“Leave him alone,” Mac said. “He’s thinking of Beth.”

“Is he?” Eleanor asked. “How do you know?”

Mac winked at her. “Trust me. An excellent idea you had with the honey, Ian. You may trust me on that too.”

Isabella flushed, but she did not look unhappy. “I believe Cameron started that bit of nonsense.”

“Not nonsense.” Mac licked his finger and bent to Isabella. “Tasty.”

Lord Ramsay smiled and took his attention back to his paper. Eleanor watched Ian.

“You miss her,” she said to him.

Ian dragged his gaze from the honey and fixed it on Eleanor, eyes as golden as the liquid he stirred. “Yes.”

“You’ll see her soon enough,” Mac said. “We’re off to Berkshire next week.”

Ian didn’t answer, but Eleanor saw in Ian’s fleeting glance that next week would not be soon enough. She set down her fork, pushed back her chair, and went around the table to him.

Mac and Isabella watched in surprise as Eleanor put her arms around Ian and bent down to kiss his cheek. They tensed, waiting to see what Ian would do. Ian did not like being touched by anyone except Beth or his children.

But Ian had looked so lonely sitting there that Eleanor felt compelled to comfort him. Ian had left his beloved Beth to travel to London to ensure that his oldest brother didn’t break Eleanor’s heart. A noble and generous deed.

“I will be all right,” Eleanor said to him. “Go back to her.”

Ian remained still while Mac and Isabella held their breaths and pretended not to. Even Eleanor’s father glanced up, concerned.

Ian slowly lifted his hand and gave Eleanor’s wrist a warm squeeze. “Beth has already left for Berkshire,” he said. “I will meet her there.”

“You’ll go today?” Eleanor said.

“Today. Curry will pack for me.”

“Good. Give her my love.” Eleanor pressed another kiss to his cheek and rose.

Isabella and Mac let out their breaths and went back to the remains of their breakfasts, carefully not looking at Ian. Eleanor walked back to her place, wiping away the tears that had started in her eyes.


“Wilfred,” Eleanor said several hours later, looking up from her Remington. “This letter has nothing in it. You’ve written a name and an address, and that is all.”

Wilfred removed his spectacles and looked across his desk at her. “No letter, my lady,” he said. “Just enclose the cheque inside the blank paper and address the envelope.”

To Mrs. Whitaker, Eleanor typed on the envelope. “That is all? No note saying, Here is payment for… or Please accept this contribution to your charitable works…?”

“No, my lady.” Wilfred said.

“Who is this Mrs. Whitaker?” Eleanor asked as she rolled the platen to type the address. “And why is Hart sending her…” She turned over the cheque Wilfred had placed facedown on her desk. “One thousand guineas?”

“His Grace can be generous,” Wilfred said.

Eleanor stared at him, but Wilfred only bent his head and went back to writing.

Eleanor had learned that Wilfred was a poor source of information about the Mackenzie family. The man refused to gossip about anything or anyone. This quality was likely why Hart had promoted him from valet to private secretary, but Eleanor found it quite inconvenient. Wilfred was discretion made man.

Wilfred was a human being some of the time, Eleanor knew. He had a daughter and a granddaughter in Kent and doted on them both. He kept their photos in his desk drawer, bought them chocolates and little gifts, and boasted of their accomplishments to Eleanor, in his quiet way.

However, Wilfred never spoke about his shady past when he’d been an embezzler; never mentioned a Mrs. Wilfred; and never, ever told tales about Hart. If Wilfred did not want Eleanor to know why Hart was sending one thousand guineas to this Mrs. Whitaker, Wilfred would take the secret to his grave.

Eleanor gave up, typed the address on the envelope—George Street, near Portman Square—and neatly folded the cheque inside the paper.

Perhaps Hart had found the source of the photographs. Perhaps he was paying the woman to destroy them or to keep quiet about them, or perhaps to persuade her to send him the rest.

Or Mrs. Whitaker might have absolutely nothing to do with the photographs.

Eleanor tucked the cheque into the envelope, closed it, and added the envelope to her stack of finished correspondence.


The house near Portman Square where Mrs. Whitaker lived was ordinary-looking enough. Eleanor studied it carefully as she strolled past for the third time.

Eleanor had used the pretense of doing some shopping to journey to Portman Square, timing the outing to coincide with Isabella returning to her own house to argue with the decorators. In order to lend verisimilitude, Eleanor wandered the shops on the square and nearby streets, buying little gifts for the Mackenzie children and their mothers. Maigdlin trailed her, carrying packages.

Eleanor had seen no activity at all in or around Mrs. Whitaker’s house in the hour or so she’d drifted up and down George Street. No maids cleaning the stoop or footmen walking out to pass the time of day with the maids next door. The blinds remained closed, the door firmly shut.

In order to linger on the street a little longer, Eleanor started browsing the carts of the street vendors, deciding to buy a present for Cameron’s son Daniel. That Daniel was now eighteen was difficult for Eleanor to swallow. He’d been a wild and unhappy child when Eleanor had first met him, always in some scrape or another, earning Cameron’s wrath. He’d resisted Eleanor’s attempts to be motherly, but he had shown Eleanor his collection of live beetles, which Hart had told her was an honor.

Daniel had turned out all right, she’d seen, despite growing up in a houseful of Mackenzie bachelors. He was settled at the university in Edinburgh now, and seemed happy enough.

Eleanor was startled out of thoughts of Daniel by the door of Mrs. Whitaker’s house opening. A footman, a large, beefy lad like Hart’s footmen, came out of it. At the same time a carriage pulled up, and the footman hurried the few steps across the pavement to open the coach’s door.

