“I know such things are none of my business,” Ainsley was saying, her voice like fine wine to his senses. “I should have stopped Daniel when he began, but I admit to a morbid curiosity about your late wife. If any of what Daniel said is true, I am sorry.”
She was sorry, that was the thing. Other women might pretend that Daniel must be making things up, or be disgusted—at Elizabeth, at Cameron, at Daniel for telling the tale. But not Ainsley. She saw the truth for what it was.
There were reasons Cameron hadn’t divorced Elizabeth, all of which had to do with Daniel. He’d realized early on that Elizabeth couldn’t be trusted not to try to rid herself of her baby, and so Cameron kept her close, much to her fury. Elizabeth had claimed repeatedly that the child wasn’t Cameron’s, and Cameron knew there was a risk that she told the truth. Elizabeth had had a string of lovers, some regular, some brief encounters. But Cam had been willing to risk it. Elizabeth had been wrong—Daniel was a Mackenzie all right.
Cameron knew now that he should have sent Elizabeth away as soon as she’d given birth to Daniel, but he’d been young and sentimental. He’d truly believed that once Elizabeth had a son to care for, she would change. But she hadn’t; she’d only sunk into a strange melancholy, her rages growing worse, and she’d started trying to hurt Daniel.
Cameron had the strangest feeling that Ainsley, if he explained all this to her, would understand.
“I’m not here to talk about my wife,” he said.
Ainsley’s eyes were filled with anger for him. “Very well, what did you come here to talk about?”
Cameron touched the top button of her dull gray afternoon dress and forced his voice to soften. “I came to ask how many buttons you’ll undo for me today.”
Ainsley’s sharp intake of breath pressed her bosom against the very buttons Cameron wanted to undo. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes starry, Ainsley at her most beautiful.
“I thought you’d forgotten about that game,” she said.
“I never forget games. Or what’s owed me.”
He stepped closer still, inhaling her sweet scent. Current fashion dictated that women’s skirts were worn tight against thighs and legs, and Cameron took full advantage, standing right against her. When she opened her bodice, he’d be able to peer into her soft cleavage.
He again touched the top button, which was a little bar of onyx. “How many buttons, Mrs. Douglas?”
“It was ten last time. This time, I think, I should only go a half dozen.”
Cameron frowned. “Why?”
“Because we’re indoors with people barging about the house looking for odds and ends. Billiard balls were on a few lists for the scavenger hunt.”
“Twenty,” Cameron said firmly.
Ainsley choked. “Twenty?”
“Twenty buttons will put me here.” He ran his finger down her bodice almost to her waist.
Cameron felt her heart pounding behind the stiffness of her corset. “Not fair,” she said. “These buttons are more widely spaced than the last set.”
“I’m not interested in what your dressmaker designed. I’m interested in how many I can open.”
“Very well, twelve. My final offer.”
“Not final at all.”
The billiards table stopped Ainsley from stepping back. All Cameron had to do was lift her, and he’d have her lying flat upon it. They’d tear the cloth and exasperate Hart’s housekeeper, but replacing the damn thing would be worth having Ainsley.
“I will concede fourteen,” she said.
“Twenty.”
“Lord Cameron, if someone bursts in here, I will never have time to do up twenty buttons.”
“Then we’ll lock the door.”
Ainsley’s eyes widened. “Good lord, no. I’d have a devil of a time explaining why I was behind a locked door with the notorious Lord Cameron Mackenzie. Leave the door unlocked, and they’ll think we were scavenging.”
Cameron smiled, putting as much sin into it as he knew how. “I’m getting impatient, Mrs. Douglas. Twenty buttons.”
“Fifteen.”
Cameron let his smile turn triumphant. “Done.”
She flushed. “Oh, very well. Fifteen. But let us be quick.”
“Turn around.”
She looked at him with startled gray eyes. Did she know how sensual she was? She could make a man long to see those eyes regarding him sleepily across a pillow, and Cameron did not like women in his bed. Bed was for sleeping. Alone. Safer that way for all concerned.
