Eleanor’s gaze finally roved to the thing for which she pretended she had no interest. In the picture, Hart’s phallus was partially hidden by his thigh, but Eleanor could see it—not erect, but full and large.
She remembered the first time she’d seen Hart bare—up in the summerhouse on Kilmorgan land, the folly that perched on a cliff with a wide view of the sea. Hart had removed his kilt last thing, his smile wicked when Eleanor realized he wore nothing under it. He’d laughed when her gaze couldn’t help but slide down his body to him erect and wanting her. She’d never seen a man unclothed before, let alone such a man.
She remembered the thump of her heart, the flush of her skin, the triumphant warmth to know that the elusive Lord Hart Mackenzie belonged to her. He’d laid Eleanor down on the blanket he’d thoughtfully packed for their outing and let her explore his body. He’d taught Eleanor all about what she liked that afternoon. He’d been right about everything.
Hart’s smile, his low laughter, the incredibly tender way he’d touched her had made her fall madly in love with him. Eleanor believed herself the most blessed of women, and she had been.
Eleanor sighed and tucked the photograph and her memories away, back into their hiding places.
She’d been living in Hart’s house three days when the second photograph came, this one hand delivered directly to her.
Chapter 3
“For you, my lady,” Hart’s perfect parlor maid said, executing a perfect curtsey.
The envelope read: Lady Eleanor Ramsay, staying at number 8, Grosvenor Square. Same printing in the same careful style, but no seal, no indication from whence the letter had originated. The envelope was stiff and heavy, and Eleanor knew what must be inside.
“Who brought this?” Eleanor asked the maid.
“The boy, my lady. The one who usually brings messages to His Grace.”
“Where is this boy now?”
“Gone, my lady. He delivers all over the square and up to Oxford Street.”
“I see. Well, thank you.”
Eleanor would have to find the boy and put him to the question. She went back upstairs, shut herself in her bedchamber, drew a chair to the window for the light, and opened the envelope.
Inside was a piece of cheap paper sold by the hundredweight at any stationery shop, and a piece of folded pasteboard. Inside the pasteboard card lay another photograph.
In this one, Hart was standing at a wide window, but what showed outside was rolling landscape, not city. His back was to the photographer, his hands on the windowsill, and again, he wore not a stitch.
A broad back replete with muscle slimmed to a backside as firm as firm could be. Hart’s arms were tight, taking his weight as he leaned on the windowsill.
The photograph was printed on stiff paper, much like a carte de visite, but without the mark of a photographer’s studio. Hart had likely had his own apparatus for taking portraits, and his former mistress, Mrs. Palmer, had taken them. Eleanor could not imagine Hart trusting such things to anyone else.
Mrs. Palmer herself had told Eleanor what sort of man Hart Mackenzie truly was. A sexual rogue. Unpredictable. Demanding. Thought it all an adventure, his adventure. The woman in the equation was simply means to his pleasure. She had not gone into detail, but what she’d hinted had been enough to shock Eleanor out of her complacency.
Mrs. Palmer had died two and a half years ago. Who, then, possessed these damning photographs, why was he or she sending them to Eleanor, and why had they waited until now? Ah, but now Hart was poised to push Gladstone out of his seat and take over the government.
The note was the same as the first. From one as wishes you well. No threats of blackmail, no promises to betray Hart, no demand for payment.
Eleanor held the letter up to the light, but she saw no sign of secret messages or clues in the thin watermark, no cleverly hidden code around the edges of the words. Nothing but the one sentence printed in pencil.
The back of the picture held no clues, and neither did the front. Eleanor fetched a magnifying glass and studied the grains of the photograph, on the off chance that someone had printed tiny messages there.
Nothing.
The enlarged view of Hart’s backside was fine, though. Eleanor studied that through the glass for a good long time.
The only way to speak to Hart alone—indeed, at all—was to ambush him. That night, Eleanor waited until her father had retired to his bedchamber, then she went to the hall outside Hart’s bedroom, one floor below hers. She dragged two chairs from the other side of the hall to the bedchamber door, one chair for Eleanor to sit on and one for her feet.
Hart’s house was larger and grander than most in Mayfair. Naturally. Many London town houses were two rooms deep and one room wide, with a staircase hall opening from the front door and running up through the entire house. Larger houses had rooms tucked behind the staircase and perhaps a second room in front of the staircase on the upper floors.