The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie

Why the man wanted to find out all about her, she didn’t know, but she intended to use him to learn all about Lord Ian.

You are entirely too curious, Beth my girl, Mrs. Barrington had said to her often. A very unattractive trait in a young lady. Beth agreed with her. She’d vowed to have nothing more to do with the Mackenzie family, and here she was accepting an appointment with Lord Mac in hopes of gaining more knowledge about his younger brother. She smiled to herself, knowing she looked forward to the next afternoon with too much interest.

But when Beth turned up at Montmartre again on the morrow, the sun sailed brightly in the sky, the clocks struck two, and Lord Mac was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Four

“See what I mean?” Katie said after a quarter of an hour had gone by. “Rude.”

Beth fought down her disappointment. She wanted to wholeheartedly agree with Katie and say a few choice phrases she’d learned in the workhouse, but she restrained herself. “We can hardly expect him to remember such a thing. Giving me lessons must be a trivial matter to him.” Katie snorted. “You’re a lady of consequence now. He has no call to treat us like this.”

Beth forced a laugh. “If Mrs. Barrington had left me only ten shillings, you wouldn’t consider me a lady of consequence.” Katie waved that aside. “Anyway, me father wasn’t as rude as this lordship, and he were drunk as a lord all the time.” Beth, familiar with drunken fathers, didn’t answer. As she gazed across the square again, she noticed the lovely young woman she and Katie had speculated about yesterday staring at them.

The lady looked at her for a long while from under her parasol, her gaze pensive. Beth returned the look with lifted brows.

The lady gave a determined nod and started for them.

“May I give you a bit of advice, my dear?” she asked when she reached Beth. Her voice was English and very well-bred, no trace of the Continent about her. She had a pale, pointed face, finely curled red hair under a tip-tilted hat, and wide green eyes. Again, Beth was aware of her arresting quality, the indefinable something that drew all eyes to her. The lady went on. “If you are waiting for his lordship Mac Mackenzie, I must tell you that he is extremely unreliable. He might be lying in a meadow studying the way a horse gallops, or he might have climbed to the top of a church tower to paint the view. I imagine he’s forgotten all about his assignation with you, but that is Mac all over.”

“Absentminded, is he?” Beth asked.

“Not so much absentminded as bloody-minded. Mac does as he pleases, and I thought it only fair that you know right away.”

The lady’s diamond earrings shimmered as she trembled, and she grasped her parasol so tightly Beth feared the delicate handle would break.

“Are you his model?” Beth didn’t really think so, but this was Paris. Even the most respectable Englishwomen were known to throw propriety to the wind once they set foot on its avenues.

The lady glanced around and sat down next to Beth in the very spot Lord Mac had occupied yesterday. “No, my dear, I am not his model. I am very unfortunately his wife.” Now this was much more interesting. Lord Mac and Lady Isabella were separated, estranged, and their very public breakup had been a ninety-days scandal. Mrs. Barrington had savored every drop of the newspaper reports with malicious glee.

That had been three years ago. Yet Lady Isabella sat in agitated anger as she confronted a woman she thought had made a tryst with her husband.

“You misunderstand,” Beth said. “His lordship offered to give me a drawing lesson because he saw how ignorantly I did it. But he became interested in me only when I told him I was a friend of Lord Ian’s.”

Isabella looked at her sharply. “Ian?”

Everyone seemed surprised Beth had even spoken to him. “I met him at the opera.”

“Did you?”

“He was very kind to me.”

Her brows arched. “Ian was? You do know, my dear, that he is here.”

Beth quickly scanned the green but saw no tall man with dark red hair and unusual eyes. “Where?” “I mean here in Paris. He arrived this morning, which is likely why Mac didn’t come. Or possibly why. One never knows with Mac.” Isabella peered at Beth with new interest. “I mean no offense, my dear, but I can’t place you. I’m sure Ian has never spoken of you.”

“My name is Mrs. Ackerley, but that will mean nothing to you.”

“She’s an heiress,” Katie broke in. “Mrs. Barrington of Belgrave Square left her one hundred thousand guineas and an enormous house.”

Isabella smiled, radiating beauty. “Oh, you’re that Mrs. Ackerley. How delightful.” Isabella ran a critical eye over Beth. “You’ve come to Paris on your own? Oh, darling, that will never do. You must let me take you under my wing. Granted, my set is a bit out of the ordinary, but I’m sure they will be enchanted with you.”

“You’re very kind, but—“

“Now, don’t be shy, Mrs. Ackerley. You must let me help you. You come home with me now, and we shall chat and know all about each other.”

Beth opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. The Mackenzies had stirred her curiosity, and what better way to learn about Lord Ian than from his own sister-in-law? “Certainly,” she amended. “I shall be delighted.”

“So, Ian, who is this Mrs. Ackerley?”

Mac leaned across the table and spoke over the strains of the orchestra scraping out a raucous tune. On the stage above Ian and Mac, two women in corsets and petticoats showed their knickers and patted each other’s bottoms to the lively music.