“And now you work for me.”

She rummaged in the drawer, not looking at him. “I’m hardly your servant, but the same principle applies. Were I to wait for your commands, I’d be in that little study with Wilfred, tapping my fingers on the desk, wondering when you would bother to appear. Even Wilfred wonders at your absences, and he is a man of few words.”

“In that study is exactly where I want you to be!”

“I don’t see why. Wilfred doesn’t really need me to type your correspondence. He gives it to me for something to do, because he feels sorry for me. My time is much better spent trying to discover who is sending the pictures and what they mean by it. And you could help me search instead of standing in the doorway shouting at me.”

She made his blood boil. “Eleanor, I want you out of this house.”

Eleanor blithely ignored him to open the next drawer. “Not until I’ve finished looking. There are many nooks and crannies and much furniture.”

Hart pushed his way around the bureau, seized Eleanor by her shoulders, and pulled her upright. She came up swiftly, one blue eye now completely shielded by the veil.

Before Hart registered that he did it, he skimmed his hands down her arms to her wrists and pulled them behind her back. He knew how to lock a woman’s hands, knew how to hold her still. Eleanor stared up at him, red lips parted.

Need streaked through him, a craving that closed him in razor-sharp claws. Hart studied the red lips that beckoned him, breasts rising against her tightly buttoned bodice, the lock of hair, fallen, gold red against her cheek.

He leaned and took the curl in his mouth. Eleanor drew a breath, and Hart turned his head and caught her lip between his teeth.

Eleanor’s eyes were enormous this close to his. Gone was her defiance, her stubborn obliviousness. She focused on Hart and Hart alone, as he bit down on her lip, not brutally, but enough to trap her. Her breath was hot on his cheek, and her wrists were quiet under his hands.

Tamed? No. Never Eleanor. If she quieted in his skilled grasp, it was her choice to.

Hart could easily take her, now, perhaps across the top of the chest behind her. It would be quick and intense—a few thrusts, and Hart would be spent. They wouldn’t even have to undress. Eleanor would be his, again, inescapably.

Hart pressed a soft kiss where his teeth had scraped. Her lips were slightly salty with perspiration, silken soft, the warm tang of her mouth satisfying. He nipped her again, pulling her lip with his teeth, again gentling the movement by kissing where he’d bitten.

Eleanor moved her lips to kiss him back, her eyes closing to slits while her pink, soft mouth found his. Hart slanted across it, ready to lick inside, but Eleanor pulled back.

“Don’t.” Her whisper was quiet, and he wouldn’t have heard it had they not been this close. But no fear rested in Eleanor’s eyes. He saw sorrow and heartache instead. “It’s not fair.”

“Not fair?”

“To me.” Her lashes were wet.

Dark need tore at him. Hart gripped her wrists, but Eleanor didn’t flinch, didn’t move.

He was Hart Mackenzie, the Duke of Kilmorgan, one of the most powerful men in Britain, and Eleanor Ramsay had put herself into his power. Hart could do anything he wanted to her, up here, alone in this room.

Anything at all.

Eleanor’s eyes, one behind the pin-dot veil, one visible, stared into his. Hart dragged in a breath that burned fire, and made himself let her go.

His body fought him releasing her, and he backed a step before he turned away and leaned on the bureau. He pressed his fists to the wood, his lungs hurting, blood pounding through his body.

“Hart, are you all right?”

Eleanor looked up at him in concern. Still, she had no fear. Only worry—for him.

“Yes, I am all right. Why the hell wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you look very red and will break the wood if you’re not careful.”

“I’ll be better the minute you are out of this house!”

Eleanor spread her hands in her dove-colored gloves. “When I’m finished searching.”

Hart roared. He grabbed the chest of drawers and overturned it, the thing crashing to the floor. At the same time, the doorway darkened and Ian strode in, his Mackenzie scowl all for Hart.

Eleanor turned to Ian, giving him a bright smile. “There you are, Ian. Will you please take Hart downstairs? I will finish much more quickly if he’s not up here throwing the furniture about.”

Hart went for her. Ian tried to stop him, but Hart shoved Ian out of the way and lunged at Eleanor.

She shrieked. Hart didn’t care. He lifted her and tucked her over his shoulder, then he pushed past Ian—who had decided to step back and let this happen—and carried Eleanor bodily down the stairs.

