“You’re a dead man.” Mac drew in as much air as he could and shouted it. “Do you hear me? You’re a dead man!”

The door swung open. Mac couldn’t screw his head around to see who’d entered, but he heard a man’s tread move toward him. Booted feet stopped at Mac’s side, and Mac stared up at Payne.

Now that he had light, Mac saw that the man did resemble him, at least superficially. Payne’s eyes were brown and set deeply into his face; his hair had been brushed the way Mac wore his, but it fought a widow’s peak. His cheeks were more hollow, and Mac suspected that what Fellows had suggested was true: that he filled them out with cotton wool when he needed to. He hadn’t at the moment, and the hollow cheeks gave his mouth a drawn look.

He wore a full dress kilt of Mackenzie plaid, formal coat, and polished boots. Seen at a distance or in the dark, or by someone who did not know Mac well, Payne could easily pass for him.

“You have it wrong,” Payne said coldly. “It is I who will kill you.”

Mac laughed. It came out feeble and hoarse. “Then why haven’t you already?”

“Because I need her to come to me.”

Mac’s blood chilled as he understood what Payne had done. He hadn’t planned to shoot Mac in the hansom at all—he’d wanted Mac to chase him through the back streets of London to this place. Leading Mac as a fox led the hounds. Except the fox was in his hole now, ready to annihilate the hound foolish enough to follow him down it.

“She’ll never come here,” Mac said. His head spun with dizziness; it took so much damn effort to speak.

Payne went down on one knee next to him. “She will come here to watch you die. I alerted a constable that I’d found Payne, and he ran off with the news. She will be safe with me, where she belongs, with her husband who will take care of her.”

“Like hell she will.”

“Isabella has been trying to get away from you for some time. I thought she’d managed it when she left you three years ago, but no, you kept turning up. Following her about, insinuating yourself on her when she made it clear she didn’t want you. You should die for that.”

Fear bit him when he realized Payne had been watching her for that long. And none of them had known. He hadn’t known. He hadn’t watched out for her well enough. “Isabella is the only thing I care about,” Mac croaked. “Hell, why am I arguing with you? You’re a madman.”

“You don’t care for her. You love yourself too much and care nothing about what she wants, what she needs. That is how I know you are not the true Mac, her true husband. I cherish Isabella. I will keep her and protect her, dote on her. I will worship her as she deserves.”

“If you think Isabella wants to be put on a pedestal, you don’t know her very well. She likes her independence.”

Payne shook his head. “She wants to be cared for, and I will live to care for her. Not to prove to my father that I can make something of myself, not to prove to Hart that I’m not a wastrel. For her. Even my art isn’t as important as she is.”

Dear God, it was humiliating to hear truths coming out of Payne’s mouth. Yes, Mac had tried desperately for years to make his father proud, even when he told himself he cared nothing for it. He’d gone on trying to prove himself to his father even after the man was dead.

He’d even been trying to prove himself to Hart, and to Cam, and to Ian, he realized. His three brothers had turned their obsessions into practical living, while Mac had devoted himself to art for its own sake, as he’d explained to Payne in the hansom. For its own sake? He wondered now. Or had he decided not to try to exhibit or sell his paintings because he feared he’d be a failure?

Isabella had never once thought Mac inadequate.

“I do love her,” Mac said, his anger stilling to a point of calm.

“Then why didn’t you stay with her? Why did you keep running away, leaving her vulnerable to every man with designs on her? This is how I know I am the real Mac Mackenzie. Because I would never have done those things to Isabella. I’d have treated her like an angel. You never understood what you had in her.”

Damn, the man was mesmerizing. Mac needed to concentrate.

“She’ll never come to you,” Mac said. “She’ll know the difference.”

Payne rose swiftly to his feet, cocking the revolver. Well done, enraging the madman with the gun.

“She will come. She will come, and she will stay with me.”

Isabella, be sensible, don’t come. Let me rot.

Payne walked away, his Mackenzie plaid swirling around his knees. Mac’s vision began to cloud, and despair washed over him.

He would never see Isabella again. He’d never see her bend over him, her red hair falling to tickle his face, never see her green eyes flash in anger, never smell the attar of roses that clung to her skin. He’d never again touch the petal-soft smoothness of her, never cup the firm perfection of her breast.

His senses drifted, and he was dancing with her again at Lord Abercrombie’s ball, when she’d been dressed in the blue satin ball gown with yellow roses in her hair. The beauty of her cut like a knife. She’d talked to him in a voice smooth like fine wine, and he’d drunk her in.

Bare your soul, Ian had advised.

Mac hadn’t done it yet. He’d let her love him again, but he’d not surrendered the entirety of himself to her. He knew that, and the knowledge beat at him.

I dragged her off and married her, because if I hadn’t simply taken her, if I’d given her the choice, she never would have chosen me.

But Mac had changed. He’d given up everything but moving doggedly through life. For her.

For her? The nagging thing inside asked. Or so that she’d feel sorry for you and acknowledge your martyrdom?

Hell and damn, he couldn’t even win an argument with himself.

Isabella, please, I need to see you one more time.

He’d loved the determined and naïve debutante he’d met that first night. He’d loved the young woman she’d become, bold enough to fall into step with Mac’s life, putting up with his dissipated friends and his skin-baring models. Mac had loved showing off how well his proper young wife took Mac’s scandalous life in stride, and he’d never realized just how strong Isabella had been to do it. Nothing in her upbringing or education at her select academy could have prepared her for someone like Mac, not even the redoubtable Miss Pringle. And yet, she’d done it.

