Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage

Chapter 20

It is said that the Scottish Lord has returned to the Continent to Paint, and rumor has it that his Lady has also taken a holiday there. They were seen in close proximity to each other in Paris, but each seemingly never noticed that the other was there. —June 1881

Mac saw little of Isabella in the following weeks, because she was distracted with funeral arrangements and looking after her mother. But whenever they met in passing, Isabella would flash him a smile that set his heart throbbing. Other parts of his anatomy too.

He longed to stop her when she kissed his cheek on the way out of the breakfast room or rushed about packing up her mother’s house to find out why she looked so pleased with him, but he also had much to do. He and Cameron spent most of their time with bankers and investment houses sorting out the tangle of Scranton’s debts, buying them up or settling them outright.

Mac intended to take the debts he’d paid and make a show of ripping up the notes in front of Lady Scranton’s face. He hoped to make the sad lady smile. And perhaps Isabella would seize Mac in an embrace of passionate gratitude and make some of his baser fantasies come true. Well, he could hope.

The fact that Cameron was just as willing to help warmed him. Cameron wasn’t known for suffering fools gladly, but when Mac mentioned his gratitude, Cam said in surprise, “Isabella is family.”

Hart, too, pulled stings from afar, and Ian himself came down, with Beth, of course, breaking the journey so not to tire her. The two of them stayed in Hart’s town house, because Isabella’s house now overflowed with her mother and sister, Aimee and Miss Westlock, and Mac. Beth and Ian spent most of their time at Isabella’s nonetheless, and so did Cameron, which made finding time alone with Isabella damned difficult. But Mac, after three years of loneliness, couldn’t help but like having the house full. Isabella, he noticed, never once suggested that Mac move into Hart’s London mansion with Ian and Beth.

Mac kept a strict eye out for Payne, but the man seemed to have made himself scarce. Payne delivered no more paintings to Crane, nor did he stop to collect his money, and neither Mac nor Fellows nor the other policemen saw him lurking. Payne had never tried to find Aimee, which both relieved and disgusted Mac. What kind of man abandoned his own child? On the other hand, Mac had grown fond of Aimee and was happy enough that Payne wasn’t trying to snatch her away.

Lord Scranton had a suitably grand funeral, and his family laid him to rest in his mausoleum in Kent. His heir, a distant cousin of Isabella’s, took over the estate house, the only thing left of the earl’s former holdings. The cousin, an affable middle-aged bachelor, was happy to let Lady Scranton and Louisa live there as long as they liked.

Lady Scranton liked the idea. She’d be on hand to advise on the running of the house she’d presided over for years, and she could organize village fetes and run the church’s charity works to her heart’s content.

Louisa was not so sanguine, but Isabella promised that Louisa would spend so much time at Kilmorgan and in Isabella’s house in London that she’d be in no danger of moldering in the country. Also, it had been settled that Mac and Isabella would host Louisa’s come-out ball, though their mother would be in the thick of the organization. Louisa would have her debut, not this spring, because the family would still be in mourning, but in the Season after that.

The afternoon after the funeral, which Hart and Daniel came down to attend, Ian planted himself in front of Mac and waited for Mac to notice him. This was Ian’s way of letting Mac know he wanted a word.

Mac turned and walked with his brother across the sweeping lawn and down a lane lined with trees.

“Have you done it?” Ian asked.

Mac glanced at his brother, but Ian looked straight ahead. “Do you mean, is Isabella my wife again?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think she is?”

“I don’t know, which is why I am asking you.”

Mac rubbed his upper lip, nervous for some reason. “You’ve been observing her for the last week. And me. You’re a perceptive man. What do you think?”

“Do you share a bed?”

“Sometimes. Not as often as I’d like, but she’s been a bit distracted, with her father ruining himself and dying and all.”

Ian frowned, and Mac chastised himself. His brother took all words at face value.

“Yes, she has been distracted,” Ian said. “You should be comforting her.”

“I am. When she lets me.”

Ian stopped walking, exasperated. “Are you man and wife again or not?”

“I am attempting to explain, brother mine, that I don’t know. Sometimes I think so, but other times . . . I rushed her about revoking the separation, and I think that frightened her. I won’t make that mistake again.”

Ian didn’t blink, and even though Ian didn’t look directly at Mac, his stare was unnerving. “You are not trying hard enough.”

“I am, Ian. I’m trying like the devil.”

“You’re not showing her your true self, because you fear looking like a fool.”

