“I’d better do up your back.”
“Pardon?” Ainsley stopped at the top of the stairs as Daniel jumped two steps past her. The dogs slithered by and ran all the way down the staircase, then hurried up again to see what was keeping the human beings.
“If someone sees ye like that, they’ll talk,” Daniel said. “Especially when ye disappeared so sudden.”
She’d forgotten about the undone clasps under her shawl, but Daniel had a point. Running about with a bodice undone would make even the dullest person realize what she’d been up to.
Smothering a sigh, Ainsley lowered her shawl and turned her back. Daniel, at her head height when he stood two stairs down, quickly hooked the clasps together. His skill told her that he, at sixteen, already had experience doing up women’s dresses. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree, she supposed.
“How did you know I was in your father’s study?” Ainsley asked Daniel when he finished.
“I saw you go inside the house with him. I always keep an eye on my Dad. Don’t worry, I made sure no one else noticed.”
When she turned around, Daniel was studying her with his Mackenzie eyes, darker than his father’s, his face sharp and fine boned rather than hard. Daniel could look at a person with remarkable percipience, seeing through every layer they tried to put in his way. While Ian Mackenzie didn’t like to meet a person’s gaze directly, Daniel Mackenzie bored into their eyes to the point of rudeness.
“Do you like my dad?” Daniel asked it without rancor. He simply wanted to know.
“I barely know your dad.”
“You were about to let him have his way with ye. I hope you like him a little.”
Ainsley flushed. “Well, if you put it like that.”
“I do put it like that. I like you, ye see, and I know Dad does too. But I don’t want him toying with you and then turning his back on ye a month later, with a pretty gift for compensation. I told him tonight that I was interested in you meself, and you should have seen him come over growling, telling me to stay away.” Daniel grinned. “I only told him that to see if he fancied you enough. I guess he does.”
“You shouldn’t have said it at all, Danny,” she said. “He probably believed you.”
“Naw, Dad don’t take much heed of what I say.” Daniel folded his arms. “But I don’t want him leading you down the garden path, so to speak.”
Ainsley adjusted her shawl. “Well, you have nothing to worry about on that account, my boy. I’m not naïve, nor am I the sort of woman your father prefers.”
“No, but I’m thinking you’re the sort of woman he needs.” Ainsley slowly let out her breath. Her body still sang from Cameron’s touch, and she found it difficult to focus on his son’s practical words.
“Put that out of your head,” she said. “At the end of the house party, it’s back to Balmoral and the queen for me. I’ll not likely cross paths with your father for a long time.”
And won’t that be a shame?
Daniel didn’t hide the disappointment in his eyes. “Mrs. Douglas, ye have to try.”
“No, I don’t. I need to get into my ball gown and go play hostess with your aunts.” But wouldn’t it be grand to be a glittering lady in bright silks, with diamonds on her bosom, dancing waltz after waltz in a sumptuous ballroom? Her partner would be Cameron, a big man who moved with grace.
Daniel stopped arguing, but his glower spoke volumes. He finally turned and led the way down the stairs, dogs scampering with him. He moved so fast that by the time Ainsley caught up to him at the bottom of the staircase, she was running.
Whiskey didn’t calm him. Cameron tried to make himself feel better by using his foot to scatter the stacks of papers Ainsley had made, and then kicking them. Neither helped much.
He stormed back into his bedroom, did up his shirt, and pulled on another coat, not bothering with the cravat. He could never tie the bloody things decently. That’s what women and valets were for.
He drank as he dressed, but half the decanter of whiskey couldn’t erase the taste of Ainsley from his mouth. If Daniel hadn’t come charging in, Cameron would be inside her by now, finally learning what she’d feel like around him.
He wasn’t sure what to make of Daniel’s interruption. His look at his father had been one of annoyance, not jealous rage. Daniel’s story about wanting Ainsley for a mistress seemed to have faded to smoke, the boy using it as a ploy of some sort.
Hell, Cameron never knew what Daniel really thought or wanted. They never talked—they bantered. Or argued. Daniel wasn’t a bad lad, but his idea of obedience was doing what Cameron wanted only if Daniel had already decided on the same course. If Daniel disagreed with Cameron, he did what he damn well pleased.
