“Good Lord, Mac, are you saying you leave because you want to strike me?”
“No!” Mac had never even imagined doing such a thing, but he’d always been terrified that his father would rise up within him—the father who had beaten and belittled him and his brothers. The old man had sent Ian to an asylum for being the sole witness to the truth of their mother’s death, and had whipped Mac for wanting to—needing to—create pictures. “Of course I don’t want to strike you, Isabella,” he said. “I never have.”
“Then why?”
His exasperation returned. “Does a man have to explain his every move to his wife?”
“He does if he’s married to me.”
Mac suddenly wanted to laugh. “Oh, my little debutante, what claws you have.”
“I don’t want claws, thank you very much. I also don’t want you to tease me or to leave me for my own good. I want a normal marriage. Is that too much to ask?”
“Do you mean a marriage in which I spend all day at my club and grunt behind my newspaper at supper? I would be required to take a mistress to satisfy my lusts, because you would have no interest in the baser pleasures of life. You’d spend all my money shopping for useless things and be relieved that I wasn’t underfoot.”
He’d run out of breath, hoping to see her smile at this ridiculous scenario, but she only looked angrier.
“That is your usual view—everything or nothing. In your opinion, we must either have a wild and scandalous marriage, or you might as well ignore me completely. Have you ever conceived that we can have something in between?”
“No, because we always do this.” Mac clenched his hands, trying to calm himself. “You see? We argue about everything. We either make love or shout the house down. I leave because that must be so tiring for you. If you’re worried that I run off to other women . . .”
“I don’t worry about that. Ian would tell me.”
“Ah yes, Ian. Your guardian, my watcher. Dear Ian, who is at your side at all times.”
“For heaven’s sake, Mac, you aren’t jealous of Ian, are you? He’d never in a thousand years dream of betraying you.”
“Of course I’m not jealous.” Or was he? Not that Ian would try to seduce Isabella, because Ian didn’t seduce. His brother satisfied his bodily needs on courtesans but never formed emotional attachments with any woman. Mac wasn’t certain whether Ian knew how. But Ian was a good friend to Isabella, perhaps a better friend than Mac ever would be. That rankled. “You seem to prefer him at your side.”
“Because he is here. You never are, except when it suits you. And then it’s to try to shock me, or to show off to your friends that your sweet debutante has the courage to take them as they are. You aren’t . . . comfortable.”
“Oh Lord, save me from being comfortable. That smacks of doddering old men at clubs and drab slippers. But that is why I leave, my dear. To let you live in comfort.”
“It isn’t comforting, not in the least. And you weren’t here when I needed you most.”
Mac had realized halfway through this argument that this time, there would be no easy forgiveness. Isabella wouldn’t reach for him, wouldn’t smile and tell him she was happy to see him, in spite of the circumstances. There would be no welcoming arms in his bed, no womanly laughter wrapping around him while he reminded himself how good it was to be with his wife.
This time, his reception would be cold.
Mac stepped back, lifting his hands in surrender. “I’ve apologized, Isabella. I am truly sorry. If there had been a way to know, I would have been at your side. You need to heal—I understand. Send for me again when you want me.”
He’d turned on his heel and walked away from her. He’d walked all the way down the stairs, out of the house, and caught the next train to Scotland. There he’d buried himself in Mackenzie single-malt and waited for Isabella’s message.
It never came.
Mac’s thoughts ran out, and he found himself in the present. He stood in Aimee’s nursery, holding Isabella back against him, watching how even weak sunlight glowed in the soft curls above her ear.
“Isabella,” he whispered. “I was a selfish, selfish bastard. Do you believe me when I tell you I realize that now?”
Isabella studied the dusting of soot on the windowsill outside. “It was a long time ago.”
“And you’ve forgotten all about it? I doubt it, my love.”
Isabella’s sigh was so soft he barely caught it. “I am finished with that part of our lives. The anger, the recriminations, the hurt. I don’t wish to revisit it.”
Mac kissed the warm place behind her ear. “I don’t wish to revisit it, either. And I don’t want you to forgive me. Do you understand? Never forgive me.”
