The Duke's Perfect Wife(96)

“You’re a fraud, Hart Mackenzie.”

Hart turned. He and Eleanor were alone in the little hall. Laughter, masculine voices, and smoke drifted from the card room at one end, and feminine exclamations came from the drawing room at the other.

“Fraud? What are you talking about this time, minx?”

Eleanor came to him, her steps slow, her hips swaying under her bustle dress. Her color was high, and her eyes sparkled. “A complete and utter fraud.”

Hart frowned, but her hot little smile, the way she stepped close to him, stirred his desire.

Stirred? It had never gone away.

“I know how Joanna came to work in this house,” Eleanor said. “She told me everything.”

Hart remembered the maid, so many years ago now, standing before Hart, trembling and terrified. She’d been incoherent with fear. Angelina had been trying to tempt his appetite, as usual, but she’d miscalculated with Joanna.

Hart made himself shrug. “She didn’t belong there, she was an innocent, and I couldn’t throw her out into the street. How does this make me a fraud?”

“The hard-hearted Duke of Kilmorgan. All must tremble before him.”

“How much sherry have you drunk, El?” He wanted to draw his finger across her lips, down her throat to her bosom bared by her evening dress.

“You do an act of kindness, then beg her to tell no one, in case people discover you have a heart.”

“Beg is going a bit far.” He’d told Joanna to keep quiet to spare her reputation. The world was hard on young women tainted by the demimonde, even if they fell into it by no fault of their own. Once the line was crossed, there was no going back. Mrs. McGuire was the kindhearted one. She’d taken Joanna on Hart’s word and asked no questions.

Several men started coming out of the card room. Hart grasped Eleanor’s arm and steered her quickly up the stairs to the next floor. The gentlemen did not notice them, and went on to the drawing room, greeting the ladies there.

Hart opened the door nearest the top of the stairs and towed Eleanor inside. It was a little sitting room, lit by one gaslight, and Mrs. McGuire’s staff were apparently storing guests’ coats there.

“Say nothing about Joanna,” Hart said. “For her sake.”

Eleanor withdrew from his grasp. “I had no intention of saying anything. You had no need to drag me up here to tell me that. You could have whispered it into my ear.”

“I did need to.”

“Running from the pompous gentlemen already?” she asked, smile in place. “We’ve not been here above half an hour yet.”

Avoiding more tiresome arguments had only been part of it. Hart had had the sudden and overwhelming urge to be alone with Eleanor, and Mac’s town house, where they were staying the night, was too far away.

“Now that I do have you alone,” Eleanor said, “I will tell you that it was Joanna who sent me the photographs.”

Hart stopped, surprised. “Did she? Where did she get them? Stolen from Mrs. Palmer?” If Joanna had somehow found those ridiculous photographs while staying with Mrs. Palmer, would she have looked at Hart in such terror?

Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. “Did you give them to Joanna?”

“No. Why the devil would I?”

“Playing some game of your own?”

He shook his head. “Not this time.”

“Hmm.” Eleanor folded her arms and regarded him skeptically.

“Now, what are you doing?” Hart asked.

“Deciding whether or not to believe you.”

“Believe whatever you want.” Hart could wait no longer. He snaked one arm around her waist and pulled her with him across the room to an armchair, which had given him an interesting idea. He swept the coats that had been carefully folded over the chair to the floor.

“Hart, you should not…”

“I should. How is your arm?”

“Much better. But you know that. You ask me three times a day.”

“I am the reason you were hurt,” Hart said. “I’d ask five times a day if I saw you that often. Now, come here.”

“Why? What are you going to do?”

Hart seized her hand before she could back away and pulled her smack against him. “It was very dangerous for you to smile at me like you did downstairs.”

As though she loved him. As though she wanted him. He touched her lips.

Eleanor pulled away the slightest bit. “What if someone comes in?”

Hart smiled his excitement. “What if someone does?”

“Oh.” He saw her passion rise. “I see.”

“Turn around,” he said.

Hart swiftly found the fasteners that held her skirts to her bodice and undid them. He lifted the skirt off, and the petticoats as well, then untied the tapes that held her bustle in place. Under that, she wore fine lawn drawers, no more worn fabric for his wife. He had her out of those quickly too.