“I’ll … ruin you, you, MacTaggert,” Vale rasped, scrambling onto his hands and knees and trying to crawl away. “And you will … never set eyes on Miranda Harris again! Do … you hear me?”
Aden shoved him over and grabbed him by the shirt with one hand to punch him with the other. He had to make this work. He’d given his word. “Ye delusional wee man,” he growled. “All ye have is some bits of paper. Paper burns. Houses burn. I know where ye live. And a corpse cannae collect on any debts.”
“Enough!”
A burly man in Boodle’s livery shoved them apart. Immediately another half a dozen footmen and waiters stepped between them, grabbing arms and legs. “You’re going to have to leave the premises, Mr. MacTaggert. Our members do not engage in fisticuffs inside the club.”
“You heard him!” Vale shouted, struggling to his feet and falling again. “He threatened my life! I won’t have him a member of this club! He should be locked up!”
“I’ll nae be a member of any club that would have him.” Pulling free, Aden landed another kick at the retreating Vale. “Dunnae make any bloody plans for tomorrow, Vulture. Ye dunnae have another sunrise coming to ye.”
“Nor will you be a member of this club. Or any club, I’d warrant,” the big Boodle’s enforcer went on. “Leave now, sir, or we will be forced to summon Bow Street.”
Aden shrugged out of the grip of the men holding him as Lord George and Matthew belatedly helped Vale to his feet. He jabbed a forefinger in the navy man’s direction. “I ken where ye fucking live, ye bastard,” he snarled. “Dunnae go home tonight, Humphries. Ye may find it a wee bit warm.”
Grabbing his beaver hat away from one of the footmen, he jammed it on his head and stalked for the door. He kept walking until he reached Loki outside.
“That was … unexpected,” Niall said from behind him.
Aden kept his back turned to his brothers. “Grab me and yell at me that I cannae be serious,” he whispered as loudly as he dared, “then meet me around the corner.” Only then did he turn around to face his brothers and Boodle’s bow window beyond them. “I know exactly how to stop Vale!”
Niall looked unhelpfully puzzled, but Coll strode forward and dug fingers into Aden’s labels, yanking him practically off his feet. “Ye cannae be serious!” he bellowed.
“I’ve nae been more serious in my damned life!” Aden returned, and broke free to swing up on Loki and gallop away.
As soon as he turned the corner out of sight of Boodle’s he reined in the chestnut and patted him on the withers. Straightening, he wiped a string of blood from his chin. He wouldn’t be wagering anywhere in London again. Not after that. The flash of regret he expected, though, didn’t come. Instead, far too many of his thoughts centered on imagining dark-brown eyes and a soft mouth that tasted of strawberries, rather than the dozen next possible steps that lay ahead. This was all for her, and that all by itself made it worthwhile.
“What the devil are ye about?” Niall demanded, drawing up beside him. “Ye ken ye just … Are ye mad? Ye’ll nae be welcomed at any club in London now, Aden.”
“He kens,” Coll put in from the back of his big Friesian, Nuckelavee.
“But—”
“Coll gave me an idea. I meant to make this a battle of nerves and skill, a chess match, but then Vale had to gloat before he had any right to do so, and I … Well, Coll suggested fists.”
“Of course he did. Why’d ye listen to him?”
“Because Vale said things about Miranda that ye dunnae say about any lass. And then I reckoned Vale’s accustomed to battles of nerve and skill, which is what I’d planned to give him. He’s heard threats and warnings aplenty, too. But from what Coll discovered and what we found in Portsmouth, I doubt he’s been bloodied before. Men have likely said they wanted him dead, but how many have proven their willingness to actually kill him? They were likely too busy with giving in, and giving him what he wanted so they could buy back their debt. And who in their right mind would publicly threaten to burn another man’s house down just to put a dent in the bastard’s plans?”
“Nae a one,” Niall supplied. “But how does this help ye? And Miranda?”
Aden shook out his bruised fingers. This was the part that worried him the most, the bits over which he had no control, the bits where he hoped that indulging himself in losing his temper might actually have benefited them. “A bit of patience and a pint of luck, and we’ll see.”
“So ye planned on being blackballed?”
He shrugged. “Aye. Eventually. Vale being a foulmouthed pig altered the way I meant to go about it, though.”
“Aden.”
“I gave that lass my word. Do ye reckon for a second that I would go back on it?”
“Nae. What are we waiting for, then?”
“A note. It’ll be delivered to Oswell House, though, so we need to get back. I dunnae ken how much time we’ll have.”
And if this all ended up going to the devil, he wanted at least one more moment with Miranda Harris before he went to stop Vale permanently.
* * *
“You should eat something,” Eloise urged, pushing a plate of biscuits closer to the middle of the breakfast table. “Something sweet. That always makes me feel more optimistic.”
