This wasn’t a lass looking for a pleasant night to hold in her memory against a future of possibly awful ones. Nor was she a lass determined to give her virginity where she would instead of having it taken against her will. Tonight she was a lass who wanted … him. And that was intoxicating.
Crouching, he let her lean against his shoulders while he removed her shoes one by one. Then, gathering the hem of her shift in his hands, he lifted, kissing every inch of the skin he laid bare. At the apex of her thighs he slowed further, dipping in for a taste of her. Sweet Saint Andrew, she was wet for him. This wasn’t a ploy, and it wasn’t some payment in exchange for a completed task. This was desire, and he felt it through every inch of his body.
When he straightened, lifting the shift off over her head, she was smiling at him. “Amused, are ye?” he quipped, cupping her warm breasts in his hands, feeling her nipples peak beneath his fingers.
“Happy,” she returned breathlessly, and yanked the coat off his shoulders.
“Free,” he added, pulling off his own shirt and leaving her to fumble with the buckles of his kilt. “Ye live yer life however ye choose, bonny lass. Give a few curtsies to Society, and do as pleases ye.”
“I mean to do exactly that,” she returned, straightening and evidently giving up on the kilt. Instead she pushed him in the chest, and he allowed himself to drop into the chair behind him.
He took off one of his boots while she wrenched off the other. Aden showed her how to unfasten his kilt, hoping that it was knowledge she would care to make use of in the future, and often. This bit was new, where he craved a particular woman, wanted her always in his life, but he knew that trapping her there would be wrong. He was the one who fled a lass’s bed at the first sign of fawning or forever afters, and yet that was what he wanted most with Miranda.
It was a nice, big chair he had, and with a grin he took her hand. “Care to join me here?”
She looked down at his cock. “Right here? Yes.”
Aden half lifted her, settling her over him with her knees on either side of his thighs. “I do adore ye, Miranda,” he murmured, lifting up a little to reach her mouth as she looked down at him.
Wide-eyed, smiling in clear anticipation, she sank down over him. He wanted to meet her there, take her, claim her, empty himself into her so she would be his forever. Instead he waited, unable to stifle a moan as she took in the length of him, tight and hot and for tonight, at least, his.
“Oh,” she breathed, bouncing experimentally. “This is … Oh.”
Christ. Aden took her breasts again, pinching her nipples as she moved on him. With a gasp she came, pulsing around him, digging her fingers into his shoulders. He held her as she trembled, using every ounce of willpower not to succumb, as well.
When her fingers loosened a little and she raised her head, he kissed her. “Wicked, bonny lass,” he breathed.
She shifted again, nearly sending him over the edge. “But you’re—”
“Aye. Ye make me feel like a green boy, Miranda, but are ye ready for a bit more?”
The grin she gave him was something he would remember forever. “Oh, yes.”
Holding her where she was, still impaled, he slid to the edge of the chair and then onto the expensive-looking rug spread before the hearth. Putting her on her back he withdrew and then entered her deeply, holding her gaze as he took her over and over again.
He’d never wished more that he was the barbarian the Sassenach thought him, so that he could put her over a horse and ride off with her, take her into the Highlands where no one else would be able to harm her or frighten her or take her away from him.
With every stroke he claimed her body, memorizing every gasp and moan and deep sigh, every motion and the warm, soft feel of her skin against his. She tightened around him again, and as she came, he let himself ride over the edge with her, emptying himself deep inside her.
When he could breathe again he rose, sweeping her up into his arms, and carried her over to his bed. She fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, her hands wrapped around his arm. Aden had never been one for praying, but as he watched her sleep, a slight smile on her sweet face, he did so, praying that he was the man she’d declared him to be, and that he’d done enough good in his life to perhaps deserve her.
* * *
Miranda woke to the sound of papers rustling. Stretching, she reached down toward the foot of the bed, feeling Aden sitting there. “It’s not morning already, is it?” she asked.
“Barely. Seven o’clock, maybe,” he returned. “How did ye sleep?”
“Better than I have in quite a long while,” she admitted, pushing aside the heavy covers and sitting up.
Aden sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed, dozens of small stacks of papers around him. From the look of it, he’d been at it for a while. Hours, more than likely. “How many people did he do this to?”
“I made a list,” he said, nudging a paper toward her. “Thirty-seven, by my count. He’s written deceased on five of them, but he has addresses for the rest. Nae doubt he kept track of them so he could keep making use of them, but his diligence makes yer plan to let ’em know they’re free a whole acre easier.”
She watched him for a few moments as he read each of the half a dozen papers left in his hand and then sorted them into the existing piles. “You didn’t need to read them,” she said as he shoved all but a single stack of them back into the sack. “We know how horrible he is.”
“I reckon I did need to read every one of them. Somebody should know exactly who he is.”
It wasn’t how she’d wanted to begin the day, especially after such a spectacular, invigorating night, but she did understand it. Last night they’d taken away Robert Vale’s means of supporting himself, and she was glad of it. But she knew Aden saw some parallels between himself and Vale—to her regret, she’d pointed out some of them to him, herself. “You like to wager. That doesn’t make you his twin, you know.”
He looked up at her, the intensity of his gaze reminding her all over again of last night, not that it would ever drift far from her thoughts. Heavens, she’d begun to feel like two separate people, almost. One who smiled and curtsied and played charades at parties, and another who delighted in having sex with a poetical-haired Highlander and found nothing more entertaining than bantering words with him.