This from a man who could not help but show his true self. Unable to master subtlety or lies, Ian said what was in the front of his mind, nothing more. This unnerved most people, but Beth managed to draw perfect sense from him.

“I did look like a fool,” Mac said. “You missed my performance with the Salvation Army band. I was a master cymbal clasher.”

“Isabella told me about that. But you did not let yourself be a fool. You make a joke of everything so people will laugh, so you will not have to face what you don’t wish to.”

“Stop it, Ian. This stark truth is killing me.”

Ian ran his gaze up and down Mac’s mourning suit. “You see? You are trying to joke again.”

Mac lost his smile. “What do you want, Ian? For me to fall at her feet and show her what a pathetic wretch I’ve become? To expose every raw wound inside me?”

“Yes. Bare your soul. Hart told me what that metaphor meant a long time ago.”

“But I don’t think Isabella wants that. She wants funny and charming Mac, the Mac who makes her laugh and smile. Not mewling, pathetic Mac.”

“Ask her,” Ian said.

Mac heaved another sigh. “You’re a hard man, Ian Mackenzie.”

Ian didn’t respond, which could mean that he didn’t know what Mac meant, or that he didn’t care. Both, probably.

The two of them continued their walk and ended up at the garden behind the house. Isabella stood with her sister and mother and Beth among the flower beds, with Beth holding Aimee. The ladies all wore black, but Isabella was regal and beautiful in it. She had one arm around her mother’s waist, the other around Louisa’s.

Mac’s heart warmed. It had been a sad day, watching Isabella say good-bye to her father, but the fear and worry had left Lady Scranton’s face. Isabella glanced up, saw Mac, and sent him a smile.

“There,” Mac said to Ian in a low voice. “I’m sorry it took a tragedy to do it, but Isabella has been reunited with her family. Sins forgiven. Even if we are never truly man and wife again, seeing her as she is now, with her arms around the people she loves, is enough for me.”

Ian looked at Mac in silence for a long time. “No, it isn’t,” he said.

He walked away from Mac and made for Beth and her welcoming smile.

Mac thought about Ian’s words as they concluded their visit to Kent and returned to London. Louisa elected to stay with their mother and get her settled, not wanting to leave Lady Scranton alone too soon. Isabella had already asked them to travel with her when she went back to Kilmorgan for the Christmas season. Lady Scranton at first had been reluctant, but Mac had been at his most jovial and talked her into it. Isabella had given him a smile of gratitude for that too.

But Ian was right. Gratitude was not enough.

Exposing his soft underbelly was not something Mac was used to doing. Mac had thought he’d done it already, telling her about the terrible time he’d spent in Italy after he’d decided to give up drink. He realized now that he’d told her that to not only gain her sympathy, but prove that he took their marriage seriously. He hadn’t actually showed her the entire wreck of a man that was Mac Mackenzie. Isabella might cheerfully grind her elegant, high-heeled boot into that wreck and walk away from him, but he had to take that chance.

Thinking about her slender ankles in those high-heeled boots did not help. Nor did thinking of her in nothing but the high-heeled boots.

He was visualizing this pleasant possibility while mixing paints in his studio one day when he heard Isabella walk in. He glanced up from his paint table, and his heart gave the excited twinge it always did when he saw her. She’d dressed today in a black gown trimmed with intricate loops of black braid, her red hair and green eyes startling color against this darkness.

“Mac,” Isabella said abruptly. “Did you keep the letter I sent you?”

With effort Mac turned his attention back to his paints. “Letter?”

“The letter I sent you the night I left.”

Ah. That letter. Mac kept kneading paint globs to hide his nervous start. “Why would you imagine I still have it?”

“I don’t know whether you do. That is why I have to ask.”

“You sound like Ian.”

“Ian knows how to make people answer him.”

Mac laid down his palette knife. “Touché. All right, then. Come with me.”

He led her down the stairs to his bedroom. It still was his bedroom; he hadn’t slept with Isabella since the night her father died.

Mac opened the wardrobe and extracted the small box that Bellamy had saved from the half-burned house, knowing that Mac kept his most treasured keepsakes in it. He set the box on a console table and opened it. A well-creased letter lay on the bottom, worn with time and reading. Mac extracted it and held it out to Isabella.

“This appears to be it.”

“Will you read it to me?” she asked.

His false cheerfulness died. “Why?”

“I’d like to remember what I wrote.”

