Daring

by Jillian Hunter

  Maggie lifted her hand to tidy her hair, drawing Connor’s attention to the fullness of her breasts and narrow waist. God knew there was nothing enticing about her crumpled gray velvet dress, but that didn’t stop him from imagining the supple dancer’s body hidden beneath it. A body that he was supposed to protect and not lust after like an animal, he reminded himself with a grunt of annoyance.

  “Take your belongings,” he said in resignation. “There’s no telling how long it’s going to take him to work us loose.”

  Maggie clucked her tongue in sympathy as she gathered up her skirts. “A good servant is worth his weight in gold but almost impossible to find nowadays. I suppose it’s a sign of the times. That’s why I treasure Claude so highly.”

  Connor watched in grudging admiration as she leaned over to gently shake the old man awake. She was so convincing in her pose as the exiled duke’s daughter that Connor realized he could end up wrapped around her little finger just like everyone else if he weren’t constantly on guard against her.

  “Put your cloak on,” he said in a gruff voice to disguise the fact that he’d been staring at her again. “You’ll freeze to death out on the moor.”

  Startled, Maggie scooped up her dog and swung her head around to reprimand him for his abrupt tone. The words died in her throat at the look he gave her, and tiny flames ran down her backbone. Her eyes met his, and she wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter if it began to snow. There was enough heat in Connor Buchanan’s gaze to start a bonfire.

  Connor climbed a hill and sat down on a large boulder to watch Maggie, Claude, and the driver argue about how to lift the wheel out of the rut. Actually, it wasn’t a rut. It was more like a ditch, but he supposed if you were drunk enough, you wouldn’t know the difference.

  He wondered if getting drunk would make traveling with her more tolerable, or if it would only make it worse by lowering his inhibitions. His mind kept mulling over the images of tussling with her in his bed. That creamy skin, those lush breasts and muscular legs he could too easily envision wrapped around his back. His attraction to her was a frightening thing.

  Traveling with the woman was making him mad. Every time she touched him, he jumped as if he’d been burned with a hot poker. The sweet huskiness of her voice sent chills down his back. The dog and the old man didn’t help, either.

  In fact, he had been forced to put his foot down on the road from Falkirk.

  Not that it had done a damn bit of good.

  “Daphne needs to go, my lord,” Maggie must have said at least fifteen times an hour.

  To which he would reply, “Good. Let her go. The farther, the better.”

  “I mean she needs to, well, she needs to use the privy, as it were.”

  “The privy? Dear Lord. We are not stopping again to let that animal spend an hour sniffing around every burn, brush, and boulder in creation.”

  And Claude would add, “I know it is not my place to say so, sir, but surely it wouldn’t hurt to stop and admire the local scenery?”

  “Yes, it would hurt.” Connor realized that the time had come for a show of authority. “I am protecting a witness, not giving a grand tour of the Highlands to a dog. We are not stopping. Now, if that’s settled, I do not wish to be disturbed again. I wish to sleep, hopefully until this wretched journey is over.”

  The poodle took her revenge while Connor took a nap. “Oh, Daphne,” Maggie whispered, “you didn’t. Not all over his lordship’s law briefs. Funny word, isn’t it, briefs? Claude, open the window while his lordship is still asleep and hang his important papers out to dry. He’ll be as cross as crabs if he finds out.”

  “He has already found out, Miss Saunders.”

  “Oh, dear.” A sheepish smile crept across her face. “I hope those papers weren’t terribly important.”

  “Of course not, lass!” Connor retorted. ‘They only represented months of blood, sweat, and tears on the Balfour case. But never mind. The Crown will understand if crucial evidence for the trial of the century is ruined because a poodle used it for a chamber pot.”

  He heaved a sigh of impatience and lifted his gaze to the sky. Darkness was dropping like a curtain. They’d never get to Kilcurrie at this rate, he thought in frustration. Frustration over not finding Sheena, over his increasing desire for a girl who at least outwardly represented everything he fought against. Deceit, criminal ties, emotional complications. What she might consist of deep beneath that surface appeal was another matter.

  Certainly not like anyone, man or woman, he’d ever met before.

  He glanced down, his gaze going straight to the petite figure with mist spangling her midnight hair. How could she think she was being followed? There probably wasn’t a human being for miles around, let alone one associated with the kidnappers, who, if they had any sense, wouldn’t be parading around disguised as the local swineherds.

  But try to tell Maggie Saunders that. Try to inject a dose of reality into her make-believe world of deposed dukes and French castles and tenderhearted criminals. Connor still hadn’t gotten over how everyone around her catered to her fantasy. Well, he wouldn’t be counted in her story-book entourage, thank God. It was one thing for the country to view him as a hero. But it was quite another for that image to seep into his personal life.

  Except that his association with her wasn’t supposed to be personal.

  He narrowed his eyes, then laughed out loud, the sound echoing in the hills. What the hell did they think they were doing now?

  The driver had unhitched the horses. He had wedged a board under the stuck wheel and was pushing against the carriage with all his might. So were Maggie and Claude, their faces empurpled with effort, worker ants trying to roll a boulder up a hill.

  In fact, from where Connor sat it looked like all three of them were pushing in different directions. If anything, the wheel only sunk deeper into the rut, spewing mud in the air.

  He shook his head in chagrin. He buried his face in his hands, hiding a grin. He couldn’t bear to watch. He was half afraid the old butler would take a heart attack. Maggie looked in grave danger of sinking up to her grateful neck in muck.

  He rose, dropping his coat on the boulder, his voice brusque. “All right. Everybody get out of the way.” He rolled up his shirtsleeves and slid down the hill. “Miss Saunders, keep that embarrassing excuse for a dog away from the carriage.”

  Maggie plucked her dainty feet out of the mud in relief. “What are you going to do?”

  “Be careful, my lord,” the driver said worriedly. “I near broke my spine tryin’ to budge that wheel.”

  Connor turned to the carriage like David confronting Goliath. “Everyone stand back.”

  “Dear heaven.” Maggie put her hand to her mouth as Connor positioned his forearms under the chassis and lowered his shoulders. “Don’t you strain your sacrum, my lord.”

  He ignored her. He clenched his jaw in concentration, his golden hair falling in his face. The muscles of his back and shoulders strained against his white linen shirt. A groan escaped from between his gritted teeth and Maggie closed her eyes, praying aloud that he would not injure himself. He would have laughed if he’d a breath to spare.

  Then all of a sudden, as she opened her eyes to peek, the carriage was free, bobbing slightly as he lowered it to the ground. Maggie, Claude, and the driver applauded politely.

  “There is something to be said for brute strength,” she said in grudging approval.

  “That was quite impressive, my lord,” the driver said. “You must have a physique like cast iron.”

  Connor rolled down his sleeves, shrugging off their praise. “You can all get back into the carriage now. With any luck there won’t be another delay.”

  The driver pulled off his cap and gave Connor an abashed smile. “We do have another slight problem.”

  Connor looked up. “A problem?”

  “It’s the horses, my lord. I unhitched them to lighten the carriage. Then that dog chased them across the heath. Don�
��t worry, though. They’ll not have gone far. Old Claude here and I will have them back in an hour or two.”

  Maggie 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. Maggie sighed as he drew her bottom lip 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

  He 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.

  Maggie 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.”