Daring (2 page)

“Hell,” she said in frustration. “What else can go wrong?”

Hugh leaned forward. “I’ll jump anyway and get the rope.”

“You will not. We’ll wait until they’re done in that room. They can’t take—”

Before she could finish the thought, there was another trill of laughter from inside the bedroom, the balcony doors flew open, and a woman with red flowing hair burst outside with her arms outflung as if to embrace the rain.

“Oh, look,” she cried over her shoulder to the man in the room. “How wonderful. How perfect. We’re having a storm to celebrate your success!”

She raised her arms to the inky sky like a pagan goddess and twirled, reveling in the rock-hard pellets of rain that pelted her voluptuous figure. Maggie couldn’t believe her eyes; she’d just realized that the demented creature was dancing around in her underwear. And the man was right— she did have her drawers on backward.

“
F
or the love of God, Ardath, get inside before someone sees you.”

The man’s voice, gruff with amusement and annoyance, did little to deter his uninhibited partner. The woman was now performing a very strange ritual around the perimeters of the balcony. Clapping her hand over her mouth, prancing around in circles. Making loud ululations to the sky.

“What the blazes are you doing, Ardath?”

A large shadow moved into Maggie’s peripheral vision. She huddled into her cloak, too terrified to breathe. Was this the infamous Connor Buchanan, literally in the flesh?

The shadow strode forward, straight into Maggie’s range of vision. He was powerfully built and he moved with riveting self-assurance, his long dark blond hair stirring in the wind. Thankfully, he was fully dressed, in black broadcloth evening breeches and long-tailed white linen shirt with a cambric cravat, which he was casually trying to arrange. Maggie couldn’t see his face, and it was probably a good thing. Even from this distance he emanated a dangerous energy that she’d rather not encounter.

“Have you lost your mind, Ardath?” he said calmly.

He leaned his hip against the railing, his elbow protruding onto the ledge. If he happened to turn his head, if he looked up closely enough through the tree, he would see the two figures on the ledge.

As it was now, the wind was blowing the ends of his hair into Maggie’s cloak. A
leafy
branch provided the only unreliable barrier between them. She stole an anxious look
at his profile; its rugged contours carved a silhouette against the night sky that was anything but reassuring.

So
this
was Connor Buchanan, the man who had sold his soul to the devil for success. He was more formidable in person than even his reputation claimed.

“
I
am doing the pagan Gubong rain dance that Professor Macbean showed us during this month’s lecture,” Ardath told him. “He lived with a family of natives on a little volcanic island for almost a year.”

“Your professor lectured on lions and unicorns last summer,” he said wryly. “I suppose he lived with them too?”

“You’re too cynical. You don’t believe in anything. Stop trying to spoil my fun.”

“Come inside now, Ardath,” he ordered her. “You’ll have the Reverend Abernathy waking me up at dawn to complain about the strange goings-on in my house. As usual, I’ll be the one blamed.”

Maggie squeezed her shoulders to the wall, every muscle in her body tightening in response to his deep authoritative voice. She had gotten her first glimpse of the notorious Connor Buchanan only yesterday afternoon. A tall, dominant figure in long black robes and a wig, he had strode right past her to the courthouse, larger than life, commanding attention.

Maggie had been too short to see above the eager crowd. She’d gone unnoticed in the crush of smitten young women, press reporters, and legal clerks who rode the wake of his charismatic personage. She could still remember the strange current of excitement his presence stirred. She’d been so impressed she had forgotten she was supposed to hate him.

There was a murderer running loose in the city, and newly appointed public prosecutor Lord Buchanan had charmed a confession out of the suspect.

Unfortunately, the suspect was one of Maggie’s dearest friends, an elderly vagrant with diminished mental capacities. Maggie, in a moment of compassionate indignation, had been talked into helping Hugh steal the old man’s confession from Buchanan’s house. A disgruntled maid who was a
friend of Hugh’s had provided the tip that the confession could be found in his lordship’s private study.

