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.”
Cameron’s eyes warmed. “Are ye certain?”
“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.”