On the stage, Prario launched into an aria. The crowd hung on every note. Ainsley’s hand slid down Cameron’s immense and burning hardness and squeezed.
He hid a groan. The music swelled, and the noise released from Cameron’s throat was drowned in Giorgio’s notes.
Cameron leaned his forehead in his hand as Ainsley worked him. Ainsley, the minx, kept her gaze on the stage, even plied her fan languidly, all the while her left hand squeezed, pulled, stroked, twisted.
When her fingers touched his tight balls, Cameron almost left the chair. He made himself still, his hand clenched on his thigh while her hand tightened on him.
What she did drove him wild. He wanted to pull Ainsley onto the chair with him and burrow under her skirts until he was satisfied. He wanted to drag her to him for a long kiss; he wanted to rip the buttons from her bodice and feast on the package inside.
“Damn you,” he whispered.
Ainsley smiled. She glided her hand up and down him in fine, hot strokes. God, he was coming apart. He clenched his jaw to stifle his groans, but he wanted to shout to the world what his sweet little lover was doing to him in the dark of the box.
Below them, Prario wound to the top of the aria, his voice clear and true as he scaled the notes. He reached the top one and held it, and Cameron broke.
Cam snatched a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it over himself, Ainsley moving her hand away just in time. Cameron’s seed spilled in an ecstasy of feeling and music, joy in the heat of Ainsley pressed against him.
“I want to be doing this inside you,” he said savagely into her ear. “I want to feel you taking me, knowing that you’re mine.”
“I’d like that too,” she whispered.
Cameron rode out his climax as Prario’s voice slid downward in glissando. At the end, Prario threw out his arms and bellowed his last, loud note.
The crowd roared its appreciation, and Phyllida leaned to Ainsley, eyes shining. “Didn’t I say he was wonderful?”
“Indeed,” Ainsley said calmly as Phyllida sprang to her feet. Ainsley pulled on her gloves and rose to join the ovation, leaving Cameron to hastily refasten his trousers in the dark.
As soon as the door closed behind them in the townhouse, Cameron said to the footman, “Leave us.”
Well trained, the footman turned down the last gaslight and discreetly faded away. Ainsley’s heart fluttered in excitement. Cameron had refused Phyllida’s invitation to a grand soiree after the performance and had nearly shoved Ainsley into his town coach, telling the coachman to get them quickly home.
Now Cameron pressed Ainsley into the paneled wall in the dark, pinning her wrists above her head. He kissed her without a word, not letting her speak or ask questions. He was taking, lifting Ainsley up the wall until their faces were level.
His kisses were brutal, burning. Cameron might have kept his wanting dammed after she’d played with him in the theatre, but now he let the dam burst.
“Vixen,” he whispered. “Unmanning me in public.”
Ainsley licked across his mouth. “I enjoyed it. I believe you did as well.”
His voice went soft but savage as he used words that should offend her but instead excited her beyond measure. He told her what he wanted to do to her, and what pet names he’d call her. No lady should listen to such things, but, as Cameron had pointed out weeks ago, Ainsley wasn’t quite a lady.
He kissed her bosom, diamonds catching in his teeth. His hands went to the clasps on the back of her bodice, and he made a grunt of frustration as he tugged.
“Tear it open,” she whispered. “I don’t care.”
She didn’t. Why stop this sensation when a simple needle and thread would repair the damage?
Cameron smiled a feral smile, and he ceased being gentle. He yanked wide her bodice, kissing and licking her flesh as the fabric came away. The cool of the panel pressed into her back, the hot hardness of Cameron into her front. Ainsley felt dizzy, decadent, wicked.
He disrobed her, a layer at a time, right there in hall beneath the curve of the spiral stairs. So many layers a lady had to wear, and Cameron kissed her and touched her as each one came off.
Ainsley didn’t protest until he tugged open his trousers, not even bothering to remove his coat.
“We’re in the front hall,” she said.
“We were in a box in the theatre. You didn’t worry about propriety then.”
“It was dark.”
