The Many Sins of Lord Cameron (7 page)

McNab’s tail lashed Cameron’s legs, and Ainsley laughed and bent to pet the dog’s head. “Lord Cameron, I need to ask you a favor.”

Didn’t she know it was dangerous to ask him for favors? Just because Cameron was innocent of murder didn’t mean he was kind.

“What?”

“I searched Mrs. Chase’s rooms, but I never found the letters. I’ve taken the opportunity to look over the rest of the house as well, but I’ve not been able to find them.”

Cameron imagined Ainsley happily picking her way past the locked doors of every room in Hart’s mansion. Assisting Isabella with the party would have given her an excuse to go almost anywhere in the house. Hart Mackenzie, the most careful and controlling man ever born, was no match for Ainsley and her hairpin.

“Of course you searched,” he said. “Are ye certain you were thorough?”

“I am always very thorough, my lord. But there is one place I haven’t looked.” She touched her tongue to her lower lip, to the tiny bruise Cameron had left there. His mark. He who didn’t always like kissing his women couldn’t stop thinking about kissing Ainsley. “The one place she’d be able to stash the lot,” Ainsley said, “where I’d likely not go, would be your chambers.”

His heart missed a beat. “You did some searching in my chambers too, minx. Angelo told me someone had pawed through the wardrobe.”

“But I wasn’t able to finish.”

No, Cam and Phyllida had come blundering in, Cameron seeking refuge from his ennui in mindless coupling.

Ainsley went on. “Would Mrs. Chase have had the chance to hide the rest somewhere in your rooms?”

Phyllida had latched on to Cameron the moment she’d arrived at the house party, and Cameron hadn’t discouraged her. “Aye, she’d have had chance. But not, I’m thinking, the chance to retrieve them.” He’d not invited Phyllida back to his chambers after last night, and she’d understood what his cool indifference meant.

“Excellent. Perhaps I could go in and look for them while you’re training tomorrow? Would you be able to keep the servants away?”

The thought of her bustling around his rooms made him sweat. “Why wait for the morning? If you want to find the letters so much, go on up and have at it.”

Ainsley’s eyes widened. “What,
now
?”

“Why the hell not? The guests are riveted to Hart’s pyrotechnics, and the house is empty. I’ll show you the most likely places to look.”

Ainsley pursed her lips, the soft pucker making him want to pull her close and finish what he’d started with her in the woods. He’d had to make himself walk away then or risk the count or Isabella or someone turning up looking for her, to find her in a most compromising position. No one at the croquet match seemed to have noticed her gone too long with the notorious Lord Cameron, though, probably thinking that Cameron wouldn’t have anything to do with the nobody friend of his sister-in-law. Few of them noticed Ainsley at all, the blind fools. She kept to the shadows, certainly, but Cameron could see her there in all her blazing glory.

Ainsley finally let out a long sigh and nodded. “Very well, let us search. It’s too blasted cold out here anyway.” She turned without another word and headed for the house, his coat billowing behind her.

Chapter 7

Cameron followed Ainsley Douglas’s swaying gray bustle up the steps to the dark end of the terrace. His coat half slid from her shoulders, her slippers were muddy, and one curl straggled down her back.

Why Cameron should come so alive watching a woman who had no intention whatsoever of sleeping with him, he didn’t know. He only knew he was grateful for it. The only thing he could compare it to was waking on the opening day of an important race meet, knowing that the day would be filled with excitement, hurry, and elation. He’d spend the day with Daniel and his horses, and even the disappointments would be colored by the overall joy of the time.

Cameron held open a door on the end of the terrace, and Ainsley moved confidently inside and across the dark room without waiting for him.

“You know your way around,” Cameron said when he caught up to her.

“I know Balmoral and Buckingham Palace like the back of my hand,” Ainsley said. She stepped from the room into the empty hall beyond. “This house is easy to navigate in comparison. We can get from here up to your wing unseen.”

