“I thought you would be wearing flannels. It’s rather cold.”

“I haven’t gone out this morning,” he said.

Hart’s shyness was gone, he once again turning the tables. He rested his head in his cupped hands and waited to see what she’d do.

Between his thighs lay the tight spheres of his balls, and above those, the length of him arced back against his abdomen, cradled by plaid.

“I wish I had the photographing apparatus now,” Eleanor said.

“Do you, naughty woman?”

Oh, yes. Hart would make a heady portrait—him lying back, his kilt crumpled around his hips to reveal his wanting while he watched her with warm eyes.

She’d learned his body a long time ago, becoming familiar with the scar that snaked up the inside of his right thigh, the way his hair curled along his legs, how one knee was not the perfect mirror of the other. The photographs didn’t show these small details; they were known only to the woman who had the privilege of gazing at him this close.

Hart said nothing, did nothing.

Eleanor touched the scar, finding the little ridge smooth and cool. Something sparked in Hart’s eyes as she traced the scar upward, but he remained still.

His skin was warmer closer to the join of his legs. His scar ended halfway up the inside of his leg, but Eleanor let her finger continue along the trail until she found the crease between ball and thigh. She caressed there a moment, the last safe place, and then moved her fingers to the shaft.

Hart’s body jerked the slightest bit. His gaze fixed on her, waiting.

Eleanor’s smile widened as she drew her finger up the length of him to his tip. His skin was smooth, hot, and at the same time, silken soft. Strength encased in a firm package.

“The male’s organ stiffens,” she said. “So that he might penetrate the female’s softest place and enter her for his purpose.”

“Bawd,” Hart said, voice rough. “Who taught you such talk?”

“A scientific journal.”

Hart’s laughter shook him, but not enough to make Eleanor’s fingers slide away. “I hope you damn well don’t whisper such things to any other man, especially not in that sweet voice.”

“Only to you, Hart. Only ever to you.”

He stilled. “Eleanor, you are killing me.”

She lifted her hand away. “Shall I stop?”

“No!” Hart grasped her wrist, grip biting down, then he stopped himself, deliberately uncurling his fingers. He tucked his hand behind his head again, but she saw it shaking. “I don’t want you to stop,” he said. “Please.”

It was very difficult for this man to say please. Eleanor put her finger to her lips, hesitating as though pondering what to do. Hart watched her, his entire body tense.

Eleanor rested her hand on him again. Again he jerked, Hart trying to contain his reaction.

She glided her palm up the length of him, exactly as he’d showed her that long-ago day in the summerhouse. Hart sucked in a breath, body rigid. Eleanor brushed her palm over his tip and then slid her hand back down.

“Oh, God, Eleanor… lass.”

The groan nearly undid her. Eleanor stroked him again, this time a little faster. Hart grew even harder under her touch, and Eleanor warmed with the power of it.

“El. Sweet El. Holy Christ.”

Hart’s hands tightened to fists, as though he stopped himself, with great effort, from reaching for her.

In the summerhouse and the bedchambers, they’d undressed before intimate touching had commenced. Eleanor had not known how exciting things could be when they both remained fully clothed. What a delicious discovery.

Hart, for his part, was making all kinds of discoveries. That Eleanor was more beautiful than ever, that he wasn’t quite dead, that her touch was incredible. Despite Eleanor’s assertions, she was innocent, and her little smile opened up every devilish part of him.

The wild feeling in his cock spread down his body and up again into his heart. Hart was going to die of this. Hart the master, the all-powerful, surrendered to his lady’s touch.

God, it was glorious.

“Eleanor,” he said breathlessly. “You undo me. You always have.”

“Shall I stop?”

Look at her, playful and challenging, utterly innocent and wicked at the same time. He’d let her walk away from him, because he’d been stupid, and young, and too bloody arrogant. He’d never let her walk away again. Even if he had to lock her into this chamber with him for the rest of their lives, he’d keep her with him, always.

It would not be so bad an existence. His servants could cut a hole in the door to pass them food and drink, and maybe Hart would remember to eat it.

“Never stop,” Hart heard himself say. “Never. Please. Oh, dear God.”

