She almost begged him to at button nine.
At button ten, Ainsley opened her eyes.
“Done,” Cameron said softly, and he pulled open the placket.
Ainsley’s br**sts swelled over the top of her corset. Ladies were supposed to be slender, hence the cage of the corset, but Ainsley always seemed to overfill her stays.
Cameron pushed the placket out of the way, his hand going almost reverently to her skin.
“Ainsley,” he said in his raw voice. “Do you know how beautiful you are?”
When he touched her, when his voice flowed over her, she felt beautiful. “You are kind to say so.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with kindness.” He sounded irritated. Cameron slid his thumb over her breast then leaned and kissed her there.
Even him lying fully on top of her hadn’t burned her as his lips did now. Ainsley’s feminine places grew hot as he kissed her flesh, slow kisses, taking his time. His lips were warm, practiced, the rough warmth of his hair brushing her chin. She wanted to pull him to her, to cradle him against her as he laid her down in the sticky mud, even with the tap of croquet balls not far away.
Cameron kissed the top of her cle**age, his unshaved whiskers a pleasant burn. Then he straightened up, stepped away, and slid a folded paper down between her br**sts.
Ainsley’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hand over her corset. “What—”
“I believe that is yours, Mrs. Douglas.”
Ainsley snatched out the letter, unfolded it, and saw the even strokes of the queen’s handwriting, words to her horseman, John Brown.
“I decided I didn’t have any interest in your letters,” Cameron said. “Or your be-damned intrigues.”
Ainsley stared, openmouthed, then she crumpled the page and thrust it into her jacket pocket. “Thank you,” she said, heartfelt. “I can’t explain, but thank you.”
“You’re still unbuttoned.”
Ainsley looked down at her gaping placket, her br**sts welling over the plain corset.
Cameron’s wicked smile returned. “I don’t mind. But if another ball comes rolling out here, you might be embarrassed.”
Ainsley stripped off her gloves and started buttoning with shaking fingers. It took what seemed forever, while Cameron did nothing but watch, but at last Ainsley closed the top button. She snatched up the mallet she’d dropped, but when she turned to go, she found Cameron still barring her way.
“We have unfinished business, Mrs. Douglas.”
“Do we? What business would that be?”
Cameron touched the handle of his mallet to her chin. “The business you began when you came to my room six years ago.”
“I told you, that was a mistake. I thought you were withholding the emerald necklace from Mrs. Jennings.”
“Forget about the damned necklace. I mean what you started with me that night. You half seduced me to keep me finding out what you were up to, then wriggled out of it with your pleas about your good husband.” His eyes were hard, glints of angry gold.
“I’d not planned any of that. I expected to be finished and gone before you returned. Besides, you were perfectly willing to seduce me, even though you knew I was married.”
“I’m used to women seeking me as refuge from their dull husbands.”
“Like Phyllida Chase?” Ainsley heard the bitterness in her voice but couldn’t mask it.
“Exactly like Phyllida Chase. Her husband ignores her and blatantly philanders, so she turns elsewhere for entertainment. Why not? Other women are much the same.”
“You despise them,” Ainsley said in surprise.
“What?”
“You despise these ladies who cuckold their husbands. And yet you seduce them. Why do you want to be with women you despise?”
Cameron’s brows shot down, but the look he gave her struck her to the heart. “Men enjoy pleasure, Mrs. Douglas. We want it, we crave it; we think of little else. Even men who pretend to be prim and pious are driven by it. The beast lies very close to the surface. If a lady cuckolds her husband to provide me that pleasure, so be it, but I refuse to admire her for it.”
“It sounds so lonely,” Ainsley said softly.
“I’m rarely alone.”
“I know,” she said. “That makes it worse.”
Cameron’s gaze focused hard on her. Again the shutters between him and the world fell, and again Ainsley saw the lonely depths of him. For a split second only. Then the shutters were restored, his scowl back in place.
“You’ve misbuttoned yourself.”
Ainsley looked down at her placket. “Blast.”
Cameron leaned to her. “Unfinished business, Mrs. Douglas. Before you leave at the end of the week, we will finish it. Depend on that.”
He jerked her up to him in a sudden movement and caught her lower lip between his teeth. Before Ainsley could gasp or pull away, he let her go, shouldered his mallet, and strode off, back through the curtain of trees.
He moved like a god in charge of his world, used to leaving panting females behind him. Ainsley’s lip throbbed from Cameron’s bite as she tried to grasp buttons with her shaking fingers, and she still felt his grip on the back of her neck. Lord Cameron was strong and dangerous, and she should be frightened of him. But the reckless Ainsley only mourned that he’d walked away too soon.
Something rustled in the brush, followed by a bleating voice. “Signora? Can you find not your ball?”