Ainsley opened another door, this one leading to a slanting back stair, which she started to ascend without hesitation.

“How do you know the servants won’t see you?” Cameron asked as he followed. “Or did you tie them up and lock them in the kitchen?”

Ainsley answered breathlessly, skirts swishing as she climbed. “The only servant who uses these stairs is your man, and he’s currently in the stables.”

That was true enough. Angelo liked looking after Jasmine. “You’d make a bloody good jewel thief, knowing the back ways through other people’s houses like this,” Cameron said. “You could work house parties all over the country.”

Ainsley looked back down at him over the banisters. “Don’t be silly. I do have some morals, Lord Cameron.”

Pity. Cameron followed her out through a narrow door to the landing to his floor. His rooms were two doors down, and he moved past her to unlock his bedchamber with his key.

“Saves you the time of picking it,” he said.

Without comment Ainsley slid off Cameron’s coat, handed it to him, and walked inside. She went straight to his wardrobe, opened it, and started to rummage. Cameron tossed the coat to a chair and watched the fine perspective of her backside moving as she lifted his shirts and collar boxes, peeked under lids and felt through fabric.

He stripped off his gloves and his too-binding formal waistcoat before moving to pour himself a cut crystal glass of whiskey. Taking up the whiskey, he leaned against a bedpost to continue watching her work.

Ainsley closed the wardrobe and turned to the glass- fronted bookcase. “You’re an odd sort of man, Lord Cameron. You drink whiskey and smoke cheroots in front of a lady without asking leave, not to mention smacking away her ball in croquet instead of allowing her to win. In my world, that is simply not done. You’d be looked upon with horror.”

“Lucky that I don’t live in your world then. Besides, I know you’re not a lady.”

She shot him a startled look as she opened the bookcase. “What?”

Cameron gestured with his glass. “You pick locks and sneak into my bedroom, you know the back ways through my ancestral home, you’re blatantly searching my bedchamber, and last night you wrestled with me on my bed.” He took a deliberate sip of whiskey. “I’d say that makes you not a lady.”

“Circumstances sometimes require odd behavior, my lord.”

“Circumstances be damned. You haven’t checked under the mattress.”

“That is next.” Ainsley plucked a book from the shelf and started leafing through it. She realized what kind of book it was and turned bright red.

Cameron suppressed his laughter as Ainsley stared at a page of blatantly naked Courbet figures, twined in an interesting position. He made a wager with himself whether she’d throw down the book in disgust and storm out, or whether his Mrs. Douglas would soldier on.

He won the bet when she drew a deep, determined breath and continued to fan through the pages.

Finding nothing, Ainsley placed the book back on the shelf and gingerly opened the next one, which was much the same. “You—
read
—this?”

“Of course I do. I collect it.”

“It’s in French.”

“Don’t you read books in French? Isabella told me you went with her to her fine ladies’ academy.”

“I learned it, yes, but I doubt any of these words were in our primer.”

Cameron stopped trying to contain his laughter and let it burst out. It felt good.

“I would finish much more quickly if you helped me,” she said.

Cameron leaned on the bedpost again. “But it’s much more entertaining to watch you.”

Ainsley made an exasperated noise, shoved the book back into the bookcase, and untied and opened a folio. She studied the first drawing. “I know I’m unworldly, Lord Cameron, but I’m not certain that what they’re doing is quite possible.”

Cameron leaned over her shoulder to look at the sensual sketch by Romano, drawn three centuries before. Admittedly the people depicted were in an awkward pose. “I buy it for the beauty of it, not for instruction.”

“Well, that’s a mercy, or you’d never have had a son.”

Cam let out another laugh, the power of true mirth filling his body.

Could anything be more sensual than watching a lovely young woman leaf through page after page of his erotic pictures?

There was nothing of the prude about Ainsley, nor did she send him suggestive glances, using the drawings as seduction. She looked through each folio carefully, her cheeks sweetly pink, her breasts rising against her décolletage.