“Mac.”
“Hear me out. When I told you that I wanted you in my life again, I meant that I want to give back everything I took from you.”
“You took nothing from me,” Isabella said.
“Balls. I loved and adored you, but I drained you like a thirsty man at a spring. I loved what you could give me—your admiration, your acceptance, your love, your forgiveness. I forgot to love you for yourself.”
“And you’ve changed?”
He laughed at the skepticism in her tone. “I’d like to think so. I want to make up for all I’ve done.”
Isabella turned in his arms. Her eyes were wet. “May we not talk about it just now, Mac? Please?”
Mac nodded. He was still an idiot—wanting Isabella to admire him for having changed, when she clearly had her mind on other things. Was this his true punishment? To watch the woman he’d treated so rottenly remain indifferent to his efforts to make amends?
“Ainsley wrote me,” Isabella was saying. “The letter was waiting when I came home from shopping.”
Mac didn’t give a damn about anything but Isabella at the moment, but he made himself answer. “How are things progressing?”
“She’s planned to let me meet with Louisa. After all these years, I will finally be able to see my sister again.”
Mac held her a little tighter, knowing how important this was to her. “Excellent news. Where and when is this meeting to take place?”
“Tomorrow afternoon in Holland Park. And no, you are not invited. This is something I must do alone.”
She gave him a stern look, and Mac smiled. “Very well, my dear. I will banish myself.” He wouldn’t entirely, but she did not need to know that.
“Thank you.”
Mac bent his head to kiss her, but just then Aimee awoke. Isabella pushed abruptly from Mac, snatched up the doll, and went to Aimee, giving the girl a wide smile as she showed Aimee her new toy.
Isabella arrived at the meeting place in Holland Park well before the appointed time of four o’clock. She paced the path, imagining all sorts of reasons that her sister would not be able to come. Perhaps their father would get wind of the scheme and lock Louisa in her bedroom. Perhaps Louisa would change her mind, still angry at Isabella for her elopement.
But no, she could trust Ainsley. Ainsley had charm—she could get ’round anyone, and the fact that she was a queen’s lady would hold much weight with Isabella’s mother. Ainsley was also resourceful. If anyone could arrange a secret meeting between Isabella and Louisa, it was Ainsley Douglas.
Still, Isabella clenched and unclenched her hands as she paced. What would she say to Louisa when she saw her? How have you been the past half-dozen years? My, how you’ve grown?
That last time Isabella had spoken to her sister, Louisa had worn her hair in pigtails. Louisa had admired Isabella, asking question after question about clothes, hair, marriage, and men, as though innocent Isabella were an oracle of sorts. Isabella had glimpsed her sister from afar since marrying Mac, noting how she’d sprung up into a lovely young woman, but she’d only been able to watch from a distance with a sore heart.
Isabella heard a rustle behind her, and her pulse raced. She stepped onto the narrow path between thick-standing trees and saw the broad
back of a man with dark red hair walking away from her.
“Mac,” she said in exasperation, then the man turned.
Not Mac. Isabella whirled and took two steps before he caught her by the waist and pulled her off her feet. He clapped a hand over her mouth as she opened it to scream.
“Isabella,” he said, hot spittle touching her ear. “My darling, never leave me again.”
Chapter 15
Lady I—M—surprised London by hosting a soiree at her new abode in North Audley Street, for the express purpose of introducing Miss Sarah Connelly, a mezzo-soprano lately come from Ireland, to those of discerning tastes in London. So many responded to this coveted invitation that the modest house was quite bursting at the seams. —March 1878
Isabella bit and fought and kicked, but the man didn’t let her go. He dragged her down the path and through an opening in the tall hedges, cutting her off from the world.
This was madness. She was in the middle of a park, in the middle of London, in the middle of the afternoon, but this isolated copse could have been deep in the countryside.
She heard church clocks striking four. Ainsley and Louisa would be arriving at the appointed spot. But what would they find? No Isabella. She’d not had the presence of mind to drop a handkerchief or a brooch as every adventurous heroine should. Ainsley might assume that Isabella had been delayed, or worse, had changed her mind. What Louisa would think, Isabella couldn’t imagine.
