Aden tilted his head, a bit surprised, but not willingto let her know that. She’d practically moved heaven and earth to aid Niall in his quest for Amelia-Rose Baxter, after all. The question became deciphering whether she was bluffing, or questing for more information and looking for a way to slip into his life—or if she wasn’t doing any of that and simply wasn’t interested in handing out any of her money to him.
He could get the money himself; it would simply take him longer. And there his mother sat, clearly attempting to remind him that she was not content with being relegated to his personal bank. “How confident are ye that I’ll tell ye anything of my private woes?” he asked aloud, sitting in the matching green chair without being asked. He was a card player, too, after all.
“I didn’t ask you to tell me anything,” she responded coolly, only the curved hand stretched out along the arm of the chair saying that she had more interest in this conversation than she cared to reveal. “You requested a great deal of money, and I refused.”
“Nae to give me; to lend me.”
“I do not ‘lend’ things to my children, Aden. I give, or I do not.”
“So ye reckon that now I’ll ask ye togiveme the blunt, and ye’ll say nae again, and then expect me to have a conversation with ye so that I earn it. But I dunnae owe ye any conversation, or any explanation. Ye’ve nae been a participant in my life for seventeen years. I dunnae need ye to be one, now.”
Her eyes narrowed just a touch. He’d scored a hit, then. “But you do need a thousand pounds from me.”
Abruptly this chat wasn’t so much interesting as it was stifling. Aden rose. “I dunnae need it enough to give ye whatever it is ye want in return.” He turned for the door. “I’ll likely nae be about for the next couple of days. I have some things to attend to.” Time was the one thing hecouldn’t control, but he would have been willing to wager that he didn’t have much of it. And once Matthew spoke with Vale, he would likely have even less.
“I’m going to say a few things,” she stated, to his back. “For every one I get wrong, I will give you a hundred pounds. How does that sound to an accomplished wagerer?”
There it was, her demand for information in exchange for the money, couched in a way that would make it a game he would want to play—wagering her conjectures against his hopefully well-hidden facts. And having the damned money to hand would make things so much easier. “Aye. I’ll give ye a go. And aye, I’ll answer ye honestly, if ye had that on yer mind.”
“I did not.” She sat up straighter, both hands folding into her lap. “The money involves Miranda Harris.”
Aden nodded. “Aye.” The simplest of observations could have told her that.
“You’ve asked her to marry you.”
“That’s a hundred pounds to me.”
“The money is so you can ask her to marry you.”
Indirectly, but he would agree in principle. “Aye.”
A brief smile touched her face before she smothered it again. “The money is for a betrothal gift.”
“Two hundred pounds.”
“You’re trying to demonstrate to Miranda that you don’t rely on me for your every need.”
That sounded like a bit of a jab, but other than noting it, he let it pass. “Three hundred.”
Francesca sat where she was, silent, for a long moment. “Are you attempting to buy off your rival? What’s his name? Captain Vale?”
Her description made him frown. In a sense, yes, he supposed the money was the beginning of him making an attempt to convince Vale to go away. But then again,it wasn’t. And Vale wasn’t so much a rival as he was a crook and a blackmailer. “I reckon that one’s worth fifty quid to me.”
This time she nodded. “I’ll allow that.” Taking a breath, she sat back again. “You are difficult, my middle son.”
“This is yer game. I was about to leave,” he responded, leaning sideways against the closed door.
“So it is.” She studied his face for a few seconds, though he doubted she would see anything he didn’t wish her to. “Miranda is in trouble of some sort.”
Hmm. Perhaps he needed to work a bit harder, if she’d seen that. “Aye.”
“She asked you for money.”
“Four hundred fifty quid.”
“She asked you to get something for her.”
That wasn’t close enough to anything to qualify except in the broadest of interpretations. “Five hundred fifty.”