When she laid the last folio back on its shelf, Ainsley turned to him. “They’re not here,” she said, disappointed.

Cameron took another sip of whiskey. “There’s my study next door.”

“Is that a possibility?”

“Aye, it is.”

He didn’t miss Ainsley’s flush as she speculated why Cameron might take a mistress to his private study. “Very well, let us search the study.”

The room didn’t connect to his bedroom. Cameron led her down the hall a few steps to the next door, which he unlocked. Normally he didn’t lock his doors when he stayed at Kilmorgan—no need—but with all the comings and goings up here, he’d done it today.

Ainsley took on a look of dismay when she viewed the clutter of the study. This was Cameron’s private room, his retreat from the overstated social life that he sometimes had to lead as Hart’s brother and heir to the title.

Racing newspapers lay everywhere, as did books on all things equine. Cameron had contributed chapters or essays to a few of them, publishers begging for his opinion on the subject.

Cam’s prized paintings hung here as well: pictures of the horses he’d grown up with, of his best racers, of the ones he simply loved. Mac had painted most of them, although Degas had done a sketch for him of a horse in motion, all rippling muscles and tossing mane.

Angelo was the only one allowed to touch this room, and the man knew better than to disturb anything. It all got a bit dusty, but the whiskey decanter and the humidor were always replenished, the ashtrays emptied and cleaned, and any stray pieces of clothing, boots, or riding equipment restored to their proper places.

Cameron took a clean glass from the tray holding the whiskey and held it up. “Drink? It will be thirsty work.”

Ainsley eyed the glass in some trepidation. Cameron expected her to remind him that ladies didn’t drink spirits, but she gave him a nod. “Yes, why not? I prefer it with soda. Do you have any?”

Cameron lifted the cut glass stopper from the decanter. “This is Mackenzie single malt. Hart would die of apoplexy if anyone cut it with soda. It’s neat or nothing.”

Ainsley began lifting papers from his desk. “Very well. My brothers taught me to enjoy it with soda, but then we never could afford Mackenzie blend. I can hear Steven’s sighs of envy now.”

By the time Cameron poured the glass and brought it to her, Ainsley had seated herself on the floor, her skirts a swath of satin around her, a stack of papers and handwritten notes next to her. She accepted the whiskey, looking up at him with animated gray eyes.

Cameron clinked his glass against hers. “To a fruitful search.”

She nodded, took a practiced sip, and continued sorting papers into neat stacks.

“Anything?” Cameron asked, leaning over her shoulder. From here he could look straight down the cleavage of her soft breasts, and he didn’t mind that at all.

Ainsley wished to heaven he wouldn’t stand next to her like that. Cameron’s legs were firm and muscular under the socks he’d donned for the walk in the wet garden, the hem of his kilt on her eye level.

She glanced at his feet, large and muscular, pressing out the leather of his finely tailored shoes. Mud from the garden clung to one. Above the shoes were wide ankles behind thick gray wool, his legs those of a giant.

Ainsley couldn’t stop her gaze from rising higher, to the shadow under his plaid kilt, where she glimpsed a brawny knee. He was warm, too, his legs radiating heat to her bare shoulder. She’d been so awfully cold in the garden, and standing against him had taken all the cold away.

She made herself continue sorting the papers. No erotica here, only horses, races and results, histories and bloodlines of stallions, notes on what horses were being bought and sold. She stacked them all into piles, wondering how on earth he found anything.

“Who is Night-Blooming Jasmine?” Ainsley asked. The name came up often.

“Filly I’m training. Horse with damned fine promise.”

Ainsley looked up, unable to miss the glimpse of inner thigh in her view, the line of scar on it in shadow. She forced her gaze up, past the flat front of his kilt, to his shirt and the cravat he was in the act of loosening. His throat came into view, tanned and strong. Ainsley felt a flutter of pleasure. She liked him unbuttoned.

