“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?
Compassion squeezed her heart, and Ainsley reached up to touch his face.
Instantly, Cameron rolled off her, removing his heady warmth, at the same time pulling her upright. She found herself sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching the key, before his hand under her backside pushed her to her feet.
“Go,” he said. “You have your way out, and I want to sleep.”
Ainsley held out her hand. “With the letter?”
“Bugger the letter. Now get out, woman, and leave me in peace.”
The shutters between himself and her had risen again. Hard and unpredictable was Lord Cameron. A new mistress every few months, ruthless when it came to winning races, and fiercely protective of his horses and his son.
Horses and women, she’d heard someone say about him. That’s all he cares about, in that order.
And yet she’d seen that flash of longing in his eyes.
Cameron still had the page of the letter. Ainsley had lost this round, but there would be another. There would have to be.
“Good night then, Lord Cameron.”
Hand under her arm, playful no longer, Cameron took her to the door, waited while she put the key in the lock, and more or less shoved her out of the room. Without looking at her, Cameron closed the door behind her, and she heard the decided click of the lock.
Well.
Ainsley blew out her breath and leaned against the nearest wall. She shook in every limb, her chest tight, her corset far too binding. She could still feel the weight of Cameron’s long body on hers, the strength of his hand on her wrists, the imprint of his mouth on hers.
She hadn’t forgotten his touch, the heat of his kiss, the strength of him, in six years. What a man he was, a forbidden, out-of-reach man who cared nothing for Ainsley Douglas and her troubles. Cameron still had the letter, and she had to get it back from him before he gave it to Phyllida, or worse, his brother Hart. If Hart Mackenzie knew what a treasure Cameron carried carelessly in his pocket, the ruthless duke wouldn’t hesitate to use it, she was certain.
But at the moment, Ainsley could only think of the long length of Cameron pressing her into the mattress, the heat of his breath on her mouth. What would it be like to be his lover?
Wonderful, wicked, far too powerful for the likes of Ainsley Douglas. He’d called her a mouse, she remembered, when he’d found her tucked into his window seat to hide.
She also remembered, as she finally pried herself from the wall and headed for the back stairs, something she’d seen very clearly when Cameron had pinned Ainsley’s hands above her head.
His loosened sleeve had slipped, revealing scars along the inside of his forearm. The scars had faded with time, but each was perfectly round, each about three quarters of an inch in diameter. Ainsley recognized the shape of them from an accident that had happened to one of her brothers, but Sinclair had suffered only one burn.
Someone, once upon a time, had amused themselves by touching a lighted cigar end repeatedly to Lord Cameron’s flesh.
The morning was fine enough to put Angelo on Night- Blooming Jasmine and let her gallop in the one field that wasn’t too boggy for the horses. Cameron rode behind them on a retired racer as Angelo let Jasmine run full out.
Cameron felt the power of the horse he rode, the air in his face, the rush of speed—all working to pull him out of his groggy, hungover state. He only ever came alive while astride a horse or watching their grace and strength as they ran. Sometimes when he hit the moment of passion with a woman, he’d feel the same surge of life, but at all other times, Cameron Mackenzie was half dead, walking through life and barely feeling it.
The exception: The two times he’d found Ainsley Douglas in his bedroom. Both times he’d come upon her there, he’d felt that rush and roar of excitement, the exhilaration pouring into his body.
Cameron hadn’t slept after Ainsley had left the night before. He’d tried to soothe his lust and his anger with whiskey and cheroots, but nothing had worked. Now here he was too damn early in the morning, his head pounding, his mouth parched, while he tried to train the most challenging horse of his career.
Night-Blooming Jasmine, a three-year-old with incredible speed, had been nearly ruined by being pushed to win the big races before she was ready. Her owner, a fool of an English viscount called Lord Pierson, had already run through a string of trainers, finding fault with each and transferring Jasmine from one to the next in rapid succession. Pierson openly despised Cameron, because Cameron trained his own horses and sometimes horses for other owners. A gentleman hired others to do menial jobs for him, Pierson told him.
Cameron saw no reason to own horses if he couldn’t be among them. He’d learned at a young age that he had a gift with the beasts. Not only could he bring out the best in each, but the horses followed him about the paddocks like dogs and came eagerly alert whenever he walked into a stable yard.
Jasmine was a dark brown filly with a coffee brown mane and tail, long of leg and sound of heart. She had the spirit and the speed, but Pierson had nearly destroyed her. He’d wanted to run her, as a three-year-old, in the most important flat races of the year: Epsom, Newmarket, Doncaster. Jasmine had fallen at Newmarket, but mercifully unhurt, had finished respectably, which was more to do with her jockey’s skill than her trainer’s care.