Chapter 24
Cameron sat in the salon of Penelope and Nathan’s ancestral home and checked his watch for what had to have been the hundredth time that night.
It brought him no more relief that time than it had the first ninety-nine.
It was almost ten p.m. Given that Sunny’s flight had left about four, she was now over Canada.
He wondered if she was sleeping, or weeping, or counting herself well rid of him.
He supposed he wouldn’t have blamed her for the last.
Letting her out of that taxi the day before had been the single most difficult thing he’d ever done. He’d wanted to follow her into the hotel, pull her into his arms, demand that she never again give him one of those bloody false smiles she’d worn too often the day before for his taste.
But he hadn’t, because during that miserable ride in the taxi he’d been thinking about reality, and the reality was this was not a medieval battle where he knew what to expect, where he could see the lads who were coming directly at him and sense the ones sneaking up behind him.
This was modern life where he was in a city with millions of other people, a city full of cars and conversations and life that was perpetually in motion.
He could hardly guarantee his own safety, much less that of someone not by his side constantly.
He wasn’t sure he could guarantee Sunny’s safety if she had been at his side.
Though it was killing him to know she’d gone.
He told himself it was for the best. The assault on both his businesses was just the opening salvo in what he was quite sure would become a very brutal war.
It wasn’t inconceivable to think that his business could be taken over by someone else and run into the ground.
If that happened, his honor would demand that the fortune that was now his thanks to monies scrupulously saved by generations of Camerons would need to be used to settle those business debts.
That would leave him with no choice but to give up his keep, a place that had been in Cameron hands since his grandfather’s grandfather Aongus had laid the first stones all the way down to Alistair Cameron who had been Breac’s son’s son dozens of generations removed.
And that could not happen. He had to see both to his hall and to his investors who had placed so much trust in him.
In a sense, his clan was now spread out all over the world and he couldn’t turn his back on them.
Nor could he ignore the fact that until he determined who was trying to kill him and why, he didn’t dare keep the woman he loved anywhere near him.
Though letting her go, knowing he hadn’t given her the whole truth, knowing he’d allowed her to think he intended to wed Penelope Ainsworth . . .
He bowed his head and looked at the rather shabby carpet beneath his feet.
The simple truth was, Sunny would be safer living anonymously in the States.
She wouldn’t be mugged in the Tube as Emily had been, twice.
She would never receive threatening phone calls as members of his board of directors had many times.
She would never find herself assaulted in a darkened alley as he himself had been, regularly.
He told himself that because it sounded reasonable. It was better than facing the fact that he’d hurt her—and for that he feared she would never forgive him.
He couldn’t do anything about making it up to her until he’d walked that dreadful, perilous path in front of him and was sure that when he went to Seattle, he wouldn’t be bringing murderers trailing along after him.
He hadn’t seen anyone following them the day before.
None of his own lads who’d been following him had reported seeing anyone, so he’d known they were safe, but still—
“Have some wine, Mac,” Penelope said suddenly. “And you should have eaten. It was horribly impolite not to, especially after all the trouble I went to to have the chef replaced before Father’s death.”
Cameron wrenched his thoughts back to what was in front of him.
He looked at the glass in Penelope’s hands, then looked at her.
She was actually quite a lovely gel, that Penelope Ainsworth.
A pity her insides didn’t come close to matching her outsides.
He wondered if perhaps it was because her mother had died so soon after her birth.
Perhaps it was because she’d spent too much time away at boarding school.
He had no answer for it; all he knew was that if he ever managed to sire any children, he would keep them close.
Unbidden, a vision came to him of sitting in his kitchen whilst Sunny made their brood things that had green as their primary color.
He would have instructed his children to of course finish off what their mother had given them, then he would have piled them all—Sunny included—into the car and headed to the village to raid the local chippy.
Life would have been good.
“Wine, Mac.”
Cameron looked at the goblet again, then shook his head.
“I don’t drink, Penelope.”
“You drank last Friday,” she whispered furiously. “I was the one to pull you out of your stupor, if you remember.”
