The Many Sins of Lord Cameron

Chapter 25

Ainsley rose on her elbow to study him. Cameron lay like a recumbent beast, arms curled under his pillow, bare legs splayed. Morning sunlight pooled on the backs of his thighs, curls of wiry hair dusting his skin between the scars.

She’d not seen his body laid out for her like this before, showing plainly where his skin had been broken and gouged. Scars snaked from his thighs up and over his buttocks, dipping between the tight mounds of his backside. At the cleave, the skin had been scraped away entirely.

Cameron must have lain very much like this that horrible day about which Count Durand had taunted him—facedown, sprawled in sleep. Ainsley wondered how long it had taken for Cameron to feel safe sleeping in this position again, even behind the bedroom door he locked every night. A long time, she thought.

Now he slept hard, body limp, even the lines that marked the corners of his eyes smoothing to nothing.

Ainsley didn’t touch him. She lay down again, watching her husband until the sunshine soothed her back into warm sleep.

Something brushed Cameron’s thigh, and he jerked his eyes open. The room was bright with sunlight, close from the overly stoked fire. Cameron lay in a warm tangle of sheets and blankets with Ainsley snuggled up to him. The thing that had bumped him was Ainsley’s knee.

Her softly scented form nestled against his, her warmth like an embrace. Sunlight touched her spill of yellow gold hair and the lashes that lay against her skin. One plump arm cradled her head, the other rested across her body, hand on the mattress.

She was profoundly beautiful.

The realization worked into Cameron’s brain that although Ainsley had startled him awake, he hadn’t reacted. He hadn’t swung fists or tried to shove her away from him. He’d awakened to peace, to this moment in the warmth and brightness of her bedroom.

Ainsley slept on, unaware, and a strange stillness crept over Cameron. One by one, his fears untwined and released him.

Here in bed with Ainsley, he was safe from the beast that lingered within him, safe from the cruelty of others. He must have instinctively gentled his reaction to her, knowing that, even in his sleep, he needed to protect her. Something about Ainsley’s touch, her scent, had soothed him and kept him still.

Cameron let out his breath, his relief so vast that the world seemed too small to contain it. Ainsley was doing it again, awakening him, banishing the gray, letting him live.

He reached out and smoothed her hair, fingers shaking.

Ainsley made a little noise in her throat, and her eyes fluttered open.

She regarded him a moment in sleepy confusion, then her warm smile blossomed.

“Cam,” she whispered. “You stayed.”

Cameron skimmed his hand down her bare side, cupping the breast that was warm from the covers. “I decided that there is an advantage to waking up with you.”

Her smile turned sly. “Oh, yes?”

Cameron stroked her lips apart with his tongue. Ainsley nibbled his lower lip, and Cameron’s hardness throbbed.

“A decided advantage,” she said.

Cameron rolled on top of her. “I’m taking full advantage.”

Ainsley’s smile widened as Cameron easily slid inside her. “I see that,” she said.

Cameron silenced her by starting to love her with renewed vigor, in the safety and heat of her bed.

“Angelo.”

Angelo finished unfastening the girth of the horse he’d been riding and pulled off the saddle. He carried the saddle to a hook in the wall, folding up the stirrups, leaving it to be cleaned once the horse was taken care of.

Cameron watched Angelo pick up a curry comb and start on the haltered horse’s sweaty hide. The prize racer half closed his eyes in enjoyment.

Angelo said nothing, waiting as usual to see what Cameron had on his mind. He went on rubbing the stiff metal brush in a circular motion, loosening dirt and hair and sweat from the horse’s back.

“I want to give you all the money in the world, Angelo,” Cam said. “I want to make you King of England. Hell, a Romany would make a damn sight better king than the Saxe-Coburgs.”

Angelo flashed him a grin. “Please don’t. I wouldn’t like staying indoors all day.”

“All the money in the world, though. You deserve it.”

“Money is good to keep the belly full and the fire warm,” Angelo conceded. “But it’s more fun to steal it.”

“Don’t make light of this. You saved Ainsley’s life, yesterday. That’s worth everything I have.”

Angelo kept the curry comb moving. “I was close enough to do something, is all. I know how you think, so I know you’re blaming yourself, but I saw how volatile that stallion was. I should have ignored Pierson and handled him anyway.”

“And Pierson would have you sitting in a magistrate’s court today for horse thieving. We’re well rid of the man. But Ainsley shouldn’t have had to suffer for it.”

