Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage hp-2

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Cauli,” Mac said in a quiet voice. Cauliflower, who was a foot shorter than Mac, turned red but gave Mac his attention. “Know this: Aimee is not my by-blow, and she will be raised as a proper young lady. Any other gossip is to be squelched. You know the truth, and I expect you to uphold it. You too, Charlie. Tell the others.”

  Cauliflower touched his forehead. “Right you are, chief. You can count on us. But by the bye—since wagers were mentioned—what about the one we made before you went to Paris? You know about the . . . ?” He trailed off, making a painting motion with his hand.

  “The erotic pictures?” Mac finished. “Fear not, Isabella knows all. I keep nothing from my wife, as you know. I am working on them.”

  Charles shook his head. “Time’s running out, Mac, old boy. I hope you know some merry tunes to sing with the temperance band.”

  “I’ve been told I have a nice baritone.” Mac’s words were light, but Isabella saw a muscle tighten in his jaw, his temper rising.

  “We’ll make certain every member of the club is out to watch you and cheer you on. It will cause quite a stir.”

  “I always enjoy making a stir. But I might come through with the paintings, you know.”

  Cauliflower made a point of pulling out his watch and studying it. “Very well. Not much time left, you know.” He gave Mac a sorrowful look. “Don’t let me down, old man. You’ve been my hero since I was ten years old.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Mac said.

  Cauli stuffed his watch back into his pocket, nodded to Isabella, and grabbed Charles by the arm. “Come on, then, Charlie. Let’s have some champagne to celebrate our certain win.”

  Charles bowed to Isabella, somewhat unsteadily, and walked off with Cauli. Mac watched them go in unveiled disgust.

  “To think I used to take pride in leading that gang of bullies.”

  “School makes one do odd things,” Isabella agreed.

  “Did you do odd things? At Miss Pringle’s Special Home?”

  “Select Academy for Young Ladies,” she corrected coolly. “And yes. I was rather a tear.”

  “I think that’s one reason I love you.” Mac looked thoughtful. “I’d like to win that wager and rub their faces in it, before I give them all the cut direct. Would you still be willing?”

  “To pose for you?” She glanced behind them, but Miss Westlock had maintained a discreet distance, pretending to study a guide to the park. “I think I might.”

  Isabella’s skin tingled with the thought. Baring herself while Mac studied her with his warm eyes made her feel wanted and beloved. Her pulse quickened when she thought about what had happened the last time she’d attempted to pose for the paintings.

  Mac bent his head and kissed her lips in full view of the entire park. Aimee looked on with great interest. “Good,” Mac said into her skin. “I believe I feel inspired to paint today.”

  What absolute madness had persuaded Mac that painting Isabella in erotic poses was good for his health, he had no idea. He’d even fancied that his hand would be steadier now that they’d bedded each other. He must have been insane.

  Bellamy helped Mac turn one of Isabella’s large rooms at the top of her house into a studio. There was light here from tall windows, and warmth, because Bellamy had installed a small parlor stove and stoked it with coal. Mac had no intention of letting Isabella catch cold.

  She came upstairs fully dressed that afternoon, not wanting the servants to know that Mac was painting her unclothed. Let them believe he was doing a portrait of her, she said. Mac tried to be clinical as he tied his scarf over his hair and mixed paints, but when Isabella told him she needed him to help her undress, his sangfroid abandoned him.

  Mac’s palms sweated as he pulled off the bodice she’d unbuttoned and unlaced her corset. Steady hands, not bloody likely.

  He used to undress her like this when they were married, kissing her as each piece of clothing fell away. Today, Mac let his lips graze her neck as the corset came off, then her shoulder as she unfastened her chemise.

  Her skin smelled of roses. He pressed kisses to her glossy hair, inhaling her perfume. Isabella loosened her skirt, and Mac unbuckled the tapes that held her small bustle in place. He stepped against her after the cage came off, liking how her backside curved into his hip.

  “I can’t paint you,” he said in her ear. “I want to love you.”

  “Perhaps painting instead will be a good exercise in restraint?”

