Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage

by Jennifer Ashley

  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 possibly 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.

  Mac waved it under the noses of Cauli and Lord Randolph. “Come on then, gentleman, we’ve had the hymn and the sermon. Time to pass the offering plate.”

  Randolph and Cauli grinned, thinking it a jest. “Good fun, Mackenzie,” Cauli said.

  Mac shoved the hat into Cauli’s middle. “Dig deep, there’s a good chap. Give your cash to the good sergeant instead of wasting it on gambling and drink.”

  Cauli blinked, dazed. “Dear God, they’ve got to him. He’s joined the temperance movement.”

  “How the mighty have fallen,” Randolph snorted.

  “Thirty guineas?” Mac said in a loud voice. “Did you say you were giving thirty guineas? How very generous of you, my Lord Randolph Manning. Your ducal father will be proud. And you too, Cauli? The Marquis of Dunstan donates thirty guineas, ladies and gentleman.”

  The crowd applauded. Mac kept his hat pressed into Cauli’s chest until Cauli sheepishly dropped a handful of notes into it. Randolph glowered, but he added his cash. Mac turned to his next friend.

  “Forty guineas from you, the Honorable Bertram Clark?”

  Bertram’s eyes widened. “Forty? You must be joking.”

  “I never joke about charity. I am so moved by all this generous giving.”

  �
�Yes, I feel a movement coming on myself,” Bertram muttered, but yanked out a wad of notes and dropped them into Mac’s hat.

  Mac moved to Charles Summerville, who quickly paid up without fuss. Mac swung the hat to the other aristocrats his friends had persuaded to accompany them. Some gave, grinning. Others snarled until Mac caught and held their gazes, and they meekly paid up.

  Mac had known these men since the faraway days when they’d scrapped and fought at Harrow, establishing a hierarchy that had lasted into adulthood. Mac had been the leader of the troublemaking faction, a group that had fearlessly bullied older boys and tutors; sneaked out of school to drink, smoke, and lose their virginity; and scraped through with marks that barely let them finish. Though some of these men were or would become grand peers of the realm, and Mac was a third son, they still acknowledged him as their superior.

  Mac finished his collection, deliberately not seeking out any of the poorer members of the crowd, and took the full hat back to the lady sergeant. Her eyes widened as she viewed its contents.

  “My lord—thank you. And thank your friends. How kind they are.”

  Mac took up his cymbals again. “They are always happy to give to a good cause. In fact, I will make certain that they regularly support you.”

  “You are too good to us, my lord.”

  Mac didn’t answer. “More music, sergeant?”

  The sergeant brightened and led them off in a rousing rendition of a crowd favorite.

  Sweeping through the gates of the new Jerusalem, (Crash!)

  Washed in the blood of the Lamb! (Crash! Crash! Crash!)

  Mac rolled back to Mayfair in his coach with Isabella seated next to him and Aimee in his lap. His arms hurt from all the cymbal banging, but he felt content and at peace.

  And a little bit smug. The look on Randolph Manning’s face when he’d been forced to cough up thirty guineas had been priceless. Randolph was notoriously cheap, always touching his friends for money although he had thousands upon thousands tucked away in his bank.

  “What is funny?” Isabella asked.

  Mac realized he’d chuckled out loud. “Thinking that my friends should know better than to wager with me.”

  She smiled, her face soft in the carriage’s lantern light. “In other words, they thought you’d lost, but you really won?”

  “Something like that.” He didn’t explain that the wager had let him win everything he’d ever wanted. The courting game had given Mac a place to start with Isabella, but if it hadn’t been for the silly wager, he’d be a long way from the smile she now bestowed upon him. The wager had not only let him touch her and love her, but also to find the art that once more poured out of his fingers.

  “You are a rogue.” Isabella leaned her head on his shoulder. The straw of her hat scraped his chin, but he didn’t mind. He had a warm, sleeping child on one arm, his wife on his other. What could be better?

  He found out later, when Isabella waited for him at her bedroom door as he returned from carrying Aimee to the nursery. Mac decided he didn’t give a damn how sore his arms might be as Isabella took his hand and led him inside.

  Isabella was surprised the afternoon after Mac’s bold debut with the Salvation Army to see her friend Ainsley Douglas stepping out of a coach at the front door, coming to call.

  Isabella invited her in and had Morton bring tea. Ainsley had news, Isabella could tell, but neither said anything while Morton delivered the tea tray and three-tiered platter of cakes. Under ordinary circumstances Isabella liked the formality of taking tea, a comfortable ritual that gave even the shiest person words and actions with which to fill in awkward spaces. At the moment, however, she wished the ritual of pouring tea would drop to the bottom of the nearest well.

  Ainsley set down her cup as soon as Morton had retreated and closed the pocket doors behind him. She leaned forward, a somber look in her eyes. “Isabella, I am so sorry. I came to warn you, before you read it in the newspapers.”

  Isabella jerked her cup, spilling a line of tea down her skirt. “Warn me of what? Has something happened to Louisa?” She thought of Payne and went cold.

  “No, no, she is well.” Ainsley said. She took Isabella’s cup from her frozen fingers and set it on the table. “This is not about Louisa. Not directly.”