“Aye, that’s true enough.” Angelo gave him a quiet look. “Don’t give me your kingdom. I don’t want it, and I know that if it had been my sister or mother or lover in danger, and you’d been close enough, you’d have done the same.”

“Yes.”

Angelo finished currying, tapped the dirt from the comb, and started on the horse’s coat with the softer dandy brush. This one he swept in the direction the horse’s hair grew, and the champion racer, who’d finished first in his year at Newmarket, Epsom, and Doncaster, rocked his weight onto one hip and grunted with pleasure.

“Ainsley wants to see your canal boat,” Cameron said.

Angelo’s grin lit his eyes. “Let me send word to Mother first so she can have a good cleanup. She’d tan my hide if I brought her ladyship on board without warning.”

Cameron, having met Angelo’s mother, understood. Angelo’s mother stood about four and a half feet tall, if that, and ruled Angelo’s vast family with an iron fist.

They left it at that. Angelo understood Cameron’s gratitude, and Cameron knew the man would take it in stride.

Cameron left the stable, still too agitated to ride—horses didn’t need a jerky, anxious rider—and watched from the edge of the paddock as the jockeys did training runs.

He felt rather than heard Daniel stop beside him. Daniel was, if anything, even taller than he’d been when they’d left Kilmorgan, and had filled out still more.

Cameron couldn’t help remembering the child who’d followed him about on spindly legs, demanding to know everything about “the ponies.” Even though Cameron had been offhand with Daniel, he’d always been acutely aware of where his son had been and what he’d been doing at all times, going after him when he went astray, as he’d done in Glasgow. He and his brothers between them had somehow raised him without making too much of a mess of it.

“Well, I’m off,” Daniel said.

“Off? Where this time?”

Daniel stuck his hands in the pockets and gave Cameron a bland look. “University. Isn’t that where you’ve been trying to shove me these last months?”

“I thought you hated Cambridge.”

“I do. So, I’m not going to Cambridge. I’m going to Edinburgh. I thought maybe Glasgow, which is why I legged it down there that day.”

Cameron’s exasperation rose. “Is that what that was all about? Damnation, Danny, why didn’t ye tell me?”

He shrugged. “I wanted to see the place before I begged ye to send me there. Didn’t expect to get in a scrape. I dressed decently so the warden wouldn’t toss me out on my ear, but it was too tempting for those lads. They wanted the clothes off my back, would you believe it? If they needed money, they only had to ask. I told them.”

“So you went to jail with them? Noble of ye, son.”

“They didn’t think I’d fight back. I was fighting as hard as they were, so I didn’t see I should get off. Their leader, ye know, he’s not so bad. For a street tough.”

God help us. “Ye chose Edinburgh, though. Why? Fewer street toughs?”

“Amusing, Dad. I like a professor there who’s going to teach me engineering. And there’s one who’ll teach me architecture. No more philosophy, thank ye very much.”

“If you didn’t want to study philosophy, Danny, you only had to say.”

Again the careless shrug. “I didn’t much know, Dad, truth to tell. I had to wander about, find out for myself. But I’m fixed now. Hilary term’s part done, but they say they’ll give me private instruction to bring me up to scratch. I’ll get the lay of the land, meet the chaps, see how it goes. I’ll come back here between terms and then seriously start at Trinity. I’ll catch the train today, send you a telegram when I arrive. Uncle Mac says I can stay in his house there.”

The tight pain in Cameron’s heart startled him. Cam had grown used to having Daniel with him all the time. He’d purchased the Berkshire estate partly because he’d be close to Daniel when he was at Harrow.

Now their paths were diverging. The son Cameron had fought so hard to protect was ready to start protecting himself.

“Why the sudden wish to rush off?” Cameron asked in a light voice. “I can always use more help with the horses. The Newmarket races will be here soon enough, and you can start at Trinity term.”

Daniel looked his father straight in the eye. “Because I know you’ll be all right without me. You don’t need me anymore, Dad. You’ve got Ainsley looking after you, now.”

“I thought I was looking after her.”

Daniel snorted. “She might let ye think so. But you spent the whole night with her last night, didn’t you? Sleeping and all?”

Cameron’s face heated. “That’s your business now, is it?”

“The whole house knows it, Dad. They’re pleased that you have a chance for a good marriage, and so am I.”

“Good God, doesn’t anyone have anything better to talk about?”

“Not really. They all like Ainsley and want to make sure you treat her well. I like her too, and want the same. But ye proved yourself.”

