Cameron raised his gaze to the young man who’d grown from that tiny being, and his heart swelled with pride. Not for anything Cameron had done himself, but for what Daniel had become on his own. A good lad, smart and brave, who loved without resentment, who was as carelessly generous as the rest of the Mackenzies.
She’s Ainsley.
Cameron thought of Ainsley: of her beautiful hair spilling across her body while she slept, of her frank gray gaze that undid his heart, of her laughter that heated his blood. He missed her with brutal sharpness.
When Ainsley returned—and she would return—Cameron would show her how much he’d missed her, every detail of it.
And he’d never let her out of his sight again. Being without her was too damned hard.
When Ainsley told Patrick that part of her scheme involved him accompanying her to a canal boat full of the Roma, he was naturally perplexed.
“Ainsley. Stop.”
Ainsley set down her valise on the towpath of the Kennet and Avon Canal. A long canal boat rested beside them, rocking ever so gently. Children watched them from the deck, as did the adults, one man smoking a long pipe. Angelo had gone below to tell his mother that they’d arrived.
Patrick puffed from the walk from the village a little west of Reading, where the hired coach had left them. Ainsley’s forty-five-year-old brother, though he’d let himself go a bit paunchy, looked so utterly respectable in his dark suit, hat, and walking stick that Ainsley wanted to hug him again. She’d missed him.
Patrick pulled out a handkerchief that had been folded into a perfect square and wiped his brow. “We’ve never discussed what we are to do on this boat.”
“Nothing. It will take us, discreetly, to Bath.”
“A Romany canal boat is discreet?”
“Unexpected, certainly. I need to get to Bath without making a fanfare of it, without anyone knowing we’re coming.”
“Where I will be your cohort in crime?”
“I use the term crime loosely,” Ainsley said. “I’ll tell you all about it on the boat.”
“Ainsley.”
Patrick’s tone turned serious, and Ainsley sucked in a breath. She’d rushed him from his Windsor inn to his hired coach, and then kept up a steady stream of chatter about her life in Waterbury, the horses, Daniel, about redecorating her house, as they rode. Anything to prevent the talk she knew she had to face now.
“Ainsley, you haven’t allowed me to discuss your elopement,” Patrick said.
“I know that. I’m avoiding the scolding that I’ll know you’ll give me.”
“I merely wish you had consulted me about it first. What a shock we had when we received your telegram! My little sister married to a lord. And such a lord.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Patrick, but I had to choose quickly. There wasn’t time to consult you. I knew that eloping would disappoint you, and please believe me when I say that it hurt me to disappoint you. Very much. But Cameron was right when he told me I’d deliberately let myself become a drudge. Because, you see, I thought that, if you and Rona saw how sorry I was, how grateful I was that you stood by me when I was so foolish—and how good I’d be for the rest of my life—maybe you, my brother, would forgive me.” She ran out of breath.
“Ainsley.” Patrick’s gray eyes went wide. “Of course I forgave you. I forgave you years ago. And anyway, there wasn’t anything to forgive. You have such a large heart, of course you’d trust that blackguard in Italy. Why shouldn’t you? It was my fault for being so wrapped up in my own business that I didn’t notice and warn you in time. You should forgive me for not looking after you.”
“But I never blamed you, Patrick. It never ever occurred to me to blame you.”
“Well, I have blamed myself. You were so young and so trusting, and I should have kept a better eye on you.”
Ainsley stopped. She’d had no idea that Patrick had felt that way. Perhaps she’d been so busy with self-castigation that she’d failed to notice her brother doing the same himself.
“My dear Patrick, we can stand here on this towpath and exchange declarations of culpability for hours, but perhaps we should agree to put it behind us. I will simply say that I’ve always been very grateful to you. You stood by me when you didn’t have to.”
“You are my sister. I would never dream of deserting you, or throwing you to the wolves. And you’re avoiding my questions again. This elopement with Lord Cameron Mackenzie—”
“I had to jump the way my heart led me,” Ainsley said.
Patrick wiped his forehead again. “Let me finish, dear girl. At first I suspected that Mackenzie had abducted you, had tricked you into running away with him by pretending to marry you. Her majesty certainly thought so and had her secretary write me her suspicions. I was inclined to investigate. I asked friends in Paris what they thought of the match. They wrote me how happy you were, how positively radiant, how Lord Cameron treated you like a queen.” Patrick chuckled. “Better than a queen treated you, actually.”
Ainsley stifled surprise. Patrick rarely criticized anyone, even obliquely, and especially not the Queen of England.
Patrick shrugged. “Bless her, she’s Hanoverian. Not even a Stuart. I rather agree with Hart Mackenzie that Scotland should be independent, although I’m skeptical at his chances to put it that way.”
Ainsley looked at her brother, her heart full. “Then you forgive me? Or at least understand?”
“I told you, there’s nothing to forgive. You followed your heart, and this time, you were wise enough to make the choice with your head as well. I would like to meet Lord Cameron before I fully make up my mind, but I trust you.” Patrick let out his breath. “Now, what the devil is this crime you want me to help you commit?”
“Not a crime. Merely a little deception.”
Before Patrick could answer, Angelo came out on deck, followed by a diminutive woman dressed in soot black, her head covered with a scarf. She peered from the deck to Patrick and Ainsley with vibrant eyes.
“Well?” she said in a loud, heavily accented voice. “Why are they just standing there? Help them on you lazy louts!”
The man with the pipe sprang to his feet and vaulted over the side to pick up Ainsley’s valise.
“My lady,” Angelo said, teeth flashing in a grin. “And sir. My mother.”
The woman reached for Ainsley as Ainsley stepped across to the deck. “Welcome, my dear. Goodness, your hair is very yellow. It ain’t dyed, is it?”