The Duke's Perfect Wife

by Jennifer Ashley

“It is not something easily worked into conversation.” Louisa reached for the garland. “Anyway, now I have told you. And I truly need help with this garland.”

  Fellows put a firm arm around her and reached up beside her. He was not quite sure what had just changed in his life, but the world felt different, and he would make certain that he and Louisa continued to explore what had begun in this room.

  Eleanor slept. She dreamed dark dreams that slipped away when she swam to wakefulness and pain. Then she was restless, the injury keeping her from slumbering again. When Beth offered her more laudanum in water, Eleanor was hurting enough to readily drink it.

  She slept through her wedding night, all the next day, and well into the next night. She awoke, hungry, able to eat the bread and butter Maigdlin brought her. Eleanor felt well after that, and decided to get up, only to find herself on the floor, her friends lifting her back into bed.

  Fever came, and she saw the faces of Beth, Ainsley, and Isabella come and go. And Hart’s. She wanted to cling to him and ask him a thousand questions—what had happened to Darragh? Were there any other assassins lurking? Had Inspector Fellows arrested Darragh’s friends? But she had no strength to speak.

  After what seemed a long time, Eleanor woke again, in quiet darkness. Her arm was sore, but the worst of the pain had receded, thank heavens. Eleanor stretched and yawned. Her body was damp with sweat, but she felt rested, relieved.

  She was not alone, she discovered—Maigdlin lay back in a chair, snoring, an oil lamp glowing next to her. Feeling fusty, she woke Maigdlin and asked the startled maid to run a bath. Maigdlin protested, fearing Eleanor’s fever would return, but Eleanor wanted to find Hart, and she did not want to go to her husband after sweating in bed for… who knew how long.

  Maigdlin helped her bathe, being careful of her bandages. Three days she’d been asleep, Maigdlin told her, and so sick they feared they’d lose her.

  Nonsense. Eleanor always threw off her fevers. She was strong as an ox.

  Feeling much better after the bath, Eleanor wrapped herself in a thick dressing gown, put on warm slippers, and headed for Hart’s bedchamber, three doors down from hers.

  The hall was silent, the rest of the house asleep. The doors in between her chamber and his led to Hart’s private library and study. Eleanor supposed she should be grateful that she had to walk only twenty feet to reach his bedroom. When she’d stayed at Kilmorgan as his fiancée, long ago, she’d been put in the guest wing, which was on the other side of the house.

  Eleanor did not bother to knock on the immense double doors. She’d come prepared with a key, which she’d procured the day she’d arrived at Kilmorgan. But there was no need for it, because the door was unlocked. She saw why when she entered the enormous chamber. Hart wasn’t in it.

  Hart’s bed, empty and neatly made, was colossal, with brocade hangings flowing to it from an oval canopy ten feet above it. The rest of the room was taken up with formal tables and chairs, a bookcase, a padded bench, and a console table holding brandy and a humidor.

  In spite of the elegant furnishings, this was a cold room, even with the coal fire burning brightly on the hearth. Eleanor shivered.

  Hart’s windows faced the front of the house and the east side of the grounds. The curtains had not been drawn, and Eleanor walked to the east window and peered out.

  “He’s gone out to the mausoleum, Your Grace.”

  Eleanor stifled a shriek and turned to find Hart’s French valet in the doorway. Marcel stood ramrod straight, looking not at all tired. The perfect servant, awake and alert to serve his master, even at three o’clock in the morning. Poor Maigdlin had succumbed to slumber.

  “The mausoleum?” Eleanor asked when her breath returned. “In the middle of the night?”

  “His Grace will go there sometimes when he can’t sleep,” Marcel said. “Is there anything I can fetch for you, Your Grace?”

  “No, no. That’s fine, Marcel. Thank you.”

  Marcel stood aside to let Eleanor leave the room, then he hastened down the hall ahead of her to open her bedchamber door. Eleanor thanked him politely and bade him go to bed. Hart would be fine without him, she said, and Marcel needed sleep. Marcel looked puzzled, but he went.

  Eleanor bade Maigdlin, who was changing her bedsheets, to help her dress and to fix her arm in the sling. Maigdlin didn’t want to, of course, but Eleanor was firm. She then sent Maigdlin up to her bed, hurried downstairs, and let herself out of the house through a back door.

  She sped across the damp grass toward the squat, dark building on the edge of the grounds, her breath catching when she saw the wink of a lantern inside.

  The Mackenzie family mausoleum was always cold. Hart’s breath fogged inside it, even though the April night was almost balmy.

  His grandfather had built this place in the 1840s, a Greek-looking mock temple with plenty of marble and granite. Hart’s grandfather and grandmother reposed here, as did Hart’s father and mother. Cameron’s first wife did not, because Hart’s father wouldn’t hear of it. She was a bitch, a whore, and Cameron’s disgrace, the duke had said. She can make do with the churchyard, though I’ll be surprised if the vicar lets her in.

  Hart’s wife Sarah did have a tomb here, as did his son, Graham.

  The marble of Sarah’s tomb was black and gray, cold to the touch. The plaque on the front of the tomb was filled with flowery phrases that Hart never remembered asking for.

  The smaller plaque next to Sarah’s said, Lord Hart Graham Mackenzie, Beloved Son, June 7, 1876.

  Hart traced the lettering of his son’s name with gloved fingertips. Graham would have turned eight this year.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I am so sorry.”

  Silence and darkness filled the space. But Hart felt comfort from the cool marble, from the presence of the boy he’d held—only once.

  If Hart had done everything right in his life, he and Eleanor would have been married long ago, and Kilmorgan would be overrun with children by now. The bodies of Sarah and Graham would not be in this cold place, with nothing but chisel marks on marble left to honor them.

  But Hart had done everything wrong. This time, at least, this time, he’d gotten Eleanor to the altar. And then she’d pushed him out of the way of the pistol, trying to save him.

  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 ye
t 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.