Jennifer Ashley - The Duke’s Perfect Wife

“Tell me,” Hart said to Eleanor. “How was it that the English colonel died so soon?”

“Oh, great-great-grandmother pushed him off the roof,” Eleanor said. “From that corner just above my bedroom. It’s a nasty drop there. He was simply awful to her, according to the stories, so I can hardly blame her.”

Hart looked at Darragh, who was listening, openmouthed. “Remind me, Darragh, not to go up onto the roof with my wife.”

“Best not,” Eleanor agreed. “You can be rather aggravating.” She turned her smile on Darragh. “So you see, lad, I have no more love for the English than you do. That colonel muscled his way into Great-Great-Grandmother Finella’s home and had his way with her, which is why I do not blame her one whit for the roof. I myself would love to see England become detached from Scotland and drift off into the sea—except that two of my sisters-in-law are Sassenachs, and I’d want them safely here first. Along Lord Cameron’s Romany friends. And Mrs. Mayhew and Franklin and all the servants from Hart’s London house. Not to mention my English friends, and my father’s cronies at all those universities and the British Museum.” She made a helpless gesture with her good hand. “So, you see, it is not such a simple thing, is it? To say all people labeled this should live, and all labeled that should die? Neat and tidy, you don’t have to think about it. But alas, the world is much more complicated than that.”

Darragh was clearly out of his depth. He looked to Hart for support.

“She’s asking you to think about what you’re doing, lad,” Hart said. “To use your intellect, not your emotion.”

“I suppose he’s not been told he has an intellect,” Eleanor said sadly. “My father says that is the trouble with so many. They’re told they’ll never amount to much, and so they believe it, and so it becomes true. But the human mind is quite intricate, no matter what body it is born into.” Eleanor gently tapped Darragh above his left ear. “So many thoughts in there, all of them with great potential. They simply need to be pursued.”

There it was—Eleanor smiling at the lad, her fingertips soft on his hair. Darragh looked into her blue, blue eyes, and was smitten.

Eleanor smoothed Darragh’s hair, a motherly gesture. “What do you intend to do with him, Hart?”

“Send him to America to his sister,” Hart said.

Fellows came alert on the other end of the room. “No, you don’t. He shot at you and hit your wife. He needs to be arrested and stand trial for that.”

“His colleagues will never let him live that long,” Hart said. “He stays with me, I protect him, and he tells me every last detail about his friends and where I can find them.”

“I’ll not betray them,” Darragh said quickly.

Hart bent him a severe look. “You will. In exchange, you go to America and forget about secret organizations. Get an honest job and live a long and healthy life.”

Fellows strode to them. “Mackenzie, the law isn’t for you to take into your hands. I need to know these contacts. I can’t go back to my chief inspector and tell him that I let you send a violent criminal off to America with a slap on the hand.”

“You know that once he tells us what we need to know, his life won’t be worth anything,” Hart said. “If his colleagues don’t come for him, he’ll go to Newgate and be hung or shot for treason.”

“Rewarding him by sending him to America to live with his sister won’t exactly reform him, will it?”

Eleanor broke in before Hart could answer. “Neither will hanging him, Mr. Fellows. He’s only a boy. He’s nothing more than a trigger, like an extension of the pistol. I’m willing to give him a chance, if he helps you find those who want Hart dead.”

Darragh sat silently through the exchange, fear large in his eyes. It was beginning to dawn on him, Hart saw, how he’d been used. “I’m not a trigger,” he said in a small voice.

Eleanor smoothed his hair again. “Best you keep your head down and mouth shut, lad. Or Inspector Fellows will be driving you away in a cart with bars on it. Your only chance is to do what His Grace tells you.”

Darragh blinked back tears. “But I can’t… tell.”

“Mackenzie,” Fellows said, voice strained, “I understand your tactics. I even admire you for them, but you’ll cost me my job.”

“Hart will never let it come to that.” Eleanor smiled sweetly at Fellows, then Hart. “Will he?”

“No,” Hart said. “The Home Office will answer to me soon enough, Fellows. You’ll keep your job. Especially if you are instrumental in rooting out a cache of Fenians.”

“Then that’s settled,” Eleanor said. “Perhaps you should give Darragh some tea before you start with the questions. He looks all in.”

Hart put his hand under Eleanor’s arm and lifted her from the chair. “You are the one who is all in. The boy will be fine. You are going back to bed.”

“I am rather tired.” She sagged, and Hart slid his arm around her waist. “You must give me your word you won’t hurt him,” she said.

“He’ll stay intact. Fellows, keep the boy here while I take Eleanor upstairs.”

Fellows glared at him. He looked so much like their father when he did that.

Eleanor’s legs buckled, and Hart swept her into his arms and carried her out. The anteroom and halls beyond were empty, Isabella having the sense to herd the remaining guests into the garden for an alfresco dinner.

Hart carried Eleanor through the enormous front hall, still decorated with swags for the wedding, and up the stairs. The giant vase that always stood on the hall table today was filled with pink roses and lily of the valley.

Eleanor smiled at Hart as he carried her upward, her eyes sleepy blue slits. She touched his chest, the diamond and sapphire engagement ring glittering next to the plain gold of the wedding band. Eleanor Ramsay. His wife.

“Don’t be too long,” she murmured. “It’s our wedding night, remember.”

Eleanor rested her head on Hart’s shoulder and went sweetly to sleep.

Hart Mackenzie was an arrogant son of a bitch who would never change.