Miranda looked up from the tart she’d been stabbing to death. “Hmm?”
“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 to speak 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, if she 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. He had to; 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 before she’d known 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 me an 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.”
That sounded very satisfying, until she recalled what an angry Robert Vale could do to her and her family. “Aden, how does that help anything?”
“Well, firstly he deserved it, and secondly it was damned satisfying,” he returned. “The rest of ye might as well ken now that I had a plan to lose to him, reveal my desperation, and then stage a failed break-in at Lord George’s house to convince Vale to move yer brother’s promissory notes somewhere a might safer. I reckon this saved me some time sitting across the table from the rat.”
“And he got to threaten to burn down Lord George Humphries’s house with Vale and his notes inside it, after Aden dug through his pockets to be certain the vulture wasnae carrying them.” Niall sat on the arm of the chair occupied by his bride and took her hand in his. “Trying to lose doesnae seem at all Scottish, but at least ye set him on his arse.”
Miranda looked from one brother to the next, and finally back at Aden. “You threatened him after you hit him?” she asked, her insides twisting a little. “Inside Boodle’s? With witnesses, I presume?”
“Aye. All of that.”
“That’s … not good. Unless you’re kicked out of a club for politics or something more frivolous, being banned by one generally means you won’t be welcomed at any of the others. Not if you aren’t already a member everywhere. I mean, I know you meant to lose to him, but I had no idea you meant to ruin your own reputation to do so.”
“Och,” Aden returned softly. “Who wants to have to dress up to play a hand of cards?”
“That sounds very … heroic, but you, well…”
“Out with it, lass. Ye’re to tell me if I’ve a hole in my trousers.”
Miranda would have preferred to sit in the circle of his arms, to simply enjoy the fact that he’d punched a man she’d wanted to punch from the moment she’d met him. But she and Aden were partners, and if he did have a hole in his trousers—his plans—he needed to know about it. “You didn’t get the notes. Vale will very likely go to my father now, and tell him exactly why I am going to marry him.” She shuddered.
“Aye, he’ll have that on his shopping list. Nae doubt about it. But first he’s going to make certain that all his wee promissory notes are safe. He’s wagered his entire future on what they can bring him. He’s owned admirals, and shareholders of the East India Trading Company, I reckon, and now he has Matthew and Lord George, and the devil knows who else. If I burn his house down, he wants to be certain he can call in enough favors and notes to see me jailed for it. Or worse.”
The matter-of-fact way he spoke to describe just how much trouble he’d voluntarily made for himself chilled her to her bones. “Somehow I’m not reassured. You trading fates with me doesn’t serve anyone but Vale, and those odds you delight
in don’t seem very much in my favor, either.”
“I’d wager he has those notes somewhere in George’s house, so hidden nae even George kens where they could be. But now he’ll be moving them. Since he’s nae a voluntary ally to speak of, nae other place to lay his head but an inn or a hotel where he doesnae own the loyalty of the staff, and he cannae carry them about with him without risking me taking them, he has to tuck them away somewhere safe.”
“A bank?” she supplied, frowning. “So now you mean to burn down a bank?”
Aden grinned. “Nae. I mean to rob a bank. I’ve a particular one in mind.”
Miranda abruptly wished she’d been a woman who fainted. She could close her eyes, sink to the floor, and when she woke again everything would be resolved. She wouldn’t have to worry or watch Aden be arrested, or see Captain Robert Vale gloat because he’d won.
But Aden wasn’t foolish. Far from it. He’d made her a promise, and thus far he’d gone to great lengths to keep it. Above all of that, she trusted him. She trusted his instincts, his capabilities, and his heart. “Then I suppose if you bring the black powder, I’ll bring the fuse.”
“Boireannach gaisgeil,” he whispered. “Ye’re a bonny, brave lass, Miranda Harris.”
“Just a moment,” Lady Aldriss said, rising. “While previously you three boys—men—have flouted the conventions of polite Society and I’ve condoned it, this is … a bit much, even for me.”
“Then dunnae condone it,” Aden returned. “I dunnae need yer permission.” He climbed to his feet, pulling Miranda up with him. “I could eat a sheep,” he drawled. “Smythe, do ye reckon Mrs. Gordon could make me a sandwich or two?”
“I will have dinner set out early,” the butler said. “With your permission, Lady Aldriss.”
The countess waved her hand at him. “Evidently no one requires my permission any longer. By all means, serve dinner early. Perhaps we should begin with dessert.”
They actually began with potatoes, while Mrs. Gordon, according to Smythe, wept and threw more wood on the stove to speed the roasting of the chicken she’d meant to serve with a delicate sauce of cheese and pine nuts and garlic, but now had no time to make.
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