  “To hell with that.”

  Mac knew Isabella was as nervous as he was. Her skin flushed where he kissed it, and her bare breasts rose as he slid his hand around her waist.

  “Come here,” he said.

  The chaise he’d chosen for her pose was not as accommodating as the one they’d used up in Scotland, a choice he’d made on purpose. He’d thought it would help him avoid temptation. Now he cursed himself. He was hard and ready and could think of nothing else but being inside her. Lessons in restraint be damned.

  He pulled up his kilt, sat on a straight-backed chair, and pulled her down on top of him. Her breasts crushed against his bare chest, and she cried out softly as he pushed inside her.

  The coupling was quick and hot. Too quick. Mac released before he wanted to, and he clung to her, wanting more.

  Isabella smiled down at him. “I am certain I look ravished now.”

  She did. Mac hardened again at the sight of her—swollen-lipped, starry-eyed, face flushed. She had no idea how beautiful she truly was.

  Mac made himself set up his easel while she arranged herself on the chaise. He forced himself to draw lines, to think of them as shapes and curves, not the legs, breasts, and hips of his delectable wife.

  He was sweating profusely by the time he had a good sketch. “Damn stove,” he growled.

  “I think it’s pleasant.” Isabella swung her foot where it dangled from the chaise, her arm stretching languidly over her head. She might be sunning herself in a garden, except that she was naked and indoors.

  “Too bloody hot.” Mac wiped his forehead. “Shall we continue tomorrow?”

  “That suits me. I’m rather stiff.” Isabella put aside the sheet, which didn’t cover her at all, and rose gracefully to her feet.

  Mac was stiff himself, though not in the way she meant. He resolutely didn’t look at her. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could contain himself until she left the room. He thought this until she asked, “Help me dress?”

  It was another hour before they finally made it out of the studio. Isabella had to scuttle down to her own room to change her clothes and redo her hair. This, Mac thought, as he watched her go, was going to kill him.

  They settled into a routine—though settled was a bad word for it, in Mac’s opinion. Each morning, they’d eat breakfast and read their correspondence, then Isabella and Mac would climb to the nursery to say good morning to Aimee and sit with her while she had her breakfast. Afterward, Nanny Westlock would begin Aimee’s activities for the day, and Mac and Isabella would retire to the attic.

  Mac worked on the paintings, and while he did so, he made sketches of Isabella’s face for a portrait he wanted to complete later. They’d make love two or three times each sitting, neither of them able to keep their hands off the other. Perhaps the forbidden nature of what they did charged the air. After all, they were hiding from the rest of the household and making naughty pictures together.

  After each painting session, they parted ways to write letters or take care of their own errands, although whenever Isabella needed to leave the house, Mac went with her. They’d run their errands together, he cheerfully carrying Isabella’s parcels, she looking tolerantly bored as he settled accounts at the bank or spoke with Gordon about whatever business. No more mention was made of reversing their separation.

  Mac didn’t mind dawdling outside the ribbon shops or the elegant trinket stores in the Burlington Arcade while Isabella shopped. He was a man smitten with his beautiful wife, and he noted that smirks from passing gen
tlemen changed to looks of envy whenever Isabella emerged from a shop and took Mac’s arm.

  In the afternoon, they’d walk in the park or drive in the landau, depending on the weather or on what courtship activity Mac asked Isabella to do that day. They attended museum exhibits in bad weather, gardens and parks in good, or went sightseeing to the Tower or Madame Tussauds when the fit took them.

  Payne had made himself scarce after accosting Isabella in the park, and Mac hoped against hope that the man had gone back to Sheffield and ceased his masquerade. Payne had never returned to the rooms he’d let, and Fellows had to admit that he’d reached a dead end.

  Mac still wanted to kill him, but what he mostly wanted was the man out of their lives. Payne could fade into obscurity, and Mac could return to pursuing life with Isabella.