“A rain dance is supposed to make it rain,” Connor pointed out to his partner, drawing back under the eaves. “It’s already raining, you’re not a Gubong, and we’re both getting soaked. Not to mention the guests arriving.”

“But it’s not raining very hard,” Ardath protested, waving her arms in weird patterns above her head.

He raised his voice. “It’s bloody pouring. What do you want, a flood?”

As if he had commanded it, thunder rumbled in the distance over the dark bulk of Edinburgh Castle on its rise of basalt rock. Lightning flickered above the castle. A bright flash illuminated the ledge in pitiless detail. Maggie swallowed a gasp and willed herself invisible inside her black waterlogged cloak, every moment of waiting straining her composure.

Her white shoe shone like a beacon on the balcony floor, proclaiming an intruder’s presence to the world. It was only a matter of time before Connor or his partner discovered it. A knot of fear lodged in her throat. Why had she ever thought she had the nerve for this sort of thing?

Ardath shrieked in delight. “Look at the lightning! Isn’t it exciting?”

Connor grunted, distracted by the carriage rolling up the drive directly below them. Guests alighted with groans of dismay as rain splattered their fine silks and tweeds.

“For God’s sake,” he muttered. “This is all I need. I don’t have privacy anymore. My enemies are dying for the chance to destroy me.” Exasperated at her antics, he stalked onto the balcony to pull Ardath out of public view.

It wasn’t exactly an easy task.

Ardath attached herself to him like an octopus, her white arms flailing everywhere—over his chest, his face, his shoulders, disarranging the cravat he had finally folded to his satisfaction. Chuckling helplessly, he finally caught her wrists in one hand and held them immobile above her head.

She closed her eyes, shivering in anticipation. “I used to love it when you dominated me this way.”

“I’m never letting you drink whisky on an empty stomach again.”

“Ooooh. Women adore it when you use that masterful voice to put them in their place.”

“You’re going to have one hell of a headache in the morning.”

“Put us in our place, you big muscular beast, you Viking warlord, you Dutch pirate. Why do you have four eyes all of a sudden? You look like a spider.”

He tightened his grip on her hands. “Has it occurred to you that someone might be watching us?”

“Someone—” She went very still. “You mean someone dangerous?
…
Someone like the murderer you’re trying to trap?”

“No. I meant someone even more frightening, like your mother, or one of my sisters.”

Ardath gave him a wicked smile, walking him backward into the opposite railing. “It was a night like this the first time you conquered me.”

“Well, it wasn’t on a balcony.”

“You ravished me in the rain.”

“
I
don’t think so, Ardath. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky that night, as I recall.”

“You seduced me by starlight?”

He raised his brow. “I sincerely hope the guests can’t hear any of this conversation.”

“Loved me like lightning?”

He laughed reluctantly, a deep warm vibration that contrasted with the austere masculinity of his face. “Get inside, you lunatic.”

“The newspapers don’t know the half of it.” She lowered her voice to a teasing whisper. “If they think you’re a lion in the courtroom, they should have seen you—”

His head lifted abruptly, all traces of humor vanishing from his face. “Did you hear that?” he said.

“Did I hear what?”

“It sounded like someone choking—I’d swear it was a woman.”

He dropped Ardath’s hands to push around her and stare down into the street. In the process he stepped right over Maggie’s white dancing pump. She cringed, waiting for the
inevitable moment when he paused to wonder how a strange woman’s shoe had gotten onto his balcony.

Ardath, apparently, was not a threat. She was too busy catching raindrops on the tip of her tongue to notice anything. Then, as Maggie had feared, Connor turned slowly from the railing and walked right over to where the shoe sat, practically screaming for atten
ti
on. Good Lord, if it had been a snake it would have bitten him, but he still didn’t seem to see it.

Then Connor looked down suddenly at the shoe. He frowned for the longest time. Maggie tensed and mentally prepared herself for a disastrous outcome. She was too afraid to jump.

