Cameron went with her willingly. His buttocks left the chair as he drove hard up into her, bracing her hips so the joining would be fast and strong.
The words that poured out of his mouth were blunt and filthy in praise of her body and what it did to him. Ainsley flushed, her eyes starry, her cries of delight growing louder as he spoke.
As her voice broke—Yes, yes, Cameron, please!—Cameron came. He was halfway off the chair, Ainsley screaming in pleasure. Cameron’s shout joined hers.
He crashed down on the chair again, its legs definitely creaking, but they held.
“Did I hurt you?” He kissed her, tumbled her hair. “Love, did I hurt you? Are you all right?”
Ainsley stilled his word with her fingers. “Cam, I’m fine. It was beautiful. So beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful, Ainsley.” Cameron cradled her close, breathing hard with the finish. She was soft and warm and tasted and smelled so good.
Not until he knew he was hardening again for the next round, did Cameron realize he’d spilled his seed inside her. It hadn’t occurred to him to pull out, and not because he’d remembered she was his wife. The marriage ceremony and all it meant hadn’t yet made an impression on his senses.
He’d wanted only to be inside Ainsley and stay there, where everything was safe and splendid, and her tenderness wrapped him and eased every hurt in his soul.
Cameron loved her twice more on the chair, then he carried her to the bed. Ainsley half woke when he pulled the covers over her naked body and caught his wrist as he made to turn away.
“Stay here with me,” she whispered.
He looked down at her for a long time, not debating, Ainsley thought, but fighting something inside himself. He wasn’t speaking because he couldn’t.
Cameron clenched his fists, a muscle moving in his throat, a large man delectable in nothing but a kilt wrapped carelessly around his waist. She saw him deliberately calm his anger, second by second, while he fixed his gaze on her. He wasn’t seeing her, but his eyes never left her.
“It’s almost morning,” he said in a careful voice. “Our train leaves early. Go to sleep.”
He turned and strode out the door, banging it so hard that the curtains fluttered on the bed. Ainsley heard him move across the suite and slam the door to his own room. Then, ever so faintly came the click of the lock.
Ainsley lay down again, her breath hurting her. Her body hummed from the warm, sweet love they’d made on the chair. Cameron gave all to lovemaking, his entire body engaged in the act. He was such a big man, and yet he’d held her so that she didn’t fall, had taken their combined weight all on himself.
How a man with such raw brutality could be so tender, Ainsley didn’t know, but Cameron managed it.
But his fear when she’d asked him to stay had been real. Deep panic had flashed in his eyes, and he’d fought himself away from her.
That such a strong man should fear angered her. Ainsley determined then and there to delve to the bottom of it, to have Cameron explain how he felt, and erase what had been done to him the best she could. She would do it.
The dual emotions—elation at lovemaking and worry for Cameron mixed together and kept her eyes open. As tired as she was, she couldn’t relax into sleep until she was on the swaying train to Paris in the bright sunshine of the morning.
Once they reached Paris, a lavish coach took them to the townhouse Cameron rented in a street off the Rue de Rivoli. The house rose six stories, with a wrought-iron railed staircase twisting through its grand foyer to a dome at the top.
Ainsley would have her own bedroom here as well, with windows that overlooked the garden behind the house. Cameron’s room was in the front of the house, with Daniel’s on the floor above theirs.
The townhouse was elegantly beautiful, modern, and quite unlike anything Ainsley had ever lived in. The queen’s private spaces tended to be crowded, cluttered, and full of family photos, her public rooms vast and lavish. Cameron’s house sported cool marble tiles and light-colored paneling, and was filled with paintings in the new styles of Degas, Manet, Monet, and the young Renoir. The furniture was clean-lined in the new handcrafted style that was a backlash against the ornately carved and mightily uncomfortable manufactured furniture of the day.
Money had gone into this house, and good taste—likely Mac had suggested the paintings and Isabella the décor—but it was still a bachelor’s house. Cool and elegant, but a bit bare.
When Ainsley suggested she might stitch a few pillows for the parlor, Cameron looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. Then he took her shopping.
