Eleanor didn't argue. When Hart wanted to bully someone, especially about something concerning her, little could stop him.
"Well, I'm glad Ian did something so good for the children. And all of you, if I read the excitement in your voice right. It makes me feel light, which will be good for when I go down to supper."
"El." The smile left Hart's face, and he became the worried husband again. The over-worried husband. "No one will think less of you if you stay and rest. They know the baby is coming soon."
Eleanor sighed. "Sometimes I think he's not coming at all. I wake in the morning, so sure it will be today, and go to sleep as heavy as ever. Stubborn little chap. So like a Mackenzie."
"It's Christmas. Perhaps it will be today."
Hart could be optimistic, but then he wasn't lying here like a bloated balloon.
Hart drew a small packet from his pocket and laid it on the covers over her bosom. "Merry Christmas, love."
Eleanor touched the package in surprise. "What's this? I thought you were too Scottish to give presents any time but New Year's."
"I didn't want to wait."
He spoke calmly, almost offhand, but Eleanor heard the need in him, and the fear. He wanted to make certain she received the gift, in case something happened.
Poor Hart. Eleanor tried to reassure him that she was not fragile and frail like his first wife, but he was too aware of the danger. Eleanor was aware of it too, but they could only wait and see what happened.
She unwrapped the tissue around the gift, revealing another wrapping of silk. She opened this as well then gazed in rapture at the earrings that lay on the blue fabric. Soft gold geometric shapes studded with blue stones hung from wire so fine a breath might displace them.
"Oh, Hart." Eleanor lifted one earring, her eyes wide. "This is astonishing." The gold was so thin it could have been paper, but heavy enough to have substance.
"They're from Egypt." Hart slid closer and rested his head on her shoulder. He touched the dangling gold. "An Egyptian queen wore these."
"Truly?" Her fascination increased. "How old are they?"
"Ancient. Made several thousand years before Christ was born."
"They're beautiful. But where did you get them? Did you slip off to Egypt sometime when I wasn't looking?"
"I intercepted them on their way to the British Museum."
Eleanor very carefully lowered the earring. "Then perhaps we should let them be displayed in the museum."
"Rot that. They were destined for a box in a basement, probably to be buried for eternity. I persuaded them to let me have charge of them."
Hart's persuasion could be aggressive. "I see. Then please tell the gentlemen at the museum I will take very good care of them."
"They know."
Eleanor slipped one into her earlobe, then smiled at Hart. "There. Shall I wear them to supper?"
Hart slid his arm behind her, turning her to face him. His lips met hers in a slow, savoring kiss, his finger stealing to the earring and then drawing down her neck, tracing fire.
It would be a while, Eleanor reflected, sinking into his embrace, before they thought of going down to supper.
*** *** ***
Lloyd Fellows still hadn't become comfortable with his welcome into the Mackenzie family. Years of animosity, on both sides, took time to fade.
The women of the household--those ladies mad enough to marry Mackenzies--always greeted Fellows warmly. He had to admit that visits to the duke's grand mansion were made easier by the soft embraces and friendly kisses of the four ladies. The gentlemen still eyed him askance, although Ian, of all people, accepted Fellows without rancor.
Even so, sitting at the long table in the grand dining room, amidst Hart Mackenzie's highborn guests, was unnerving. Those not of the family stared at him in open curiosity. They were amazed by the fact that the lofty Mackenzies had not only acknowledged Fellows's birth, but accepted him as equal to the Mackenzie brothers. Fellows was a lowly policeman, raised in the slums of London. He ought to be taking his dinner below stairs. And yet he sat at the high table, next to the duchess herself, who'd risen from her bed to preside over the meal.
More unnerving to Fellows than the guests' glances and whispers, however, was the presence of Lady Louisa Scranton, sister to Lady Isabella, seated right next to him.
Chapter Twelve
Except for the glance they'd exchanged over the stair railings a few days ago, Fellows had not seen Lady Louisa since his arrival. He'd thought himself safe from any awkward meeting with her until this afternoon, when he'd entered the dining room to find that she'd been seated at his side.
Louisa smiled at him, utterly composed, as though they'd not met on top of a stepladder in this very house last April, as though she hadn't leaned forward and kissed his lips. And then told him she'd contemplated doing so for some time.
Today Louisa was like a bright angel, dressed in bottle green, with a plaid ribbon pinned to her bodice to indicate her honorary connection with the Mackenzie clan. Her red-gold hair had been drawn up into complicated curls on top of her head, with delicate wisps brushing her forehead. Tiny diamonds dangled from her earlobes, and a silver pendant rested on her chest.
She was younger than Fellows, from an aristocratic family, lovely and graceful, her manners polished. Though her father had lost every bit of capital he'd had, and more he'd never owned, in Louisa's world birth and breeding counted for more than money. She was so far superior to Fellows that she might as well be soaring like a lofty kite while he stumbled along the ground, too slow to follow.
Louisa was perfectly polite to him all through the meal. No indication that she remembered their kiss--their fiery, hot, magical kiss. Her fascination with him, and the kiss, had probably been a whim, long forgotten. If the incident embarrassed her, she made no sign.
After the meal was over and cleared, a grand procession entered the dining room. The butler led it proudly, carrying a masterpiece of a plum pudding, flaming with brandy, the lights lowered to highlight the effect.
Fellows could hear his mother's Cockney voice now--"What's the point of lighting food on fire? Food's too precious to waste making it into a piece of art. It's for eating, innit?"
His mother was at her sister's as usual, enjoying her Christmas meal with her nieces, nephews, and now grandnieces and grandnephews. When Eleanor's letter with the invitation to her first Christmas dinner as Duchess of Kilmorgan had arrived, Mrs. Fellows had bid him go. "It's where you ought to be," she'd said. "You're as good as any duke. You go and show 'em."