Daring

by Jillian Hunter

  “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 burn. “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?”

  His voice seemed to penetrate whatever strangeness entrapped her. “Hurt me?” She blinked, giving him an odd look. “Of course you’re not going to hurt me. I never thought you were. Let me take a look at your hand. I can’t believe the fuss you were making. Surely it can’t be that bad.”

  Connor wondered if exhaustion was making his imagination go wild. “My hand is fine, lass, but if I don’t get some sleep, I’ll be a raving lunatic.”

  “You’re going to wake up the entire household,” Maggie whispered as he walked away, completely herself again. “It wasn’t my fault you hurt yourself. I did warn you not to look.”

  Chapter

  21

  Maggie awakened less than an hour later after a brief restless sleep. She’d had another one of her nightmares—it frustrated her, never understanding what triggered them, what they meant. They seemed to be increasing in frequency lately. She wondered if they were caused by the strain of knowing someone was following her.

  She willed her heart to slow down. Fire and ice. The aftermath of the nightmare ebbed through her, leaving a sense of loss and aching sadness. She concentrated instead on the sound of the rain washing against her window. Her room was cozy and warm, thanks to the coals Connor had lit. She smiled, feeling guilty. Claude and his lordship must be perishing cold in the barn while she lay there, snug as a bug on the heather tick. She hoped the two men could sleep until after breakfast.

  She rose from the bed with a wistful sigh and pulled on the cloak she’d left to dry by the fire. She dragged the two extra goosedown comforters that Mrs. Pringle had brought in to lay across the bed in case Maggie took a chill.

  Then she tiptoed downstairs, let herself out through the kitchen, and made a mad dash across the yard in the rain to the barn. Dawn was just breaking.

  The pungent aroma of straw, linseed oil, and animals assailed her through the gloomy shadows, reminding her of childhood summers. Tears sprang to her eyes, hot and unexpected. Memories broke across her mind of playing with Robert and Jeanette in the ancient barn, hiding from their nursemaid, then ambushing the poor woman and pretending to behead her.

  They would never be the Three Musketeers again.

  She wiped away the traces of rain and tears mingled on her face, forcing her thoughts to the present. She found Claude sleeping peacefully in an empty stall. She covered him with one of the comforters and gently lifted the sword he held across his chest, placing it at his side. He looked like an ancient alabaster knight resting on a burial chamber.

  I still have you, old friend, she thought, but not for too many years. And then, with a lack of social decorum that would have horrified him to his dignified core, she leaned down and kissed his parchment-thin cheek. He was the embodiment of love and loyalty. He was the father she had lost.

  His lordship was asleep in the loft. She struggled to pull the heavy comforter up the ladder—it was filthy by the time she finished—but it was so damp in the barn she decided the sacrifice was worth it. Connor would fuss like hell if he woke up, but she suspected that secretly he would appreciate the gesture.

  She knelt in the straw and studied his face in leisurely detail. Even in rest the symmetry of bone and masculine planes made a striking impression. She wondered what he’d looked like as a boy, if his face had ever shown any softness. She wondered how such a hard man would respond to gentleness.

  He didn’t stir when she pulled the comforter over his threadbare quilt. He slept like the dead. She felt a wave of appreciation wash over her. No wonder he was tired, pulling those horses from the bog, always fighting to keep his emotions under control.

  What did he really think of her? Feel for her? Aside from physical attraction, of course. Were there any other women in his life besides Ardath? Maggie didn’t think so, but then with a man like him, it was hard to tell.

  As she began to rise, she noticed his greatcoat folded inexpertly under his head like a pillow. She tried to rearrange it and felt his pistol protruding from the pocket. This discovery horrified her. What if he shot himself in the temple while he slept? Perhaps, overfatigued, he’d simply forgotten where he had placed the gun. Why did a man who made a career of taking care of an entire country not take care of himself?

  Connor woke to the sight of a pistol pointing at his nose. He exhaled slowly, staring Maggie in the eye. “Miss Saunders.” His voice was deliberately steady, giving no indication he could scarcely breathe for fear she might squeeze the trigger at any second. “I’ve been meaning to talk with you… to apologize,” he improvised. “It is true that I haven’t been on my best behavior lately.”

  “No, you haven’t,” Maggie was forced to agree.

  His hand crept up under the comforter. “I have been rude at times. I have lost my temper.”

  “You have been difficult,” she said. “However, at least you have the grace to admit it.”

  Connor tensed his hand to strike, waiting for the perfect moment. It came when she went to brush a bit of straw from her cloak, gasping as she realized she was still holding the pistol.

  He chose that instant to disarm her. He shot his hand up like a snake and grasped her wrist before she could react. “Give me the gun, Maggie,” he said urgently. “Violence never solved anything. We can settle our differences in other ways.”

  Maggie had no idea what he was talking about. “You are hurting my hand,” she said through her teeth.

  “Let go of the gun, lass.”

  “Let go of my wrist.”

  He sat up carefully. She tried to pull away, and then, as his grip tightened, she felt her fingers flex involuntarily, and the gun went off, blowing a hole through the barn roof.

