gray, his blue eyes warm but worried. Ainsley had met him before but not paid much attention to him, as he’d been, to her, merely an acquaintance of Patrick’s. Now he was there to be her husband.
John had been patience itself, and when Patrick and Rona had left them alone, John Douglas had taken her hand and gone down on one knee. His grasp had been warm, steady, even comforting.
I know I’m not what you want, he’d said. A young lady wants a dashing young husband, doesn’t she? And I know what this is all about. But I promise you, Ainsley, I will look after you. I’ll do my utmost. I can’t promise to make you happy, because no one can promise that, can they? But I’ll try. Will you let me?
He’d been so kind, so aware that barely eighteen-year- old Ainsley would rather be dragged behind a cart than marry an old man, that Ainsley had burst into tears. She’d ended up sitting on the sofa with him, being held and soothed. She’d clung to him and realized that, as bizarre a match as this was, he was a man, a good man, not a villain.
She did feel safe from the world with John Douglas—Patrick had made a wise choice. Ainsley had told John that of course she’d be happy to marry him, and vowed then to be as good to him as she could. Poor man, not his fault.
John had wiped away Ainsley’s tears, pulled a silver necklace from his pocket—his mother’s, he’d said—and clasped it around her neck. It rested there even now, under her high-collared black frock.
John had taken Ainsley’s hand and led her to Patrick and Rona, who were trying not to hover in the next room. Thus, Ainsley McBride had been engaged and, the next week, married.
“John Douglas must have been a hell of a man,” Cameron said softly.
Ainsley looked up at him, eyes blurred with tears. “He was.” John had accepted a pregnant young woman as his wife, agreed to treat another man’s child as his, and not say a word. “He knew he’d not likely have the chance to marry and be a father on his own, so Patrick’s favor was welcome. He told me.”
Cameron’s face was so still that Ainsley couldn’t read it. What was he thinking? Contempt at her weakness? At John’s? Understanding for what she’d done? He sat forward on the sofa, his hands clasped loosely in front of him, his dark gold eyes fixed on her.
“This is why you put me off that night, six years ago,” he said. “You didn’t want to betray him.”
Ainsley shook her head. “John didn’t deserve it. As much as I wanted to stay with you, he didn’t deserve the betrayal.”
“I admired you for that, you know. Until I learned that you were a picklock, and a thief.” He gave her a hint of smile.
“I admitted to stealing the necklace, for a misguided reason. I thought you a blackmailer.”
“So we were at cross-purposes.”
“It was difficult to push you away. Believe me, Cameron, when I tell you how difficult it was.”
Cameron’s voice hardened. “I hope he appreciated it. What I sacrificed that night.”
“He never knew, of course. He must have wondered, though, whether I ever betrayed him. I didn’t.”
“No, you were most devoted and grateful.”
“Don’t sound so patronizing. I was grateful. John took me on out of kindness.”
Cameron gave her a withering look. “Ainsley, trust me, it wasn’t only kindness.”
“He was especially kind when my daughter . . .” Tears rushed at her. So long ago, and still the loss cut her deeply.
“I’m sorry, Ainsley.” Cameron’s voice gentled. “I truly am sorry.”
“I named her Gavina.” She raised her head, but she couldn’t see him through her tears. “Do you know what it was like when I was grieving, and all those around me told me her death was for the best? They thought they were making me feel better—I’d never have to answer awkward questions about why my daughter had black curls while John and I were both so very fair . . .” Her voice broke.
Cameron was standing above her, lifting her, holding her close. Ainsley leaned into his broad chest and let the tears come.
Gavina had been so beautiful, so perfectly formed. Had fit in Ainsley’s arms with the knowledge that she belonged there. She’d lived one day, one wonderful day, and then she’d weakened and gone. Her small body now lay in the Scottish churchyard near Ainsley’s mother and father.
His hands were warm, comforting, Cameron so tall and strong. The man who could make Ainsley’s body sing in passion now knew how to hold and comfort her, to let her know that he understood her grief.
She could remain here for the rest of her life, in this room, in his arms, and be perfectly happy.
The door handle rattled, then came a knock, followed by the hollow voice of a footmen. “My lord? Her Majesty is ready for you now.”
“Damn and blast,” Cameron whispered.
Ainsley wanted to say the same. She peeled herself away from Cameron, wiping her eyes.
“Meet me here in the morning,” Cameron said rapidly. “At nine o’clock. Can you do that? Without a bloody argument?”
Where he’d want to continue prying into her life, demanding to know why she’d not simply fly off with him. But he deserved to know. Ainsley nodded.
Cameron leaned down, gave her one hard kiss, and headed for the door where the footman was still knocking. “Yes, yes, I’m coming.”
He opened the door, shielding Ainsley from the footman’s view, then closed it, and was gone, leaving Ainsley alone with her tears.
At five minutes before nine the next morning, Ainsley was back in the drawing room, alone. She was still alone at five minutes past, still alone at half past. The clock on the mantel ticked ponderously, heavy chimes marking the quarter hours.
Cameron didn’t come.
When the clock reached five minutes before the next hour, a maid entered. She approached Ainsley, curtseyed, held out a folded piece of paper, and said, “For you, ma’am.”
Without betraying any interest in the note, the clock, or Ainsley, the maid curtseyed again and glided out of the room.
Ainsley unfolded the thick paper to find a few words written in a bold hand.
Daniel never stays where I tell him to stay. I’m off to Glasgow to extract him from a scrape. You win, mouse. On the train from Doncaster, after the last St. Leger race. The conductor will know how to find me. A bientot.
Ainsley folded the creamy paper, pressed her lips to it, and tucked it into her bosom.
When she retreated to her room that night, once the queen had dismissed her for the evening, Ainsley sat down and wrote a long letter. She posted it off to Lady Eleanor Ramsay in the morning, directing it to Eleanor’s father’s tumbledown house near Aberdeen. Ainsley enclosed enough money for a railway ticket from Aberdeen to Edinburgh and told Eleanor quite sternly that she was to use it.
Ainsley Douglas and Lady Eleanor Ramsay faced each other over a corner table in the tea shop at the main station in Edinburgh a few days later, the shop a bit empty this early. A train stood ready outside, its steam hissing, the black bulk of its engine like a mighty ship.
Ainsley had not seen Eleanor in a while, though the two wrote regularly. Their mothers had been close friends, both at one time waiting on the queen. The queen had wanted Eleanor, higher born than Ainsley, to enter her household as well, but Lord Ramsay had tearfully begged for his daughter to stay home, and Eleanor couldn’t refuse him. Eleanor’s father was by no means feeble, but Ainsley agreed that the man would be entirely lost without Eleanor. That fact might explain why Eleanor had entertained no more offers of marriage after she’d famously jilted Hart Mackenzie, Duke of Kilmorgan, years before.
Eleanor had never revealed the reason she’d broken her engagement with Hart, though Ainsley, knowing Hart Mackenzie even the little she did, had some inkling. Hart had been enraged at the jilting and had a little while later married an English marquis’s daughter. The wispy Sarah Graham had died trying to bringing Hart’s son into the world, the child dying as well. Hart never spoke of Sarah, nor had he ever made any indication he would pursue marriage again. Eleanor had remained quietly at home and that had been that.
“Thank you for making the journey, El,” Ainsley said warmly.
Eleanor heaped sugar into her tea, stirred, then put her spoon backward into her mouth and licked it clean.
