Jennifer Ashley: The Duke’s Perfect Wife

Ben didn’t open his eyes as they entered, and his gentle snore blended with the crackle of the fire on the hearth.

Hart touched Eleanor’s elbow to guide her across the room. She wished he wouldn’t, because the steel strength of his fingers made her want to melt, and she needed to maintain her resolve.

If all went well today, she’d not have to be close to him again, but she had to make the first approach in private. A letter could have gone too easily into the wrong hands, or be lost by a careless secretary, or burned unopened by Hart.

Hart dragged an armchair to his desk, moving it as though it weighed nothing. Eleanor knew better, though, as she sat on it. The heavily carved chair was as solid as a boulder.

Hart took the desk chair, his kilt moving as he sat, showing sinewy strength above his knees. Anyone believing a kilt unmanly had never seen Hart Mackenzie in one.

Eleanor touched the desk’s smooth top. “You know, Hart, if you plan to be the first minister of the nation, you might give a thought to changing the furniture. It’s a bit out of date.”

“Bugger the furniture. What is this problem that made you drag yourself and your father down from the wilds of Scotland?”

“I am worried about you. You’ve worked so hard for this, and I can’t bear to think of what it would do to you if you lost everything. I’ve lain awake and pondered what to do for a week. I know we parted acrimoniously, but that was a long time ago, and many things have changed, especially for you. I still care about you, Hart, whatever you may believe, and I was distressed to think that you might have to go into hiding if this came out.”

“Into hiding?” He stared at her. “What are you talking about? My past is no secret to anyone. I’m a blackguard and a sinner, and everyone knows it. These days, that’s almost an asset to being a politician.”

“Possibly, but this might humiliate you. You’d be a laughingstock, and that would certainly be a setback.”

His gaze became sharp. Gracious, he looked like his father when he did that. The old duke had been handsome, but a monster, with nasty, cold eyes that made you know you were a toad beneath his heel. Hart, in spite of it all, had a warmth that his father had lacked.

“Eleanor, cease babbling and tell me what this is all about.”

“Ah, yes. It’s time you saw, I think.” Eleanor dug into a pocket inside her coat and withdrew a folded piece of pasteboard. She laid this on the desk in front of Hart, and opened it.

Hart went still.

The object inside the folded card was a photograph. It was a full-length picture of a younger Hart, shot in profile. Hart’s body had been a little slimmer then but still well muscled. In the photograph, he rested his buttocks against the edge of a desk, his sinewy hand bracing on the desk’s top beside his hip. His head was bent as he studied something at his feet, out of the frame.

The pose, though perhaps a bit unusual for a portrait, was not the unique thing about the picture. The most interesting aspect of this photograph was that, in it, Hart Mackenzie was quite, quite naked.

“Where did you get this?” The question was hard, harsh, demanding. She had Hart’s full attention now.

“From a well-wisher,” Eleanor said. “At least that is how the letter was signed. From one as wishes you well . Grammar indicating the writer is not an educated person—well, at least educated enough to write a letter, but she obviously didn’t attend finishing school. I believe it a woman from the hand—”

“Someone sent it to you?” Hart interrupted. “Is that what you are coming around to telling me?”

“Indeed I am. Luckily for you, I was alone at the breakfast table when I opened it. My father was out classifying mushrooms. With the cook, who was not so much classifying mushrooms as choosing them for our supper.”

“Where is the envelope?”

Hart obviously expected her to hand the whole thing over to him on the spot. But that would spoil her plans.

“The envelope did not reveal much,” Eleanor said. “Hand delivered, not posted, brought to Glenarden from the train station. The stationmaster got it from a train conductor, who said it was passed to him by a delivery boy in Edinburgh. One line on the envelope— To Lady Eleanor Ramsay, Glenarden, near Aberdeen, Scotland . Everyone knows me and where I live, so in theory, even if the sender had dropped it somewhere between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, it would have reached me. Eventually.”

Hart’s brows drew down as he listened, again reminding Eleanor of his father. A portrait of the man had hung in this room, in the place of honor above the mantel, but it wasn’t there now, thank heavens. Hart must have taken it to the attics, or perhaps burned it. Eleanor would have burned it.

“What about the delivery boy in Edinburgh?” Hart asked.

“I did not have the time or the resources to conduct such an investigation,” Eleanor said, drawing her gaze back from the fireplace. A landscape of a kilted man fishing in the Scottish Highlands, painted by Mac, now hung there. “I plunked the last of our money on train tickets to London to come here and tell you that I’d be happy to look into the matter for you. If you will provide the funds and a small salary.”

His gaze fixed on her again, sharp and gold. “Salary.”

“Yes, indeed. That is the business proposition I mentioned to you. I want you to give me a job.”

Hart went silent, the ponderous clock across the room ticking loudly into the stillness.

It unnerved her to be in the same room with him, the world closed out, but not because he watched her with his assessing stare. No, what unnerved her was being alone with Hart, the man with whom she’d once been madly in love.

He’d been devilishly handsome, teasing, and tender, and he’d courted her with a verve that had left her breathless. She’d fallen in love with him quickly, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever fallen out of love with him.

But the Hart she faced today was a different man from the one she’d been engaged to, and that worried her. The Hart who’d laughed so readily, who’d been animated and excited by life—was gone. In his place was a man even harder and more driven than before. He’d seen too much tragedy, too much death, too much loss. Gossip and newspapers had put it about that Hart had been relieved to be rid of Lady Sarah, his wife, but Eleanor knew differently. The bleak light now in Hart’s eyes came from grief.

“A job,” Hart was saying. “What are you up to, Eleanor?”

“Up to? Our ears in debt, of course.” She smiled at her joke. “Quite seriously, Hart, we need the blunt. Father is dear to me but a wee bit impractical. He believes we still pay the staff wages, but truth to tell, they stay and look after us because they feel sorry for us. Our food comes from their family’s gardens or charity from the villagers. They think we don’t know. You can call me an assistant to a secretary or some such, if you like. I’m sure you have several of those.”

Hart looked into the determined blue eyes that had haunted his dreams for years and felt something break open inside him.

She’d come like an answer to a prayer. Hart had planned to travel to Glenarden soon to convince her to marry him, knowing the pinnacle of his career was nigh. He’d wanted to win everything and present it to her on a platter, so she’d not be able to refuse. He’d make her see that she needed him as much as he needed her.

But perhaps this would be better. If he inserted her into his life now, she’d grow so used to being there that when he put his hand out for her, she’d take it and not say no.