But Hart had done everything wrong. This time, at least, this time, he’d gotten Eleanor to the altar. And then she’d pushed him out of the way of the pistol, trying to save him.
These last three days, while Eleanor lay in a fevered stupor, had been absolute hell. Tonight, the doctor had announced that the fever had turned, that Eleanor was resting. Hart in his relief hadn’t known what to do. He’d shaken off his brothers’ well-meaning offers of all the whiskey he could down and retreated here.
To assure himself that Eleanor wasn’t out here, cold and alone? He didn’t know.
All he knew was that he’d made a mess of his life, and he was still doing it. Hart, the arrogant, self-assured Mackenzie, could get nothing right, and these tombs were tangible evidence.
He’d always thought of his courtship and engagement with Eleanor as a farce in three acts.
Act I, Scenes: Their first dance together, followed by a kiss in the garden had awakened every need in his body. Next, the boathouse down by the river at Kilmorgan, where he’d unbuttoned Eleanor’s modest dress and kissed her skin, discovering that she had a passion in her that she didn’t hide, at least not from him.
Act II, Scene: The summerhouse. Hart remembered Eleanor riding beside him in her prim habit and riding hat, smiling and chattering as usual. The summerhouse, the old duke’s folly, perched on a promontory, a gorge dropping away from it to a river below. From there, one could see across a vast stretch of Mackenzie lands all the way to the sea.
When Hart had led Eleanor inside, her reaction had been pure Eleanor.
“Hart, it’s beautiful.” The summerhouse folly had been fashioned like an ancient Greek temple, complete with overgrown ruined stone, a very un-Scottish structure. But the view was magnificent, and the summerhouse very private.
Eleanor turned in a circle, arms open. “My father would love this. So false and yet so true at the same time.”
Hart had stepped to the stone balustrade and looked out over the vistas that never failed to stir his heart. The Mackenzies had come back from poverty and powerlessness after Culloden to become the wealthiest family in Scotland, and this panorama of their lands rammed it down the throats of every Englishman who came up here.
“You’re proud of it, aren’t you?” Eleanor said, coming to rest next to him. “In spite of you sneering that it’s a ridiculous English affectation your father built, you like it. You would not have brought me here otherwise.”
“I brought you for the view.” Hart lifted Eleanor’s riding hat from her head and set it out of the wind. “And for this.”
He slid his arms around her waist from behind. Eleanor closed her eyes as he kissed her neck, wisps of red curls silken under his lips. Hart let his fingers drift to the buttons that closed her habit in front.
Eleanor only sighed as he unbuttoned her, her head resting against his cheek. Hart parted her placket and nibbled her bared neck.
“What are you doing to me, El?” he whispered into her ear. “I think you’re breaking me.”
“Hardly,” she murmured. “Hart Mackenzie is far too wicked for the likes of me to tame.”
“But I’d like to let you try.”
He turned her around. His gaze roved her mussed hair, her parted red lips, the bodice gaping to show her damp throat. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
He was not supposed to do this now. He’d planned to take her to London, to the elegant house in Grosvenor Square, to bring out the old and valuable Mackenzie jewels, and promise them to her if she’d agree to become his wife. Formally done, in the drawing room, his hand on his heart, dazzling her with diamonds so that she would not say no. Women would do anything for diamonds.
Up here in the summerhouse, with the jewels locked far away in the vault in Edinburgh, Hart had nothing to offer. Only the view—how bloody romantic and stupid.
But he had the feeling that if he didn’t speak now, secure her now, his chance would slip away. Eleanor was twenty, an earl’s daughter, and lovely. If he didn’t lock her into an agreement, she would be fair game for every other lovelorn gentleman out there. Her poverty wouldn’t matter to a nabob wanting to better his connections through her family. She had charm and grace to go with her lineage, the perfect wife for Hart Mackenzie. Hart Mackenzie would have her.
It was too soon. He should use the beautiful view from the folly as one more enticement in a string of enticements in this courtship, so that when he finally asked for her hand, Eleanor would have no reason to say no. Hart would have woven his web so tightly she’d not want to break free. If he asked her here, now, Eleanor could turn him down, and he’d have no more chance to convince her.