“You have to. Eleanor needs to understand you, as Beth understands me.”

Ian’s jaw tightened as he spoke, his hand as tight on the railing. At least he’d stopped shaking his head like a stubborn mule.

“You’re a hard man, Ian Mackenzie.”

Ian did not answer.

Tell Eleanor everything.

Angelina Palmer had taken it upon herself to visit Eleanor Ramsay in Scotland a few months into their engagement and tell her about Hart. That he owned the High Holborn house, that he entertained ladies there, that he’d pleasured them in ways well-bred young women could not imagine. Angelina hadn’t described things in detail to Eleanor, thank God; but the hinting had been enough.

Hart had deliberately not visited the house and Angelina while he was courting Eleanor, not wanting to be that sort of liar. Feeling virtuous because of this, he’d coaxed Eleanor to surrender her virginity to him.

But Eleanor had awakened something inside Hart, an excitement he’d not felt before or since. He’d wanted to explore it, had explored it as much as he possibly could.

Angelina’s motives for revealing her existence had not been to make Eleanor jealous or to convince Hart to return to her. No. Angelina had known as soon as she’d made the decision that her actions would lose her Hart forever. The marriage to Eleanor had been important to Hart, and Hart was not the forgiving sort. But Angelina had done it anyway.

She hadn’t gone to Eleanor to reveal Hart’s sexual exploits. She’d gone to warn Eleanor of her danger, because Angelina knew exactly what sort of man Hart was on his way to becoming.

And Angelina had been right.

Eleanor’s rejection had taken the arrogant Hart unawares. Astonished and furious, Hart had threatened both Eleanor and her father with dire consequences if Eleanor broke the engagement, because that was the brutal sort of man Hart was learning to be. His father had beaten his lessons into Hart very well.

Hart had never learned how to mitigate his anger or even speak to someone without immediately deciding how to manipulate him. Hart had hated his father but had become much like him, having had no other example to follow.

And so, Hart had no idea how to simply be with a person and, as Mac had admonished him, let things happen. He could have had the chance to learn with Eleanor, but he’d thrown that chance away.

A beam of sun dazzled the water and stabbed into Hart’s eyes. When he raised his head, he saw that they were drawing near a lock, the lockkeeper ambling out of his house toward the pumps at the gate.

“I can’t tell Eleanor the things I did, Ian,” he said.

Ian shot him an impatient look. The approaching lock was far more interesting than complicated conversations with Hart. “You had two sets of rules,” Ian said. “One for Mrs. Palmer and one for Eleanor. You think that if you follow the wrong set of rules with Eleanor, it means you don’t love her.”

Hart opened his mouth to hotly deny this, but the words stuck in his throat. Thoughts he reached for—things he’d been certain of—shattered like glass at his touch.

Ian pushed himself from the gunwale, finished with worrying about Hart’s problems. “How many gallons fill the lock per minute, do you think?” he asked.

Without waiting for an answer, Ian turned from Hart and jumped from the boat to the bank. Ian caught up to the man guiding the horse and walked with him in silence, probably busy calculating the depth of the pond and the time the water in it would take to fill the lock.


A spring rain began, pouring down in earnest as the canal boat pulled over to the bank. The Romany had steered through the last lock below Hungerford, and now they’d reached the part of the canal that marked the boundary of Cameron’s property.

Hart looked up the green field that ran from canal to the house on the rise and saw that it was full of people. Annoyed, dripping people with umbrellas, most of them Mackenzies.

Not all of them. A tall Scotsman who was not a Mackenzie stood very close to Eleanor, holding an umbrella over her head. Hart recognized him—Sinclair McBride, one of Ainsley’s many brothers, the one who was the barrister. Hart felt his rage begin to boil as Sinclair bent down to Eleanor to shelter her with the umbrella, and Eleanor smiled serenely up at him.


Eleanor watched Hart standing on the deck like a king about to address his subjects. Bloody man. She’d been terrified when his lackeys had returned in the middle of the night, saying they’d lost him along the woods by the canal. Only early that morning, when Angelo had ridden up to say that Ian and Hart were safe with his family, had the panic lessened. Now Eleanor was simply angry.

She started forward, but Ainsley’s brother Sinclair touched her shoulder. “Best not. It’s muddy and you might have a fall.”

