These last three days, while Eleanor lay in a fevered stupor, had been absolute hell. Tonight, the doctor had announced that the fever had turned, that Eleanor was resting. Hart in his relief hadn’t known what to do. He’d shaken off his brothers’ well-meaning offers of all the whiskey he could down and retreated here.
To assure himself that Eleanor wasn’t out here, cold and alone? He didn’t know.
All he knew was that he’d made a mess of his life, and he was still doing it. Hart, the arrogant, self-assured Mackenzie, could get nothing right, and these tombs were tangible evidence.
He’d always thought of his courtship and engagement with Eleanor as a farce in three acts.
Act I, Scenes: Their first dance together, followed by a kiss in the garden had awakened every need in his body. Next, the boathouse down by the river at Kilmorgan, where he’d unbuttoned Eleanor’s modest dress and kissed her skin, discovering that she had a passion in her that she didn’t hide, at least not from him.
Act II, Scene: The summerhouse. Hart remembered Eleanor riding beside him in her prim habit and riding hat, smiling and chattering as usual. The summerhouse, the old duke’s folly, perched on a promontory, a gorge dropping away from it to a river below. From there, one could see across a vast stretch of Mackenzie lands all the way to the sea.
When Hart had led Eleanor inside, her reaction had been pure Eleanor.
“Hart, it’s beautiful.” The summerhouse folly had been fashioned like an ancient Greek temple, complete with overgrown ruined stone, a very un-Scottish structure. But the view was magnificent, and the summerhouse very private.
Eleanor turned in a circle, arms open. “My father would love this. So false and yet so true at the same time.”
Hart had stepped to the stone balustrade and looked out over the vistas that never failed to stir his heart. The Mackenzies had come back from poverty and powerlessness after Culloden to become the wealthiest family in Scotland, and this panorama of their lands rammed it down the throats of every Englishman who came up here.
“You’re proud of it, aren’t you?” Eleanor said, coming to rest next to him. “In spite of you sneering that it’s a ridiculous English affectation your father built, you like it. You would not have brought me here otherwise.”
“I brought you for the view.” Hart lifted Eleanor’s riding hat from her head and set it out of the wind. “And for this.”
He slid his arms around her waist from behind. Eleanor closed her eyes as he kissed her neck, wisps of red curls silken under his lips. Hart let his fingers drift to the buttons that closed her habit in front.
Eleanor only sighed as he unbuttoned her, her head resting against his cheek. Hart parted her placket and nibbled her bared neck.
“What are you doing to me, El?” he whispered into her ear. “I think you’re breaking me.”
“Hardly,” she murmured. “Hart Mackenzie is far too wicked for the likes of me to tame.”
“But I’d like to let you try.”
He turned her around. His gaze roved her mussed hair, her parted red lips, the bodice gaping to show her damp throat. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
He was not supposed to do this now. He’d planned to take her to London, to the elegant house in Grosvenor Square, to bring out the old and valuable Mackenzie jewels, and promise them to her if she’d agree to become his wife. Formally done, in the drawing room, his hand on his heart, dazzling her with diamonds so that she would not say no. Women would do anything for diamonds.
Up here in the summerhouse, with the jewels locked far away in the vault in Edinburgh, Hart had nothing to offer. Only the view—how bloody romantic and stupid.
But he had the feeling that if he didn’t speak now, secure her now, his chance would slip away. Eleanor was twenty, an earl’s daughter, and lovely. If he didn’t lock her into an agreement, she would be fair game for every other lovelorn gentleman out there. Her poverty wouldn’t matter to a nabob wanting to better his connections through her family. She had charm and grace to go with her lineage, the perfect wife for Hart Mackenzie. Hart Mackenzie would have her.
It was too soon. He should use the beautiful view from the folly as one more enticement in a string of enticements in this courtship, so that when he finally asked for her hand, Eleanor would have no reason to say no. Hart would have woven his web so tightly she’d not want to break free. If he asked her here, now, Eleanor could turn him down, and he’d have no more chance to convince her.
