Isabella couldn’t breathe. Breathing meant she’d inhale his scent and his warmth.

His eyes were hard, the copper irises still and cool. When he looked at her like this, she could believe that his ancestors had ruled the Highlands and swept nearly all the way through England in attempt to wrest it back for the Stuarts. Mac was a decadent man who went to parties in the finest houses, but the gentlemen who hosted the parties would quickly back down from the look in his eyes at present. Mac was determined, and when he was determined, ’ware all those who stood in his way.

Isabella lifted her chin. Betraying weakness to him would be fatal.

“Very well, then,” she said. “I intend to pursue the forger. If I play your game, I must make up my own rules.”

He didn’t like that, but Isabella had learned enough about Mac to know she should never let him have it all his way. She’d go down swiftly if she did that.

To her surprise, he made a conceding gesture. “If you must. Do your worst.”

“I said that about you after you left me at the ball.”

By Mac’s sudden, blazing smile Isabella realized she’d miscalculated. She hadn’t meant to say the words—they had slipped out before she could stop them. But she’d hugged herself on the cold terrace as she huddled there in Mac’s coat, angry, unnerved, lonely, scared, and angry again. “Do your worst, Mac Mackenzie,” she’d breathed in frustrated rage. “Do your absolute worst.”

“A fine invitation.” Mac cupped her face between his hands. He was strong; she’d never forgotten what natural power Mac had.

He kissed her, not tenderly this time. It was a hard, rough, hungry kiss, one that mastered her and bruised her lips. She realized with dismay that she kissed him just as hungrily back.

Mac pulled away, leaving her lips parted and raw. “I promise you,” he said. “This is nothing compared to my worst.”

Isabella tried to answer with a cutting remark, but her voice no longer worked. Mac gave her a feral smile, snatched up his hat and stick, and flung open the door of the now-still landau.

Isabella saw that they had halted in a snarl of traffic on Piccadilly, the landau perilously close to the posts that separated road from buildings and people. Mac leapt to the ground without bothering with the step.

“Until next time.” He clapped on his hat. “I look forward to another engagement on whatever battlefield you choose.”

Whistling, Mac strolled away. Isabella followed his broad back as he moved smoothly through the crowd until the footman slammed the door, cutting off her view. She peered through the rain-streaked window, but the familiar form of her husband was lost to the mist and crowd.

Feeling bereft, Isabella fell back against the seat as the landau jerked to roll on through Piccadilly.

Mac thoroughly disliked formal musicales, but he made an exception and dressed to attend the one at Isabella’s house two nights later. Two nights of restless sleep, twitching as he relived the kisses in the landau. In his fevered visions he would continue, loosening her bodice and licking her creamy breasts as they welled over the top of her corset.

He mused that lusting after one’s own wife was far more frustrating than lusting after a stranger. Mac knew exactly what Isabella looked like under her clothes, exactly what he was missing. He had many times undressed her during their marriage, liking to dismiss Evans and take over the servant’s duties to prepare Isabella for bed. As Mac lay awake alone, sweating, and randy, he remembered peeling each layer from her body—bodice, skirts, petticoats, bustle, corset, stockings, chemise.

Firelight would brush her skin and dance in her red hair. Then Mac would kiss every part of her. He would savor the touch of Isabella’s lips, each swirl of her tongue, the taste of her skin beneath his mouth. He’d move his hands to cup her buttocks, or slide his fingers between her thighs to find liquid heat there.

The hair between Isabella’s legs was not as bright red as that on her head; it was more the color of brandy. Mac would lay her on the floor or on the bed, or better still, have her sit in an armchair, while he’d lick his way from her breasts, over the flat of her stomach, to the fiery pleasure that awaited him between her parted thighs.

The night after their meeting in Crane’s shop followed by the delicious fencing match in the landau, Mac had thrown back his bedcovers, climbed to the attic, and spent the next several hours painting.

This time, he portrayed Isabella lying in his bed, on her side, asleep. He painted from memory, showing her body relaxed, one breast soft against the sheet. One leg was bent as she sought a comfortable position, her arms stretched across the pillow. Her fingers were loose, untroubled. Her face was turned downward, half hidden by her hair, and another tuft peeked coyly from between her thighs.

As in the picture of Isabella in her ball gown, Mac left the background vague, splotches of paint that suggested shadows. The bedding was cream-colored, Isabella’s hair, lips, and areolas being the only splashes of vivid color. Those and a yellow bud in a slim vase—Mac painted yellow roses into all pictures of Isabella. He signed the painting with his scrawl and left it to dry beside the other.

As Bellamy buttoned Mac into a black suit with Mackenzie kilt, Mac wondered if he’d be able to be in the same room with Isabella without tenting out the tartan. He hadn’t received an invitation to her musicale, but he didn’t intend to let that stop him.

“Let me in, Morton,” Mac told Isabella’s butler upon arriving at North Audley Street.

Morton had worked for Mac once upon a time, but the butler had become smitten with Isabella and her knack for household management. Even at age eighteen, Isabella had recognized that Mac had no idea how to run a houseful of servants and had begun making changes the morning after her arrival. Mac had cheerfully handed her the reins and told her to get on with it. When Isabella had left Mac, Morton had followed her.

Morton looked down his haughty nose at Mac. Being a foot shorter, Morton had to crank his head back to do so, but he managed it. “Her ladyship stipulated that tonight’s entertainment is by invitation only, my lord.”

“I know she did, Morton. However, please keep in mind that I pay your wages.”

