Daring (18 page)

M
aggie scrambled over a clump of brown heather to catch up with Connor’s ground-eating strides. “Are you limping, my lord?”

“Yes, I’m limping.”

She tugged her cloak free from a scraggly bush, “Why are you limping?”

“Because my foot is killing me, that’s why. It feels like there’s a damn nail digging into my instep.” He stopped at the boulder where he’d left his coat and sat down to tug off his boot. “There
is
a damn nail in my foot,” he said, looking up at her darkly. “How do you suppose that happened?”

Maggie clutched her cloak at her throat and stared out over the hills, guilt etched in every delicate feature of her face.

He stood, his hazel eyes hooded, and hobbled over to her. “Why did you put a nail in my boot?”

“I did nothing of the kind.”

“You are lying,” he said. “I can always tell when someone is lying.”

She looked affronted. “I did not put that nail in your boot.”

He stepped another inch closer, staring down unflinchingly into her face. “I’ll probably die of tetanus. You’ll be arrested for second-degree murder.”

The reality of his physical proximity was more menacing to Maggie than any threat of future punishment. She gazed up at the underside of his jaw, caught in the current of charged air between them. “It was Emily, if you must know,” she confessed in a small voice.

“Emily? Emily—the housemaid?”

She took a reflexive step back, noticing how the mist had wrapped them in a cocoon, how isolated they were, how his warrior’s appearance fit so well into their surroundings. Claude and the driver had vanished from sight. She cleared her voice, aware that her nerve endings had begun to tingle in either warning or expectation. She had a terrible feeling that this was where the wielding and yielding were about to come into play.

“She
…
she wanted to make sure you weren’t a devil,” she whispered, realizing as she stared into his penetrating eyes how easily that rumor could have started.

Connor’s gaze held her captive as the silence between them deepened. She noticed that he didn’t deny the ridiculous charge. She also noticed that they were standing so close together that their breaths mingled in the mist.

“We are alone in a very isolated spot,” he murmured. “If I
were
the devil…
” He shook his head mockingly, allowing her own fertile imagination to fill in the disturbing details.

Maggie’s toes curled inside her worn traveling boots. “What would you do?” she inquired softly.

“Wicked things, Miss Saunders.”

She moistened the edges of her mouth with her tongue. “How wicked?”

He caught her by the elbow just as she would have stumbled back against the boulder. A shock of alarm ran up her arm. She should have known better than to tease the Lion to test his temper, but she’d always believed it was better to get things out in the open.

His gaze flickered over her like a flame. “For my first demonical deed, I would probably take off all your clothes.”

Something between a gasp and a giggle caught in her throat. “You wouldn’t.”

He drew her a little nearer, his fingers exerting faint pressure on her forearm. “Yes, lass, every stitch, well past the wee silk rosebuds to the mole on your left breast.”

A white-hot shiver shot down Maggie’s neck. “And then?”

He glanced around. “Let’s see— Ah. I’d seduce you over there—under that outcrop of granite. The mist would curl around our naked bodies as passion consumed us. We’d probably bear scratches for days afterward from the gorse. One of us might catch our death, but it would have been well worth it.”

Maggie disengaged her elbow and calmly walked over to the outcrop. She made a show of examining it, all the time trying to decide how to handle this situation. His eyes gleaming, he strolled up behind her.

“Well? Will it do, or shall I drag you by the hair into a nice cozy cave?”

She turned and forced herself to smile. “Have you ever seduced a woman here before?”

He laughed quietly, the deep tones of his voice raising goosebumps on her skin. “One hill looks like another when you’ve lived in the Highlands long enough.”

His kiss was a flame in the mist, not totally unexpected but exciting, enclosing her in dangerous heat. Maggie
couldn’t lie to herself. She’d been hoping he would kiss her again since that first night. Of course, she’d also been hoping that if he did, she would have the sense to rebuff him. She didn’t, though. She had clearly inherited the de Saint-Evremond weakness for powerful men from her wicked ancestors.

