“I’m very pleased to hear it, Lord Cameron,” Ainsley said, concentrating on the lock.
Why did her saying his name make it music? Cameron leaned back and took a pull of his cigar. He should taste the fine, pressed leaves seasoned with brandy, but it could have been a charred stick for all he noticed.
If he weren’t so drunk he would simply unlock the door, let her out, and forget about her. But flashes of the night six years ago kept coming to him—the fierce heat of her skin, her hesitant but needy touch, her swiftly drawn breath as he kissed across her bosom.
She was six years older now and the gray dress was all wrong for her, but time had only deepened her beauty. Lush breasts swelled over the top of her bodice, and her hips had widened to be enticing under the tightly drawn skirt. Her face reflected more experience of the world, her gray eyes held a bit more skepticism, her self-control was firmer.
If Cameron could convince her to stay tonight, he’d finally be able to savor the hot, sensual taste of Ainsley Douglas, which had bewitched him all these years. Warm, cinnamony, smooth. He’d press her against the door, lick her skin that was damp with sweat, tell her what he really wanted in return for letting her out. All she had to do was finish what they’d started six years ago, and he’d unlock the door and release her.
Cameron forced himself to look away from her and take another pull of the cheroot. His wandering gaze fell on the coat that lay sprawled across the bed and the corner of paper that stuck out of his pocket.
He’d forgotten about the letter, or whatever it was, that Phyllida had thrust at him earlier that day. She’d told him to keep it safe for her, and Cameron had tucked the paper away, uninterested. His valet, Angelo, must have found it and thought it important enough to slide into the coat of Cameron’s formal suit.
Cameron fished out the paper and unfolded it. It was part of a letter, missing the greeting, and unsigned. His brows rose as he started reading. It was a sickening sweet panegyric to an apparently virile man, the prose drowning in exclamation marks and underlining. The style was sentimental and emphatic and all wrong for Ainsley Douglas.
He held up the page. “Is this what you were looking for, Mrs. Douglas?”
Ainsley looked around at him and slowly rose to her feet. The shock and dismay on her face told Cameron all he needed to know.
“That isn’t yours,” she said.
“God, I hope not. ‘Your honest brow is crowned with honeyed dew, your muscles like Vulcan’s at his forge.’ How long did it take ye to think up this drivel?”
Ainsley marched across the carpet and halted beside the bed, arm outstretched. “Give it to me.”
Cameron looked at her gloved palm so stiffly held out to him and wanted to laugh. She expected him to meekly return the letter, perhaps escort her to the door, apologize for inconveniencing her?
“Who did ye write it to?” Whoever it was didn’t deserve this beautiful woman writing him at all, even a bloody awful letter like this one.
She reddened. “It’s not mine. It’s . . . a friend’s. May I have it back, please?”
Cameron folded the letter in half. “No.”
She blinked. “Why not?”
“Because ye want it so much.”
Ainsley’s chest hurt. Lord Cameron lounged back on his bed and laughed at her, eyes glints of gold as he dangled the letter between his strong fingers. His waistcoat and shirt hung open, showing her a V of chest dusted with dark hair. A man in dishabille who’d undressed for his mistress. His kilt rumpled across his knees, the hem caught on a scar she’d seen when Mrs. Chase had lifted it.
He was rude, ungentlemanly, brutish, and dangerous. Lord Cameron collected erotica, people told her, books and art. She saw no sign of that lying about, although the painting that hung over his bedside table—a woman sitting on her bed pulling on her stockings—held unashamed sensuality.
But though a lady ought to regard Lord Cameron in disapproval, even apprehension, he made Ainsley’s blood tingle. He again was awakening things in her that had lain dead for too many years.
“Please give me the letter, Lord Cameron. It is very important.”
Cameron took a puff from his cheroot, sending smoke into Ainsley’s face. Ainsley coughed and waved it away.
“You’re tipsy,” she said.
“No, I’m bloody drunk and plan to get drunker. Would you like to join me in a single malt, madam? From Hart’s finest stock.”
