“Yes.” As even as they could be while one of them held fifty thousand pounds in promissory notes owed by the other. Because the majority of those weren’t going anywhere. “Speak.”
Matthew blew out his breath, petulant but still compliant. “Lady Glendarril has hold of the purse strings. When she left Scotland she made the earl sign an agreement that the sons had to marry before the daughter, and that they had to take English wives. If any of them fail, she cuts off all funding to Glendarril Park.”
Well, now. That was both interesting and potentially extremely useful, though taking advantage of someone already being coerced by someone else could be tricky. “Go dance with Eloise. And then you and I will go somewhere quiet so you can tell me everything you know about Aden MacTaggert.”
Matthew hurried away like a dog let off its leash. Still annoyed that everyone in the ballroom had seen him step back and let another man finish a dance he’d begun, Robert considered following MacTaggert into the gaming room and emptying the Highlander’s pockets. He had to remind himself that he literally held the winning hand already. The Scotsman could pursue Miranda to his heart’s content, and she would still inevitably become Mrs. Robert Vale.
It seemed far more likely that MacTaggert, who fancied himself a gambler, would be the one doing the challenging. Yes, Robert could imagine it now: the Highlander trying to win back Matthew’s notes and thus set Miranda free. He allowed himself a slight smile. His weeks of plotting, preceded by years of planning his path into Society’s upper reaches, couldn’t be upended by some upstart barbarian who knew how to play faro. But watching MacTaggert try, catching him up in his own net, that could be interesting. And owning the brother of a viscount bound for an eventual earldom, even a Scottish one, could be extremely useful.
The clock in the foyer struck three o’clock as Miranda trudged up the stairs to her bedchamber. Kissing her far-too-merry mother and father good night and refusing to be baited into chatting about the two men now publicly pursuing her, she ducked into her room and closed the door.
Her maid slept in the chair set before the gutteringhearth, and Miranda gently shook her awake. “Don’t apologize,” she said over Millie’s sleepy-eyed protestations. “I’m dead on my feet, myself. Unbutton me and then go to bed, for heaven’s sake. I can manage to pull a few pins from my own hair. I’ve done it before.”
Thank goodness she did have a habit of readying herself for bed after a late night, because tonight she didn’t feel up to answering questions about how horrid Vale had been or how relieved she’d felt when Aden had literally swooped in to rescue her, dancing with her so handily that her feet had barely seemed to touch the floor.
Once Millie left for her own bed downstairs, Miranda shrugged out of her pretty blue gown and pulled her much more comfortable cotton night rail over her head. With a sigh she submerged a cloth in the lemon-scented water of the washbasin and scrubbed the scent of cigars and men and sweat from her face and arms and legs.
She wished she could wash away the entirety of Captain Robert Vale as easily. The only good thing about him at all was that his threats had forced her to seek out Aden and look past the skin of the cynical aloof gambler he presented to the world.
A good portion of Mayfair now believed him to be courting her. Or rather, they believed she’d very nearly accepted Captain Vale only to be confronted by another at least as eligible suitor. Yes, she rather liked the heat between her and Aden, the feeling of being just a breath away from the next touch, and the craving for his presence when he was elsewhere. Every silly conversation she had these days she reimagined with Aden, because evidently he didn’t care a whit that it was impolite to argue with a lady—and she very much enjoyed the challenge he presented.
Grimacing, she pulled the pins and ribbons from her hair and brushed out the unruly mass. She did like AdenMacTaggert. Quite a lot. The fact that he’d more or less declared himself… A slow, delicious shiver traveled down her spine. He might think what she felt was gratitude for a rescue, but for goodness’ sake he hadn’t rescued her yet.
At that troubling thought she set aside her brush and stood to tiptoe her way across the cold wooden floor so she could crawl beneath the blankets of her absurdly comfortable bed. Now she probably would never fall asleep. Captain Vale held Matthew’s notes. As long as he did, any day- or night dreams she had about Aden would be just that—dreams.
