Ian called out that they’d arrived and took his son back from Curry. He slowed his steps for Beth, who was plump with child, as they entered the house. Beth hadn’t been to Waterbury before—last year she’d been pregnant with their first child, and Ian had not wanted her to travel. This year, Beth had insisted.
Cameron greeted them, then stood back with Mac as Isabella hugged Beth and chattered with her about the journey. The two dogs that had accompanied Ian and Beth now swarmed around McNab, the three of them probably also chattering about the journey.
As Ian took Beth’s hand and started to lead her up the stairs, Cameron’s housekeeper blocked their path.
“I’m afraid you’ve been put into a different room this year, my lord,” the housekeeper said. “Her ladyship— Lord Cameron’s ladyship, that is—thought you’d be more comfortable in a bigger chamber. It’s a front one, my lord.” She smiled tightly, familiar with Ian. “It has a very nice view.”
Behind Ian, Curry stopped, looking worried. Beth smiled encouragingly at Ian and squeezed his arm.
Ian didn’t look at the housekeeper but glanced at Cameron, briefly meeting his eyes. “The one at the top of the stairs? I was going to ask you for it, Cam. My usual one will be too small. Ainsley was right to change it. This way, my Beth.”
He glided on up the stairs, baby on one arm and Beth on the other. Curry followed, the look of relief on his Cockney face obvious. The housekeeper relaxed as well, and Mac raised his brows at Cameron.
“Our baby brother has grown up,” Mac said.
He had. Beth had taken the wreck that was Ian and given him a life.
“Ainsley is very perceptive,” Isabella said, leaning on Mac’s shoulder. “I believe I have mentioned that she is excellent at organizing. She’s certainly done wonders with this dusty old place. When is she returning?”
“I couldn’t say.” Cameron’s voice was stiff.
“I’m certain the queen has her running about on some mad errand,” Isabella said. “Ainsley will finish it and sail back here before you know it.” She tapped Cameron’s wrist. “But I will never forgive you for marrying her in that underhanded way, without telling me.”
Cameron thoughts flashed back to Ainsley in Hart’s London parlor, promising in her unwavering voice to honor her husband and worship him with her body. “It was necessary.”
Mac laughed. “Because Ainsley wouldn’t have agreed if Cam had given her time to think about it.” He kissed his wife’s cheek. “It’s the only way to get a woman to marry a Mackenzie.”
“Yes, but one bride in this family should have a sumptuous wedding,” Isabella said. “We could do a second one, as Beth did with Ian.”
Cameron didn’t answer. For now, his bride was elusive, buried with the queen at Windsor while Cameron grew surlier by the day.
Daniel went out with Cameron to the paddocks in the morning to watch the horses run. Cameron liked Daniel there, enjoyed standing next to the solid wall of his son. The idea of Daniel coming to partner with him after university was a good one.
After they watched Chance’s Daughter leave the other horses in the dust yet again, Daniel said. “You’ll have to trust her, Dad.”
“Who, Chance’s Daughter?”
“Very funny. Ye know I mean Ainsley.” Daniel’s voice was even deeper now, his stance more confident. “If Ainsley says she’ll do a thing, she’ll do it.”
The next set of horses came running down the flat, hooves pounding, mud flying. The roar and rush was supposed to make Cameron’s world come alive, but without Ainsley to watch it with him, that world was flat and dull.
“Women change their minds at the drop of a feather, son,” he said. “You’ll learn that.”
Daniel gave him a patient look. “She’s not women, Dad. She’s Ainsley.”
He pushed away from the fence and strolled toward the stables, waving at the trainers on the way, but his words lingered.
She’s Ainsley.
The world took on a flush of color. Ainsley would come home. She’d said she would, and the truth of that struck Cameron with force.
He’d never trusted a woman before. Elizabeth had long ago stolen that trust from him, and Cameron had held women at arm’s length ever since. He’d always ended his affairs long before the lady in question had a chance to betray and hurt him, having learned, painfully, that he had to control any liaison he entered.
Then Ainsley had bowled into Cameron’s life and taken over. No, not taken over. She’d become part of him, bonded to his heart. Cameron felt that bond now stretching between them, across the miles to Windsor, or wherever she’d gone by now. That bond would pull him to her, and her to him, and he would never lose her.
A peace stole over him, one Cameron hadn’t felt in . . . Hell, he’d never felt anything like this in his life. He’d come close to it holding his son for the first time, the tiny being he’d vowed to protect with everything he had, but never since.
Cameron raised his gaze to the young man who’d grown from that tiny being, and his heart swelled with pride. Not for anything Cameron had done himself, but for what Daniel had become on his own. A good lad, smart and brave, who loved without resentment, who was as carelessly generous as the rest of the Mackenzies.
She’s Ainsley.
Cameron thought of Ainsley: of her beautiful hair spilling across her body while she slept, of her frank gray gaze that undid his heart, of her laughter that heated his blood. He missed her with brutal sharpness.
When Ainsley returned—and she would return—Cameron would show her how much he’d missed her, every detail of it.
And he’d never let her out of his sight again. Being without her was too damned hard.
When Ainsley told Patrick that part of her scheme involved him accompanying her to a canal boat full of the Roma, he was naturally perplexed.
“Ainsley. Stop.”
Ainsley set down her valise on the towpath of the Kennet and Avon Canal. A long canal boat rested beside them, rocking ever so gently. Children watched them from the deck, as did the adults, one man smoking a long pipe. Angelo had gone below to tell his mother that they’d arrived.
Patrick puffed from the walk from the village a little west of Reading, where the hired coach had left them. Ainsley’s forty-five-year-old brother, though he’d let himself go a bit paunchy, looked so utterly respectable in his dark suit, hat, and walking stick that Ainsley wanted to hug him again. She’d missed him.
Patrick pulled out a handkerchief that had been folded into a perfect square and wiped his brow. “We’ve never discussed what we are to do on this boat.”
“Nothing. It will take us, discreetly, to Bath.”
“A Romany canal boat is discreet?”
“Unexpected, certainly. I need to get to Bath without making a fanfare of it, without anyone knowing we’re coming.”
“Where I will be your cohort in crime?”
“I use the term crime loosely,” Ainsley said. “I’ll tell you all about it on the boat.”
“Ainsley.”
Patrick’s tone turned serious, and Ainsley sucked in a breath. She’d rushed him from his Windsor inn to his hired coach, and then kept up a steady stream of chatter about her life in Waterbury, the horses, Daniel, about redecorating her house, as they rode. Anything to prevent the talk she knew she had to face now.
“Ainsley, you haven’t allowed me to discuss your elopement,” Patrick said.
“I know that. I’m avoiding the scolding that I’ll know you’ll give me.”
“I merely wish you had consulted me about it first. What a shock we had when we received your telegram! My little sister married to a lord. And such a lord.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Patrick, but I had to choose quickly. There wasn’t time to consult you. I knew that eloping would disappoint you, and please believe me when I say that it hurt me to disappoint you. Very much. But Cameron was right when he told me I’d deliberately let myself become a drudge. Because, you see, I thought that, if you and Rona saw how sorry I was, how grateful I was that you stood by me when I was so foolish—and how good I’d be for the rest of my life—maybe you, my brother, would forgive me.” She ran out of breath.
