“This had better be damned important,” Mac muttered as he rose from Isabella, snatched up his kilt, and made his way to the door, giving Isabella a fine view of his still-trim derriere.
Chapter 13
The Lady of Mount Street has packed her things and retreated to the seaside after a sudden illness. Mayfair is the lesser for her departure. —September 1877
Urgent, Bellamy had said. Damned disaster, Mac thought as he stepped off the stairs.
Hart stood in the ground floor hall with Ian and a woman Mac had never seen before. The grand hall of the Palladian-style house traversed its entire length and was filled with polished wood, oil paintings, and tall windows. The very center of the hall sported a round table with a massive flower arrangement that the staff changed daily. It used to sport a marble statue of an entwined Greek god and goddess by Bernini, but as beautiful as it was, Beth had decided that flowers would be less shocking to ladies who might pay calls there. The Bernini now resided in Hart’s private suite upstairs.
Mac doubted that the woman had come to call on Beth or Isabella. She was thin to the point of emaciation and wore a dark brown dress, a battered hat, and a cloak that hung loosely from bony shoulders. Her face was worn with care, though she did not look to be much older than Isabella. At her feet, attached to her wrist by a piece of string, stood a tiny girl with bright red hair and brown eyes.
Hart spoke to the woman in French. Ian stood next to them, his hands behind his back, rocking slightly on his heels as he did when he was distracted or upset.
Mac closed the shirt Bellamy had tossed at him over his bare torso and approached them. “Hart? What do you want? Who is she?”
The look Hart turned on him could have punched a hole in a stone wall. Hart’s eyes, golden like an eagle’s, always had a predatory bent, and at the moment they were filled with fury.
“I give you free rein because I’m no saint myself,” Hart said in a tight voice. “But I do not like lies.”
“Lies? What lies? What the devil are you talking about?”
Ian cut him off. “She claims the child is yours. She is wrong.”
“Of course she’s wrong,” Mac said in astonishment. “I’ve never seen the woman before in my life.”
The young woman watched their conversation with uncomprehending eyes, looking anxiously from one brother to the other.
Mac addressed her in impatient French. “You’ve made a mistake, Madame.”
She gave him an anguished look and started babbling. Of course she had not mistaken Mac Mackenzie, the great Scottish lord who had been her lover for years in France. Mac had left his wife for her, but disappeared a year after their little girl had been born. She’d waited and waited for him to return, then she grew ill and too poor to care for little Aimee. She’d traveled all the way to Scotland to find Mac and give Aimee to him.
Mac listened in growing amazement. Hart’s face was set in anger, and Ian stared at the floor, fist tucked under his chin.
“I swear to you, Hart, I have no idea who she is,” Mac said when the woman’s speech wound down. “I have never bedded her, and this girl not my child.”
“Then why the hell is she saying she is?” Hart demanded.
“How the devil should I know?”
Mac heard a light step behind him and a rustle of silk, and he closed his eyes. Damnation.
He opened them again to see Isabella gliding down the last flight of stairs She was fully dressed, every ribbon tied, every button buttoned. The only sign of dishevelment was her hair, which had been brushed into a ponytail that hung down her back. Isabella didn’t say a word to the brothers but headed straight for the fragile young woman.
Hart stepped in her way. “Isabella, go back upstairs.”
“Do not tell me what to do, Hart Mackenzie,” she said crisply. “She obviously needs to sit down. Can one of you men be prevailed upon to ring for tea?”
“Isabella.” Hart tried his stern tone.
“It is not Mac’s child,” Ian repeated. “Not old enough.”
“I heard you,” Isabella said. “Come with me, petite,” she said to the woman in French. “We will sit, and you will rest.”
The woman stared at Isabella in astonishment as Isabella put a gentle arm around her shoulders. She let Isabella lead her a few steps before she put her hand to her belly and collapsed to the floor.
Mac shouted at Bellamy, who’d been heading for the servants’ hall in response to Isabella’s command. “Never mind the blasted tea, Bellamy. Send for a doctor.”