It wasn’t even a consolation that Aden seemed likely to be awake, as well. He’d made such a row about finishingTom Jonesand wanting a new book from the Harris House library and being awake reading at three o’clock in the morning—which he couldn’t do without a book, anyway—that she’d begun to think he might be a little soft in the head. None of it made any sense, unless he meant to break into her house and read in her library in the middle of the night, so—
Miranda sat bolt-upright. Had Aden been telling her precisely that? Was he in her library at this very moment? Was he… was he waiting for her? That made much more sense than him suddenly becoming a bedlamite. Or was she being an idiot and overthinking a simple conversation meant to calm her nerves or something? Andthatmade more sense than the brother of a viscount deciding to break into an occupied house for the purpose of bedding the homeowner’s daughter.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and slid her feet into her slippers. If hewasdown there, and if she didn’t go look, would he think she’d been kissing him and flirting with him simply to get his assistance? Or worse,would he decide she was stupid for not being able to decipher his abysmally vague clues?
Slipping on her blue dressing robe, Miranda relit the bedside candle with a spill ignited from the fireplace coals. If someone saw her, she didn’t want to look like she was sneaking. Being restless and searching for a book to read made perfect sense. She’d done it before, and on multiple occasions.
The candle in one hand, she slipped into the hallway and toward the main staircase. She wasn’t trying to be unseen, she reminded herself. Only silent. As far as she knew Matthew hadn’t yet returned home, and while she preferred not to run into him at all, at least she had an excuse in mind. Of course, her brother was likely out losing another ten thousand pounds to Captain Vale, but repaying those notes couldn’t realistically be a part of any plan, anyway.
Matthew didn’t arrive in the foyer as she reached the ground floor and then turned up the wide hallway leading past the library at the back of the house. No one appeared to keep her from going to see if she did indeed have a man waiting for her there in the dark, or if she was just hoping that would be the case.
Blowing out her breath, trying not to look like a wanton hoyden by bursting into the room, she pushed down on the door handle with her free hand.
The door opened silently, thanks to the butler and his obsession with eliminating squeaks.Thank you, Billings.Inside the large room the quartet of curtains masking the tall windows stood open, allowing in the light of a fog-dimmed three-quarter yellow moon. Her candle became the only other source of light in the library.
Aden MacTaggert was not in her library reading, at any rate. She felt abruptly ill that she’d put so much faithinto such a silly notion, and that she’d wanted so badly for him to be there. And now she hoped he’d never been there at all; if he had been, and he’d left, he would not be thinking well of her.
“If ye mean to stay, lass, come in and close that door.”
Chapter Twelve
The low voice came from directly beside her. Miranda jumped as Aden eased into sight around the half-open door. The candle wavered wildly in her hand, sending nightmare shadows up the walls and along the floor. Aden caught hold of her hand before she could drop it and set the entire house on fire.
Shaking herself, she relinquished the candle and closed the door behind her. “I hope you know those were very poor hints you gave. I nearly fell asleep before I realized you might possibly have been trying to tell me—”
His mouth closed over hers. The fingers of his free hand tangled into her loose hair, the sensation nearly as intimate as the kiss. Miranda slid her palms over his shoulders and lifted on her toes, leaning her body along the long, muscular length of him. He was there. She hadn’t imagined some silly rendezvous simply because she craved his company. Aden had said he wanted her, but those had just been words. Except that they weren’t just words, because this kiss would have most damsels swooning. Even she felt weak in the knees.
Pulling her away from the door, he blew out the candle and set it on an end table. “Those were poor hints,I reckon,” he drawled, putting both of his hands on her hips and drawing her up against him again. “But then if ye hadnae come down here I could tell myself I was too cryptic or someaught. I wouldnae have to think ye were just batting yer eyes at me because I’m useful to ye.”
She hit him on one shoulder. “I do not bat my eyes at anyone.”
“Aye, but someaught about ye pulls at me, Miranda. I’ve an answer for nearly everything, but I cannae explain ye, or why the day seems brighter and the room warmer when I’m about ye.”