Cameron gave up and let him. Cameron’s own father had been the devil himself, controlling his sons so tightly that Cameron was surprised that any of the Mackenzies could still breathe.
The old duke had gone easiest on Cameron, because Cameron had been interested in horses and erotic pictures—As a man should be, their father had said.
The old duke had regularly beaten Ian, saying that Ian was being sullen when he wouldn’t look at anyone. He’d beaten Mac for his love of art, like a bloody unnatural; and Hart every day regardless, to make a man of him. When he’s duke and beset by fools, he’ll be strong.
Cameron had stood by, troubled and angry, unable to stop any of it. Until the day he’d returned from Harrow at the close of a term and realized he’d grown bigger and stronger than his father. He’d entered the house to hear eleven-year-old Mac’s terrified screams and found his father about to break Mac’s fingers. Cameron had wrested his father from Mac and thrown the man against the wall.
After their father had taken himself out of the room, roaring, Mac had looked up from the beautiful pictures he’d drawn, bravely trying to blink back tears. “Damn good toss, Cam,” he’d said, wiping his eyes. “Would ye teach me?”
Cameron had vowed that Daniel would never know fear like that. Daniel might run a bit wild, but that was a small price for Cameron to pay for Daniel’s happiness. Cameron would be damned if he’d become the kind of monster who would think nothing of breaking his own son’s fingers.
He got himself downstairs and to the main wing of the house in time to hear strains of music coming from the ballroom. Scottish music, a reel. Hart Mackenzie always made sure that, along with the popular German waltzes and polkas, his hired musicians played plenty of Scottish dances. No one was allowed to forget that the Mackenzies were Scottish first, the entire branch of their clan nearly wiped out in ’45, except for young Malcolm Mackenzie who survived to marry and rebuild the family. He’d kept the title of duke bestowed on the family in the 1300s but lived in a hovel on the grounds that had once housed Malcolm and his four brothers, all but Malcolm gone under English guns. Hart Mackenzie enjoyed stuffing the Mackenzies’ current prosperity down English throats.
As Cameron strode toward the ballroom, Phyllida Chase glided down the hall from the guest wing, fashionably late as usual. Intent on adjusting her gloves, she didn’t see Cameron until she nearly ran into him.
“Do get out of the way, Cam,” she said in a cool voice.
Cameron didn’t move. “Give Mrs. Douglas back her letters,” he said. “She’s done you no harm.”
Phyllida gave her glove one last tug. “Gracious, are you her champion now?”
“I find all blackmailers disgusting.” Yes, Ainsley had asked Cameron not to interfere, but he refused to stand by while Phyllida plied her extortion. “Give her the damn letters and leave her alone, and I’ll think about not having Hart throw you out.”
“Hart won’t throw me out. He’s trying to cultivate my husband’s support. If you hadn’t been so thickheaded as to give Mrs. Douglas back that page, she’d have been able to come up with the price.”
“Give her the letters, or I will make your life hell.”
Phyllida’s eyes flickered, but damned if she didn’t return a stubborn look. ??
?I doubt you could make it any more hell than it already is, my lord Cam. I’m selling Mrs. Douglas the letters because I need the money. As simple as that.”
“For what, your gambling debts? Your husband is rich. Go to him.”
“It has nothing to do with gambling, and it is my own business.”
Damn the woman. “If I give you the money you need, will you cease troubling Mrs. Douglas?”
Phyllida’s worried look dissolved into a smile. “My, my, you are smitten, aren’t you?”
“How much do you want?”
Phyllida wet her lips. “Fifteen hundred wouldn’t go amiss.”
“Fifteen hundred, and you return the letters and let it go.”
Phyllida made a show of considering, but Cameron could see her salivating at the prospect of fifteen hundred guineas in her hands. “Fair enough.”
“Good. Fetch the letters.”
“My dear Cameron, I don’t have them with me. I’m not that foolish. I’ll have to send for them.”
“No money until I see them.”
Phyllida pouted. “Now, that’s not fair.”
