Jennifer Ashley: The Duke’s Perfect Wife

“He’s making you do what ?” Mac Mackenzie turned from his painting, brush out. A glob of Mackenzie yellow spattered on the polished boards at his feet.

“Papa, do be careful,” five-year-old Aimee said to him. “Mrs. Mayhew will scold something rotten if you get paint all over the floor.”

Eleanor cradled little Robert Mackenzie in her arms, his small body warm against her chest. Eileen, Mac and Isabella’s daughter, lay in a bassinet next to the sofa, but Aimee stood near Mac, hands behind her back while she watched her adopted father paint.

“The idea of the post was mine,” Eleanor said. “I can easily type away and earn money for my and my father’s keep. Father’s books are amazing works, but as you know, no one ever buys them.”

Mac listened to her rationale with a stare equal to Hart’s in intensity. He wore his usual painting kilt and boots, a red scarf around his head to keep paint out of his hair. Eleanor knew that Mac liked to paint without his shirt, but in deference to his children and Eleanor, he’d donned a loose smock heavily streaked with paint.

“But he expects you to work for him?”

“Really, Mac, I do it happily. Hart needs much help if his coalition party is to win. I want to help him.”

“So he made you think. My brother does nothing that is not underhanded. What is he playing at?”

“Honestly.” The photograph weighed heavily in her pocket, but Hart had asked her—and she agreed with him—to keep it secret from the rest of the family, for now. They’d be outraged that someone might be trying to blackmail Hart, but they’d also laugh. Hart had no wish to be a family joke. “I want the job,” Eleanor said. “You know how things are for Father and me, and I refuse to take anyone’s charity. Put it down to my Scots stubbornness.”

“He’s taking advantage of ye, lass.”

“He is Hart Mackenzie. He cannot help himself.”

Mac stared at her a moment longer, then he thrust his dripping paintbrush into a jar, strode across the room, and slammed open the door. Eleanor jumped to her feet, still holding the baby.

“Mac! There is no need…”

Her words were drowned out by Mac’s pounding boots on the stairs.

“Papa is angry with Uncle Hart,” Aimee said as the door swung slowly shut again. “Papa is often angry with Uncle Hart.”

“That is because your Uncle Hart is most maddening,” Eleanor said.

Aimee put her head on one side. “What does that mean? Maddening?”

Eleanor shifted Robert, who’d slept soundly through the outburst. Cuddling him filled something empty in her heart. “ Maddening is when your Uncle Hart looks at you as though he listens to your opinion, then he turns around and does whatever he pleases, no matter what you’ve said. Your feel your throat closing up, and your mouth tightening, and you want to stamp your feet and shout. And you know that even if you do shout and wave your fists, it will do no good. That is what is meant by maddening .”

Aimee listened, nodding, as though storing the information for future use. She was Mac and Isabella’s adopted daughter, born in France, and hadn’t learned English until she was three. Collecting new words was her hobby.

Eleanor pressed a kiss to Robert’s head and patted the sofa next to her. “Never mind your uncle Hart. Sit here, Aimee, and tell me all about what you and your mama and papa have been doing in London. And when my papa gets here, he’ll tell us all about the mummies at the museum.”

“I cannae believe you,” Mac shouted, his Scots blazing out with his anger.

Hart shut the cabinet that held the portrait he couldn’t seem to get rid of and looked around in irritation. Mac was in a fair rage, his clothes and fingers paint-streaked, the gypsy kerchief still on his head. Hart had known this would be coming, but still it irritated him.

“I gave her a nominal post with a salary and a place to live,” Hart said. “This is me being kind.”

“Kind? I heard you at Ascot, Hart—you said you were prepared to hang out your shingle for a wife. Is this how you’re going about it?”

Hart moved back to his desk. “This is my personal life, Mac. Stay out of it.”

“ Personal , is it? When did that keep you out of my life? When Isabella left me, you shouted at me something fierce. You all shouted at me—you and Cameron and Ian—”

Mac stopped. “Ian,” he said. A grin spread across his face. So like Mac, jumping from emotion to emotion without a pause in between.

“I don’t have to shout at you, do I?” Mac asked. “All I have to do is explain things to Ian. And then God have mercy on your soul.”

Hart said nothing, but he felt a qualm of disquiet. Ian, the youngest Mackenzie brother, did not understand subtlety. He could spell the word subtlety and give a dictionary meaning for it, but Ian couldn’t assimilate it, or practice it, or recognize it in others. Once Ian decided on a course of action, not all the devils in hell nor the angels in heaven could sway him from it.

Mac laughed at him. “Poor Hart. I look forward to watching that.” He pulled the kerchief from his head, smearing paint through his unruly hair. “I’m glad Eleanor’s come to torment you. But she can’t tonight. I’m taking her and her father home with me for tea, and Isabella will keep her long after that. You know women when they get to talking. They don’t stop for anything but unconsciousness.”

Hart hadn’t planned to be home that night, but he suddenly disliked the thought of Eleanor leaving the house. If he let her out of his sight, she might vanish, back to Glenarden, her refuge. A place that, despite its crumbling walls, always seemed to shut Hart out.

“I thought you had the decorators in,” he growled.

“I do, but we’ll squeeze. I only mind them banging while I’m trying to paint. I’ll give your best to Isabella.” Mac looked pointedly at Hart. “You’re not invited.”

“I’m going out anyway. See that Eleanor gets home safely, will you? London is a dangerous place.”

“Of course I will. I’ll escort her and her father myself.”

Hart relaxed a little—Mac would do it—but then Mac’s smile died. He walked to Hart and stood toe-to-toe with him, looking up the half-inch difference at his older brother.

“Don’t break her heart again,” Mac said. “If you do, I’ll pummel you so hard you’ll have to make your speeches to Parliament in a Bath chair.”

Hart tried to take the edge from his voice but couldn’t quite. “Just see that she gets home.”

“We’re Mackenzies,” Mac said, his gaze steady. “Remember that we break what we touch.” He jabbed a finger at Hart. “Don’t break this one.”

Hart didn’t answer, and finally, Mac went away.

Hart took a key from his desk drawer, returned to the cabinet that held his father’s picture, and locked it tightly closed.

Living in Hart’s house proved to be less distressing than Eleanor had feared, mostly because Hart was rarely in it.

Hart explained Eleanor’s presence to London at large by putting about the fiction that Earl Ramsay had come to London to conduct research at the British Museum for his next book. Hart had offered the impoverished Ramsay a room in his house, and naturally, the earl had been accompanied by his daughter-cum-assistant, Lady Eleanor. Mac and Isabella helped keep tongues from wagging by moving in themselves, children and all, a day after Eleanor’s arrival, their decorators having started on the bedchambers.

Hart told Wilfred that Eleanor was to type letters on the Remington typing machine he’d bought for Wilfred from America. She would also open and sort Hart’s social correspondence, help Wilfred arrange Hart’s social calendar, and assist Isabella in setting up Hart’s lavish entertainments. Wilfred nodded without much change of expression—he was used to Hart’s arbitrary and sometimes bizarre orders.