"Excellent, Jamie," Beth said. "Uncle Cameron says you have a good horseman's seat." She lifted Belle as Belle dropped Ian's hands and raised her arms for her mother.

Ian put his hand on Belle's back, Ian always worried that the little girl would fall. Beth hugged her close, determined to prove she wouldn't drop this precious package at least.

Ian met Beth's gaze and gave her one of his rare, full smiles. No pain lingered in his eyes, only the warmth he showed when he was in the nursery. The bowl might never have been broken.

"Yes, Mr. Curry?" Nanny Westlock said as Curry lingered in the doorway. "May I be of assistance?"

"Just going, Miss Westlock. Ye run your kingdom to your 'eart's content."

Miss Westlock only gave him a look, but Curry grinned at Beth and shut the door behind him.

Ian moved to Jamie and started showing him how to hold the reins between his small fingers. Jamie was already tall for his age and robust. He'd be a towering Mackenzie before long.

Beth cuddled Belle in her arms and watched her husband become absorbed in his children. She hoped Curry would take the broken pieces downstairs, but she'd have to worry about the bowl and what to do about it later.

*** *** *** The at least twenty people in the servants' hall listened in horror and then surprise as Curry related his tale. John Bellamy, his blunt fingers working a needle to repair the lining of one of Lord Mac's riding coats, listened while Curry spoke with his usual flair for dramatics. Curry finished by dumping the contents of the dustpan across the table, what was left of a very expensive Ming bowl.

"'Er ladyship wants it put together again," Curry finished. "So 'ow 'bout it?"

The servants around the table leaned forward, white caps and dark and light heads bent as hands reached for the pieces and started sorting.

Bellamy stayed out of it, his hands with their ill-healed broken fingers not good for lifting delicate things like shards of porcelain. A needle and thread was about as nimble as he could get. He usually asked a maid to help him with mending Lord Mac's clothes, but there was so much to do to ready the house for Christmas that he didn't feel it right to bother them.

As he watched the others start fitting pieces together and arguing about what went where, he again thought about his decision to retire. Lord Mac should have a younger man, one more like the suave Marcel who waited on the duke, instead of a broken-down former pugilist.

Lord Mac's lady wife was looking after him fine now. No more did Bellamy need to lift a limp and drunken Lord Mac, undress him like a child, and put him to bed.

Bellamy was nearing forty, and he'd been in one too many fights. He'd worked for a crooked fight manager who'd staged every one of Bellamy's matches, but that didn't mean the punches hadn't been real.

Time for him to move on. He'd run a pub, or he'd train young boxers and teach them how to avoid working for outright thieves.

Wouldn't be easy to tell Lord Mac, though. Lord Mac's feelings would be hurt, but Bellamy knew that his lordship didn't truly need him anymore.

Feeling slightly sad, Bellamy laid aside his mending and left the hall, seeking the back door. He heard the others' exclamations of surprise when Curry explained that Lord Ian hadn't had one of his fits when the bowl broke, but Bellamy was not amazed. Lord Ian had been a changed man since he'd married little Mrs. Ackerley.

There was another reason Bellamy wanted to go. He was lonely.

Outside, all was dark, and freezing. The sun had gone, night coming swiftly this far north. Bellamy's breath fogged out, and his feet crunched on the frozen ground. No snow at the moment, but it was coming.

He walked around the corner of the kitchen wing, out of the wind. He heard a gasp, saw another fog of breath, and stopped. At his feet crouched a bundle of clothes. Not rags--the person inside had piled on as many layers as possible against the cold.

A face inside a hood stared up at Bellamy, terror in her eyes flaring as she took in his height and breadth.

"Please," she said. "Don't make me move on yet. Just a while longer, out o' the wind."

Her accent wasn't broad, but it put her from right here in the Highlands. Bellamy had never seen her before.

"Who are you?"

Bellamy's voice came out harsh and scratched. His east London accent couldn't be reassuring either.

The woman flinched, but she held on to her courage. "I'm no one. But please, if you could spare a bit of bread before I go."

Bellamy reached for her. She cringed away, as though expecting a blow, but Bellamy held his hand to her, palm out. "Come with me."

The woman started to scramble to her feet. "No, I'll move on. I know he's a duke and all. I never meant no harm."

