Ideally, he wanted to tell her that the villain was gone, never to be seen or heard from again. Short of that, he wanted to have a plan, something she could feel safe with, something that could actually set her free. And not just because they were partners.
The maid dragged the hairbrush through a tangle of Miranda’s hair. Then she did it again.
“Millie, please!” Miranda said, wincing. “I have no wish to be bald.”
“Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss Miranda. I just can’t help—he…” She leaned down, putting her mouth next to Miranda’s ear. “He kissed you,” she whispered, “and now you’re to see him again tonight. Your mother said that Lady Aldriss said that the dinner was his idea.”
Miranda glanced toward her bedchamber door even though she knew for a fact it was closed. Catching her maid’s gaze in the dressing table mirror, she put on a deliberate frown. “You’ve been on about this for nearly a day now. Once and for all, Aden MacTaggert did not kiss me,” she stated.
“But—”
“He plays games,” she cut in, pushing away the memory, the eruption of heat and desire when he’d kissed her, the sensation of odd, heightened excitement she’d felt when she’d dared to kiss him back. “He wanted to see if I would remain in his little game,” she said aloud.
“But he offered a partnership, and you agreed.”
“Because I didn’t want him to be able to walk away if he decided this was all too difficult for him,” she returned, though even as she said it she had to admit that she couldn’t see him backing away from anything. “Now we are aiding each other. It makes much more sense.”
Millie resumed brushing. “As you say, then.” From the maid’s tightly compressed lips, upturned at the corners, she didn’t believe a word of it.
Her skepticism made sense, because Miranda wasn’t all that certain what the kiss had actually meant, either. It had felt electric, and she was still clubbing herself on the head for giving in to that surprising jumble of emotion and sensation and kissing him back.
Her supposition could well be correct, after all, and Aden had begun looking for a way to make a swift exit before he had to risk anything more than his time. That kiss said something else entirely, but then he was proficient at shuttering his thoughts.
She hadn’t been able to come up with a reason he continued even to offer his advice, except for his statement that he liked her more than she liked him. Him asking for instruction about how to navigate London had eased hermind somewhat; heaven knew he hadn’t demonstrated much in the way of propriety in the short time she’d known him. He’d actually admitted, aloud, to a desire to readThe Adventures of Tom Jones, for heaven’s sake.
This bargain made their partnership feel… more like a partnership. Like it didn’t rest on him liking her, or on her realizing Aden MacTaggert was much more complicated than she’d thought. At the same time, he’d kissed her. And she’d kissed him, dash it all.
She couldn’t stop thinking about it even an entire day later. In a way, though, and completely aside from how worrisome it was, she was grateful for the unexpected gesture; for nearly an entire day that silly kiss had claimed more of her attention than her troubles with Robert Vale.
That couldn’t continue, though, because while Aden was confusing and troublesome, Captain Vale terrified her. The idea of Vale kissing her, of him in her bed, made her stomach roil and her head pound. She needed to find a way to escape.
And if that meant making a bargain with the troublesome Aden MacTaggert—and if that bargain kept him from ruining Matthew and Eloise’s upcoming nuptials—it was worth it. And it gave her an excuse to have him about without admitting that perhaps he was intriguing. And that his too-long hair suited him. And that of the half a dozen clandestine kisses she’d had in her life, only the last pair had given her goose bumps.
“What if Mr. MacTaggert tries to kiss you again tonight?” Millie asked, setting aside the brush for a pair of silver hair clips. “In order to further test your resolve, I mean.”
“I do understand sarcasm, Millie. Please desist. This is to be a family gathering, and he’s to be my brother-in-law. Everyone, especially the MacTaggert brothers, will be on their best behavior. Eloise said having them herewith her in London is like suddenly adopting three very large, overly protective lions. They adore her. And she’ll wish for them to make a good impression. We haven’t all met formally until now, Harris and MacTaggert.”
“Of course, Miss Miranda. I apologize for being forward. He’s just so very…” The maid sighed. “Pleasant on the eyes.”
Yes, he was that. “And dangerous to everywhere else,” Miranda finished. Oh, he had confidence in spades, to borrow a gambling term. But she needed to remind herself at every moment that charm and confidence only meant that it would hurt more when he reached beyond his grasp. Or if he wasn’t as skilled as he thought himself. In her experience, no one ever was. “Now, what do you think? Will the silver shawl or the brown one go better with the green?”
“Oh, the silver one, definitely.”
“I agree. Will you fetch it for me? I can hear Father rumbling about in the foyer already.”
At least Millie hadn’t commented on the green gown Miranda had chosen to wear this evening. Yes, it was lovely, trimmed with silver beading and a frivolous and exceedingly delicate silver lace overlaying the emerald skirt, but it was also much more fit for a formal evening of twirling about the dance floor and rubbing shoulders with the grandest of the grand. But if she didn’t wear it tonight, she would no doubt be urged by her mother to wear it tomorrow, and she simply didn’t want to debut it on an evening when she would be forced to waltz with Captain Vale. This gown wasn’t for him.
Squaring her shoulders, she informed Millie that the maid wouldn’t be needed until morning. Then she opened her bedchamber door and made her way down to the foyer. “Good evening, Papa,” she said with a smile, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek.
“Ah, the one other Harris who knows how to keep time,” Albert Harris commented, returning the kiss. “I understand your mother wishing to look her finest, though she always does, but I have no idea what’s taking Matthew so long. I believe by now all three of Eloise’s brothers have met and threatened to murder him, have they not?”
She laughed. “I believe so. Niall may only have mentioned removing a single limb, though I can’t be certain.”
He nodded. “It’s your first time meeting all of them together, though. Your mother’s as well. Separately they are blunt-speaking in a rather refreshing way. Together they are… a force I should be happy not to have to face across a battlefield. And I include Lady Aldriss in that assessment.”
Just facing one of them across a table was turning out to be quite tricky enough. “Eloise says they are quite unruly,” she put in, shifting to make room as her mother joined them.
“That, they are,” Elizabeth Harris agreed with a smile. “But oh, so handsome. Don’t you think?”
