Ainsley laughed, her mirth ringing to the ceiling as Cameron rolled her into the featherbed and loved her all over again.
Epilogue
ASCOT, JUNE 1883
Hooves pounded on the track, mud flying, jockeys bent over brown and black and gray backs.
Ainsley whooped and flung her fists in the air as Night- Blooming Jasmine pulled ahead in the last furlong and romped home well ahead of the pack.
The Mackenzie box went insane. Daniel stood on top of the rail and screamed; Beth, Isabella, and Mac cheered at the tops of their voices.
The well-bred crowd in other boxes looked at them askance, and Ainsley hoped that Lord Pierson was among them. His own fault. The man did not understand horses.
Hart added his voice to the cheer. “Eat that, Pierson.”
Mac laughed at him. “You must not need his vote.”
“Shut it, Mac,” Hart said.
Ian didn’t join in with the cheering, but he pressed his fists into the rail in front of him and watched as Jasmine pranced about, proud of her victory. Beth planted a happy kiss on Ian’s cheek, and Ian smiled down at her, far more interested in Beth than the horses.
Only Cameron had not said a word or done a thing. He simply watched, unsurprised, as the horse he’d lavished attention on all spring performed exactly as he expected.
Daniel jumped down from the rail. “I’ve just won a bundle. That will teach the bookmakers to do odds against on Dad’s horses.”
“They knew about Jasmine’s past,” Ainsley said. “They must not have believed Cameron could turn her around. More fool they.”
Cameron held out his arm to Ainsley. “Time to go down.”
“Before you do,” Hart said, “I have something to say.”
Cameron paused, not really interested, but Mac seemed to catch something in Hart’s tone. “What?” he asked sharply.
“Nothing disastrous,” Hart said. “But now that I have you lot married off, I’m contemplating taking a wife.”
The silence was instant, stunned, and heavy. Ian looked at Hart and kept looking at him, straight into Hart’s eyes.
And then everyone started talking at once. “Do you mean Eleanor?” Ainsley asked over the clamor.
Hart broke his gaze from Ian’s and flicked it to Ainsley. “I’ve not said I’ve chosen a possibility.”
“Yes, he has,” Daniel shouted. “He just don’t want to say, in case she turns him down again.”
“Cameron,” Hart said. “Cuff your son.”
“Why?” Cameron shrugged. “Danny’s right. Sort it out yourself, Hart, my horse is waiting. Come on, Daniel. This is your victory too.”
Daniel took Ainsley’s arm on her the other side, and sandwiched between father and son, Ainsley exited the box.
“What do you think, Step-mama?” Daniel asked. “A tanner on Lady Eleanor? For or against? I say she gives him the boot.”
“No, indeed, Danny, my boy,” Ainsley said. “Twenty says she accepts.”
“Done. Dad?”
Cameron shook his head. “I never bet on Mackenzies. Way too risky, and Hart can be underhanded.”
“Still, I think Eleanor will win, no matter what,” Ainsley said. “Now, let’s go see Jasmine.”
Daniel dropped Ainsley’s arm and ran ahead, bounding down the stairs. Behind them, the remaining Mackenzies continued their noise, also flinging about wagers on Hart’s intended. Ian’s voice rose above them all. “Thirty on Eleanor,” he said. “She’ll say yes.”
Ainsley laughed. “Poor Hart.”
“His own fault. He dropped the news on purpose when everyone was excited about Jasmine. He meant for us to treat it in fun, not something deadly serious. But Hart’s deadly serious.”
Ainsley knew he was. “I’m tempted to warn Eleanor,” she said. “But no, they need to work it out for themselves.”
“As we have.”
“Hmm.” Ainsley looked at her broad-shouldered, handsome husband, in black coat and Mackenzie kilt, and craved him with a bright suddenness.
“Cam,” she said. “They’ll wait for us in the paddock, won’t they?”
“Probably. Unless Danny grabs the trophy.”
“Good.” Ainsley side-stepped and tugged Cameron with her under the shadow of the grandstand.
“What is it, vixen?” Cameron asked as they ducked out of sight. “Do you want to tell me a secret?”
