“No, indeed,” she said. “The well-wisher sent the photographs to me, not you, and I paid a solid guinea for the others. I’ll not burn them. They’re mine.”
Hart tried the scowl, the Mackenzie glare, the little growl. Heaps more effective if he hadn’t been flat on his back, his kilt spread, his hair a mess. As it was, Eleanor kissed the bridge of his nose.
“I’ll only get rid of them if they are replaced,” she said. “Use my clothing allowance to buy me photographing apparatus and have more photos done, ones only for me.”
Hart’s scowl died, and his eyes took on, of all things, embarrassment. “Who would take these photographs?”
“Me, of course. I know how to work photographing apparatus. My father hired a camera once, and all the chemicals and machines for a darkroom, so we could make plates of local flora for one of his books. I quite enjoyed it. I’m a dab hand, I must say.”
“You can type, you can photograph. What can’t you do, paragon?”
“Embroider.” Eleanor wrinkled her nose. “I’m very bad at it. And I never did learn to play the piano. In the maidenly pursuits, I’m not much good. I seem to do better at masculine pursuits.”
Hart’s smile reappeared. “I’d say you were excellent at pursuing the masculine.”
“Oh, very funny, Your Grace. What about the camera?”
“You truly want to take photographs of me?” He sounded… shy.
“I do indeed,” she said. “Is that so difficult to believe?”
“I’m much older now.”
Eleanor let her smile grow. She moved her gaze over his face with its healing cuts, his throat damp behind his pulled-askew cravat, his broad chest under shirt and waistcoat, his flat abdomen. She knelt back to continue looking at him, taking in his tight hips and thighs outlined by the crumpled kilt. The plaid had dragged a little above his knees to show her brawny muscle above his thick wool socks.
She heaved a pleased little sigh. “I don’t see that there’s much wrong with you, Hart Mackenzie.”
“Because I’m fully dressed. Fine feathers.”
An intense and uncontrollable daring gripped her. Before Eleanor could stop herself, she grasped the hem of the kilt and inched it upward until it bared his thighs. Hart lay very still, one arm behind his head, as she looked him over.
“Nothing wrong there either,” she said.
“I ride every day.”
“Very commendable. A sound mind in a sound body. I think these will look quite nice in a photograph.”
Heaven help us, he was blushing.
“Are you that worried?” she asked.
“I was a young man when I was courting you.”
“And I was a very young woman. Although, you do have wrinkles.” Eleanor touched spiderweb lines at the edges of his eyes. She liked them, because it meant he smiled a little, at least.
“You don’t,” he said.
“Because I’m a bit plump. Were I a slender woman, I’d be an old stick by now.”
Hart touched her face with gentle fingers. “I’ve never seen you more gloriously beautiful.”
Eleanor’s heart sped, but she knelt back before the treacherous warmth he stirred might make her say something she’d regret. Slanting him a smile, Eleanor flipped the kilt up past his hips.
She stilled. “Oh.”
Hart’s eyes went dark. “What’s the matter, love?”
“I thought you would be wearing flannels. It’s rather cold.”
“I haven’t gone out this morning,” he said.
Hart’s shyness was gone, he once again turning the tables. He rested his head in his cupped hands and waited to see what she’d do.
Between his thighs lay the tight spheres of his balls, and above those, the length of him arced back against his abdomen, cradled by plaid.
“I wish I had the photographing apparatus now,” Eleanor said.
“Do you, naughty woman?”
Oh, yes. Hart would make a heady portrait—him lying back, his kilt crumpled around his hips to reveal his wanting while he watched her with warm eyes.
She’d learned his body a long time ago, becoming familiar with the scar that snaked up the inside of his right thigh, the way his hair curled along his legs, how one knee was not the perfect mirror of the other. The photographs didn’t show these small details; they were known only to the woman who had the privilege of gazing at him this close.
Hart said nothing, did nothing.
Eleanor touched the scar, finding the little ridge smooth and cool. Something sparked in Hart’s eyes as she traced the scar upward, but he remained still.
His skin was warmer closer to the join of his legs. His scar ended halfway up the inside of his leg, but Eleanor let her finger continue along the trail until she found the crease between ball and thigh. She caressed there a moment, the last safe place, and then moved her fingers to the shaft.