He helped Isabella lift the woman and get her to a settee. The woman gazed at Mac in terror, but Isabella spoke quietly to her. “It will be all right, Madame,” she said. “A doctor will come. You will rest.”
The woman began to weep. “An angel. You are an angel. My poor baby.”
The child, watching her mother collapse, hearing the men shout, and being no fool, realized that something dreadful was taking place. She did what all children would do in such a situation—she opened her mouth and started to wail.
The woman’s weeping escalated. “My poor baby! What will become of my poor baby?”
Ian turned his back on them all and rushed up the stairs, passing Beth, who was coming down, as though he didn’t see her. Beth blinked at Ian’s retreating back then paused to debate which way to go—up or down.
She decided on down. Beth went to the little girl and lifted her into her arms.
“Hush now,” she said in French. “No one will hurt you. See, here is Maman.”
Beth carried the child to her mother, but the young woman didn’t reach for her baby. She was sitting back against the cushions as though she hadn’t sat on something soft in a long time, if ever.
Beth glanced at Mac, meeting his questioning gaze with a grave look. The child had quieted somewhat, but she sniffled into Beth’s shoulder.
Isabella held the woman’s hand. “The poor thing is exhausted,” she said to Beth in English.
“It’s more than that.” Mac looked at Beth. “Isn’t it?”
Beth nodded. “I’ve seen this before, in the workhouse. A doctor can lessen the pain, but I don’t think he can help for long.”
“That is why she came.” Isabella rubbed the woman’s hand and switched to French. “You came here because you are ill.”
She nodded. “When the lord did not return, I did not know where else to go.”
“We need to get her to bed,” Isabella said.
Hart remained in the middle of the hall like a rigid god. “Wait for Bellamy to carry her.”
“Good God, I’ll do it.” Mac scooped the woman into his arms. She was so light he almost overbalanced; it was like carrying a skeleton in clothing. Mac agreed with Beth’s assessment. The young woman was dying.
The woman studied Mac’s face as he carried her up the stairs, a puzzled pucker between her brows. Beth and Isabella came behind them, Beth still holding the little girl.
“Do you think the child frightened Ian?” Mac heard Beth ask.
“I don’t know,” Isabella answered. “Don’t worry, darling, I’m certain Ian will be fine with your own babies.”
Mac could feel Beth’s worry, but he didn’t know how to comfort her. Ian was by no means a predictable man, and who knew how he’d behave when their child arrived?
Mac carried the woman into a spare bedroom that was kept made up for guests and laid her on the bed. The woman looked around in awe at the elegance, fingering the damask quilt Isabella pulled over her.
Isabella rang for Evans, then took the child from Beth’s arms and shoved her at Mac.
“Do look after her, darling. Out you go.”
The mite took one look at Mac and started howling again. Isabella ruthlessly led Mac to the door and pushed him into the hall just as Evans hurried in with an armful of clothing. Another maid followed with a basin of water, another with towels.
Little Aimee kept shrieking, and the door slammed in Mac’s face.
Ian came t
oward them down the hall, carrying a stack of boxes. “What are you doing to her?” he asked over Aimee’s wails.
“Nothing. I’m holding her. The womenfolk took over and threw me out. I always thought Scottish women were strong-minded, but they are nothing compared to Sassenachs.”
Ian looked at Mac as though he had no idea what he was talking about. “I found building bricks. In the attic.”
Ian entered the small sitting room across the hall. Mac followed as Ian crouched on the floor and emptied the boxes of building bricks onto the carpet. Aimee looked down at them with interest, and her noise abruptly ceased.
“Set her down,” Ian said.
Mac lowered the girl, who stood unsteadily a moment before sitting down on her little rump and reaching for the bricks. Ian stretched out on the floor next to her and showed her how to stack the bricks one on top of the other.
Mac sank into the nearest chair, letting his hands dangle between his kilted knees. “How did you know to find these in the attic?”
“We played with them as children,” Ian said.