Instead of stiffening up, her entire body came alive like a string quartet, humming, throbbing, vibrating with secret little notes and harmonies that she’d never heard before. His kiss was hard and demanding, taking possession of her mouth. Sensation burgeoned in the pit of her belly, burnishing and bold. She moaned in enjoyment.

He groaned against her mouth. Then he gripped her harder, crushing the breath that was building in her lungs. Maggi
e sighed as he drew her bottom li
p between his teeth. She barely recovered from the pleasant shock of that when his big hands slid under her cloak to cup her buttocks.

She thought he said something. She couldn’t make out the words; she was busy wondering what his hands were doing to her derriere, how
her
hands had slipped inside his coat. She pressed her fingertips to his chest. Strong. Muscular and as hard as a mountain. It was a chest to snuggle against on a cold day, to hide behind when the world grew unpleasant. Her head swam with sensation.

“Maggie.” He was shaking her, she realized as she resurfaced from her daze. “Miss Saunders.”

She opened her eyes and stared up at him in bewilderment, the mist cooling her hot face.

“If you don’t release me right now,” he said with laughter in his eyes, “we’re both going to regret it.”

She wrenched her hands away from his coat as if she’d been holding live coals. “What did you say?”

“I said that in addition to not believing in rumors from unreliable sources, you had better learn a little self-control. I might not be a devil, but I am human, and a mortal man can only take so much temptation.”

With that warning delivered, Connor picked up his boot, jammed his foot into it, and made his way back down the hill, whistling softly. He heard Maggie stumbling behind him, and he chuckled, resisting the urge to turn around. He could still see the look of wounded indignation on her face. Well,
her innocent response might have taken them both by surprise, but he had won the first round.

He sobered as they reached the carriage, realizing he wouldn’t have the last laugh after all. Because although he might not in actual fact be a devil, he was burning with desire for an angel, and by stirring up the smoldering embers between them on that hill, he’d just made sure that the rest of his journey would be sheer hell on earth.

Chapter

17

H
e woke up abruptly, wondering if the driver had hit another rut. It was pitch dark in the carriage, and it took him a few moments to realize that the soft whimpers of distress were what had disturbed him.

He leaned across to the other seat, frowning as he saw Maggie huddled into a little ball, her stocking feet exposed, vulnerable.

“Miss Saunders?” he said quietly, his own body cramped and aching from the confinement. He touched her shoulder. “Maggie, wake up. What’s the matter?”

A man’s voice, warm and unfamiliar. Maggie fought to follow it but couldn’t find it in the dream. It didn’t belong there.

Panic. Fear. She shied away from the intense heat, a blinding light at the center of the sun. Yet she knew that if she could only bear to look into the brightness, she would finally face the nameless horror that had haunted her for eleven years.

“Miss Saunders?” Connor was fully awake now, sensing her panic, helpless to end it. He wasn’t sure whether it was better to let her sleep the dream out or interrupt it. Sheena,
he remembered with a stab of dismay, could never be woken from her frequent nightmares.

“It’s all right, sir,” Claude said, bending stiffly to draw a plaid over Maggie. “She’s
only dreaming.”

“Of what?” Connor asked in bewilderment.

“Of things best forgotten.” The elderly man leaned down and whispered in Maggie’s ear, soothing phrases in French that Connor couldn’t hear. Intrigued, he realized that this was an established ritual between them. Within moments Maggie calmed, her body relaxing into an undisturbed sleep.

Connor couldn’t rest after that, his mind struggling for answers. Maggie Saunders’s secret terror didn’t have anything to do with her witnessing the kidnapping at all, he realized. And, strangely, although it made him all the more determined to probe the mystery of her past, it wasn’t because he distrusted her. It was because he cared.

M
aggie stirred as they approached the inn. Pretending to just awaken himself, Connor watched her in concern. She gave no sign that less than an hour ago she’d been battling the private demons of a nightmare. But then the human mind was strange. Perhaps she wasn’t even aware of her buried torment herself.

“Where are we?” she asked, yawning delicately and stretching her arms.

He forced his gaze to the window, determined not to become aroused by the sensual grace of her movements. “The Golden Sovereign. A friend of mine owns it. It’s a little out of the way, but we’re not likely to find anywhere else in the dark.”