Why the hell should she want that? Was she demanding, like Ian, that he expose his soul? Perhaps, but Mac felt as closed-off from her as ever as he unfolded the paper.

The words she’d written had burned into his heart like fine lines etched into metal. Mac didn’t truly need to read the letter, because he’d memorized every damned word of it. But he dutifully began.

“Dearest Mac.”

Isabella shifted slightly, and Mac cleared his throat. Dearest Mac,

I love you. I will always love you. But I can live with you no longer. I’ve tried to be strong for you, for three years I have tried. I have failed. You tried to remake me in your image, dear Mac, and I tried to be what you wanted, but I no longer can. I am sorry. I want to write that my heart is breaking, but it is not. It broke some time ago, and I have just now realized that I can leave my heartbreak behind and go on. The decision to live without you was a painful one and not lightly made. I realize you can legally cause me much harm for taking this step, and I ask you, for the love we once shared, not to. It could be that I will not need to leave forever, but I know that I need time apart, alone, to heal. You have explained that you sometimes leave me for my own good, so I will have a chance to recover from life with you. Now I am doing the same, leaving so that both of us have a chance to breathe, a chance to cool. Living with you is like being with a shooting star, one that burns so brightly that it scorches me. And I am watching the star burn out. In the end, Mac, I fear there will be nothing left of you. I know you will be angry when you read this, because you can grow so angry! But when you stop being angry, you will realize that my decision is sound. Together, we are destroying each other. Apart, I can remember my love for you. But you are burning me. You have exhausted me, and I have nothing left to give. Ian has agreed to bring this letter to you, and he will inform me of what steps you decide to take. I trust Ian to help us through. Please do not try to seek me yourself. I love you, Mac. I will always love you. Please be well.

Isabella

By the time he finished, Mac no longer looked at the letter but at her. Isabella turned away, lashes shielding her eyes. She moved to the window, a slender, graceful figure in soot black.

Outside on the street, carriages clattered by, coachmen whistled, and people called out to one another. Inside all was stillness. Mac glanced back at the letter, and saw the words he’d read over and over until he knew each by heart, each one stabbing him to the quick.

“Why did you keep it?” Isabella asked without looking at him.

Mac swallowed. “Who knows? I’ve tried to make myself burn it, but always I fold it up and put it back into the box.”

Isabella turned and silently held out her hand for the paper. After a tense moment, Mac took it to her.

She unfolded it and skimmed the words. Her mouth tightened as she finished, and then in one short jerk, she tore the paper in half. Before Mac could protest, she moved swiftly to the stove and tossed the letter inside.

Mac was beside her, grabbing her wrist, but too late. “What are you doing?”

Isabella looked at him in surprise. “Why would you not want me to burn it?”

“Because that letter told me how you felt. Your true feelings, in black and white. I needed to know them.”

“Those were my feelings then. They are not my feelings now.”

The fire crackled as the last of the paper died away. Damn it, the letter had been his lifeline. It had been a reminder of why he’d pushed aside whiskey and wild living, why he’d chosen to reform.

“I read it for comfort,” he said. “On the worst nights, when I was tempted to drink to ease the pain, I’d read it over again. And I’d tell you, in my head, that I was working to change—for you. That you didn’t need to worry, I wouldn’t let myself burn out. I would come back to you a new man.”

“How on earth did that comfort you?”

“The letter kept me sober, love. I needed it to.”

Was this the naked exposure? Foolish Mac, who’d used a hurtful letter as a prop to get him through the nights?

A part of him was crying out, the terrified boy who’d been caught and beaten when his father had found his copy-books covered with drawings instead of lessons. Mac had been forbidden with threats of more beatings to indulge in art, but try as he might, Mac hadn’t been able to stop.

The pictures had poured out of him—birds outside the window, the stream where he fished, his brothers, his mother, even his father. Mac had lived in the shadows of Hart and Cameron, both so much older, both tall, athletic, smart. But the art was his own.

The old duke had considered Mac’s need to paint weak and unmanly. When Mac had started taking mistresses at age fifteen, his father had not hidden his relief. I thought you’d be one of those unnaturals, boy. You stick with cunny and breasts and kill any man who tries to convince you otherwise.

The old duke would have hated Mac now, his son so in love with a woman that he’d changed his whole life for her.

