The Many Sins of Lord Cameron (18 page)

Eleanor let out her breath. “Well, that is a relief. I was preparing myself to be generous and tell you that I wished you every happiness, but truly, Ainsley, I think I’d rather have clawed your eyes out.”

“I am sorry, El,” Ainsley said. “I should have made myself clear. I didn’t realize you still cared for him.”

“You never forget the love of your life, Ainsley Douglas, no matter what he did to anger you, and no matter how much time has passed.” Eleanor took another sip of tea, making her voice light. “Especially not when he’s paraded through every newspaper and magazine you set eyes on. But we are not here to talk about me; you invited me all this way to talk about you. The remaining unmatched Mackenzie male is Cameron, so I conclude that it is he. Now, tell me everything.”

Ainsley did, leaning forward and relating the entire tale in a low voice. Eleanor listened while she ate seedcake, avidly interested. Ainsley ended with Cameron’s sudden visit to Balmoral, and her promise to give him her answer after the races at Doncaster.

She finished, and Eleanor sipped tea in thoughtful silence. Ainsley picked up her now-cold tea and drank, not noticing its chill.

Finally, Eleanor set down her cup and fixed Ainsley with a sharp look. “The fact that we are discussing Cameron’s proposition at all means that you didn’t simply slap him in high dudgeon and storm away. So, my dear, the question is, have you asked me here to persuade you into it or out of it?”

“I don’t know.” Ainsley pressed her hands to her face. “Eleanor, I can’t possibly go off with him, but oh, if I don’t . . . He’ll move on to the next woman in the wings, won’t he? I’m under no illusion that he wants to marry me. He said once that he even hated the sound of the word
marriage
. I understand, I suppose. I didn’t know his wife, but she sounds ghastly.”

“She was more than ghastly, my dear,” Eleanor said around her next sip of tea. “Lady Elizabeth used to beat him.”

Chapter 18

Ainsley’s mouth dropped open. “She
beat
him?”

“With a poker mostly.” Eleanor’s voice was quiet but held vast rage. “Cameron is a large and strong man, of course, so he’d stop her, but usually he’d take the brunt on himself because he was keeping her away from Daniel. Or, Elizabeth would wait until Cameron was drunk and asleep, and then she’d go at him. She slipped him laudanum once or twice, Hart told me. Cameron had to begin ensuring he didn’t fall asleep anywhere near her.”

Which explained why Phyllida Chase had said that Cameron never took a woman to his bed. He had her everywhere else, yes, but not in a bed. That must have been a habit he’d cultivated, to avoid the chance that the woman he fell asleep with would wake him with a poker across his back. The scars on his thighs suddenly took on new and horrible meaning.

Ainsley realized she was clenching the handle of her teacup too tightly for fragile porcelain. She set it down. “Dear heavens.”

Eleanor shook her head. “Elizabeth was a cruel and crazed woman, and she resented Cameron for trapping her in marriage. She was a few years older than Cameron, and according to Hart, Cam fell wildly in love with her. I imagine that Cameron being the son of one of the richest men in England, standing to inherit the title if anything happened to Hart, was too tempting for Elizabeth to resist. Her parents did nothing to warn Cameron about her, being happy to be rid of the girl. Elizabeth had thought she’d simply do what she pleased, you see, after she married, with whatever man she pleased, and she did at first. When Cameron insisted that Elizabeth be faithful to him, she grew uncontrollable. It was an unfortunate match from the beginning.”

Ainsley thought about the Cameron she knew—single- minded, stubborn, knowing what he wanted and letting nothing stand in his way. He could laugh, but there was always a bitter tinge to his laughter. Cameron had a reputation for taking up with women here, there, and everywhere, and he’d never fixed on one woman after his wife’s death.

Ainsley had assumed he played the rakehell from boredom, but Eleanor’s explanation told her a different tale. After a wife so awful to him, who’d destroyed whatever trust he had, Cameron would not have rushed eagerly back to the altar. This was Cameron’s view of women then: Grasping and selfish like Phyllida Chase, or cruel and tormenting like Lady Elizabeth Cavendish.

“Poor Cameron,” Ainsley said.

Eleanor smiled as she lifted her teacup. “Do be careful, Ainsley. They entice you, these Mackenzies, first with their wickedness and then with all that is heartbreaking.”

“Why did Cameron not divorce her?” Ainsley asked. “He surely had grounds. Or at least tuck her into a remote house somewhere, away from him and Daniel?”