She climbed over him to peer out the window at the endless vista of uninhabited hills and heath. “Good heavens. It can’t be quite seven o’clock, but it might as well be midnight. There isn’t a shop in sight. It’s not just out of the way. It’s the end of the world.”

“Which is precisely why I came here. This is exactly the place a carriage would pass if the driver was hoping to escape detection on the main thoroughfares.”

Maggie drew her cloak around her as he opened the door to the misty courtyard, murmuring, “What a wild, desolate place.” She felt a shiver go through her at the thought of a
woman abducted, alone with a man in such an untamed setting. But, stealing a glance at Connor, she wondered if she was really that much safer herself.

“Would you mind bringing my hatboxes, my lord?”

“We are in the Highlands, lass. Where would you be wearing one of those silly hats?”

“Are you going to be this surly to me the entire journey?”

“Miss Saunders, I am tired. You and your dog refused to let me sleep. You will forgive me if my social skills are not quite up to snuff.”

“I hadn’t noticed that having a nap makes much difference to your manners,” she retorted. “However, whether one is in an uncivilized setting or not, one can still take pains to look presentable. Kindly hand me that hatbox.”

T
he innkeeper’s pretty brunette daughter, Isabel, was delighted to be dragged from her supper chores to see Connor. “What perfect timing,” she exclaimed, clumping down the stairs in a pair of leather brogues. “Papa is in Caithness. Evan, you’ll see that we aren’t disturbed for the rest of the night, won’t you? The doctor for Mrs. Gloag should be here in a few minutes.”

The rough-faced man polishing glasses at the bar stared at Maggie, who stood looking indignant and ignored in the middle of the taproom with Claude and Daphne. Connor glanced back at her helplessly as Isabel tugged him toward a private hallway.

“I got your message about your sister,” Isabel was saying in a troubled vo
ice. “We’ve put the posters up, but
there
hasn’t been a single carriage by here in months.”

The barkeep gave Maggie a curious look. “Sit by the fire, lassie, and have a hot whisky toddy on the house. There’s no tellin’ how long the pair of them will be in that parlor.”

Maggie frowned. “I
’d like to know what they do in
the
parlor that can’t be done in the public room.”

A grin lit the man’s bearded face. “ ’Tis a secret best left unsolved.” He glanced curiously at Claude and Daphne. “Are they yours?”

“Yes.” Maggie sighed, trudging toward the inviting peat fire. “They’re mine.”

Claude came up behind her and touched her arm. He was
hobbling badly from his arthritis, and his earlier trek across the heath after the horses. “Come sit by the fire and warm your feet, my lady.”

“Warm your own feet, Claude,” she said with uncharacteristic irritation as she stared down the darkened hallway. “You’re in worse shape than I am.”

“
I
can’t balance you on my knee and drink a glass of whisky at the same time, Isabel,” Connor complained. “Something is going to spill.”

She grinned and bounced back down onto the sofa, curling around him like a kitten. “Who was that girl with the horrible hat?”

He took a sip of whisky. “Someone I’m supposed to be looking after.”

“I thought she might be one of your sisters.”

“She isn’t.” He glanced around the stuffy room, then closed his eyes, disturbed as the image of Maggie, as he’d abandoned her, popped into his mind. “What do you want to talk to me about?” he said wearily.

“I wrote a poem in honor of my tragically short-lived romance with Mr. Donaldson.”

“I’m sure he’d be flattered,” Connor lied. “Isabel, could you move a moment? I’ve pulled a muscle in my groin.”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “You promised you were going to take me hunting with you and Donaldson this year. Did you forget, Connor?”

“The only thing Thomas and I will be hunting this year is a killer and a kidnapper,” he said grimly.

She shuddered, drawing her knees to her sides. “Do you know who they are?”

“We know who the killer is, but we haven’t identified the kidnapper—yet.”

“And that girl you brought along with you is involved?” Isabel whispered. “You’re supposed to keep her safe from the kidnapper?”