  They’d ceased arguing about their separation, or about why Isabella had left him, or about the pain each of them had gone through. All of that was in the past. This was now, a new beginning. Aimee, of all people, had brought stability to their life, and Mac was going to enjoy it as much as he possibly could. He knew it would come crashing down, because everything in Mac’s life crashed down sooner or later. But for now, he could admit to being happy.

  By mid-October, he had finished four paintings of Isabella.

  Isabella surveyed them critically as Mac varnished the last one. “They’re very good,” she said. “Vivid. I can believe this is a lady who enjoys her lover.”

  The first painting was of Isabella lolling back on the chaise. She dangled one leg from it, her foot brushing the floor; the other foot was propped up with her knee bent, fully exposing the goodness between her legs. She’d lifted one arm over her head, her breasts standing up in firm peaks.

  The second painting showed her leaning over the back of the chaise, hips stuck out, head bowed, ready for her lover. In the third, she sat upright on the chaise, her hands cupping her breasts, nipples poking through her fingers. The fourth was her spread-eagled on a bed. Her right wrist and left foot were tethered to the posts with slackly tied ribbons; ribbons crumpled on the bed in the other two corners as though torn off in exuberant play. Mac and Isabella’s coupling had been enthusiastic when he’d painted that one.

  A jar of yellow roses appeared in each painting, either in full bloom, or drooping with petals falling. The famous Mackenzie yellow balanced the scarlet hues of the draperies and ribbons.

  None of the paintings showed Isabella’s face. Mac had painted her either in shadow or obscured by a fall of dark hair. No one viewing these pictures would realize that Mac had painted his wife.

  Except Mac.

  Mac tossed his brush into a glass jar filled with oil of turpentine. “They aren’t bad.”

  Isabella gave him a look of surprise. “What are you talking about? They’re gloriously beautiful. I thought you said you’d lost your ability to paint.”

  “I had.” Mac wiped his brush on a rag, then stood the brush upright in a jar to dry.

  “An inspiring subject, perhaps. A woman ripe for play.”

  “An inspiring model.”

  Isabella rolled her eyes. “Please don’t pretend I’m your muse, Mac. You painted brilliantly before you ever met me.”

  Mac shrugged. “All I know is that when you left me, and I ceased to be a drunken sot, I couldn’t paint a stroke. Here you are, and here’s what I’ve done.”

  They were erotic paintings, yes, but not in the crass or crude way in which his friends thought of erotica. These were some of the most amazing things Mac had ever painted.

  Drink might have been the thing that gave his paintings force before he met Isabella, but after meeting her . . . Mac had the right of it; she had become his muse. When he’d had neither drink nor Isabella, his talent had vanished. Now it had returned.

  These paintings gave Mac giddy hope, excited him beyond happiness. He could paint without having to be drunk. He only needed to be intoxicated by Isabella.

  Isabella studied the pictures. “Well, at least you’ll be able to make the awful Randolph Manning eat his wager. You’ve won.”

  “No,” Mac said in a quiet voice. “I’ve lost. I will find my friends and tell them I forfeit.”

  Chapter 18

  The Scottish Lord and his Lady may be estranged, but the Lady’s Buckinghamshire fetes show no sign of diminishing in extravagance. The wicked try to put about that the Lady has admirers, but this observer is pleased to remark that she seems to keep herself above suspicion. —July 1879

  Isabella stared at Mac, who kept his gaze on the paintings, a strange look in his eyes. He’d thrown a shirt over his sweating torso but left the red kerchief in his hair.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “These are perfect, exactly what they expected.”

  “Isabella, my sweet, the last thing I want is for Randolph Manning and the rest of my cronies to run their lascivious eyes over pictures of you.”

  “But they won’t be. I mean, they will not know it is me. That was the point. You’ll bring in Molly and paint her head on my body.”

  Mac shook his head. “No, I won’t.”

  “We agreed. Molly always welcomes a job. You know she needs money for her little boy.”

  “We didn’t agree.” Mac wore his stubborn Scots look, which meant that neither God nor all his angels could move him when his mind was made up. “It was your idea for me to mix up heads and bodies. I never remember agreeing to it.”

  “You are the most exasperating man, Mac. What are you going to tell them? Why deliberately lose the wager?”