“Precisely because of Daniel.” Eleanor refilled their cups then dropped five lumps of sugar into her freshened tea. “Elizabeth became with child very soon after they married, which infuriated her. She never wanted to be a mother. She would fly into rages, threaten to harm herself or to try to rid herself of the baby. Cameron didn’t want to let her out of his sight—he was protecting Daniel from her even then. Elizabeth tried to tell Cameron—repeatedly—that Daniel wasn’t his son, claiming any number of men to be his father. The trouble was, you see, any one of them could have been. Elizabeth was most generous with her body.”

Ainsley remembered the look on Cameron’s face when he’d found the letter from his wife’s lover in the hidden drawer. The anger, the disgust, the old pain that hadn’t quite dispersed. He’d kissed Ainsley right after that with a desperation, a need to forget.

“I think I rather hate her,” Ainsley said.

“I’m not much fond of her myself,” Eleanor said decidedly. “Cameron has a big heart, and it didn’t deserve to be broken by someone like Elizabeth.” She looked thoughtful. “Though I’ve come to believe that her need to rush about with other men was a kind of illness. Father read a piece from a scientific journal to me that explained that some people become obsessed with coupling just as others have a mania for gambling or alcohol. They can’t stop themselves. They must lie with someone and experience that . . . ecstasy, let’s call it, or they go a little mad. Father and I decided that perhaps Elizabeth must have been one of those people.”

Ainsley blinked. “Good heavens, Eleanor, your
father
talked of this with you?”

“Of course. Dear Father has no idea that such things shouldn’t be mentioned in the presence of a young lady. He’s keen on all branches of science and has a wide-open mind, which means he’ll discuss the mating habits of frogs or human beings and not have an inkling that there’s a difference between them. Proprietarily, I mean. Frogs reproduce rather differently from human beings, of course.”

Ainsley couldn’t stop her laugh. Certainly anyone bringing up the mating habits of frogs, let alone human beings, at Patrick’s dinner table would face the horrified silence of Patrick and Rona. Her brother and sister-in-law weren’t unkind people, but they had very stringent ideas about manners and proper topics of conversation.

The laugh ended in a sigh, and Ainsley sat limply in her chair. “What do I do, Eleanor? Cameron goes on about diamonds and hotels in Monte Carlo as though I’ll clap my hands and rush with him to the train.”

Eleanor gave her a sympathetic smile. “Because Cameron is used to women who cross their eyes and fall over when he dangles diamond necklaces in front of them. They don’t want him, they want his money, and he knows it.”

He did know it. Cameron was a generous man, but not a stupid one. He knew exactly why the ladies flocked to him.

“I don’t care about his money,” Ainsley said.

“
I
understand that, but I wager Cameron hasn’t the faintest idea how to woo a lady without bribing her. None of the Mackenzies do.”

Eleanor spoke with conviction. Hart must have lavished gifts on Eleanor until she couldn’t see, and still, Eleanor had told him to go.

Ainsley let out her breath. “If I refuse Cameron, I know that I will regret it for the rest of my life. But if I go, I’ll ruin myself and disgrace my family.”
Again
, she did not say. “My brothers would never forgive me.”

“Well, you do not have to advertise that you are running off with him, you know. If you will forgive me for saying so, you are not the most socially prominent young lady in Britain. Go incognito.”

Ainsley laughed, thinking of her costume at Rowlindson’s party. “In a wig and mask?”

“Nothing so theatrical. Simply leave for a jaunt to the Continent on your own. Ladies do such things nowadays all the time. They take walking tours of far-off countries by themselves and write books about their adventures. You’re not an unmarried miss, but a respectable widow. If you meet Cameron on your travels, what of it?”

Ainsley stared across the table at Eleanor, and Eleanor looked unflappably back at her. “El, you are telling me to run away with a man to become his mistress.”

“I am telling you to be happy. Even if it lasts only a little while. We must snatch what we can when we have the chance. Life is so very lonely when we don’t.”

Ainsley sat back, realizing that Eleanor probably hadn’t been the wisest choice for advice on this matter. Ainsley had hoped for a clear-eyed, uncolored view of the Mackenzie family—and Eleanor had that—but Eleanor still loved them as hard as did Beth or Isabella. Ainsley hadn’t wanted to go Isabella or Beth, because she knew Cameron’s offer would become a family discussion, and Ainsley had not wanted that, and she knew that neither would Cameron.

But Eleanor, she saw, though she’d shown Hart the door, wasn’t exactly an outsider. Eleanor obviously regretted her decision to jilt Hart, though she’d likely had good reason for it. Ten years ago, Hart Mackenzie hadn’t had a pristine reputation. Ainsley had heard from Beth about the house he’d bought for his mistress, a woman called Mrs. Palmer. He’d visited Mrs. Palmer in this house for many years, and the things he’d done there hadn’t been exactly conventional. Not until after his wife and child had died had Hart become much quieter and more discreet. He’d stayed with Mrs. Palmer, though, until that lady’s death.