“Ardath.” He picked up the shoe and casually tossed it back into the bedroom. “I wish you’d stop leaving your clothes around the house when my sisters are visiting. Norah is still complaining about finding your corset in the coal scuttle. She doesn’t understand our friendship.”

“Norah is a narrow-minded nitwit. She was delighted when I told her I hadn’t been your mistress for almost a—”

“Be quiet
.
” His voice cut like a whip through the gusting wind. “I
swear
someone is watching us.” He strode to the opposite railing where he paused, still and forbidding. Then, as if obeying the devil’s own intuition, he lifted his head to the large tree whose wind-lashed branches fluttered wetly against the ledge.

A shiver of foreboding jolted through Maggie as she felt the full impact of gazing straight down into his face. It was a face imprinted with the inv
isible scars of a hundred hard-
fought battles and all but few won. Harsh angles. Strong bones. The arrogance of a Celtic warlord.

It was a face you would never forget.

She studied him in quiet horror for a fraction of a second before he turned away. In bone-melting relief she realized he hadn’t seen her. But the aftermath of the impression he had made left her feeling as weak as if she’d just been washed ashore by a tidal wave.

Just as riveting and magnetic as her first glimpse of him. Probably as ruthless, too, if given the opportunity.

The newspapers had just named him the most powerful man in Scotland. His influence was unlimited: military, political, civil. His brilliant successes had already been recorded in history books. But in the disreputable streets where Maggie had found an unlikely home, they called him the Devil’s Advocate.

And she had a horrible feeling she was going to find out why.

C
h
apter

2

C
onnor caught Ardath by the waistband of her drawers and dragged her back into the privacy of his bedroom. “I’ve got an idea,” she said, stumbling up against his chest. “Let’s play charades again, but this time we can only do Shakespearean characters. I promise not to cheat.”

He sighed and closed the door behind them with a decisive click, Ardath’s laughter echoing in the room. “You are one insane woman, Ardath Macmillan. I’m convinced someone was watching us out there.”

“Would you prefer to play blindman’s buff?”

She gave him a naughty grin and reached for the tumbler of whisky on the nightstand. Before she could raise it, Connor trapped her in his arms and gently forced her back against the closed door.

“Thank you for being here tonight,” he said quietly. “I know you and your professor had plans to go off hunting Pictish artifacts.”

She swallowed to cover her emotion and tangled her fingers in his unfashionably long hair. “What kind of friend would I be to miss your victory celebration? Anyway, Matthew understands the situation. Just because you
and I are no longer lovers doesn’t mean we have to become enemies.”

Connor lifted his brow. “Is he coming tonight?”

“I invited him, but you know how he confuses dates. Besides, he’s busy planning our haunted castles of the Highlands expedition.”

“Poor old bastard,” he said with a rueful grin. “No—lucky bastard, to have earned your loyalty.”

“He does need me,” Ardath admitted with a sigh. “The darling man is so disoriented, I’m afraid one of these days he might set off on an excursion and never return. You should come with us this next time, Connor. You have a good month before you take office.”

“No, I don’t,” he said in a heavy voice. “I haven’t heard a word from Rebecca since last summer, and the last time she did bother to write, she sounded rather lonesome. I thought I’d leave for Kilcurrie as soon as the verdict comes in on the Campbell rape case. I’m hoping I can persuade her to move back here where she can at least meet people her own age.”

“I’d forgotten about Rebecca.” Ardath’s tone was subdued. Rebecca was the second eldest of his sisters, lame since childhood from a riding accident and living alone with a menagerie of hurt animals she’d nursed back to health in her lonely cottage on the edge of Connor’s isolated Highland estate. “I think she’s safe enough with her little creatures. Your neighbors watch over her, don’t they?”

Connor frowned. “Yes, but I worry about her all the same, and it isn’t natural for a young woman to live alone in the woods. Now get dressed, and don’t you dare do that rain dance around the table.”

