“Did you get them?” she asked.
Chapter 13
Cameron’s eyes betrayed his anger, but he didn’t growl at Ainsley for not waiting in the anteroom. He must have known that she would never be that patient.
Ainsley held out her hand for the letters, but Cameron didn’t give them to her. “I’ll keep them for now. I don’t trust Phyllida not to waylay you and try to steal them back.”
Ainsley kept her hand out for a moment, her fingers itching to feel the letters in them. “My friend will be most grateful for what you’re done.”
“Your friend, Mrs. Brown? Dear God, Ainsley.”
Ainsley lowered her arm, eyes wide. “I asked you not to read them. I remember distinctly.”
“I did it to make certain Phyllida wasn’t holding anything back. I’ve got them all, even the one with the missing page.”
He was so tall and solid. And angry. “Cameron, for heaven’s sake, please don’t tell your brother. Hart Mackenzie is notorious for opposing the queen’s policies. I can’t think what he’d do with letters like these.”
“Probably toss them onto the fire.”
Ainsley blinked. “What? But he could embarrass her, sway people’s opinion of her, turn those on the fence to his side.”
“If you think that, you have a wrong view of Hart.” Cameron closed his warm hand over her cold one. “Hart wants to win by proving he’s right—about everything—not with tittle-tattle and bedroom gossip. Hart wants to be God Almighty. No, he already thinks he’s God Almighty. Now he wants to prove it to everyone else.”
Ainsley ran her thumb over Cameron’s fingers, which were calloused and rough from his days working with horses. These weren’t the well-kept hands of a gentleman who lifted nothing heavier than cards or a glass of brandy. Cameron worked alongside the other men in the stables, doing whatever jobs had to be done.
She kissed one broad, blunt finger. “Please,” she said. “Don’t tell him. Just in case.”
“I don’t intend to. This is none of Hart’s bloody business.”
His eyes sparkled with heat, and Ainsley lifted herself on tiptoe and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Thank you.”
Cameron scooped her up to him and caught her mouth with his in a full kiss. As she kissed him back, Ainsley wormed her hand inside Cameron’s coat and touched the letters in his pocket.
Strong fingers clamped her wrist. “Devil.”
Ainsley reluctantly let go. “When do I get them back?”
“When you leave Kilmorgan. I’ll hand them to you when you get into your carriage.” Cameron closed his arms around her. “Now, stop playing. I’m kissing you.”
He was in a playful mood himself, she thought. He nipped and kissed her lips, and she nipped and kissed back, but when she looked into his eyes, she saw stark need. No playfulness at all.
She drew a breath, steeling herself for what she’d decided. “I want to spend tonight with you,” she said.
Heat flared in his eyes. “I hope so.
How could he sound so casual? “But not, I think, here.”
“Good God, no. We’ll go somewhere far more comfortable and far less sickening.”
She tried to match his light tone. “I thought you said comfort was the last consideration.”
“Minx. I meant I want you to be comfortable.”
“While you thoroughly debauch me?”
“Damn you, don’t look at me like that. Or I won’t be able to stop myself, no matter where we are.”
Ainsley’s heart beat faster. Why did such declarations excite her?
Cameron brushed another kiss to her lips. “Walk out with me, and I’ll hunt down my carriage. I don’t want you out of my sight.”
Ainsley didn’t much want to move from his sight either. Not in this house. “My shoes are in the anteroom.” She wondered whether they could rush back and fetch them without encountering Rowlindson or anyone else, but her thoughts cut off when Cameron swept her up into his arms.
Cameron’s strength took her breath away. He didn’t waver under her weight and the drag of her skirts, cushions and all, as he strode for the door at the end of the conservatory and out into darkness. The night was cold, but Ainsley would never be cold tucked up against Cameron.
“You’ve done so much for me,” she said, touching his face. “I’m not sure how I can—”
“If you start talking about repayment, I will drop you in the bushes.” His breath fogged in the chill. “I don’t want the money back, or your gratitude, or payment with your body.”
“If you won’t even accept gratitude, then what do you want?”
His voice lost all humor. “What I can’t have.”
Ainsley started to quip that surely a Mackenzie could have anything he wanted, but something in his face made her stop. Ainsley had lived in the queen’s houses long enough to know that money and position were no guarantee of happiness. They made life more comfortable and less desperate, but there could still be grief, anger, emptiness.
“I want to do something,” Ainsley said. “I am obliged to you—” She broke off and squealed as Cameron pivoted and strode straight for a line of rhododendrons. “Very well, very well. I will do nothing.”
Cameron lowered her to her feet on a patch of grass. “The business with the letters is concluded. I don’t want it between us.”