Bellamy seized her by the arm, clamping down when she made to jerk away. "Don't be daft, woman. I meant ye need to come inside and get warm."

She stared up at him in more fear, then resignation. This poor lass probably hadn't had a word of kindness in a long while, and when she had, she'd likely had to pay for it.

Bellamy felt a bite of anger at whoever had made her pay in the past. Well, she'd understand soon enough that not all was darkness. He led her into the echoing hall behind the kitchens and closed the door against the night, all thoughts of retiring pushed aside for the moment.

*** *** *** Eleanor, the Duchess of Kilmorgan, lay in the warm bliss of her bed, while her husband placed another slow kiss on her swollen abdomen.

This had been one of the difficult days, when she'd only been able to rise to toddle to the necessary and back again. And she had to use the necessary so often these days. Her three sisters-in-law assured her this was normal, but Eleanor worried. She was thirty and having her first child. She knew there was danger, and Hart did too.

The duke kissed her again, adding a brush of tongue. He lifted his head, Hart's eyes deep golden in the shadows.

"You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he said in his low, rich voice.

Eight months of marriage hadn't dimmed Hart's passion. In fact, their marriage was awakening desires he'd kept long buried. Eleanor learned more about Hart every day she lived with him.

Eleanor smiled as she laid her hand on her belly, feeling a tiny movement within. "I am very rotund."

"Beautiful," Hart repeated firmly, a spark lighting his eyes. He liked to be commanding.

"Carrying your child," she said. "I'm very happy to."

Hart slid a little way up the bed and touched a kiss to her equally swollen breasts. They ached, but his kiss soothed.

Eleanor was naked, surrounded by blankets and pillows, and the fire in the white and gold stove was stoked full of coal. She must be the warmest person in the house.

Hart had returned from the funeral a little bit ago and come to her--cold, disgruntled, his face hard.

He'd undressed near the stove, boots, coat, and cravat coming off impatiently, shirt following them to the floor. He'd stripped out of his underbreeches, leaving his kilt in place, then climbed up on the bed with her, laying Eleanor down and kissing her before he'd spoken a word.

Seeking comfort. Eleanor was happy to give it. Hart had suffered much loss in his life, had sacrificed so much, more than anyone but Eleanor understood.

Hart told her about the funeral while he lay against her, having skimmed off her nightrail. He touched her with the possessiveness of a husband, the tenderness of a lover. They'd talked, voices low, until his bleak look had gone. Hart hadn't been great friends with Mrs. McCray or her husband--far from it--but the funeral had stirred memories of his father and the rather horrible man he'd been.

"Not long now," Eleanor said, her chubby fingers tracing the movement on her abdomen. "Thank heavens. I look forward to walking about my own house again. Without the waddling."


* * * * *

Chapter Three

Laugher tinged Hart's voice. "You don't waddle."

"Mac said I looked like a mother duck. And he is right, blast the man."

"I'll speak to Mac."

"Don't bother. I shook my finger at him. But the comparison was apt. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Still, 'twill be a nice Hogmanay gift, do you not think? A little boy to dandle on your knee?"

"Or a girl."

"We've had this argument many a time. He will be a boy."

"Mackenzies do as they please. So do Ramsays." Hart ran his hand across her lower abdomen and around her navel.

"I know they do. Which is how I know he is a boy. Did you wager on a girl in Daniel's pool?"

Hart sent her a glance laced with heat. "Do you think I would wager on the outcome of my own child?"

"Danny's become quite the little bookmaker, has he not? I of course put down twenty pounds on boy."

"Only twenty? I thought you were so sure of the outcome."

"It's a frivolous wager, and one should not set a bad example. Besides, Daniel is drawing a large commission. I asked what he needed the money for, and he said he was building things. I shudder to imagine his flat in Edinburgh--loaded to the brim with mechanical parts and gears and oddities, I shouldn't wonder."

"I don't know. He lets no one in." Hart skimmed his hand down to her thigh, his fingers gentle but skilled. He moved to the foot of the bed and knelt there, kilt spreading over his large thighs. "Lie back. I'll rub your feet."

"Mmm." Eleanor wriggled her toes as Hart took her heel in his hand. "Every princess wants this in her Prince Charming. He rides up to the castle, kisses her awake, and rubs her aching feet."