“Honestly, Connor, have I ever embarrassed you in public before?”

“Not if I don’t count the time you pinched that footman on the behind at the Lord Justice-Clerk’s funeral.”

She sniffed. “It’s Sheena you need to worry about.”

The reminder of the differences between him and his errant youngest sister broke the playful mood. His face troubled, Connor picked up his black satin waistcoat and tailored
jacket from the bed. “She seemed happy enough this morning,” he said after a thoughtful silence.

“She was miserable last week. She really loved that man.”

Connor shrugged his massive shoulders, an impressive figure in the evening clothes that emphasized his masculine elegance. “I refuse to believe it. How in God’s name could a sister of mine fall in love with a convict? He swindled old women out of their life savings.”

“He only did it twice, Connor. He served his time and he’s trying to repay his victims. You’ve done a few things in your life that you’re ashamed of, haven’t you?”

His face darkened in warning, but Ardath pretended not to notice. Connor had forbidden her to discuss his past. “I know you had your reasons,” she said soothingly. “I know it wasn’t the same thing, but she
loves
him. She’s convinced he’s reformed.”

“She’ll
love
the young viscount I’ve invited tonight to meet her. Sheena doesn’t know what’s good for her.” Ardath held her breath as his strong fingers began to hook the back of her gown.

“Few of us do.”

“I curbed my self-destructive tendencies a long time ago,” he said in an even tone. “I know I’ve been hard on my sisters, but it was for their own good.”

“I promised myself I wouldn’t argue with you tonight.” She suppressed a sigh as he brushed a stray curl from her neck. “Don’t let’s talk about this anymore, or we’ll really miss the party.”

“And I’ll really miss the fun we’ve had together. You’re the most honest woman I know, Ardath.”

She compressed her lips. “You’re going to make me cry,” she whispered. “It’s not as if we’ll never see each other again, but it is time you found someone nice and stable to settle down with. We have agreed on that, haven’t we?”

“Yes, we agreed.”

He could hear the regret in his voice. Ardath had lent him money when he was broke. She had introduced him to influential people when he was struggling to make his mark. She’d stood by him when he had suffered his first professional failure.

In return he had protected her, by his presence, from men who would take advantage of her generosity, and in an age when a woman enjoyed little freedom, he had encouraged her eccentricities and intelligence with indulgent humor. He had also comforted her when her only son committed suicide five years ago.

Trust, sexual compatibility, mutual respect. They hadn’t fallen in love, they hadn’t even made love with each other in a month, but their friendship would endure forever.

Besides, Ardath had her professor and charity functions to fill her life, and no desire to remarry after twenty years in a loveless marriage.

She insisted Connor needed a wife and family. Recently he’d begun to wonder if she was right. Success. Power. Fighting the good fight. Something essential was missing from his life. No one saw him as he truly was.

Aye, he’d heard the rumors about his reputation. He tended to either fascinate or frighten women, and quite frankly his notoriety embarrassed him. He was a Highlander at heart, a man of simple needs and strong emotions which life had taught him to restrain.

He waited, his face impassive, as Ardath deftly twisted her hair into a figure eight at her nape, and covered her tempting cleavage with a lace fichu. Then, to make the transformation complete, she put on a pair of unflattering iron-rimmed spectacles and nodded to herself in the mirror.

Connor was always astonished by the contrast between the spontaneous woman she was in private and the facade she presented to the public.

“Behold, Mrs. Ardath Macmillan,” she said lightly, “wealthy widow, benefactress of the Orphans’ Aid Society and—”

“Pagan Gubong rain dancer,” Connor said, shaking his head in amusement. “My God. Talk about not trusting appearances. I’m tempted to believe there are two of you.”

She pinched him on the buttocks as she moved past him to the door. “It wasn’t the footman, by the way. It was the pallbearer.”

