Daring (20 page)

Chap
ter

20

I
t was as black as the bowels of Hades in the carriage, but Maggie didn’t need a light to see the look on his lordship’s face. Features cast in stone. Hazel eyes smoldering with anger. She’d thought he was going to suffer an apoplectic fit when Isabel’s father had invited her to spend the night. And told Connor to find lodgings elsewhere.

She leaned forward. She would probably be wise, under the circumstances, to keep her thoughts to herself. But she had to break the tension building between them.

“Try and look at the bright side, my lord.”

“The bright side.” His voice could have cut through granite. “By the ‘bright side’ I assume you mean that traveling through a thunderstorm in a leaky coach being driven by a half-drunken man, in the wee small hours over an unmarked road, that cramped between a poodle, a butler, and a hysterical woman prone to hallucinations, is preferable to the privacy and comfort of the room we just left?”

Maggie shook her head in admiration. “You do have a way with words. What I meant, though, is that we’ll be at your sister’s cottage that much sooner. Think of the time we’re saving.”

He grunted, turning his face to the window, clearly not in a mood to be reasoned with. Maggie settled back against the squabs, sighing as Claude covered her legs with a tartan blanket.

“More cheese and biscuits, my lady?” he asked solicitously.

“Yes, please, Claude. I’m famished. What a night.”

“Another meat pie and glass of wine? Isabel’s father insisted you should eat before setting out. He was most concerned about your health.”

Maggie darted Connor a glance. “If his lordship doesn’t want it.”

Connor refused to acknowledge her. He had closed his eyes, folded his arms over his chest, and settled into a forbidding silence.

“Don't bother him again, Claude,” Maggie said in a loud whisper. “His lordship is having his little pout. Can you imagine? A man his age.”

Connor opened his eyes. “I am not pouting. I am exasperated.” He nudged Daphne away with his shoulder. “Stop licking my damn face.”

Maggie gasped. “Now you’re swearing at my dog. You
are
heartless. Why, you’ve hurt her feelings. Look at her. She has big fat tears in her eyes. Just look at her.”

“For the love of God.” Connor turned his head to examine the poodle, feeling like a proper idiot. “She does not.”

Claude leaned down. “I know it is not my place to say so, sir, but I have looked at that dog’s face every day for a decade, and those are genuine tears.”

“Apologize to her, my lord,” Maggie said.

“Apologize to a poodle? I will not.”

“Please, sir,” Claude said, sotto voce. “If not for the heartbroken little animal, but for the sake of peace in the carriage.”

“Heartbroken?” Connor said. “Her damn tail is wagging like a windmill.”

“He swore again!” Maggie scooped the creature protectively into her arms. “Did his lordship scare you with his nasty-wasty voice?” She nuzzled Daphne’s wet black nose. “Shall we have Claude give the bad, bad man a big, big spanking with a spoon?”

Connor covered his eyes. “Dear God.”

“Don’t let pride stop you from doing the right thing,” Maggie urged him. “Apologize, and we’ll forget the entire ugly incident ever happened. Daphne is willing to make friends.”

Connor shrank down into the seat, a conquered man. What was the use? “Please accept my apologies, Daphne,” he said gravely.

“Give her a kiss,” Maggie said.

There was utter silence. Maggie smiled uneasily, holding the dog up like an offering. Claude watched with bated breath.

Connor’s grin was menacing. “I will kiss the hind end of a hippopotamus before putting my lips to that poodle.”

Maggie lowered the dog back into her lap. “I don’t think he’s going to do it, Claude,” she whispered.

The old man nodded unhappily. “Even worse, he’s made her cry again.”

S
he wondered where they were, if Lord Buchanan would continue to ignore her the entire way. She flipped aside the leather curtains to look, leaning over him. She didn’t expect to recognize anything in the dark, rain-washed landscape.

She certainly didn’t expect to see a large black carriage lumbering down the road behind them.

Or was it only a circle of standing stones shimmering in the rain at the wayside? Goosebumps rising on her skin, she reached blindly back across Connor’s lap for the field glasses on the seat.