But Hart felt his mouth open, heard the words come out in a rush. “Marry me, Eleanor.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened, and she took a step back. “What?Why?”
The question stirred his anger. Hart seized her hands and forced a smile. “Why does a man wish to marry a woman? Does there have to be a logical reason?”
Eleanor blinked those big blue eyes at him. “I’m not much bothered about why any man wishes to marry any woman, in general. I’m sure there are dozens of theories, if one wanted to debate. What I would like to know is why you wish to marry me.”
Hart clamped down on his impatience. “So that I may kiss you,” he said, voice light. “I plan to kiss every inch of you, Eleanor, and if I do that, we’d better marry.”
He saw a flicker of delight in her eyes, but Eleanor didn’t melt. Dear God, she was stubborn.
“But I mean, why me? I’m not vain enough to believe that no other young lady in Scotland is good enough for the attentions of Hart Mackenzie, for kissing or otherwise. I have a pedigree, but so do others, and my family is a bit down at the heel. You could have any lady you wanted with the snap of your fingers.” Eleanor snapped in demonstration, even though Hart still had hold of her wrist.
“I do not want any other lady in Scotland. I want you.”
“You flatter me.”
“God’s balls, woman,” he shouted. “I’m not asking you to marry me out of flattery.” Hart’s words echoed from the hills around them. “I’m asking you because I can’t do this without you. I can’t face my father, or the world. When I’m with you, all that doesn’t matter. I need you, El. How the devil can I make you understand that?”
Eleanor stared up at him, lips parted. Any moment she’d laugh at him, sneer at him for being so sentimental. He sounded like a lovesick fool, God help him.
“That is all I wanted to know,” she said softly.
“If you marry me, Eleanor Ramsay, I promise to give you everything you ever wanted.”
Eleanor smiled suddenly, looked into his eyes, and said, “Yes.”
Hart’s heart pounded so hard it hurt. He gathered her into his arms, trying to remember how to breathe. She was like a rock in a raging river, and he clung to her as though she was the only thing between him and drowning.
His first kiss opened her lips, Hart tasting the woman he’d conquered. It was heady, joyous.
He’d had his valet pack a blanket for their picnic. Hart now spread the blanket on the summer-warm stones and began to undress her.
Eleanor said not a word, offered no protest. She smiled as her habit came open, shivered as Hart spread the laces of her corset. Her eyes went soft when he parted and removed the camisole beneath, helped her out of her skirts, and laid her on the blanket in the sunshine.
Hart gazed down at her, bare but for her stockings and prim riding boots, a beautiful woman he’d a moment ago made his. Triumph beat through him.
Hart stripped off his coat and waistcoat, shirt and boots, then underbreeches, saving the kilt for last. He liked how Eleanor watched him, not shy, wanting to look at him as much as he wanted to look at her.
Hart undid the kilt and let it fall, showing her how hard he was for her.
She was a virgin, Hart reminded himself. She’d never known the touch of a man—not until mine—and he knew he’d have to be patient with her. He was prepared to be, looked forward to it.
Eleanor blushed as Hart lay down with her. The feel of her body beneath his sent his heart racing. He could take her
now, swiftly, make her understand who she belonged to. This could be quick, satisfying.
But Hart had learned how to give a woman, any woman, perfect pleasure. He did not need exotic techniques and devices—the key was the pleasure.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said.
Eleanor shook her head, smiling a little smile. “I know.”
The trust in her eyes stung his heart. Hart kissed her, and gently, gently touched her, opening her to him very slowly. He went carefully, teaching her about arousal, making her damp enough to take him without hurt. His body shook with the effort of holding himself back, but it was very important that he didn’t rush her.
Her body closed around his with heat that threatened to break his control. He wanted to thrust and thrust into her, to satisfy himself and forget about not rushing.
No. Take the time. Teach her. Later, when Eleanor was used to him, he could show her more interesting things, but today, this was about Eleanor’s first pleasure.
