Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley

Author:Jennifer Ashley [Ashley, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Mystery, Adult, Historical, Regency
ISBN: 9780425235454
Google: 2S5klHx1PVEC
Amazon: 0425235459
Barnesnoble: 0425235459
Goodreads: 7070067
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2011-07-03T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The Lady of Mount Street has packed her things and retreated to the seaside after a sudden illness. Mayfair is the lesser for her departure.

—September 1877

Urgent, Bellamy had said. Damned disaster, Mac thought as he stepped off the stairs.

Hart stood in the ground floor hall with Ian and a woman Mac had never seen before. The grand hall of the Palladian-style house traversed its entire length and was filled with polished wood, oil paintings, and tall windows. The very center of the hall sported a round table with a massive flower arrangement that the staff changed daily. It used to sport a marble statue of an entwined Greek god and goddess by Bernini, but as beautiful as it was, Beth had decided that flowers would be less shocking to ladies who might pay calls there. The Bernini now resided in Hart’s private suite upstairs.

Mac doubted that the woman had come to call on Beth or Isabella. She was thin to the point of emaciation and wore a dark brown dress, a battered hat, and a cloak that hung loosely from bony shoulders. Her face was worn with care, though she did not look to be much older than Isabella. At her feet, attached to her wrist by a piece of string, stood a tiny girl with bright red hair and brown eyes.

Hart spoke to the woman in French. Ian stood next to them, his hands behind his back, rocking slightly on his heels as he did when he was distracted or upset.

Mac closed the shirt Bellamy had tossed at him over his bare torso and approached them. “Hart? What do you want? Who is she?”

The look Hart turned on him could have punched a hole in a stone wall. Hart’s eyes, golden like an eagle’s, always had a predatory bent, and at the moment they were filled with fury.

“I give you free rein because I’m no saint myself,” Hart said in a tight voice. “But I do not like lies.”

“Lies? What lies? What the devil are you talking about?”

Ian cut him off. “She claims the child is yours. She is wrong.”

“Of course she’s wrong,” Mac said in astonishment. “I’ve never seen the woman before in my life.”

The young woman watched their conversation with uncomprehending eyes, looking anxiously from one brother to the other.

Mac addressed her in impatient French. “You’ve made a mistake, Madame.”

She gave him an anguished look and started babbling. Of course she had not mistaken Mac Mackenzie, the great Scottish lord who had been her lover for years in France. Mac had left his wife for her, but disappeared a year after their little girl had been born. She’d waited and waited for him to return, then she grew ill and too poor to care for little Aimee. She’d traveled all the way to Scotland to find Mac and give Aimee to him.

Mac listened in growing amazement. Hart’s face was set in anger, and Ian stared at the floor, fist tucked under his chin.

“I swear to you, Hart, I have no idea who she is,” Mac said when the woman’s speech wound down.

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