“Three,” she croaked.
Something wicked gleamed in his eyes. “Fifteen.”
“Fifteen?” The blackberry buttons were close together, but fifteen would bare her to the middle of her corset. “Four.”
“Twelve.”
“Five,” Ainsley countered. “That is as much as you can expect, and I’ll have to do them up again before we return to the game.”
“I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you do before you return to the game. Ten.”
“Six. No more.”
“Ten.”
“Lord Cameron.”
“Ten, bloody stubborn female.” He leaned closer, breath touching her skin. “I’ll ask politely until I get tired of asking, and then I’ll rip off those pretty buttons myself.”
Her world sharpened. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
Ainsley wet her lips. Her pleas of propriety were false, and he knew it. “Ten then.”
“Done.”
She had to be mad. She could not stand here and let Lord Cameron unbutton her frock. Once upon a time, she’d let him half undress her, and she’d barely gotten away with her sanity intact.
Untrue. She’d lost her sanity that night and never regained it.
Ainsley watched, one heartbeat at a time, as Cameron tugged off his gloves and reached for her top button.
His smile held triumph as the button slid through the hole. The fabric sprang back, as brazen as Ainsley felt. Cameron brushed the tiny bit of flesh he’d bared, licking heat all the way down her body. She would die before he reached ten.
Buttons two and three. Cameron touched her after he opened each one, as though learning her as she came undone for him.
Ainsley closed her eyes as he unfastened buttons four and five. He brushed the hollow of her throat, his touch like fire, before moving down to button six.
A skilled seducer, she told herself at buttons seven and eight. He was a man who knew how to make women yearn to give him what he wanted. Ainsley, for all her seeming recklessness, had learned to be cautious—everything done for a reason, every risk calculated against its reward. But with Cameron, the old reckless Ainsley reared up, wanting him to undo her bodice down to her waist and take what he pleased.
She almost begged him to at button nine.
At button ten, Ainsley opened her eyes.
“Done,” Cameron said softly, and he pulled open the placket.
Ainsley’s br**sts 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 cle**age, his unshaved whiskers a pleasant burn. Then he straightened up, stepped away, and slid a folded paper down between her br**sts.
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 br**sts 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.”