Eleanor was so warm and ready that he slid in the first inch without impediment. Hart stayed there a time, kissing her, coaxing her, letting her get used to him.
Another inch, and again, stopping, teasing, nipping, teaching her what it felt like to have a man inside her. Then came the barrier, which he knew would hurt. Hart took it slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time.
This was a first for him too—he’d never been with a virgin. He feared to break her, to mar her in some unrecoverable way. Then again, Eleanor was resilient. She lifted her body to his, touched his face, nodded when she was ready.
And then Hart was inside her, she squeezing him, a feeling of glory and hot, hot joy.
“El,” he said. “You are so tight. You feel beautiful.”
Eleanor’s body rocked against his, her arms coming around him, her mouth finding his. Wanting, accepting, loving.
The astonishing feeling of her around him made him drop his seed before he was ready. Hart groaned with it, amazed at himself, then he laughed. Hart’s women usually tried every trick they could to make him do their bidding, to lose control to them, and they never succeeded. Eleanor had conquered him by lying there being warm and beautiful.
Hart kissed her, knowing that something exquisite had just happened and not knowing quite what to do about it.
The rest of Act II had been heady. News of the betrothal of Lord Hart Mackenzie and Lady Eleanor Ramsay spread to every corner of the country, filling every newspaper and magazine.
Glorious days. The happiest days of his life, Hart realized now. At the time, the stupid, selfish young man he’d been had only tasted triumph of landing the woman he’d wanted. Eleanor would bring the notorious Mackenzie family a measure of respect, which they badly needed. Hart’s horror of a father had eroded the Mackenzie reputation, as had Ian’s supposed madness, Mac’s running away to live among depraved artists in Paris, and Cameron’s very bad marriage.
But no one could say a wrong word about Eleanor. She sailed above all scandal, her talkative charm melting one and all. Eleanor was kind, generous, strong, and well liked. She’d lead Hart to glory.
Hart told her he loved her, and it was not a lie. But he never gave the whole of himself to her, never believed he needed to. Looking back, Hart realized that he’d kept himself from her out of fear.
And that had been his great mistake.
So stupid was Hart that he didn’t understand what he had to lose, until Act III.
Scene: Eleanor Ramsay’s ramshackle home in autumn, the trees surrounding it having turned brilliant red and gold. Their radiant glory splashed against the dark evergreens that marched across the mountains, silent reminders that the coming winter would be brutal and cold.
Hart had been as buoyant as the cool weather, looking forward to visiting his lady with hair the color of autumn leaves. Earl Ramsay received Hart in the house and told him, in a strangely quiet tone, that Eleanor was walking in the gardens and would see him there.
Hart had thanked the earl, unsuspecting, and had gone to find Eleanor.
The Ramsay gardens had long become overgrown and wild, despite the valiant efforts of their one gardener and his pruning shears. Eleanor always laughed at their unruly patch of land, but Hart liked it—a garden that blended into the Scottish countryside instead of being structured, overly clean, and shutting out true nature.
Eleanor paced the walks in a dress too light for the weather, the shawl too small to keep out the cold. Her hair had come down, the wind tearing at it. When Eleanor saw Hart walking toward her, she turned her back and strode away.
Hart caught up to her, seized her arm, and turned her to face him.
Her stare had made him drop his hold. Eleanor’s eyes were red-rimmed in a face too white, but her glare was angry, an intense rage he’d never seen in her.
“El?” he asked in alarm. “What is it?”
Eleanor said nothing. When Hart reached for her again, she tore herself from his grip. Clenching her teeth, Eleanor yanked off the engagement ring and threw it at him.
The circlet thunked against Hart’s frock-coated chest and fell with a tink to the paving stones.
Hart didn’t bend down for the ring. This was something more than Eleanor’s rare flashes of temper, her frequent exasperation at him, or their teasing arguments about ridiculous things.
“What is it?” he repeated, his voice quiet.
“Mrs. Palmer came to call on me today,” Eleanor said.
Cold fingers snaked through his body. Those words should not come out of Eleanor’s lips. Not Mrs. Palmer. Not with Eleanor. They were two separate beings, from separate worlds, separate parts of Hart. Never to meet.
