Eleanor scrambled to her feet. Hart remained where he was, unmoving, his cravat off and dangling from one hand. He was waiting for her to explain herself—typical.

He was dressed in Mackenzie plaid and formal coat, his shirt open to reveal the damp hollow of his throat. His eyes were red-tinged with drink, his face dark with whiskers. He smelled heavily of cheroot smoke, night air, and a woman’s perfume.

Eleanor hid her dart of dismay at the perfume, and cleared her throat. “I’m afraid that the only way I can speak to you, Hart, is to lie in wait like a tiger… in a jungle. I wish to discuss the photographs with you.”

“Not now,” Hart said.

He shoved aside the chair and made to open his bedchamber door, but Eleanor stepped in front of him. “My, you are in a temper. You’d never speak to me about them, if you had your way. The house is asleep. We can be private. I have things to ask you.”

“Tell Wilfred. He’ll set an appointment with me.”

Hart opened the door and moved past her into his room. Eleanor marched in right after him before he could shut the door.

“I’m not afraid of your bedchamber, Hart Mackenzie. I’ve been in it before.”

Hart gave Eleanor a look that made her heart pound. He tossed the cravat and collar onto a chair and moved to a table and a decanter of brandy. “If you want it all over Mayfair that you chased me into my bedroom, by all means, stay and close the door.”

Eleanor left the door open.

“You haven’t changed the furniture in here either,” she said, keeping her voice light. “The bed is positively medieval. And quite uncomfortable as I recall.”

Hart slanted her another glance as he sloshed whiskey into a glass and clinked the stopper back to the decanter. “What do you want, Eleanor?” he asked, an edge to his voice. “I’ve had a hell of a night.”

“To talk about the photographs, as I said. If I’m to find them, or discover what this person means by sending them to me, I need to know more.”

“Well, I dinnae want to talk about the be-damned things right now.”

She started to answer, then stopped, taking in his dishevelment, his angry frown. “You are very cross tonight, Hart. Perhaps the lady disappointed you.”

Hart stared at her over the glass he’d started to raise. “What lady?”

“The one whose perfume you positively reek of.”

His brows went up. “You mean the Countess von Hohenstahlen? She’s eighty-two and drenches herself in scents that would make a tart blush.”

“Oh.”

Hart drank down the whiskey in one swallow. His face changed as the smooth Mackenzie malt did its work.

He clunked the glass to the table. “I’m tired, and I want to go to bed. We’ll speak in the morning. Ask Wilfred to make an appointment with me.”

Humph. As Eleanor turned to the door, she sensed Hart’s relief behind her that she was leaving. That relief made her angry.

Eleanor went on to the door, but at the last minute, she closed it and turned around. “I do not wish to wait,” she said.

Hart had thrown off his coat, and now, caught unawares, his eyes betrayed his exhaustion. “Christ, Eleanor.”

“Why are you so reluctant to speak of the photographs? They could damage you.”

Hart let himself collapse into a chair, kilt draping over his legs, and reached again for the decanter. A gentleman should never sit in a lady’s presence without asking her to sit first. But Hart simply poured himself more whiskey and rested his elbows on the chair’s arms as he lifted the glass.

“I would have thought you’d like to see me damaged.”

“Not like this. You don’t deserve to be laughed at. The queen would be quite disparaging, and she has much influence—although she and the Prince Consort used to collect photographs of nudes, did you know that? Not many have seen them, but she once showed them to me. She loves to talk about Albert. She rather worshiped him.”

Her words ran out as Hart watched her, his golden gaze hard on her.

“What do I deserve, then, lass?” His words slurred the slightest bit, which meant he was well on the way to being thoroughly drunk. Hart rarely showed any effect of drink, so when he did, he was already far past inebriation. “What do I deserve, Eleanor?”

She shrugged. “You deserved me to break the engagement. At the time. Perhaps you didn’t deserve me not forgiving you for as long as I did, or me being too proud to even speak to you. But it’s done. We both have gone on with our lives. Apart. As it was meant to be.”

“Was it meant to be?” His voice was low, soft, a Mackenzie man’s bedroom voice.

“We’d not have rubbed on well, and you know it, Hart.” She circled her thumb and fingertips together. “Too many sparks.”

“Aye, you’ve got fire in you, lass, that is true. A temper.” The delicious Highland accent broadened as more whiskey went into him. “And fire of another kind. I’ve not forgotten that.”

Eleanor had not forgotten either. Hart had known exactly how to warm her, how to run his hands down her body and draw her to him, how to make her instigate the first kisses. Hart had known how to touch her, what to whisper into her ear, how to let his breath linger on her skin.

A lady should know nothing of men before her wedding night, but Eleanor had known everything about Hart Mackenzie. His well-muscled, hard body, the old scars that crisscrossed his back, the fire of his mouth on hers, the skill of his hands as he’d unbuttoned and unlaced her clothes.

Thrice he’d seduced her, and thrice she’d let him. Once at the summerhouse, once in this bedroom, and once in his bedchamber at Kilmorgan. They were betrothed, she’d reasoned. Where was the harm?

Hart sat in the chair across the room, drinking whiskey, but he might as well have been next to her, drawing his fingers down her spine again, making her shiver like he used to.

Eleanor forced the pleasant memories away. She needed to stay focused, or she’d fall at his feet and beg him to make her shiver again. “About these photographs,” she said. “I saw nothing in either of them to give me a clue as to who sent them.”

He came alert. “Either of them? There’s another?”