Ainsley had visited Paris once, on her fateful trip to the Continent with Patrick and Rona, but they’d taken rooms in a small hotel in an inexpensive district. Rona had been so nervous about the city that she hadn’t wanted to venture very far from the hotel, so Ainsley had seen little of Paris.
Cameron showed her a new world. He took her to boutiques that sold everything a householder could want, to art dealers eager to sell Cameron the very best, and shops that dealt in expensive objets d’art. Ainsley could buy pillows ready-made or order some made to her taste. She did so, but then she went to a shop that specialized in luxurious embroidery skeins and outfitted herself with a new embroidery basket filled with everything she needed. Heaven.
They lunched in a café, and Ainsley discovered something else Paris did well—cake. Ainsley loved cake, and the confections of many thin layers separated with chocolate or jam or sugar syrup satisfied her soul. She ate an extra-large piece during their fourth shopping expedition and licked her fork, looking up to see Cameron watching her with amused eyes.
Ainsley shrugged. “I like cake.”
“Paris has the best cakes,” Daniel said, diving into his second slice. “Every café on this boulevard has their own specialty. You could go up and down and try a different one every day.”
Ainsley grinned. “Yes, let’s.”
Cameron only laughed at them, the sound warm. It was the first time he’d laughed since Ainsley had joined him in Doncaster. Ainsley savored the laugh as she savored the last morsel of chocolate cream on her plate.
That night, Cameron took her to another new world, one Ainsley had glimpsed only in newspapers depicting the high life. Cameron himself picked out what she’d wear—a dark red and silver satin confection Isabella had dreamed up that went well with the diamonds Cameron had given her at Kilmorgan.
“It’s hardly matronly,” she said as Cameron laid the diamonds across her bosom and snapped the catch.
Cameron’s gaze met hers in the mirror of her dressing table. “Nothing matronly for you any longer, Ainsley Mackenzie. You are a beautiful woman. I want all to see how beautiful you are, and envy me.”
“I was joking.”
He kissed her neck. “I wasn’t.”
Ainsley found it heady to look so unlike herself as Cameron took her out into the Paris night, plunging her into the whirl of the avant-garde. More so having Cameron beside her in his black coat and Mackenzie plaid kilt. He was a powerful man of raw handsomeness, and now he belonged to her. Ladies looked at her in envy and curiosity, wondering who was the fair-haired nothing who’d snared the very eligible Lord Cameron.
“We must have cake after,” Ainsley said as she sipped champagne at the restaurant Drouant. “That chocolate one with the cream in the middle. I think it’s my favorite, though I’m not certain. I have many more to try.”
Cake was a safe topic. Despite her determination, whenever Ainsley tried to bring up the question of the two of them sharing a bed, Cameron’s eyes would harden, and he’d change the subject. Usually in a bad-tempered way. He’d started doing so if he so much as thought Ainsley would mention the word bed. Their conversations had been reduced to inanities, their lovemaking intense but without words.
“Most women want to rush up and down the boulevards buying jewels and hats,” Cameron said now. “You head straight for the boulangerie.”
Ainsley matched his ca
reless tone. “Perhaps that is because we were allowed only very stingy slices of cake at Miss Pringle’s Academy. I learned that if I wanted cake, I had to steal it.”
“So that is the explanation for your life of crime.”
“The cake was worth stealing, you can be certain. The cook was French, and she knew how to make tortes with the layers and layers of caramel and cream between them. I realize now that she only gave us the barest taste of the joys of France.”
“I’ll take you all over the country so you can try the cake of every region,” Cameron said.
“Truly? That would indeed be splendid—”
Ainsley’s words cut off in a surprised squeak as a woman sat down in the chair next to her and helped herself to Ainsley’s champagne.
“Lady Cameron Mackenzie, I do believe,” Phyllida Chase said, and laughed. “Really, darling, it’s too bad of you.”
Chapter 20
“Oh, don’t look so alarmed.” Phyllida set down the glass, then took an oyster from Cameron’s plate and tipped it down her throat. “I think it wonderful that you’ve gone and eloped with the elusive Lord Cameron. I’m happy for you, even if he did throw me over for a younger woman.”