“I know you know who I mean,” Eleanor said.
“Yes, I bloody well know who you mean,” Hart snapped. “She should not have come here.”
Eleanor waited a beat, as though expecting Hart to say something like My love, I can explain.
Hart could explain, if he chose. Angelina Palmer had been his mistress for seven years. He had ceased to go to her once he’d started courting Eleanor. That had been Hart’s decision, and so be it. But Angelina, it appeared, in her jealousy, had scuttled here to tell Eleanor Hart’s dirty little secrets.
“She felt sorry for me,” Eleanor said, answering Hart’s silence. “She told me she’d followed me about when I was down in London last, and watched me. She learned all about me—remarkable, since I knew nothing at all about her. She saw me be kind to a wretched old lady in the park, she said. I remember I’d given a poor thing a coin and helped her to shelter. Mrs. Palmer decided that this made me a kind young woman, one who should be spared a life with you.” Eleanor’s eyes were full of anger, but not with anger at Angelina Palmer. At him.
“I admit that Mrs. Palmer was once my mistress,” Hart said stiffly. “You deserve to know. She ceased to be my mistress the day I met you.”
Eleanor’s look turned deprecating. “A pleasing half-truth, the kind at which Hart Mackenzie excels. I’ve seen you say such things to others; I never dreamed you would to me.” Her color rose. “Mrs. Palmer told me about your women, about your house, and hinted at the sorts of things you do there.”
Oh, God, oh, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. Hart saw his world falling away, the fiction that he could be anything other than a blackguard bastard crumbling to dust.
“All in the past,” Hart said in a hard voice. “I have not touched another woman since I met you. I’m not that much of a monster. I gave it all up, Eleanor. For you. Angelina is a jealous and coldhearted woman. She’d say anything to keep me from marrying you.”
If Hart had thought the speech would have Eleanor smiling and forgiving, he was wrong, oh, so wrong.
“For heaven’s sake, spare me,” she said. “You believe that hiding the truth is not the same as a lie, but it is. You have lied and lied, and you are still lying. You planned my seduction so carefully—Mrs. Palmer told me how you decided on me, how you finagled invitations to every gathering I went to, sometimes with her he
lp. That you hunted me as a man tracks a fox, that you played upon my vanity and made me think I’d caught your eye. And I was stupid enough to let you.”
“Does that matter?” Hart cut in. “Does it matter how I wanted you, or how we met? Nothing after that was a lie. I need you, El. I told you that in the summerhouse. I didn’t lie about that. My dealings with Mrs. Palmer are over. You never need worry about her again.”
Eleanor looked at him in cold fury. “If you believe jealousy has made me angry, you are very wrong. I was not shocked to find you’d had a mistress—many gentlemen have them, and you are so passionate, Hart. I can forgive a past mistress you have not visited since you started courting me, or even some of the risqué games you played, which she decided she should not describe in detail to a lady.”
“It’s bloody evident you can’t forgive me, since you threw the blasted ring at me.”
“That is the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Everything is about you. The entire world revolves around Lord Hart Mackenzie. I should do as you wish, because I fit into a certain place in your schemes, and so does Mrs. Palmer. You treat us equally, each of us occupying certain niches in your cupboard of life.”
“Eleanor…”
Eleanor held up her hand, her voluble nature taking over. “What’s infuriated me is the other things she told me of. About your tempers and your rages. How you cycle between hot and cold, how Mrs. Palmer is never certain what you’ll want from her from day to day, or what your mood will be. She told me she started bringing other ladies into the house, because his lordship was growing bored. She knew that she had to assuage your ennui by any means she could so you wouldn’t leave her. You made use of her, and she scrambled to please you. And in the end, you threw her over because you no longer needed her.” Eleanor stopped, her face red, her breath coming fast. “How could you be so cruel to another human being?”
Hart stepped back. “Have I got this right? You want to break our engagement because I’ve been rude to a courtesan?”
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