“It’s dark here, and my servants know damn well better than to disturb me.”
While Cameron spoke, he lifted Ainsley against the wall, cushioning its hard surface with his arms. He supported her hips, and by now she knew how to wrap her legs around him as Cameron entered her in one smooth stroke.
The erotic feeling of him awakened her, excited her. His words died to whispered breaths, and his strength kept Ainsley from falling.
Nothing existed at that moment but herself and him. The raw sensuality of Cameron, the smooth lip of the paneling, the sounds in his throat as he loved her.
Hot, hard, sensation. Ainsley arched against her lover, the feel of his coat exciting against her bare skin. Cameron caught the sounds of her aching need in his mouth.
They rocked into the paneling, and then his eyes went dark, his pupils spreading, and she felt him release inside her. Cameron kept thrusting, his kisses hotter but more relaxed, the frenzy dying into warmth.
Cameron carried Ainsley upstairs, where the coal fire heated her bedchamber, and laid her on the chaise while he quickly got out of his clothes. Ainsley’s clothes they’d left all over the hall. She started to protest that they should retrieve them, but he silenced her with a kiss. That’s what he’d hired the damn servants for, he growled.
Cameron wanted loving, not talking. The armless chaise was perfect for having Ainsley on top of him, and soon, Cameron was buried inside her again, Ainsley sighing in pleasure.
Damn, but she was beautiful. Ainsley’s breasts moved while she rode him, nipples dusky pink against her Scots- pale skin. Her hair was still piled on top of her head, some of the little curls dripping down her neck.
When Ainsley gave him a little smile, her eyes half closed, Cameron knew that no woman would ever be more beautiful than Ainsley. The softness of her body, even the fading, snaking scars on her belly, made her so, so lovely. She belonged to him, always, forever.
He’d loved her squeezing him with her hand, but being inside her was ten times better. She was tight, damned tight. He loved it. He loved her.
The last thought made Cameron lose all control. He rocked against her, hands on her thighs, her hands splayed on his chest as she swayed. She made sweet noises in her climax, but Cameron’s coming was raw. He held on to her, tight, tight, and his Oh, fuck! rang through the room.
Never go, never. I need this. I need you.
He pulled Ainsley down to him and they drowsed in afterglow, warm by the fire. He pressed his cheek to Ainsley’s hair as she skimmed her fingers across his chest, both of them exhausted by passion.
He didn’t let himself think much as they cuddled together. This moment was too important for stray thoughts. There was only Ainsley, and himself, and now.
Cameron rested with her until the window lightened to gray. Ainsley slept against his chest as he held her, her breath on his skin.
Finally, he rose and carried her to the bed, Ainsley still sleeping. He laid her down and covered her as tenderly as he’d used to with Daniel, when the lad had been a boy in a cot.
Ainsley’s eyes fluttered open. “Stay with me,” she whispered. “Please, Cam.”
Chapter 21
She hadn’t asked him that in a while. Cameron was already hard and hot for her again, but something dark twisted inside him, tendrils wrapping him so tightly he couldn’t breathe.
Ainsley’s eyes held longing, but Cameron was already moving from the bed, shaking his head.
“Eleanor Ramsay explained to me what your wife did to you,” Ainsley said behind him. ?
??I understand why you don’t let yourself sleep in the same room with a woman.”
Cameron turned around. Ainsley was sitting up, the sheet pulled to her chin, watching him.
“With anyone,” Cameron said. “And Eleanor didn’t tell you all of it.”
No one knew but Cam. Cameron hadn’t been able to confess every truth, even to Hart, and he didn’t want to tell beautiful, unmarred Ainsley that his wife had not only beaten him with that poker, but on two occasions had tried to rape him with it.
He remembered the incidents with clarity, even though so much time had passed. The wash of pain that had jerked him out of deep slumber, Elizabeth’s laughter, more pain, blood, his own screams. He’d flung Elizabeth away, and still she’d laughed.