“I’m not interested in fair. I’m interested in you leaving Mrs. Douglas the hell alone.”
“Goodness, what do you see in that little termagant? Very well, but have Mrs. Douglas give the money to me.”
“Why?” Cameron narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
“Because I don’t trust you. Mrs. Douglas is a paid toady, but at least she’s an honest toady. She will make a fair exchange without doing anything underhanded.”
“You had better not be underhanded,” Cameron said. “If you try anything, I’ll throttle those letters out of you. Understand?”
Phyllida smiled. “That’s what I’ve always loved about you, Cam. You’re not afraid to be forceful.”
“Just give her the letters,” Cameron growled and walked away from her, not missing her delighted laughter behind him.
The fiddles and drums were loud inside the ballroom. Some English guests grimaced or openly mocked the music, but the Scottish guests had formed circles to dance in Highland delight.
In the center of the ballroom Isabella and Mac led a circle. Although Isabella was English born and bred, she had taken to all things Scottish with a vengeance.
In Mackenzie plaid, her red hair twined with roses, Isabella swayed in the circle. Next to her was Mac, who was a damn good dancer. He led the wide circle in and out, feet moving in quick rhythm, but his eyes were for Isabella.
The look Mac gave Isabella when he looped his arm around her waist to turn her was so damn loving. Mac and Isabella had struggled a long time for their happy ending, and Cameron was glad to see them have it.
Hart didn’t dance, but Hart never did. He liked to put people together and then stand back and watch them, like a general surveying his troops. Hart spied Cameron entering and moved to him, dressed in cool finery and a kilt, Mackenzie malt in his hand.
“Where did you disappear to tonight?” Hart asked.
Cameron shrugged. “Bored.” No reason to mention Ainsley to Hart.
“Isabella is complaining about having to shoulder much of the burden of this thing.” Hart gestured with his whiskey at the crowd. “And when Isabella complains, Mac is the very devil.”
As distracted as he was, Cameron took time to laugh at the exasperation in Hart’s voice. Hart lived to orchestrate things, and Isabella and Beth were happy to help him. But Hart had discovered quickly that his brothers’ wives weren’t docile creatures he could bend to his will. And when Beth and Isabella weren’t happy, Ian and Mac became walls of angry protection.
A quick scan of the room told Cameron that Ian and Beth were missing. “Beth’s not helping tonight?”
“The crowd at the fireworks unnerved Ian. He retired with Beth.”
Cameron met Hart’s golden gaze, which held the same skeptical amusement Cam felt. “Of course he did,” Cam said. “Ian Mackenzie is a bloody genius.”
“I can’t force him to stay downstairs,” Hart said.
No, when Ian wanted to do a thing, neither God nor all his angels could prevent it. Only Beth could, and Beth generally took Ian’s side.
Ainsley and Daniel rushed in, hand in hand, to join the dancing. Ainsley had changed into a gown of subdued Douglas plaid, more black than anything else, and wore a big plaid bow in her hair. Mac opened the circle to welcome them. Mac liked Ainsley, telling Cameron that it was refreshing to talk to a lady who used to rob the school pantry of cake and divide the spoils among her friends.
Daniel threw himself into the dance with enthusiasm if not grace. He dragged Ainsley around the circle until she laughed, and he twirled her hard when the circle broke off into couples. Ainsley’s silvery laughter drifted over the music, her smile lighting the room.
Cameron watched her supple waist bending as she danced, imagined his own arm around it. Cam would turn Ainsley in the dance and keep his arm around her, pulling her up for a slow, burning kiss.
He felt Hart’s eagle gaze on him, and he scowled. “Mind your own damn business.”
Hart took a sip of whiskey. “You might be interested to know that I saw Mrs. Douglas pick open the lock of the Chases’ suite the other night and sashay right in when she thought no one was looking. Chase and I are in agreement about the German question, but I don’t want things discussed too soon, especially not with the queen.”
Hart worried about Germany’s steady advances in industry, viewing them as a potential threat to Britain, while many of his fellow politicians assumed that Germany was their strongest ally. Cameron, his attention buried in racing, paid little attention to those details, but Hart was no fool, and Cam trusted Hart’s instincts.
