Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage

Chapter 14

London was shocked to hear of the estrangement between the Scottish Lord and his Lady. The Lord has retreated to the Continent, and the Lady lives in Mount Street no longer. There is a saying, that many a bride and groom should heed, which is Marry in haste, Repent at leisure. —January 1878

Mac had called Isabella courageous on the terrace, but Isabella saw Mac’s true colors on the journey to London. They left the day after giving Mirabelle a proper funeral, her grave sad in the rain-soaked churchyard.

Aimee had taken to Mac with a vengeance and scarcely allowed anyone else to touch her. She’d conceded to letting Isabella hold her, putting together in her tiny brain that Isabella went with Mac. But she also made it clear that she preferred Mac. He cheerfully obliged and let Aimee sit on his lap, play with his watch fob, bounce on his knee, tug his hair, and grab his nose.

Isabella had never thought of Mac as being good with children—when she’d carried his child, she’d been secretly worried that Mac might not be interested in the babe once it was born. Now as she watched from her seat in the compartment, Isabella observed with amusement that Mac might be even better with children than she was. He fed Aimee milk from a cup, let her tear apart the bread that came with his dinner, and balked only when it was time to change her nappy. There were limits, Mac said as he handed the soiled child to Evans. The servant had softened quite suddenly to Mac after observing him with Aimee, and had taken to giving him indulgent smiles.

As the train rolled on, Mac fell asleep leaning against the compartment wall, and Aimee slept in his arms. The sight of Isabella’s large husband in kilt sprawled across the seat with a baby on his chest made her heart warm.

When they reached London the next morning, Mac directed his town coachman to take them to Isabella’s house. Isabella was very aware of her neighbors’ stares as she descended from the coach in North Audley Street, followed by her estranged husband carrying a baby. She sensed curtains lifting, faces at windows. Mac was right: The gossip would be merciless.

Her household staff, on the other hand, rose to the occasion. Morton had been warned by telegrams from Bellamy to expect them, and he’d cleared the bedroom where Daniel had slept to make a nursery. He’d also taken the liberty of contacting his niece, a nanny who was currently looking for a post. Morton had arranged for Miss Westlock to arrive for an interview that afternoon, if that were convenient for her ladyship, that is.

“This is why I say you stole my best servants,” Mac said. “Morton is a god among butlers.”

“I endeavor to give satisfaction, my lord,” Morton said coolly.

“I know you do, Morton, but I’m aware that you would throw me over in a heartbeat if you had to choose between myself and my wife. Tell Bellamy to fix me a dollop of Darjeeling, there’s a good chap.”

Isabella did like Miss Westlock when she met her, as she was certain she would if Morton recommended her, and hired her on the spot. A no-nonsense woman of thirty-five, Miss Westlock had taken for granted that she wouldn’t be turned away and had her bags with her. She promptly moved in to the upstairs room next to the nursery and assumed her duties.

Isabella planned to spend the rest of the day unpacking and shopping. There were plenty of things to buy—a pram, nappies, baby furniture, baby clothes, toys. Mac left her to it, saying he would return to his own house with Bellamy to look over what the builders were repairing. He ended up taking Aimee and Miss Westlock with him, because Aimee made it clear she wasn’t yet ready to let Mac out of her sight.

Isabella felt a twinge amusement but also of sadness as she watched Mac climb into his coach holding the child, Miss Westlock following with a large bag of supplies. Isabella and Mac had been in one another’s pockets since leaving London; it seemed strange now to not turn around and trip over him.

Three and a half years I lived without him, she reminded herself. Three and a half years. And yet, one afternoon without Mac, and the house seemed empty. She decided that the best recourse was to keep busy, so she ordered the coach and went to Regent Street.

Isabella discovered that she liked shopping for children. She perused the merchandise at so many shops that Evans began growling about shoe leather wearing thin. Isabella shushed her and piled the woman’s arms high with picture books, building bricks, a tiny tea service, and a dolly about half Evans’s size. The acquaintances Isabella met on this trip were clearly curious, and Isabella told them straight out that she was planning to adopt a child. They’d know sooner or later, she reasoned. She hardly meant to keep Aimee a secret.

When she returned home, the footmen grumbling as much as Evans as they carried in box after box, Isabella found a letter from Ainsley Douglas waiting on the hall table. Mac had not yet returned, and Isabella hastened to her own chamber to read it.

She read the missive twice through and kissed it. “God bless you, Ainsley, my old mate,” she said, and tucked the letter into her bosom.

When Mac returned home with a sleeping Aimee in his arms, he found Isabella in the nursery. Miss Westlock had to settle some affairs, so Mac carried Aimee up to put her to bed himself.