The man swung her to him. Isabella clawed at his face, and he struck her. She tasted blood.
“Don’t fight me, my Isabella. We belong together.”
He might look like Mac, this tall man with Mac’s coloring, but he sounded nothing like him. Instead of Mac’s velvet baritone, his voice was scratchy and thin.
Isabella heard a shout, and without warning, the man let her go. She stumbled and fell, shrubbery scratching her as she went down. Booted feet pounded on the path, and then hands pulled her up again.
She fought blindly until she heard a breathless “Isabella.”
Isabella cried out and threw her arms around the real Mac, clinging to him in relief.
Mac pried her from him and examined her face, his eyes bright with rage. “Bloody hell. I’ll kill him.”
Isabella was too out of breath, too terrified, and too angry to argue. She held on to Mac, absorbing his warmth, his strength, the safety of having him here.
“That was him, wasn’t it?” she heard him ask. “My doppelganger?”
She nodded. “He looked so like you from the back.”
“And from the front?”
“Like you, and yet not.” Mac smelled so good, like male and the scent of outdoors. “No one who knew you well would mistake you after the first moment.”
“God damn him. Forging paintings and burning down my house is one thing. Touching my wife is unforgivable.”
Isabella closed her eyes. Her heart pounded with fear, not only for herself but at the thought of Mac chasing after a madman. All she wanted to do was relax into the circle of Mac’s warmth and go home.
“Stay with me.”
Mac held her so close she could feel the agitated beating of his heart, feel his hot, quick breath. “I will, sweetheart. I will.”
The strains of clocks chiming the quarter hour made her lift her head. “Louisa,” she said miserably.
Mac took her arm and towed her back through the bushes and down the path to the spot where Isabella was to have met Louisa. No one was there. Across the park, Isabella saw Ainsley and the tall form of Louisa walking away arm in arm. Other people strolled near them, and they were too far away for Isabella to call out without drawing attention.
“Louisa,” Isabella whispered.
Mac put his arm around her. “I’m sorry, love. Write to Mrs. Douglas and set up another meeting. In a safer place this time.”
Isabella kept her gaze on Louisa, her little sister now so tall, so regal, so elegant in her autumn-colored frock. Louisa never looked back but walked away with Ainsley, her proud head high.
Not until Isabella was tucked up in the armchair facing a roaring fire with a hot water bottle on her knees did Isabella ask Mac the obvious question.
“How did you come to be at hand for my rescue?”
Isabella looked so pale, so shaken, that Mac’s rage wouldn’t rest. Today the man, whoever he was, had induced his own death sentence.
“Mac,” Isabella prompted.
Mac answered absently, “I was following you, of course.”
“Were you? Why?”
“You meeting your sister in an out-of-the-way corner of the park shouldn’t worry me? It did. Apparently with good cause.”
Isabella took a cup of steaming tea from Evans. “I am grateful for the rescue, of course, but that does not mean I’m happy with you for spying on me.”
“Spying? Nothing so dramatic, love. What I truly feared was that your father would find out what you and Ainsley were up to and sail in to stop you. Or that you might attract the attention of a footpad who saw a golden opportunity to gain your jewelry. I never dreamed my nemesis would be lurking in the bushes, waiting to snatch you.”
Isabella shivered, and Mac damned the man again.
The sight of Isabella stained with mud and blood on the ground had awoken something primitive in him. Even now the bruise at the corner of her mouth filled him with fury.
Mac held in his anger as he leaned down to kiss her. He caressed Isabella’s face, taking care not to touch the bruise. “Will you be all right here for a time? I need to go out.”
“Must you?”
This morning, Isabella seizing his hand and begging him to stay would have filled him with joy. At the moment he needed to find this other Mac and break his neck.
“I won’t be long,” he promised.
“Where are you going?”
“To see a man about a dog.” Mac kissed her again, sent a glance at Evans, and left the room.
