The Duke’s Perfect Wife

Hart looked irritably around the room as he made for the sideboard, ravenously hungry. “Do none of you have homes?”

Mac glanced up from the foot of the table, where he was spreading marmalade on toast for Isabella next to him. Isabella paid no attention to Hart, continuing to scribble in the little notebook she always carried with her. Mac had accused Hart of organizing things to death, but Isabella and her lists could defeat Hart every time.

Ian sat halfway down the table, a newspaper spread wide in front of him. Ian could read extraordinarily quickly if he didn’t get fixed on something, and he turned two pages in the space of time that Hart lifted lids from serving platters and shoveled eggs and sausages onto his plate. Lord Ramsay sat opposite Ian, also reading a newspaper, but far more slowly, absorbed in each page.

Eleanor was the only person missing, and her absence made Hart all the more irritable.

Lord Ramsay said, without looking up, “I do have a home, but I thought I was your guest.”

“I did not mean you, Ramsay. I meant my brothers, who both have perfectly good houses and servants of their own.”

Isabella gave Hart an unworried look from her green eyes. “The decorators have torn up the bedrooms. I told you.”

Yes, Hart knew that. Ian, on the other hand, had a large house on Belgrave Square, which Beth had inherited from the fussy old lady to whom she’d been a companion. Hart knew that Ian and Beth kept the house in good working order for whenever they might take an impulsive trip to town.

Ian, of course, said nothing, turning another page of the newspaper. He wouldn’t explain, even if he did pretend to listen.

Hart thunked his plate to his place at the head of the table. “Where is Eleanor?”

“Sleeping, poor thing,” Isabella said. “She worked like a drudge all day and all night and waved off the last guests with me a few hours ago. Likely she’s also exhausted from the way you pulled her around the dance floor. You know everyone is talking about that, Hart. What do you intend to do about it?”

Chapter 8

“Do?” Hart shoveled up a forkful of eggs and thrust them into his mouth. They were cool and congealing, but he chewed and swallowed the mess. “Why should I do anything?”

“My dear Hart, you have the reputation of never taking a lady to a ballroom floor, under any circumstance,” Isabella said.

“I know that.”

Hart had learned a long time ago that singling out this young lady or that one to dance led to expectations. The girls and their mothers started believing he’d propose, or their fathers would use the indication of interest to try to finagle favors. Hart did not have time to dance with all ladies at any given event, and the families of those left out would take it as a slight. Hart had decided early on in his career that if he wanted to keep people dangling on his string, it was best to appear to favor no young ladies at all. He’d danced with Eleanor, and he’d danced with Sarah, and that was all.

“I know you know that,” Isabella said. “Mamas have learned not to push their daughters in front of you at supper balls because the effort is wasted. And then, last night, you pluck out Eleanor and waltz her about with great fervor. You have ripped the lid off the powder keg. Some speculate you did it as vengeance for her jilting you—because now she’ll be talked about. Others speculate that it means you are once again on the marriage mart.”

Hart abandoned the eggs and sliced the sausage. It looked greasy. What had happened to his celebrated cook?

“It is my own business with whom I dance or don’t dance.”

Lord Ramsay looked up from his newspaper, putting his finger on the column where he’d stopped. “Not when you’re famous, Mackenzie. When you are a famous person, everything you do is well picked over. Debated. Discussed. Speculated on.”

Hart did know that, having seen his life and that of his brothers spilled out in newspapers all the years of their lives, but he was too out of sorts to be reasonable.

“Do people not have anything better to talk about?” he grumbled.

“No,” Lord Ramsay said. “They don’t.” He went back to his paper, lifting his finger from the words as he resumed reading.

Isabella rested her arms on the table. Mac kept spreading marmalade, his grin at Hart’s discomfiture irritating.

“I mentioned a powder keg,” Isabella said. “Your dance means that mamas all over London and far beyond are going to assume you fair game. They will try to throw their daughters between you and Eleanor, claiming they have the better match for you. In that case, Hart, we should get you married off quickly and avoid the battles to come.”

“No,” Hart said.

Mac broke in. “Your own fault, my brother. You raised Isabella’s expectations at Ascot last year, declaring you were thinking about taking a wife. She grew quite excited, but since then, you’ve done nothing about it.”

In the box at Ascot, Hart had known exactly what he was doing. He supposed his brothers had come up with the romantic idea that he’d ride up to Eleanor’s dilapidated estate, beating his way through the overgrown garden to find her, and carry her off. Never mind how much she protested—and Eleanor would protest.

No, he would go about taking her as wife as thoroughly and deliberately as he ran one of his political campaigns. Overt courting would come later, but it would come. For now, having her live in his house and help Wilfred and Isabella organize his life was getting her used to the demands of it. He’d have Isabella coax her to a dressmaker’s so that Eleanor would grow used to pretty things and find it too much of a wrench to give them up. He would indulge her father in all the books, museums, and conversation with experts he could want, so that Eleanor would not have the heart to take it all away from him again. After a time, Eleanor would find herself so entrenched in Hart’s life that she’d not be able to walk away.

The dance last night had been a whim—no, not a whim, a voice said inside him. A burning hunger.

Whatever Hart’s reasoning had been, he’d use the dance to indicate to the world that he had set his sights again on Eleanor. Hart’s party would take the country by storm soon, the queen would ask Hart to form a government, and Hart would lay his victory at Eleanor’s feet.

“I told you, Mac,” Hart said. “That is my own business.”

“Marrying quickly will also save Eleanor from scandal,” Isabella said, ignoring both of them. “Attention will focus on your new bride-to-be, and the impromptu dance with Eleanor will be forgotten.”

No, it wouldn’t. Hart would make certain that it wouldn’t.

Isabella turned a page in her notebook and applied her pencil. “Let me see. The lady must be, first, Scottish. No English roses for Hart Mackenzie. Second, of the right lineage. I’d say earl’s daughter or above, don’t you agree? Third, she must be beyond reproach. No scandals attached to her name. Fourth, not a widow—that way you avoid her former husband’s family suddenly wanting favors or making trouble for you. Fifth, she should be well liked, able to smooth people over after you irritate them to death. Sixth, a good hostess for the many soirees, f?etes, and balls you will have to host. Knowing who should not sit by whom, and so forth. Seventh, she must be well liked by the queen. The queen is not fond of Mackenzies, and a wife she likes will help things along for you when you become prime minister. Eighth, the young lady ought to be fine-looking enough to draw admiration, but not so showy as to incite jealousy.” Isabella lifted her pencil from the page. “Do I have everything? Mac?”

“Nine: Able to put up with Hart Mackenzie,” Mac said.

“Ah, yes.” Isabella wrote. “And I’ll add strong-minded and resolute. That will be number ten, a nice round number.”

“Isabella, please stop,” Hart said.

Isabella, amazingly, ceased writing. “I am finished for now. I’ll draw up a list of names of young ladies who fit the criteria, and then you can begin courting them.”