Ainsley faced the billiards table, her breathing still rapid. Her stupid bustle was in his way now, loops of wire that kept her skirt stuck out behind her. An idiotic fashion. Whatever fool had designed bustles had obviously had no interest in women.
Cameron made do by standing half at her side, his thigh against her hip. The next time he stood thus with Ainsley, he vowed that the bustle would be gone.
Cameron pressed a kiss to her cheek as he undid the first button. Ainsley stayed true to the game, no maidenly flutters or begging off. She’d finished the bidding and would stick to the bargain. Brave, beautiful woman.
Her eyes drifted closed as Cameron undid the second button and then the third, her body relaxing against his. He kissed the corner of her mouth, and her faint noise of longing made his cockstand ache.
By button eight, Cameron was kissing her neck, tasting her—salty tang over the faint bite of lemons. One day soon, Cameron would peel away her clothes and lick her entire body. Then he’d kneel before her and drink and drink, while her toes curled into the carpet, her hands tangled his hair, and she made those precious sighs of pleasure.
Ten, eleven, twelve. Cameron touched her bosom, heady heat inside her corset. He’d have the corset off her next time too.
“Thirteen,” he whispered. “Fourteen.” He dipped one hand into his pocket and opened button number fifteen one-handed. “Don’t move.”
Ainsley stood very still, eyes closed. Cameron breathed her scent, kissed her skin one more time, and then slid the necklace he’d taken from his pocket around her throat, closing the tiny clasp in back.
Ainsley’s eyes popped open. She stared in amazement at the strand of diamonds that now lay across her chest and then up at him. Her bodice gaped enticingly, breasts lifting above a corset with small, decorative bows on the front.
“What is this?” she asked.
Cameron made his tone careless. “I bought it at that jeweler’s in Edinburgh after you and Isabella and Beth left. I thought it would go well with your new finery.”
Ainsley looked at him in pure astonishment. No squealing excitement that most of Cam’s women succumbed to when he bought them jewels, no sly looks of promised payment later. Ainsley Douglas was dumbfounded.
“Why?” she asked.
“What do you mean why? I saw the damned necklace, and thought you’d like it.”
“I do like it.” Ainsley fingered the diamonds. “It’s beautiful. But . . .” Her expression held longing, loneliness, and a sudden hurt that surprised him. “I can’t accept it.”
“Why the devil not?”
Cameron looked so angry—at her. He who’d interfered with Ainsley’s business with Phyllida and had taken over her session at the dressmaker’s, the man who wanted to give Ainsley money without collateral and bought her jewelry as he would for his doxy, now looked angry at her.
“Because, my dear Cameron, you know how people like tittle-tattle. There would be much speculation on why you gave me this necklace.”
“Why does anyone have to know I gave it to you?”
Ainsley wanted to laugh. “Because you’re not exactly discreet.”
“Bugger discretion. It’s a waste of time.”
“You see? You can say that because you are so very rich, not to mention male. You can get away with much, while I must be a good little woman and follow all the rules.” And didn’t those rules chafe?
“The queen should give you a damned sight more than she does for drudging for her.
You are worth more than she understands.”
Ainsley shivered at his dark voice. “You are flattering, and believe me, I adore you flattering me, but I have to be so careful.” She touched the necklace again. “Anyone discovering that you bought this for me will assume me your mistress. Phyllida already believes it.”
Cameron leaned to her, moving his hands to either side of her on the billiards table. His body hemmed her in, his arms a cage.
“Then be my mistress in truth, Ainsley.”
His breath touched her lips as she gasped in surprise, his mouth following. The swift kiss burned like a brand.
“I could give you so much,” he said. “I want to give you so much. Is that so bad a thing?”
So bad a thing? Ainsley clutched the lip of the billiards table and tried to stay upright. No, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to be this man’s lover. She’d lounge in his bed—or wherever he preferred—while he unbuttoned her frock and tasted her skin. Surrender to Cameron would be breathless, a wild, heady freedom.
He was a man who took everything he wanted, whose women were meltingly grateful to him and didn’t mind the strings attached. But then, Cameron’s usual ladies were courtesans, merry widows, and women whose reputations had been soiled long before they took up with him. They had nothing to lose, and Ainsley had everything. And wouldn’t the downfall be heavenly?
