Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage

  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.”

  Chapter 15

  Lady I—M—surprised London by hosting a soiree at her new abode in North Audley Street, for the express purpose of introducing Miss Sarah Connelly, a mezzo-soprano lately come from Ireland, to those of discerning tastes in London. So many responded to this coveted invitation that the modest house was quite bursting at the seams.

  —March 1878

  Isabella bit and fought and kicked, but the man didn’t let her go. He dragged her down the path and through an opening in the tall hedges, cutting her off from the world.

  This was madness. She was in the middle of a park, in the middle of London, in the middle of the afternoon, but this isolated copse could have been deep in the countryside.

  She heard church clocks striking four. Ainsley and Louisa would be arriving at the appointed spot. But what would they find? No Isabella. She’d not had the presence of mind to drop a handkerchief or a brooch as every adventurous heroine should. Ainsley might assume that Isabella had been delayed, or worse, had changed her mind. What Louisa would think, Isabella couldn’t imagine.

  The man swung her to him. Isabella clawed at his face, and he struck her. She tasted blood.

  “Don’t fight me, my Isabella. We belong together.”

  He might look like Mac, this tall man with Mac’s coloring, but he sounded nothing like him. Instead of Mac’s velvet baritone, his voice was scratchy and thin.

  Isabella heard a shout, and without warning, the man let her go. She stumbled and fell, shrubbery scratching her as she went down. Booted feet pounded on the path, and then hands pulled her up
again.

  She fought blindly until she heard a breathless “Isabella.”

  Isabella cried out and threw her arms around the real Mac, clinging to him in relief.

  Mac pried her from him and examined her face, his eyes bright with rage. “Bloody hell. I’ll kill him.”

  Isabella was too out of breath, too terrified, and too angry to argue. She held on to Mac, absorbing his warmth, his strength, the safety of having him here.

  “That was him, wasn’t it?” she heard him ask. “My doppelganger?”

  She nodded. “He looked so like you from the back.”

  “And from the front?”

  “Like you, and yet not.” Mac smelled so good, like male and the scent of outdoors. “No one who knew you well would mistake you after the first moment.”

  “God damn him. Forging paintings and burning down my house is one thing. Touching my wife is unforgivable.”

  Isabella closed her eyes. Her heart pounded with fear, not only for herself but at the thought of Mac chasing after a madman. All she wanted to do was relax into the circle of Mac’s warmth and go home.

  “Stay with me.”

  Mac held her so close she could feel the agitated beating of his heart, feel his hot, quick breath. “I will, sweetheart. I will.”

  The strains of clocks chiming the quarter hour made her lift her head. “Louisa,” she said miserably.

  Mac took her arm and towed her back through the bushes and down the path to the spot where Isabella was to have met Louisa. No one was there. Across the park, Isabella saw Ainsley and the tall form of Louisa walking away arm in arm. Other people strolled near them, and they were too far away for Isabella to call out without drawing attention.

  “Louisa,” Isabella whispered.

  Mac put his arm around her. “I’m sorry, love. Write to Mrs. Douglas and set up another meeting. In a safer place this time.”

  Isabella kept her gaze on Louisa, her little sister now so tall, so regal, so elegant in her autumn-colored frock. Louisa never looked back but walked away with Ainsley, her proud head high.