Was it only last Friday? Cameron could hardly believe that. So many things had happened since then, so many things so happily removed from his reality in the south.
“Nay,” he said firmly.
Penelope pulled the glass away suddenly and muttered in displeasure. Cameron checked his watch again, sighed, then watched as one of Penelope’s set rose and approached the piano. She called gaily for someone to come accompany her.
Cameron put his fingers over his eyes before he could stop himself.
Was it not enough that he’d spent the morning fighting the urge to call Sunny and beg her to stay, the afternoon wrestling with accountants, then the remainder of daylight hours trying to get out to Windsor to meet Penelope’s impossible deadline for yet another party?
Now he was to endure off-key singing that was only marginally less annoying than fingernails on a chalkboard?
His phone buzzed suddenly in his pocket. He pulled it out with a grateful sigh. Perhaps it was George, peering in the window and sending him a rescue ring. He looked down at the number just to check, then almost dropped the phone in surprise.
He started to his rise, but Penelope caught him by the arm first.
“Calls at this hour, Mac?” she said sharply.
“I have business all over the world,” he said without hesitation, because it was true.
She released him. Perhaps she thought it might curtail her spending if he didn’t keep his empire from imploding. He left the salon quickly, then answered the call the moment he’d shut the door behind him.
“Aye?”
There was silence on the other end for quite some time. Then came the sound of a voice he’d feared he would never hear again and could hardly believe he was hearing at present.
“Are you busy?”
He closed his eyes briefly. “I won’t be in five minutes,” he said unsteadily. “May I ring you back?”
“All right.”
The phone went dead. He slipped it back in his pocket, rubbed his hands over his face, then went to look for Penelope’s butler.
The man was standing near the passageway that led to the kitchen, obviously preparing for the drinks to go round.
All the more reason not to be there, lest he be forced to try to identify one that wouldn’t kill him.
“Hitchens, would you inform Lady Penelope that I’ve been called away on urgent business?” Cameron asked. “Send my regrets and tell her I’ll ring her in the morning.”
“Of course, my lord,” Hitchens said, looking as if he would have liked nothing better than to have been escaping as well.
An ally in the enemy camp, perhaps. Cameron filed that away for consideration in a less dodgy place, then continued on his way to the kitchen, hoping to find George investigating the depths of Penelope’s pantry for suspicious substances.
Unfortunately, his chauffeur was only investigating the depths of his tea cup.
He did, however, look up when Cameron entered.
“Finished so soon?” he asked hopefully.
“Aye. Let’s go,” Cameron said briskly.
George rose without hesitation.
Cameron tried not to run for the front door.
Sunny had called him. It couldn’t have been from a plane because it was her mobile she was using and they wouldn’t have allowed that on a commercial flight.
That meant that she wasn’t 39,000 feet over Canada at present.
Perhaps she’d used his money and purchased a different ticket with another carrier and was just calling him to let him know she was home early and hoped he would rot happily in a hell of his own making.
“Why in such a hurry?”
Cameron turned around before Nathan Ainsworth could stab him in the back. He stuck his hands in his pockets and gave Nathan a cool smile.
“Business, of course. It goes along with all that working I do during the days, Nathan. You should try it with your father’s company whilst there’s still something left of it.”
“I’m busy enough.”
Cameron supposed he was, but not with things his father would have approved of.
“You won’t walk away untouched, Robert,” Nathan continued in a dull, dead sort of tone that matched his eyes perfectly. “My father may have favored you over me, but he wouldn’t have if he’d known the things about you I know.”
“Your father didn’t favor me over you, Nathan. As for the rest—” Cameron shrugged negligently. “It’s all out there for public consumption, isn’t it?”
Nathan lifted one of his eyebrows briefly. “I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?” He turned and walked away. “Drive safely,” he threw over his shoulder.
Cameron watched him until he’d disappeared back down the hallway. He spared a thought for what Penelope’s brother might be alluding to, then decided that could be digested later as well. He looked at George. “We’d best check the brakes, hadn’t we?”