The Mackenzies owned a small distillery that shipped Scots whiskey all over Scotland and to select clients in England. Everyone knew that. The distillery had done only modestly until Hart had inherited it—according to Isabella, Hart and Ian between them had turned it into a vastly profitable venture.
Ainsley imagined Cameron taking a slow sip of whiskey, licking away a drop from his lips. She swallowed. “If I show you that I’m not afraid of whiskey, will you give me the letter and let me out?”
“No.”
Ainsley let out an exasperated breath. “Devil take you, Lord Cameron, you are the most maddening, wretched—”
She made a sudden grab for the letter, but Cameron lifted it out of reach. “No, you don’t, Mrs. Douglas.”
Ainsley narrowed her eyes and swatted, not at the letter, but the cheroot. The lit cigar flew from Cameron’s fingers and bounced to the bedcovers. He dove after it, growling.
“Damn you, woman.”
Ainsley had one knee on the bed, her fingers around the letter he’d dropped to snatch at the cheroot. The next instant, she found herself flat on the mattress with Lord Cameron on top of her, her wrists captured above her head by his massive hand. Lord Cameron might be drunk, but he was strong.
“Clever, clever Mrs. Douglas. But not fast enough.”
Still holding Ainsley’s wrists, Cameron tossed the cheroot onto the bedside table, then wrested the letter from Ainsley’s fingers. She struggled but couldn’t budge him; his big hand held her firmly in place.
Cameron stuffed the letter into his waistcoat pocket and leaned closer, his breath burning her skin. He was going to kiss her. She’d dreamed of his kiss in the lonely years between her first encounter with him and this one, reliving the warm pressure of his mouth, the heat of his tongue. And now, she would let him kiss her again. Gladly.
Closer. Closer. Cameron nuzzled the line of her hair, his lips just brushing it. “Who is the letter to?” he whispered.
Ainsley could barely speak. “None of your affair.”
His smile held sin. “You look too innocent to have paramours. But I know you’re a good little liar.”
“I’m not lying, and I don’t have a paramour. The letter belongs to a friend, I told you.”
“She must be a very dear friend, for you to go to all this trouble.” He fished the key from his pocket and touched it to her lips. “Ye want this, do you?”
“I would enjoy leaving the room, yes.”
Cameron’s eyes warmed. “Are ye certain?”
“Very certain.” I think.
Cameron traced her lips with the key, the metal cool and hard. “What would you do for this key, pretty Mrs. Douglas?”
“I don’t know.” That was the plain truth. Whatever Cameron asked her for, Ainsley was afraid she’d do without protest.
“Would you kiss me for it?”
Ainsley’s gaze went to his lips, and she wet her own. “Yes. Yes, I believe I would.”
“Bold, wicked lady.”
“I must be, mustn’t I? I haven’t screamed or slapped you or smacked my knee between your legs.”
Cameron looked startled, then burst out laughing. It was a genuine laugh, his gravelly voice warm. The bed shook with it. Still laughing, Cameron tilted his head back and dropped the key into his mouth.
“What are you—” Ainsley’s words cut off as Cameron brought his mouth down on hers, sweeping his tongue—and the cool key—inside. His lips were strong, mastering, his tongue forceful.
Cameron lifted his head again, still smiling.
&nb
sp; Finding her hands released, Ainsley plucked the key from her mouth. “I could have choked on this, my lord.”
“I wouldn’t have let you.” His tone was suddenly gentle, the one of the man who coaxed the most reluctant horses to come to his hand. In that instant, Ainsley saw loneliness in his eyes, a vast well of it, filling every space of him.
Ainsley knew about loneliness—she was often alone despite living among so many people—but she also knew that she had family and friends who would be at her side the moment she truly needed them. Lord Cameron had family, the notorious Mackenzies, four men who couldn’t stay out of the scandal sheets, and a son, Daniel, who spent most of his time away at school. His two younger brothers had wives and new families to keep them busy, his older brother Hart had the dukedom. What did Cameron have?
Compassion squeezed her heart, and Ainsley reached up to touch his face.
Instantly, Cameron rolled off her, removing his heady warmth, at the same time pulling her upright. She found herself sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching the key, before his hand under her backside pushed her to her feet.
