Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage (12 page)

“No, you will not,” Cameron returned. “Isabella, would you mind if Danny stays on with you? It’s only a few days until we go to Doncaster.”

Daniel simultaneously brightened at the confirmation he’d get to attend the races and looked crestfallen that he’d have to stay with an auntie who didn’t like him smoking. “I can go to the hotel with you, Da’. You already have a room there. I can squeeze in.”

Cameron shook his head. “I’m in and out too much to keep a proper eye on you. Isabella’s is the best place for you to stay.” Cameron rose, came to Isabella, and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you, sister-in-law. Lovely breakfast. See you on the train, Mac.”

He shot his son one last scowl and strode out of the room. In the hall he thanked the footman who’d scuttled to open the door for him, and was gone.

The room settled into silence, as though a hurricane had just blown itself out. Cameron Mackenzie was a force of nature.

Daniel stared wordlessly at the table while Isabella and Mac went back to their breakfasts. Daniel’s long arms had grown out of his jacket; he’d sprouted up this summer, and now was nearly as tall as his father.

He was a little boy no longer, but he wasn’t a man yet, either. His throat worked as he said, “Da’ doesn’t want me with him.”

Isabella’s heart squeezed in sympathy. “The hotel is full, that is all. And he’s right: I can look after you more properly here.”

“Don’t patronize me, Auntie. He sent me to Dr. Nichols to get me out of his hair, and he’s having me stay with you for the same reason. Da’ doesn’t give a monkey’s ass whether I learn physics or not. He just don’t want me at the hotel with him. He wants to go about w’ women, and he doesn’t want a fifteen-year-old son in his way.”

“You take it too hard. Cam simply wants what he thinks best for you.”

“The boy is right,” Mac said. Isabella sent him a glare, but Mac shook his head. “Cam’s never been domestic, and you know it. I don’t know what woman can make him settle down, but I’d love to meet her.”

Daniel brightened, prone to lightning changes of moods. “Settle down like you did, Uncle Mac?”

“Mind your tongue, boy.”

“Leave him be.” Isabella signaled to Bellamy, who approached with more coffee. “You’re perfectly welcome to stay with me, Daniel. We’ll play games all day, and you can escort me to the theater at night. I’m certain your Uncle Mac will have far too much to do to pay much attention to us.”

“On the contrary.” Mac set down his cup. “I have all the time in the world.” He winked at Daniel. “Besides, I’m very good at games.”

Mac spent the next two days busily trying not to go mad. Living in a house with Isabella, knowing she slept in the bedroom just beyond the bathroom, kept him sleepless and randy. But considering that someone had succeeded in burning Mac out of his house, possibly this person forging his paintings, possibly simply a mad arsonist, he wanted to keep a close eye on Isabella. A few of Bellamy’s cronies from his pugilist days agreed to help watch Isabella’s house, and Mac asked Inspector Fellows to have someone watch Crane’s gallery in case the forger returned. The efficient inspector already had done so.

Meanwhile, Mac had to get through the strain of living in close proximity with Isabella without touching her. The worst was when he heard her maid prepare the bath for her, followed by the soft splash as Isabella descended into the water.

He’d groan and rub his face, his body demanding that he fling open the door and fall into the water with her. She’d be soapy and bare, her skin flushed with heat. Even stroking himself for relief didn’t do much good. The only hands that could appease him were hers.

Leaving for Doncaster couldn’t come quickly enough for him—but then again, Mac was loathe to abandon the cozy setup of the two of them in one house. Daniel was there too, of course, the boy cheerfully escorting Isabella about. Mac would trail along with them, wishing Cameron could take care of his own son, but not having the heart to send Daniel away.

Mac strolled into the drawing room the day before they were to leave, while Daniel was out stocking up on books. That is, Daniel
claimed
that he was off to the book shops, but he was likely holed up somewhere playing cards with his friends.

Isabella sat near the window overlooking the garden behind the house. An open magazine rested in her lap, but she wasn’t reading it. She gazed out at the rainy garden, the scarlet glory of her hair bright against her gray and blue frock.

She looked around when she heard him enter, and Mac saw that her eyes were rimmed with red.

He moved to the sofa and sat next to her. “Love, what is it?”

Isabella looked away. “Nothing.”

“I know you far too well to believe that. ‘Nothing’ usually translates to ‘something dreadful.’ ”

Isabella opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again and slid a cream-colored paper out from between the pages of her magazine. Mac took it and read.

Familiar anger at Isabella’s father rose as Mac read the missive. Earl Scranton was a selfish, priggish bastard. Isabella had cried without consolation when, after writing to her sister and mother immediately after her marriage to Mac, her letters had been returned by her father, cut into shreds. The earl had added a stern note forbidding Isabella further contact with the family. Scranton had never lifted the ban, not even when Isabella had ceased living with Mac.

Mac handed the letter back to Isabella. She slid it into her jacket, nestling it over her heart.

“This Mrs. Douglas is your old school chum?” he asked, striving for something light to say. “The one who could scramble down a trellis in her nightdress?”

Isabella nodded. “She offered to send my love to Louisa for me when she saw her again. Apparently she coaxed a note from Louisa to give me in return.”

Mac leaned uncomfortably into the corner of the small sofa, few pieces of furniture able to accommodate his large body. “Good for Mrs. Douglas.”

“She’s rather sorry for me.” Isabella gave him a faint smile. “But I’m grateful for her help.”

