“I can’t.” The words dragged from her, everything she thought right forcing them out. “I can’t. My lord, I’m so sorry.”
Cameron stilled, mouth on her neck, hand on her bare back.
“My husband is a good man,” she whispered. “A very good man. He doesn’t deserve this.”
Damn it, something inside Cameron cried out. Damn it all to hell.
His entire body fought him as he lifted his hands away. Cameron knew women, knew when their bodies craved a man’s touch. Mrs. Douglas wanted what Cameron offered, that was apparent, despite the anguish swimming in her gray eyes. Cam smelled her readiness faintly behind the roses and knew that if he took her, he’d find her slick and open for him.
Her husband obviously hadn’t been satisfying her needs. Whether he wouldn’t or couldn’t didn’t matter; he wasn’t, or this lady would not be so ready to seek Cameron.
And yet, Mrs. Douglas was saying no for this husband’s sake. It took a rare courage to make such a decision, strength that most of Cam’s women didn’t have. Those women wanted satiation and weren’t much bothered by who they hurt to get it.
Cameron tugged Mrs. Douglas’s corset back together and laced it closed and then fastened her bodice. He turned her to face him again and traced her cheek with the backs of his fingers.
“Go tell your good man how lucky he is, Mrs. Douglas.”
“I am truly sorry, my lord.”
Good lord, Cameron had tried to seduce her, and she was apologizing to him. Cameron had wanted pleasure, pure and simple, the mind-blanking fire of coupling. Nothing more. He’d assumed she sought that as well. Now she looked worried that she’d caused him inconvenience.
Cameron leaned and pressed another kiss to her parted lips, lingering until the last possible moment. “Go on, now.”
Mrs. Douglas nodded, smiling her gratitude. Gratitude, God help him.
Cameron walked her to the door and opened it, kissed her damp lips once more, and guided her out. When Mrs. Douglas turned around to say something, he shook his head and shut the door, turning the key in the lock.
He pressed his forehead to the door’s cool panels, listening to her patter away down the empty hall. “Good night, lass,” he whispered.
Cameron spent the rest of the night on his bed, fully dressed, downing glass after glass of whiskey. He wasted much time trying not to fantasize about pretty young Mrs. Douglas and where the seduction would have gone. He failed utterly.
The fantasies wrapped him in a glow of warmth well into the next day as Cameron watched Mrs. Douglas. Her husband was tall and bony, awkward with her, though he lingered near her as though he needed to be reassured by her constant presence. Mrs. Douglas was kind to him, Cameron noticed. She didn’t treat him with disdain. He also noticed the Mrs. Douglas studiously avoided any eye contact with Cameron.
What a wild affair Cameron could have with her—every night something new. He’d buy jewels to drape her naked body and scented oils to slide onto her skin. He’d be discreet, something Cameron rarely bothered with. He’d convince Mrs. Douglas that her husband would never be hurt by anything they did. They’d meet in secret, perhaps alone in Cameron’s carriage, while they explored and tasted and thoroughly learned each other. Their liaison would be glorious, stuff to think on for years to come.
The pleasant fantasy came crashing down the next night when Cameron stood on the terrace outside the ballroom, drinking whiskey with his brother Mac. One of Cameron’s former paramours, Felicia Hardcastle, of lovely body but foul temper, stormed out to the terrace and halted in front of Cameron. “You gave her my necklace!”
Necklace? What necklace? People inside the ballroom stared, and Mac watched in mixed astonishment and amusement.
“What the devil are you talking about?” Cameron demanded.
Felicia pointed a stiff finger through the terrace door to Mrs. Jennings, another former mistress. The lady in question stood in the middle of the ballroom in a low-necked evening dress that showed off the emeralds encircling her neck. Emeralds Cameron had purchased for Felicia, which Felicia had carelessly left in his chamber at the beginning of the week. Cameron had locked them into the drawer of his bedside table, planning to have his valet, Angelo, retrieve them and return them to Felicia’s maid.
Now the emeralds hung around the neck of Mrs. Jennings, who turned to greet Ainsley Douglas and take her hand with a fond squeeze. Mrs. Douglas, the lady Cameron had found hovering near his bedside table last night.
Bloody hell.