  They looked up simultaneously, too shocked to speak. A waterfall of rain cascaded through the small opening the bullet had gauged. Particles of soggy heather and slate floated over them.

  “Dear God,” Maggie whispered, her other hand flying to her mouth. “Look what you’ve done. What was the point?”

  Connor stared at her in disbelief. “Look what I’ve done? Is that what you said? Was I supposed to let you shoot me?”

  The sound of straw rustling came from below. Then Claude’s voice, feeble but alert, called up the ladder, “Is everything all right with you, sir?”

  “Everything is wonderful,” Connor said, glaring at Maggie. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “I thought I heard a noise, sir. Some kind of small explosion.”

  “Don’t tell him I’m up here,” Maggie whispered. "He’ll challenge you to a duel in my honor.”

  “It was thunder,” Connor said, not taking his eyes off Maggie. “Go back to sleep, Claude.”

  “Yes, sir. And thank you for the extra bedding, sir. It was most considerate of you. Most unexpected.”

  There was a pause, as if Claude suddenly found the conversation embarrassing, before he shuffled back to his makeshift bed. Connor laid the gun down behind him, his face taking on a pitiless look.

  “Even if you were only trying to frighten me—I don’t believe you’re capable of shooting a man—it was a dangerous thing to do. You obviously don’t know how to handle a firearm. That gun could have gone off and killed me. Wouldn’t you have felt terrible then?”

  Maggie stuck her nose in his face, biting off each word with emphasis. “That is why I removed the gun from your coat—so you wouldn't blow your pompous head off.”

  He stared down into her incredible blue eyes, aware of the
subtle changes in his body, temperature, pulse, and heartbeat, aware that the tension that gripped him was generated by another primal emotion. The rain had brought out the sweetness of roses on her skin. A hot rush of blood flooded his veins. He ached to pull her down on top of him, to bury his face between her breasts.

  “You came out in the pouring rain—you took the gun from my coat—because you didn’t want me to hurt myself?” he said incredulously.

  She raised her chin, enjoying his shamefaced expression. “I brought you the quilt because I thought you might be cold.”

  He glanced down at the heavy comforter, hesitant to hand her this victory. Finally he said, “Well, what would you have thought, if you’d woken up and found me pointing a gun in your face?”

  “If,” she said, her voice clipped, “if I had been either so careless or exhausted as to fall asleep with a loaded gun under my head, I would have been immensely grateful to you for saving me. I would have expressed my gratitude in any number of ways that did not include attacking you and blowing a hole in the roof.”

  “Gratitude?” Connor snorted derisively. “You really do have your own peculiar perception of things, don’t you? Well, I’ll show you gratitude.”

  Maggie never saw his kiss coming. There was no time to defend herself against it. She felt the power of it, though, in every pore of her unprepared body. She craved it, invited it, her lips opening beneath his.

  His initial gentleness deceived her into believing she could enjoy the sparks that flew between them before they burned her. How wrong she was. His hand slid up her scalp to anchor her head as his mouth ate at hers. Pleasure pierced all the way to the pit of her belly like the point of a heated sword. She fell straight backward into the straw, the air forced from her lungs by the weight of Connor’s body as he crawled over her.

  “Merciful heaven,” she breathed.

  He kissed the underside of her jaw, nibbling at her throat. He moved his large hands over her as if he owned her, as if he knew instinctively where to find every secret pleasure spot on her body. Each brush of his lips made her shiver. When he loosened her nightrail and drew her nipple into his mouth, she arched upward from her shoulders only to sag back helplessly in submission.

  “That,” he said in a dangerously quiet voice as he drew back into the darkness, “is gratitude, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll go back to your room before I am overcome with it.”

  Maggie pulled herself upright, dazed and flustered. “Honestly, I don’t know why I bother,” she said, tugging her cloak out from under him. “I should have let you freeze.” He closed his eyes, breathing hard, and heard her scurry down the ladder, banging the barn door behind her. A second later a stream of chilly water hit him full in the chest and dribbled down into his trousers. The final insult, he thought with an ironic smile.

  The next time she gave him the opportunity, he wouldn’t be so quick to let her go.

  Maggie’s agitation lasted only as long as it took her to notice the man in black standing by the stone wall that encircled the farmhouse. At first, pondering the upsetting scene in the hayloft, she almost walked right past him. It was past daybreak but still dark, the drizzling rain muting her surroundings. His tall figure blended into the hazy background of trees that bordered the farmhouse fields.

  She froze in midstep at the edge of the muddied yard, fear slamming into her chest. Rain splashed down around her, icy, soaking into her hair. Her instincts screamed that the man didn’t belong here any more than she did.

  She stumbled back a step. She was afraid to nm, afraid to cry for help. She doubted anyone would hear her anyway in the rain.

  “Marguerite. That is your name, isn’t it?”

  His voice was faint, indistinguishable from a hundred others. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to talk to you, to warn you. Connor Buchanan is a dangerous man.”

  She had to outrun him. The farmhouse was too far. Another step backward, toward the barn.

  The man moved away from the wall. “Don’t stay with him, Marguerite. He’s going to hurt you.”