But once upon a time, Ainsley had succumbed to a seducer’s skilled touch. She’d hovered on the brink of complete ruin, terrified to confess her sins to the brother who’d been everything to her. She remembered the shock in Patrick’s eyes when she’d at last told him, the gasp of dismay from his upright wife, Rona.
And then Patrick, instead of chucking Ainsley into the street as he could have, had worked quickly and compassionately to save her. Only his and Rona’s intervention, and John Douglas’s kindness, had kept the world from discovering her shame. Patrick, Rona, and John had covered up what Ainsley had done, and Ainsley owed them everything.
“My lord . . .”
“My name is Cameron.”
“Cameron.” Ainsley closed her eyes and drew a breath for strength. “I want to. I very much want to be your lover. But I can’t.” The words dragged out of her, holding all the regret in the world.
“Why the devil not? You live like a servant and dress like a dowd. We’ll go to Paris if you’re worried about what people will say in London. You’ll dress like a queen instead of fetching and carrying for one, and I’ll drape you in jewels that will make this little bauble nothing.”
A vivid image arose, Ainsley in satin gowns the colors Isabella and Cameron had picked out for her, ropes of diamonds around her neck, rubies glittering in her ears. “Would there be sapphires?” she asked wistfully. “They’d go nicely with all those blue frocks.”
Cameron’s smile made her limbs weak. “There can be anything you want. A new gown every day, jewelry to go with it. A fine carriage for you to ride in, pulled by the best horses. I know a man in France who breeds the most amazing carriage horses. You could pick out the ones you liked.”
Of course, he’d give Ainsley the best horses. Horses were to him what diamonds were to most women. Precious, beautiful, worth seeking the best.
“You have fire in you, Ainsley Douglas. Let it out with me.”
She wanted to. She could have this, Cameron’s strong arms around her, the man in him awakening the woman in her. She’d never experienced anyone like him—a virile male who could arouse her simply by whispering her name.
“Please, don’t tempt me like this,” she said.
“I want to tempt you. I want you with every ounce of strength I have, and damn the scandal. Isabella is right—it’s past time you threw off your widow’s weeds and enjoyed your life.”
“It’s not the scandal I’m afraid of.” Ainsley drew a breath, her chest aching. “Believe me, were I alone in the world, I’d tell scandal to go hang and do as I pleased.” She’d realized a long time ago, however, that it wasn’t the scandal that was important, but the people she hurt with the scandal.
Raw pain flickered in Cameron’s eyes, an old hurt that had never gone away. “At least tell me you’ll think about it. Spend the winter with me in Paris. Promise me you will, Ainsley.”
Ainsley bit her lip so she wouldn’t blurt out the word, Yes! She could take what he offered and wring every bit of enjoyment from it before it was over. He’d move on, but she’d have that brief time to remember.
Cameron stilled, reading refusal in her silence, and what she saw in his gaze nearly undid her. Loneliness, years upon years of it, locked away behind the façade of a libertine. Cameron’s rakehell reputation hid a man broken and numbed long ago, a man seeking physical pleasure because he knew he’d obtain nothing else from life.
An offer like this from any other man might have angered and insulted Ainsley, but her eyes welled with sudden tears as Cameron lifted himself away from her.
“Do up your frock,” he said curtly. “The scavengers will be along.”
Ainsley reached for the buttons. “Cameron, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. If you don’t want to, you don’t.”
To her surprise, she realized she’d hurt him. For her, the decision was whether or not to break her brother’s heart all over again, but Cameron must see only a woman not wanting to be with him.
She touched his sleeve. “My hesitation has nothing to do with you, Cam. Of not liking you, I mean. I like you very well, and I’m sorry that I constantly make you angry. Regardless of all this, I hope that we can continue as friends.”
“Friends?” With breathless suddenness, Ainsley found herself caged against the billiards table again. “I don’t want to be friends with you, Ainsley Douglas. I want to be your lover. I want to bury myself inside you, I want to find out whether you taste as good all the way down, I want to feel you squeezing me, and I want to hear your cries as you take me inside you.”
