Jennifer Ashley - The Many Sins of Lord Cameron

“I remember.”

“Then trust me when I say that you will see Ainsley again. And everything will be as it should be.”

Beth looked wise, but this was wrong, all wrong. “Did she leave any message for me?”

“No.” Beth looked apologetic. “She barely had time to say good-bye to Isabella and ask me to kiss the babies for her.”

No good-bye for Cameron, no answer to his pathetic plea. Ainsley, you have to come with me. Say you will. Promise me.

“Damnation.”

Beth touched his arm. “Cameron, I am so sorry.”

Cameron looked down at Beth, the kind but resilient sister-in-law who’d made Ian so happy. He started to answer but just then his jumbled thoughts clarified into a single one.

The letters.

The exasperating Ainsley would never have rushed off to Balmoral without the letters. If Angelo had given them to her . . . Cameron should have remembered that she’d already swayed Angelo to her side.

Without another word, Cameron strode to his wing of the house, took the stairs two at a time, and stormed into his bedchamber. Everything looked as Cam had left it the night before, including the dog-haired impression McNab had left on the bed. The dog in question now padded back into the room.

Cameron slammed across the room to his bedside table. A painting of a cheerful tart hung above it, she sitting on the edge of her bed in her chemise, grinning while she pulled on her stockings. Mac had painted the picture for him a long time ago. Though Cameron had never met the model Mac had used, he liked the way the woman’s cheeky smile beamed at him every morning.

She laughed at him now as Cameron yanked open the drawer. Cameron had locked the drawer, but the little lock was no match for Ainsley’s skill.

The stack of letters had gone.

“Damn it,” Cameron said. McNab sat down next to him. “Bloody rotten guard dog you are.”

McNab thumped his tail.

Cameron drew out a scrap of paper from the drawer that hadn’t been there the night before. Unfolding it, he found Ainsley’s clear handwriting.

On the train, after the St. Leger. I will give you my answer.

She hadn’t signed it.

“Dad!” The outraged cry had McNab’s tail going faster. Cameron slid the note into his pocket.

“Dad!”

“I heard you the first time.” Cameron shoved the drawer closed and faced his son, who’d been running, his kilt dirty as usual.

“Dad, Mrs. Douglas is gone.”

“I know that.”

“Well, go after her. Bring her back!”

Cameron glared, and Daniel took a worried step back. Cameron checked his rage, not liking the frustrated violence boiling up inside him.

“She went to the queen,” he said as calmly as he could. “She had to go.”

“Why? What does the bloody queen need with her anyway? She’s got enough people to look after her without Ainsley.”

Cameron agreed. The beast inside him wanted to rush to Balmoral and damn anyone who got in his way. “I know.”

“This is your fault,” Daniel snarled. “She’s gone, we’ll never see her again, and it’s all your fault.”

“Daniel—”

Daniel whirled and fled the room, McNab trotting worriedly after him.

Hell and damnation. Cameron sank to the bed, the strength going out of him. He hadn’t slept all night, and his head pounded with whiskey, exertion, and memories of Ainsley.

On the train, after the St. Leger. I will give you my answer.

Cameron could barely breathe.

He wouldn’t let her go. Mackenzie men were good at getting exactly what they wanted, and Cameron would have Ainsley. He’d not let her go again, not for the Queen of England or any other reason on God’s earth.

The declaration didn’t return color to his world, but he clung to it as he stripped off his soiled clothes and bellowed to the footmen to fetch Angelo.

Queen Victoria opened the keepsake box Ainsley had brought to her and slid the bundle of letters inside it. She locked the box with a little key on a ribbon and tucked the key back into her pocket.

“You have done well, my dear,” the queen said, her quiet smile satisfied.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but shouldn’t you burn them?” The lock on the keepsake box was flimsy, and Phyllida’s toady had found no difficulty stealing the letters from it the first time.

“Nonsense. It scarcely matters now. Mrs. Chase is long gone.”

Yes, but there might be others just as intent on embarrassing you, Ainsley argued silently.

However, the queen was right that Phyllida Chase would no longer be a threat. As soon as Ainsley had alighted from the train that evening, the maid who’d come to fetch her had told Ainsley the delightful rumor that Mrs. Chase had fled to the Continent with a young Italian tenor.

The rumor was confirmed at Balmoral by a colleague of Mr. Chase. Phyllida had written a letter to her husband, baldly stating that she’d left him and outlining why. Mr. Chase was outraged, ready to sue her, and he fully blamed the Duke of Kilmorgan for hosting licentious house parties. Ainsley wondered how Hart Mackenzie had reacted to that.

Victoria went on. “I heard that you returned my five hundred guineas to my secretary.”

“Yes, I was able to retrieve the letters and not spend your money, ma’am.”

“Very clever of you.” The queen patted her cheek. “So frugal, so very Scots. You’ve always been resourceful, my dear, as was your mother, God rest her soul.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

It alarmed Ainsley how easily she slid back into the role of the queen’s trusted servant. Ainsley wore mourning black again, but she couldn’t help but touch the onyx buttons of her bodice and imagine the wicked smile Cam would give her as he asked how many she’d let him undo.

Ainsley thought of the note she’d left him, poor recompense for all his help. But when Ainsley had telegraphed the queen that she’d successfully retrieved the letters, she’d received an almost instant reply that she should return to Balmoral at once.

Cameron had been on a horse in the fields with Angelo and his trainers, and Ainsley knew she wouldn’t have time to wait for him to finish so that she could say good-bye. When the queen said at once, she meant it.

