He put his palm on his chest, lifting both eyebrows. “Me?” the very image of innocence queried. “Let me have a gander at this card of yers, then.”
Even more suspicious now, she handed it over. Aden perused it, a slight frown furrowing his brow. “Ye’ve nae a single dance free.”
Miranda took back her card. “Why do I have the feeling we’re in the middle of a play where you’re the only one who knows the lines?”
His expression stilled for half a dozen beats of her heart, which she knew because she counted them. “If I had any assurance at all that ye’d nae punch me in the face, I’d kiss ye right now, in front of all these Sassenach,” he finally said. “I’m sorely tempted as it is.”
“Considering that would give me a whole new set of problems in addition to not ridding me of the ones I already have, I think Iwouldhave to punch you.” Of course, for a moment or two she would also have very much enjoyed it—until the moment her entire present and future came crashing down around her ears.
His gaze held hers, gray-green and holding, she decided, far more secrets than he’d yet chosen to disclose to her. “I’m still tempted.”
As her cheeks heated, she abruptly realized what this exchange must look like to anyone who might happen to be watching them. “Vale told me to send you away. Are we playing out that conversation in semaphores? You frown, demand my card, I frown, I blush, you turn your serious, soulful gaze on me?”
“I—”
“You might have simply said something,” she went on. “But no, you have to set your own stage and put on a play. Do you think I’m completely helpless and lost without your overlarge muscles and brain to come to my half-witted rescue?”
Aden took half a step closer. “What I think, Miranda, is that ye dunnae like to lie, and ye arenae comfortable with it. If I can put a bit of the weight ye carry on my shoulders, I reckon I’m strong enough to bear it. And to make it clear as glass, partner, I mean to uphold my end of our agreement. If ye dunnae like my methods, or if ye dunnae trust me, find a more righteous man.”
Chapter Eleven
Miranda lifted a hand to touch Aden’s cheek. Before she could complete the motion, the setting, the hundred pairs of eyes, crashed back into her thoughts like an unwelcome nest of hornets, and she swiftly lowered her hand again. She couldn’t help herself. After the first time he’d kissed her, she’d felt like a moth before a flame. “I trust you,” she murmured, clenching her fingers. “But for heaven’s sake, don’t spare me from unpleasantness. I want to know the steps. I will take them with you.”
His gaze searched hers for a moment before he nodded. “Then I’ll tell ye Vale’s looking at us right now. He’s nae happy. If ye tell him that ye tried to be rid of me and I wouldnae take the hint, that would be helpful. Dividing his attention, turning some of it away from ye, is helpful. Now walk away, or he’ll reckon ye’re as reluctant as I am to part company.”
Frowning, she took a step backward, the motion harder than she expected. In his presence she felt… not safe, but protected. Turning away from that wasn’t pleasant. Or remotely easy. “If you want to avoid people gossiping about how you approached me twice and weren’t granted a dance either time, I suggest you go find someone prettyand popular with whom to waltz. Patricia LeMere would suffice, as would Alice Hardy.”
Aden narrowed one eye. “I’d rather shave a hungry bear than dance with Alice Hardy,” he said, taking two steps away from her and then turning his back.
She nearly went after him. He’d more or less admitted to staging their conversation in order to tell the tale he wanted Vale to see, and he still hadn’t promised to tell her what, precisely, he happened to be planning. And she couldn’t even claim that it was her own common sense that stopped her. Rather, it was his mountain of a brother, Lord Glendarril, arriving in front of her for the quadrille.
“Ye ready, lass?”
“Yes.” She put her hand around his forearm. “Your brother enjoys keeping people in the dark, doesn’t he?”
“Aden? Aye. He specializes in nae telling another soul what he’s about,” Coll agreed, walking with her onto the dance floor. “Half the time we dunnae ken whether he’s even in the house or nae.”
A quadrille wasn’t the best opportunity for conversation, but it marked a definite improvement over a country dance—and Miranda decided this was an opportunity she couldn’t let pass her by. Yes, rumors had set her against Aden before they’d ever met, but Coll was his older brother. If anyone had some insight into a MacTaggert brother it would be another MacTaggert.
“Aden is unreliable, then?” she began as they took their place around one of the five circles of dancers on the floor.
“I didnae say that,” the viscount rumbled. “Aden keeps his thoughts and plans to himself, is all.” As the music began, he bowed, and she curtsied. “I’ve nae been in a brawl when he wasnae there to bloody noses alongside me.”
In Highlander terms, that was no doubt a high compliment. Her predicament, however, couldn’t be solved by punching. “I heard that he once began wagering with a shilling and ended with a horse a day later.”
Glendarril swung around behind her and back to the front again. “He didnae wager with the shilling. Our da was making a point about the value of a shilling. Aden wagered him he couldtradenae but a shilling and end with a fine-quality horse. It took him an entire turn of the sun, but I can swear to it that that shilling became a pot of stew, a basket of trout, a chair, a goat, bagpipes, a sheep, some things I cannae remember, a pair of coos, and then Loki. And that chestnut is a damn fine animal. Aden’s been riding him for three years, now.”
Miranda did two turns about the circle as she pondered that bit of information. The very thing she’d flung at his face when they’d first met, the incident she’d seized on as proof that Aden was a deep-playing gambler and therefore untrustworthy, had only peripherally been about wagering. And he’d never bothered to correct her.
If circumstance hadn’t forced her to seek out his help, she would more than likely have seen him at a few family dinners, at Matthew and Eloise’s wedding, and nothing else. After all, he’d come to London expressly to find a bride. That was what he would have been spending his time doing, what heshouldbe doing now. Tonight. And she would be nearly betrothed to Captain Robert Vale.
While the question of what he thought he was doing about his own matrimony while he found vacant rooms in which the two of them could meet and kiss sparked another set of imaginings entirely, she pushed them aside for later contemplation. Her plate at this moment was far too full for flights of fancy. If they were flights of fancy. If he was who she wanted.
As she pranced around her circle of dancers again, she caught sight of Captain Vale watching her. His expression,a horrid combination of avarice and smugness, chilled her to her heart. Aden wanted her, had told her so, but he’d also made it clear that the ultimate choice would be hers. Vale wouldn’t bother with such niceties. He coveted her position in Society, and despite all her comments of disgust—or perhaps because of them—he now apparently covetedher. Or at least wanted offspring to carry on his legacy of stolen aristocracy.
The horror of that thought nearly stopped her heart.Good God.The thought of him kissing her as Aden did, of him… in bed and touching her… She shivered.
“Ye well, lass?” Coll MacTaggert asked, taking her hand for one last turn through the circle. “Ye’ve got a gray caste to ye.”