“I know we did, but that was twenty-five years ago. You remembered they were there, and where, after all this time?” Mac held up his hand. “No, wait, of course you remembered.”
Ian wasn’t listening. He taught Aimee how to build a low wall, which Aimee gleefully knocked over. Ian waited until she finished then patiently helped her build the wall again.
Mac rubbed his hands through his hair. What an insane morning. One moment he’d had Isabella in his arms, was a happy man. He’d tasted reconciliation in the air, and he could still feel the heat of her body on his. The next, a crazed Frenchwoman had waltzed in to deposit a child in front of them and declare it was Mac’s. And Isabella, instead of snatching a pistol from the gunroom and shooting Mac dead, had rushed to help the poor woman.
This had to be a nightmare.
Mac rose. He needed to put something besides his kilt and shirt over his nakedness, and he needed to find out who the devil this woman was.
As soon as he reached the door, Aimee started to keen, a high-pitched sound that dug straight into Mac’s skull. She kept up the noise until Mac came back and sat down beside her. Aimee immediately quieted and played with the bricks again.
“What is the matter with her?” Mac asked.
Ian shrugged. “She wants you.”
“Why should she?”
Ian didn’t answer as he went on building with the bricks. As he’d done when he’d been a boy, Ian tried to stand each block exactly on top of the other, moving it in tiny increments until he was satisfied.
Aimee laughed and knocked them down.
“Ian,” Mac said, as Ian began to line up the bricks again. “Why are you the only one who believes me? About the child not being mine, I mean?”
Ian didn’t look up from his fascinating task. “You have not been with a woman since Isabella left you, three and a half years ago. This girl is not much more than a baby. Even given the time it takes for a woman to carry a child to term, she is too young to be yours.”
Flawlessly logical. That was Ian.
“You know, my brother, I could be lying about the celibacy.”
Ian glanced up. “But you are not.”
“No, I’m not. Hart thinks me a liar. God knows what Isabella thinks.”
“Isabella believes in you.”
Mac looked back at his brother and realized that Ian looked directly into his eyes. He warmed. The times Ian managed to do so were precious. And Ian believed Mac, knew in his heart that Mac wasn’t lying. Doubly precious.
Ian blinked and became absorbed in the bricks again, the moment gone.
A peculiar odor began to waft through the room. Both men looked at Aimee, who picked up a block and tried to stuff it into her mouth.
Mac grimaced. “Time to find the women, I think.”
“Yes,” Ian agreed.
The brothers scrambled to their feet. Aimee rocked forward on her hands and boosted herself to her chubby legs, still clutching the block. She held up her arms for Mac.
Ian’s glance was evasive, but an amused smile hovered around his mouth. Mac picked up Aimee, who now exuded a sour smell. She happily played with the block as the two men went through the house desperately seeking someone female.
The local doctor came and stayed with the Frenchwoman a long time. Whenever Mac looked into the spare bedroom, he found his wife sitting at the woman’s bedside or helping the doctor.
Aimee did not want to let Mac out of her sight. One of the maids, a sunny-faced Scotswoman with five children of her own, cheerfully washed the child and changed her dressing, but Aimee cried when Mac tried to leave the room and only quieted when he picked her up again. For the rest of the day, whenever Mac tried to leave Aimee with Beth, or the housekeeper, or the sunny-faced maid, the little girl would have none of it. Mac fell asleep that night fully clothed on top of his bed with Aimee lying on her stomach next to him.
In the morning, still exhausted, Mac carried Aimee out to the terrace. The wind had turned cold, winter coming early to the Highlands, but the sun was bright in a cloudless sky. The housekeeper brought out a little chair for Aimee and helped Mac bundle her up against the cold. Aimee fell asleep in the sunshine, while Mac perched himself on the low stone balustrade and looked across the gardens to the mountains beyond, their knifelike wall bounding the Highlands.
He heard Isabella’s step on the marble terrace behind him but didn’t turn. She came to the balustrade and stopped next to him, gazing at the beauty of the landscape.
