She frowned. “So he took over the debts of other gamblers?” When he didn’t answer she looked at the stack of papers still in his hands, then up to his face again.No. It couldn’t be.“He has Uncle John’s debts, doesn’t he?”
“Damnation, ye’re quick,” he commented. “Aye. Hedidhave them. He doesnae have them now. Ye do.” He handed them to her. “No notes scribbled on them, other thanMiranda’s unclewritten on the back. A bit of additional leverage against ye, I reckon.”
A few more chains with which to bind her. And freedom for John Temple to return to his family, if he was still alive.Good heavens.It was both horrible that Vale saw a man’s life as nothing more than leverage against her, and wonderful that Aden’s actions had set someone else dear to her free. As soon as she could arrange it, every newspaper in America would be carrying an advertisement to Uncle John, notifying him that he was free and could come home.
“Ye’re pleased, aye?” he asked, making one more notation before he set aside his pencil.
“Oh, yes.” She kissed him again. How could she not? “When you perform a rescue, you don’t muck about with it, do you?”
Putting the rest of the papers back into the sack, he stood up. He’d put on his kilt, though he was still bare-chested and barefoot. “Ye’re the one who wanted to bringall these back with ye. I would’ve burned them on the spot.”
“That’s why we make such a sound partnership,” she said. “We catch the leaks in each other’s boats.”
“That, we do.” He took her hand, helping her off his bed and handing her the shift she’d discarded earlier. “I have all the names, now. And I wrote out notes to Lord George and yer brother; the sooner they know what’s happened, the better.” Scowling, he handed her the bulging sack. “Ye should do this, Miranda.”
She pulled on the thin muslin shift, then, her heart hammering, added Uncle John’s notes to the sack. With Aden behind her, she carried it over to the fireplace. The fire still crackled; he must have stoked it when he got up earlier to retrieve the notes.
“Part of me wants to perform some sort of ceremony,” she mused, crouching, “but I rather think they just need to go away before they can do more harm.” With that she leaned forward and set the sack into the middle of the fire.
“Well done, lass,” Aden breathed, squatting down beside her to watch the cloth begin to smoke and then darken into flame. “He’s finished, and ye’re free.”
One man’s livelihood destroyed and thirty-seven men and women set free, all in the space of five minutes full of smoke and fire. Simple and swift, and oh, so momentous all at the same time. Once nothing remained but ash and a few blackened edges of paper, Aden straightened and drew her to her feet beside him.
“Ye need to get yerself into the bedchamber Lady Aldriss gave over to ye, Miranda Harris. Coll willnae say anything, but Eloise will faint if she sees ye leaving my room with yer hair loose and still wearing yesterday’s clothes.”
Yes, they couldn’t have that. If someone found herin Aden’s room, she would be compelled to marry him. Heaven forfend.
“Someaught on yer mind, lass?” he queried, narrowing one eye. “Ye’ve a look about ye. Nae a somber, contemplative look, either. Something a bit more devilish.”
“Just last night you were advising me to do as I pleased,” she returned. “But now you’re suddenly worried about propriety?”
“I reckon this should be the part where ye curtsy to Society, is all. Unless ye want everyone to know we’re lovers, ye and me.”
“Oh, no, we can’t have that,” she retorted, knowing she sounded flippant, and not caring if he heard it. He was so blasted determined not to step on her freedom that it would have been amusing if it wasn’t so aggravating.
“I’ll show ye to where ye’ve spent the night, then.”
While he shook out her gown, Miranda knotted her hair in a loose ponytail. “And then I’ll go home, I assume?”
He paused his motion. “I imagine it would look odd if ye stayed on, yer own house being so close by.”
Now she wanted to punch him again. Part of what he’d been telling her all alongdidmake sense, though, whether she cared to admit it or not. All these things—Vale, Matthew’s debt, meeting Aden, her… exploration and enjoyment of her carnal side—had flown by at breakneck speed. She needed time and quiet to sort through them.
At the same time, there were things sheknew, things that no amount of contemplation could alter. Things like how she felt about Aden. Now she just needed a way to convince him.
Once she looked nearly put back together, he pulled on his own shirt and stomped into his boots. “Ready, lass?”
“Yes. I’m already awake, though, and will be heading downstairs very soon to find some breakfast.”
“I’m famished, myself.” So abruptly it made her gasp, Aden yanked her against his chest and bent his head to take her mouth in a hot, toe-curling kiss. “There,” he said after a moment, straightening again. “That should do me for a few minutes.”
Before she could protest that nowsheneeded a moment, he favored her with a wicked grin, inched open the door to peek out, and then led her down the hallway just past Eloise’s door. He motioned for her to wait there and then slipped inside the neighboring bedchamber. Emerging a moment later, he motioned her inside.
“Eloise put one of her gowns in there for ye, it looks like,” he whispered, stepping around her back into the hallway and pulling the door shut between them. “I’ll see ye shortly.”
Once she was alone, Miranda walked across the small bedchamber to push open the curtains, then she sank into a chair. Vale didn’t know yet that his reign of terror was finished. No doubt he expected her to appear at Lord George’s house for breakfast at precisely eight o’clock, as she’d been bidden by the butler. If someone still watched Oswell House, Vale would know she remained here.
At that thought a tremor ran through her. The captain didn’t know yet that he’d lost his teeth. He might well arrive at the front door of Oswell House, demanding to know why she hadn’t accepted his improper, outrageous invitation.