“Wake up, my lord,” she said urgently. “Wake up and look out the window.”

Connor didn’t need to wake up. There wasn’t a nerve, muscle, or bone in his body that wasn’t standing at attention after she’d slid across his legs, then groped his lap for the blasted glasses. He was a smoldering volcano of suppressed lust waiting to erupt.

“It is two o’clock in the morning, Miss Saunders.”

“I realize that,” Maggie replied, her bottom hitting his chest as she pressed her face to the window, “but we’re being followed. See for yourself.”

She thrust the field glasses back at his chin. Releasing a slow hiss of exasperation, he pushed her derriere out of his
line of vision and lifted the field glasses to the window. Then he started to swear.

Maggie was more relieved than frightened by Connor’s outburst. Now, at last, he would believe her. Now he would take protecting her more seriously.

“You see it, don’t you?” She tried to subdue the triumphant note in her voice. After all, he’d brushed off her warnings like so many flies that annoyed him. “You realize that I’ve been right all along.”

His mouth tightened into a thin white line. “What I realize,” he ground out, flinging the glasses down beside her, “is that the idiot driver has wandered off the road. We’re heading straight into McGonigle’s bog. Almighty God, he’s going to kill us.”

“Sir,” Claude said, “I know it is not my place to say so, but I couldn’t help noticing that you haven’t eaten a thing all evening. Would you care for that meat pie now?” Connor started to bang with all his might on the roof. The carriage shook with the force of his blows. It slowed, descending down a shallow incline. Then it began to sink, a foot at a time, into the murky depths of McGonigle’s bog.

T
he farmer’s wife wrung her chapped hands in agitation at the bottom of the steep wooden staircase. “I wish I’d known to expect ye, my lord. I’d have cleaned up properly, but the bairns have been sick with coughs, and my husband’s away buyin’ sheep.”

Connor gave her a reassuring smile. “We’re the ones who should be apologizing, Mrs. Pringle, begging shelter like gypsies in the dead of the night. By the way, this is—” He glanced questionably at Maggie, uncertain how he should introduce her.

“There’s no point in keeping it a secret,” Maggie said quietly. “This kind woman deserves to know who she is sheltering in her home.”

“Are you a princess?” Mrs. Pringle wondered, staring at the mud-stained Maggie in awe.

“Not quite,” Connor said wryly. “She is, however, the daughter of a French duke.”

The woman studied Maggie in dismay. “Look at the wee lassie, a duke’s daughter no less, covered in stinkin’ bog
mud up to her knees. What could a lovely innocent like you have done to deserve such an unkind fate?”

Connor opened his mouth to explain, then closed it as a small boy in a nightshirt appeared at the top of the staircase. “Peggy’s hackin’ like a horse again, Ma. I canna sleep.”

“Get back to yer bed,” the woman said in embarrassment. “I’ll be up as soon as I see to her ladyship’s comfort.” She turned back to Maggie, clearly awestruck that a member of the French nobility had descended on her humble home. “Just let me run up to make sure the room is suitable for ye. ’Tis as cold as a tomb to be certain. Dear me. I’ll have to fetch some coals from the cellar. And towels—people like ye want them clean, I warrant.”

“I’ll take care of the coals, Mrs. Pringle,” Connor said. “Please don’t put yourself out.”

The woman started up the stairs, shaking her head. “It doesn’t seem right, my lord, making the likes of ye sleep out here in the barn wi’ the beasts. I’ll have the bairns move down to the parlor.”

“You can’t do that,” Maggie said in alarm. “Not with those bad chest coughs. Why, they’ll catch pneumonia.”

Connor nodded in agreement. “I’m so tired I could sleep in a tree.”

The woman bustled off. Maggie started up the stairs, then turned to regard Connor, swaying on her feet with fatigue. “I don’t know, my lo
rd. Perhaps she’s right. The barn
will be awfully damp and unpleasant in this weather. I’m really worried. Perhaps I should sleep there instead.”