Cameron’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you’ve been staying with us all winter? So you could keep an eye on me with Ainsley?”

“Partly. That’s why I know that it’s all right for me to go now.”

Cameron wanted to laugh. He wanted to hug Daniel, tell the lad he was a damn fool, and then tell him that he loved him.

Neither had ever been comfortable with that kind of sentimentality, so both turned to watch the horses. The filly called Chance’s Daughter, a pretty bay Cameron had bought about the time Ian married Beth, ran with grace and enthusiasm. She’d do well this year in the three-year- olds’ races.

“Daniel,” Cameron said after a time. “I know I’ve been the worst father a lad can be stuck with.”

“Not your fault, Dad. You’re a Mackenzie.”

“So are you. Don’t forget that.” Horses thundered toward them, Chance’s Daughter smoothly pulling into the lead. “Don’t make the mistakes I did.”

“I’ll make plenty of my own, I warrant. But I have an advantage, ye know. All you got was a dad who beat his sons and was jealous of them too. I have a dad who tries to do the right thing, even if he mucks it up most of the time. And then there’s my sweet aunties and my stepmother to show me that some women ain’t so bad. They don’t all just want our money. Some of the lasses even like us.”

Cameron let out a laugh. “Yes, some of them do. Now, I’m going to do something to embarrass you.”

He grabbed Daniel and jerked him to him in a big bear hug. Instead of stiffening, Daniel laughed and hugged his father back. The embrace grew tighter and tighter until Cameron couldn’t breathe. Daniel had certainly grown strong.

The two broke. “Come back to us soon, all right?” Cameron said.

“Of course. You’re going to teach me everything you know about working with the ponies, so once I’m done with university I can become a partner in your stables. We’re going to be world famous, Dad.”

“You have that all planned out? What about your engineering and your architecture?”

“I can do that too. Might even invent a better transport for horses or build a better stable. Plus I’ll work on the chaps at university and have them and their dads to send the horses to us.” He clapped his father on the shoulders. “I already said good-bye to Ainsley. She cried and kissed me on the cheek, and then gave me a packet of cakes. Marrying her was the smartest thing you ever did, Dad. There’s hope for you, yet.”

With that pronouncement, Daniel hugged his father again. Cameron returned the embrace, then reluctantly released him.

Daniel waved at Angelo, who was coming to join Cam, and then strode back toward the house and the carriage waiting to take him to the station. Daniel walked as tall and strong as Ian or Mac, even Hart.

“They grow up so fast,” Angelo said when he reached Cam. Cameron glanced at him, thinking the man joking, but Angelo’s dark eyes were serious. “Childhood is gone in the wink of an eye, and then they have to be men. You Anglos are strange, sending your sons out into the world as soon as they get tall enough. My family has been together forever.”

“I notice you don’t live with them, Angelo, so don’t become sentimental. Besides, my family is together. Just a bit spread out.”

“Rich Anglos need too much space.”

“That is true, but it keeps us from killing each other.”

Angelo grinned. Daniel climbed into the coach, and Cameron watched it roll down the drive with a pang in his heart.

He’d miss Daniel with everything he had, but he took Angelo’s words in the way the man meant them. Daniel would be welcome to stay with Cameron any time and for as long as he wanted. He’d done everything in his power to make damn certain that Daniel never had to fear coming home.

At that endeavor, Cameron knew he’d already far surpassed his own father.

Ainsley found the house emptier without Daniel, but Cameron now stayed all night every night with her, which meant that Ainsley got very little sleep. He’d wake her in the morning with loving, and they’d separate, sandy-eyed to their morning activities.

Cameron was unhappy about the loss of Jasmine, Ainsley could see, although he told her adamantly when she brought it up that it didn’t matter. He had plenty of other horses that would do well, and Chance’s Daughter would probably win the five top races of the year.

Ainsley wished Cameron could make his peace with Lord Pierson—or rather, that Lord Pierson wouldn’t be such a pompous fool. Jasmine was the suffering for their quarrel, and Ainsley’s heart went out to her.

But Ainsley had ideas for solving the problem. Legally of course. She wrote to her brother Steven, hoping to recruit him, but Steven replied that he couldn’t get leave from his regiment. Sinclair was too busy with his practice, Elliot was out of reach in India, of course, and Patrick . . .

Hmm, perhaps Patrick would do very nicely.

Before Ainsley could put any plans in motion, however, a telegram came to jolt her out of the new and pleasant hum of her life.