duke in the land, melted into a smile. “Yes, my lady. He’s three now, and the trouble he gets into.” He shook his head.
“Means he’s robust and healthy.” Eleanor patted his arm. “Congratulations to you.” She waltzed on into the house while Hart climbed down behind her. “Mrs. Mayhew, how delightful to see you,” he heard her say. He entered his house to see her holding out her hands to Hart’s housekeeper.
The two exchanged greetings and were talking about, of all things, recipes. Eleanor’s housekeeper, now retired, apparently had instructed her to obtain Mrs. Mayhew’s recipe for lemon cakes.
Eleanor started up the stairs, and Hart nearly threw his hat and coat at the footman before he followed. He was about to order her into the large front parlor instead of his more intimate study when a large Scotsman in a threadbare kilt, loose shirt, and socks wrinkled around his ankles came barreling down from the top floor.
“Hope you don’t mind, Hart. I brought the hellions, and I fixed myself a place to paint in one of your spare bedrooms. Isabella’s got the decorators in, and you wouldn’t believe the racket—” Mac broke off, and a look of joy spread over his face. He raced down the wide staircase to the first landing and grabbed Eleanor in a bear hug.
“Eleanor Ramsay, by all that’s holy! What are you doing here?”
Eleanor kissed Mac, Hart’s second youngest brother, soundly on the cheek as Hart gained the landing. “Hello, Mac. I’ve come to irritate your older brother.”
“Good. He needs a bit of irritating.” Mac glanced at Hart, his eyes glinting with his smile. “Come up and see the babies when you’re done, El. I’m not painting them, because they won’t hold still; I’m putting finishing touches on a horse picture for Cam. Night-Blooming Jasmine, his new champion.”
“Yes, I heard she’d done well.” Eleanor rose on her tiptoes and gave Mac another kiss on the cheek. “That’s for Isabella. And Aimee, Eileen, and Robert.” Kiss, kiss, kiss. Mac absorbed it all with an idiotic smile, damn him.
Hart leaned on the landing’s railing. “Are we going to come to this proposition sometime today?”
“Proposition?” Mac asked, eyes lighting. “Now, that sounds interesting.”
“Shut it, Mac,” Hart said.
Mac opened his mouth to ask more questions, but just then screaming erupted from on high—shrill, desperate, Armageddon-has-come screaming.
Mac grinned and jogged back up the stairs. “Papa’s on his way, hellions. If you’re good, you can have sweets and Auntie Eleanor for tea.”
The shrieking continued, unabated, until Mac reached the top floor, dodged into the room from whence it issued, and slammed the door. The noise instantly died, though they could still hear Mac’s rumble.
Eleanor sighed a pleased sigh. “I always knew Mac would make a good father. Shall we?”
She turned and headed up to the next floor and the study without waiting for Hart. At one time, she’d become well acquainted with the rooms in his house, and she apparently hadn’t forgotten her way around.
The study hadn’t changed at all, Eleanor noted when she entered. The same warm paneling covered the walls, books still filled bookcases that climbed to the high ceiling, and the huge desk that had belonged to Hart’s father reposed in the middle.
The same carpet covered the floor, though a different hound dozed by the fire. This was Ben, if she remembered correctly, a son of Hart’s old dog Beatrix, who’d passed on a few months after Eleanor had ended the engagement. The news of Beatrix’s death had nearly broken her heart.
Ben didn’t open his eyes as they entered, and his gentle snore blended with the crackle of the fire on the hearth.
Hart touched her elbow to guide her across the room. She wished he hadn’t, because the steel strength of his fingers made her want to melt.
If all went well today, she’d not have to be close to him again, but she needed to make the first approach in private. A letter could too easily go astray or be dismissed by his secretary or be burned unread by Hart.
Hart dragged an armchair close to his desk, moving it as though it weighed nothing. Eleanor knew better, though, as she sat. The heavily carved chair was as solid as a boulder.
Hart took the desk chair, his kilt moving as he sat, showing sinewy strength above his woolen socks. Anyone believing a kilt unmanly had never seen Hart in one.
Eleanor touched the desk’s smooth top. “You know, Hart, if you plan to be the first minister of the country, you might give a thought to at least changing the furniture. It’s a bit out of date.”
Hart didn’t give a damn about the furniture, and Eleanor knew it. “Mrs. Mayhew will be arranging tea. Whatever you have to say to me, say it quickly.”
“It’s nothing I want to say, really; rather, a favor to ask.” Eleanor drew a breath, looked Hart fully in the eyes, and said, “I’d like you to give me a job.”
Not what he was expecting. Hart’s eyes flickered in surprise; then the eagle gaze fixed on her again. “A job? Why?”
“The usual sort of reason. I need the blunt. Father is dear to me, but a wee bit impractical, as you know. He believes we still pay the staff wages, but truth to tell they stay and look after us because they feel sorry for us. Our food comes from their families’ gardens or out of charity from the villagers. They think I don’t know.”
Hart listened with his usual assessing look, the one that knew everything without being told. “Eleanor, if you need money, I’ll give it to you.” His voice was deep, rumbling, a man who was in the habit of fixing other people’s problems. “I’ll buy your house if you want, to save your pride.”
“Father would never let go of the house. It’s been in the family for centuries. Never mind that every bit of land that can be sold has.”
“That wreck of a house is going to tumble down one of these days and bury you both under rubble.”
“Yes, but it will be our rubble. Call me an assistant to a secretary or some such. I’m sure you have several of those.”
“I do. But what do you think the world will say when they find out I employ you? My former fiancee, a lady of the Scottish nobility, now assistant to one of my secretaries?”
“You don’t have to tell anyone. I don’t believe you’ll wish to when I explain the sort of job I have in mind.”
“What sort of job do you have in mind?” he asked, the question slow and careful.
Eleanor dug into a pocket on the inside of her coat and withdrew a large envelope. “I don’t believe there’s a name for such a job. Well, there might be, but I don’t know what it is. I want you to pay me to help you find out about this.”
She pulled a folded card from the envelope, laid the card on the desk in front of him, and opened it.
Hart went still.
The object inside the card was a photograph. It was a full-length photo of a younger Hart, shot in profile. Hart’s body was a little slimmer than it was now, but still well muscled. In the photograph, he rested his buttocks against the edge of a desk, bracing himself on it with a sinewy hand. He was studying something on the floor that lay out of the frame, his head bent.
The pose, though perhaps a bit unusual, was not the unique thing about the photograph. The most interesting aspect of this portrait was that, in it, Hart Mackenzie was quite, quite naked.
Praise for
“I adore this novel: It’s heartrending, funny, honest, and true. I want to know the hero—no, I want to marry the hero!”
—Eloisa James, New York Times bestselling author
