanor’s resolution cracked, and she lay across the book and sobbed.

Eleanor loved him. She’d lost Hart, and she loved him so much.

She thought about how she’d found Hart at the tomb of his son, tracing the letters of the lad’s name. Remembered him with head bowed, his hand on the cold stone—proud, proud Hart—anguished that he hadn’t been strong enough to save little Graham.

Eleanor put her hand to her abdomen, where life had begun to stir. Her child. Hart’s son. Tears flowed faster.

She heard someone enter the room, but she couldn’t lift her head. Maigdlin, she thought, but the tread was wrong, as was the scent of cigars and wool.

The chair next to her creaked and then a broad hand touched her arm. Eleanor pried open her eyes to see Ian next to her, his hand unmoving. Ian, who rarely touched anyone but Beth.

Eleanor sat up and snatched up her handkerchief. Ian smelled of the outdoors, of coal smoke and rain. “I’m sorry, Ian. This is not me giving up hope.” She drew a long breath. “It’s me feeling sorry for myself.”

Ian didn’t answer. He was staring at the book, still open to the page with Hart naked, his kilt on the floor.

Face heating, Eleanor closed the book. “Those are…”

“The photographs Mrs. Palmer took of Hart. Good. She gave them to you.”

Eleanor sat back, her lips parting. Joanna had said that an unknown someone had sent the photographs to her with instructions to post them to Eleanor at intervals.

Not Hart. Ian.

“Ian Mackenzie,” she said.

Ian met her gaze for a fleeting moment, then studied the patterns on the cover of the memory book.

“You sent the photographs to the maid Joanna,” Eleanor said. “You did, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens, Ian. Why?”

Ian traced the gold curlicues that lapped and overlapped and twisted back along themselves across the book’s cover. He said, without glancing up, “Mrs. Palmer had others. I couldn’t find them. I was afraid they’d end up in a newspaper, so when Mrs. Palmer died, I searched the house for them. But someone had gotten there before me, and I only found the eight, stashed behind a brick in a chimney. I kept them a while, then decided to send them to Joanna.”

“And told her to send them on to me?”

“Yes.”

He went back to tracing the pattern. Over and over, staring at it without blinking, his body still except for the tracing finger.

“Why?” Eleanor asked, a little more sharply than she meant to.

Ian shrugged. “So you’d go to Hart.”

“I mean, why now? Why not when you first found the pictures after Mrs. Palmer died? And why use Joanna as the go-between?”

“Joanna likes Hart. She’d want to help him.”

He fell silent, and Eleanor regarded him impatiently. “You didn’t answer my first question.”

Ian sometimes did that. He’d answer what he wanted to and ignore the rest. He used that method to get around his inability to lie.

But this time, he said, “I did not send the pictures when I found them, because Hart was too busy then. He would not have paid enough attention, and he would have lost you again.”

“Well, you cannot tell me he is less busy now. He is about to become prime minister.”

Ian shook his head. “I waited until he finished all his plotting. Now it’s almost over. Hart won’t be prime minister long. He’ll fall.” Ian wrenched his gaze from the pattern and fixed it directly on Eleanor. “And he’ll need you.”

Eleanor, caught by the golden depths of Ian’s eyes, could not look away. “What are you talking about? His coalition is strong, the newspapers are full of it. Even without Hart here, they’ll win the majority. His party will rule.”

“Hart will be a bad leader. He wants everything his way, all the time. All must obey.”

“He’s bad at compromise, you mean.” Eleanor had to agree with Ian, there. The word compromise hadn’t been invented for the likes of Hart Mackenzie.

“I know what you mean, Ian,” she said. “Hart has large ideas and doesn’t notice the smaller problems of ordinary people. Not until it’s too late, anyway. Like he didn’t notice the Fenians until they tried to kill him. And then he had the gall to be surprised.”

Ian continued to gaze at her, unblinking, as though mesmerized by her eyes. Eleanor waved her hand in front of his face.

“Ian.”

Ian jumped and looked away.

Eleanor pushed the memory book aside. “You sound very certain that you will find Hart. Almost as though you already have found him. Do you know where he is?”

Ian went silent again, his gaze moving past her to the window and the darkening fog beyond. He studied it for so long that Eleanor began to believe he did know and was trying to decide whether to tell her.

Then Ian rose. “No,” he said and walked out of the room.

Chapter 21

The pipe-smoking Reeve rented a small boathouse near Blackfriars Bridge on the south side of the Thames, but he and his wife and son spent most of their time either on the river or on the boat wedged up onshore.

Reeve roamed far and wide looking for treasure in the sewers, the river, the water and gas tunnels, under the bridges, and inside the railway tunnels. He claimed that anything along the buried Fleet River was his, though his rivals contested him from time to time. Hence the knife.

Mrs. Reeve provided her family with fresh water every day from a public pump—one of the new wells that tapped fresh water far from the river. She brought enough for all of them, even enough for Hart to wash and clean his teeth. He’d never before realized the simple joy of the tooth powder he had the lad Lewis purchase for him from a chemist.

The Reeves did not tumble to who Hart was, nor did they seem to care. Hart proved willing enough to help—he and Reeve hauled the boat in and out, Hart knew how to cast a net, and he helped Lewis go through the “catch” every night.