Isabella stood at the window in the nursery, staring out at the fading afternoon, stroking the golden hair of a huge doll sitting on the window seat. Mac laid the sleeping Aimee in her cot, covered her with a blanket, and went to Isabella.

Isabella didn’t turn. A chance ray of afternoon sunlight touched her face, and the sorrow he saw there broke his heart.

Mac touched her shoulder. “Isabella.”

Isabella turned to him, her eyes wet with tears. She opened her mouth as though to excuse her crying, but the words didn’t come. Mac opened his arms, and Isabella walked straight into them.

Memories flooded back to Mac as he gathered her against him. Don’t remember. Don’t let it hurt.

But memories were merciless things.

As clear as yesterday, he saw himself walking into Isabella’s bedroom in the Mount Street house after she’d miscarried their child. Mac had been falling-down drunk, despite Ian’s best efforts to keep him sober.

In the train from Dover to London, Mac had kept a flask of whiskey at his lips in attempt to erase the horrible pain tearing at his insides. He’d never felt anything like it, not even when his mother had died years earlier. He’d never been close to his mother, had barely known her. His father had kept the brothers isolated from the fragile duchess, the old duke’s jealousy extending even to his sons. The duchess had died because of that obsessive jealousy.

Mac’s grief for his mother was nothing to what he’d felt when Ian finally got it through Mac’s head that Isabella had lost their child and was in danger of dying herself. Malt whiskey didn’t dampen Mac’s guilt and grief a fraction, but he kept pouring it down his throat in desperate attempt.

He’d charged into the house and up the stairs to Isabella’s bedroom. He remembered finding Isabella on a chaise drawn up to the fireplace, her red hair hanging loose, her face wan. She’d looked up with red-rimmed eyes as Mac staggered in.

He’d made it to the chaise before collapsing to his knees and burying his face in her lap. “I’m sorry.” His voice had come out a croak. “I am so sorry.”

He’d expected to feel better at any moment. Any moment now, she’d stroke his hair and whisper that it was all right. That she forgave him.

The touch never came.

Mac had realized in the bleak weeks afterward what a heartless, selfish bastard he’d been. He’d been puzzled and hurt when Isabella hadn’t caressed him and relieved his pain. He’d looked up to find her eyes stark and glittering, her face so white it might have been carved from marble. Mac had tried to gather her into his arms, but he’d been so drunk he’d fallen to his hands and knees to be sick on the carpet instead.

Ian, who rarely showed emotion of any kind, had dragged Mac up and out of the room, scowling in fury.

Bellamy had cleaned up Mac while Ian watched in anger. “Isabella cried for you,” he said. “So I looked for you. I don’t know why she wants you. You are drunk all the time.”

Mac had no idea why either. When he felt better, Mac sought out Isabella again, knowing he needed to doubly apologize.

He’d found her in the nursery, her hand on the carved cradle they’d picked out together when they first learned that Isabella was increasing.

Mac came up behind her and slid his arms around her, resting his cheek on her shoulder. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he said. “That this happened, that I wasn’t here, that I’m a drunken lout. I think I’ll die if you don’t forgive me.”

“I imagine I will forgive you,” Isabella had answered, stroking one finger across the cradle’s polished wood. “I generally do.”

Tension eased from Mac’s shoulders, and he buried his face in her fragrant hair. “We can try again. We can try for another baby.”

“It was a boy.”

“I know. Ian told me.” He kissed the curve of her neck, closing his eyes against a wave of pain. “Maybe the next will be a boy too.”

“Not yet.” Isabella’s answer had been so quiet Mac almost missed it.

Mac thought he understood. She would need time to heal. Mac’s knowledge of women’s ailments came from his models—he knew they could not pose fully unclothed during their courses, and they sometimes couldn’t work for weeks after giving birth or having a miscarriage. They resented the time they couldn’t work, because they needed the money. Some of them brought their babies with them to the studio, because they couldn’t afford to hire someone to take care of them, and the models often didn’t have husbands or even faithful lovers. Mac never minded the little ones, and they seemed to like him.

“When you are ready, tell me,” Mac had said to Isabella, caressing her cheek. “Tell me, and we’ll start again.”

Isabella pulled away from him, her green eyes burning in her white face. “Is it that easy for you? This child didn’t live, but that’s fine, we will simply try for another?”

Mac blinked at her sudden rage. “That is not what I meant.”

“Why did you bother coming back from Paris, Mac? You’d be happier there with your friends, trying to see how much you can drink before you can’t walk anymore.”

Mac stepped back, stung, more so because she was pretty much right. “I’m not drunk now.”

“Not as drunk as when you came home to comfort me and vomited on my carpet.”

“That was an unfortunate accident.”

Isabella clenched her fists. “Damn you, why did you come back at all?”