“Go,” he said. “You have your way out, and I want to sleep.”
Ainsley held out her hand. “With the letter?”
“Bugger the letter. Now get out, woman, and leave me in peace.”
The shutters between himself and her had risen again. Hard and unpredictable was Lord Cameron. A new mistress every few months, ruthless when it came to winning races, and fiercely protective of his horses and his son.
Horses and women, she’d heard someone say about him. That’s all he cares about, in that order.
And yet she’d seen that flash of longing in his eyes.
Cameron still had the page of the letter. Ainsley had lost this round, but there would be another. There would have to be.
“Good night then, Lord Cameron.”
Hand under her arm, playful no longer, Cameron took her to the door, waited while she put the key in the lock, and more or less shoved her out of the room. Without looking at her, Cameron closed the door behind her, and she heard the decided click of the lock.
Well.
Ainsley blew out her breath and leaned against the nearest wall. She shook in every limb, her chest tight, her corset far too binding. She could still feel the weight of Cameron’s long body on hers, the strength of his hand on her wrists, the imprint of his mouth on hers.
She hadn’t forgotten his touch, the heat of his kiss, the strength of him, in six years. What a man he was, a forbidden, out-of-reach man who cared nothing for Ainsley Douglas and her troubles. Cameron still had the letter, and she had to get it back from him before he gave it to Phyllida, or worse, his brother Hart. If Hart Mackenzie knew what a treasure Cameron carried carelessly in his pocket, the ruthless duke wouldn’t hesitate to use it, she was certain.
But at the moment, Ainsley could only think of the long length of Cameron pressing her into the mattress, the heat of his breath on her mouth. What would it be like to be his lover?
Wonderful, wicked, far too powerful for the likes of Ainsley Douglas. He’d called her a mouse, she remembered, when he’d found her tucked into his window seat to hide.
She also remembered, as she finally pried herself from the wall and headed for the back stairs, something she’d seen very clearly when Cameron had pinned Ainsley’s hands above her head.
His loosened sleeve had slipped, revealing scars along the inside of his forearm. The scars had faded with time, but each was perfectly round, each about three quarters of an inch in diameter. Ainsley recognized the shape of them from an accident that had happened to one of her brothers, but Sinclair had suffered only one burn.
Someone, once upon a time, had amused themselves by touching a lighted cigar end repeatedly to Lord Cameron’s flesh.
The morning was fine enough to put Angelo on Night- Blooming Jasmine and let her gallop in the one field that wasn’t too boggy for the horses. Cameron rode behind them on a retired racer as Angelo let Jasmine run full out.
Cameron felt the power of the horse he rode, the air in his face, the rush of speed—all working to pull him out of his groggy, hungover state. He only ever came alive while astride a horse or watching their grace and strength as they ran. Sometimes when he hit the moment of passion with a woman, he’d feel the same surge of life, but at all other times, Cameron Mackenzie was half dead, walking through life and barely feeling it.
The exception: The two times he’d found Ainsley Douglas in his bedroom. Both times he’d come upon her there, he’d felt that rush and roar of excitement, the exhilaration pouring into his body.
Cameron hadn’t slept after Ainsley had left the night before. He’d tried to soothe his lust and his anger with whiskey and cheroots, but nothing had worked. Now here he was too damn early in the morning, his head pounding, his mouth parched, while he tried to train the most challenging horse of his career.
Night-Blooming Jasmine, a three-year-old with incredible speed, had been nearly ruined by being pushed to win the big races before she was ready. Her owner, a fool of an English viscount called Lord Pierson, had already run through a string of trainers, finding fault with each and transferring Jasmine from one to the next in rapid succession. Pierson openly despised Cameron, because Cameron trained his own horses and sometimes horses for other owners. A gentleman hired others to do menial jobs for him, Pierson told him.
Cameron saw no reason to own horses if he couldn’t be among them. He’d learned at a young age that he had a gift with the beasts. Not only could he bring out the best in each, but the horses followed him about the paddocks like dogs and came eagerly alert whenever he walked into a stable yard.