Her eyes glittered in mirth, the brittleness gone from her laughter. Phyllida Chase’s ice had melted.
“Would you like to join us, Phyllida?” Ainsley asked her coolly. “They’ll bring you your own plate and glass if you ask them.”
Phyllida sent her a sunny smile. “That would be lovely.” She turned and waved through the crowd. “Giorgio, I’m here. I’ve found friends.”
A broad-shouldered, dark-haired man moved past the tables toward them, and Cameron rose to meet him.
Phyllida caught the man’s hand when he reached them. “Look, darling, it’s Lord Cameron and his new wife. Ainsley, this is Giorgio Prario, the famous tenor. Giorgio, love, they’ve invited us to dine with them.”
The Italian man was alarmingly tall, and he stood toe-to- toe with Cameron. But Signor Prario held out his hand in a friendly manner and took Cameron’s in a firm grip. “Yes, the Scottish lord who provided us with the means to remove to a happier place. I thank you.” He bowed to Ainsley. “My lady. I also thank you.”
Ainsley blinked. “Cameron provided you the means?”
The two men sat down and the ready waiters appeared with extra plates and cutlery, glasses and napkins. More champagne was poured, and the maître d’hôtel personally offered them the best from the kitchen. Cameron was a very rich man, and every restaurateur in Paris knew it.
“Money for the letters, darling,” Phyllida said when the waiters finally departed. “You didn’t think I truly cared for what the queen gets up to with her horseman, did you? I only cared that she’d pay dearly to save herself embarrassment.” She beamed at Cameron. “Cam’s generosity gave me the last bit I needed so that Giorgio and I could set up a house here. My husband is busily divorcing me in London, and when that’s all done, Giorgio and I will be married.”
Phyllida radiated happiness. Her smile was wide, her eyes soft, and she looked far younger than the cold, remorseless woman Ainsley had faced in the gardens at Kilmorgan.
“Giorgio is now the most sought-after tenor on the Continent,” Phyllida went on, voice filled with pride. “The crowned heads are all demanding him. He’s giving a concert tomorrow night at the opera house. Darlings, you must come. You’ll understand my infatuation with him when you hear him sing.”
“But, Phyllida,” Ainsley burst out as soon as Phyllida paused for breath. “Why all the scheming with the letters? Why not just tell me what you wanted the money for? I might have been a bit more sympathetic, or even tried to help you get it.”
Phyllida’s eyes widened. “Confess to the prim-and-proper confidante of the queen that I wanted to run away from my lawfully wedded husband? You, who were so famously devoted to an elderly man who bored you senseless?” Phyllida lifted her glass of champagne. “I am delighted to see you’ve let Cameron corrupt you.”
Giorgio had turned to Cameron to ask him a question about horses, and the two men were already deep in conversation about that. Ainsley watched Cameron become interested in their discussion about differences in various race courses.
I was already corrupted, dear Phyllida. Cameron simply made me acknowledge it.
“Surely you could have raised the money without resorting to blackmail,” Ainsley said.
“Not at all. My so-called friends were as upright and closed-minded as you. They’d rather obey the rules and live in misery than boldly snatch a few moments of happiness. Besides, I wanted to punish Her Little Majesty for forcing me into marriage with an ice-cold man. To Mr. Chase, a wife is little more than an automaton to stand beside him and say the right things at the right time—to benefit him. I’m surprised he didn’t store me in a closet every night and wind me up again every morning.”
“Was Signor Prario the happiness the queen had taken from you?” Ainsley asked, remembering their conversation in the garden. “The reason she made you marry Mr. Chase?”
“No, no, I didn’t meet Giorgio until about a year ago. But it was a similar thing—ten years ago, the most delightful man in the world asked me to marry him, but the queen refused to let me. He wasn’t rich enough or well-born enough to be able to override the queen’s objections, and she persuaded my family to her side. I was too young and too afraid to simply run away with him. He’s long gone, in America, probably married to someone else by now. Mr. Chase was looking for a society wife about the same time, and the queen influenced my family to marry me off to him instead. Our Victoria buried me in misery for ten long years. I decided that she needed to suffer a little for it, though she’ll never quite understand what she did to me.”