Mac had never been to Scotland Yard and any other time might have found the experience entertaining. He leapt out of his carriage at Whitehall, holding his hat against the gusting wind, and walked into the complex of buildings.
The interior was plain and busy, with men in dark suits or uniforms swarming from room to room. Mac gained someone’s attention by yanking him by the shoulder and demanding the way to Inspector Fellows.
“That’s C.I.D., guv,” the man said. “Top of this staircase.”
Mac took the stairs two at a time. He didn’t bother asking directions; he simply opened doors until he found the inspector in a room with two other plainclothes detectives.
Mac stormed in and leaned his fists on Fellows’s desk. “So what have you found out?” he demanded. “Any progress?”
Fellows regarded Mac without alarm. “Some.”
“Tell me everything. I want him.”
Fellows’s expression changed to one of more interest. He was a good inspector, like a bloodhound on a scent, and liked landing his culprit. “Something new has happened. What?”
“He attacked my wife, that’s what happened.” Mac slammed his hat and cane to the desk. “He dared lay a hand on Isabella, and he will pay dearly for that.”
“Attacked her? When? Where?”
Mac described what had happened while Fellows scribbled on a sheet of paper. He was left-handed, Mac noted.
As Fellows wrote, Mac paced. The other two detectives had their heads bent over papers; one got up and went out, and a uniformed sergeant entered to talk to another. Mac finally grew tired of pacing and dropped into a chair.
“Would it be possible for me to talk to her ladyship?” Fellows asked him. “Whatever she can remember about him will be helpful.”
“Not today. She’s upset.”
“Yes, I imagine she would be. Is she all right? Was she badly hurt?”
“He struck her. He’ll pay for that.”
Fellows glanced at the other detective and the sergeant, rose from the desk, took Mac by the shoulder, a
nd more or less shoved him out and along the hall to an empty room. Fellows closed the door and faced Mac.
“Now we can talk plainly. What do you intend to do to this man?”
“Killing him came to mind.”
“Not something to announce at a police station,” Fellows said in a mild voice. “Trust me, I’ll get him—for forgery, fraud, arson, and now assault.”
“I’ll not have Isabella dragged into a witness box at the Old Bailey to describe how a man tried to abduct her. Wouldn’t the journalists love that? She doesn’t need the humiliation.”
“Arson may be enough. If you can prove it.”
“That’s your job, Fellows,” Mac said angrily.
The inspector looked annoyed. “I need evidence, or I’ll not get a conviction. It would have been helpful if you’d caught him in your attics. Or seen him running away down the street after the fire was lit.”
“Damn it, do you have anything for me?”
“I have quite a lot, if you’d stop raving and let me speak.”
Mac tried to calm down, but he was too angry, too afraid. The forgery had seemed a good joke—the fake Mac had been able to paint glorious pictures while Mac couldn’t manage a brushstroke. The fire had angered him, because the man had endangered the lives of Mac’s household, innocents in all this.
But this was different. This man, whoever he was, had dragged Isabella into the equation. He could beat on Mac all he wanted, but he’d die for touching Isabella.
“His name is Samson Payne,” Fellows said. “Grew up in Sheffield, came to London to work as a clerk in a solicitor’s office about seven years ago. Never gave any trouble, the solicitor says. Quit about two years ago after saving his pennies, keen to see the Continent. Solicitor hasn’t heard from him since.”
Mac blinked. “You mean you found out who he is? Why the devil haven’t you told me?”
“I know his name. Probably. But I don’t know where he is. And as you pointed out, it’s my job to find him and prove he’s been doing these things to you.”
“All right, fair dues. How the deuce did you find out his name?”
Fellows gave him a cold smile. “I’m a detective. I quizzed Crane and his assistant, went door to door until I put together a description of him, then put out an inquiry for information. I received many replies, and finally found that until a few weeks ago he lived in rooms on Great Queen Street, near Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He gave the landlady the name of Samson Payne. More inquiries turned up a gent of the same name who’d worked several years ago for a solicitor in Chancery Lane—stands to reason he’d take rooms again in the area he knew.”
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