Felicia swept back inside to screech accusations at Mrs. Jennings and Ainsley. Cameron watched Ainsley’s pretty mouth drop open and her gaze move across the room to lock on Cameron’s.
Her expression spoke of confusion, shock, betrayal. Genuine? Or more trickery?
It didn’t matter. Mrs. Douglas had lied to him, used him, duped him with her tearful reluctance to betray her husband—all to steal a stupid necklace for some ridiculous feminine intrigue. And Cameron, fool that he was, had fallen for the little deception.
He entered the ballroom and moved through the crowd, striving to ignore Felicia, Mrs. Jennings, and the gawping crowd. Ainsley Douglas thrust herself into Cameron’s path, and he nearly ran over her.
Her gray eyes pleaded with him to understand, forgive. The smell of the roses on her bosom came to him, and the sweet scent of herself, and Cameron realized he still wanted her.
He made himself look down at her in stony indifference, hardening his heart to the tears beading on her lashes. He turned away and continued through the crowd until he reached the ballroom door, then left the house and made his way to the stables.
The warm, horsy odors had comforted him a little, but Cameron told Angelo that he was leaving, mounted a horse, and departed. He boarded a train for London that night and left for the Continent the next morning.
Six years between that day and this rushed past Cameron. He’d returned tonight to his chamber in the midst of another boring house party, again drunk, to find pretty Ainsley Douglas here once more.
Something sharp and raw burned away his half inebriation. Cameron tossed up the key and caught it, the little ringing sound loud in the silence.
“Well?” he asked. “Have ye thought of an explanation yet?”
Chapter 3
Ainsley Douglas wet her lips, making them moist and red and enticing. “Oh yes,” she said. “Dozens of them. I’m trying to decide which one you will believe.”
She stood against the door in a gray evening frock that bared half her chest, the same silver necklace she’d worn six years ago glittering on her bosom. Her ballroom coiffure was a mess, the back of her gown crushed. So innocent she looked, watching him with wide eyes, but Cameron knew better than to believe in Ainsley Douglas’s innocence.
“I’ll make a bargain with you, lass,” he said. “You tell me the truth, and I’ll unlock the door and let you out.”
Ainsley stared at him with those heart-wrenching gray eyes a moment longer, then she turned back to the door, yanked a hairpin from her hair, and dropped to her knees to examine the lock.
Cameron’s heart pounded and his blood felt thick. He hadn’t refastened his shirt or waistcoat, and they hung open to his waist, but the air didn’t cool him. His skin was hot, and his mouth was dry as a tomb. He needed another drink. A large one.
Ainsley’s position pushed her backside at him, showing Cameron a bustle and train covered with gray ruffles and small black bows. One of her curls straggled down her bare back. Her hair was a little darker than Cameron remembered, woven with golden streaks. Blond hair could darken as a person got older—she’d be all of, say, twenty-seven now.
Her elderly husband was dead, and Ainsley Douglas, according to Isabella, shuttled between being a paid lady- in-waiting to Her Dour Majesty and living with her older brother and his very respectable wife. No longer the ingénue, Mrs. Douglas was a lady whose lot in life had become waiting on others for her living.
Poor little dove.
/> Cameron swung himself onto the bed, putting his back against the headboard, and reached to his bedside table for a cigar. “That lock is ancient,” he said to the bare oval of her back. “Good luck with it.”
“Not to worry,” she said, scratching away at it. “I’ve not yet met a lock I couldn’t open.”
Cameron lit the cheroot, the smell of the sulfur match and cigar smoke curling inside his nostrils. “Aye, you’re quite the criminal, aren’t you? Last time you broke in here to steal a necklace. What are you here for this time? Blackmail?”
Ainsley glanced swiftly back at him, face pink. “Blackmail?”
“I wouldn’t advise you to blackmail Phyllida Chase, dove. She’d eat you for breakfast.”
Ainsley gave him a quick, scornful look and returned to the door. “Me, blackmail Mrs. Chase? Hardly. And I explained to Isabella about that necklace. I truly thought it belonged to Mrs. Jennings.”
Cameron threw the spent match into a bowl. “I’m past caring about the damned necklace. It was a long time ago, and bloody intrigues of bloody-minded women hold no interest for me.”
“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.”
“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.
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?
The Many Sins of Lord Cameron hp-3 Page 2
