and over again. The first step in winning her back was to stop the hurting.
Her lips parted, red and lush. Because he was two steps below her, Isabella’s face was on level with his. He could close the few inches between them and kiss her if he chose, feel her mouth on his, taste her warm moisture on his tongue.
“Please,” he whispered. I need you so much.
Molly chose that moment to climb toward them up the stairs. “Are you ready for me again, yer lordship? You still want me sticking me fingers in me Mary Jane?”
Isabella closed her eyes, her lips thinning into a long, immobile line. Mac’s temper splintered.
“Bellamy!” he shouted over the banisters. “What the devil is she doing out of the kitchen?”
Molly came closer, her smile good-natured. “Oh, her ladyship don’t mind me. Do you, yer ladyship?” Molly sidled around first Mac, then Isabella, her dressing gown rustling as she headed back up to the studio.
“No, Molly,” Isabella said in a cool voice. “I don’t mind you.”
Isabella lifted her skirt in her gloved hand and prepared to start around Mac. Mac reached for her.
Isabella shrank away. Not in loathing, he realized after the first frozen heartbeat, but because the hand he stretched toward her was covered in brown and black paint.
Mac slammed himself back against the stair railing. He wouldn’t trap her. At least not now, with all his servants watching and listening, and Isabella looking at him in that way.
Isabella moved down the stairs around him, very carefully not touching him.
Mac strode after her. “I’ll send Molly home. Stay and have luncheon. My staff can run your errands for you.”
“I very much doubt that. Some of my errands are quite personal.” Isabella reached the ground floor and took up the parasol she’d left on the hall tree.
Bellamy, don’t you dare open that door.
Bellamy swung the door wide, letting in a wash of London’s fetid air. Isabella’s landau stood outside, her footman ready with the door open.
“Thank you, Bellamy,” she said in a serene voice. “Good morning.”
She walked out.
Mac wanted to rush after her, grab her around the waist, drag her back into the house. He could have Bellamy lock and bolt the doors so she couldn’t leave again. She’d hate him at first, but she’d gradually understand that she still belonged with him. Here.
Mac made himself let Bellamy close the door. Tactics that worked for his barbaric Highland ancestors would be useless on Isabella. She’d give him that cool look from her beautiful eyes and have him on his knees. He had prostrated himself for her often enough in the past. The feeling of carpet on his knees had been worth her sudden laughter, the cool tinge leaving her voice as she said, “Oh, Mac, don’t be so absurd.” He’d pull her down to the carpet with him, and the forgiveness would take an interesting turn.
Mac sat down heavily on the bottom stair and put his head in his paint-stained hands. Today had been a misstep. Isabella had caught him off guard, and he’d ruined the beautiful opportunity she’d handed him.
“Oh, the painting’s all spoiled.” Molly hurried from the floors above in a flurry of silk. “Mind you, I think I look a bit funny in it.”
“Go on home, Molly,” Mac said, his voice hollow. “I’ll pay you for the full day.”
He expected Molly to squeal in pleasure and hurry off, but instead she sank down next to him. “Oh, poor lamb. Want me to make you feel better?”
Mac’s arousal had died, and he didn’t want it to rise again for anyone but Isabella. “No,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Suit yourself.” Molly stroked slender fingers through his hair. “It’s the absolute worst when they don’t love you back, ain’t it, me lord?”
“Yes.” Mac closed his eyes, his rage and need swirling around him until he was sick with it. “You’re right, it is the absolute worst.”
Lord and Lady Abercrombie’s hunt ball in Surrey the following night was stuffed to the rafters with fashionable people. Isabella entered the ballroom with some trepidation, expecting at any moment to see her husband, who, her maid Evans had informed her, had also received an invitation. Evans had obtained the information directly from her old crony, Bellamy.
Seeing Mac in his studio like a half-naked god yesterday had sent Isabella straight home to fling herself on her bed in tears. Her errands had never got done, because she’d spent the rest of the afternoon curled into a ball feeling sorry for herself.
Isabella had risen the next morning and made herself face facts. She had two choices—she could completely avoid Mac as she had in the past, or resign herself to encountering him about London as they lived their lives. They could be civil. They could be friends. What she ought to do was become so used to seeing him that his presence no longer plagued her. Grow inured to him so that her heart no longer leapt into her throat at one glimpse of his strong face or the flash of his wicked smile.
The second choice was the more unnerving, but Isabella berated herself until she stepped up to the task. She would not hide at home like a frightened rabbit. Hence, her acceptance of Lord Abercrombie’s invitation, even though she knew the odds were high that Mac would attend.
Isabella bade Evans dress her in a new ball gown of blue satin moire with yellow silk roses across her bodice and train. Maude Evans, who could boast having been a dresser to famous actresses, several opera singers, a duchess, and a courtesan, had been dressing Isabella since the morning after Isabella’s scandalous elopement with Mac. Evans had arrived at Mac’s house on Mount Street, where Isabella, Mac’s ring heavy on her finger, had stood in her ball gown from the previous night, having no other clothes at hand. Evans had taken one look at Isabella’s innocent face and become her fierce protector.
I look quite acceptable for a matron of nearly five and twenty. Isabella surveyed herself in the mirror as Evans draped diamonds across Isabella’s bosom. I have nothing to be ashamed of.
Even so, her heart froze when she entered Lord Abercrombie’s ballroom and spied a tall Mackenzie male in the supper room beyond. Broad shoulders stretched a formal black coat as he rested an elbow on the fireplace mantel, his kilt Mackenzie plaid.
Isabella realized in the next heartbeat that the man was not Mac, but his older brother Cameron. Touched by relief and delight, she broke from the friends she’d arrived with, caught up her satin skirts, and sped through the crowd to him.
“Cam, what on earth are you doing here? I thought you’d be up north, frantically preparing for the St. Leger.”
Cameron tossed the cigar he’d been smoking into the fire, took Isabella’s hands, and leaned to kiss her cheek. He smelled of smoke and malt whiskey; he always did, though those were sometimes accompanied by the scent of horses. Cameron kept a stable full of the best racehorses in England.
The second-oldest brother, Cameron was a little larger than Mac, a little broader of shoulder and taller of stature, and a deep scar cut across his left cheekbone. Cam’s unruly red-brown hair was the darkest of the four brothers’, his eyes more deeply golden. He was known as the black sheep, a daunting task in a family whose exploits filled the scandal sheets. It was common knowledge that Cameron, a widower with a fifteen-year-old son, took a new mistress every six months, having his pick of famous actresses, courtesans, and highborn widows. Isabella had stopped trying to keep track of them long ago.
Cameron shrugged in answer to her question. “Not much more to do. The trainers have my instructions, and I’ll meet them there before the first race.”
“You’re a bad liar, Cameron Mackenzie. Hart sent you, didn’t he?”
Cameron didn’t bother to look embarrassed. “Hart was worried when Mac raced after you following Ian’s wedding. Is he making a nuisance of himself?”
“No,” Isabella said quickly. She loved Mac’s brothers, but they did tend to stick their noses into each other’s business. Not that she wasn’t grateful to them—they could have shut her out when she’d decided to leave Mac three and a half years ago, but instead they’d rallied to her side. Hart, Cameron, and Ian had made it known that they still considered Isabella part of the family. And as she was part of the family, they tended to watch over her like protective older brothers.
“So Hart sent you down to play nanny?” she asked.