“I am too.” Mac fell silent, and Isabella looked out the window again.

Earl Scranton was the same kind of unforgiving terror Mac’s own father had been, though in different ways. Mac’s father had been volatile, hot-blooded, and violent, whereas Isabella’s father was ice-cold and never raised his voice.

The litany of the many ways in which marriage to Mac had ruined Isabella’s life paraded through his head. That she’d stuck with him for three years said much about her fortitude.

“We leave for Doncaster tomorrow,” Isabella said without turning from the window. “You will not share a hotel suite with me there, so put the idea out of your head.”

Mac stretched his arm across the back of the sofa. “You won’t be staying in a hotel, love. Hart has hired a house for all of us, you and your servants included. Ian insists that Beth will be more comfortable in our own accommodations, and I agree with him.” He propped his feet on the tea table, still seeking a comfortable position. “Beth will want you with her.”

Isabella threw him an exasperated look. “Mac, we are separated. That is the end of it.”

“No, it is not.”

She frowned at him, green eyes filled with anger. He was glad to see the fury; anything to erase her heartbroken look.

“I left you to save my sanity, Mac,” she said. “I’ll hardly return to it if you continue to drive me mad.”

“You like me driving you mad.” Mac let his grin blossom. “Your life is empty when I’m not giving you hell.” He broke off as Bellamy pushed open the door to allow Evans to carry in a tea tray. “Tea, excellent. I’m famished.”

Isabella regarded the setup of two cups and saucers with annoyance. The servants seemed elated to have Mac in the house and had settled into the habit of preparing all meals for two. Which delighted Mac.

Evans and Bellamy retreated, and Mac brought his feet down. “Now, then, Isabella, a courting couple would take tea together, would they not? A gentleman would call on the lady, and she’d serve him tea.”

“Not alone.” Isabella reached for the teapot. “Her mama or prim governess or maiden aunt would sit against the wall, keeping a disapproving eye on the young couple.”

“Very well, we will pretend that Great-Aunt Hortense lounges behind the potted palms.” Mac gave a mock salute to an empty chair on the other side of the room. “Then what?”

“Then nothing. I’d pour out, and you’d drink the tea.”

Isabella filled the cups as she spoke. Mac’s heart skipped a beat when, without asking, she prepared it the way he liked it—two sugars, no milk. She remembered.

Mac took the cup and set it next to him, waiting politely as she lifted the cloth from a basket and laid a scone on a porcelain plate. He didn’t reach for it until she’d prepared her own tea; then he pulled the scone into two pieces, mounding its soft innards with pale yellow cream.

“One of the only things the English do right is scones and clotted cream,” he said. “The Scots invented scones of course, but the English do them well.”

“I am English,” Isabella reminded him.

“I know that, my lovely Sassenach.”

Mac took a deep bite of scone. Isabella’s gaze fixed on his mouth as clotted cream oozed over his lips. Mac licked them clean, deliberately taking his time.

“This is quite good.” He gave her a wicked smile. “Would you like to try it?”

His heart beat faster as Isabella’s cheeks stained pink. “Yes, I would, rather.”

Mac lifted the piece of slathered scone to her. Isabella took it between her lips, her tongue coming out to lift it inside her mouth. Mac’s body grew hot as he watched her chew, her slender throat moving as she swallowed.

Mac held up his thumb, showing her a bit of cream clinging to it. “I have a little here.”

He waited for her to push him away, to bathe him in scorn and tell him that the game was over. Instead, she guided his hand to her mouth, closed her lips around the tip of his thumb, and sucked away the cream.

Mac groaned. “You are a cruel, cruel woman.”

Isabella released his hand and sat back. “Why?”

“Tempting me with a taste of what I can’t have.”

“It is you who refuses to be satisfied with only a taste.”

He set down his plate and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t want a taste, Isabella. I want all of you. Again and again, for the rest of our lives. That’s what marriage means, my wife. Together forever. Bound in love.”

“In duty, you mean,” Isabella said.

He laughed. “Sassenach, if you believed marriage was for duty alone, you’d never have eloped with me in the first place. When you met me you didn’t think,
Ah, here is a dashing rake. Let me run off with him so I can be dutiful.
No, you wanted some entertainment instead of marrying a dried-up stick your father picked out for you.”

“Perhaps, but most marriages turn into duty and habit, from what I have witnessed.”

Mac fell back against the sofa. “Oh, God, Isabella, you’ll slay me with your pessimism. Look at Ian and Beth. They’re mad about each other. Are you saying their marriage has changed to duty and habit? ”

“Of course not.”

“Nor did yours. Don’t lie.”

“No,” she said softly. “It didn’t.”

Thank the Lord for that. He remembered the nights she’d smiled down at him in his bed, her warm body on his while she rode him.
Duty, my balls.

“The proof is that when I drove you mad, you ran away,” Mac said. “A dutiful woman would have stayed and put up with me.”

“Gracious, I pity such a woman.”

“I know you do, because you are not that woman. What you ought to have done was smash me over the head, repeatedly, until I came to my senses.”

“Perhaps my leaving was meant to do just that.”

He hid his dart of pain by reaching for the bowl of cream. “You certainly got my attention, love.” He scooped a glob of cream onto his first two fingers and gave her a sly look. “Now, I dare you, my fine lady from Miss Pringle’s Academy: From which part of my anatomy would you like to lick this cream?”