Because she was looking directly at him, she saw Captain Vale’s raptor eyes narrow just a little. And just for a moment, she wanted to utter an unladylike snort. A villain who horrified her, and now, for a few seconds, she felt like laughing at him. Thank God or the devil or whoever had delivered Aden MacTaggert to her.
“Aden, this is Captain Robert Vale. Captain, my almost brother-in-law, Aden MacTaggert.”
Aden inclined his head just a little. Regally, almost. With him in his kilt and semi-civilized clothing, it somehow suited him. “Vale.”
“MacTaggert,” the captain returned. “I’ve an engagement with Miranda.”
“This is what’s dragging ye off to luncheon, lass?” Aden drawled, his brogue growing even thicker. “I’ll nae understand ye Sassenach, I reckon.” Before she could conjure a retort to that, Aden leaned down and kissed her on one cheek. “Thank ye for the book, Miranda. I’ll nae let my dog chew on it.”
Her cheek felt scalded, and it took all of her will not to touch her fingers to the place where he’d brushed his lips. “Thank you for that,” she managed, hoping it at least sounded like she was referring to his assurances about Brògan, and not about that surprising kiss.
He smiled at her. “I’ll be by to return it to ye soon enough.” With a last, dismissive look at Captain Vale, he patted the butler on the shoulder and headed past them out the open front door.
She watched after him for a moment. When she belatedly returned her attention to the captain, Vale had his bird-of-prey gaze fixed on her. Even though his expression hadn’t altered, she had the definite feeling that he was most displeased. And that made her exceedingly pleased.
“Who was that?” he asked in his level monotone.
“I introduced you. Aden MacTaggert. One of Eloise MacTaggert’s brothers.”
“The Scottish ones.”
“Yes.” That seemed a rather obvious observation for him to make. Perhaps Aden had managed to rattle him a little. Even if he hadn’t, she didn’t feel the same angry hopelessness with which Vale had left her yesterday. She wasn’t entirely alone in this any longer. She had an ally of sorts, and a plan of sorts. Yes, she definitely liked Aden more than she had yesterday, and by a rather large margin.
Aden stopped Loki just short of the corner. Edging the chestnut in between a stopped coach and a cart brimming with coal, he dismounted to stand in the shadows. At six-foot-one and wearing a kilt he wasn’t precisely invisible in the middle of Mayfair, but at least he wasn’t obvious.
Less than a minute after he found his hiding place, Captain Vale and Miranda in her bonny green-and-gray gown topped by a jaunty green bonnet, her maid trailing behind her, left the house for the waiting barouche. That vehicle boasted a yellow-and-white coat of arms in the shape of owls and what looked like a spade. After only a few weeks in London, Vale likely didn’t have a coat of arms or a barouche, so the birds and shovel would belong to his cousin Lord George Humphries.
According to Miranda the man had left the naval service, but today he’d worn a crisp blue uniform together with one of those tall, fan-shaped hats that would have him breaking his neck in a stiff breeze. The naval uniform was there because it looked impressive. Because it meshed well with whatever plan Vale had concocted.
Vale looked fit and fairly tall for a Sassenach, even if Aden would have preferred him to be a short, twisted hunchback. His walk was just a drumbeat short of a march, his shoulders and back straight enough that hecould well have a broomstick shoved up his arse. What hedidhave up there was another question entirely, because while Aden could understand what Vale had done, and how he’d done it, the why still had no answers.
For that he needed to rely on Miranda, at least for now. If she did as he had suggested and got Vale to chat about himself, it would provide at least a starting point for some additional digging. Whether heshouldbe doing that or not was a slightly stickier dilemma. Because while gamblers didn’t have a secret club as Miranda had implied, there were some rules. One man did not go after another’s target, or interfere in someone else’s game. A man who did that could find himself uninvited from a table or a club at best, and with a knife through his innards at worst.
He knew all that—and he still fell in behind the barouche as Miranda Harris and Captain Vale drove off for their luncheon. Since he’d set Miranda on a particular course of action, if something went wrong he had an obligation to make certain she stayed safe. Or that was what he told himself as he trotted down the street, anyway.
