Angelo flashed him a grin. “Please don’t. I wouldn’t like staying indoors all day.”
“All the money in the world, though. You deserve it.”
“Money is good to keep the belly full and the fire warm,” Angelo conceded. “But it’s more fun to steal it.”
“Don’t make light of this. You saved Ainsley’s life, yesterday. That’s worth everything I have.”
Angelo kept the curry comb moving. “I was close enough to do something, is all. I know how you think, so I know you’re blaming yourself, but I saw how volatile that stallion was. I should have ignored Pierson and handled him anyway.”
“And Pierson would have you sitting in a magistrate’s court today for horse thieving. We’re well rid of the man. But Ainsley shouldn’t have had to suffer for it.”
“Aye, that’s true enough.” Angelo gave him a quiet look. “Don’t give me your kingdom. I don’t want it, and I know that if it had been my sister or mother or lover in danger, and you’d been close enough, you’d have done the same.”
“Yes.”
Angelo finished currying, tapped the dirt from the comb, and started on the horse’s coat with the softer dandy brush. This one he swept in the direction the horse’s hair grew, and the champion racer, who’d finished first in his year at Newmarket, Epsom, and Doncaster, rocked his weight onto one hip and grunted with pleasure.
“Ainsley wants to see your canal boat,” Cameron said.
Angelo’s grin lit his eyes. “Let me send word to Mother first so she can have a good cleanup. She’d tan my hide if I brought her ladyship on board without warning.”
Cameron, having met Angelo’s mother, understood. Angelo’s mother stood about four and a half feet tall, if that, and ruled Angelo’s vast family with an iron fist.
They left it at that. Angelo understood Cameron’s gratitude, and Cameron knew the man would take it in stride.
Cameron left the stable, still too agitated to ride—horses didn’t need a jerky, anxious rider—and watched from the edge of the paddock as the jockeys did training runs.
He felt rather than heard Daniel stop beside him. Daniel was, if anything, even taller than he’d been when they’d left Kilmorgan, and had filled out still more.
Cameron couldn’t help remembering the child who’d followed him about on spindly legs, demanding to know everything about “the ponies.” Even though Cameron had been offhand with Daniel, he’d always been acutely aware of where his son had been and what he’d been doing at all times, going after him when he went astray, as he’d done in Glasgow. He and his brothers between them had somehow raised him without making too much of a mess of it.
“Well, I’m off,” Daniel said.
“Off? Where this time?”
Daniel stuck his hands in the pockets and gave Cameron a bland look. “University. Isn’t that where you’ve been trying to shove me these last months?”
“I thought you hated Cambridge.”
“I do. So, I’m not going to Cambridge. I’m going to Edinburgh. I thought maybe Glasgow, which is why I legged it down there that day.”
Cameron’s exasperation rose. “Is that what that was all about? Damnation, Danny, why didn’t ye tell me?”
He shrugged. “I wanted to see the place before I begged ye to send me there. Didn’t expect to get in a scrape. I dressed decently so the warden wouldn’t toss me out on my ear, but it was too tempting for those lads. They wanted the clothes off my back, would you believe it? If they needed money, they only had to ask. I told them.”
“So you went to jail with them? Noble of ye, son.”
“They didn’t think I’d fight back. I was fighting as hard as they were, so I didn’t see I should get off. Their leader, ye know, he’s not so bad. For a street tough.”
God help us. “Ye chose Edinburgh, though. Why? Fewer street toughs?”
“Amusing, Dad. I like a professor there who’s going to teach me engineering. And there’s one who’ll teach me architecture. No more philosophy, thank ye very much.”
“If you didn’t want to study philosophy, Danny, you only had to say.”
Again the careless shrug. “I didn’t much know, Dad, truth to tell. I had to wander about, find out for myself. But I’m fixed now. Hilary term’s part done, but they say they’ll give me private instruction to bring me up to scratch. I’ll get the lay of the land, meet the chaps, see how it goes. I’ll come back here between terms and then seriously start at Trinity. I’ll catch the train today, send you a telegram when I arrive. Uncle Mac says I can stay in his house there.”
The tight pain in Cameron’s heart startled him. Cam had grown used to having Daniel with him all the time. He’d purchased the Berkshire estate partly because he’d be close to Daniel when he was at Harrow.
Now their paths were diverging. The son Cameron had fought so hard to protect was ready to start protecting himself.
“Why the sudden wish to rush off?” Cameron asked in a light voice. “I can always use more help with the horses. The Newmarket races will be here soon enough, and you can start at Trinity term.”
Daniel looked his father straight in the eye. “Because I know you’ll be all right without me. You don’t need me anymore, Dad. You’ve got Ainsley looking after you, now.”
“I thought I was looking after her.”
Daniel snorted. “She might let ye think so. But you spent the whole night with her last night, didn’t you? Sleeping and all?”
Cameron’s face heated. “That’s your business now, is it?”
“The whole house knows it, Dad. They’re pleased that you have a chance for a good marriage, and so am I.”
“Good God, doesn’t anyone have anything better to talk about?”
“Not really. They all like Ainsley and want to make sure you treat her well. I like her too, and want the same. But ye proved yourself.”
Cameron’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you’ve been staying with us all winter? So you could keep an eye on me with Ainsley?”
“Partly. That’s why I know that it’s all right for me to go now.”
Cameron wanted to laugh. He wanted to hug Daniel, tell the lad he was a damn fool, and then tell him that he loved him.
Neither had ever been comfortable with that kind of sentimentality, so both turned to watch the horses. The filly called Chance’s Daughter, a pretty bay Cameron had bought about the time Ian married Beth, ran with grace and enthusiasm. She’d do well this year in the three-year- olds’ races.
“Daniel,” Cameron said after a time. “I know I’ve been the worst father a lad can be stuck with.”
“Not your fault, Dad. You’re a Mackenzie.”
“So are you. Don’t forget that.” Horses thundered toward them, Chance’s Daughter smoothly pulling into the lead. “Don’t make the mistakes I did.”
“I’ll make plenty of my own, I warrant. But I have an advantage, ye know. All you got was a dad who beat his sons and was jealous of them too. I have a dad who tries to do the right thing, even if he mucks it up most of the time. And then there’s my sweet aunties and my stepmother to show me that some women ain’t so bad. They don’t all just want our money. Some of the lasses even like us.”
Cameron let out a laugh. “Yes, some of them do. Now, I’m going to do something to embarrass you.”
He grabbed Daniel and jerked him to him in a big bear hug. Instead of stiffening, Daniel laughed and hugged his father back. The embrace grew tighter and tighter until Cameron couldn’t breathe. Daniel had certainly grown strong.
The two broke. “Come back to us soon, all right?” Cameron said.
“Of course. You’re going to teach me everything you know about working with the ponies, so once I’m done with university I can become a partner in your stables. We’re going to be world famous, Dad.”
“You have that all planned out? What about your engineering and your architecture?”