“She died in her sleep,” Isabella said after a time. Tiredness clogged her voice. “The doctor said she had a cancer that spread through her body. He was surprised she’d lived this long. She must have kept herself alive to get her child to safety.”
“Did she ever tell you her name?” Mac asked.
“Mirabelle. That’s all she would say.”
Mac studied the artificially shaped beds of the garden. Soon the fountains would be drained to keep them from freezing, and the beds would be covered with snow.
“I believe you, you know,” Isabella said.
Mac turned to look at her. Isabella wore a gown of somber brown this morning, but it shone richly in the sunlight. She stood like a lady in a Renoir painting, regal and still, the light kissing her hair and playing in the folds of the fabric. Her face was pale from her sleepless night but chiseled in beauty.
“Thank you,” Mac said.
“I believe you because Mirabelle struck me as being a timid rabbit. She told me she’d done everything she could to keep from coming to find you, that she wouldn’t have left Paris at all, but she grew desperate. She was terrified—of me, of you, of this place.” Isabella shook her head. “Not your sort of woman at all.”
Mac raised his brows. “And if she had been, as you say, my sort of woman?”
“Even if she’d been a plucky young woman ready to put you in your place, you’d never have left her destitute, especially not with a child. That isn’t your way.”
“In other words, you have no confidence in my fidelity, only in my generosity and taste in females.”
Isabella shrugged. “We’ve lived apart for more than three years. I walked away from you, requested a separation. How can I know whether you sought pleasure elsewhere? Most gentlemen would.”
“I am not most gentleman,” Mac said. “I did think of it—to make myself feel better or to punish you, I’m not certain which. But you’d broken my heart. I was empty. No feeling left. The thought of touching anyone else . . .”
Mac’s friends had viewed his celibacy as a joke, and his brothers had thought he’d been trying to prove himself to Isabella. Proving himself had been part of it, but the truth was that Mac had not wanted another woman. Going to someone else wouldn’t have been comfort, or even forgetting. Mac had lost himself when he’d married Isabella, and that was that.
“The father must have been him,” Isabella said. “The man who sold those for
ged paintings to Mr. Crane, I mean.”
“I drew the same conclusion. Damn it, who is this bugger?” Mac scowled at the landscape. “When I carried Mirabelle up the stairs, I saw her realize that I wasn’t the same man. But she never said a word—did she mention anything to you or Beth?”
“Of course not. Think, Mac. If you were a penniless woman, knowing you were dying, would you rather leave your child with the wealthy brother of a duke or confess your mistake and have said child tossed into the gutter?”
Mac conceded the point. “Aimee won’t be tossed into the gutter. She can be fostered with one of the crofters. Our ghillie’s wife loves children and has none of her own.”
“She won’t be fostered at all. I will adopt her.”
Mac stared at her. “Isabella.”
“Why shouldn’t I? It’s hardly Aimee’s fault that her father abandoned her and her mother fell dead from an incurable illness. I have money, a large house, time to raise her.”
Mac pushed himself up from the balustrade. “Her father is obviously a madman. This fellow, whoever he is, paints pictures and signs my name to them, then sells them through reputable art dealers but never collects the money. Steady Ron saw a man he swore was me placing bets at the races, so he’s following us about. Not to mention trying to burn down my house.”
“All of which is not Aimee’s fault.”
“I know that. But what happens when he comes for her? And there you are all alone.”
“I can protect her,” Isabella said stubbornly.
Mac softened his voice. “Sweetheart, I know you want a child.”
She turned on him, face flushing with temper. “Of course I want a child. And no one wants Aimee. Why shouldn’t I try to help her?”
“And where will you tell the scandal sheets she came from?”
“Why would I tell them anything? Aimee has red hair like mine. I will claim she’s the orphan of a long-lost cousin from America or something.”
“My angel, all of London will conclude that she is my illegitimate daughter by an unknown woman,” Mac said. “They will think exactly what Hart thought.”
“I am long past caring what rubbish the scandal sheets print.”
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