“Yes.” He released a deep sigh. “I’m to keep her safe. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from my sister Rebecca lately, have you?”

“Rebecca? I only see her once a year at the cattle drovers’ fair. Did I mention I might be getting married in January?”

“Really?” Connor tried to look like he cared, but he felt gr
u
mpy and guilty for leaving Maggie in the taproom. Not that anything was liable to happen to her in an empty inn so early at night. And did he owe her every hour of the day? Did he have to hover over her like a nursemaid to make sure she didn’t so much as break a fingernail?

No, he told himself. He didn’t. Then again, he didn’t have to think about her all the time either, but he did. “I’m happy for you, Isabel,” he said, forcing his attention back to her announcement. “You can tell me the details in the morning, but for now I—”

“You can’t go yet.” She rose onto her knees to stop him. “I have to recite my poem first. I wrote it to immortalize the night Mr. Donaldson almost seduced me in the carriage house.”

The way Thomas had related that night, it had been the other way around. Connor looked up. “Someone’s knocking at the door.”

“I don’t care.” She raised her voice. “Come back in a few minutes. We cannot be disturbed right now.”

Connor frowned. “I think you should open the door.”

“Not until after I recite my poem.”

He wondered if it had been Maggie knocking, and what she wanted, and why she thought she had the right to interrupt his conversation. “Hurry up, Isabel. It’s past my suppertime.”

“All right.” She drew a long breath, closing her eyes in concentration. “It’s called
The Plucking of a Pretty Rosebud in the Carriage House.”

“That’s a hell of a title.” Connor took another deep drink of whisky and dropped his head back against the sofa. He was in the Highlands now, the one place he felt free to be himself, but he couldn’t relax. Not with so much on his mind. He glanced toward the window. “Do I hear people running about in the courtyard?”

“Not unless it’s the doctor, or it’s starting to rain. Do be quiet, Connor. ‘Oh, pretty rosebud,’ ” she began, “ ‘innocent rosebud, pink rosebud—’ Why is that girl waving a ribbon in the window?”

He put down his glass. “Either this whisky is stronger than I realized, or you’ve skipped a line. That doesn’t make any sense.”

She slid to the edge of the sofa, gesturing behind them. “Oh, my goodness, that
girl
—it’s not a ribbon, it’s a garter. She’s waving a garter at us.”

“Donaldson never took your garters off in the carriage house, Isabel, and don’t you dare tell anyone he did.” He stifled a yawn. “I’m not one for poetry, but it seems to me you
could work a little more on—”
He didn’t finish. He had just glanced past Isabel to the familiar silhouette waving at him in the window. Alarmed, he jumped up and crossed the room. “What in God’s name is going on?”

He wrenched open the window and leaned across the sill. “Why are you waving a garter at me, Miss Saunders?”

“I was trying to get your attention,” she whispered.

Connor wasn’t about to tell her that the interruption had been a relief. “It couldn’t have waited?”

She looked past him to Isabel. “There are some things more important than drinking whisky with a woman.”

“Not that I can think of," Connor retorted.

Maggie frowned. “While you were enjoying a reprieve from your responsibilities, Claude, Evan, and I managed to catch the man who’s been following me.”

“What man?” Isabel asked, coming up behind Connor.

Maggie hesitated for effect. “The man in a dark cloak who demanded that I disrobe.”

Connor didn’t think he could have heard her correctly. “He
what?”

“In my establishment?” Isabel said weakly.

Maggie nodded, clearly gratified by their reaction. “You heard me. I told you, my lord, and I must admit it was a terrifying experience, me sitting there helpless and—”

Connor turned, his face black with a fury that silenced the two women watching him. “Get back inside,” he ordered Maggie, storming across the room. “Isabel, send a servant for the local magistrate right away. You two are to remain inside until I return for you.”

Isabel nodded numbly.

Maggie, impressed by his response, found her voice. “Claude and Evan have got him locked in the stable,” she
tailed after him. “Be careful—the man is obviously deranged.”

Energized by pure emotion, Connor didn’t take the time to think. If he had, he might have reconsidered his hotheaded reaction.

He might have avoided disaster.