Jennifer Ashley - Lady Isabella’s Scandalous Marriage

All of London was amazed to learn of the sudden marriage of Lady I—S—and Lord M—M—, brother of the Duke of K—,last evening. The lady in question had her Come-Out and her Wedding the same night, leading debutantes to plead with fathers to make their coming-out balls just as eventful. —From a London society newspaper, February 1875

SEPTEMBER 1881

Isabella’s footman rang the bell at the house of Lord Mac Mackenzie on Mount Street, while Isabella waited in the landau, wondering for the dozenth time since she’d set off whether this were wise.

Perhaps Mac would be out. Maybe the unpredictable man had gone off to Paris, or to Italy, where summer would linger for a time. She could investigate the matter she’d discovered by herself. Yes, that would be best.

As she opened her mouth to call back her footman, the large black door swung open, and Mac’s valet, a former pugilist, peered out. Isabella’s heart sank. Bellamy being here meant Mac was here, because Bellamy never strayed far from Mac’s side.

Bellamy peered into the landau, and a look of undisguised astonishment crossed his scarred face. Isabella hadn’t approached this house since the day she’d left it three and a half years ago. “M’lady?”

Isabella took Bellamy’s beefy hand to steady herself as she descended. The best way to do this, she decided, was simply to do it.

“How is your knee, Bellamy?” she asked. “Are you still using the liniment? Is it too much to hope that my husband is at home?”

As she talked, she breezed into the house, pretending not to notice the parlor maid and a footman popping out to stare.

“The knee’s much better, m’lady. Thank you. His lordship is . . .” Bellamy hesitated. “He’s painting, m’lady.”

“So early? There’s a wonder.” Isabella started up the stairs at a quick pace, not letting herself think about what she was doing. If she thought about it, she’d run far and fast, perhaps lock herself into her house and not come out. “Is he in his studio? No need to announce me. I’ll go up myself.”

“But m’lady.” Bellamy followed her, but his damaged knee wouldn’t let him move quickly, and Isabella reached the landing, three floors up, before Bellamy had mounted the second flight.

“M’lady, he said not to be disturbed,” Bellamy called upward.

“I won’t be long. I need only ask him a question.”

“But, m’lady, he’s . . .”

Isabella paused, hand on the white doorknob of the right-hand attic room. “I shall take full blame for invading his lordship’s privacy, Bellamy.”

She lifted her skirts as she swung open the door and walked into the room. Mac was there, all right, standing in front of a long easel, painting with fervor.

Isabella’s skirts slid from her nerveless fingers, the beauty of her estranged husband striking her like a blow. Mac wore a kilt, threadbare and paint-flecked, and he was naked from the waist up. Though it was cool in the studio, Mac’s torso gleamed with sweat, his skin tanned from spending the summer on the warmer Continent. He wore a red kerchief on his head, gypsy style, to keep paint out of his hair. He’d always done that, she remembered with a pang. It made his cheekbones more prominent, emphasized the handsomeness of his face. Even the rough boots, much worn and paint-splotched, were familiar and dear.

Mac laid paint on his canvas with energy, obviously not hearing Isabella open the door. He held the palette in his left hand, arm muscles tight, while his right moved the brush in swift, jerking strokes. Mac was a stunning man, made still more attractive when absorbed in doing something he loved.

Isabella used to sit in this very studio on an old sofa strewn with cushions, simply watching him paint. Mac might not say one word to her while he worked, but she had adored watching the play of muscles on his back, the way he’d smear paint on his cheek when he’d absently rub it. After a particularly good session, he’d turn to her with a wide smile and pull her into his arms, never minding that paint now smeared all over her skin.

So absorbed in Mac was she that Isabella didn’t notice what he painted with such intensity until she forced herself to look away from him and across the room. She barely stifled her dismay.

A young woman lay on a raised platform draped with yellow and red coverings. She was nude, which came as no surprise—Mac generally painted women who wore nothing or very little. But Isabella had never seen him paint anything so blatantly erotic. The model lay on her back with her knees bent, her legs wide apart. Her hand rested on her private place, and she was spreading herself open without shame. Mac scowled at the offering and painted with rapid brushstrokes.

Behind Isabella, Bellamy reached the top landing, puffing from exertion and distress. Mac heard him and growled but didn’t look ’round.

“Damn it, Bellamy, I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed this morning.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I couldn’t stop her.”

The model raised her head, spied Isabella, and grinned. “Oh, hello, yer ladyship.”

Mac glanced behind him once, twice, then his copper gaze riveted to Isabella. Paint dripped, unheeded, from his brush to the floor.

Isabella strove to keep her voice from shaking. “Hello, Molly. How is your little boy? It’s all right, Bellamy, you can leave us. This won’t take long, Mac. I only came to ask you a question.”

Damnation.

What the hell was Bellamy playing at, letting her up here?

Isabella hadn’t set foot in the Mount Street house in three and a half years, not since the day she’d left him with nothing but a short letter for explanation. Now she stood in the doorway, in hat and gloves donned for calling. Today of all days, while Mac painted Molly Bates in her spread glory. This wasn’t part of his plan, the one that had made him leap onto a train to London after his brother’s wedding and follow Isabella down here from Scotland. He’d call this a grievous miscalculation.

Isabella’s dark blue jacket hugged her torso and cupped her full bosom, and a gray skirt of complicated ruffles spread over a small bustle. Her hat was a concoction of flowers and ribbons, her gloves a dark gray that wouldn’t show London grime. The gloves outlined slender fingers he wanted to kiss, hands he longed to have slide up his back as they lay together in bed.

