The dog came alert a moment later at the same time Cameron heard hurried footsteps in the corridor. McNab gave one hopeful woof, then someone pounded on the door.

Damn it, I told her to stay put.

“Sir,” Angelo called through the door. “It’s Jasmine. I think you’d better come.”


Chapter 15


Night-Blooming Jasmine stood in the middle of her stall, her head bent to forelegs, sides heaving. Cameron slipped inside her stall, the heat in his body evaporating into fear.

It wasn’t colic or gas, because Jasmine would be circling the stall in agony or trying to roll. Instead she stood dejectedly, not raising her head as Cameron ran expert hands along her body. “What is it, girl? What’s wrong with my lass, eh?”

He tapped a fetlock, and Jasmine readily turned up her hoof. Cameron held it, Jasmine taking the opportunity to lean her entire body weight on him. The hoof wasn’t hot or the frog mushy or pus-filled. The hoof wall felt solid and sound as well. He checked her other feet, but all four hooves seemed fine.

Cameron set down the last hoof, Jasmine sighing disappointment that he wouldn’t hold her up any longer. When she raised her head, mucus ran from her nose and mouth to dribble down Cameron’s white shirt. She whuffed softly, a picture of misery.

Cam stroked her nose and turned to the stable hands who were hanging over the stall. “Not thrush or colic and nothing’s broken.”

Angelo flicked a dark Romany gaze over the horse. He’d have examined her already as soon as he noticed a problem, but he wasn’t offended that Cameron had checked her again.

“Could be poison,” one of the stable hands said.

Cameron’s heart constricted. “Let’s hope to God it’s not. Anyone been around here tonight?”

“No, sir,” Angelo said. “We keep a good watch.”

The other stable hands nodded. The men here worked for Cameron or Hart, had for years, and Cam doubted any of them could be bribed—both Hart and Cam paid high salaries and the men prided themselves on their loyalty. They loved the horses as much as Cameron did.

“Nothing to do but wait it out,” he said. “What did she eat?”

Angelo shook his head. “Nothing tonight. I tried to give her a few oats, and she didn’t want it, or good hay.”

Always a bad sign when a horse wouldn’t eat. They loved to eat, their raison d’être. Humans might think they’d tamed horses, Cameron reflected, but horses knew they’d trained humans to feed them.

“Could be pneumonia,” Angelo said, eyes unhappy. “Or the cough. What with her legging it through the countryside, there’s no telling what she might have picked up out there.”

Angelo’s explanation was the most likely one. The Scottish hills were cold, far colder than Jasmine’s home near Bath, and if she’d taken chill on her adventures, it could develop into something worse.

“What about the other horses?” The cough—a malady that made horses cough and sneeze, similar to the human cold—could spread quickly, and while it might not be deadly, horses couldn’t run until the disease played itself out. Pneumonia was a different matter. Jasmine could die tonight if she’d contracted it.

“Nothing wrong with the others,” Angelo said.

“Get warm water inside her,” Cameron said. “I’ll rub her down.”

“Warm water’s coming.” Of course, Angelo would have already sent someone running for some.

Cameron stripped off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and fetched curry comb and dandy brush. Brushing horses was good for their circulation and kept them warm. They could send for the horse doctor, but no doubt he’d tell them the same things that Angelo and Cameron had concluded. Large bottles of tonic stood waiting in the tack room, but Cameron didn’t want to shove medicine down Jasmine until they knew what they were dealing with. Keeping her warm was the first consideration.

Jasmine didn’t react much while Cameron brushed her, except to lean her head on his shoulder. Angelo came with blankets, which they buckled around her. They had to put the water inside her with a tube, because she refused to drink.

The night was crisp and cold now, and Cameron thought regretfully of Ainsley’s bedchamber warmed with fire and her body against his. But he also knew that when he told Ainsley tomorrow why he hadn’t come to her, she’d understand. Not only understand, but demand to be kept informed of Jasmine’s progress. He couldn’t think of any other woman who’d not be angry that she’d been eclipsed by a horse, but he knew Ainsley would think him right to stay with Jasmine.

Cameron finished and left the stall. Jasmine draped her head over the door, seeking Cameron, and he stroked her neck.

“It’s all right, girl. I’ll not leave you.”

