Mac only chuckled. “Cam, old man, you’re going to be snared as thoroughly as the rest of us.”
A pot of honey for the bannocks reposed near Cameron’s plate, and he lifted the dripper, letting the honey trickle back into the bowl. “Talk,” he said to Isabella.
Isabella rested her elbows on the table and planted her chin on her hands. “Let me see, Ainsley’s father was a McBride, her mother the only daughter of Viscount Aberdere. Ainsley’s mother and father both died of typhoid in India when Ainsley and her youngest brother were just babies.”
“She told me that her oldest brother raised her,” Cameron said.
“He did. Patrick McBride was already twenty. He got Ainsley and her three other brothers out of India and all the way back to the family home in Scotland. Patrick married soon after that, and he and his wife, Rona, brought up the others. They sent Ainsley to Miss Pringle’s Select Academy, wanting to make a lady of her. That’s where I met her, and we became fast friends.”
“Partners in crime,” Mac added. “Mrs. Douglas taught my dear wife how to pick locks and climb into and out of windows.”
“Ooh,” Curry said. “Sounds interestin’.”
“I never mastered the art,” Isabella said. “Not like Ainsley. She was our ringleader for midnight feasts and practical jokes. We were quite awful.”
“I can imagine,” Cameron said. “What did she do after she finished at the academy?”
“Ainsley never finished,” Isabella said, sounding surprised he didn’t know. “In the summer before her final year, Patrick and his wife took her on a trip to the Continent. They decided to stay there for a year, in Rome, I think. When I next saw Ainsley, in London, she was already married to John Douglas. Mr. Douglas was a very kind man, but at least thirty years her senior. Ainsley seemed content enough, but I always wondered why she married him. I’ve speculated, but she’s never told me, and I don’t like to pry.”
“Yes, you do,” Beth said. “When you first met me, you made me come home with you the moment I mentioned Ian.”
“That was different, darling,” Isabella said. “That was family.”
Cameron lifted the honey dripper again. The amber folds cascading down made him imagine swirling the honey over Ainsley’s naked body. Slowly, slowly licking it from her skin, savoring each sticky drop.
He looked up to find Ian watching him, no doubt guessing Cameron’s exact thoughts. Ian so rarely looked at anyone straight in the eye that when he did, it could be unnerving.
Cameron put down the dripper. “And since her husband’s death, Mrs. Douglas has worked for the queen?”
“Indeed, she has. Ainsley’s mother and Lady Eleanor Ramsay’s mother were good friends, and the queen adored Ainsley’s mother. So one year when the queen was at Balmoral, Ainsley and Eleanor Ramsay were staying with a mutual friend nearby. The queen visited with them, and when the queen discovered who Ainsley was, there was nothing for it but that Ainsley should come and work for her. The queen finagled Ainsley into her household somehow and made her a lady of the bedchamber.”
Mrs. Yardley had told him much the same thing. “So, she and the queen are chummy.”
“Not really. Ainsley is grateful for the position and the salary, but she finds it trying at times. The queen doesn’t like to let her leave very often. I’m surprised Ainsley was allowed to spend two weeks with me here, but I’m happy for it.”
Isabella picked up her coffee and sipped, clearly finished with her story.
“Is that all?” Cameron asked.
“Isn’t that enough? I’ve chattered on about my friend’s private life long enough, and I told you that much only because Daniel told me he caught you kissing her.”
Mac started laughing, damn him, and Curry was getting an earful to spread below stairs.
“Stop all the confounded smirking,” Cameron growled. “I’m not looking to marry her. She’s disrupting my life.”
Isabella lost her smile. “She’s a dear friend, Cameron. Do not hurt her.”
“I have no intention of hurting her. I want her to cease pulling me into her affairs and to quit meddling in mine.”
“Stop kissing her then.”
Cameron saw by the faces turned toward him that they were going to line up against him. None of them understood the damage a woman like Ainsley could do to his sanity. The thrumming in his body wouldn’t go away when he was around her, and he’d already lost two nights of sleep because of her.
What Cam should do was pack his bags, load up the horses, and retreat to his house in Berkshire where he had his main racing stables. He could join his other trainers and continue with Jasmine in his big, open paddocks.
But Cameron had already promised Hart to stay at Kilmorgan until the races at Doncaster, and he didn’t like to break promises to his brothers. Aside from that, Jasmine was too jittery for a long journey south. If she were Cameron’s horse, he’d back her off to light training, build her up slowly, get to know her, teach her to trust. As it was, he had to work her carefully. A long trip now would ruin her.
No, he had to stay at Kilmorgan and finish this. Once he’d had Ainsley, as he’d vowed to, he could forget her and return to sanity.
Ian slid the pot of honey toward his plate. “We should go back upstairs,” he said to Beth.
“What?” Beth looked up from a list she was writing. “Why?”
Ian rose and pulled back Beth’s chair without answering. Ian had difficulty lying, so when he knew he shouldn’t say what was on his mind, he’d learned to keep his mouth firmly closed.
Beth knew him well, though. Without arguing, she let him take her arm and steer her from the table. Before he walked away, Ian reached back and snatched the honey pot from the table, balancing the pot in his hand as he led Beth from the room.
Two days later Ainsley sat among a sea of costly fabrics at a dressmaker’s in Edinburgh. Rain fell outside, the sort that obscured everything in mist, but inside with Beth and Isabella, all was dry and snug.
Ainsley had telegraphed Phyllida’s new demand to the queen, and while waiting for the reply, she’d restlessly searched the house again, just in case. She’d recruited Daniel to help her look, and Angelo too, although she didn’t tell either exactly what she searched for and why. But both knew the house better than she did, surprisingly well, in fact. The Romany and the youth found hidey holes that she wagered even Hart didn’t know about. But Phyllida hadn’t made use of them, because they found no letters.