Well. Miranda slid her hand around the dark-gray sleeve of his coat. It would have been lovely to stay that way, touching him and knowing not even Vale would be likely to approach, but it was only a very momentary respite.
Rather than head directly toward the window-surrounded alcove where her parents sat conversing with Aden’s mother Lady Aldriss and a handful of other friends, he angled them toward the doorway of the gaming room. As she watched, feeling almost like a spectator in her own play, they crossed directly in front of Robert Vale. The captain narrowed his bird-of-prey eyes, and Aden grinned at him.
“I dunnae care what ye think I should call him, Miranda,” Aden drawled, continuing on toward their parents, “the man does look like a damned vulture. I reckon I like my odds.”
“What the devil was that, Aden?” she demanded as soon as they were out of earshot. “And why? Why would you deliber—”
“Who do ye reckon he’s plotting against right now?” he interrupted. “Me.”
“That’s not what I mean.”Men.“You just declared—out loud—that you’re pursuing me. Don’t you realize what—”
“Miranda,” he countered again, his mouth lifting in a slow smile. “I ken what I just did.” He took a breath. “I’m hoping it’s made him angry. Even more angry than me butting into his waltz did. Angry men make mistakes.”
Either he was playing a game and had just made a wager, or he wanted her to think that. Considering the importance of finding the correct answer to that question, Miranda decided to reserve judgment and wait for further evidence. “Are you hoping he challenges you to a duel or something? You can’t make him much angrier without risking fisticuffs.”
That made him chuckle. “Fisticuffs sounds dainty. If he tried to flatten me—now, that would be interesting. I want him to be thinking he’d like to grind me into dust, lass. Dunnae lie to him for me. Ye warned me away, ye told me that I’ll nae win because Vale has someaught he’s holding over Matthew. Tell him that I told ye I like a challenge. Which I do. And which ye are, Miranda.”
With that he lowered his arm, evaded his mother as she stood to intercept him, and vanished from the ballroom as if he’d never been there at all. But what he’d done remained. Now everyone knew she had two men courting her. Neither had asked her opinion on the matter, though at least Aden had reason to believe she liked him.
This all felt important and significant, but Aden hadput more than simple—relatively simple—affection into play. The captain had set up a very complicated game of chess and had moved all the pieces precisely where he wanted them, and Aden had just sat down opposite Vale and dumped over the table.
He’d set everything in disarray and put Robert Vale’s attention squarely on him. She knew she should be relieved that someone else had taken some of the weight from her shoulders, but mostly she felt worried. Adenhadto be equal to the challenge, because now he’d stood up for her. In a sense he’d tied their fates together, whether by accident or, as she suspected, by design. And since she couldn’t afford to lose, neither could he.
Captain Robert Vale watched Aden MacTaggert tilt his head toward Miranda Harris as the two of them spoke, watched Miranda lean in MacTaggert’s direction even when she frowned at him. It wasn’t a ruse, then. The Highlander was in pursuit, and she liked it. Liked him.
When MacTaggert slipped away into the gaming room, he made a point of avoiding a petite, brown-and gray-haired woman in a very tasteful, and very expensive-looking, burgundy gown. Robert took half a step closer, then turned to find Matthew Harris mooning over his pretty, naive fiancée. “A word,” he said, not in the mood to be more polite than that.
Obediently Matthew begged Lady Eloise’s forgiveness and left her side. That was what Robert liked to see: someone who knew how to show him the respect he deserved.
“What is it? I’ve only a minute until the next quadrille.”
“Who is the woman seated beside your mother?”
Matthew looked. “That’s Eloise’s mother. The Countess Glendarril.”
“Not ‘of’ Glendarril?”
“No. It’s a Scottish title. ‘Of’ makes a title sound too English, I supposed. The e—”
“Why would Aden MacTaggert want to avoid his mother?” Robert interrupted, out of patience with the pup’s good-natured yapping.
“Lady Glendarril ordered her sons down from Scotland and decreed they should marry proper English wives.”
“She ‘decreed’? How?”
Frowning, Matthew glanced over his shoulder. “I promised Eloise the quad—”
“Then speak, and you won’t have to miss it.”
“Everyone says Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert ordered it. She can be quite formidable. I nearly pissed myself when I asked her permission to wed El—”
“I don’t care what everyone says, Matthew,” Robert cut in again. “There’s more to it or you wouldn’t be rambling. Eloise told you something, I’d wager, and you will tell me. Now. I’m a busy man.”
“She swore me to secrecy.”
“Fifty thousand pounds, Matthew. Do not make me keep reminding you.”
“When you do, I remind you that once you’ve married Miranda we’ll be even.”
