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.