“Is she yours?” Ainsley asked, not missing the pride in his voice.

“Not yet.” Cameron pulled the folds of cravat from his neck and tossed the cloth carelessly to the desk. “Bloody owner won’t sell her to me.”

“Why not?”

“Because he despises Mackenzies. He’s only letting me train her because he’s damned desperate. She’s a fine bit of horseflesh, and she can run, by God, can she run.” His voice warmed, a man talking about his heart’s desire.

“Rather annoying of the man.”

“Bloody stupid of him.” Cameron’s brows drew down as he drank. “I want her, and I’d do right by her, if I can only make Pierson see sense.”

“Goodness, you sound almost like a man proposing marriage.”

Cameron shuddered. “Dear God, never that. I even hate the sound of the word. I suppose landing a horse is similar, but horses aren’t near as much bother as wives.”

The pull of disgust in his voice was true. “I’m certain Isabella would be pleased to hear you say so,” Ainsley said lightly.

“Isabella knows she’s a bother. She delights in it. Just ask Mac.”

Ainsley smiled at his quip, but he hadn’t feigned his opinion of marriage. Ainsley looked away from him and quickly continued through the papers.

She found much evidence that Cameron was a womanizing, erotica-reading, whiskey-drinking, horse-mad gentleman but no letters from the queen. She set aside the last papers, shook out her skirts, and climbed to her feet. Cameron reached to help her, his firm hand under her elbow.

“I’m doubting now that Mrs. Chase hid them here,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll wager they’ve never left her house in Edinburgh, except the one paper she brought to show me. She knew I’d try to ferret them out.”

“Ferret. A good name for you. I thought
mouse
when I saw you hiding in my window seat, but I can see the resemblance. Your eyes get bright when you’re on the trail of what you want.”

She liked his half smile, the teasing in his eyes. All loathing from his talk of marriage had gone. “How highly flattering you are, my lord. No wonder the ladies like you.”

Cameron pulled out a drawer in the desk she’d already searched. The papers in it had been old, dates on them from fifteen, twenty years ago. Cameron dumped them on the floor—all over the newspapers she’d already straightened—and started prying inside the drawer.

“This one has a false bottom if I remember. Haven’t touched it in a while.”

He tugged fruitlessly at the wood. Ainsley pulled a hairpin from her coiled braid and handed it to him. “Try that.”

“Ah, the tools of your trade.” Cameron took it from her, inserted the end in a slightly gouged corner, and pulled.

The bottom of the drawer came away to reveal a single folded letter, creased from being pressed flat. Ainsley snatched it up and opened it but grunted in disappointment before she read a word. “Wrong handwriting. It’s not hers.”

She handed the paper back to Cameron and turned away.

Ainsley headed for the books on the mantelpiece, but a faint noise behind her made her turn around again. Cameron stood where she’d left him, still as stone, his gaze riveted to the unfolded letter in his hand.

“Lord Cameron?”

He didn’t appear to hear. Cameron stared at the letter, his eyes unmoving, as though he’d taken in what it said and couldn’t quite believe it.

Ainsley went to him. “What is it?”

When she touched his hand, he jerked and looked down at her, his eyes empty.

“It belonged to my wife.”

Oh dear. Ainsley’s own sadness about John Douglas could be triggered whenever she came unexpectedly across something that had belonged to him. Though Cameron had been widowed a long time now, his pain must have been intensified by Lady Elizabeth’s violent death and people’s morbid suspicions about it.

“I’m so sorry,” Ainsley said, her heart in her words.

Cameron only looked at her. His amused tolerance and the camaraderie of the search had vanished.

Without a word, he strode to the hearth, where a fire burned against the cold September night, and tossed the letter onto the flames. Ainsley hurried to him as Cameron seized the poker and jabbed the paper deep into the coals.

“Why did you do that? Your wife’s letter . . .”