The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie (11 page)

Beth rocked her a little. “I know.”

“You can’t know. Your husband died, but it’s not the same. You know he loved you, and he’s always in your heart. But whenever I see Mac, the knife twists so hard. He loved me once, before it all went wrong.” The last word elongated into a sob. Beth held her close, resting her cheek against Isabella’s hair. Beth’s heart ached. She’d seen the strain in Isabella’s eyes, and she’d seen the hard weariness in Mac’s. It was none of her business, but she wished she could put it right.

Isabella raised her head again and wiped her eyes. “I want to show you something.”

“Later, Isabella. You should rest.”

“No. I want you to understand.”

Isabella rose, pushing back her hair, and padded across the room to her wardrobe. She opened it and extracted a small picture wrapped in cloth. Isabella carried it to her bed, laid it reverently on the mattress, and stripped off the cloths. Beth caught her breath. The painting showed Isabella sitting on the edge of a tumbled bed. A sheet slid provocatively down her shoulder, baring one prefect breast, and a swirl of hair peeped from the join of her thighs. Isabella was looking away from the painter, her red hair caught in a loose knot at the base of her neck. Despite the subject—a woman just rising from the bed of her lover—the portrait was in no way lewd or indecorous. The muted colors were elegantly cool, with Isabella’s hair and a sprig of bright yellow roses the only vivid colors. It was the portrait of a beloved, painted by a man who regarded his wife as his lover. It was also, if Beth was any judge, an amazingly good painting. The light, the shadows, the composition, the color—so much captured on one small canvas. The painter had signed the corner with a flourish:
Mac Mackenzie.

“You see?” Isabella said softly. “He really is a genius.”

Beth pressed her hands together. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”

“He painted that the morning after we married. He did the sketch right there in the bedroom, then painted it in his studio. Slapdash, he called it, but he said he couldn’t stop himself.”

“You are right, Isabella. He did love you.”

Silent tears slid down Isabella’s cheeks. “You should have seen me at my debut ball—I was a silly ninny, and he was the most decadent man I’d ever seen. He wasn’t even invited to the ball; he ‘crashed,’ as they say, for a wager. He made me dance with him, said I was too afraid to. He teased me and made fun of me until I wanted to strangle him. He knew it, drat him. He played me like a fish, knowing all he had to do was scoop me into his net.” She sighed. “And he did. I married him that very night.”

Beth studied the painting again. Mac might have begun the night as a lark, but it had ended quite differently. The picture was the work of a man inspired, all tenderness and soft colors. The work of a man in love.

“Thank you for showing me,” Beth said.

Isabella smiled. “You need to understand about Mackenzies. I am so happy you’ve caught Ian’s attention, but I might have done you a disservice, my dear. Loving a Mackenzie can tear you to pieces. Be careful, darling.”

Beth’s heart throbbed. She knew as she looked again at the beautiful woman painted with love by Mac Mackenzie that it was already far too late for caution. Beth didn’t see Ian for a week after their encounter. She waited for the promised message setting up their next liaison, but nothing came. She tried not to start every time the bell rang downstairs, every time she heard a footman or maid hurrying toward her chamber. She tried not to feel the sting of disappointment as the days passed without a word. There could be a hundred reasons why he didn’t seek her out, she told herself, the foremost of which was that Ian had business to attend to. Isabella explained that Hart had Ian read political correspondences and treaties for him and commit them to memory, then alert Hart to those with particular phrases Hart told him to watch for. Ian also had great mathematical skill and kept his eyes on all the Mackenzie brothers’ investments. Like a cardsharp who knew every card on the table, Ian followed the ups and downs of markets with uncanny precision. In the years since Ian had left the private asylum, he’d nearly doubled the Mackenzies’ already large fortune.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that was the reason Hart got Ian released from the asylum,” Isabella said when she’d explained. “That’s a bit unfair of me, but Hart does put Ian’s astonishing brain to much use. No wonder Ian gets headaches.”

