“No, damnation, I need her to win at Doncaster so I can sell her when the season ends. I thought you were supposed to be the best trainer in Britain, Mackenzie.”
“And when the best trainer tells ye not to run the horse, ye ought to listen to him.”
Pierson’s lips pinched. “I can always pull her from your stables.”
“Good luck finding another trainer this late. You won’t and you know it.”
Damn the man. If not for Jasmine’s sake, Cameron would walk away from the idiot, have nothing to do with him. But Pierson would ruin Jasmine, and Cameron didn’t have the heart to let him.
Jasmine had been fine after her wild run. Though Angelo had said nothing, Cameron knew the man felt a world of shame for letting Jasmine out like that. The only explanation for Angelo’s lapse was that Ainsley had bewitched him. Why not? She’d bewitched everyone else in the household.
“Let me buy Jasmine from you, as I proposed before,” Cameron said. “I’ll give her whatever you’d fetch at auction for her if she were a winner. She’s a fine bit of horseflesh. Make a nice addition to my stock.”
Pierson looked shocked. “Indeed no. She’s an English mare of purest blood. She doesn’t belong on a Scottish farm.”
“My main training stables are in Berkshire. I could do magnificent things with her there.”
“Then why aren’t you there with her now?” Pierson demanded.
Cameron tilted his whiskey glass. The whiskey was awful, and he’d taken only the smallest of sips. “An obligation to my brother.”
“What about your obligation to me and my horse? She races at Doncaster, or I pull her from you and spread the word of your incompetence. Is that clear? Now, I have other appointments. Good day to you, Mackenzie.”
Cameron resisted punching the man in the mouth, set down his glass, and turned to take his greatcoat from the servant who brought it. If he struck Pierson and relieved his temper, Jasmine would suffer, and Cameron couldn’t let that happen.
The servant—who was English, Cameron noted—led Cameron to the door and opened it for him. Cameron clapped on his hat and stepped out into the rain.
He strode down the street, misty rain obscuring sky, buildings, and people, relieving his anger by walking fast and hard.
Bloody arrogant bastard. In usual circumstances, such a man wouldn’t get under his skin, but Cam liked Jasmine and wanted her. He thought about enticing Pierson into playing cards with him and winning Jasmine, but Pierson wasn’t a gambler. He didn’t even bet on the horses.
Cameron could calm Jasmine down to run her at Doncaster, but not to win. If he pushed her too hard, he risked her health. Jasmine might win but drop dead at the finish line—or, if Pierson had his way, the moment the buyer walked off with her. That was the way Pierson did things.
Damned bloody English Philistine.
Cam’s thoughts cut off abruptly when he saw the woman dressed in gray, with hair the color of sunshine, dart out from a jeweler’s shop. Ainsley slipped a little pouch into her pocket, glanced surreptitiously about, opened her umbrella, and hurried away down the misty street.
Chapter 10
Ainsley felt the presence of Cameron even before his large gloved hand closed around her umbrella handle.
Did he tip his hat, give her a polite hello, offer to escort her down the street? No, he regarded her with angry eyes from a granite face and wouldn’t let go of the blasted umbrella.
“I told you I’d give you the money for the letters,” he said.
Ainsley gave him a cool nod. “Good afternoon to you too, Lord Cameron. I know you did.”
“So why were you in a damned jeweler’s? You don’t have the money to shop. You were trying to sell jewelry to pay Phyllida, weren’t you?”
And didn’t he look enraged about it? High-handed, arrogant Scotsman. “I wasn’t trying to sell the jewels, I was having them valued. For collateral.”
“Collateral? What collateral?”
Ainsley again tried to take back the umbrella and was surprised when he let it go. “For the loan you offered me. I give you collateral, and then when my friend sends me the money, you return the jewels to me.”
Cameron’s eyes became topaz-colored slits. “I never said it was a loan. I’ll pay Phyllida, and that’s the end of it. Your ‘collateral,’ if you insist on it, is to have a conversation with me that’s not about the damned letters. I’m sick to death of them.”
“I can’t take a gift of money from you and remain a lady,” Ainsley said. “Unless it’s a loan, a business transaction, and then only because I’m a friend of the family. Of Isabella.”
“You make it too complicated. No one has to know that I gave you the money.”
“Mrs. Chase will know, or she’ll guess. And you can be certain she would tell everybody.”
Ainsley turned away and resumed walking.
Cameron had to stride quickly to catch up. Hell, if anyone had told him that one day he’d be racing through the streets of Edinburgh, chasing a lady determined to shut him out with her umbrella, he’d have laughed uproariously. Cameron Mackenzie didn’t chase women, those with umbrellas or otherwise.
“The jeweler said my mother’s earrings and brooch were enough to cover the five hundred,” Ainsley said. “Which is lucky.”
Cameron decided not to tell her that Phyllida now wanted fifteen hundred. He didn’t need Ainsley sending home for the family silver.