Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage (23 page)

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.”