Mac had loved the woman she’d become: admired by society, able to stand on her own and look her neighbors in the face, notwithstanding that her family disowned her and her marriage fell apart. The world hadn’t blamed Isabella; they’d blamed Mac.

Perceptive of them.

I want to love you, Isabella. Not as Mac the scandalous, or the reformed Mac, but as myself. The Mac I truly am.

The one who loves you.

I love you, Isabella.

And he’d never have the chance to tell her.

Chapter 22

Delicious rumor puts the Scottish Lord having moved in with his Lady in North Audley Street. The Lord’s Mount Street house was sadly burned, but observers say the Lady welcomed him with open arms. They have been seen about Town together in a most friendly fashion. —September 1881

Time ceased to have meaning. The room gently spun around him, the women who were not Isabella staring down at him in their garish, erotic glory. The artist in Mac whispered that the pictures were quite well done—Payne was exactly the sort of man Mac would have taken under his wing once upon a time, and helped build his career.

No chance of that now, Mac thought dryly.

Darkness came and went, though there was no change in the level of gaslight. The fading was his own vision sliding in and out. Mac had no more feeling in his legs and feet. Payne was going to let him die here.

Mac heard his own voice issue from between his cracked lips. In bonny town, where I was born.


There was a fair maid dwellin’.


Made every youth cry, “well-away!”


Her name was Iiiis-a-bella.

The last time he’d sung that, Isabella had slammed open the door of the bathroom and fixed him with an outraged stare. His skin had prickled as her gaze had roved his body spread in her bathtub, and he’d had the absurd fear that she’d not be impressed by what she saw.

Will she still want me? he’d wondered. Will I still be the man whose body she likes to admire? To touch? He hadn’t been timid with a woman since age fifteen, but Mac had worried that Isabella would sneer at him and turn away.

Her name was Iiiis-a-bella.

“Mac?”

I’m here, love. Come to bed, my sweet, I’m cold.

“Mac? Oh, Mac.”

Mac forced his eyes open, wishing the blackness would clear. He felt a silken touch on his skin, smelled the faint odor of roses. Her beautiful face hovered above his, eyes burning beneath red curls.

“Isabella,” he whispered. “Love you.”

“You’re bleeding. Mac, what happened?”

The world went black for a moment, and when it became light again, he felt a towel or blanket or something being pressed hard into his side. It hurt like hell, but that was good, because the pain meant that he was still alive.

Awareness cut through the fog. Then fear. “No,” he croaked. “Isabella. Run. Go!”

“Don’t be stupid. Cam’s here. And Inspector Fellows.”

“Payne?”

“They’re looking for him. Mac, don’t fall asleep. Keep looking at me.”

“My pleasure.” It hurt to smile, but his beautiful wife was by his side, her scent overriding the terrible coppery smell of blood. “I need to bare my soul, my love. Will you let me bare my soul to you?”

She leaned closer. “Hush, darling. We’ll take you home, and everything will be all right.”

“No, it won’t. I’ve been lying to you. I haven’t bared my soul.”

Her hot tears fell on his face. “Mac, don’t die. Please.”

“I’ll do my damnedest.”

Mac heard his words come out a slurred mumble. Isabella wouldn’t be able to understand him. He had to make her understand him.

“I can’t lose you.” Isabella stroked his hair, her touch so dear to him. “I don’t want to live without you, Mac. I never was a whole person until I met you.”

Whole. That’s what Isabella had made him. She’d been the best part of him, and when Mac had lost her, he’d had nothing left of himself. That was what Ian had been trying to tell him.

Mac reached for her hand, relief flooding him when she took it. “Need you, love.”

“Don’t leave me.” Isabella’s voice was becoming desperate.

“Isabella.”

Mac blinked, because the word hadn’t come from him. Rage flooded him again as a shadow fell over them, cast by the tall form of Payne.

“Run,” Mac tried to say. “Get away.”

Instead, his beautiful lady rose to her feet to confront him. “You shot him. Damn you.” She struck out with her fists, and Payne suddenly found himself having to fend off a hundred and twenty pounds of enraged female. Mac was torn between panic and laughter. Isabella was strong, he had cause to know.

But not strong enough. She got one shout out of her mouth before Payne clapped a hand over it and lifted her from her feet. Isabella fought, her eyes wild.

All of Mac’s rage focused on one single point. He heard the cries of his ancestors ringing in his head, urging him to take his enemy, to kill him. If he’d had a claymore in his hand, Mac would have sliced off the bloody Sassenach’s head with it.

As it was, he had to make do. The wild strength let him haul himself to his feet. He was cold, his vision blurred, but Mac would perform this one last act to save the woman he loved. If he died of the deed, so be it.

Snarling, he threw himself at Payne. Payne had to release Isabella, who stumbled back and wasted no time screaming at the top of her lungs.

Payne brought his pistol around and pointed it at her.

No! Mac grabbed the man’s arm, striking him on the hand so that his grip went slack. Payne fought hard, seizing the pistol again even as he dropped it, shoving the barrel into Mac’s ribs. Isabella shouted something, running at the pair of them as they grappled.

The pistol’s barrel scraped away from Mac’s body, but now it pointed at Isabella. Mac wrenched himself into her, sending Isabella to the floor as the pistol went off. A second roar followed.

Mac expected oblivion. Or excruciating pain. Maybe one first then the other.

Instead, Payne crumpled on the floor, a stunned look on his face. Blood spouted from a wound in the exact center of his forehead.