He’d started allowing himself to sleep only when he was alone, behind a locked door. But damned if Elizabeth hadn’t tricked a servant into letting her into Cameron’s chamber late one night so she could go at Cameron again. The only thing that had worked after that was posting a guard, both on his own door and Elizabeth’s. She’d railed about that too.
The darkness cleared a little to let him see Ainsley’s gray eyes, shining in the equally gray dawn.
“It’s not just what she did to me,” Cameron said with difficulty. “It’s what I might do to you. If you woke me suddenly, I might strike out and hurt you.”
He could tell she didn’t understand. Cameron went back to the bed and leaned down to her, resting his fists on the mattress.
“Daniel woke me up once, when he was about ten years old,” he said. “I threw him across the room. My own son. I could have killed him.”
The horror of that moment had never gone away. Daniel had lain still on the floor, unconscious, while Cameron had rushed to him, lifted his limp body in his arms. Resilient, Daniel hadn’t been badly hurt, thank God. Daniel had later said, cheerfully, that it had been his own fault. He’d forgotten that his dad was a little crazy.
Daniel taking the blame for the incident had kicked Cameron in the gut. Then Angelo had tried to blame himself for not realizing that Daniel had crept upstairs to his father’s bedroom. Cameron had wanted to shout at both of them, and ended up moving to a hotel, no longer trusting himself around those he cared about.
“Was Daniel all right?” Ainsley asked.
“Aye, but that’s not the point, is it?” Cameron’s fists tightened. “He was only a little boy. I could have hurt him. Do ye think I want to wake up and see I’ve done the same to you?”
Ainsley stared up at him, eyes unreadable. Cameron would never understand her. Just when he thought he knew Ainsley, the lively young woman who picked locks and ran about Paris in pursuit of cake, she decided to bring him off him in public, then tried to pry out the secrets of his soul.
“Perhaps if you grew used to it,” she began.
“Damn it, have ye heard nothing? There’s something wrong with me, understand? I can’t even think about settling down to sleep with you without the world going black. That’s why I wake up tossing people about. The blackness doesn’t let me go until it’s too late.”
Ainsley listened in silence. She was supposed to be afraid of him, of the terrifying, raging thing inside him. Some women enjoyed being afraid of Cameron, liking the danger, but they didn’t truly understand what Cameron was capable of. Cameron had never let them know.
He swung away and snatched up his clothes.
“I positively hate this woman,” Ainsley said behind him. “Your wife, I mean.”
Cameron gave a bitter laugh as he pulled on his trousers. “I’m glad you do. She wrecked me. She wanted her revenge, and now she has it.”
“Cam . . .”
Cameron shook his head. “No more talking. Go to sleep.”
He turned his back on the beautiful woman he’d do anything in the world for, shrugged on his shirt, and banged out.
Behind him, Ainsley hugged her knees, wiping tears on the sheet. “I do hope it is hot where you are, Lady Elizabeth Cavendish,” she whispered. “Very, very hot.”
Ainsley walked into Cameron’s bedroom the next evening while his Parisian valet readied him for another night of restaurants and cabarets. Cam glanced at the afternoon dress Ainsley still wore and frowned.
“Aren’t you coming out with me?”
“I’ll get dressed in a moment. Felipe, will you leave us?”
The valet didn’t even look to Cameron for confirmation. The servants, both Scottish and French, now obeyed Ainsley without question. Felipe simply left the room.
Cameron finished closing the collar stud Felipe had been setting in place. “I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“How do you even know what I intend to say?”
He gave her an impatient look before he turned back to the mirror to slide his cravat around his neck. “Because you’re a ferret and can’t leave well enough alone.”
Ainsley went to him, took the cravat ends from his hands, and started to tie the knot for him.
“I came to tell you about my brother.”
Cameron tilted his head back so she could work. “Which brother? There are as many confounded McBrides as there are Mackenzies.”
“There are only four. Patrick, Sinclair, Elliot, and Steven. I want to tell you more about Elliot.”
“Which one is he, the barrister?”