“Ask you a question, rather.” Ainsley touched the top button of her placket. “How many buttons can you open, my lord, before we have to go and rescue the trophy?”
His eyes darkened. “Little devil.”
Ainsley laughed as Cameron swept her against him, mouth hard on hers, while his agile fingers began to unbutton her dress.
Turn the page for a preview of the next historical romance by Jennifer Ashley The Duke’s Perfect Wife Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!
Hart Mackenzie.
It was said that he knew every pleasure a woman desired and exactly how to give it to her. Hart wouldn’t ask what the lady wanted, and she might not even know herself, but she would understand once he’d finished. And she’d want it again.
He had power, wealth, skill, intelligence, and the ability to play upon his fellow man to make them do what he wanted and believe it their own idea.
Eleanor Ramsay knew, firsthand, that all of this was true.
She lurked among a flock of journalists in St. James’s Street who waited for the Scottish duke to emerge from his club. In her unfashionable gown and old hat, she looked like a lady scribbler as hungry for a story as the rest of them.
The men came to life when they spied the tall duke on the threshold, distinctive with his close-cropped, red- highlighted hair and ever-present Mackenzie kilt. Hart always wore a kilt while in London, to remind everyone who set eyes on him that he was Scottish first.
“Your Grace!” the men shouted. “Your Grace!”
They surged forward, a sea of black backs, male strength shutting out Eleanor. A lady was a lady, but not when it came to newspaper stories about the elusive Duke of Kilmorgan.
Eleanor used her folded parasol to push her way through, earning herself curses and glares. “Oh, I do beg your pardon,” she said as her bustle shoved aside a man who’d tried to elbow her in the ribs.
Hart barely glanced at them with his sharp golden eyes as he waited for his carriage to approach. He’d cut his hair shorter, Eleanor noticed, which made his face appear squarer and harder than ever. She knew she was the only one among this crowd that had ever seen that face soften in sleep.
The duke looked neither left nor right as he pulled on his hat and prepared to walk the three steps between the club and the open door of his carriage.
“Your Grace,” one journalist shouted above the rest. “If you love Scotland so much, why are you here in London?”
Hart didn’t answer. He was a master of letting what he didn’t want to acknowledge flow past him.
Eleanor cupped her hands around her mouth. “Your Grace!”
Her voice rose above the masculine cries, and Hart turned. His gaze met hers and locked.
When they’d been in love, years ago, Hart and Eleanor at times had been able to communicate without words. Eleanor never knew how they did it, but somehow they’d been able to exchange a glance and understand what the other wanted. At this moment, Hart wanted Eleanor in his carriage, and Eleanor wanted that too.
Hart made a curt signal to one of the pugilist-looking footmen that followed him everywhere these days. The footman shouldered his way into the sea of rumpled suits, parting the pack of journalists like Moses at the Red Sea.
“Your ladyship,” the pugilist said, and he gestured for her to precede him back through the crowd.
A second pugilist footman stood like a rock at the carriage door, anchoring the way. Hart watched Eleanor come, eyes on her all the way. When she reached him, he stepped in front of his footman, caught Eleanor by the elbows, and boosted her up and into the open carriage.
Eleanor’s breath went out of her at his touch. But it didn’t last long, and she landed on the seat as Hart followed her in. He took the seat opposite, thank heavens, and the second footman slammed the door.
She grabbed at her hat as the carriage jerked forward, trying to keep her grip on her parasol and the seat at the same time. Hart sat across from her, neat and tidy, his hat firmly on his head. She resisted the urge to reach over and knock it off.
The gentlemen of the press shouted and swore as their prey got away, the carriage heading up St. James’s Street toward Mayfair. Eleanor looked back at them over the carriage’s open top.
“You’ve made Fleet Street very unhappy today,” she said.
“Damn Fleet Street.”
“What, all of it?” Eleanor turned around again to find Hart’s eyes on her, sharp gold in his hard face.
“What the devil possessed you to hang about a street corner with a pack of journalists?” Hart demanded. “If you wanted to speak to me, you should have come to the house.”