Beth felt indignant on Ian’s behalf. Perhaps Ian liked working for his brother, though he’d never mentioned it. But it would explain his absence during the week. On Saturday, Isabella took Beth to another whirlwind ball, this one at the palatial home of a duchesse. Beth danced with gentlemen who regarded her with predatory eyes. If she’d been a vain young woman, she might believe they were dazzled by her, but she knew better. Many of Isabella’s bohemian friends lived far beyond their means, and a widow with a large bank account was just what they needed.
French peasants pretending to be quality,
Mrs. Barrington would have said with a sniff. She’d disapproved of the entire nation of France, forgiving it only slightly for producing Beth. Beth fanned herself in a corner after a rigorous waltz with such a gentleman. He ran on about the cost of keeping a carriage and decent servants.
But one has to, my dear, or one appears gauche.
The sweet nothings a lady wanted to hear. A servant saved her from the conversation by bringing her a note. Beth excused herself from the spendthrift gentleman and unfolded the paper.

Most urgent I see you. Top of the house, first door. Ian.
Beth’s pulse leapt. She crumpled the note in her pocket and sped through the house and up the winding staircase. At the top she found a recessed door trimmed with gold. She opened it to an ornate little room with Ian Mackenzie in the middle of it. He scowled at a pocket watch in his hand and didn’t look up when she entered “Ian,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Ian clicked his watch closed and tucked it into his waistcoat.

“Close the door. We don’t have much time.”

Beth closed the door and stood with her back against it.

“Time for what? Are you all right?”

“Come over here.”

Beth lifted the sarin skirts of her ball gown and picked her way delicately toward him. Delicately because her feet were already swollen in her too-tight shoes, and the four story climb had left her wincing.

Ian caught her hand and pulled her the last couple of steps. She landed against his hard body, and his strong arms came around her. “What… ?”

He stopped her words with his mouth. His tongue stroked hers, stirring embers that hadn’t quite gone out since their last encounter. This man could kiss. Beth eased away from him with difficulty. “If we haven’t much time, perhaps you’d better tell me what’s wrong.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The note.” She took it from her pocket. “Did you not send it?”

Ian glanced once at it, his amber eyes meeting hers for an instant. “I did.”

“Why?”

“So you would come to me.”

“Are you saying you summoned me up here, saying it was most urgent, just to kiss me?”

“Yes. To continue our liaison.”

“Here. Now?”

“Why not?”

He bent to kiss her again, and she tried to step away. Her heel snagged on the carpet, and he caught her squarely in his arms.

Ian smiled. It was a feral smile, the smile of a predator who’d caught his prey. Her thundering heart told her she didn’t mind much.

“This is someone else’s house,” she tried.

“Yes.” His tone said,
What of it?

Beth had imagined them conducting their affair in her bedroom, secretly, after she’d made sure everyone was out of the house. It would be clandestine and hole-in-corner—

not that she knew much about having affairs. “Someone could come in,” she said. “And there’s no bed.” Ian laughed softly. She’d never heard him laugh before, and she liked it, all smooth and throaty and dark. Ian crossed the room to turn a little key in the lock, then laced his arms around her from behind. “We don’t need a bed.”

“None of these chairs look quite comfortable.”

He nuzzled beneath her hair. “You are not used to this.”

“I confess, this is my first liaison.”

He kissed her neck as he slid his hands up her tightly cinched waist to her breasts. Beth closed her eyes and leaned into his warm palms.

“You are right,” she whispered. “I am not used to this at all. What do you wish to do?”

“Touch you,” he said in her ear. “Learn you. Have you touch me.”

Beth’s heart jumped. “You said we didn’t have much time.”

“No.”

“Then what do I do?”

Ian licked her neck, bared by the low-cut gown. “Pull up your skirt.”

Did he expect to do this standing up? Beth wasn’t quite certain it would work, especially not with her corset smoothing down to her hips.
Dratted underthings.
Ian took hold of her skirts and started shoving them upward.

Beth curled her fingers in the fabric and helped him. It was quite a task, and Beth reflected that if she’d known he’d planned this, she’d have worn fewer petticoats. But she’d wanted the line of her gown to look well, vain creature that she was. At least in this gown made for dancing she’d been able to leave off” the bustle. While she held her skirts bunched in her hands, Ian scraped a curve-backed chair in front of her and sat down. This put his face on a level with her pantalets. She wore a new pair, ivory silk, quite thin, adorned with lovely little embroidered flowers. Beth had never owned such frivolous, feminine undergarments in her life, but Isabella had insisted Beth purchase them.

