“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