“It doesn’t,” she repeated firmly.
“There are similarities,” he said finally. “I could have made my way through life by gambling. Coll’s suggested it a few times, to break us free of Francesca. To keep the three of us—or two of us, anyway—from being obligated to follow her orders.”
“Obligated? And unwilling to do as she says?” Miranda prompted.
“Willing or unwilling, my … Any lass I ask would know I’d been ordered to domesticate myself.”
Stubborn, impossible man. “So yes, you could have become a gambler, and I could have become a nun, but knowing what I know now, I certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed it.”
“Och, lass.” Grinning, he leaned over and kissed her.
Miranda wrapped her arms around his shoulders, kissing him back. “Forget about the odious things he wrote,” she murmured, resting her forehead against his. “Just write down the rest of the addresses and burn them. All of them.”
“Aye.”
He hesitated, the second time he’d done so in the past four minutes. This time it made her heart shiver a little. “What is it?”
“Ye should know, he bought other debts, too. Or won them, more likely.”
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. He did have them. He doesnae have them now. Ye do.” He handed them to her. “No notes scribbled on them, other than Miranda’s uncle written on the back. A bit of additional lever
age 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 bring all 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 her in 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 along did make 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 she knew, 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 now she needed 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.
Miranda blew out her breath and stood again. She was so tired of sparing Vale any thought at all. But toothless or not, he was still in London. He was still in Mayfair, less than half a mile away. Would he try again to control her? Or to hurt her, once he realized she was out of his grasp?
“Stop it, Miranda,” she muttered, shaking out her hands.
Eloise had draped a pretty green muslin across the foot of the bed, its skirt embroidered with yellow and blue flowers. She’d also provided a simple night rail for Miranda to sleep in. Moving quickly, Miranda slipped out of her gown, unmade the bed and rolled across it a few times to properly rumple it, then wadded the night rail and left it at the foot of the bed.
The green gown was an inch or two too short and a little snug around her hips, but it would certainly suffice until she could return home and change. Of course, she preferred to remain at Oswell House. Aden lived there. And back at Harris House she would have to explain why Vale was no longer a suitor, and she would have to tell her parents something about what had happened. Matthew had helped; he’d given Vale exactly the information Aden had asked him to pass along, and he’d done it cleverly enough that the captain had believed it and called Aden out. But he’d also caused all this mess in the first place.
As she brushed out her hair and put it up in a coiled bun, she heard footsteps hurrying up and down the hallway, and Aden’s low voice issuing instructions. The first of the letters were going out, then. Good. The more people who knew they’d been freed, and the more quickly they knew it, the better. As far as she could tell, all of Vale’s allies were unwilling ones. Strip away their reason for being in his company, and he would find himself very much alone.
A knock sounded at her door. Tucking in a last hairpin, she went and pulled it open. She expected Eloise, or perhaps Aden, but instead Lady Aldriss stood in the hallway. “Good morning,” the countess said.
Oh, dear. “Good morning, my lady. It seems I’m not the only one to have risen early today,” Miranda replied with a smile.
The countess didn’t return the expression. “Accompany me down to breakfast,” she said without further preamble, stepping back from the door.
“Certainly.”
“You went burgling with Aden last night.”
“It wasn’t as dangerous as it sounds.”
“Hm. Nevertheless,
he took you with him.”
The last thing Miranda wanted was more tension between Aden and his mother. “I insisted. It wasn’t my fault all this mess happened, but it certainly wasn’t Aden’s, either. And we were successful. Captain Vale might not realize it yet, but he’s been stopped.”
Lady Aldriss nodded. “Thank heavens. I surmised as much, given the string of comings and goings this morning.” She paused on the stair landing, taking a moment to glance into the foyer below. “I was quite worried about you,” she said, lowering her voice further. “In fact, I knocked on your door a bit after midnight.”
“Oh, I’m quite a sound sleeper, I fear,” Miranda improvised, inwardly flinching.
“Mm-hm. I know who my sons are, my dear. Has he asked for your hand, or am I to pretend none of this ever happened?”
Miranda scowled. “He won’t propose.”
The countess blinked, real surprise crossing her features for the first time. “Really?”
“He kept promising to set me free, and then went on about how I couldn’t make a proper choice with my head on a chopping block, and then how I could never know if I was merely feeling gratitude or if I felt a sense of obligation toward him. And also something about him having to marry, which meant that he couldn’t know his own motives, and neither could whichever lass he asked. It’s very aggravating.”
“You love him, yes?”
She nodded. “I do. And he’s said more than once that he loves me. I just can’t—it’s as if he’s walled himself into a room and now he can’t or won’t admit that he forgot to add a window.”
Lady Aldriss looked at her for a long moment. “Well, with you being so shackled to manners and propriety,” she said, sighing, “I don’t suppose there’s anything to be done about it.”
The countess continued on down to the foyer. Miranda, though, stood where she was. Whether Lady Aldriss knew more than she claimed or whether she was simply a very good judge of character, she’d just said some very pertinent things. Some very interesting things.
Shaking herself, Miranda resumed her way down the stairs and up the hallway to the open breakfast room door—where she froze again.
Scot Under the Covers Page 31