Because he didn’t believe in deluding himself, he also had to acknowledge that he in part felt indebted to Vale. The greedy bastard had given Miranda a reason to call on Aden, and had given Aden a reason to be in her presence. How that might end he had no idea, but he intended to find out.
Miranda had perfected the art of conversational repartee and brought it to the very edge of the precipice. She’d sharpened her tongue to a razor point, and slashed and cut with the skill of a champion fencer. She not only knew how to navigate Mayfair, she shone among the glittery aristocracy. Aden could likely learn a thing or two from her. At the same time, he could conjure a thing or two he wanted to teach her.
That served to remind him that he hadn’t shared a bedwith a lass since before he and Coll had left London to shadow Niall and his Amy on their flight north to Gretna Green. And while the young widow Alice Hardy had been enthusiastic enough in bed, he couldn’t think of any man who, before he’d even caught his breath, wanted to be subjected to questions over whether he preferred white or red roses at a wedding. Saint Andrew, he’d barely paused long enough to collect his boots before he’d fled.
But then there was Miranda Harris, who, however desperate the situation, remained levelheaded and circumspect. It made her initial assessment of his character sting a wee bit more than it would have otherwise, because he’d known from the first minute they’d met that she wasn’t a lass who spent her days cooing over roses. He admired her—perhapsbecauseshe’d bothered not to flutter her eyelashes at him. The fact that she had eyes the color of dark, sweet chocolate and a mouth that seemed to miss its smile didn’t hurt, either.
The fancy barouche turned the corner ahead of him, and he shook himself. Waiting until a pair of riders and a trio of wagons passed him, Aden sent Loki up the street after Miranda and the captain. If they knew what he was up to, both of his brothers would be laughing at him right now. A lass had declared her dislike of his character, and because he didn’t like that, he’d jumped at the first opportunity to charge to her rescue and thereby prove her wrong.
Actually, that made for a fair explanation. It would save him from having to confess that he had fallen for her at first insult, and that all this was an excuse to become better acquainted with the lass before he made an idiot of himself by declaring his infatuation when she did, in fact, dislike him.
The barouche turned south now toward Bond Street, and he kneed Loki into a trot so he wouldn’t lose sight ofthe vehicle. He’d spent the last few weeks—in between shadowing Niall and Amy on their flight to Gretna Green and now avoiding Alice Hardy—learning the streets of London. Going out at night as he tended to, knowing where he was and where he was headed could mean the difference between arriving back at Oswell House and being dead in an alley somewhere. Parts of London were proving more bloody dangerous than even the wildest bits of the Highlands.
Vale seemed to be staying in Mayfair, which made sense. The captain was after respectability; he would want to be seen by his would-be peers while he wore his dashing uniform and had Miranda Harris on his arm. That fact also provided her with a measure of safety, since Vale would have to behave like a gentleman in public. Still, punching and yelling weren’t the only ways to hurt or frighten or injure a lass.
When the barouche stopped in front of the Kings Hotel, he frowned. An establishment that large featured a great many places where a lass could find herself in trouble not of her own making, and it was too fancy for a tall, broad-shouldered Scotsman in scuffed boots and a work kilt. He wouldn’t have minded the coincidence of them all dining at the same establishment, but getting booted out on his arse wouldn’t help his plans.
Even so, he wasn’t about to leave until he knew for certain that she was safely dining and not being dragged into some room upstairs. Dismounting, he led Loki up the street, slowing to look through the first of a quartet of windows spanning the ground floor of the three-story building. Tables and well-dressed diners, but no Miranda.
“No gawking at your betters,” the doorman said as Aden drew even with him. “Move along.”
Aden stopped, looking over the man’s head as the doorbehind him opened. There she was, seated toward the back of the room across the table from the captain. He could only see her profile, but her back was straight and her hands folded in her lap. Attentive and unwilling to risk Vale touching her. To Aden her posture shouted suspicion and discomfort, but no doubt the captain expected that from her. Hopefully the only thing Vale hadn’t anticipated was that the Highlands barbarian he’d just met was more than a potential romantic rival, and that someone else was advising her on the direction of her conversation.
