The Duke's Perfect Wife

Darragh gasped for breath. “I’ll never tell ye—”

The lad’s words were cut off by a commotion outside the study’s back door. The study had a grand entrance for intimidating guests and then a smaller door behind the desk, which led to an anteroom and back halls. Someone was arguing with the guard Hart had stationed at the rear door, someone female, with a very determined voice.

“Excuse me,” Hart said and rose.

Darragh stayed in his chair, clutching its arms, while Hart walked to the door.

“You jolly well will let me in,” came Eleanor’s voice. “He is my husband, and he’s in there with a killer. Stand aside at once.”

The guard mumbled something, and Hart yanked open the door.

Eleanor, standing a foot away, transferred her glare to Hart. She wore a thick brocade dressing gown, her arm in a sling, with her hair hanging in a fat red gold braid over her shoulder. Though her face was white with pain, she tried to walk past Hart and into the study.

Hart put his arm across the door. “Eleanor, go back to bed.”

“No, indeed, Hart Mackenzie. I want to know what is going on in there.”

“I have the matter well in hand.” He gave her a severe look, but his heart beat swiftly with worry. Eleanor’s color was high, her eyes too bright. She might recover from the wound, but he could still lose her to fever, as he’d lost Sarah and his son. “Go back upstairs. I will tell you about it later.”

Eleanor returned his stare for a few more seconds, then with a speed an injured woman should not have possessed, Eleanor ducked under his arm and hurried into the study. Hart stifled a curse and went after her.

“Good heavens.” Eleanor regarded Darragh in surprise. “How old are you, lad?”

“This is Darragh,” Hart said, coming to stand by her side. “He was telling me how he didn’t mean to shoot you.”

Eleanor ignored him. “Darragh what? Surely you have a surname.”

Darragh gazed at her in defiance, but under Eleanor’s unwavering stare, he wilted. “Fitzgerald, ma’am.”

“Where are you from?”

“Ballymartin. Near Cork.”

“Gracious. You are a long way from home.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Does your mum know about the Fenians? And the re-volver?”

“Me mum’s dead.”

Eleanor sank down into the chair Hart had vacated. Hart had chosen it because the seat was a little higher than that of the soft chair in which Darragh sat. He found the setup perfect for keeping himself a little above whatever person he questioned, perfect for implying that personal comfort was of no concern to him. He could interrogate whoever he needed to all night, the hard chair said.

Eleanor cared nothing for any of that. She simply saw a chair and sat upon it.

“I’m sorry, lad,” she said. “Do you have other family?”

“Me sister. She married and went to America.”

“Why didn’t you go to America with her?” She sounded interested.

“Not enough money, ma’am.”

“I see. I do understand what happened, Darragh. You were trying to shoot Hart, and you hit me by mistake. I imagine it was difficult to aim in all the confusion, and I tried to push Hart away. I don’t much blame you for wanting to shoot Hart, because he can be devilishly irritating, but I am a bit put out with you for ruining my wedding, not to mention my wedding gown. My sisters-in-law worked their fingers off to make everything perfect, and they are quite distressed.”

Darragh’s anger returned. “Do ye think that matters to me?”

“It matters, lad,” Eleanor said, skimming her fingers over her bandage. “Everything matters. Everything you do touches someone in some way, even though you might not understand that until later. You raised a pistol, but even before you fired it, you changed the life of every person in the room. You introduced them to fear, to uncertainty, to the fact that in a place they felt safe, there was sudden danger. There were children in that room, babies. By the bye, you should be glad that Ian Mackenzie has been restrained by his brothers, because he was ready to tear your head off for endangering his little boy and girl. You’d better hope he doesn’t get out of his room.”

Darragh swallowed. “Ian Mackenzie. He’s th’ crazy one?”

“Everyone should want to be mad like Ian. But even Ian would see—if he stopped trying to kill you long enough to notice—that you are a child yourself.”

“I’m no child! Fucking English.”

“Watch your mouth, boy,” Hart growled.

“Yes, you are a child,” Eleanor said, undisturbed by the interruption. “And, by the way, I’m not English at all. I’m Highland Scots through and through.” She flowed into the broadest Highland accent Hart had ever heard. “Me family hasnae one drop o’ English blood in it.”

“You’re a liar, then.” Darragh’s eyes glittered. “I was told all about you. Your great-grandmother made a whore of herself to an Englishman so they’d drop a title on her get. That’s why your dad’s an earl. You’re as English as they are.”

To Darragh’s surprise—and Hart’s too—Eleanor burst into laughter.

“Oh, my, is that story still in circulation? People believe anything, don’t they? Let me tell you the true story, laddie.” She leaned forward, catching and holding Darragh’s attention, her red braid swinging.

“First, it was my great-great-grandmother. Her husband, her brothers, her father, and her husband’s brothers all went off to fight the Butcher at Culloden. There, her family died to the last man.”

The Scots accent smoothed out, though a trace of it lingered.

“All that was left was my great-great-grandmother, Finella, alone in that big house. Well, the English saw the fine landholding of Glenarden and claimed that since all the menfolk were dead, it was unoccupied, ripe for plucking. My great-great-grandmother said it wasnae empty at all—Scots land can be passed to the women, and since her husband had been laird, she was now laird, and the land was hers.

“The English didn’t like that, I can tell you. Highlanders were a conquered people and should bow down. And here was this lass, younger than I am now, defying the English and saying the place belonged to her and her heirs. Well, one English colonel said, Marry me, and I’ll live here, you can stay, and our children will inherit the land. My great-great-grandmother, she thought about this, then she said all right, and the man moved in. The English were pleased with this colonel for making Finella do their bidding, and they made him an earl, calling him Earl Ramsay, which had been Finella’s surname from her father. But very soon after the wedding, the man died, and my great-great-grandmother had a baby, a son, and that son became earl.”