“Ian, bring my package!” Eleanor shouted back over his shoulder. “Hart, put me down. This is absurd.”

Hart’s town coach was pulling to a halt under the gaslights, which were turning the now-misty air a sickly yellow. Hart at least set Eleanor on her feet before he guided her down the steps to the street, hand on her elbow, pushing her at the car-riage.

Instead of fighting him, Eleanor subsided after one “Really, Hart.” He saw her glance at the passersby and decide not to make a scene.

Hart shoved her into the coach that his footmen hastily opened. He climbed up beside her and directed his coachman to Grosvenor Square, knowing good and well that Eleanor would never stay in the carriage if he didn’t hold her there all the way home.


The pictures Eleanor had found at the shop were breathtaking. Hart in all his glory.

Eleanor sat alone at the table in her bedchamber that evening, the photographs spread before her. She was in her dressing gown, the new ball gown she’d wear tonight lying in emerald delight across the bed.

Ian, bless him, had brought the brown-paper package to her when he’d returned to Hart’s, again never asking what was in it. Eleanor waited for Maigdlin to go down to her supper before she cut the twine and unwrapped the box, laying out the photographs one by one.

There were twelve in all, six taken in the same room as the one in which he’d been looking out the window. The other six had been done in a smaller bedroom, the décor of which reminded her of the house in High Holborn.

Eleanor put her finger on one photograph and drew it to her. This one was different from the others, because in it, Hart wasn’t naked. Facing the camera full on, he wore only a kilt of Mackenzie plaid that sagged low across his hips. This photograph was also different, because here, Hart was laughing.

His smile lit his eyes and softened his face. One hand was on his waistband, and the other came up, palm forward, as though telling the cameraman—or woman, in this case—not to take the picture. The shutter had gone off anyway.

The result showed Hart as he truly was. Correction, Hart as he used to be—a devilish rogue with a charming smile. The man who’d teased Eleanor and winked at her, who’d called her wicked for wanting to be anywhere near a notorious Mackenzie.

Hart had laughed at her and made Eleanor laugh back. Hart had not been afraid to tell her anything—his ambitions, his dreams, his worries for his brothers, his rage at his father. He would come to her at Glenarden and lie with his head on her lap amidst the summer roses, and pour out his heart. Then he’d kiss her, lover’s kisses, not chaste courtship kisses. To this day, when Eleanor smelled red roses, she felt the smooth pressure of his lips on hers, remembered the dark taste of his mouth.

Memories flooded her, and her eyes filled. Hart had been such a devil, but full of life and hope, laughter and energy, and she’d loved him.

The man Hart had become no longer had the hope and the laughter, though he still had the obsession. Hart was driven—she’d read in the newspapers how he won gentleman after political gentleman to his side, making them want to follow him. Hart never had anything good to say about Bonnie Prince Charlie—the arrogant bastard who beggared the Highlanders—but Bonnie Prince Charlie must have had the same ability to make the skeptical believe in him.

But with Hart’s rise to power, more warmth had left him. Eleanor thought about what she’d seen in his eyes, both in the vestibule this morning when Hart had blocked her way out of his house, and this afternoon when he’d found her in the High Holborn house. He was a hard and lonely man, driven by anger and determination, no more smiling excitement, no more laughter.

Eleanor slid that photograph aside and drew the next one toward her. Hart still smiled at the camera, but with practiced deviltry. The kilt was off now, trailing to the ground from his hand.

He was a beautiful, beautiful man. Eleanor traced his chest, remembering what it had been to touch him. She’d gotten a taste of it this afternoon, when he’d held her arms behind her, his strength pinning her. She’d been at his mercy—she knew she’d not be able to walk away until he released her. Instead of growing afraid, Eleanor had felt dark excitement beat through her veins.

“Eleanor, aren’t you ready?”

Eleanor jumped as Isabella’s voice sounded outside her bedchamber door. Eleanor swept the photographs back into the box and was shoving the box into the bottom drawer of her dresser when Isabella Mackenzie entered in a swish of silver satin and taffeta.

Eleanor locked the drawer and dropped the key into the top of her corset. “Sorry, Izzy,” she said. “I was just finishing something. Will you help me dress?”


Hart knew full well the moment Eleanor joined the throng that filled his ballroom.