The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1)

by Jennifer Ashley

It rose in him when he wanted to explain things but couldn’t find the words, when he couldn’t understand the nonsense everyone around him was babbling.

He would soon arrange it so he never had to leave. He’d marry her for a very basic reason: to have her with him every night, every day, every afternoon, and every time in between. He walked down the boulevard, something in him awakening and breaking free.

“Desire is part of it,” she said slowly. “The love for another’s body. But also love for their heart and their mind, and for all the silly things they do, no matter how absurd. Your world brightens when they walk into a room, dims when they leave it again. You want to be with the beloved so you can see him and touch him and hear his voice, but you want his happiness as well. It’s selfish, but not entirely so.”

Don’t hunger for what you can’t have, she admonished herself. Take pleasure in what you can. Such thoughts had got her through the worst days.

“We don’t fit in, you and me,” he said. “We’re both oddities no one knows what to do with. But we fit together.” He took her hand, pressed her palm to his, then laced their fingers through each other’s. “We fit.”

“Your being with me makes it stop. It’s like the Ming bowls—when I touch them and feel them, everything stops. Nothing matters. You are the same. That is why I brought you here, to keep you with me, where you can please make . . . everything . . . stop.”

“Is this what love feels like?” he whispered to her. “I don’t like it, my Beth. It hurts too much.”

“All of us are mad in some way,” Ian said. “I have a memory that won’t let go of details. Hart is obsessed with politics and money. Cameron is a genius with horses, and Mac paints like a god. You find out details on your cases that others miss. You are obsessed with justice and getting everything you think is coming to you. We all have our madness. Mine is just the most obvious.”