Lloyd Fellows stormed away from Hart’s study several hours later. Hart had carried his wife to her bedchamber—what a tender husband—and then returned to put Darragh through it. Hart was expert at twisting information out of anyone, and he’d twisted it out of Darragh. He’d never even touched the lad. Darragh had given up the names of the leaders and where they met in London and in Liverpool.

Fellows doubted they’d still be there. They’d have heard from one of their own that the assassination attempt was a failure and that Darragh had been taken. They’d still be in the area, though, and now Fellows knew their names. It would not be long before he found them.

He admired Hart and at the same time wanted to strangle him. Hart Mackenzie had grown up with every privilege, while Lloyd Fellows had grubbed for himself. Fellows had worked hard all his life to take care of his mother in the back streets of London while Hart had slept between soft linen sheets and eaten food prepared by celebrated chefs.

Now Mackenzie, instead of staying at his injured wife’s bedside, had sat in his opulent study and done Fellows’s job. Better, probably, than Fellows could have.

It rankled. Never mind that Hart had given Fellows enough information with which to return to London and start rooting out the madmen who thought nothing of shooting into crowds and blowing up railway lines. Fellows would nab them and get all the glory. Hart would let him. That rankled too.

To relieve his feelings, Fellows stormed into a room at the end of the hall, unaware even of where he was going in this colossal house.

“Oh,” said a female voice.

Fellows stopped, his hand on the door handle, and saw a young lady standing unsteadily on a ladder, her hands full of garlands. She was definitely teetering, the garlands rendering her unable to steady herself. Fellows hurried to her and kept her from falling by putting strong hands on her hips.

“Thank you,” she said. “You did make me jump.”

She was Lady Louisa Scranton, Isabella Mackenzie’s younger sister. The dress beneath Fellows’s hands was a dark blue silk, the hips beneath that supple.

Fellows had met Lady Louisa on several occasions at Mackenzie gatherings but had done no more than exchange polite pleasantries with her. Louisa much resembled her sister, Isabella, with brilliant red hair, green eyes, a curving figure, and a red-lipped smile.

Fellows wanted to let his hands linger. She smelled of roses, and her flesh beneath the fabric was warm.

He made himself ease his hands away. “Are you all right?”

She blushed. “Yes, yes. I was taking down these garlands and became careless. I thought they should come down, under the circumstances. The guests won’t be using this room.”

It was a drawing room, one whose ceilings were a mere fifteen feet high rather than the twenty to thirty usual in this house.

“They have servants to do this.”

Her skirts made an enticing rustle as she reached for more garlands, rising on tiptoe in slender ankle boots.

“Yes, but truth to tell, I felt rather underfoot and wanted to be useful. Isabella can grow quite agitated when she’s upset, and rather bossy, poor lamb.”

Fellows couldn’t think of a thing to say. He was a policeman. Polished manners were beyond him.

“Lady Eleanor will recover, I think,” he said stiffly.

“I know. I looked in on her not long ago. She’s sleeping like a baby.” Louisa’s green eyes scrutinized him, and Fellows suddenly felt hot. “You are very tall. Would you help me reach that?” Louisa pointed to a garland fastened to a sculpted frieze out of her reach.

“Of course.”

Fellows thought she’d descend, and he held out his hand to help her, but she shook her head. “You need to come up here, silly. We both must grab it or the whole thing will be ruined.”

Silly. No woman in Lloyd Fellows’s life had dared to tell him he was silly.

He put his foot on the bottom rung of the stepladder. Another two steps, and he was level with her.

He found it difficult to breathe. This close to her, he was sharply aware of her scent, the curve of her cheek, how her red hair darkened at the temples.

“There we are,” Louisa said softly, and she kissed him.

A light touch, a virgin’s kiss, but the cushion of her red lips ignited fires throughout his body. Fellows slid his hand to the nape of her neck and scooped her up to him. He did not open her lips, but brushed them again and again, taking in the warm softness of her. He ended with a kiss to the corner of her mouth, which he savored for a time.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered, breath gentle on his skin. “But I’ve been wanting to kiss you.”

“Why?” His throat was dry.

Her lips curved into a smile. “Because you’re a handsome gentleman, and I like you. Besides, you once saved Mac’s life.”

“And this is gratitude?”

Her smile widened. “No, this is me being dreadfully forward. I would not blame you one whit for being disgusted.”

Disgusted? Was she mad?

“You should have told me.” His voice still wasn’t working.

“It is not something easily worked into conversation.” Louisa reached for the garland. “Anyway, now I have told you. And I truly need help with this garland.”

Fellows put a firm arm around her and reached up beside her. He was not quite sure what had just changed in his life, but the world felt different, and he would make certain that he and Louisa continued to explore what had begun in this room.

Eleanor slept. She dreamed dark dreams that slipped away when she swam to wakefulness and pain. Then she was restless, the injury keeping her from slumbering again. When Beth offered her more laudanum in water, Eleanor was hurting enough to readily drink it.

She slept through her wedding night, all the next day, and well into the next night. She awoke, hungry, able to eat the bread and butter Maigdlin brought her. Eleanor felt well after that, and decided to get up, only to find herself on the floor, her friends lifting her back into bed.

Fever came, and she saw the faces of Beth, Ainsley, and Isabella come and go. And Hart’s. She wanted to cling to him and ask him a thousand questions—what had happened to Darragh? Were there any other assassins lurking? Had Inspector Fellows arrested Darragh’s friends? But she had no strength to speak.