Eleanor stepped to a street vendor who sold little cakes and watched as a quick-walking maid emerged from the house, followed by a woman who must be Mrs. Whitaker.

The lady was not very tall, but she was voluptuous, a trait she did not bother to hide. Even her fur wrap, pulled on against the chill, was draped to show off her large bosom. She painted—she had deeply rouged cheeks and red lip color—and the hair under her highly fashionable hat was very black.

Mrs. Whitaker adjusted her skintight leather gloves, gave her footman a kind enough nod of thanks, and let him hand her into the carriage. Eleanor stared openly as the carriage moved off, bearing mistress and maid. The footman, looking neither right nor left, strode back into the house and shut the door.

“Good heavens,” Eleanor said to the man selling cakes. “Who was that?”

The vendor glanced at the retreating carriage. “Not the sort of woman I should be talking about to a lady, miss.”

“Truly?” Eleanor slid a coin to him, and the vendor put a warm, wrapped seedcake into her hand. “Now you do have me curious. Do not worry—I am quite long in the tooth and not easily shocked.”

“No better than she ought to be, and that’s the truth, miss. And the gentlemen what go in and out at all hours… Some of the highest in the land, would you believe?”

Yes, Eleanor would believe it. That Mrs. Whitaker was a courtesan did not surprise her in the least. That she was a very successful one showed in her expensive furs, elegant carriage, and high-stepping horses.

Eleanor hid her dismay by unfolding the paper that wrapped the cake and nibbling a corner. “Gracious,” she said.

“I do mean the highest,” the vendor said. “The things I could tell you. Princes go in there. And dukes, like that Scots one, what always wears his kilt. Why a man wants to wear a skirt, I couldn’t say. I’d think the cold would go right up his jacksie, wouldn’t you? Oh, begging your pardon, miss. I forget my tongue.”

“Not at all.” Eleanor smiled at him and took another bite of cake.

Curiosity certainly killed the cat. Mrs. Whitaker was a courtesan, and Hart Mackenzie had sent her a thousand guineas. For the photographs? Or for the usual reason a gentleman paid a courtesan?

Well, Hart was a man, his longtime mistress was dead, and gentlemen did have bodily needs. That was a scientific fact. Their gently born wives could neither understand these bodily needs nor were able to endure them, the scientists went on to say, because gently born ladies did not have the same needs.

Absolute nonsense. Eleanor scoffed at this fiction, and so did her father. The truth was that gentlemen visited courtesans because they enjoyed it. Ladies stayed home and endured their husbands straying because they had no choice.

Hart had never been a saint, and he was dedicated to no one at the moment. Eleanor should not condemn him.

And yet. Eleanor’s heart burned, and for a moment, the street blurred. Another conveyance came toward her while she stood unable to move, a dark square in her clouded vision.

The carriage solidified as it pulled to a stop in front of the house. “Speak of the devil,” the vendor said. “That’s his crest. The Scots duke’s, I mean.”

Eleanor’s vision cleared. There was no time to run and nowhere to hide. Eleanor scuttled to the nearest lamppost and put her shoulder against it, hiding her face to eat another bite of seedcake.

She saw square, polished boots stop in front of her, saw the hem of blue and green Mackenzie plaid above them. Her gaze moved from the kilt that hugged his hips to his crisp shirt under his open greatcoat to Hart’s granite face under the brim of his hat.

Hart said not one word. He’d know perfectly well why Eleanor lurked outside the house of a courtesan called Mrs. Whitaker—he had no need to ask. Eleanor could claim it coincidence that she’d chosen to purchase a seedcake three feet from the woman’s door, but Hart would know better.

Eleanor met his gaze and refused to feel remorse. After all, she wasn’t the one visiting a courtesan or paying her a thousand guineas.

They might have stood on the cold street, staring at one another the rest of the day, if the door of the house hadn’t burst open again. The same beefy footman emerged, this time carrying a man out over his shoulder. Hart barely paid any mind as the footman made straight for Hart’s carriage and put the man inside.

Eleanor’s astonishment mounted as David Fleming came out of the house, looked up at the cloudy sky, put on his hat, and climbed into Hart’s carriage as well.

Eleanor swung back to Hart, questions on her lips.

Hart pointed at the carriage. “Get in.”

Eleanor started, and the cake vendor, who’d been watching with evident enjoyment, looked worried. “No need,” Eleanor said to Hart. “I’ll find a hansom. I’ve brought Maigdlin, and I have so many parcels.”

“Get into the carriage, El, or I’ll strap you to the top of it.”

Eleanor rolled her eyes and took another bite of seedcake. She waved at Maigdlin, who was at another vendor’s cart a little way down the street. “Come along, Maigdlin. We’re going.”

The maid, looking relieved, trotted back toward Eleanor and the familiar coach, set down the parcels, and let Mrs. Whitaker’s footman boost her up beside the coachman. The cake vendor watched the proceedings, arrested in the act of lifting another cake off his tiny coal stove.

“It is quite all right,” Eleanor told the cake seller. “His Grace can’t help being rude.” She turned and made for the carriage. “Hart, give the man a crown for his trouble, won’t you?”

Chapter 9

Inside the coach, Eleanor sank onto the seat opposite the two gentlemen already there—David Fleming and an unconscious, white-faced Englishman Eleanor had never seen before.

“Who is that?” she asked. The footman started handing in her parcels, and Eleanor leaned to tuck them beneath David’s seat. “Excuse me. Could you just push that under? Be careful; it’s breakable.”

David obeyed, regarding Eleanor with bloodshot eyes. He was in evening dress and smelled strongly of cigar smoke, brandy, perfume, and something else it took Eleanor a moment to identify. It had been a very long time since she’d encountered such a scent, but she soon realized what it was—that of a man who has been with a woman.