“I received it this afternoon. Hand delivered to me here. I haven’t had the chance to question your delivery boy as to who gave it to him.”

Hart sat up in the chair, no longer looking inebriated. “Then that person knows you are here.”

“Gracious, the whole of England must know. Lady Mountgrove will have told everyone in it by now. She saw you bring me here, remember? To be sure, she’ll have been watching this house to see whether I left it again. Which I have, of course, but then I come right back. And stay.”

“I’ll question the delivery boy.”

Eleanor shook her head. “No need. The photographs are being sent to me. I’ll question him.”

Hart set the glass on the arm of the chair. “This person knows who you are and where you are, and I don’t like that.” He held out his hand. “Let me see the photograph.”

“Don’t be silly, I don’t carry it about with me. It’s upstairs in my chamber, hidden with the other. I can tell you that the picture is much the same as the first, except that you are looking out a window. From what I could see through said window, I believe you were at Kilmorgan Castle.”

He nodded. “Busy proving that the house was mine, I suppose. Showing myself that I wasn’t afraid to do anything in it.”

“The house wasn’t precisely yours at the time,” Eleanor said. “Your father must still have been alive then.”

“Alive, but away. A good time to do as I pleased.”

“The photographs are very well done, you know. Quite artistic. The pictures the queen and Prince Albert collected are also very tasteful, though it’s not the same thing. You posed for yours, yourself. The queen would never forgive that—a duke acting as a common artist’s model? Did Mrs. Palmer take all of them?”

“Yes.” The word was terse.

Eleanor opened her hands. “You see? This is exactly the sort of information I need. Mrs. Palmer might have left the collection to someone, or someone might have found them after her death. You really ought to let me into that house in High Holborn where she lived to look around.”

“No.” A loud, blunt, final syllable.

“But it’s not a bawdy house anymore, is it?” Eleanor asked. “Just a property you own. You sold the house to Mrs. Palmer, and she willed it back to you. I looked that up. Wills are public records, you know.”

Hart’s hand clenched around his glass. “El, you are not going to that house.”

“You ought to have put up my father and me there, you know. It would be much handier for the British Museum, and I could search it from top to bottom for more photographs.”

“Leave it alone, Eleanor.” His voice was rising, the fury unmistakable.

“But it’s just a house,” she said. “Nothing wrong with it now, and it might hold a vital clue.”

“You know good and well that it’s not just a house.” The anger climbed. “And stop giving me that innocent look. You’re not innocent at all. I know you.”

“Yes, I am afraid you know me a bit too well. Makes talking to you dashed difficult sometimes.”

Eleanor had a little smile on her face, making a joke of it, and Hart couldn’t breathe. She always did this, walked into a room and took the air out of it.

She stood primly before him in her blue dress that was out of fashion and simply made, her eyes ingenuous as she announced she should look through the house in High Holborn, the existence of which had wedged them apart.

No, not wedged. Batted Hart aside like a cricketer whacking one all the way into the tea tents.

Eleanor had been quite decorous about it after her initial outburst, she with all the right on her side. She could have sued Hart for taking her to his bed, for ruining her, for violating any of the numerous terms in their complicated betrothal contract.

Instead, she’d said good-bye and walked out of his life. Leaving a great, gaping hole in it that had never been filled.

Hart had forgotten all about the pictures until Eleanor turned up a few days ago to slide one across his desk to him.

“If this person is a blackmailer, El, I want you to have nothing more to do with it. Blackmailers are dangerous.”

Her brows rose. “You’ve had dealings with them before, have you?”

Too bloody many times. “Attempting to blackmail the Mackenzie family is a popular pastime,” Hart said.

“Hmm, yes, I can see that. I suppose there are those who believe you’ll pay to keep your secrets out of the newspapers or from being whispered into the wrong ears. You and your brothers have so many secrets.”

And Eleanor knew every single one of them. She knew things no one else in the world did.

“All these blackmailers have one thing in common,” Hart said. “They fail.”

“Good. Then if this is a blackmailer, we will see him off as well.”

“Not we,” he said firmly.

“Be reasonable, Hart. Someone sent the photos to me. Not to you, not to your enemies, not to your brothers, but to me. I think that has some significance. Besides, why send them at all, free and clear, with no demands for money?”

“To show you that they have them and make demands for the rest.”

She nibbled her lip. “Perhaps.”

Hart did not give a damn about the bloody photographs right now. Not with Eleanor rolling her red lip under her teeth and making Hart want to bite it for her.

“You are cruel, El.” His voice went quiet again.

Her brows drew together into a delicious little frown. “Cruel? Why on earth do you say that?”

“You haven’t spoken to me for years. Suddenly you gallop down to London declaring you’re here to save me like some benevolent angel. Did you turn around one day last week and decide that you’d forgiven me?” He could hope.

“Of course not. I began to forgive you years ago. After Sarah died. I felt so horrible for you, Hart.”

He stopped, cold working its way through the whiskey. “That was nearly eight years ago.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“I never noticed you forgiving me,” he said, his voice tight. “No letters, no visits, no telegrams, no declaration to my brothers or Isabella.”

“I said that’s when I began to forgive you. It took much longer than that to make all the anger go away. Besides, you were Duke of Kilmorgan by then, well ensconced behind ducal barriers, and quite on your way to wresting power from anyone who had it. You also returned to Mrs. Palmer—I may live in a backwater, but trust me, I am well informed of all you do. And the third reason I never made indication is because I had no idea whether you’d care for my forgiveness or not.”