Isabella had always known how to dress, how to present herself in colors dear to his artist’s eye. Mac had loved to help her dress in the mornings, lacing her gowns against her soft, sweet-smelling skin. He’d dismiss her maid and perform the tasks himself, though those mornings it had taken them a long time to descend for breakfast.

Now Mac drank in every inch of her, and damn it, grew hard. Would she see, and would she laugh?

Isabella crossed to the dressing gown Molly had left in a heap on the floor. “You’d better wrap up in this, dear,” she said to the model. “It’s chilly up here. You know Mac never believes in feeding the fire. Why don’t you warm up downstairs with a nice cup of tea while I have a chat with my husband?”

Molly leapt to her feet, her grin wide. Molly was a beautiful female in the way many men liked—large-bosomed, round-hipped, doe-eyed. She had a mass of black hair and a perfect face, an artist’s dream. But next to the glory of Isabella, Molly faded to nothing.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Molly said. “It’s stiff work posing for naughty pictures. My fingers are that cramped.”

“Some teacakes ought to loosen you again,” Isabella said as Molly slid on the dressing gown. “Mac’s cook always used to keep currant ones in large supply, in case of emergencies. Ask her if she still does.”

Molly’s dimples showed. “I’ve missed you, no lie, your ladyship. ’Is lordship forgets we ’ave to eat.”

“It’s his lordship’s way,” Isabella said. Molly strolled from the studio without worry, and Mac watched as though from far away as Bellamy followed Molly out and closed the door.

Isabella turned her lush green eyes to him. “You’re dripping.”

“What?” Mac stared at her then heard a glob of paint hit his board floor. He let out a growl, slammed the palette onto the table, and thrust the brush into a jar of oil of turpentine.

“You’ve begun early today,” Isabella said.

Why did she keep on in that friendly, neutral voice, as though they were acquaintances at a tea party?

“The light was good.” His own voice sounded stiff, harsh.

“Yes, it’s a sunny morning for a change. Don’t worry, I’ll let you get back to it soon. I only want your opinion.”

Blast her, had she come here to throw him off guard on purpose? When had she gotten so good at the game?

“My opinion on what?” he asked. “Your new hat?”

“Not my hat, although thank you for noticing. No, I want your opinion on this.”

Mac found the hat in question right under his nose. Gray and blue ribbons trailed into glossy curls that beckoned to be lifted, smoothed.

The hat tilted back until he was looking into Isabella’s eyes, eyes that had snared him across a ballroom so long ago. She hadn’t been aware of her power then, the sweet debutante, and she didn’t know it now. Her simple look of inquiry, of interest, could pin a man and give him the most erotic dreams imaginable.

“On this, Mac,” she said impatiently.

She was lifting a handkerchief toward him. In the middle of its snowy whiteness lay a piece of yellow-covered canvas about an inch long and a quarter inch wide.

“What color would you say this was?” she asked.

“Yellow.” Mac quirked a brow. “You drove all the way here from North Audley Street to ask me whether something is yellow?”

“Of course I know it’s yellow. What kind of yellow, specifically?”

Mac peered at it. The color was vibrant, almost pulsing. “Cadmium yellow.”

“More specific than that?” She wiggled the handkerchief as though the motion would reveal the mystery. “Don’t you understand? It’s Mackenzie yellow. That astonishing yellow you mix for your paintings, the secret formula known only to you.”

“Yes, so it is.” With Isabella standing so close to him, her heady scent in his nostrils, he didn’t give a damn if the paint was Mackenzie yellow or graveyard black. “Have you been amusing yourself slicing up my pictures?”

“Don’t be silly. I took this from a painting hanging in Mrs. Leigh-Waters’s drawing room in Richmond.”

Curiosity trickled through Mac’s impatience. “I’ve never given a painting to Mrs. Leigh-Waters of Richmond.”

“I didn’t think you had. When I asked her about it, she told me she bought the picture from an art dealer in the Strand. Mr. Crane.”

“The devil she did. I don’t sell my paintings, especially not through Crane.”

“Exactly.” Isabella smiled in triumph, the red curve of her lips doing nothing to ease his arousal. “The painting is signed Mac Mackenzie, but you didn’t paint it.”

Mac looked again at the strip of brilliant yellow on the handkerchief. “How do you know I didn’t paint it? Maybe some ungrateful blackguard I gave a picture to sold it to raise money to pay a debt.”

“It’s a scene from a hill, overlooking Rome.”

“I’ve done many scenes overlooking Rome.”

“I know that, but this wasn’t one of yours. It’s your style, your brushwork, your colors, but you didn’t paint it.”

Mac pushed the handkerchief back at her. “How do you know? Are you intimately acquainted with all my works? I’ve painted quite a few Rome pictures since you . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to say “since you left me.” He’d gone to Rome to soothe his broken heart, painting the bloody vista day after day. He’d done too damn many pictures of Rome, until he’d grown sick of the place. Then he’d moved to Venice and painted it until he never wanted to see another gondola as long as he lived.

That was when he’d still been a debauched, drunken sot. Once he’d sobered up, replacing his obsession for single-malt with one of tea, he’d retreated to Scotland and stayed put. The Mackenzies didn’t view whiskey as strong drink—they viewed it as essential to life—but Mac’s drink of choice had changed to oolong, which Bellamy had learned to brew like a master.

At his words, Isabella flushed, and Mac felt a flash of sudden glee. “Ah, so you are intimately acquainted with everything I’ve painted. Kind of you to take an interest.”

Her blush deepened. “I see notices in art journals, is all, and people tell me.”