“Eat something,” her brother’s betrothed repeated, with a sympathetic smile. “Coll and Niall are with Aden now; everything will be fine.”
“I wish Coll had told us why he rushed in like a fox after a chicken,” Amy put in, her own luncheon half uneaten. “Niall wouldn’t take the time to say before they both ran out again. It seemed serious, though. Coll didn’t even stop to eat.”
Eloise pushed to her feet. “I’m going to see if Mama’s heard anything. I think she sent a spy to follow Aden.”
Once she was gone, Amy broke a biscuit in half and gave one piece to Miranda. “Niall saved my life, you know,” she said conversationally. “Not from anything as horrible as what you’re facing, but he did save me.” She ate a bite of biscuit. “Mm. These are good. I think Mrs. Gordon added a dash of cinnamon.”
“How did Niall save you?” Miranda asked. Being saved seemed to be a good thing, but then Amy had waited tospeak until Eloise was elsewhere. If this was more intrigue, Miranda didn’t think her heart would be able to stand it. She’d already been fretting for three hours while Aden faced Vale. To lose? Thank goodness he’d told her about his plan, but losing on purpose, relying on a man’s poor character to save her… As much as she trusted Aden, it all made her feel very vulnerable. Whatever happened, it would shape the remainder of her life. And lately she’d had a few thoughts of her own on that very topic.
“You’ve met my mother,” Amy said, lowering her voice further. “She wanted me to marry a title, and she settled on Viscount Glendarril.”
“Aden’s brother? Where was I when all this happened?”
“Tending your aunt and cousins, I think. Anyway, I spent the first part of this Season trying to be someone a viscount—or an earl or a marquis—would consider a proper wife. It was awful. But then Niall stepped in, and he liked that I sometimes speak my mind. He liked… me.” She smiled, a small, intimate smile that Miranda understood very well, even if it made her a little jealous. “And that’s why I go by Amy now, and not the dreadful mouthful of Amelia-Rose Hyacinth my mother insisted was better. However miserable it made me.”
“I’m very happy for you, Amy.”
“Yes, so am I. My point I suppose, is that once Niall knew that he loved me, and I loved him, nothing stopped him. Not another beau, not my mother, not England.” She edged even closer. “You mustn’t tell anyone, but he and his brothers kidnapped Lord West and stole his coach, and then he kidnapped me and took us all the way to Gretna Green. Nothing stops a MacTaggert.” She straightened again. “Which I suppose is my way of saying that given the way Aden looks at you, he’s going to do whatever he has to in order to keep you for himself.”
Since Vale had made his appearance known, she’d spent more time thinking about being free than anything else. Lately, though, the image in her head had altered a little. It was about conversations with Aden, about hearing his voice reading one of those books he so loved aloud to her, it was about his kiss and his touch and the weight of him on her and sex.
If he did help free her, she could go back to the way it had been before Vale—her, saving dances for the silly late-arriving young men who needed a partner, worrying over nothing more serious than someone wearing the same colors as she to a soiree, being her parents’ adored daughter who had been told multiple times she didn’t need to marry if she didn’t wish to. Her family was well-enough respected, their status enough admired, that whoever she did eventually marry,ifshe did eventually marry, would more than likely overlook her less-than-virginal status.
But if she did go back to pretending none of the past weeks had happened, Aden would marry someone else. Hehadto; everyone knew that his mother had decreed her sons should wed before their sister. She suspected it had to do with money, though no one had been able to confirm that. Whatever the incentive, Niall had married Amy, Lord Glendarril had lately been seen dancing country dances despite his dislike of hopping about, and Aden… Aden had just hours ago told her that he loved her. The sound of those words still wrapped warm and comforting and safe around her.
It helped a little to realize that if indeed all he had needed was a wife, there were a plethora of possibilities all around him that would have all taken less effort than she. Of course, he hadn’t proposed to her, hadn’t said anything about ever afters, but then she couldn’t have answered the way she wanted to. Not while she had another man’s chains around her neck.
“I have not heard anything,” Lady Aldriss said, gliding into the breakfast room, Eloise on her heels. “Further, I think we should all repair to more comfortable chairs, and perhaps have a glass of wine. I think that would be eminently more helpful than fretting over tea and biscuits.”
That did sound more pleasant, especially if she could have several glasses of wine, Miranda decided. She was halfway through her first when Lady Aldriss sat on the deep couch beside her. “How are you, my dear?”
“Worried,” she answered, rather grateful that she’d made the formidable woman’s acquaintance weeks ago, before Matthew had officially offered for Eloise. Francesca Oswell-MacTaggert preferred direct talk, though she was a consummate expert at speaking around any given subject and still acquiring precisely the information she was after. Up until now her most digging questions had been about Matthew’s character—and that had been before Robert Vale, or at least beforeshe’dknown anything about the awful captain and about Matthew’s debts.
“As am I. When one of my sons says he means to make a ruckus, especially one who’s slipped through life avoiding them, it does rather concern me.”
Miranda took another sip of wine. “If you don’t wish me to speak of it please say so, but I… Your sons have only lately come to London. How do you know Aden has ‘slipped through life’?”
“Ah.” The countess regarded her with dark-green eyes. “I am a woman of great wealth and greater determination. Aside from the letters Eloise’s father has written her about her brothers, I have… listened. For trouble, for stories, for anything I could grasp that might bring mean inch closer to their lives.” Her voice tightened a little around the words, but Miranda could only imagine what it would be like to be so far away from her own children, and for so long. Seventeen years, according to the conventional rumors.
“That was insufficient, I take it?” she pursued.
“Extremely so. It’s one thing hearing and seeing Aden described as ‘stealthy’ or ‘keeping his own counsel,’ and quite another to realize he’s fallen in love only after he told me so. Not in so many words, but I believe you know of what I speak.”
Warmth crept up her cheeks. “I believe I do,” Miranda conceded.
Lady Aldriss smiled. “If you ever have the opportunity, purchase him a saddle.” She patted Miranda on the knee. “Don’t ask me why.”
The front door opened. “Miranda?” Aden called, his low brogue echoing into the grand house.
“We’re in the morning room,” Eloise returned, before she could do so.
Miranda stood as the three brothers entered the room. They had all dressed like proper English aristocrats, no doubt to accommodate Boodle’s rules, but while the oldest and the youngest might have fooled anyone watching, the middle MacTaggert didn’t look at all gentlemanly. One sleeve of his coat had split a seam, his cravat hung limp and untied around his neck, and red drips stained both it and his white shirt beneath. She gasped. “What in the world happened?”
He crossed the room, bent his head, and kissed her—right there, in front of everyone. “I willnae be getting an invitation to join Boodle’s,” he drawled, keeping an arm looped around her waist as he took the seat beside her, on the far side from where his mother still sat.
“You’re bleeding.” She brushed a hand along his mouth, feeling the lump of a bruise forming beneath the skin.
“I walloped Captain Robert Vale. Bent his beak nearly back into human shape.”