Ian untied the tapes of the pantalets. With her hands full of skirts, Beth could scarcely stop him, but she did let out a tiny squeak when he yanked the drawers down. From the softening of his eyes, Beth concluded that he could see everything. He touched the swirl of hair between her legs. A hot tingle flushed through her body, and she made a soft sound in her throat.

“Beautiful,” he murmured.

Beth could barely breathe. “I am happy not to disappoint you.”

“You could never disappoint me.”

He sounded grave, as though he took her flippant words seriously. He leaned forward and touched his lips to the nub that was swelling with all its might.

“You are wet for me.” Ian’s breath brushed her where no man’s breath should in someone else’s sitting room. “So wet.” His tongue flicked out and tasted it. I
am going to drop over dead right here.
Mrs. Barrington would meet her at the gates of heaven and laugh herself silly. This is what happens when you give in to base lust, my gel, she’d say.

Then again, if Beth died of giving in to base lust, would heaven’s gate open for her at all?

I’m sorry, Saint Peter, but I hadn’t felt the caress of a man in such a long, long time. You took my Thomas away from me; could I not have some bodily pleasure to compensate?

Ian grasped her right ankle and lifted it free of the pantalets crumpled on the floor. He planted her foot on the chair next to his thigh, which opened her legs to him. He slid his hands around her buttocks, leaned forward, and pressed his tongue into her cleft. She wanted to scream. It had been
far
too long. She’d been secretly sorry for women who looked upon bedding their husbands as a burden, because she’d known what a joy it could be. But the knowledge had another edge—she’d known what it was she missed during her long years alone. Ian’s talented tongue freed her at last. The position with her foot on the chair let him spread her as much as he liked. And he seemed to like it. His thumbs massaged her as his tongue probed her depths. He was right.

She was wet, and Ian lapped up every drop. Ian tortured her for a long time, drinking her until she couldn’t contain her cries any longer. Beth felt her hips gyrating, her hands locking around her skirts. A sob bunt from her, feminine joy that had been denied her for so long. Tears rained down her face.

Ian drew back and looked up, his eyes burning her. She felt herself falling, but Ian caught her and pulled her to his lap, safe in his strong arms. “Did I hurt you?” Beth buried her face in his fine-smelling shoulder. “No. It was wonderful.”

“You’re crying.”

Beth lifted her head. “Because I never thought I’d feel such bliss again.” She put her hand on his cheek, tried to turn his gaze to her, but she couldn’t make him look at her. “Thank you.”

He nodded once, and then his feral smile returned.

“Would you like to feel such bliss again?” Beth pressed her lips together, but her smile wouldn’t be contained. “Yes, please,” she said.

Ian eased her onto the chair, then slid to his knees in front of her. He pushed her legs open, then leaned down and showed her that he’d done only half of what he could do with his gifted mouth.

“Now, where did you get to, darling?” Isabella pulled Beth with her through a whirl of bright skirts in the ballroom. “You have a look in your eye. What have you been doing?”

Her tone was disapproving.

Beth caught sight of Ian in the marble-lined foyer outside the ballroom and felt her cheeks flush. Isabella saw her look and gasped in delight.

“You were kissing, Ian, weren’t you? My darling, how wonderful.”

Beth didn’t answer. If she spoke, she might burn up from the inside out. Is this me, Beth Ackerley? Dressed in satin
and glittering with diamonds, having a wicked affair with the most decadent man in Paris?

She thought of her hungry days of childhood, of grime-filled streets and thin children, of drunken men, of women desperate and exhausted. She’d never dreamed her life could change so dramatically.

Ian paused to speak to another gentleman, then turned away with him, walking back through the darkened hall. Of course he wouldn’t enter the ballroom. He hated crowds. Beth swallowed her pang of disappointment. She couldn’t expect him to dance attendance. Or was it part of what he’d told her, that he couldn’t engage his heart? More fool Beth. She kept up lighthearted chatter with Isabella and her friends, but her attention kept straying to the outer hall. Ian never reappeared.