“Ian said you wanted me.”

“Ian said. Ian said. Is that the reason you came home? Not because you wanted to be with me? Not because of the horrible thing that happened?”

“Damn you, Isabella, stop twisting my words. Do you think I feel nothing? Do you think I haven’t torn at my chest trying to stop the hurting inside? Why do you suppose I drink? I’m trying to ease the pain, and I can’t.”

“You poor, spoiled darling.”

If she had slapped him, it wouldn’t have stung as much. “What is the matter with you?” he asked. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“The matter is we lost our child,” Isabella nearly shouted. “But you didn’t come home to comfort me, Mac. You came so that I would comfort you.”

Mac stared, open-mouthed. “Of course I want your comfort. We should comfort each other.”

“I have no comfort left. I have nothing left. I am empty, all the way through. And you weren’t here. Damn you, I needed you, and you weren’t here!”

She swung away, her arm across her abdomen, the dying light making a flame of her bright hair.

“I know,” Mac said, his throat raw. “I know. But love, this was so unexpected. You weren’t due for months; neither of us could have known this would happen.”

“You would have known if you’d been at that ball with me. If you’d been in London. If you hadn’t vanished weeks ago without bothering to tell me where you were going.”

“I should be kept on a tether now?” Mac’s anger, fed by grief, boiled up. “You know why I left—we were quarrelling almost constantly. You needed a rest from me.”

“You decided—in the middle of the night, without a word. Perhaps I needed you to stay. Perhaps I’d rather quarrel with you than have the house quiet with you hundreds of miles away. Do you ever ask? No, you just vanish and try to make it up to me by bringing silly presents when you bother to come home at all.”

Great God, she drove him madder than had any other woman in his long career of women. No—madder than any other person, male or female, end of discussion. “Isabella, my father killed his own wife. Shook her until her neck broke. Why? Because they were arguing, and he was drunk, and he couldn’t control his anger. Do you think I want that to happen? Do you think I want to come out of a stupor one day to see that I’ve hurt you?”

Isabella stared at him in shock. “What are you talking about? You’ve never laid a finger on me.”

“Because I’ve always gone before it could happen!”

“Good Lord, Mac, are you saying you leave because you want to strike me?”

“No!” Mac had never even imagined doing such a thing, but he’d always been terrified that his father would rise up within him—the father who had beaten and belittled him and his brothers. The old man had sent Ian to an asylum for being the sole witness to the truth of their mother’s death, and had whipped Mac for wanting to—needing to—create pictures. “Of course I don’t want to strike you, Isabella,” he said. “I never have.”

“Then why?”

His exasperation returned. “Does a man have to explain his every move to his wife?”

“He does if he’s married to me.”

Mac suddenly wanted to laugh. “Oh, my little debutante, what claws you have.”

“I don’t want claws, thank you very much. I also don’t want you to tease me or to leave me for my own good. I want a normal marriage. Is that too much to ask?”

“Do you mean a marriage in which I spend all day at my club and grunt behind my newspaper at supper? I would be required to take a mistress to satisfy my lusts, because you would have no interest in the baser pleasures of life. You’d spend all my money shopping for useless things and be relieved that I wasn’t underfoot.”

He’d run out of breath, hoping to see her smile at this ridiculous scenario, but she only looked angrier.

“That is your usual view—everything or nothing. In your opinion, we must either have a wild and scandalous marriage, or you might as well ignore me completely. Have you ever conceived that we can have something in between?”

“No, because we always do this.” Mac clenched his hands, trying to calm himself. “You see? We argue about everything. We either make love or shout the house down. I leave because that must be so tiring for you. If you’re worried that I run off to other women . . .”

“I don’t worry about that. Ian would tell me.”

“Ah yes, Ian. Your guardian, my watcher. Dear Ian, who is at your side at all times.”

“For heaven’s sake, Mac, you aren’t jealous of Ian, are you? He’d never in a thousand years dream of betraying you.”

“Of course I’m not jealous.” Or was he? Not that Ian would try to seduce Isabella, because Ian didn’t seduce. His brother satisfied his bodily needs on courtesans but never formed emotional attachments with any woman. Mac wasn’t certain whether Ian knew how. But Ian was a good friend to Isabella, perhaps a better friend than Mac ever would be. That rankled. “You seem to prefer him at your side.”

“Because he is here. You never are, except when it suits you. And then it’s to try to shock me, or to show off to your friends that your sweet debutante has the courage to take them as they are. You aren’t . . . comfortable.”

“Oh Lord, save me from being comfortable. That smacks of doddering old men at clubs and drab slippers. But that is why I leave, my dear. To let you live in comfort.”

“It isn’t comforting, not in the least. And you weren’t here when I needed you most.”