Besides, Cameron might have demanded an answer then and there, and Ainsley’s mind whirled with the question. He wanted her to flee to the Continent with him, as Phyllida had done with her tenor, and Ainsley hadn’t the faintest idea what to tell him.

If she did go with Cameron, how on earth would she explain it to Patrick and Rona? As she’d tried to tell Cameron, she didn’t so much worry about scandal but who she would hurt by it. If I were alone in the world, I’d tell scandal to go hang and do as I pleased.

But Cameron was tempting Ainsley. It wasn’t simply lust for the bedchamber that made her long for him—there was his smile, the warmth in his eyes, the way he worried over Jasmine, the way he’d helped lame Mrs. Yardley so very gently across the croquet green. Ainsley wanted all of Cameron, the whole man.

“I’m thinking of going to Paris, ma’am,” Ainsley said.

The queen blinked. “Next summer, with your family? Of course, you must. Paris is lovely in the summer.”

“No, I mean in a few weeks.”

“Nonsense, my dear, you can’t possibly. We have the ghillies ball at the end of the month and so much to do after that, and then Christmas.”

Ainsley bit the inside of her mouth. “Yes, ma’am.”

To the queen, nothing was more interesting or important than royal entertainments, and Ainsley knew that Victoria would not want Ainsley to leave her side. Victoria smiled at Ainsley now.

“Play for me, dear,” the queen said. “You soothe me.”

She had her hands around her box, the queen’s plump face serene now that she’s regained the evidence of her secret love. Ainsley hid a sigh, went to the piano, and started to play.

Two days later, Ainsley walked into a long drawing room and found Lord Cameron Mackenzie standing in it, his back to her while he warmed his hands at the fireplace.

Before she could choose between running away and facing him squarely, Cameron turned around. His sharp gaze moved up and down her, and he didn’t disguise the fact that he was angry. Very angry.

“I left you a note,” Ainsley said faintly.

“Damn your note. Shut the door.”

Ainsley walked across the room to him without obeying about the door. “What are you doing here?”

And why did he look so wonderful in his worn riding kilt and muddy boots?

“I came to visit my mistress.”

Ainsley stopped. “Oh.”

“I meant you, Ainsley.”

Ainsley’s breath came pouring back. “I’m not your mistress.”

“My lover, then.” Cameron sat on a sofa without inviting her to sit first, removed a flask from his coat pocket, and took a long sip.

Ainsley seated herself on a nearby chair. “You make us sound like characters in a farce. I’ll wager you didn’t tell her majesty that you were here to visit your mistress.”

Cameron shrugged and took another sip. “She asked for my advice on a horse, and I decided to give it to her in person.”

“Very clever.”

“The queen likes to talk about horses.”

Ainsley nodded. “She does. I told you I’d give you my decision after the St. Leger. I need time to think.”

Cameron crossed his booted feet. “I’ve changed my mind. I want my answer now.”

“Does that mean you’ve come here to carry me off? They do have guards and things.”

“No, damn you. I came here to persuade you.”

“You are an arrogant man, Cameron Mackenzie.”

Cameron thrust the flask back into his pocket. “I’m a damned impatient man. I don’t understand why the devil you insisted on rushing back here to be the queen’s best servant.”

Ainsley spread her hands. “I need the money. I’m not a rich woman, and my brother can’t be expected to keep me forever.”

“I told you, I’ll give you all the money you need.” Cameron flicked his gaze up and down her frock. “I hate you in black. Why do you keep wearing it?”

“It is what I wear when I’m working for the queen,” Ainsley said. “And I wear it because John Douglas was a kind, caring man, and he deserves not to be forgotten.”

“Kind and caring. The opposite of Cameron Mackenzie.”

Something in his eyes stemmed her anger. “You can be kind and caring. I’ve seen you.”

“Why did you marry John Douglas in the first place? No one seems to understand why, not your closest friends, not even Isabella.”

Ainsley did not want to talk about John with Cameron. “You were enticing her to gossip and speculation, were you?”

“I have to, mouse, because you won’t answer a straight question. But tell me this.” Cameron held her gaze with his. “Were you carrying his child?”

Ainsley’s breath went away again. “What?”

“I saw the marks on your abdomen, Ainsley. I understand what they mean. You had a baby.”

No one knew. Only Patrick and Rona, and John. Even Ainsley’s three other brothers, nowhere near Rome at the time of Ainsley’s hasty marriage, hadn’t known the full story.

Ainsley rose from her chair, walked across the room, and closed and locked the door. Cameron watched her, not moving, as she returned to her seat.

“The child lived for a day,” she said in a quiet voice. “But she wasn’t John’s.”

Cameron sat perfectly still. “Whose, then?”

“I met a young man in Rome. I fell in love with him and allowed him to seduce me. I thought he’d rejoice that I was having his child and marry me.” She wondered that she’d ever been so naïve. “That’s when he told me he was already married, and even had two children of his own.”

Cameron stared at her while red fury rose inside him.

Ainsley—beautiful, fiery, innocent Ainsley—used and discarded by a gigolo. “Who was he?” he asked.

Ainsley glanced up at him, cheeks red. “It was a long time ago, and I’m certain he gave me a false name. I was so very young and stupid, and I believed every word he told me.”

“Damn it, Ainsley . . .”

Cameron wanted to rage. He wanted to race to the Continent, find the blackguard and throttle him. The selfish fool had ruined Ainsley’s life before she’d even tasted the world.

“This is why you married an old man and buried yourself,” he said.

Her smile was sad, full of regret. “Patrick and Rona had taken me to Rome to expand my mind with art and music. Training me to be the wife of a cultured man. And then . . .”