David answered before Hart could. “Because any more delay at this point makes our victory more certain. If he calls an election tomorrow, he might have a chance to return, although we don’t intend to let that happen.” David rubbed his hands together. “Hart Mackenzie will be back in Commons, to lead it this time. There are those still stinging from his whiplike wit from back when he was an MP. They breathed a sigh of relief when he took his title and went to the Lords. And now he’s returning. Ah, the delight.”
“I imagine it will be quite entertaining,” Eleanor said. “My father will be certain to watch from the gallery.”
“David.” Hart said the word without inflection, but Fleming seemed to understand.
“Right. I’ll be up at the house, warming away the rain with some of your single malt. I intend to drink large quantities.” David caught his horse, mounted, and rode on up the towpath.
“You’ll be off to London with him, then,” Eleanor said, her voice too bright.
Hart cupped her shoulders, hands warm through her damp bodice. “Yes.”
“It’s everything you’ve worked for,” she said.
“Yes.” He circled his thumbs on her collarbone. “We’ll have the wedding at Kilmorgan. A large, showy affair to satisfy the general public. No eloping for the new prime minister.”
Eleanor found it hard to meet his gaze. His eyes blazed hot, determined, Hart the controlling master once again. “You’ll be far too busy to have anything to do with weddings at the moment, surely,” she tried.
“I’ll buy you the most ostentatious wedding jewels I can find and let the newspapers go insane. They can make our reconciliation a grand romance if they want, and we’ll give it to them.”
“Make a good show of it, you mean,” Eleanor said tightly. “It will help you with the election.”
“I don’t care about that. You’ll have to marry me this time, Eleanor. David will be telling the family any moment how he found us, and then we’ll never have any peace. They’ll know exactly what you and I were doing out here on this boat.”
“That’s Ian’s fault. He sent me to you when he knew you were alone.”
“Yes, my devious little brother manipulated things to his satisfaction. But we are stuck with it.”
“So, I must marry you to save my reputation?”
Hart stepped close to her. “Your reputation won’t be harmed. I’ll make certain the knowledge does not go outside the family. But I want you to marry me regardless. I need to take care of you.”
“You need to…”
“I will take care of you whether you marry me or not, but things will be easier if you are my wife. You need a husband, Eleanor, as much as I need a wife. When your father passes, you’ll have nothing. Glenarden will go to a cousin you barely know, and you’ll be turned out. What will you do then?”
“I’m proving to be very good at the typing machine.” Eleanor tried to make a joke, but Hart did not laugh.
“You will end up in a cheap boardinghouse full of dreary old women,” he said. “Prey for any man who decides that a lovely spinster is fair game. Or you’ll pass from country house to country house, living with friends, but I know you—you’ll feel horribly ashamed and believe you’re taking advantage of them.”
“When you put it like that, things do sound rather bleak.”
“They don’t have to be. Once you’re a Mackenzie, no one can touch you. Even being betrothed to me will have weight. You’ll never have to worry again, El. Neither will your father. And who knows, I might have given you a child today.”
Eleanor shook her head. “I did not conceive when we were lovers before, and I am rather long in the tooth now…”
“You never know, El. Today was an impulse, but you shouldn’t pay for it. Neither should a child. I’d want him to have a name.”
Eleanor heard the fervor in his voice. Hart wants a baby, she realized in surprise. Her heart warmed.
Hart’s hands were firm points on her shoulders, hot in the cold rain. “I will take care of you and any child—my name will take care of you.”
Eleanor’s mouth was dry, thoughts rising and dying in her head. “Any woman marrying you will have to become a grand society lady, the other half of your political career.”
“I know. I know that, El. But I can’t imagine anyone who would do better.”
A more skeptical woman might think Hart had seduced her today so he could have a hostess to entertain wives of the political gentlemen he needed to woo. But Eleanor hadn’t imagined the catch in his voice when he’d said, I’ll never bear it if you go away again, or the spark in his eyes when he’d a moment ago spoken of the possibility of a child.