“You would have known if you’d been at that ball with me. If you’d been in London. If you hadn’t vanished weeks ago without bothering to tell me where you were going.”
“I should be kept on a tether now?” Mac’s anger, fed by grief, boiled up. “You know why I left—we were quarrelling almost constantly. You needed a rest from me.”
“You decided—in the middle of the night, without a word. Perhaps I needed you to stay. Perhaps I’d rather quarrel with you than have the house quiet with you hundreds of miles away. Do you ever ask? No, you just vanish and try to make it up to me by bringing silly presents when you bother to come home at all.”
Great God, she drove him madder than had any other woman in his long career of women. No—madder than any other person, male or female, end of discussion. “Isabella, my father killed his own wife. Shook her until her neck broke. Why? Because they were arguing, and he was drunk, and he couldn’t control his anger. Do you think I want that to happen? Do you think I want to come out of a stupor one day to see that I’ve hurt you?”
Isabella stared at him in shock. “What are you talking about? You’ve never laid a finger on me.”
“Because I’ve always gone before it could happen!”
“Good Lord, Mac, are you saying you leave because you want to strike me?”
“No!” Mac had never even imagined doing such a thing, but he’d always been terrified that his father would rise up within him—the father who had beaten and belittled him and his brothers. The old man had sent Ian to an asylum for being the sole witness to the truth of their mother’s death, and had whipped Mac for wanting to—needing to—create pictures. “Of course I don’t want to strike you, Isabella,” he said. “I never have.”
“Then why?”
His exasperation returned. “Does a man have to explain his every move to his wife?”
“He does if he’s married to me.”
Mac suddenly wanted to laugh. “Oh, my little debutante, what claws you have.”
“I don’t want claws, thank you very much. I also don’t want you to tease me or to leave me for my own good. I want a normal marriage. Is that too much to ask?”
“Do you mean a marriage in which I spend all day at my club and grunt behind my newspaper at supper? I would be required to take a mistress to satisfy my lusts, because you would have no interest in the baser pleasures of life. You’d spend all my money shopping for useless things and be relieved that I wasn’t underfoot.”
He’d run out of breath, hoping to see her smile at this ridiculous scenario, but she only looked angrier.
“That is your usual view—everything or nothing. In your opinion, we must either have a wild and scandalous marriage, or you might as well ignore me completely. Have you ever conceived that we can have something in between?”
“No, because we always do this.” Mac clenched his hands, trying to calm himself. “You see? We argue about everything. We either make love or shout the house down. I leave because that must be so tiring for you. If you’re worried that I run off to other women . . .”
“I don’t worry about that. Ian would tell me.”
“Ah yes, Ian. Your guardian, my watcher. Dear Ian, who is at your side at all times.”
“For heaven’s sake, Mac, you aren’t jealous of Ian, are you? He’d never in a thousand years dream of betraying you.”
“Of course I’m not jealous.” Or was he? Not that Ian would try to seduce Isabella, because Ian didn’t seduce. His brother satisfied his bodily needs on courtesans but never formed emotional attachments with any woman. Mac wasn’t certain whether Ian knew how. But Ian was a good friend to Isabella, perhaps a better friend than Mac ever would be. That rankled. “You seem to prefer him at your side.”
“Because he is here. You never are, except when it suits you. And then it’s to try to shock me, or to show off to your friends that your sweet debutante has the courage to take them as they are. You aren’t . . . comfortable.”
“Oh Lord, save me from being comfortable. That smacks of doddering old men at clubs and drab slippers. But that is why I leave, my dear. To let you live in comfort.”
“It isn’t comforting, not in the least. And you weren’t here when I needed you most.”
Mac had realized halfway through this argument that this time, there would be no easy forgiveness. Isabella wouldn’t reach for him, wouldn’t smile and tell him she was happy to see him, in spite of the circumstances. There would be no welcoming arms in his bed, no womanly laughter wrapping around him while he reminded himself how good it was to be with his wife.
This time, his reception would be cold.
Mac stepped back, lifting his hands in surrender. “I’ve apologized, Isabella. I am truly sorry. If there had been a way to know, I would have been at your side. You need to heal—I understand. Send for me again when you want me.”
He’d turned on his heel and walked away from her. He’d walked all the way down the stairs, out of the house, and caught the next train to Scotland. There he’d buried himself in Mackenzie single-malt and waited for Isabella’s message.
It never came.
Mac’s thoughts ran out, and he found himself in the present. He stood in Aimee’s nursery, holding Isabella back against him, watching how even weak sunlight glowed in the soft curls above her ear.
“Isabella,” he whispered. “I was a selfish, selfish bastard. Do you believe me when I tell you I realize that now?”
Isabella studied the dusting of soot on the windowsill outside. “It was a long time ago.”
“And you’ve forgotten all about it? I doubt it, my love.”
Isabella’s sigh was so soft he barely caught it. “I am finished with that part of our lives. The anger, the recriminations, the hurt. I don’t wish to revisit it.”
Mac kissed the warm place behind her ear. “I don’t wish to revisit it, either. And I don’t want you to forgive me. Do you understand? Never forgive me.”
“Mac.”
“Hear me out. When I told you that I wanted you in my life again, I meant that I want to give back everything I took from you.”
“You took nothing from me,” Isabella said.
“Balls. I loved and adored you, but I drained you like a thirsty man at a spring. I loved what you could give me—your admiration, your acceptance, your love, your forgiveness. I forgot to love you for yourself.”