“It has nothing to do with the German question,” Cameron said.
Hart’s gaze sharpened. “Then you know what she was looking for. Interesting. Enlighten me.”
Cameron looked back at Ainsley—dancing, happy, smiling—and knew in that instant that he would never betray her to Hart. Cam would be as growling and protective of her as Mac and Ian were of Isabella and Beth.
“I can’t tell you,” Cameron said. “But I can assure you it has nothing to do with politics. Just female silliness.”
Hart’s gaze could have cut glass. “Female silliness can hide a wagonload of secrets.”
Cameron met the famous Hart Mackenzie stare with a stubborn stare of his own. “This doesn’t. You’re going to have to trust me, because I’m not saying a bloody word.”
“Cam . . .”
“Not a bloody word. It has nothing to do with your politics.”
Hart’s mouth tightened, but Hart knew exactly how far he could push his brothers. He pushed Cameron least of all, remembering exactly who’d won all those fistfights and scraps they’d had as youths.
But Cameron always forgave Hart for his high-handedness. Hart had saved Cameron’s life after Elizabeth’s death but had never demanded anything in return; they’d never even spoken about it. Hart would do anything to keep the family safe and together. That was why they all lived so well, although Hart would never go into the details of their father’s sudden wish to bestow generous trusts on his younger sons instead of having Hart inherit the entire fortune.
“Fine, I’ll take your word,” Hart said, as the music wound to an end. “Just keep her under control.”
The dancers dispersed to applause. Music began again, and guests moved to the floor to take up the waltz. Cameron looked for Ainsley and Daniel in the milling crowd, but both had vanished.
“That’s her. My father’s prized possession. Although she’s not his possession, which is why he’s all bothered about it.”
The prized possession that Daniel had dragged Ainsley from the ballroom to view was a horse. A three-year-old filly to be precise, and a most beautiful creature.
The horse had slender, delicate-looking legs, but there was power in her body and fire in her eye. She was brown, her coat rich and dark, her mane and tail as dark. The pink lining
of her nostrils spoke of fine breeding, and the way she watched Ainsley and Daniel approach told Ainsley that she was perfectly aware of how beautiful she was.
“Night-Blooming Jasmine, I presume,” Ainsley said. The mare had her head over the half door of her box, ears pricked, nostrils expanding as she inhaled Ainsley’s scent. “No, I didn’t bring you sugar, you greedy thing.”
As Ainsley reached out to stroke her, a tall man with black hair materialized from the shadows. Angelo, the Romany who was ostensibly Cameron’s valet, but in reality assisted with all aspects of Cameron’s life, leaned casually on the door of the next stall. “Careful of her, ma’am,” he said, his dark voice holding tones of lands far away. “She’s got the devil in her.”
Ainsley rubbed the end of Jasmine’s nose, smiling at the warm, velvety feel of it and the prickle of her whiskers. “She just wants a bit of attention, don’t you, love?” Ainsley said. “You want someone to tell you how beautiful you are, and how much they appreciate you.” Ainsley rubbed under the horse’s mane, and Jasmine half closed her eyes in enjoyment.
“She does that.” The Romany smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling, gaze softening in approval.
Ainsley hadn’t spoken to Angelo before, but she knew that Cameron keeping a Romany as his most trusted companion shocked many people, who were unnerved by Angelo’s appalling lack of manners. Seeing him up close, Ainsley realized that they meant the man’s lack of deference. Angelo obviously didn’t consider aristocrats and the genteel his “betters,” and saw no reason to treat them as any different from himself. Ainsley had to admire Angelo’s utter confidence in who he was and where he stood in the world.
Daniel snorted. “Jasmine’s a runner all right, but she don’t like the bit. Yesterday, she tossed off Dad’s best jockey and ran for the hills. Took them hours to find her.”
Ainsley imagined Lord Cameron’s reaction to that. No wonder he’d been out of sorts when he’d brought Phyllida Chase to his bedroom last night. He’d been a man trying to take his mind off his troubles, and he’d found Ainsley hiding in his window seat instead.