He rose on his elbows, unable to stay flat against the pillow. He watched the hand that pleasured him, with small, feminine fingers that were proving to be very, very clever.

“Take me all the way, El. Please, or you’ll kill me.”

Eleanor knew what he meant. She did have knowledge, because Hart had taught it to her a long time ago.

Eleanor lay down at his side as she kept up the beautiful friction, and Hart wrapped his arm around her. Her head rested on his chest, and strands of red gold hair snaked across his black coat. Hart stroked her, keeping his touch gentle.

Darkness rose, but Hart fought it down. He wanted this to be simple, light, a woman pleasuring him because she wanted to pleasure him.

Basic physical need took over. His mind blanked to all but the scent of Eleanor’s hair, the glorious feeling of her fingers, her warmth at his side. Nothing but her and him, sensation, wanting.

His hips moved. “Eleanor.”

He scooped her up to him and thrust his mouth over hers just as it ended. Heat scalded his thighs, but the sensation went on and on. Hart kissed Eleanor’s mouth, and she moved her lips in greedy response.

“Lass, what you do to me.”

Eleanor’s eyes were half closed, lovely blue between black lashes. Hart’s words ran out, and he simply kissed her.

It was peaceful here. The house was quiet, he and she close, Hart kissing Eleanor on her bed on a rainy London morning.

She touched his face as they kissed, saying nothing. Sweet kisses. No hurry.

“You soothe me,” he whispered.

Her eyes softened. “I’m glad.”

Time flowed by. Hart and Eleanor were nose-to-nose, kissing, touching, enjoying the silence.

They lay together in quiet enjoyment, until Wilfred’s dry cough in the hall invaded the peace, reminding Hart of the real world waiting for him. He wanted to tell the real world to go hang.

Eleanor, sensibly, fetched a towel from her washstand and brought it back to the bed. Hart wiped her hands and himself with the linen, then kissed her as he slid from the bed, the heavy folds of his kilt once more falling to cover him.

When he married her, they would have many more days like this. No matter how busy their lives became, no matter how many people vied for their attention, Hart would make certain that the duke and duchess often retired from the public eye to lie together in joyful silence.

It was all he could do to make himself leave the room, and her, his heart full.


Eleanor blew out her breath as Hart closed the door. She went to her washbasin and bathed her hands and face in cool water, fetching yet another towel from her cupboard.

She was still shaking. What had possessed her? But it had been beautiful.

She went to the writing table, where Hart had left the book, and began gathering up the letters to return to their hiding place. Not many seconds later, she found herself sitting down to flip through the pages of the memory book, back to the photographs.

She smiled. Hart might insist he was past his first youth now, but he’d looked quite fine on her bed with his kilt bunched around his hips. Better even, than he had years ago. He’d filled out, his body reaching the potential his younger features had promised.

She sighed and began gathering the letters again. She unfolded the letter she’d found Hart reading and skimmed through it, her heart aching for him all over again.

Hart was right; she ought to have burned it. But Eleanor had reasoned the likelihood small that anyone would find the hidden letter in her out-of-the-way abode on the Scottish coast. The servants never touched her belongings, and her father went rarely to her bedchamber. She’d not thought about the letters tucked into the book as she’d packed for London; she’d simply not wanted to leave the book behind.

But Eleanor understood the danger of keeping the letter. Hart shooting his father had been an accident, she was certain—they had wrestled for the shotgun, and it had gone off. What had been in Hart’s mind the split second between the gun landing in his hands and the shot flying out of it was between Hart and God.

Whatever had happened, the duke’s death had brought Ian home to safety. But if Hart’s enemies ever got hold of the letter, it could spell disaster for Hart.

Eleanor marched to the stove and opened its door. “Let that be an end to it,” she said, using the words Hart predicted she would, and consigned the letter to the flames.


The shooting attempt made Hart rethink the travel arrangements to Berkshire. Hart would not be staying at Cameron’s the entire month anyway, as he usually did, but traveling back and forth to London as he could.

Train stations were extremely public places, full of opportunities for crazed assassins to fire at people. Hart agonized over the decision but concluded that Eleanor and her father well might be safer in public, with Mac to guard them, than they would alone in a coach on some empty stretch of country road. Hart would keep them safe by not traveling with them at all.