Eleanor lifted her teacup. “You’re not an ingénue, Ainsley. You know exactly what you are getting yourself into. You know about men and what they want. You know the Mackenzies. You will be walking in with no illusions.”

Ainsley poked at the seedcake on her plate. She loved cake but at the moment had lost her appetite. “Tell me, El. If it were you—if Hart popped in and asked you to go away with him and be his lover—would you do it?”

Eleanor’s eyes flickered. “He never would.”

“But let us enter the realm of make-believe and suppose he did. Would you go with him?”

Eleanor flashed a smile. “Let Hart Mackenzie drape ropes of jewels about my neck and beg to share my bed at night? I would be sorely tempted. But my circumstance is a bit different than yours.”

Ainsley drew an impatient breath. “But in a castle in the air, where all else is unimportant,
would you do it
?”

Eleanor studied her teacup for a moment, and when she looked up, her eyes were quiet. “Of course I would,” she said. “I would in an instant.”

Eleanor’s train to take her back to Aberdeen pulled into the station not long later, and she and Ainsley left the teashop for the platform.

Eleanor wasn’t certain what Ainsley would do, but she saw in Ainsley a lonely young woman who badly needed a moment of happiness. Whether Ainsley would be brave enough to snatch that moment remained to be seen.

Ainsley pressed the seedcake she’d asked the waitress to wrap for her into Eleanor’s hand and thanked her as they exchanged a kiss good-bye. It was like Ainsley to disguise generosity as gratitude, Eleanor thought. Eleanor wasn’t too proud to accept the cake, though. She’d take it home to Father, and they’d have such a treat.

Ainsley hurried from the station after their good-byes, likely having stolen this time from whatever errands she was supposed to be doing for the queen. Poor Ainsley had less freedom than Eleanor did. Eleanor still managed to maintain a circle of friends—at least, those friends who didn’t give a toss about money. Only the very rich or the very poor could be so cavalier, so Eleanor’s friends came in an odd range.

Eleanor turned from waving Ainsley off to step from platform to train compartment. She slipped, failed to steady herself, and was caught by a large, strong hand.

All the breath went out of her when she looked back and down at the face of Hart Mackenzie.

The golden gaze that studied her had grown, if anything, harder and harsher with experience. Hart’s body was still broad and strong, shoulders stretching his finely tailored greatcoat, under which he wore his Mackenzie plaid kilt. Unshaved whiskers dusted Hart’s jaw, a sign that he’d been working around the clock as usual, but no exhaustion tinged his intense gaze.

Eleanor sensed something new in him, however, a focus that hadn’t existed before. She knew that Hart’s ambition was as honed as ever—she read the newspapers—but the hope and humor that had once lightened his eyes was gone. This was a man who had experienced loss, first of his wife and only child, then of his longtime mistress. He seemed to exist on ambition alone, now.

“I heard about Mrs. Palmer,” Eleanor said softly. “Hart, I am so very sorry.”

His eyes flickered in surprise, and in that moment, Eleanor looked at the true Hart Mackenzie, the man who’d sacrificed so much that his family would not suffer. It had been Hart who’d forced the old duke to make generous trusts for his three younger brothers, so that they could live independently. Their father would have been happy to let Ian, Mac, and Cam starve to keep all the money in the dukedom.

How Hart had persuaded his father to do this, Eleanor never did discover. Eleanor was one of the few who even knew he’d done it. And now Hart, a man with so much power, so much wealth, and so much might, grieved for a simple courtesan.

His look told her that he wasn’t certain of her motives, but he nodded. “Thank you.”

Eleanor gave his hand a squeeze, her heart fluttering at the strength she felt through his gloves.

Hart smiled suddenly, a smile that held the challenge of a predator about to make a kill. A lion might look like that right before he leapt upon a gazelle that couldn’t run away quite fast enough.

Eleanor tried to snatch her hand from his, but Hart closed his fingers on hers in an unshakable grip. The signal man on the platform blew a whistle, indicating that the train was about to leave. Hart transferred his grip to Eleanor’s elbow and half shoved her up into the compartment, following her inside.

“This is your train?” Eleanor asked nervously.
Oh, mother mine, he can’t mean to ride with me all the way to Aberdeen!

“No.” Hart stood in the open door frame until she fell into the seat, the package with the precious seedcake landing beside her.

The engine’s whistle shrilled, and a waft of black smoke rolled back along the train. The car jerked.

“We’re leaving,” Eleanor said, frantic.

“I see that.” Hart reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded note, and thrust it into her hand.