Ainsley’s breasts swelled over the top of her corset. Ladies were supposed to be slender, hence the cage of the corset, but Ainsley always seemed to overfill her stays.
Cameron pushed the placket out of the way, his hand going almost reverently to her skin.
“Ainsley,” he said in his raw voice. “Do you know how beautiful you are?”
When he touched her, when his voice flowed over her, she felt beautiful. “You are kind to say so.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with kindness.” He sounded irritated. Cameron slid his thumb over her breast then leaned and kissed her there.
Even him lying fully on top of her hadn’t burned her as his lips did now. Ainsley’s feminine places grew hot as he kissed her flesh, slow kisses, taking his time. His lips were warm, practiced, the rough warmth of his hair brushing her chin. She wanted to pull him to her, to cradle him against her as he laid her down in the sticky mud, even with the tap of croquet balls not far away.
Cameron kissed the top of her cleavage, his unshaved whiskers a pleasant burn. Then he straightened up, stepped away, and slid a folded paper down between her breasts.
Ainsley’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hand over her corset. “What—”
“I believe that is yours, Mrs. Douglas.”
Ainsley snatched out the letter, unfolded it, and saw the even strokes of the queen’s handwriting, words to her horseman, John Brown.
“I decided I didn’t have any interest in your letters,” Cameron said. “Or your be-damned intrigues.”
Ainsley stared, openmouthed, then she crumpled the page and thrust it into her jacket pocket. “Thank you,” she said, heartfelt. “I can’t explain, but thank you.”
“You’re still unbuttoned.”
Ainsley looked down at her gaping placket, her breasts welling over the plain corset.
Cameron’s wicked smile returned. “I don’t mind. But if another ball comes rolling out here, you might be embarrassed.”
Ainsley stripped off her gloves and started buttoning with shaking fingers. It took what seemed forever, while Cameron did nothing but watch, but at last Ainsley closed the top button. She snatched up the mallet she’d dropped, but when she turned to go, she found Cameron still barring her way.
“We have unfinished business, Mrs. Douglas.”
“Do we? What business would that be?”
Cameron touched the handle of his mallet to her chin. “The business you began when you came to my room six years ago.”
“I told you, that was a mistake. I thought you were withholding the emerald necklace from Mrs. Jennings.”
“Forget about the damned necklace. I mean what you started with me that night. You half seduced me to keep me finding out what you were up to, then wriggled out of it with your pleas about your good husband.” His eyes were hard, glints of angry gold.
“I’d not planned any of that. I expected to be finished and gone before you returned. Besides, you were perfectly willing to seduce me, even though you knew I was married.”
“I’m used to women seeking me as refuge from their dull husbands.”
“Like Phyllida Chase?” Ainsley heard the bitterness in her voice but couldn’t mask it.
“Exactly like Phyllida Chase. Her husband ignores her and blatantly philanders, so she turns elsewhere for entertainment. Why not? Other women are much the same.”
“You despise them,” Ainsley said in surprise.
“What?”
“You despise these ladies who cuckold their husbands. And yet you seduce them. Why do you want to be with women you despise?”
Cameron’s brows shot down, but the look he gave her struck her to the heart. “Men enjoy pleasure, Mrs. Douglas. We want it, we crave it; we think of little else. Even men who pretend to be prim and pious are driven by it. The beast lies very close to the surface. If a lady cuckolds her husband to provide me that pleasure, so be it, but I refuse to admire her for it.”
“It sounds so lonely,” Ainsley said softly.
“I’m rarely alone.”
“I know,” she said. “That makes it worse.”
Cameron’s gaze focused hard on her. Again the shutters between him and the world fell, and again Ainsley saw the lonely depths of him. For a split second only. Then the shutters were restored, his scowl back in place.
“You’ve misbuttoned yourself.”
Ainsley looked down at her placket. “Blast.”
Cameron leaned to her. “Unfinished business, Mrs. Douglas. Before you leave at the end of the week, we will finish it. Depend on that.”
He jerked her up to him in a sudden movement and caught her lower lip between his teeth. Before Ainsley could gasp or pull away, he let her go, shouldered his mallet, and strode off, back through the curtain of trees.
He moved like a god in charge of his world, used to leaving panting females behind him. Ainsley’s lip throbbed from Cameron’s bite as she tried to grasp buttons with her shaking fingers, and she still felt his grip on the back of her neck. Lord Cameron was strong and dangerous, and she should be frightened of him. But the reckless Ainsley only mourned that he’d walked away too soon.
Something rustled in the brush, followed by a bleating voice. “Signora? Can you find not your ball?”
“Yes, yes, I have it!”
Ainsley jerked her placket together and swiftly buttoned it, then snatched up her muddy ball. She burst out of the brush to the waiting count and found that Cameron Mackenzie was no longer in sight.
“Dad!”
Under the fireworks in the dark gardens, Cameron’s thoughts jerked from the memory of Ainsley’s firm breasts under his lips when he’d unbuttoned her in the woods. Her pulse had been beating as fast as a rabbit’s—would it beat as quickly in passion?
“Dad!”
Daniel Mackenzie planted himself in front of Cameron. The lad’s kilt sagged from his hips, and his shirt was stained and jacket askew as though he’d been running through the woods. Probably he had been.
Daniel had inherited Elizabeth’s eyes, a deep, rich brown, with only a hint of the Mackenzie gold. Likewise, his hair was very dark with mere highlights of red. Elizabeth had been a beautiful woman, and Daniel reflected this in the sturdy structure of his face, the straight, clear lines that age would never erase.
His eyes now held a mixture of rage and uncertainty. “Did ye forget?”
“Of course I didn’t forget.” Cameron dug through his brain trying desperately to remember what the devil he was supposed to remember. “Your aunt Isabella tethered me all morning.”
“Yes, I know, the croquet. But I wanted to talk to you.”
No one had explained to Cameron when he was twenty years old and proud as hell that he’d managed to get his wife with child, how difficult it would be to raise a son. Nannies and tutors and schools were supposed to do that, weren’t they?
But sons needed so much more than food, clothing, and tutoring. They expected fathers to know things, to teach them about life, to be there when needed. Cameron’s own father had set no good example, so most of the time Cameron found himself floundering in deep waters, searching for his footing.
It had been damn hard going, and Cameron knew that he’d never, ever done enough. He thanked God for his brothers, as unruly as they were, for helping take Daniel under their collective wing. Between the four of them, and then Isabella and Beth, they’d somehow managed to bring Daniel up.
“I’m here now,” Cameron said.
Daniel heaved an aggrieved sigh, tall enough to look his father directly in the eyes. “What I wanted to ask was—how old ye were when ye first took a mistress?”
Cameron felt the floundering start, but Daniel was perfectly serious. The lad’s face was full of curiosity and something anxious as he waited for Cameron’s answer.
“Why do you want to know?” Cameron had been fifteen, the lady in question, eighteen, knowing that a rich man’s son eager for his first encounter would probably pay well. Cameron had had enthusiasm but no finesse, and he’d been under no illusion as to why a sophisticated courtesan had put up with him.