Jasmine was a dark brown filly with a coffee brown mane and tail, long of leg and sound of heart. She had the spirit and the speed, but Pierson had nearly destroyed her. He’d wanted to run her, as a three-year-old, in the most important flat races of the year: Epsom, Newmarket, Doncaster. Jasmine had fallen at Newmarket, but mercifully unhurt, had finished respectably, which was more to do with her jockey’s skill than her trainer’s care.
At Epsom, under a new trainer and new jockey, she’d flagged in the middle of the pack. Pierson, disgusted, had sacked that trainer and jockey and brought Jasmine to Cameron, saying that Cameron was his last hope. Pierson was damned sorry that his last hope was one of the bloody Scottish Mackenzies, but he had no other choice. Jasmine needed to win the St. Leger at Doncaster, and that was all there was to that.
Cameron would have told Pierson to fornicate himself, but one look at Jasmine’s sleek body and mischievous eye, and Cameron couldn’t turn her away. He knew there was something in the horse that he could bring out. He needed to rescue her from Pierson. So he agreed.
But Cam doubted she’d win Doncaster and told Pierson so, frankly. She was wrung out, tired, annoyed, and needed much care if she’d finish at all. Pierson didn’t like that, but too damn bad.
Jasmine at least ran well today, showing her potential, neck arching proudly when Angelo reached down to pat her. Some of Hart’s guests lined up beyond the field—keeping a safe distance as Cameron had instructed them all week.
Nowhere did he see a lady with a fine head of golden hair craning to watch, as much as Cameron looked for her while pretending to himself that he didn’t. Ainsley Douglas was likely helping Isabella and Beth organize something. Isabella had spent much time this week singing the praises of Mrs. Douglas’s gift for managing things.
Of course she had a gift. Criminals had to be organized, or they’d be caught. The crackling paper in Cameron’s pocket was a reminder of that.
Cameron’s son, Daniel, rode another racer, a more experienced horse to keep Jasmine paced. Cameron pulled his horse back to watch, noting with a tug of pride, as Daniel cantered side by side with Jasmine and Angelo, that his son had the touch with the horses. Danny would be a damned fine trainer if he chose to take up the sport.
Daniel’s lanky form had not only shot up to reach Cameron’
s height over the summer, but his voice had deepened and his shoulders widened. He’d become a man when Cameron wasn’t looking, and Cameron wasn’t certain what to do about it. Daniel was turning out remarkably well, in spite of it all, which Cameron put down to his brothers’ help and his sisters-in-law’s influence.
Angelo and Daniel rode the horses around to where Cameron waited, the Romany Angelo smiling with pleasure. “She’s in fine form this morning,” Angelo said.
“Aye,” Daniel reached over and patted Jasmine’s neck with proprietary pride. “In spite of the trouble she causes us. Wish I could be a jockey and ride her to victory, but I’m already too big.”
“Jockeys have a hell of a life, son,” Cam said. He understood Daniel’s longing, but he wanted his son’s neck in one piece.
“Aye, all those horses and money and women must be a right trial,” Daniel said.
Angelo laughed, and Jasmine stretched her neck to Cameron. Cameron rubbed her nose. “You’re doing fine, lass. You’ve got heart, I know that.”
“She won’t win,” Angelo said. “Doncaster is in three weeks.”
“I know.”
“What about Pierson?”
“I’ll deal with Pierson. You stay away from him.”
Angelo laughed. “No fear there.”
Hart’s guests might be shocked to hear Angelo speaking so familiarly to Cameron, but the two men were more friends than servant and master. Cameron found Angelo refreshingly frank, and Angelo had decided that Cameron had good sense, for an Anglo. Besides, Cameron knew horses, and the two men had become fast friends over that.
Across the field, the guests were moving off, being herded by the redheaded Isabella up to the lawn.
“Now, what are they doing?” Cameron growled.
“Croquet match,” Angelo said. “To the death, I think.”
“Croquet is bloody boring,” Daniel said.
Cameron wasn’t listening. Another woman had come to join Isabella, one in a dull gray frock with hair the color of sunshine.
“Jasmine’s had enough this morning,” Cameron said. “Cool her down and take her in, Angelo.”