  Chills crept over her body. Marguerite. He spoke her real name with such familiarity. Was there something familiar about him? Black hat, black cloak, black breeches, a face in shadows. He could have been anyone. The murderer Connor was chasing. Sheena’s kidnapper. If she’d seen him before, he wasn’t someone she knew well.

  “Let me take you somewhere where we can talk in private,” he said almost tenderly. “Out of the rain. You need a friend, Marguerite. You’ve been through so much.”

  He took another step. Then she was running, sloughing through the mud, clumsy, slow. Her cloak fell off. Somehow she reached the barn. She even managed to climb the rickety ladder back to the loft where Connor lay with one arm behind his head. Panic robbed her of speech. She scrambled through the straw, the strange voice ringing in her ear.

  He’s going to hurt you.

  Connor’s eyes were closed, but he hadn’t been able to fall asleep. Kissing Maggie again had overstimulated him, and yesterday hadn’t exactly been dull to begin with. He kept thinking about the innocent pleasure on her face. About touching her soft white skin. That delicious body and her sensuality, her legs parting under his. Imagining making love to her gave him the biggest erection of his life.

  A moment later his secret fantasy came true. Well, half of it did. She hit him like a tiny cannonball in the chest. For a split second their bodies touched, melded, and he could feel every sensuous curve of her body like a brand. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a sexual experience. The attack scared the life out of him, and he hollered in reaction.

  “What the hell has happened now?”

  “Protect me, my lord,” she said frantically.

  She had ripped the comforter from his warm, relaxed body and was clinging to him, soaking, shaking with cold and fright. Her feet felt like blocks of muddy ice. He pulled her upright, his hopes for an impromptu moment of passion dying as he saw the look on her face.

  “What happened?” he said in a grim voice.

  “M-man.” She gritted her chattering teeth. “All in black. He knew my real name—said you wanted to h-hurt me.”

  Connor knew she needed calming down, but his anger overpowered the urge to comfort. He grabbed his coat from the straw and pulled it on over his bare shoulders. He stuck his pistol in his waistband. Mrs. Pringle’s husband was out of town. The driver and Claude were snoring fitfully below. Unless Maggie had been imagining things again, no one on the farm should have approached her.

  And no one should have tried to convince her Connor meant her harm.

  * * * * *

  She hurried after him, afraid to let him out of her sight. She was bound and determined that this time he would believe her. If he meant to protect her, he’d better start taking the situation more seriously.

  The rain roared down on them hard enough to float Noah’s ark. Maggie stumbled to match Connor’s enormous strides with mud splashing up to her ankles. Threads of watery light were beginning to lace the sky.

  The man wasn’t standing anywhere by the stone wall. She could have screamed in frustration at the exasperated look Connor shot her.

  “He was there,” she said, tramping up to him. “I swear to you. He was standing right there. Look for footprints if you don’t believe me.”

  “Footprints. In a sea of mud.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t stand around waiting for you to come after him, would he?” she shouted.

  He stared past the wall, past the shivering trees, to the lonely field beyond. Suddenly his eyes narrowed. A chill raced down Maggie’s back as she followed the direction of his focused gaze. Thank God—he’d spotted him.

  There was barely enough light to make out a man’s figure in the middle of the field. Dark hat, dark cloak. The man’s body seemed to be buffeted by the wind as if he were struggling to run against it. Maggie wondered if he’d gotten stuck in the bog.

  Connor glanced back at her in frustration. “I told y
ou to stay inside the barn.”

  “I wanted to make sure you believed me.” She edged another inch closer to his back. “Do you?”

  He didn’t answer, his mouth a taut line of tension. He pulled away from her and took out his pistol. He looked rather fierce and frightening, standing there in the rain with a coat over his bare chest. Her stomach turned over as she realized he might kill that man, or worse, be killed himself.

  “Do you have—” She stopped as a giant shudder racked her from head to toe.

  Connor spared her a disgusted glare. “How can I go after him when I have to worry about you getting hurt? Hide behind that wall.” His gaze returned to the dark figure in the field. “And don’t get up until I tell you it’s safe. I think he’s waiting for me.”

  “It looks like he’s motioning to you,” she whispered. “Please be careful.”

  He set out in the rain, leaving her to take cover behind the wall. She wondered if she had just sent him to his death. Why hadn’t she thought to run back to the barn and raise the driver to help him? She swallowed dryly, wishing she had never left her room.

  It was hard to see in the diffused light, but she could pick out Connor charging across the field like a warlord. Obviously he couldn’t see well either because he ran straight into a wagon. It didn’t stop him for long. He circled with a primitive growl and continued forward.

  Then suddenly the wind picked up. The man in the middle of the field began waving his arms, clearly trying to provoke a confrontation. Maggie straightened, her hand pressed to her mouth against the urge to scream a warning to Connor. The man seemed to be pointing a long brown object at Connor. It looked like a musket.

  She climbed over the wall, rain stinging her face, but she scarcely noticed the cold anymore. She had to stop Connor. He glanced back at her once. The wind howled in her ears. Yet she kept running as hard as she could—until she stubbed her toe on a small boulder hidden in a clump of dying gorse.