He’d held back with her when they’d been engaged, but Hart knew that if took her this night, he’d not hold back. He was drunk, frustrated, and in deep pain. He’d teach her things that would shock her, and he’d not let her go until she’d done them back to him.

His need tightened like a net around him, a need he’d not felt in years. His wild sexual yearnings had vanished into the vast emptiness that was Hart Mackenzie, or so he’d believed. That need snaked through him now and mocked his self-control.

The yearnings didn’t go away, he realized. They only went dormant. Until tonight when they were kicked into roaring by black-lashed eyes and a curl against a sweetly freckled forehead.

“Get out,” Hart said in a harsh voice.

Eleanor’s red lips popped open. “What?”

“I said, get out!”

If she stayed, Hart wouldn’t be able to stop himself. He was too drunk for control, and God only knew what he’d do to her.

“Gracious, Hart, you have turned hard.”

She didn’t understand how hard. Picturing himself pinning Eleanor on the bed, holding her by her wrists drawn over her head, feeling her soft breath while she moaned in pleasure—had him hard as granite.

“Get out, and leave me alone.”

Eleanor didn’t move.

Hart snarled, turned, and hurled his crystal goblet into the fireplace. Glass shattered and leftover droplets of whiskey sprayed, the fire catching them and bursting into tiny blue flames.

Hart heard Eleanor’s swift footsteps behind him, felt the draft as the door was flung open, heard the click of her heels in the gallery. Running. Away from him.

Thank God.

Hart let out his breath, closed the door, and turned the key in the lock. He moved back to the decanter and poured another large measure of whiskey into a clean glass. His hands were shaking so he could barely raise the glass to his lips to drink.


Hart opened his eyes to sunshine pounding through the window and a sound in his head like a saw scraping granite.

He was facedown on the bed, still in shirt and kilt, a whiskey glass an inch from his outstretched hand. The last swallow had spilled from it, leaving a sharp-smelling spot on his coverlet.

Hart’s mouth felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton, and his eyes weren’t focusing. He made the supreme effort of raising his head, and discovered that the sawing sound came from his valet, a young smooth-mannered Frenchman he’d hired when he’d promoted Wilfred, stropping a razor over a steaming bowl of water.

“What the devil time is it?” Hart managed to croak.

“Ten o’clock in the morning, Your Grace.” Marcel prided himself on speaking English with no trace of accent. “The young lady and her father are packed and ready. They’re downstairs waiting for the carriage to take them to the station.”

Chapter 4

Half of Hart’s staff looked utterly shocked to see His Grace charge down the stairs in kilt and open shirt, his face dark with beard and his eyes bloodshot.

They must not know him well, Eleanor thought. Hart and his bachelor brothers used to get falling-down drunk in this house, sleeping wherever they dropped. The servants either became used to it or found a calmer place of employment.

The servants who’d been with him a long time barely glanced at Hart, going on about their business without breaking stride. They were the ones who’d become inured to working for Mackenzies.

Hart pushed past Eleanor, his clothes smelling of stale smoke and whiskey. His hair was a mess, his throat damp with sweat. He turned in the foyer and slammed his hands to either side of the door frame, blocking Eleanor’s way out.

Eleanor had seen Hart this disheveled and hung over after a night of revelry before, but in the past, he’d maintained his wicked sense of humor, his charm, no matter how rotten he felt. Not this time. She remembered the emptiness she’d seen in him last night, no trace of the sinfully smiling Mackenzie who’d chased twenty-year-old Eleanor. That man had gone.

No. He was still in there. Somewhere.

Lord Ramsay said from behind Eleanor, “Eleanor has decided we should return to Scotland.”

The new, cold Hart fixed his gaze on Eleanor. “To Scotland? What for?”

Eleanor simply looked at him. The splintering of glass, the Get out! still rang in her ears. The words had cut her, not frightened her. Hart had been working through pain, and the whiskey had sharpened it.

Please, something in his eyes whispered to her now. Please, don’t go.

“I asked you, why?” Hart repeated.

“She hasn’t given a reason,” Lord Ramsay answered. “But you know how Eleanor is when she is determined.”

“Forbid her,” Hart said, words clipped.

Her father chuckled. “Forbid? Eleanor? The words do not belong in the same sentence.”