Ainsley thought she understood a little. Phyllida was a woman of strong emotions, and being locked to a man who had no interest in her must have been very, very hard. Ainsley’s marriage hadn’t been her choice either, but at least John Douglas had been a warm man. Friendly and kind, he’d done his best to make his young bride happy. The fact that he hadn’t entirely succeeded hadn’t been his fault.
One thing Ainsley didn’t understand, however. “If you were so in love with Signor Prario, Phyllida, why did you take up with Cameron?”
Phyllida waved this away. “Because Cameron has a reputation for lavishing very expensive gifts on his ladies.” Phyllida glanced pointedly at Ainsley’s diamonds, and Ainsley stopped herself touching the strand on her bosom. “Giorgio and I wanted to elope, but neither of us had a bean. He raised money by singing, and I by the only way I knew how—out of other men. Cameron is very generous, you must admit.”
“And Signor Prario didn’t mind this?”
Giorgio was now engrossed in his discussion with Cameron, which had moved to sport in general. He didn’t look in the least worried that Cameron had once been his mistress’s lover.
“Giorgio understands that I love him to distraction,” Phyllida said. “He knows that people like us need patrons—singers no different than ladies. Now he’s attracted a patron of his own, a very rich, elderly Frenchman who dotes on young tenors. So we have no more worries about money.” Phyllida gave Ainsley an open look. “You don’t know, darling, what it’s like to fall asleep at night with a man who adores you. To open your eyes in the morning and look upon him, knowing that your day will be filled with delight. It’s absolute bliss.”
No, Ainsley didn’t know what it was like. She had to glance away, to pretend interest in the last drop of champagne in her glass.
Phyllida rattled on, not knowing that she’d said anything awkward. “I can already tell that you’re good for Cameron—heavens, he married you, the man who put it about, loudly, that he’d never go to the altar again. The Mackenzies are hard, hard men, but you seemed to have softened this one a little.” She squeezed Ainsley’s hand. “Do come to the concert, you and Cameron both. You won’t regret it.”
Too damn many people here. Cameron shifted on his seat in the
crowded box high above the stage while below them, Prario burst into song.
The fact that Phyllida has stuffed Prario’s box with as many people as she could meant that Ainsley sat slap against Cameron on his right. This was fine, but the presence of so many others meant that he couldn’t take advantage of the closeness as he’d like. He had to sit, hard and aching, with Ainsley’s scent under his nose, and not be able to do anything about it.
Phyllida sat on the other side of Ainsley, with Phyllida’s Parisian friends taking up the other chairs. The box was tiny in the eighteenth-century jewel box of a theatre, and Phyllida sat forward to watch Giorgio Prario, her face glowing with love.
Cameron had to admit that Prario was good. His voice filled the theatre with solid sound, his notes unwavering. Cameron tried to lose himself in the beauty of the music, while his trousers stretched too tight. He should have overridden his Parisian valet’s horror and worn his kilt.
Ainsley leaned to him, her warmth heady, and her sweet voice drifted into his ear. “How many buttons, Lord Cameron?”
Cameron’s breath stopped. He felt a hand on his waistband, but their corner of the box was too dark for him to see his own lap. Ainsley’s hair and eyes glowed in the light from the stage, and her smile was sultry.
“Devil,” he murmured back.
“I say four.” Her breath tingled down every nerve.
“Eight.” That would open him all the way. “The whole bloody lot.”
“You’re daring, my lord.”
“I don’t believe you’ll do it,” he whispered back.
Ainsley popped open the first button, bold as brass. She kept her eyes on the stage, sitting modestly in her chair while her fingers opened buttons too damn slowly for his taste. Cameron’s heart hammered as each one came undone, and then he was sitting in the opera house with his trousers open.
Cameron wore thick underwear against the cold of October, but damned if Ainsley didn’t find a way inside. She’d removed her gloves, he noted as her bare fingers closed around him.