“Escape?” Mac’s brows drew together. “I was your escape? Isabella, you wound me.”
“I chose you, Mac. Not for your riches—Miss Pringle emphasized that money is no reason for a lady to marry; the richest husband can be stingy and make you miserable.”
Mac’s scowl deepened. “Miss Pringle ought to have been a preacher.”
“She did sermonize, rather. But she wasn’t wrong.”
“Were you thinking of the moral Miss Pringle when you decided to run away from your family and live in scandal with me?”
“We didn’t live in scandal; we married.” Isabella traced his lips. “If a bit improperly.”
“Nothing improper about it. I made damn sure it was a legal marriage, because I knew your father would come sniffing around, trying to annul it.”
“Poor Papa. I dashed all his hopes. It made me unhappy to do it, but if I had to choose all over again . . .” She looked straight into Mac’s eyes. “I would do the same.”
Isabella saw his confusion, his hope, his sadness. “I ruined your life.”
“Do not be such a martyr. Do you know why I agreed to marry you, Mac Mackenzie? I’d never met you, but I did know about you—everyone talks about your family. I’d heard all about Ian in that horrid asylum and about Cam and Hart and their unhappy marriages, and about you painting naked women in Paris.”
Mac’s eyes widened, copper outlined with black. “Gracious, such scandal to touch a maiden’s ears.”
“I’d have to have been buried in a hole to not hear the gossip, scandalous or no.”
“Hart’s and Cam’s marriages were unfortunate, I grant, but why on earth would that make you want to marry their brother?”
“Because their wives were cared for. Elizabeth was cruel to Cameron, I know she was, but he never says a word against her. And Sarah frustrated Hart by being so timid, but he, too, never said a word. He gave up his longtime mistress to be faithful to her, no matter that Sarah was clearly afraid of him. But he took care of her to the end. Not just to hide the dirty linen, but because he cared. I saw Hart when she and the child died. He was grief-stricken, not relieved as some malicious people put about. Mrs. Palmer’s death was the last nail in the coffin. Hart is so lonely.”
Mac groaned. “Isabella, if you start making Hart barley tea and knitting him slippers, I will become ill.”
“Selfish of you. He needs looking after.”
“He is the great Duke of Kilmorgan. I need looking after.” Mac closed strong arms around her. “I am the man who had all the happiness he could handle before he went and lost it. You need to knit me slippers.”
“Don’t be so ridiculous.” Isabella kissed the tip of his nose. He caught her by the back of her neck and pulled her down for a serious, long kiss. The discussion, she realized, was over.
Mac had rolled her over onto the fallen curtain, his body positioned between her legs, when someone thumped on the door. Bellamy’s gruff voice sounded through it.
“My lord?”
“Bloody hell,” Mac growled. “Go away.”
“Ye said if it were urgent . . .”
“Is the building falling down?”
“Not yet, my lord. His Grace wishes to see you.”
“Tell His Grace to lose himself, Bellamy. In a land far, far away.”
Bellamy paused, clearly unhappy. “I think ye should speak to him, my lord.”
“Blast you, man, you work for me, not my interfering brother.”
“In that case, my lord, I wish to give notice.”
Mac heaved an exasperated sigh. The brothers were used to Hart summoning them peremptorily, but Isabella saw that this time, Hart might have gone too far.
“It’s all right,” she said. She ran her fingertip down Mac’s nose to his lips. “It might be important. I won’t run away.”
Mac gave her a long, intense kiss. The heat of it made her close her arms around him and nestle against him. She somehow knew that when this moment was gone, she’d never have another like it. She wasn’t certain how she knew, but the feeling gripped her and made her hold hard to Mac.
Mac himself would have stayed there, she knew, but Bellamy knocked on the door again and coughed.
“This had better be damned important,” Mac muttered as he rose from Isabella, snatched up his kilt, and made his way to the door, giving Isabella a fine view of his still-trim derriere.
Chapter 13
The Lady of Mount Street has packed her things and retreated to the seaside after a sudden illness. Mayfair is the lesser for her departure.
—September 1877
Urgent, Bellamy had said. Damned disaster, Mac thought as he stepped off the stairs.
Hart stood in the ground floor hall with Ian and a woman Mac had never seen before. The grand hall of the Palladian-style house traversed its entire length and was filled with polished wood, oil paintings, and tall windows. The very center of the hall sported a round table with a massive flower arrangement that the staff changed daily. It used to sport a marble statue of an entwined Greek god and goddess by Bernini, but as beautiful as it was, Beth had decided that flowers would be less shocking to ladies who might pay calls there. The Bernini now resided in Hart’s private suite upstairs.
Mac doubted that the woman had come to call on Beth or Isabella. She was thin to the point of emaciation and wore a dark brown dress, a battered hat, and a cloak that hung loosely from bony shoulders. Her face was worn with care, though she did not look to be much older than Isabella. At her feet, attached to her wrist by a piece of string, stood a tiny girl with bright red hair and brown eyes.
Hart spoke to the woman in French. Ian stood next to them, his hands behind his back, rocking slightly on his heels as he did when he was distracted or upset.
Mac closed the shirt Bellamy had tossed at him over his bare torso and approached them. “Hart? What do you want? Who is she?”
The look Hart turned on him could have punched a hole in a stone wall. Hart’s eyes, golden like an eagle’s, always had a predatory bent, and at the moment they were filled with fury.
“I give you free rein because I’m no saint myself,” Hart said in a tight voice. “But I do not like lies.”
“Lies? What lies? What the devil are you talking about?”
Ian cut him off. “She claims the child is yours. She is wrong.”
“Of course she’s wrong,” Mac said in astonishment. “I’ve never seen the woman before in my life.”