“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 moiré 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.
“He did,” Cameron drawled, straight-faced. “You should see me in my cap and pinafore.”
Isabella laughed, and Cam joined her. He had a gravelly laugh, sounding as though something had scratched away at his voice.
“Is Beth well?” she asked. “She and Ian are all right?”
“Fine when I left them. Ian is extremely pleased at the prospect of becoming a father. He mentions it only about once every five minutes.”
Isabella smiled in true delight. Ian and Beth, his new wife, were so happy, and Isabella looked forward to holding their little one in her arms. The thought gave her a pang as well, which she quickly suppressed.
“And Daniel?” Isabella went on, keeping the conversation light. “Did he come with you?”
Cameron shook his head. “Daniel is lodging with an old don of mine who is to stuff his head with knowledge before Michaelmas term. I want to give Danny’s tutors less cause to beat his lessons into him.”
“Lessons instead of horses? I’m certain that rankles our Danny.”
“Aye, but if he keeps getting poor marks, he’ll never get into university.”
He sounded so like a concerned father, this tall man with the dark reputation, that Isabella laughed again. “He tries to emulate you, Cam.”
“Aye, he does. That’s wh’t worries me.”
Behind Isabella, the strains of a waltz began, and couples in the ballroom glided into place. Cameron held out his broad arm. “Dance, Isabella?”
“I’d be most happy to—”
Isabella’s polite acceptance was cut off when strong fingers closed over her elbow. She smelled Mac’s soap and masculine scent overlaid with the faint odor of turpentine.