He squeezed Lady Scranton’s hand again, let himself out of the house, and was gone.
“What will he do?” Lady Scranton asked in trepidation.
“Exactly what he said he would,” Isabella said, knowing the truth of her words. “You can put your trust in Mac, Mama. The man does drive me mad, but one thing he is very good at is taking care of people. He has proved that time and again.”
Lady Scranton wiped her eyes on a black lace handkerchief that was nearly sodden. “I thought he would be cold and scornful. I thought he would mock us.”
“He is not so unkind as that. He really is quite generous. His entire family is.”
“We refused to acknowledge him or your marriage, or even let him speak to us about settlements,” Lady Scranton said, sniffling. “We shut him out for stealing you from us. I thought he’d gloat about our ruin, laugh at us when we were forced to live in the gutter.”
“Then you read Mac very wrong. He would never do such a thing. And you will not have to live in the gutter.” Isabella took her mother’s hands again. “Mama, what happened? With Papa, last night, I mean. Can you tell me?”
Lady Scranton looked not so much crushed in grief as very, very tired. “He called me into his study yesterday afternoon and told me he wanted me to take Louisa and go live in Italy, where I would be able to do well on very little. He wanted me to leave then and there, but of course I could not. I asked when he would be joining us, and he said he would not be able to for a long time. He’d stay behind and try to unravel the mess he’d made.” A new tear trickled down her cheek. “He pressed me to pack and go at once, but it took too long—so many arrangements had to be made. I heard him downstairs in the night, but he never went up to his bedroom. I grew worried. In the small hours, I crept down again to his study and found him on the floor, his face all twisted. The room was a mess, papers everywhere, a table overturned where he’d fallen. The doctor said he’d had an apoplectic fit. He’d died instantly, apparently. Very little pain. That at least is a mercy.”
Isabella put her arms around her mother. “Mama, I’m so sorry.”
“God is punishing me, I think. For not having the courage to stand up to your father, for letting him banish you. I went along with it. I refused to see you or let Louisa see you. And now look at me.” Fresh tears trickled down her face.
Isabella rocked her. “God isn’t as cruel as that; you know that in your heart. Mac told me that Papa had started to lose money a long time ago, when I was still at Miss Pringle’s. Everything seemed to go wrong year after year. It was not your fault.”
Lady Scranton raised her head. “Then why didn’t he tell me?”
“To spare you the worry, I imagine. He was struggling to get the money back so he wouldn’t shame you.”
Her mother shook her head. As Isabella held her close, she thought of things Mac had told her that she could never explain to her mother. It seemed that Lord Scranton had gone into considerable debt to give Isabella her coming-out ball, determined that it be the largest and most elegant of the Season. He’d pinned his hopes on pairing Isabella with one of three young men of fortune to whose families Lord Scranton owed a great deal of money. A marriage with one of them would not only wipe out that debt but let Lord Scranton climb out of the slough he’d gotten himself get into. Isabella had destroyed his hopes when she’d slipped away with Mac to marry him. The fathers of the other three gentlemen had been very angry and demanded that Lord Scranton repay them immediately.
Why did he not tell me? Isabella had asked Mac in indignation. If I’d known I needed to marry to help him, I might not have let my head be turned by the first handsome gentleman who danced with me.
Your father is proud and wanted to orchestrate all without anyone guessing. You were supposed to be dutiful without incentive. I’m afraid, love, that your father had no idea that you had any thoughts in your head at all.
But why did he object when I married you? You and Hart could have dug him out of debt and sent him and Mama off on a long holiday.
Mac had smiled. And be beholden to Hart Mackenzie, the Scottish duke, the rest of his life? Never.
Bloody fool, Isabella had muttered. This was before Bellamy had woken Mac in the wee hours and handed him the message from Inspector Fellows, who’d gone to investigate when he’d heard of the sudden death of Isabella’s father. A natural death, Fellows had said. A sad one.
“I’m here now, Mama,” Isabella said. “I won’t leave you alone again.”
Lady Scranton leaned into Isabella as another flood of tears escaped her.
Isabella stayed with her mother until Lady Scranton declared she needed to lie down. Isabella helped her upstairs, delivering her to her redoubtable lady’s maid. The maid whispered her gratitude to Isabella—Lady Scranton hadn’t shut an eye since the earl’s death, no matter how much the servants had tried to get her to sleep.
Isabella left Lady Scranton in her maid’s capable hands and went down the painfully familiar hall to Louisa’s room and tapped on the door. To a tired, “Yes, what is it?” Isabella entered.
Louisa rose from the chaise on which she’d been reclining and dropped the quilt that had covered her to it.
Isabella’s breath caught. Louisa had filled out from the lanky colt Isabella remembered to a lady of soft curves, her eighteen-year-old face clear and strong. Louisa’s eyes were as green as ever, and framed with rich, brown-red lashes. She wore black now, though without the veil her mother had donned, but Isabella’s little sister had grown into such a lovely young woman. When she had her coming-out ball, she’d stun every gentleman senseless.
