Isabella lifted the girl. Aimee started to cry and reached for Mac. Resigned, Mac held out his arms, trying not to like it when she cuddled under his chin and was quiet.

Isabella smiled, her cheeks still wet. “Whether you like it or not, Mac, she’s decided you belong to her.”

“Which means if you want to look after her, I’ll have to stick close by you.”

“Until she gets used to me, certainly. In that case, you’d better have Bellamy buy tickets so we may return to London.”

“London? What’s wrong with Kilmorgan? She has places to run and play here, and the crofters’ children to play with.”

Isabella gave him one of those looks that informed Mac that he was hopelessly male. “I must make arrangements for nannies and governesses, there are clothes to be sorted out, a nursery to be prepared. A hundred things to do before the Season starts.”

Mac bounced Aimee. “She’s not ready to make her debut yet, surely. She’s too tiny to waltz.”

“Don’t be silly. My Seasons are always full, and I’ll not send my child packing to the country so I don’t have to be bothered with her while I’m entertaining guests.”

“As our own dear parents did, you mean?” Aimee enjoyed herself pulling Mac’s hair until he swung her high in the air and gently tossed and caught her. She squealed in delight.

“Yes,” Isabella said. “I remember what a lonely, unwanted feeling that was. I’ll not have Aimee growing up glimpsing us from afar.”

Isabella had decided. Mac held Aimee close again but felt a qualm of misgiving. He’d known that losing their baby had hurt Isabella deeply, but he hadn’t realized until this moment just how much she longed for children. Enough that she was ready to make Aimee hers? Using a twisted logic that Aimee would never have been born if Isabella hadn’t left Mac?

One thing was certain: Whatever Isabella’s complicated motivations, she was determined to go to London with Aimee. Aimee was quiet only around Mac, and Mac was determined not to let Isabella out of his sight.

Ergo, they were off to London. He and Isabella, who’d thus far been two wary satellites circling each other, were now part of a solid threesome.

Chapter 14

London was shocked to hear of the estrangement between the Scottish Lord and his Lady. The Lord has retreated to the Continent, and the Lady lives in Mount Street no longer. There is a saying, that many a bride and groom should heed, which is Marry in haste, Repent at leisure. —January 1878

Mac had called Isabella courageous on the terrace, but Isabella saw Mac’s true colors on the journey to London. They left the day after giving Mirabelle a proper funeral, her grave sad in the rain-soaked churchyard.

Aimee had taken to Mac with a vengeance and scarcely allowed anyone else to touch her. She’d conceded to letting Isabella hold her, putting together in her tiny brain that Isabella went with Mac. But she also made it clear that she preferred Mac. He cheerfully obliged and let Aimee sit on his lap, play with his watch fob, bounce on his knee, tug his hair, and grab his nose.

Isabella had never thought of Mac as being good with children—when she’d carried his child, she’d been secretly worried that Mac might not be interested in the babe once it was born. Now as she watched from her seat in the compartment, Isabella observed with amusement that Mac might be even better with children than she was. He fed Aimee milk from a cup, let her tear apart the bread that came with his dinner, and balked only when it was time to change her nappy. There were limits, Mac said as he handed the soiled child to Evans. The servant had softened quite suddenly to Mac after observing him with Aimee, and had taken to giving him indulgent smiles.

As the train rolled on, Mac fell asleep leaning against the compartment wall, and Aimee slept in his arms. The sight of Isabella’s large husband in kilt sprawled across the seat with a baby on his chest made her heart warm.

When they reached London the next morning, Mac directed his town coachman to take them to Isabella’s house. Isabella was very aware of her neighbors’ stares as she descended from the coach in North Audley Street, followed by her estranged husband carrying a baby. She sensed curtains lifting, faces at windows. Mac was right: The gossip would be merciless.

Her household staff, on the other hand, rose to the occasion. Morton had been warned by telegrams from Bellamy to expect them, and he’d cleared the bedroom where Daniel had slept to make a nursery. He’d also taken the liberty of contacting his niece, a nanny who was currently looking for a post. Morton had arranged for Miss Westlock to arrive for an interview that afternoon, if that were convenient for her ladyship, that is.

“This is why I say you stole my best servants,” Mac said. “Morton is a god among butlers.”