He was sweet, really. Sinclair McBride, a widower, had arrived with his two children this morning to further fill the nursery. Ainsley had invited him and the rest of her brothers to stay at Waterbury this spring, but thus far, only Sinclair had been able to turn up.

Ian had stepped off the boat. Beth ran to him, despite the mud, and Ian swept her up into a warm embrace. Everyone surrounded them and began talking at once. Demanding to know where Ian had run off to. Why had he worried everyone so? Thank God Hart had found him.

The Romany piled off the boat, children, goats, dogs, men, and women, and trudged to the middle of the rainy field to start setting up tents. Cameron seemed to find this in no way unusual. He began talking to a man with a pipe, and Daniel and Angelo joined them, along with Eleanor’s father. Daniel started helping the Romany men stretch canvas over the tents, and the children ran inside them. Sinclair handed Eleanor the umbrella and moved to assist.

Last to leave the boat was a black-clad older lady. Hart assisted her across to the bank, but he did not get off with her.

What was he doing? Hart stood back, like the king Eleanor had thought of, or better still, a general, watching everyone, waiting to direct them if necessary. He kept his eyes on his brothers, formidable giants with their wives never far from their sides. They all looked happy—Beth, Isabella, and Ainsley laughing at their Mackenzie men but gazing at said men with deep love.

“He needs you.”

Eleanor jumped at Ian’s voice in her ear. He was beside her, his keen gaze on her, while Beth stood not far away chattering with the older Romany woman.

“Who does?” Eleanor asked Ian. “Hart?” She peered through the rain at the stubborn duke leaning on the rail of the tied-up boat. “Hart Mackenzie needs no one.”

Ian’s whiskey-colored eyes were dark under the umbrella’s shadow. “You’re wrong,” he said. He turned and trudged away, back through the rain to Beth.

He needs you.

Hart did look so alone. He was watching the family he’d done everything in the world to keep safe, but watching. Not part of them.

Eleanor lifted her already muddy skirt and picked her way down the slope to the bank, mindful of Sinclair’s words about slipping. Hart watched her come—she could feel his gaze on her all the way down the field—but he didn’t leave the boat to meet her.

Not until she’d reached the canal boat did Hart step to the rail, snatch the umbrella that threatened to turn inside out in the wind, toss it aside, and haul Eleanor across the foot of water between them.

Eleanor landed against him. Hart was soaking wet, his coat open, wet strands of hair against his unshaven face. From behind those strands, his eyes were amber and sharp, alive.

“What are you doing?” Eleanor asked, still angry. “Are you going to weigh anchor and float us away?”

“Angelo’s mother asked me to look after the boat. They’ve come to watch Cameron and Angelo train the horses.”

“She meant for you to have one of the staff do it, surely.”

“No, she meant me.” Hart gazed into the strengthening rain, which obscured the tents on the hill. “Dukes and errand boys are all the same to her. But it doesn’t matter. It’s quiet here.”

Quiet was one thing Hart Mackenzie did not have an abundance of, and Eleanor knew that when he returned to London, he’d have even less.

“Shall I go, then? Leave you in peace looking after your canal boat?”

“No.” The answer was abrupt, swift. Hart’s hand, heavy and strong, landed on hers. “You’re all wet. Let’s go inside. I want to show you the boat.”

He half guided, half pulled her down the few stairs to the cabin door. Hart wrenched open the swollen wooden door, towed Eleanor through, and shut it again.

The sound of rain turned to a hollow drumming on the roof and a pattering against the windowpanes. This, coupled with the quiet hiss of coals in the little corner stove, was soothing. Eleanor understood Hart’s reluctance to leave.

“I’ve never been on a canal boat before,” she said, looking around in delight.

The Romany might be itinerants, but their home was cozy. The tiny stove gave off good heat. Pots and pans hung above the stove, scrubbed gleaming clean, and bunks at the far end were piled with colorful quilts and blankets. The bench that ran along one wall under the windows held embroidered cushions she recognized as Ainsley’s work.

“I thought you’d like it,” Hart said.

“I take it you had no run-ins with assassins on your jaunt?”

“No.”

Just the one word, when she’d been worried to death. “I am speaking lightly of it, because, Hart, I was so scared…” She trailed off, her hands balling. She wanted to fling her arms around him, and at the same time, she wanted to beat her fists against his chest. To stop herself from doing either, she folded her arms across her stomach.