More arms surrounded her from the other side. “Tell us or don’t,” Amy soothed. “We are here for you.”
More frustrated, worried bits softened into mush. “It’s a secret,” she managed thickly.
“A sad secret?” Eloise asked, rocking her now like a babe. “Did Aden do something horrid? I’ll box his ears.”
“Not Aden,” Miranda sobbed, though of course Aden was directly at the center of it all. “I’m in… so much… trouble!”
“Smythe, fetch my mother and some peppermint tea, and close the door, please,” Eloise stated.
By the time Miranda had enough control of her voice to protest that she didn’t need either tea or Lady Aldriss, one was cupped in her hands and the other stood in front of her, a gorgeous multicolored dressing robe knottedaround her and her always-perfect salt-and-pepper hair loose down her back. The countess still managed to look elegant, competent, and, for her, very curious.
“I… don’t…” Miranda sniffed.
“Have a sip of tea, dear,” Lady Aldriss urged, pulling a chair close to sit a few feet in front of her.
Miranda sipped the hot tea and tried to gather in her thoughts and her scattered broken bits. She couldn’t tell them anything—if they knew what sort of debt Matthew was in, the countess would definitely call off the wedding. Eloise and Matthew would be heartbroken, and while it wasn’t her fault, they would both blame her for it.
The countess regarded her with cool green eyes. “Your brother has been wagering, and it has caused you some difficulties,” she said after a moment.
Eloise gasped. “Matthew wouldn’t! He knows—”
“My dear,” her mother interrupted, “Matthew is an amiable young man who joins in rather than standing back and observing. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that Captain Vale he’s befriended is rather… how shall I put it? Self-absorbed. And insistent on being so.”
“But Mama, he’s courting Miranda. You shouldn’t—”
“Aden is also courting Miranda. I believe I’m supposed to be prejudiced in his favor.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “But that isn’t presently the point, is it? Or shall I continue to speculate?”
Shaking her head, Miranda took another gulp of tea before she set it aside. Everything she knew screamed at her not to tell anyone, not to risk damaging her family’s reputation by gossiping about it. But she also remembered what Aden had said, that Vale knew the rules, too, and that he used them against her. She liked the idea of playing by her own rules; she certainly enjoyed where it had led with Aden. This, though, was different. This was telling people who could ruin her without any effort atall. People Aden hadn’t told… Except that he’d told the countess something, enough for her to know that her troubles had something to do with Matthew and Captain Vale.
Could she trust them? Or was it that she wanted to so badly? Miranda made herself take a deep, slow breath. “What I’m about to tell you, you cannot tellanyone. My parents—they don’t even know. They would be so… mortified.”
Eloise clasped her hand and squeezed it. “We’re MacTaggerts, Miranda. You and Matthew are part of our clan. And clan comes before everything.”
If that statement surprised Lady Aldriss, she didn’t show it. In her own mind, it explained some things about Aden: If he considered Matthew, and by extension her, part of his clan, she imagined he would go to some length to protect what he considered his. Did he think of her as his, or was she a pleasant diversion in his quest to aid Eloise and the man his sister loved?
That thought became entirely too painful to contemplate further, so instead she began speaking. She told them about Vale being Lord George Humphries’s cousin and then not being his cousin, about how Vale had lured amiable Matthew into owing more than he could possibly repay, about Vale’s actual plan to become an instant fixture within thetonby marrying her and using her reputation to shape his own. She told them about going to Aden for advice and that he’d agreed to help her, though she did leave out the main intimate details of their relationship.
When she’d finished, she sat back, drained—and Eloise began to cry.Oh, dear.“What is it?” she asked, squeezing her friend’s hand. “Aden says he has a plan.”
Eloise shook her head. “They’re going to murder Matthew,” she wailed.
“Who is?”
“My brothers! He panicked, and he was so stupid, butthey won’t—they won’t care that I love him! Only that he made a horrid, wretched mistake!”
Across from them, Lady Aldriss lifted an eyebrow. “It would seem, my darling, that he does rather deserve a thrashing.”
“I know, but they’re very large! I know they’ll murder him. And I shall be…” She hiccuped. “I shall be widowed before I’m ever married!”
Amy opened her mouth at that quite impossible scenario, but the countess gave a subtle shake of her head. “I believe Miranda said that Aden spoke to Matthew about his lapse in judgment, and that Matthew agreed to help extricate himself. Aden most certainly did not attempt to murder Matthew—which we know for a fact because if he had, Matthew would be dead.”
“That’s true,” Eloise admitted, swiping at her tears as she looked over at Miranda. “And killing your brother would make you cross, so of course Aden wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t want you to be cross.”
While Aden seemed to delight in aggravating her, Miranda couldn’t recall him ever, by either his actions or his inaction, doing anything that would frighten or harm her, or allowing any such thing around her—other than the large ghoul that was Captain Vale, who’d dug in his claws well before Aden had become involved. Of course none of this was finished yet, but just the idea that Aden acted as he did to keep her safe felt warm and comfortable and… irresistible. She cleared her throat. “Aden did seem to think that Matthew could be redeemed.”
“Oh, thank heavens.”
“Niall rode out with him yesterday,” Amy added, “with the explanation that Aden needed help resolving a problem. I would imagine Aden told him something about it, or he wouldn’t have gone. Wherever they were headed, they still haven’t returned.”