“I endeavor to give satisfaction, my lord,” Morton said coolly.

“I know you do, Morton, but I’m aware that you would throw me over in a heartbeat if you had to choose between myself and my wife. Tell Bellamy to fix me a dollop of Darjeeling, there’s a good chap.”

Isabella did like Miss Westlock when she met her, as she was certain she would if Morton recommended her, and hired her on the spot. A no-nonsense woman of thirty-five, Miss Westlock had taken for granted that she wouldn’t be turned away and had her bags with her. She promptly moved in to the upstairs room next to the nursery and assumed her duties.

Isabella planned to spend the rest of the day unpacking and shopping. There were plenty of things to buy—a pram, nappies, baby furniture, baby clothes, toys. Mac left her to it, saying he would return to his own house with Bellamy to look over what the builders were repairing. He ended up taking Aimee and Miss Westlock with him, because Aimee made it clear she wasn’t yet ready to let Mac out of her sight.

Isabella felt a twinge amusement but also of sadness as she watched Mac climb into his coach holding the child, Miss Westlock following with a large bag of supplies. Isabella and Mac had been in one another’s pockets since leaving London; it seemed strange now to not turn around and trip over him.

Three and a half years I lived without him, she reminded herself. Three and a half years. And yet, one afternoon without Mac, and the house seemed empty. She decided that the best recourse was to keep busy, so she ordered the coach and went to Regent Street.

Isabella discovered that she liked shopping for children. She perused the merchandise at so many shops that Evans began growling about shoe leather wearing thin. Isabella shushed her and piled the woman’s arms high with picture books, building bricks, a tiny tea service, and a dolly about half Evans’s size. The acquaintances Isabella met on this trip were clearly curious, and Isabella told them straight out that she was planning to adopt a child. They’d know sooner or later, she reasoned. She hardly meant to keep Aimee a secret.

When she returned home, the footmen grumbling as much as Evans as they carried in box after box, Isabella found a letter from Ainsley Douglas waiting on the hall table. Mac had not yet returned, and Isabella hastened to her own chamber to read it.

She read the missive twice through and kissed it. “God bless you, Ainsley, my old mate,” she said, and tucked the letter into her bosom.

When Mac returned home with a sleeping Aimee in his arms, he found Isabella in the nursery. Miss Westlock had to settle some affairs, so Mac carried Aimee up to put her to bed himself.

Isabella stood at the window in the nursery, staring out at the fading afternoon, stroking the golden hair of a huge doll sitting on the window seat. Mac laid the sleeping Aimee in her cot, covered her with a blanket, and went to Isabella.

Isabella didn’t turn. A chance ray of afternoon sunlight touched her face, and the sorrow he saw there broke his heart.

Mac touched her shoulder. “Isabella.”

Isabella turned to him, her eyes wet with tears. She opened her mouth as though to excuse her crying, but the words didn’t come. Mac opened his arms, and Isabella walked straight into them.

Memories flooded back to Mac as he gathered her against him. Don’t remember. Don’t let it hurt.

But memories were merciless things.

As clear as yesterday, he saw himself walking into Isabella’s bedroom in the Mount Street house after she’d miscarried their child. Mac had been falling-down drunk, despite Ian’s best efforts to keep him sober.

In the train from Dover to London, Mac had kept a flask of whiskey at his lips in attempt to erase the horrible pain tearing at his insides. He’d never felt anything like it, not even when his mother had died years earlier. He’d never been close to his mother, had barely known her. His father had kept the brothers isolated from the fragile duchess, the old duke’s jealousy extending even to his sons. The duchess had died because of that obsessive jealousy.

Mac’s grief for his mother was nothing to what he’d felt when Ian finally got it through Mac’s head that Isabella had lost their child and was in danger of dying herself. Malt whiskey didn’t dampen Mac’s guilt and grief a fraction, but he kept pouring it down his throat in desperate attempt.

He’d charged into the house and up the stairs to Isabella’s bedroom. He remembered finding Isabella on a chaise drawn up to the fireplace, her red hair hanging loose, her face wan. She’d looked up with red-rimmed eyes as Mac staggered in.

He’d made it to the chaise before collapsing to his knees and burying his face in her lap. “I’m sorry.” His voice had come out a croak. “I am so sorry.”