He stopped, on impulse, to kiss her on the cheek in the doorway. Ardath primly resisted, conscious of the guests gathering below. Despite her earlier antics, she did care about Connor’s professional image. “Enjoy tonight,” she
said softly, disentangling herself from his arms. “You deserve it
.
”

“Do I?” He gave her a boyish grin, but his eyes were cynical in the half-light of the hallway. “Are you sure you don’t want to marry me?”

“And spoil your reputation as a rogue? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She edged around him. Connor drew back inside the room to give her time to make her escape. Then he glanced around, distracted by a sudden gust of wind rattling the balcony doors. He’d managed to shake off the unpleasant feeling that had crept over him outside. He was prepared to sacrifice parts of his personal life for public office but not to that extent. He resented being spied on.

Yes, Ardath’s mother might have been watching them. The woman probably didn’t have anything better to do. More likely, though, it was one of his six troublesome sisters looking for mischief. The young demons had delighted in making his life misery for years. Tormenting him had become a habit with them by now.

Yet, for all their differences, they were a close family. Their parents had been proud Highland people, loving and kind. Connor’s father, a Sheriff
’
s Advocate, had dedicated his life to keeping peace, and he’d enjoyed his work, instilling a strong sense of responsibility in his only son. His untimely death at the hands of a hunted felon had proved too much for Connor’s mother to accept.

She had died heartbroken seven months after losing her husband.

Those first years raising the girls alone had been sheer hell for a bewildered young boy on the verge of manhood. Connor hadn’t had a clue how to handle them; he couldn’t handle his own unpredictable urges. His first priority, of course, was keeping the family safe.

He rubbed the muscles tightening at the nape of his neck. God, he couldn’t believe the terror and trauma the girls had put him through. Running around with reckless young men. Defying him. Squandering the little cash he’d saved on perfumes and silk hankies. Rebecca riding an unbroken horse and fracturing her hip when she was twelve.

They were a spirited lot, those Buchanans, and Connor had sewn a few wild oats himself on the side.

Well, with any luck, he was getting rid of the last sister tonight. Sheena was the youngest, the most rebellious, and
h
is biggest problem. Still, Connor hadn’t come this far in life without mastering the art of persuasion. He wasn’t above a white lie or two. He had painted such an appealing picture of Sheena’s virtues that Viscount Lamond already imagined himself half in love with her.

Connor hoped to hell he could marry Sheena off before the end of the year. He had his hands full trying to find the murderer who’d thrown the city into a panic; his friends on both sides of the law had been working around the clock to prove who had stabbed an elderly banker and his assistant to death in an alleyway last month.

His colleagues were already congratulating him on wangling a confession out of the befuddled old peddler he’d visited in jail only yesterday. The confession was sitting on the desk of his private study, which adjoined the bedroom.

Confession or not, the poor wretch hadn’t brutally robbed and murdered those two people.

Connor was as convinced of that as he was that someone had been watching him and Ardath on the balcony.

But he didn’t want to ruin the evening’s celebration by contemplating murder and prosecuting criminals tonight. He’d be living and breathing courtroom drama soon enough. For this evening, for the next month, in fact, he was going to relax and enjoy his success. He was planning a hunting holiday in the Highlands after he visited with Rebecca. He was going to enjoy his party.

Trouble would have to wait.

I
n the street below the Lord Advocate’s balcony a lone figure lowered his walking stick to the wet cobbles and skewered the pale object glistening in the gutter. He lifted the stick into the hazy aura of the lamplight for closer inspection.

A woman’s white satin slipper dangled by its badly scuffed heel.

He studied the slipper for several moments, then looked up thoughtfully at the balcony.

“Well?” a cultured voice demanded from the depths of the carriage parked across the street. “Did you find something?”

“A woman’s slipper.” He gestured upward with his stick. “If I am not mistaken that is also a pair of stockings hanging from the tree. I think it’s safe to assume that the woman herself is in the house.”