“Aye. I realize.”
“I won’t allow you to do that for m—”
“Excuse me,” his mother said, pushing open the door and shifting sideways to allow Brògan into the room before her. “Your dog, it seems, missed you so much last night that in her despair she saw fit to disassemble the blue footstool.”
Aden hopped down from his seat on the table and crouched to ruffle Brògan’s ears. She’d gained weight in the few weeks since they’d found each other, and her bedraggled coat had taken on a much healthier sheen. “Sorry, lass,” he said, straightening again.
“Aden,” Miranda said through clenched teeth, a smile on her face, “do not leave me sitting up here on your mother’s breakfast table.”
He lifted her down, then bent his head and kissed her for good measure. “Ye’re a fine, bonny lass, ye are,” hewhispered, his forehead tipped against hers. “I didnae expect ye, either. Nae much surprises me. Ye have. And the only thing that scares me is that when ye realize ye’re free, ye’ll nae wish to be caught again.”
With that he put her in his mother’s care even though he would have preferred to take her with him, and instead went upstairs with Brògan to try to get some sleep. Wagering took a clear mind, even when one of the players meant to lose. Especially then, because Vale couldn’t know that was the plan.
But he did. And he knew what the real prize was. A lass, a lifetime, and a love he’d never expected to find at all, much less in London. He had her in sight, in touching distance. And he did not mean to lose this war, because doing so would cost him far more than he was prepared to give.
“But yer majesty, he’ll throw someaught at ye,” the odd young man the three brothers shared as their valet whispered, blocking Francesca from approaching Aden’s closed bedchamber door. “And he’s got good aim.”
“He will not throw anything at me,” she countered.
“But—”
“That will be all, Oscar.”
“Aye, yer majesty. Do duck, though, for Saint Andrew’s sake.”
As the valet backed away from the door, Francesca stepped forward, rapped her knuckles against the hard, old oak, and then pushed it open. “Aden?”
He sat up from the middle of a pile of pillows and sheets. “What’s amiss?”
“You’ve received a note. From Captain Vale.”
Cursing, her middle son slid to his feet. Bare-chested, naked in fact but for an old kilt, only traces of the skinny young boy he’d been remained. In that lad’s stead stooda tall, well-muscled young man of twenty-seven years with a mop of unruly black hair even longer than he’d demanded to wear it as a boy.
“How long was I asleep?” he demanded, crossing the floor to her and taking the folded note out of her hand.
“Not even thirty minutes, I’m afraid.”
“I can believe that.” He broke the wax seal and opened the paper. “Bloody damnation,” he muttered, followed by a few words in Scots Gaelic that sounded very familiar and very colorful.
“May I ask what it is?”
He handed her the note, turned on his heel, and dove into his wardrobe. “Is Miranda still here?”
“Yes. I’ve sent over a note asking her parents to allow her to spend the night.”
She looked down at the missive. In plain, unadorned lettering, it said,Aden MacTaggert. I’m at Boodle’s, and I’m tired of waiting for you to screw up enough courage to face me. Do so now, in the next thirty minutes, or I will call you a coward and a bounder. Whatever you’re planning has already failed. Meet me across the table, or slink back to Scotland like the craven you are. Captain R. Vale.
“Well, that’s quite pointed,” she commented, folding it again. “You’re going, I presume?”
“Of course I’m going.”
As he unbelted his kilt she turned her back. There were some things a mother simply didn’t want to see. “You were going to meet him anyway, yes?”
“Aye. I meant to call him out tonight. No doubt one of his lackeys told him I’d been gone all night, and he reckoned to catch me while I’m tired.” Material rustled. “My nethers are covered again, my lady.”
“So you’re going to challenge him—or accept his challenge, rather—to a game of cards?”
Aden pulled a shirt over his head and tucked it into histrousers. “I did as ye asked. Coll and Niall know what I’m about. I keep my word,màthair, but I dunnae owe ye anything else.”