Cameron knew full well which of her brothers was which, because Ainsley had talked quite a lot about each of them. Her brothers were a safe topic of conversation, plus she was proud of their accomplishments. Ainsley was willing to wager that Hart too had told Cameron about her brothers, likely with dossiers on each one. Cameron was trying to be difficult.
“Elliot went to India with the army,” she said. “When he left the army, he stayed in India to start a business helping other colonials settle. Once when he was traveling in the northern region in the course of this business, he was captured. He was kept imprisoned for so long there that we were certain he was dead. But at last he managed to escape and make his way home.”
Cameron’s voice softened. “I remember. I’m sorry. What about him?”
“Elliot stayed with Patrick a while to convalesce, and he seemed to mend, but I could tell that there was something very wrong. Elliot made too light of his broken bones and the torture he’d suffered, almost joking about the whole thing.”
“I understand why,” Cameron said. “He didn’t want to think too much about it. Or talk about it.”
Ainsley gave Cameron’s knot one last tug. “I realize that. What he went through must have been horrible. One night, when I looked in on him, I found him huddled on the bed, shaking and unable to speak. When I went to see what was the matter, Elliot wouldn’t respond to me, wouldn’t even look at me. I was about to run for Rona and Patrick when he came to himself. He told me he was all right and begged me to say nothing.”
“It had happened to him before, then.”
Ainsley nodded. “He told me that sometimes, out of nowhere, even when he sat quietly in Rona’s front parlor, the world would . . . go away. He’d feel himself floating, and then he’d be back in the tiny hole where his captors had kept him. They sometimes didn’t feed him or even look in on him for weeks. Logically, Elliot knew that he was safe and whole and in Patrick’s house in Scotland, but his mind made him relive the entire horror of what had happened. He said he worried that the visions made him a coward, but that can’t be true—Elliot is one of the bravest men I know. He even went back to India—he’s still there—because he feared he’d be cowering in Patrick’s guest room for the rest of his life if he didn’t.”
Cameron looked down at her with an unreadable expression. He was delectable in kilt, shirt, and waistcoat, in undress only his valet or wife was allowed to see. “You are telling me this story because you think I feel about Elizabeth the same way your brother felt about being imprisoned and tortured.”
“Well, not quite, but it must be a similar thing.”
Cameron turned away from her. “Which I a
sked not to talk about, I remember.”
“I think we should talk about it. It’s our marriage, Cam. It’s our life.”
Still he wouldn’t look at her. “I told you, I don’t want rows with you. We rub along, or we don’t.”
“Then we ignore the fact that my own husband refuses to sleep in a bed with me?”
Cam dragged a hand through his hair. “Plenty of married people don’t share a bed. God knows my mother and father never did. They had separate rooms, separate spaces. It’s not unusual.”
“It is in my family. Patrick and Rona sleep together every night, and my parents did too.”
“I’m glad you had such an idyllic upbringing.”
“I even shared a bed with John.”
Cameron’s eyes flashed as he swung around again. “And I don’t want to hear you talk about you and John Douglas.”
“But we must talk about you.”
“Why?” His big hands clenched. “Why must we, Ainsley? Have you come into my life to fix every little problem? I don’t want a be-damned nanny, I want a lover.”
“So do I.”
“For God’s sake, Ainsley, what do you want me to say? That Elizabeth was insane? You’ve heard the stories. Eleanor must have given you an earful—Hart spilled all the family secrets to her. Eleanor ran far away from us, wise woman.”
“She told me that Lady Elizabeth hurt you.”
“Aye, she did.” Cameron ripped the button from his cuff and yanked the sleeve up his arm. “You were interested in these? All right, then, I’ll tell you. Elizabeth was in my bedroom, smoking a cheroot. Her lovers liked her to smoke them, so she did it to remind me that she didn’t belong entirely to me. Daniel was there, and she thought it would be interesting to see what kind of scars the ends left on a baby’s flesh.”
Ainsley’s mouth dropped open. Eleanor hadn’t mentioned that. She thought of the precious body she’d cradled to her bosom for one day, and rage that knew no end filled her. “How could she?”