“Hand me your dance card, my dear.”
Oh, she wanted to crumble it up and throw it at his head. If she meant to misbehave, though, she wanted to select something more useful than throwing a publictantrum. “Take all the dances,” she said, remembering to keep her voice low. “Let everyone see how you’re attempting to lead me astray. I’m certain that will make you a very popular guest at highbrow parties.”
He glanced at her from beneath the shelf of his brow. “Flail and wail, Miranda. I find it rather intoxicating. You are prey worth capturing. The lone rabbit still flicking its ears in defiance at the wolf.”
That made her want to be ill all over again. Avoiding his fingers, she snatched back the dance card and pencil once he’d finished scrawling his name beside the two waltzes. “You’re not a wolf,” she countered. “You’re a vulture.”
That earned her a brief, humorless smile. “Either way I shall have my prize. Make yourself available on Friday at noon. You’re accepting my invitation to go on a picnic.”
Now he wasn’t even asking when she might be available. He simply expected her to scuttle her other plans—and of course it would look to the outside world like she was canceling engagements in order to spend more time with him, damn it all. More than anything she wanted to inform him that she was not a lone rabbit, that she had a wolf of her own in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to strike. That Aden might have come late to this game, but he knew how to win. Aside from the fact that that wouldn’t do anything but forewarn Vale, however, firstly she wasn’t entirely certain this wolfwashers, and secondly she had no idea where he might be this evening.
“You may go,” Captain Vale said. “Go tell your friends I’m taking you on a picnic, and how romantic you think it is that I’ve claimed both waltzes with you tonight.”
She would not be doing that. Rather than telling him so, she turned her back and walked away. She had no desire at all to go and lie to her friends about this horrid man and the affection she supposedly felt for him. Nordid she want to go stand beside her parents and have to answer their questions.
Vale’s actions had cut her off from friendship, from family. She didn’t know if that had been his intention, but if not for Aden shewouldhave been that lone rabbit desperately trying to avoid being eaten. As she walked over to the roaring fireplace to pretend to warm her hands, she could admit that she wanted to see him. As… challenging as he could be, he made her feel protected. He also made her feel giddy and off-kilter, in a way she could easily see herself craving.
What did that mean, though? They were the definition of incompatible, she and Aden MacTaggert. They agreed about almost nothing. He gambled, frequently. Unlike Vale, Aden didn’t seem to care a whit that she had a reputation for propriety and sophistication—in fact, he teased her about it. And while he was clever—remarkably so—cynicism and amusement wouldn’t help him navigate the drawing rooms of Mayfair any more than they would help her make her way through the Scottish Highlands.
“Last door on the left down the hallway is for chair storage,” a low voice murmured behind her. “Reckon ye can meet me in there in five minutes?”
She nodded, the sudden wish to turn around and look at Aden stronger than she anticipated. He’d come, and so she wasn’t alone. She knew something that Vale did not, and for the moment that, and Aden’s warm, solid presence at her back, meant everything.
Miranda kept an eye on the gold mantel clock, but only made it to minute three before she turned around and wandered out of the ballroom. It was frightfully easy to slip away; everyone preened and twittered like birds in a bright-colored flock, and no one noticed anyone else except to find fault. She made a point of not exhibiting faults.
The door at the back of the hallway stood closed, but with a quick glance behind her she pushed down on the latch, slipped inside the small room, and shut herself in. She could see thanks to a single candle set on the uppermost chair in a stack of three, while Aden had freed another chair and sat there, ankles crossed, a book across his thighs.
He’d forgone his usual kilt tonight, opting instead for dark-gray trousers, a gray waistcoat with purple and green thistles embroidered across it, and a dark-green coat that deepened the shade of his eyes. Only the simple knot in his cravat gave away that he might not have been born to the blue-blooded English aristocracy.
“Like what ye see, do ye, lass?” he asked, closing the book and setting it aside.
“You look very proper,” she offered, her cheeks heating.
Aden climbed to his feet and pulled down another chair, righting it and setting the heavy thing down facing his. “Ye said I shouldnae wear a kilt or I’ll frighten all the lasses away.”
“That’s not exactly what I said, but I think you know that.”
He answered her with a swift grin. “Did ye see the knots in that Lady Penelope’s hair? She’ll have to cut them out to be rid of them.”
“They’re a wig,” she returned, taking a seat as he resumed his.
“Aye? Shechoseto look like a hedgehog?”
Miranda’s lips twitched as she tried to keep from laughing. “The rumor is that Lady Penelope had to cut off her hair early this spring when a trio of her precious cats decided to have a fight over who got to sleep on her head. I heard that at one point she had two cats hanging in her precious golden locks, both of them trying madly to escape the tangle.”
“Ye Sassenach are all mad, so how did that nae become the latest fashion?”
She shrugged. “It’s quite difficult to find matching cats, you know.”
His short laugh warmed her to her toes. Perhaps they could simply spend the rest of the evening in this storage room, and Captain Vale could go hang himself. That, though, smacked of cowardice, and given that she’d already given Vale a piece of her mind, he might well decide to inform her parents about everything—and that would not bode well for anyone.
“What are we doing in here?” she made herself ask. “I cannot simply hide from that rat.”
“I’m here and he’s here,” Aden replied. “It seemed wise that we should have the same story about why that is.”
A shiver ran up her spine. “Aden, I will not have you making a mess simply because you enjoy chaos.”
To her surprise, he grinned. “Do I enjoy chaos, then? I’d nae thought of it that way. I suppose I do, a wee bit. Especially when I’ve caused it.”