Morton didn’t like the vulgar mention of money. His nose rose even more. “Invitation only, my lord.”

Mac glared, but Morton was made of stern stuff. He refused to move aside, though he knew quite well that Mac could simply pick him up and haul him out of the way if he wanted to.

“Never mind,” Mac said. “Tell her ladyship she keeps a fine guard dog.”

He tipped his hat to a large woman with enormous ostrich plumes on her head, who was stepping up to enter the house. He sensed the woman’s delight that she’d just witnessed Morton turn Isabella’s untamed husband away.

Whistling a music-hall ditty, Mac swung himself onto the scullery steps, clattered down the stairs, and entered the kitchen through the back door. The staff looked up through the steam-filled kitchen and froze in surprise. The cook stopped in the act of icing a row of teacakes, and a lump of icing fell from her spoon. The scullery maid squeaked and dropped a greasy cloth to the flagstone floor.

Mac removed his hat and gloves and shoved them at a footman. “Look after those for me, Matthew, there’s a good lad. Don’t mind if I snatch a seedcake, do you Mrs. Harper? I never had any tea today. Thank you, you’re a good woman.”

So saying, Mac snatched up a sliver of seedcake and popped it into his mouth. He winked at Mrs. Harper, who had once been an undercook at Kilmorgan. She blushed like a schoolgirl and said, “Go on with you, your lordship.”

Mac ate the cake on the way up the stairs and licked his fingers as he pushed open the green baize door at the top. He emerged into the hall to nearly run into the woman with the ostrich plumes again. Mac bowed to her while she stared with pale eyes, then he gestured for her to precede him into the drawing room.

Chapter 5

Signs of strain have issued from home of our Scottish Lord and his Lady. The gentleman has disappeared, rumored to have fled to Paris weeks ago, while the lady remains entertaining marchionesses and actresses alike. All is seeming delight at the big house, the absence of its Lord glibly explained away by his madness for painting in Montmartre. —October 1875

Isabella’s only sign of exasperation when she caught sight of Mac was a tightening around her eyes. But Isabella had been trained by a series of governesses and Miss Pringle’s Select Academy to be a gracious hostess no matter what disasters might ensue.

Isabella continued chatting with her guests, never once looking directly at Mac. Mac envied the lady and gentleman she spoke to as she leaned to them with a smile and a little flick of her hand. He’d always loved being the focus of her green gaze, loved watching her lips purse as she listened to him and formed her next answer.

She wore burgundy tonight, a satin shoulder-baring dress that rippled like water when she moved. Her bosom swelled over the décolletage, inviting his gaze and the gaze of all other gentlemen present. Mac stifled a growl. He might have to start killing people soon.

The double drawing room was packed, Isabella’s evenings always popular. Mac greeted major and minor nobility, ambassadors, foreign princesses, old friends, mere acquaintances. Artists presented by Isabella always had successful come-outs. She’d gained a reputation for excellent taste, and although her own family would not speak to her, the rest of society had seen no reason to shun her. Even Isabella’s separation from her husband had alienated only a few. The Mackenzies were so very rich after all. Hart was the second-highest duke in the land behind the royal dukes, and the ambitious wanted to cultivate his support and patronage. If that meant they attended salons and musicales hosted by Hart’s sister-in-law, so be it.

Mac had never understood Isabella’s liking for so many damned people in the house, but he had to admit that he’d never really tried to understand her likes and dislikes. He’d simply drunk her in like fine wine, not questioning, letting her fill and inspire him. He never thought to ask how the wine felt.

He didn’t have to turn to know that Isabella had stopped at his elbow. He would recognize her presence were he blind and deaf in the middle of the barren sands of Egypt.

“Odd,” she said in her musical voice. “I do not recall your name on my guest list.”

Mac turned, and his breath caught. Isabella stood beside him like living flame. She’d threaded her red hair with yellow rosebuds, and as she had at Lord Abercrombie’s ball, she wore a diamond necklace on her bosom. She was beauty incarnate, even when her eyes sparkled in annoyance—at him.

“Why would I not attend one of my own wife’s famous musicales?” he asked.

“Because I never sent you an invitation. I would have remembered. I write them all myself.”

“Don’t blame Morton. He did his best to keep me out.”

“Oh, I know precisely where the blame lies.”

Mac shrugged, trying for carelessness. Never mind that his hands were sweating and that he was in danger of dropping the glass of water Morton had grudgingly fetched for him. “Now that I am here, I might as well be useful. Who would you like me to woo?”

The lines around Isabella’s eyes tightened even more, but she would never make a scene. Not in public. She was too finely bred for that.

“The princess of Brandenburg and her husband. They haven’t much wealth, but they are fashionable and have great influence. Scotland fascinates them. You are wearing your kilt, so you can give them your full Highland charm.”

“As you wish, my love. I will prepare to be very Scottish.”

Isabella laid her fingers on his arm and smiled, and Mac’s heartbeat rose to dangerous levels. He told himself that the smile was not for him; she was aware they’d become the center of the room’s attention and wanted to make a good show of it. She’d smile until her lips fell off to keep people from reporting an entertaining argument between Mac Mackenzie and his estranged wife.

“Don’t overdo it, Mac,” she said. “It is Mrs. Monroe’s night, and I don’t wish the spotlight taken from her.”

“Mrs. Who?”

“The soprano. Whose name you would have known if you’d received an invitation.”

“I did come here for a reason tonight, my lovely—other than to drive you mad, of course. I came to tell you that I have not been idle about the forger.”