Women are like tar, his father had been fond of saying. Useful in their own way, but they’ll mire you fast if you’re not careful. They entice with their bodies then bind you with their little tantrums and tears. Take them to your bed and enjoy them, marry the one with the right connections, but above all, keep them in their place.

Isabella had never clung, never played games with tantrums and tears. She was a woman, not a girl, and could have brought his father to his knees with one scornful look.

I need that letter, the whimpering boy inside him cried.

Or did he? For one thing, every word of the damn thing was seared into his memory. For another, he’d done it: Mac had stopped living in a frenzy. He’d lived the wild life, he now knew, because he feared that he’d have to face his true self if he ever ceased drinking, painting, running, always running away.

“What are your feelings now?” Mac asked her.

Isabella kept her gaze averted. “I was harsh three years ago,” she said. “I was tired and miserable and angry and afraid. I kicked you away because I couldn’t face what I needed to while I was distracted with you.”

“I distracted you, did I?” Mac wanted to laugh. “A kind word for it.”

“You needed me to forgive you. You demanded it, and I no longer had the strength.”

“I had no business demanding anything of you. I told you that before, remember? I humbly apologized, and I still do. I mean it.”

“I know.” Isabella finally looked at him, and he saw anxiety in her eyes, as though she worried that he wouldn’t forgive her. “I did forgive you. I knew about everything you did after I left you. Ian reported to me—and when Ian makes a report, you can be sure I hear every detail.”

They both smiled a little. Ian had the kind of mind that could remember a list of numbers three months after he’d seen it, or every word of a conversation from the previous week even when no one had thought him listening.

“So, where are we now?” Mac asked. “I’m a responsible teetotaler who’s adopted a child, but you married a carousing, carefree, wild cad. Will you even like the Mac Mackenzie I’ve become?”

Isabella reached for his hand. “You . . . I don’t know how to put this, but you’re the real you now, I think. You’ve lost all the things you hid behind. As though you’re naked and unafraid.”

Mac squeezed her fingers. “I could be naked, if you like. It’s warm enough in here.”

“But there are things about the other Mac I still love,” Isabella went on. “I love your humor, your ability to render things harmless by laughing at them. I love your charm. When you were playing with the band on the street corner, you rose to the occasion with aplomb and made your friends look like idiots for ridiculing people. I was so proud to be your wife that night.”

Mac kissed her fingers. “You know, the sergeant said I was welcome to canvass with them any time. Then you can show me again how proud you are of me.”

“And I love how you turn anything we talk of into a game of seduction.”

“Now, that is good to know.”

“It makes me feel wanted and loved.” Isabella covered his paint-smeared hand with both of hers. “I’m willing to try to be your wife again.”

Mac’s heart thumped so hard he could barely breathe. Never mind the damn letter. Having Isabella herself was hundred times better. “What do you mean by that? Exactly. Be precise. Be as precise as Ian would be. I don’t want to misunderstand. Misunderstanding would make me hope, and I can’t live on false hope.”

Isabella stilled his lips with her fingertips. “I mean that I’m willing to try to live as your wife, to see how we rub along. No more games. Just life.”

“Try.” Mac kissed her fingers before she lowered them. “Only try? Not—yes, Mac, please reverse the separation and we’ll live happily ever after?”

“No hurrying. Living together as man and wife. If we both truly have changed, if we are able to settle down and trot along happily together, then we summon Mr. Gordon and have him attend to the legal matters.”

While part of Mac rejoiced at her words, another part chafed in impatience. He wanted this done, finished, so that the gnawing in his belly could go away, and he wouldn’t wake up in terror that she’d be gone again.

Still another part of him felt a twinge of guilt. He’d started to show her his soft underbelly with the letter, but she’d cut him off before he could do much more. The letter was only part of it. She was wrong; he was still hiding, and she was praising him for it.

He gave her a wicked smile, the wretch inside him banished again. “You wish to live together as man and wife, eh? My deliciously scandalous lady.” He grasped her hand and pulled her to him. “I’ll agree to your terms. For now. Not exactly the dazzling romance I had in mind, but I’ll take it.”

“And, Mac?”

“Yes, angel?”

“I’d like to try for a baby.”

Her words washed more hope through him. Isabella had been so terrified to conceive again after her miscarriage that they’d ceased sleeping in the same bed together. Mac had understood and wanted to give her time, but keeping away from each other had put even more strain on their already strained marriage.

“That sounds a fine idea,” Mac’s mouth said while his head rang with jubilation. “We’ve been doing quite a bit of trying already. Something may come of that.”

