“Yes, minx? What were you wondering?”
“What we did in Mrs. McGuire’s upstairs chamber. Do you remember?”
Hart’s growing smile told her he did. “It is burned on my brain. I could see you in the mirror. It was heaven.”
Eleanor’s face heated. “Is that the sort of thing you did at the High Holborn house?”
He lost his smile. “No.”
“Well, then, what did you do?”
Hart turned onto his back and scrubbed his hand over his face. “El, I do not want to talk about the house and what I did there. Especially not now.”
“Now is as good a time as any.”
“I was much younger then. The first time I lived there, I did not know you; the second time, I was consoling myself for loss. I was a different man.”
“You misunderstand me. I have no interest in what you did with other ladies. None at all. But I want to know what you did. What are these dark proclivities everyone, including you, hints at? I want to know, specifically.”
When he looked at her, she was surprised to see that what was in Hart’s eyes was fear. “I don’t want to tell you,” he said.
“But it is part of you. You are an unconventional man, and I am not exactly a conventional woman. Secluded, yes; conventional, no. I do not want to live with you knowing you suppress your desires or tame yourself for me, or whatever you are thinking you ought to do. Banish the idea, Hart. I am not afraid.”
“I don’t want you to be afraid. That is the point.”
“Then tell me. If you don’t, I will imagine all kinds of bizarre things, put together from whispers and sniggers and peeks into erotic books.”
“Eleanor.”
“Has it to do with riding crops? Or manacles? There is a lot of jesting about manacles. Though why people would want to shackle each other, I cannot imagine.”
“Eleanor, what are you talking about?”
“Am I wrong?” What joy it was to tease him again. “Then perhaps you ought to tell me precisely, and ease my worries in my innocence.”
“Eleanor Ramsay, whatever man thinks you innocent is a complete idiot.” Hart locked his hand around her wrist. His touch was gentle, but his fingers were strong.
“It’s nothing to do with pain, or shackles,” he said. “It’s about trust. Complete trust. Absolute surrender.”
She could not release herself from his grip. “Surrender?”
His eyes were dark. “To place yourself in my hands, to trust me to read your desires and lead you into experiencing them. To let me do as I please without question, to trust me to know what to do. The reward for your trust, exquisite pleasure.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Anything I ask.” Hart kissed the inside of her wrist. “You would give me your faith that I’d never hurt you, that my only goal is your pleasure.”
Eleanor’s heart beat faster. Exquisite pleasure. “That sounds… interesting.”
Hart rose on hands and knees over her, the movement so practiced she scarcely saw the effort of it. “Could you do it? Could you put yourself into my hands and not ask any confounded questions?”
“No questions at all? I am not certain…”
“I will have to go easy on you at first. You are Eleanor Ramsay. You cannot but help asking questions.”
“I could try.”
“Hmm. I don’t believe you, but never mind.”
Hart got up from the bed, again the movement effortless. He rummaged in the clothes he’d left on the floor and brought out his cravat. It was a makeshift cravat, a long, narrow piece of linen he’d wrapped around his neck to shield his throat from the wind of the Thames.
He wound the ends of the linen in his hands and came back to the bed. Eleanor knelt there, waiting for him, excited and worried at the same time.
Hart climbed up onto the big bed, his head almost touching the beams as he knelt behind her. “Give me your hands.”
Eleanor’s mouth formed the wh of why, and Hart bit her cheek. “No questions. Give me your hands.”
Eleanor lifted them. Quickly Hart wound the linen strip around her torso, under her breasts, crossing it in a complicated twist and catching her wrists together at the end of it. He pulled her wrapped hands upward, his movements gentle but firm.
“We’ll start with this.” Hart nuzzled her ear. “I won’t hurt you. Do you believe me?”
“I…”
Another nip, this time to her shoulder. “I said, do you believe me?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Surrender.
That was what Hart Mackenzie always wanted, she realized. For others to surrender to him, to let him be their master. Not because he wanted to punish them, or to have his own way, but for their own good, because he wanted to take care of them. Those who didn’t understand that dashed themselves to bits on him.