“I did go to your house,” she said. “But you’ve changed your majordomo, and he didn’t know me. Nor was he by any means impressed by the card you gave me on that train in Edinburgh. Apparently ladies make a habit of trying to gain entrance to your house by false pretenses, and your guard dog of a majordomo assumed me one of those. I can’t really blame him. I could have stolen the card, for all he knew, and you seem to be quite popular.”
“I’ll speak to him,” Hart said when her breath ran out.
“Oh, dear, don’t swat the poor man too much. Not on my account. He wasn’t to know.”
Damn her, how did she manage to turn every chastisement around on him? All the while smiling that little smile, her eyes so blue under her out-of-date hat?
Watching Eleanor bludgeon her way through those journalists with her parasol and bustle had awakened something light in him, something he hadn’t felt since . . .
One hell of a long time.
“I’ll instruct my majordomo,” Hart said. “You can set an appointment with him when we reach the house.”
“No time like the present. I really do need to speak to you, Hart.”
The thought of Eleanor following him into his small private study, breathing the same air as he did, made his chest constrict. “Eleanor . . .”
“Goodness, you can spare me a few minutes, can’t you? Consider it my reward for distracting those rabid journalists from you. You’re making yourself quite controversial, you know, what with declaring Scotland should be a separate country and that the Germans are dangerous.”
“If you already know so much, write your story about that. I’ll not deny any of it.”
“Oh, very generous of you. But I am not writing a newspaper story. And if I were, I wouldn’t write about anything so boring as politics. No, I’d write about the personal life of the Duke of Kilmorgan. The most delicious and private gossip I could dig up, confirmed or unconfirmed. I’m certain any newspaper would froth at the mouth to buy it.”
Again the smile, accompanied by a little nod of her head. Again the constriction in Hart’s chest. Hart had verbally fenced with Otto von Bismarck, one of the most brilliant political minds of the century. Eleanor Ramsay in her flat hat trimmed with faded flowers could run rings around him.
“What is the appointment about, then?” he asked.
“Do you know that your face looks like granite when you scowl? No wonder everyone in the House of Lords is terrified of you. What I want to speak to you about is a business proposition.”
“A business proposition.” With Eleanor Ramsay. God help him.
“Yes.” She sat back and smiled.
Soft flesh beneath his, her blue eyes half-closed in sultry pleasure, Scottish sunshine on her bare skin. The feeling of moving inside her, her smile as she said, “I love you, Hart.”
Did she remember? Did she regret, hate, or was it all gone?
Her smile was still as sweet, but Hart had learned the difficult way that Eleanor Ramsay was not a naïve, biddable young woman. Eleanor had the Queen of England eating out of her hand. When Her Majesty had wanted to make Eleanor one of her ladies of the bedchamber, Eleanor had refused, citing the need to stay home and look after her father. The queen, a woman famous for getting her own way, had meekly let her go.
“What business?” Hart asked. If they could take care of it in the carriage, no need for Eleanor to even enter his house.
“Business better discussed in private.” Eleanor glanced about as the carriage turned down Grosvenor Street, heading toward Grosvenor Square. “Isn’t that Lady Mountgrove? Of course it is. Hello, Margaret!” Eleanor waved heartily to a plump woman who’d descended from a carriage and was preparing to enter a house.
Lady Mountgrove, one of the most gossipy women in the country, looked up in surprise. Her mouth fixed in a round O when she saw Lady Eleanor Ramsay in the Duke of Kilmorgan’s carriage, before she lifted her hand in a return acknowledgment.
“Haven’t seen her in donkey’s years,” Eleanor said as they rolled on. “Her daughters must be, oh, quite young ladies now. Have they made their come-outs yet?”
Her mouth was still so damned kissable, closing in a little pucker while she awaited his answer.
“I haven’t the faintest bloody idea,” Hart said.
“Really, Hart, you must at least glance at the society pages. You are the most eligible bachelor in all of Britain. Probably in the entire British Empire. Mamas in India are grooming their girls to sail back to you, telling them, ‘You never know. He’s not married yet.’ ”
“I’m a widower. Not a bachelor.”