Isabella shook her head. “I had my courses when we were in Kent.”

“Mmm.” Mac strove to suppress his sudden and acute disappointment. “Well, my sweet, we’ll simply have to try harder.” He touched a silken curl on her forehead. “And often. Much, much more often.”

“May we today?”

“Certainly.” Mac was fully erect behind his kilt, which she had to have felt even through her layers of skirts. “I know where a nice, soft bed is to be found. Across the room, in fact.”

Isabella smiled, her eyes taking on a wicked sparkle. Mac tamped down his guilty feelings as he led her to his wide bed. She’d exposed a large part of her heart this time, but Mac’s hurts would remain hidden until another day.

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” Miss Westlock said as she walked into the breakfast room the next morning.

Isabella looked up from her letters and arched her brows in surprise. The usually tidy Miss Westlock’s hair was mussed, her face ruddy, her collar askew. At the other end of the able, Mac lowered his newspaper.

“What happened?” he asked.

“As you know, my lord, it is my habit in the mornings to take a brisk walk in Hyde Park before Aimee rises.”

“Yes,” Mac said impatiently. Miss Westlock was a hardy sort, up before dawn, taking light meals and no drink, walking every day.

“Well, a peculiar thing happened this morning. A gentleman approached me along one of the walks, and for a moment, I thought it was your lordship.”

Mac stiffened, and Isabella’s pulse quickened. “Yes?” she prompted.

“When he reached me, I saw that, indeed, it was not your lordship. He looked most like you, but his eyes were different. His are most definitely brown, while yours, your lordship, are more like copper. He alarmed me, rather.”

Isabella clenched her napkin so hard she felt her nails press her palms through the cloth. “What did he do?”

“He asked me at what time I took Aimee for her walk, and would I let him speak to her then? I asked him why, and he claimed he was her father. I of course had no way of knowing whether this was true, and I advised him to consult your lordship. When I said that, he became most incensed, declaring that he was your lordship, and that you were impersonating him.”

Mac said nothing. Isabella saw his stare fix and a blood vessel begin pulsing in his neck, and she recognized that Mac was very, very angry. He rarely grew truly enraged; yes, he liked to shout and could conduct blazing rows with her, but those didn’t stem from true anger. Irritation, frustration, and exasperation, but not fury.

This was anger. Dangerous anger.

“What did you say to him?” Isabella asked Miss Westlock.

“I bade him good morning and started to walk away. He was obviously a madman, and I have learned that one does not engage a madman in conversation. And would you believe it? He seized my arm and tried to drag me away with him.”

Isabella half rose in her chair. “Are you all right? We will summon the police.”

“No, my lady, do not trouble yourself. I saw the wretch off with a few stout thumps of my umbrella. He hastened away. I doubt he wanted a constable to see him trying to accost a helpless woman.”

No one looking at Miss Westlock, especially with her stout umbrella, would think of her as a helpless woman, but Isabella was too unnerved to smile.

“Did you see which direction he went?” she asked.

“Down Knightsbridge, but my lady, he could have gone anywhere after that. He might have hailed a hansom cab and be on the other side of the city by now.”

“Damn him.”

Mac’s snarl made both women jump. He rose from his seat, resting his fists on the table, the rage in his eyes frightening to behold. “Damn the man. I’ve had enough of this.” He kicked aside his chair and shouted for Bellamy.

“Mac,” Isabella said in alarm. “Where are you going?”

“To see Fellows. I want Payne found, and I want him out of our lives.”

Isabella leapt to her feet. “Perhaps you shouldn’t . . .”

“I’m not afraid of him, Isabella. I’ll fetch Fellows, and we’ll hunt him.”

“But if he’s convinced himself that he’s you, and you’re him—or whatever he thinks—he’ll be dangerous.”

Mac gave her a feral smile. “Not half as dangerous as I am, my love.”

Isabella wanted to tell him not to go, to stay with her, but her anger matched Mac’s own. Payne had to be stopped. But the thought of the imposter trying to kill Mac terrified her.

Miss Westlock gave Mac an approving nod. “Her ladyship and I will hold down the fort, my lord, while you do battle. Between us all, we’ll see him off.”

Mac came to Isabella and gave her a hard kiss on the mouth. She tasted his rage and determination, and his strength. She loved all of it. Too soon, the pressure of his fingers disappeared, and she felt a cold draft blow through the room as Mac exited the front door.