Lightning flickered behind the windows, illuminating her drawn features in a flash of brilliance. Connor found himself unwillingly touched by her offer, even though privately he blamed her for getting them in this absurd predicament. But he couldn’t let her sleep in a bed of moldy straw, haunted by her mysterious nightmares. Without realizing it, he felt compelled to protect her again, and she cared about his comfort. He liked that.

“I’ve slept in worse places.” It was true. Once as a child, he had hidden his orphaned family in a Highland cave for an entire summer. The girls had thought it an adventure, much like Miss Saunders did. Women, he thought, rarely had a grasp on reality, which was one of the things he liked
about them. And she didn’t want him to be cold. It was too sweet, especially in view of the fact that he had practically bitten her head off a few minutes ago. Absurd, the stab of affection he felt at that nurturing quality. Toss a few crumbs of concern his way, and he was ready to grovel at her feet. “The barn will do us for the few hours left until morning,” he ended gallantly.

Maggie hesitated. “Actually, I was thinking more of Claude and his arthritis. I know you’ll be all right, a man as strong as you. By the way, it was amazing how you lifted those horses from the bog. I don’t know when I’ve ever been so impressed.”

S
he stripped, teeth chattering, and washed with a bucket of water behind the crude wooden screen in the tiny dormer bedroom. As she was toweling off, the door opened and footsteps tromped across the room.

“Is that you stomping about, my lord?”

“Yes.” He sounded understandably irritable. “I’ve brought the coals so her ladyship can toast her aristocratic toes for the few minutes left until morning. It is, after all, only five o’clock.”

“How kind of you
…
but do try to make a little less noise. You sound like the giant at the top of the beanstalk.” She shivered, rubbing briskly at her chilled skin. “Would you mind tossing me my nightdress? It’s lying on the bed.”

“I am on my hands and knees, groveling in the dark to get these wretched coals lit. Fetch your own nightdress.”

Maggie looked up. “Fine. I only asked. I wouldn’t want nasty soot marks on it anyway. You should be careful lighting that coal. Men who aren’t used to menial chores often hurt themselves doing them. My uncle burned his beard off lighting coals. He was a count, a brilliant man like you. I think he scorched his eyebrows too. Perhaps there’s a correlation between intelligence and clumsiness. Don’t look.” She streaked past him to the bed, the skimpy towel clutched to her breasts. Connor, who had been deliberately ignoring her, glanced up just in time to see her bare white buttocks disappear under the covers, a heart-shaped moon vanishing behind the clouds during a total eclipse.

The sight jolted through his exhaustion like a spear thrust.

He grinned shamelessly; hoping for an encore, he rested his hand back down on the grate, and the tiny pile of coals that had just begun to glow. Small flames arrowed up his jacket sleeve. The intense shock of pain wiped the grin from his face. It made him leap up with a string of curses that could be heard throughout the house.

She pulled down the covers, struggling on with the nightdress as she threw her bare leg over the bed. “You looked, didn’t you?”

“Hell’s bells!” he shouted. “Maggie, fetch me the basin of wash water. I’m on fire!”

She shrank back as he jumped up and plunged his arm into the basin, splashing at the flames. “Well, thanks very much for the help,” he said in a disgruntled voice. “I suppose you couldn’t rouse yourself from the bed for laughing so hard. It’s all right, though. I don’t mind becoming a human bonfire as long as it entertains her ladyship.”

He turned in annoyance, shaking his dripping sleeve. Maggie had left the bed and stood pressed with her shoulder blades against the wall. She wasn’t laughing though, as he expected. Instead she looked panicked, the same pallor on her face as the morning she had fainted in his town house.

“Maggie.” He came forward, fear in his voice. He forgot the pain in his hand. It was only superficial anyway. The truth was, he was more embarrassed by his reaction to the sight of her body than the bu
rn
. “Maggie, what is the matter with you?”

He took another step toward her. But he stopped instinctively as she shrank back, shaking her head in denial of an invisible horror. Daphne, as if sensing something amiss, clung to Connor’s legs and whined.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Maggie,” he said in a soft puzzled voice. “What’s wrong? Why are you afraid?”