  Mac tugged off his kerchief. “I will tell them that they were right, that I proved to be too much of a prude to paint the pictures.”

  “But you are not a prude. I’ll not have them laughing at you.”

  Mac seated himself on the makeshift bed and leaned back on his elbows. While the bed looked lavish in the final picture, it was in reality a mattress with propped up posts draped in red material.

  Mac’s broad chest was damp within the V of the open shirt, his hair was a mess, and his bare legs were solid with muscle. The fact that this incredible man had singled out Isabella to be his lover and his wife still astonished her.

  “Do you know why the pictures are good?” Mac asked.

  “Because you are a brilliant painter?”

  “Because I’m madly in love with the woman I painted. There’s love in every brushstroke, every dab of paint. I couldn’t paint when Molly posed because she’s only a model to me, like a vase of flowers. You are real. I know what your flesh feels like under my hand. I know how slick your cleft is to my fingers, how your breath tastes in my mouth. I love every part of you. That is what I painted, and no one in the world will get to see these pictures but the two of us.”

  His words made Isabella warm and soften. “But you did so much work. Everyone at your club will ridicule you.”

  “I no longer care what those shallow profligates think of me. Where were they when I was suffering and thought I’d die of it? Bellamy was there, and Ian. Cam and Daniel. Even Hart came to help me. The gentlemen who always claimed to be my friends either tortured me or made themselves scarce.” Mac gazed at the paintings and a smile played across his face. “Let them ridicule me. These pictures are for us, my wife. No one else.”

  “They’ll make you join in with the Salvation Army’s band,” Isabella said unhappily.

  Mac laughed as he hauled himself to his feet. “I’ve been practicing in my spare time. I clash a good cymbal.”

  “You don’t own any cymbals.”

  “Cook’s been letting me borrow her pot lids. I want to lose this wager, love. I’ve never been so happy to lose a wager in my life.”

  He came to her and kissed her, a slow Mac Mackenzie kiss, one that said he wanted to kiss her all night.

  “Will you come with me, angel?” he asked. “I’ll happily sing temperance tunes on a street corner if I know you’re nearby.”

  Isabella smiled into his lips. “That is pos
sibly one of the stranger requests a husband has made of his wife. Of course I’ll come with you, Mac.”

  “Good. For now . . .”

  The mattress was waiting. Isabella found herself laughing as she and Mac made good use of it.

  One week later, on a chilly Wednesday evening, Mac stood with a five-member Salvation Army band at the end of Aldgate High Street where it widened into Whitechapel. He’d been practicing with them, and the female sergeant in charge was delighted that a twig of an aristocratic tree had joined their ranks.

  A crowd had gathered by the time they started to play, consisting of a dozen of Mac’s club cronies mixed with a score of street toughs, as well as men and women simply making their way home from a hard day’s labor. Across the street from Mac, Isabella held Aimee, the two of them surrounded by Bellamy, Miss Westlock, and two of the strongest footmen to guard them.

  The most rowdy were the Mayfair lords, who started hooting and taunting as soon as Mac raised his cymbals. The lady sergeant ignored them and cued her band. The music blared, drowning out the lordlings. All hail the Power of Jesus’s name, Let angels prostrate fall. (Crash! Crash!) Bring forth the royal diadem And crown Him Lord of all! (Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash!)

  Mac sang heartily; he clashed the cymbals as they’d rehearsed, bellowing out the words. The sergeant encouraged the onlookers to join in, and soon half the street raised their voices in song. Bring forth the royal diadem And crown Him (Crash!) Lo-o-o-rd of all! (Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash!)

  The hymn wound through six stanzas and finished to much applause and a few jeers. The sergeant started her appeal to the crowd, encouraging them to join the temperance movement, to throw off the shackles of drink and vice and embrace Christ as their Savior.

  Mac handed his cymbals to a fellow band member and strolled the crowd, his tall hat held out for donations. It was one of his best hats, made of brushed fur and lined with silk. The cost of it could easily keep the lady sergeant and her band fed for months.