“Isabella.” Louisa took a hesitant step forward. “They told me you were here, but Mama wanted me to stay in my room.”
A sob wedged in Isabella’s throat. Louisa started for her, slowly at first until she was running the last few steps to throw herself into Isabella’s arms.
They ended up on the chaise, Isabella pressing her cheek to Louisa’s wet face.
“Why did you not come that day in the park?” Louisa asked when they could speak again. “Mrs. Douglas planned so carefully, but you weren’t there, and we dared not wait.”
“I know.” Isabella wiped her eyes, not wanting to lie, but she did not want to tell Louisa about Payne just then. “I had taken ill. It came on me suddenly.”
“Mrs. Douglas said that. I was worried.”
“Nothing I did not throw off quickly. But I was unhappy to miss the appointment.”
“You are here now. It doesn’t matter.” Louisa clung to Isabella’s hands, much as their mother had. “Isabella, what is to become of me?”
“Become of you? If you mean, where will you live, you and Mama are both welcome to stay with me. In fact, I think you should come home with me tonight.”
“I don’t mean that, although it’s very kind of you.” Louisa released Isabella’s hands and stood up. Her dress was black taffeta with a three-tiered skirt—likely it had been an afternoon dress quickly dyed for mourning. Louisa’s pale skin and red hair stood out against it like ice and flame. “It sounds so selfish with everything Papa did and what Mama is going through. But I can’t help feeling as though I’ve walked off a cliff and still have not landed. Yesterday I was being fitted for my ball dresses; today I am not allowed to have any of them. I’ll not have a Season; I’ll not marry. I’m not clever enough to be a governess or anything like that, so I’ll end up a ladies’ companion with nothing to do all day but wind wool and brush dogs.” Her hands fell with a thump against her skirts.
“Darling, of course you won’t,” Isabella said. “You’ll live with me, and I’ll take care of you. You’ll have your ball and your Season, and any number of young men will want to marry you.”
“Will they?” Louisa laughed, anger in her eyes. “I am not much of a catch now, am I? My father died a ruined man, and he cheated others, so many others. What respectable gentleman will want me? They’ll be afraid my blood will taint their family.”
Is
abella wished she could tell Louisa she was wrong, but Isabella was well acquainted with aristocratic marriages. Breeding was very important to the upper classes, and any flaw in a young lady was considered insurmountable—unless the gentleman in question needed a large influx of cash and the lady came with a huge dowry. But Louisa without money would not hold that kind of attraction.
“You might not be a match for a gentleman wanting to make a brilliant social marriage,” Isabella conceded. “But I wouldn’t wish you to marry a gentleman who wants only your money or connections in any case. I want you to marry a man who loves you—who loves you so much it is of no matter to him what your father did. Papa’s mistakes aren’t your fault, and any man worthy of you will see only your beauty and sweetness. I urge you not to regret that you can’t make a society marriage, and instead follow your heart.”
“Like you did?” Louisa looked angrier. “You left us, Isabella. You ran away without a word to me. How could you?”
Isabella started at her sudden vehemence. “Louisa, I tried to send word. I wanted to see you, to explain myself, but Papa wouldn’t hear of it. He blocked me at every turn, returned my letters to you in shreds. I didn’t persist, because I did not want to make trouble for you.”
“You could have found some way. But you were too busy being the grand Lady of Mount Street. Oh, yes, I read all the stories in the newspapers, every word of them. Perhaps it’s lucky that I’ll have no Season, because everyone remembers your scandalous elopement, and they’ll speculate on whether I’ll run off during my debut ball as well.”
“Darling, it was a nine days’ wonder, that is all. My true friends saw that I’d made a good match with a good man. I didn’t marry Mac to cause a scandal. I married him because I fell in love with him.”
“Then why did you leave him?” Louisa fixed her with an accusing glare. “If you loved him so much, and the marriage was so wonderful, why did you run away? Did you send word to him or simply disappear as you did from me?”
Isabella gasped, stung. “Louisa.”
“I’m sorry, Isabella. I’ve been angry at you for so long. If you loved Lord Mac enough to turn your back on all of us, why did you turn your back on him as well?”
Isabella rose swiftly to her feet. “I did not turn my back on you. Papa turned his back on me. He refused me the house. He wouldn’t let me speak to you or Mama. Never.”
“You could have defied him. You could have found some way around him. Your husband is rich enough—you could have paid Papa’s debts and let his pride go to the devil. You didn’t come back because you didn’t want to.”
Tears streamed down Louisa’s face. Isabella stared at her, aghast, hating the fact that her sister might be right. Isabella had been so angry at her father that she’d built a wall between her old life and her new. She wondered now if she could have worn down her father’s defenses if she’d tried harder. But Isabella had been too hurt by Lord Scranton’s fury, too defiant to reason with him. Isabella had loved Mac, still did, and she’d been angry that her parents had not rejoiced in her happiness. Lady Scranton not talking her father ’round had upset her too. And Louisa, caught in the middle, had only seen Isabella walking away from them.
“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.
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