Oh, yes, that would be . . . yes, quite wonderful. I want to be your lover too, Cameron. I want it with everything I have.
“Being friends with you will never, ever satisfy me,” Cameron finished.
“Me either, quite frankly.”
“Then why the hell did you offer it?”
Ainsley gave a little shrug. “Better than nothing?”
Cameron growled. He hauled her into strong arms that would never let anything bad happen to her and crushed a brief, hard kiss to her lips.
“Ainsley, what am I going to do with you?”
“Let me borrow five hundred guineas?”
“The devil.” Cameron let her go. “I’ll give you the money, but if you go on insisting on drawing up a loan document, understand that I’ll have nothing more to do with it. Has Phyllida fetched the letters?”
“She’ll have them tomorrow, she says.”
Cameron only nodded. “Good. Then you take them from her and be done. If she tries to cheat you or asks for more money, tell me, and then Phyllida will deal with me.” His smile was vicious. “She doesn’t want to have to deal with me.”
The finality in his voice told Ainsley that Phyllida wouldn’t win that fight. “Thank you for your help, Cameron. I mean that.”
“And I mean it when I say I want you. I intend to finish what is between us. Whether you wish to make it a longer affair is up to you. Now, do up your frock.”
Ainsley started buttoning. The blasted man had been in such a hurry to unbutton her, but when it came time to tidy up, he turned away, finished. So like a male.
Her fingers brushed the diamonds as she buttoned. “What about the necklace?”
“Keep it. Sell it. Hell, I don’t care what you do with it. Just don’t give it to Mrs. Chase for those damnable letters.”
Cameron spoke carelessly, but Ainsley saw him preparing for the hurt of having Ainsley give him back the diamonds. Would he return them to the jeweler, or throw them into a drawer and wait to give them to the next lady on his list?
Fat chance. These diam
onds are mine. Hard luck on those other ladies.
“I wouldn’t dream of letting Mrs. Chase get her bony hands on my necklace.” Ainsley threaded her fingers through the strand and lifted the diamonds to her lips. “Thank you, Cameron. I will treasure this.”
The next night, Ainsley, wearing a large white wig of an eighteenth-century lady, face hidden by a gold paper mask, squashed uncomfortably in a carriage between the cushioned wall and Phyllida Chase, who must be wearing half a bottle of perfume.
Ainsley had enjoyed fancy-dress balls in her youth, inventing costumes that won her praise from her amused family and friends. She’d been everything from a china doll to a dragon—for the dragon she’d worn a papier-mâché dragon’s head she’d made herself, and let her little brother Steven chase her around the house with a sword.
For this fancy dress party, Ainsley wanted anonymity. If anyone happened to witness the exchange of money for letters, Ainsley wanted no one to recognize her. Neither Isabella nor Beth would be attending, which made her task a bit easier. Lord Cameron wouldn’t be there either, as far as she knew, for which she breathed a sigh of relief.
She hadn’t seen anything of Cameron today, but that afternoon, Angelo had approached her in a deserted hall and quietly pressed money into her palm. Funny that most people didn’t trust the Roma, yet Cameron was perfectly sanguine to let one carry fifteen hundred guineas to Ainsley.
Fifteen hundred. Apparently, Phyllida had persuaded Cameron to give her that much. The annoying woman had been playing both sides up the middle.
However, the sum might keep Phyllida from reneging on the bargain, so Ainsley didn’t argue. She’d tried to explain to Angelo that the queen was providing the first five hundred, and so Cameron had to relinquish only a thousand, but Angelo had walked away, uninterested.
Morag, sworn to secrecy, had helped with Ainsley’s costume. They’d made panniers out of cushions that Morag strapped to Ainsley’s waist, which spread the flowing skirt Morag had found in the attics. The skirts were bright red—yards and yards of red velvet that swished as Ainsley walked. She felt a frisson of enjoyment wearing the costume, even if the brocade bodice was very tight and wig itched a bit.
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