“You’re a duke, unmarried, and poised to become the most powerful man in the country. In the world, really. Of course, such a man will need a wife.”
Breathing was becoming difficult. “Does this business proposition have anything to do with matchmaking? If so, I’ll ask you to go. I might even tell the coachman to slow down.” Hart didn’t want to discuss his matrimonial contemplations with Eleanor—not yet.
“Very amusing. No, it doesn’t. You’ll learn about it in good time. I can converse about more than one topic, you know. I had very good governesses, and they taught me well.”
Her tongue, her lips, moved in such a sultry way as she talked. A man who walked away from that had to be insane. Hart remembered the day he’d done so, still felt the tiny smack of the ring on his chest when she threw it at him, and the rage and heartbreak in her eyes.
He should have refused to let her jilt him, should have run off with her that very afternoon and bound her to him and never let her go. But he’d been young, angry, proud, and . . . embarrassed. The lofty Lord Hart Mackenzie, so sure he could do whatever he damn well pleased with anyone he damn well pleased, had learned differently with Eleanor.
That had been a long time ago.
“How are you, Eleanor?” Hart asked quietly.
The smile faltered. “Oh, about the same. Father is still writing his books, which are brilliant, but he can’t tell you how much a farthing is worth. I left him to amuse himself at the British Museum, where he is pouring over the Egyptian collection. I do hope he doesn’t start pulling apart the mummies.”
He might. Lord Ramsay had an inquisitive mind, and neither God nor museum authorities could stop him when he wanted to find the answer to something.
“Ah, here we are.” Eleanor craned to look up at Hart’s house as the carriage pulled to a halt. “As elegant as ever. I see your majordomo peering out the door with a look of dismay.” She put her fingers lightly on the hand of the footman who’d hurried from Hart’s front door to help her down. “It’s Franklin, isn’t it?” she said to the footman. “Gracious, you’ve become quite tall, haven’t you? And married, I hear. With a son?”
Franklin, who prided himself on his forbidding countenance while guarding the door of the most famous duke in the land, melted into a smile. “Yes, my lady. He’s three now, and the trouble he gets into.” He shook his he
ad.
“Means he’s robust and healthy.” Eleanor patted his arm. “Congratulations to you.” She waltzed on into the house while Hart climbed down behind her. “Mrs. Mayhew, how delightful to see you,” he heard her say. He entered his house to see her holding out her hands to Hart’s housekeeper.
The two exchanged greetings and were talking about, of all things, recipes. Eleanor’s housekeeper, now retired, apparently had instructed her to obtain Mrs. Mayhew’s recipe for lemon cakes.
Eleanor started up the stairs, and Hart nearly threw his hat and coat at the footman before he followed. He was about to order her into the large front parlor instead of his more intimate study when a large Scotsman in a threadbare kilt, loose shirt, and socks wrinkled around his ankles came barreling down from the top floor.
“Hope you don’t mind, Hart. I brought the hellions, and I fixed myself a place to paint in one of your spare bedrooms. Isabella’s got the decorators in, and you wouldn’t believe the racket—” Mac broke off, and a look of joy spread over his face. He raced down the wide staircase to the first landing and grabbed Eleanor in a bear hug.
“Eleanor Ramsay, by all that’s holy! What are you doing here?”
Eleanor kissed Mac, Hart’s second youngest brother, soundly on the cheek as Hart gained the landing. “Hello, Mac. I’ve come to irritate your older brother.”
“Good. He needs a bit of irritating.” Mac glanced at Hart, his eyes glinting with his smile. “Come up and see the babies when you’re done, El. I’m not painting them, because they won’t hold still; I’m putting finishing touches on a horse picture for Cam. Night-Blooming Jasmine, his new champion.”
“Yes, I heard she’d done well.” Eleanor rose on her tiptoes and gave Mac another kiss on the cheek. “That’s for Isabella. And Aimee, Eileen, and Robert.” Kiss, kiss, kiss. Mac absorbed it all with an idiotic smile, damn him.
Hart leaned on the landing’s railing. “Are we going to come to this proposition sometime today?”
“Proposition?” Mac asked, eyes lighting. “Now, that sounds interesting.”
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