It hung there. Hart’s muscles tightened as he held on to the door frame. Eleanor remained ramrod straight, looking into the hazel eyes that were now red-rimmed and haggard.

He will never ask, she realized. Hart Mackenzie commands. He does not beg. He has no idea how to.

And there they always battled. Eleanor was not meek and obedient, and Hart meant to dominate every person in his path.

“Sparks,” Eleanor said.

Heat flared in Hart’s eyes. Hunger and anger.

They would have stood there all day, Hart and Eleanor facing each other, except that a large carriage rattled up to the front door. Franklin the footman, in his post outside, said something in greeting to the guest who stepped down from the carriage. Hart didn’t move.

He was still standing there, facing Eleanor in tableau, when his youngest brother, Ian Mackenzie, ran into the back of him.

Hart jerked around, and Ian stopped in impatience. “Hart, you are blocking the way.”

“Oh, hello, Ian,” Eleanor said around Hart. “How lovely to see you. Have you brought Beth with you?”

Ian prodded Hart’s shoulder with a large hand in a leather glove. “Move.”

Hart pushed away from the door frame. “Ian, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at Kilmorgan.”

Ian came all the way in, swept a gaze over Eleanor, ignored Hart, and focused his whiskey-colored eyes on a point between Eleanor and Lord Ramsay.

“Beth told me to send her love,” he said in his quick monotone. “You’ll see her at Cameron’s house when we go to Berkshire. Franklin, take the valises upstairs to my room.”

Eleanor could feel the fury rolling off Hart, but he would not shout at her with Ian standing between them.

Trust Ian to diffuse a situation, she thought. Ian might not understand what was going on, might not be able to sense the emotional strain of those around him, but he had an uncanny knack for controlling any room he walked into. He did it even better than Hart did.

Earl Ramsay was another who could diffuse tension. “So glad to see you, Ian. I’d be interested to hear what you have to say about some Ming dynasty pottery I’ve found. I’m a bit stuck on the markings—can’t make them out. I’m a botanist, a naturalist, and a historian, not a linguist.”

“You read thirteen languages, Father,” Eleanor said, never taking her gaze from Hart.

“Yes, but I’m more of a generalist. Never learned some of the specifics of the ancient languages, especially the Asian ones.”

“But we are going to Scotland,” Eleanor said. “On the moment. Remember?”

Ian started for the staircase. “No, you will stay here in London until we journey to Berkshire. All of us. We go every year.”

Hart, breathing hard, watched his brother go up. “This year is different, Ian. I’m trying to force an election.”

“Do it from Berkshire,” Ian said, and then he was gone.

“It sounds the best arrangement,” Alec Ramsay said with his usual cheerfulness. “Franklin, take our baggage back upstairs as well, there’s a good fellow.”

Franklin murmured, “Yes, your lordship,” scooped up as many bags as his young arms could carry, and hurried up the stairs.

“My lady?” One of the housemaids came in from the vestibule, looking calm, as though Eleanor and Hart hadn’t started a row in the middle of the front hall. “Letter’s come for you. Delivery boy gave it to me.”

Eleanor thanked her and took it, making herself not snatch it out of the maid’s hand. Aware of Hart’s breath on her cheek, Eleanor turned over the envelope.

For Lady Eleanor Ramsay, staying at number 8, Grosvenor Square. Same handwriting, same paper.

Eleanor burst past Hart and through the vestibule before he could stop her, and ran outside into a cold wind. She looked frantically up and down the street for a sign of the delivery boy, but he had already disappeared into the traffic of the morning.


Eleanor sought Ian an hour later and found him in Hart’s study. Hart had left the house already, bellowing at Marcel to make him decent before he’d banged out to his club or to Whitehall, or wherever he’d gone. Hart never bothered telling anybody.

Ian sat at the desk, writing, and did not look up as Eleanor entered. His large frame filled the chair, his kilt flowing over his big legs. Across the room, his valet, Curry, stretched across a divan, snoring.

Ian did not look up when Eleanor approached the desk. His pen went on moving, swiftly, evenly, ceaselessly. Eleanor saw as she reached him that he wrote not words, but strings of numbers in long columns. He’d already covered two sheets with these numbers, and as Eleanor watched, Ian finished a third paper and started a fourth.