Angelo had already run for a blanket, a fresh shirt, and a new coat for Cameron. Cam wondered often what he’d do without Angelo, the Romany he’d rescued from certain death one night near Cameron’s Berkshire estate. A group of men from Hungerford had run eighteen-year-old Angelo to ground after they’d caught him stealing enough food to get his family, waiting on a canal boat, through another day. They’d trashed the food and started beating Angelo, knives coming out to assure that the Romany thief wouldn’t live to see the morning.

This had happened not long after Elizabeth’s death, when Cameron had first purchased the estate. Cameron had been riding in the dawn light, drunk and unable to sleep. He’d welcomed the chance to join the fight, ran off the locals, took Angelo home, and gave him food for his family from his own kitchen. He’d walked with Angelo to the boat waiting on the Kennet and Avon Canal, which had been overflowing with people—Angelo’s parents, grandparents, bothers, and sisters, and about a dozen children.

Cameron had left him there, assuming he’d seen the last of the man, but Angelo had turned up again at Cameron’s stables not many weeks later. There was no better race fixer in the country than himself, Angelo had claimed, so he’d know how to watch out for all the tricks. He’d protect Cameron’s horses in exchange for a place to sleep and the occasional money to give to his family.

That’s how it started, but Angelo proved to be more competent and loyal than anyone Cameron had ever met. Now Angelo looked after Cameron with the same intensity. Angelo knew Cameron’s moods and what plagued him, knew of his nightmares and dark memories, and was always there with a drink or a sleeping draught or just an ear to listen. Without Angelo, Cameron knew he’d have gone mad long ago.

Now Angelo arranged the blanket and flask of brandy for Cameron and folded himself into another corner to watch.

In spite of his worry for the horse, Cameron felt loose, warm, still filled with the sensation of Ainsley. He was half drunk with the whiskey he’d downed while pacing, and as he slid into waking dreams, he reached for the scent and joy of Ainsley.

What he got was a recurring nightmare about Elizabeth. After Daniel’s birth, Elizabeth had fallen into severe melancholia. Whenever she roused herself from it, the first thing she tried to do was hurt Daniel. The nurse and maids at Kilmorgan protected him fiercely, but Elizabeth could be cunning.

Cameron’s dream turned to the fateful day when he’d rushed to his bedchamber after hearing Daniel’s screams, to have her come at him, knife in hand. Elizabeth had stolen the knife earlier that day from Cameron’s father’s collection, which meant she’d thought this through. She’d lain in wait in Cameron’s chamber with Daniel as her hostage, intending to kill them both.

The dream turned from the streak of pain when Elizabeth had slashed the knife across Cameron’s cheek to her turning that knife toward the innocent Daniel on the bed. Cameron relived his watery panic as he dove for Daniel and rolled across the bed with him. He’d had to fight Elizabeth when he gained his feet, trying to keep the already bloody blade from Daniel.

He couldn’t remember what he’d roared at her, or what he’d done, but Elizabeth had stumbled backward, screeching obscenities at the top of her voice. Cameron had whirled Daniel away to the other side of the room.

Elizabeth had turned the knife on herself. Cameron heard again the horrible gurgle as the knife slid into her throat, saw the scarlet blood that rained down her neck to her dress. She’d stared at it in shock, then up at Cameron with a mixture of fury and hurt betrayal, before she’d crumpled to the ground.

Then the shouting as the household tried to get into the room, Daniel’s infant screams, then Hart’s gruff voice bellowing at Cameron to open the damned door. Hart had broken it down to find Cameron cradling Daniel in his arms, desperately trying to quiet him, and Elizabeth on the floor in a pool of her own blood.

Cameron’s dream jumped forward to the funeral—Cameron in soot black, wind stirring the crepe trickling from his tall hat. He stood rigidly next to his father and Hart as the Scottish vicar droned on about the wickedness of this transitory world and how Elizabeth was welcomed as a sister with joy into the next.

He remembered how their father had growled as soon as the vicar finished that Cameron had made bad job of it, losing himself a wife before she could push out more babies. If Cameron had only brought Elizabeth to heel, the old duke said, she would have been more obedient and not such a damned whore.

Hart had turned and crashed his fist into their father’s face, while the vicar watched in horror. Hart’s voice had held terrible anger as he’d said to their father, “You are dead to me.”

Cameron had stood by numbly, not really giving a damn. Afterward, he’d gone upstairs, told Daniel’s nurse to pack his things, and had taken Daniel, nurse and all, to London that very afternoon.