“Ha!” his brother chortled, slapping his hands together. “Beat that.”
“The wager was over whose throw is closer to the bucket, ye lummox,” Aden reminded him. “Nae who can fling their footwear all the way back to Scotland.”
“Bah,” the viscount growled. “Give me another throw, then.”
“I willnae. Two feet, two boots.”
“Then yer second boot has to land closer than the first.”
Aden lifted an eyebrow. “I’ve already won twenty pounds. I may as well put this boot back on my foot.”
“Yes, please do,” their mother muttered from behind him.
He grinned at that, keeping his face turned away from her. “Unless ye’ll double the wager,” he went on. “Fortyquid that this boot lands closer to the bucket than the first one.”
“Ye’re on,” Coll said on the tail of that, as if he thought Aden might change his mind. “Since ye’d have to get it inside the bucket to win.”
So be it. Half closing one eye, Aden swung the boot once, waited for a trio of bairns to cross the street with their nanny, swung again, and let go. The boot’s heel hit the rim of the bucket, tipped it over, and landed half inside as the thing rolled in a slow half circle. “Forty pounds,” he said, straightening and keeping his own surprise to himself. A time or two he’d benefited from luck over talent, but only a fool counted on the fickle lass.
“Gavin, bring my damned boots back here,” Coll bellowed.
As the groom dove into the shrubbery, a knee-high black dog dodged around him into the street and grabbed up one of Aden’s boots. Aden scowled.Damnation.That wouldn’t do. Those Hessians were his only pair of boots fit for wearing in proper Sassenach company. Stepping forward, he whistled before Gavin could give chase.
“Here, laddie,” he said, opening his sporran and pulling out the biscuit he’d stolen from the kitchen earlier. “Do ye favor a trade?” Squatting, he held the biscuit out in his hand.
The long-snouted dog edged forward, tail down, pointed ears flattened, and boot in his mouth. Whoever he was, he hadn’t been treated kindly on the streets of London. Aden could sympathize with that.
“Grab him, Aden,” Coll urged.
Aden ignored his brother. Coll always favored a scrap, even when a gentler hand would serve a situation better. The dog dropped the boot, stretching forward with a slightly sideways cant, one eye twitching as if it expected to be struck. “Only cowards beat animals,” Aden soothed,holding his hand and the biscuit steady and outstretched. “Ye’ve nae a thing to fear from me.”
Ears lifting a little, the dog clamped its teeth over the edge of the sweet and skittered away, disappearing around the corner in the direction of Hyde Park. With a sigh Aden stretched out to pick up his boot and stood again. Poor wee lad.
When he turned around, Lady Aldriss had her green gaze on him. The woman was clever and knew it, and because she’d managed to get the youngest of the three MacTaggert lads married already, she thought she had them all figured out. But he wasn’t amiable, goodhearted Niall. He was three years older than his twenty-four-year-old brother, and ten times more cynical. He remembered quite well the day their mother had left them behind in Scotland, and how empty and… idiotic he’d felt for months afterward. That was the last time he’d been caught unaware. Hell, he hadn’t led matters with his heart since then.
“What is it ye think ye’ve deciphered, Countess?” he asked aloud, catching his second boot when Gavin tossed it to him and turning for the Oswell House front door.
“I don’t know,” she returned, following him. “I continue to observe.”
“Observe all ye wish, then,” he countered. “I reckon ye’d gain more insight doing that with me in my natural surroundings, which isnae here in London.”
“From the way you and your brothers speak about you, I thought your natural surroundings would be anywhere you might find a table and some cards or dice.”
“Aye. Ye’ve the right of that, then. Ye’ve deciphered me.”
“Aden, d—”
“Nae,” he interrupted, not slowing his retreat. “I’ll do yer bidding and find a wife, because ye’ve nae left any of us a choice. But I’m nae going to sit down for a heart-to-heart chat with ye over tea,màthair.” Over his shoulder he caught sight of Coll’s interested expression. Always looking for trouble, the viscount was. “Forty quid, ye behemoth.”
“I’ll pay ye in a damned minute.”
Padding barefoot into the foyer, Aden passed an affronted-looking Smythe the butler, who’d likely never seen any of Oswell House’s residents without footwear before. Heading upstairs, he freed a necklace made of paste pearls from his coat pocket and hung it over the antlers of Rory, the stuffed deer they’d brought south with them and left on the landing of the main staircase for every exalted Sassenach guest who stepped through the front door to see.
The red deer had been a part of the ridiculous amount of luggage they’d toted from the Highlands with them, because as far as they’d known, all traveling English had a ludicrous number of trunks and bags accompanying them. And they’d wanted to make a ruckus, to demonstrate that they wouldn’t be ruled by some Englishwoman they barely remembered just because she had gold in her purse. When the countess had declared that under no circumstances would Rory be allowed to live in the library as he had up at Aldriss Park, Aden and Coll had set him down on the landing out of pure contrariness.
In the weeks since then the deer had acquired a cravat, a beaver hat, a blue satin skirt, a lambskin glove over one antler tine, earbobs, and various other knickknacks hung over his impressive rack of antlers and muscular frame. The lad looked less than dignified now, but the amusement of dressing him like a disheveled Sassenach had kept Aden, at least, from punching several actual Sassenach.
“Where did you get that?” a female voice asked from the landing above him.