Mac had realized halfway through this argument that this time, there would be no easy forgiveness. Isabella wouldn’t reach for him, wouldn’t smile and tell him she was happy to see him, in spite of the circumstances. There would be no welcoming arms in his bed, no womanly laughter wrapping around him while he reminded himself how good it was to be with his wife.

This time, his reception would be cold.

Mac stepped back, lifting his hands in surrender. “I’ve apologized, Isabella. I am truly sorry. If there had been a way to know, I would have been at your side. You need to heal—I understand. Send for me again when you want me.”

He’d turned on his heel and walked away from her. He’d walked all the way down the stairs, out of the house, and caught the next train to Scotland. There he’d buried himself in Mackenzie single-malt and waited for Isabella’s message.

It never came.

Mac’s thoughts ran out, and he found himself in the present. He stood in Aimee’s nursery, holding Isabella back against him, watching how even weak sunlight glowed in the soft curls above her ear.

“Isabella,” he whispered. “I was a selfish, selfish bastard. Do you believe me when I tell you I realize that now?”

Isabella studied the dusting of soot on the windowsill outside. “It was a long time ago.”

“And you’ve forgotten all about it? I doubt it, my love.”

Isabella’s sigh was so soft he barely caught it. “I am finished with that part of our lives. The anger, the recriminations, the hurt. I don’t wish to revisit it.”

Mac kissed the warm place behind her ear. “I don’t wish to revisit it, either. And I don’t want you to forgive me. Do you understand? Never forgive me.”

“Mac.”

“Hear me out. When I told you that I wanted you in my life again, I meant that I want to give back everything I took from you.”

“You took nothing from me,” Isabella said.

“Balls. I loved and adored you, but I drained you like a thirsty man at a spring. I loved what you could give me—your admiration, your acceptance, your love, your forgiveness. I forgot to love you for yourself.”

“And you’ve changed?”

He laughed at the skepticism in her tone. “I’d like to think so. I want to make up for all I’ve done.”

Isabella turned in his arms. Her eyes were wet. “May we not talk about it just now, Mac? Please?”

Mac nodded. He was still an idiot—wanting Isabella to admire him for having changed, when she clearly had her mind on other things. Was this his true punishment? To watch the woman he’d treated so rottenly remain indifferent to his efforts to make amends?

“Ainsley wrote me,” Isabella was saying. “The letter was waiting when I came home from shopping.”

Mac didn’t give a damn about anything but Isabella at the moment, but he made himself answer. “How are things progressing?”

“She’s planned to let me meet with Louisa. After all these years, I will finally be able to see my sister again.”

Mac held her a little tighter, knowing how important this was to her. “Excellent news. Where and when is this meeting to take place?”

“Tomorrow afternoon in Holland Park. And no, you are not invited. This is something I must do alone.”

She gave him a stern look, and Mac smiled. “Very well, my dear. I will banish myself.” He wouldn’t entirely, but she did not need to know that.

“Thank you.”

Mac bent his head to kiss her, but just then Aimee awoke. Isabella pushed abruptly from Mac, snatched up the doll, and went to Aimee, giving the girl a wide smile as she showed Aimee her new toy.

Isabella arrived at the meeting place in Holland Park well before the appointed time of four o’clock. She paced the path, imagining all sorts of reasons that her sister would not be able to come. Perhaps their father would get wind of the scheme and lock Louisa in her bedroom. Perhaps Louisa would change her mind, still angry at Isabella for her elopement.

But no, she could trust Ainsley. Ainsley had charm—she could get ’round anyone, and the fact that she was a queen’s lady would hold much weight with Isabella’s mother. Ainsley was also resourceful. If anyone could arrange a secret meeting between Isabella and Louisa, it was Ainsley Douglas.

Still, Isabella clenched and unclenched her hands as she paced. What would she say to Louisa when she saw her? How have you been the past half-dozen years? My, how you’ve grown?

That last time Isabella had spoken to her sister, Louisa had worn her hair in pigtails. Louisa had admired Isabella, asking question after question about clothes, hair, marriage, and men, as though innocent Isabella were an oracle of sorts. Isabella had glimpsed her sister from afar since marrying Mac, noting how she’d sprung up into a lovely young woman, but she’d only been able to watch from a distance with a sore heart.

Isabella heard a rustle behind her, and her pulse raced. She stepped onto the narrow path between thick-standing trees and saw the broad back of a man with dark red hair walking away from her.

“Mac,” she said in exasperation, then the man turned.

Not Mac. Isabella whirled and took two steps before he caught her by the waist and pulled her off her feet. He clapped a hand over her mouth as she opened it to scream.

“Isabella,” he said, hot spittle touching her ear. “My darling, never leave me again.”