“Louisa, I’m sorry,” Isabella whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Do you love Lord Mac?”
“Yes.” Isabella’s heart went into the word. “I love him very much.”
“Then why?”
“Marriage is not simple, I’m sorry to say. There are so many facets to it, and every year brings something new. For the good and for the bad. I suppose that’s why the marriage vows say for better or for worse.”
“But you love him?”
“I do.”
Louisa moved to stand in front of Isabella. They were of the same height now, Isabella’s funny little sister all grown up.
“I’m glad,” Louisa said. “I’m glad that you found someone to love. Does he love you?”
Isabella nodded, the dratted tears welling in her eyes again. “Yes, he does. Rather a lot, I think.”
“Then you were wrong to leave him. Why did you throw that away?”
“Because he didn’t love me enough. It is difficult to explain. Mac loved me so intensely that he did maddening things for me and because of me. He’d disappear without a word for weeks, because he thought that would make me happy. He never thought to ask me what would make me happy, or what I needed from him. Mac did everything based on what he felt, never noticing what I felt.”
“And that’s why you left him?”
“In the end, yes.”
Isabella remembered the dark days after she’d lost the baby, the despair she’d felt when Mac finally came home too drunk and crushed himself to comfort her. Everything between them had built and built into a wall of anger and hurt and sadness.
“One day I woke up and saw things clearly,” Isabella said, half to herself. “I knew that Mac would never learn to love me without hurting me. I couldn’t stay with him while he did the same things over and over again. I no longer had the strength to face him.”
“Did you tell him? Give him a chance to try?”
“You didn’t see the truth of us.” Isabella sighed. “I don’t know if you knew this, Louisa, but I was carrying a child, and I lost it. I needed a long time to recover after that ordeal, and Mac couldn’t give that to me. He was hurting too, and he didn’t know how to make everything all better. That drove him a little insane, I think.”
She explained how the physical pain of the miscarriage had given way to months of grief, and then of tiredness. She’d no longer had the energy for the comet that was Mac Mackenzie.
“What about now?” Louisa asked. “I saw him arrive with you today, and my maid says he has been living in your house with you.”
Isabella nodded. “Mac has changed. He is calmer—a bit. And he seems to think about things more.” She laughed a little. “Usually. He still is impetuous and exasperating. It’s part of what makes him so charming, I suppose.”
“And you still love him?”
Louisa held her gaze, her look stern. Isabella realized at that moment that it would be Louisa who held the family together after this tragedy. Their mother was too worn down, too uncertain how to live without a cushion of money and security beneath her. Louisa would be the strong shoulder everyone leaned on.
Isabella’s heart swelled as she thought of Mac, who was even now running all over London to make certain that Isabella’s mother and sister wanted for nothing. Mac had no legal obligation to her family, and no emotional one to the people who had refused to speak to him after he’d married Isabella. He could have washed his hands of the Scrantons, claimed that Isabella’s family deserved what they’d got.
But he didn’t, and Isabella knew he never would. His compassion was as large as his heart, Mac, who’d decided to adopt a helpless little girl like Aimee so she wouldn’t grow up in the gutter.
Even when Isabella had left him, Mac had made certain that Isabella continued to live as lavishly as she’d grown accustomed to. He hadn’t punished her. He hadn’t rushed into the arms of other women for consolation. He’d stopped drinking, stopped his all-night revels with his rakish friends, stopped wasting himself.
For her.
“I think I do,” Isabella whispered to Louisa. “I do.”
It was a heady feeling, this surge of love, and very, very frightening.
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 wil
l 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.