Aden had gone somewhere? That didn’t sound like the evening of gambling he’d vaguely described. Of course he’d also said, once again, that he didn’t want her to have to attempt to lie. No, he’d simply given her a few suggestions for conversation, ones that seemed to have proved deeply annoying to Vale, and then he’d taken a handful of strawberries and left. “I’m glad he took help with him, but I don’t know where he’s gone, either.”
“Has anyone seen Captain Vale?” Eloise piped in, apparently untroubled by the idea of bloodshed as long as the victim wasn’t her betrothed.
“He was sound when he left my house at midnight,” she returned.
“He still is, as far as I ken.”
The low-pitched drawl came from the doorway, and Miranda whipped her head around to see Aden standing there and stripping off riding gloves, his brother Niall in the foyer behind him. “Aden,” she breathed, every ounce of her wanting to run into his arms. Vale hadn’t killed him and left him in an alley somewhere. At least she could tell herself that was the feeling flooding through her like mulled cider on a winter night. Relief. Yes, that was it.
“Ye decided to share yer story then, did ye, lass?”
Jealousy? Was that what the flash in his eyes, the sharp tone beneath his easy words, had been? Jealousy that he wasn’t the only one who knew her secret, any longer?
“She didn’t intend to,” Lady Aldriss commented, rising. “I have no idea how she managed to go so long without even the slightest hint of the weight on her shoulders, but evidently your sister being kind to her made her cry. We needled the rest out of her after that.”
“Nae doubt. As ye’re here and have saved me a ride over to Harris House later, Miranda, might I have a word with ye? In private?”
Miranda waited a beat for someone to protest. Apparently all the females in the room could read his expression as well as she could, though, because no one so much as let out a peep. Nodding, she stood. “Of course.”
“The breakfast room, I reckon,” he said once she’d joined him in the doorway. “I’m hungry.”
“As am I,” Niall interjected.
“Ye can wait a bloody minute.”
“Aye. I can do that.”
Niall stepped out of the way, and she followed Aden’s long stride into the breakfast room. The lone footman inside scooted out a side door and shut it after one look at Aden, who let her pass him and then closed the door behind her.Wonderful.Six-feet-plus of angry Highlander whose help she still needed. “Ididwant to tell someone I could trust about all this,” she stated, lifting her chin and unwilling either to prevaricate or to apologize. “You suggested I abide by my own rules.”
He picked up a slice of beef in his fingers and stuffed it into his mouth.
“I did not, however, mean to tell your mother. Eloise called for her, and I was… I didn’t wish to leave.”
Aden took someone’s half-empty cup of tea from the table and used it to wash down the beef.
“Are you not going to say anything?” she prompted. “I am not going to apologize for wanting to talk to someone who isn’t—”
“Me?” he cut in.
“Someone who isn’t already tangled up in this mess. Don’t be an ass, Aden.”
Narrowing one eye, he went after the bread, tearing off a hunk with his fingers. “Did ye just call me an arse?”
“If you’re the one standing there glaring at me while you attack innocent bits of food, then yes, I called you an ass.”
“Good.” He finished off someone else’s tea.
Miranda blinked. “‘Good’?”
“I’ve been on horseback for fourteen of the past twenty hours. For the last seven I’ve been imagining ye being forced into marrying Vulture Vale this morning before I made it back here, and wondering whether they would hang or transport the second son of a Highlands earl for murder.”
“A—”
He held up one finger. “But ye’re here, and ye’re in high enough spirits to curse at me, and I reckon that’s a good thing. Now come over here and kiss me before I knock the table over to get at ye.”
Chapter Fifteen
The lass was sure of herself, so it didn’t surprise Aden when she marched up to him, took the bread out of his hand, and dragged herself up by his lapels to kiss him on the mouth. For some damned reason she tasted like peppermint. It, she, intoxicated him.