  Isabella had already read the morning newspapers from the Pall Mall Gazette to Mac’s racing news and had seen nothing that might upset her personally. “What then? You have me nervous.”

  Ainsley took Isabella’s hands in hers, her friendly gray eyes filled with concern. “My oldest brother Patrick—you know he is something in the City and knows everything that goes on there, usually before the rest of the world does. He got wind of the news this morning, and knowing we were great friends, he advised me to prepare you.”

  “Got wind of what? Ainsley, please tell me before I scream.”

  “I’m sorry; I’m trying to.” Ainsley paused, her face drawn in sympathy. “It’s your father, Isabella. He’s ruined. Completely and utterly ruined. As of this morning, your family has been rendered penniless.”

  Mac had expected his friends to shun him after he’d embarrassed them over the Salvation Army wager, but typically, his antics had only raised him in their estimation. When he encountered Cauli outside Tattersalls in Knightsbridge that next afternoon, Cauli grabbed Mac’s hand and wrung it with enthusiasm.

  “You turned the tables on us but good, Mac old man.”

  Mac rescued his hand. “The Salvation Army was most pleased with your donation, the sergeant told me. She went on in adulation about you for hours. There was talk of putting up a plaque.”

  Cauli looked horrified. “God save me from being known as a philanthropist. Everyone in London will touch me for money.”

  “I was joking, Cauli.”

  Cauli sighed in relief. “Good, good. Very amusing. Ah, there’s your brother Cameron. Is this a family reunion?”

  Cameron was walking into the arcade with his usual long stride, a big man dressed in a greatcoat to ward off the chill in the October air.

  “Cauliflower,” Cameron greeted him when he stopped next to them. “Why don’t you go find some other vegetables to play with?”

  Cauli chortled. “Very good, very good. The fine Mackenzie wit. Well, I’ll be off, so you can indulge in family warmth. Tallyho.” He lifted his hat and wandered off toward the auction circle.

  Cameron gave Cauli’s retreating back a speculative look. “It’s said he’s the most erudite of the Dunstan line. Makes ye worry for the marquisate. I heard you were clashing cymbals over in Whitechapel last night, Mac. I never knew ye were so musical.”

  Mac shrugged. “A wager. When did you arrive?”

  “Late train. I had Jockey Club business.” He put his large hand on Mac’s shoulder. “I need a word with ye, if ye don’t mind.”

  Mac nodded, and they walked away together, Cam not speaking until they’d reached Mac’s coach. Once inside, Cameron told Mac what had reached him from a friend of his in the City.

  “Bloody hell,” Mac exclaimed in shock. “How the devil did Scranton manage to ruin himself?”

  Cam looked somber, the deep scar on his cheekbone shadowed in the closed carriage. “Bad investments, mostly. A railroad line that was never built, an invention of some gadget that never got past the drawing stage. Things of that sort. The last straw was a diamond mine in Africa. The fighting there is preventing anyone from getting to the mine, so he’s been told. And it’s doubtful there are any diamonds in it at all. Lord Scranton wasn’t the cleverest when it came to his investments.”

  Mac imagined Isabella faced with the news, her worry for her family. “Damn, I knew I should have stayed home this afternoon, but I needed to settle an account. A brief errand, I thought. The bloody idiot.”

  “Many men trust the wrong advice,” Cameron pointed out. “It sounded like a house of cards collapsing. A bottom card got yanked out, and everything else followed.”

  “Gambling with money meant to
keep your wife and daughter in food and clothing is lunacy. I suppose when Scranton’s creditors hear, they’ll call in all their debts, if they haven’t already. Damned bloodsuckers.”

  “Scranton’s been sliding downhill for some time, Mac. Hart told me that years ago. The earl has had to sell off every piece of his estate that isn’t entailed, and he’s only leasing his house in London.”

  Mac stared at him. “Hart told you that? Years ago? Why didn’t Hart bother to tell me? Why didn’t you?”

  Cameron shrugged, but Mac could tell that Cameron hadn’t liked the decision. “Hart knew you’d feel obligated to let Isabella know, and he thought she didn’t need more to worry her. I agree with him about that. Hart thought Scranton might turn around in the end, but the man’s been damned unlucky.”

  “One day, Hart will have to stop deciding things for me.”

  “That will be an interesting day. I hope I’m there to see it.”

  The brothers were silent for the rest of the journey to North Audley Street, where Mac leapt out of the coach and hurried inside, followed closely by Cameron. Morton took their hats and coats and pointed to the closed drawing room door, a worried look in his eyes.

  Mac shoved open the pocket doors, and Isabella jumped to her feet, her face paper white. Ainsley Douglas, who had been holding Isabella’s hand, rose more slowly.

  “Mac,” Isabella said. He saw her struggle to retain her composure, not wanting to break down. “I’m afraid something rather dreadful has happened.”

  “I know.” Mac went swiftly to her and took her ice-cold hands. “Whatever I can do, I will do. I promise you that.”

  “I’ll leave you then,” Ainsley said. “I am so very sorry to be the bearer of such bad news, Isabella.”