Decadent, a voice whispered in her brain in belated warning. The Devil’s Advocate.
She pushed at his chest, her hands encountering an immovable wall, his hair tangling with hers. But Connor waited until he was good and ready to break the kiss. He waited until desire flashed like wildfire through his veins, until he was satisfied that he had made his mark on her, that she would never forget what it felt like to be kissed by him. The sensation of her soft body in his arms intoxicated him. He had to force himself to stop. He suppressed a shudder of physical reaction as tenderness and black lust mingled inside him, ebbing away to a painful ache.
“There,” he said, drawing an uneven breath. “That was the first thing I felt like doing when I found you alone in the drawing room.”
Smiling slightly at her dazed expression, he released her to fall back like a windblown petal from a flower against the pillows. He was certain she’d never been kissed like that before, if at all. Unfortunately, the way his belly had twisted into a knot, you’d think he was the one experiencing his first kiss. He hadn’t expected her to affect him like that.
He studied her with renewed interest, his mood lifting at the thought of the evening ahead. “I wouldn’t put it past Donaldson to come barging in here to cause more mischief,” he said in amusement. “God, what a great joke. I can’t believe they went to so much trouble. I hope they paid you well for your performance. You certainly deserve it.”
She sat up stiffly, burning with humiliation and not certain she would ever recover from the events of the past hour. “They didn’t pay me anything, you big overbearing idiot. Get off my bruised rib. I’m not an actress. I’m just a poor working girl with bad judgment and the wrong friends.”
“I imagine Ardath picked you because you look like the princess in the tapestry.” His dark eyes dancing with appreciation, he curled his forefinger around the ribbon loosely threaded in the collar of her nightrail. “You have very delicate bones,” he said quietly. “I’ll have to be careful when we make love. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re going to feel very stupid in a few minutes, Lord Buchanan,” she whispered, unable to express a shudder when he touched her.
“Take that silly bandage off your head,” he commanded gently. “It looks uncomfortable.”
“A concussion is uncomfortable, isn’t it?”
He nudged her chin upward with his knuckles, forcing her angry face to his. “I just had an idea—would you like to go to the Highlands with me for a month?”
“Would I—”
He was dead serious. “Do you like to go hunting?”
“I detest everything about it,” she said through her teeth.
“Good.” He gave her a lazy, heart-stopping smile, and dipped his head to nuzzle her soft white neck. “Then we’ll spend all our time in bed.”
For the first time in her life, Maggie’s power of speech failed her.
Her eyes widened as he tugged the nightrail off her shoulder, exposing the swell of her breast. He groaned as he drew his head lower, his lips teasing the nerve endings of her skin. She froze in fascinated apprehension. Lord, the man did sinful things with his mouth. Interesting, inventive, wonderful things that she had never experienced before. She floundered for a moment in a haze of humiliation and unabashed anticipation, afraid to imagine what could happen if she didn’t stop him.
She didn’t understand this man at all, torn between reluctant sympathy for his situation and the sheer terror of her own. Again she thought of the lion in the tapestry, a big beast who rarely showed the world his vulnerability. She remembered the hunter in the background, the sense of evil that surrounded him. Was it possible that she, like the princess, was playing an unwitting part in luring Lord Buchanan into danger too?
She didn’t know at first what made him stop. Only gradually did she become aware of his unnatural silence, then the mechanical stiffness of his movements as he levered up onto his elbow.
A frown furrowed his brow as he stared at the length of blood-flecked gauze in his hand. His gaze flickered to hers, both accusing and brimming with guilt.
“No,” he said thickly. Then he threaded his long fingers into her hair, lifting it to stare in dread at the knot on her scalp. “Dear God, you have been hurt.”
“Of course I’ve been hurt,” she practically shouted. “I fell on my head.”
It was a moment before he could speak again. “It wasn’t a joke, after all. I’m a fool.”
He turned his head to the wall; he looked so bereft of hope that Maggie felt tears of remorse sting her eyes. “I wish it had been a joke,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, for both of us.”
“But it wasn’t.” His voice fell on a note of finality. He sounded stricken, shaking his head in shocked denial. “Oh, lass, I’m sorry too.”
She brushed away a tear. “It’s sorry I am for breaking into your house. I knew it was wrong. But I also know Jamie isn’t a murderer, and I… I believed the things I heard about you.”
He ran his hand through his tousled blond hair, the realization of what he had to face slowly sinking into his dazed mind. “In future you might try coming to me personally rather than believing what is said behind my back.”
“It’s probably a good idea,” she agreed meekly.
Not content to accept her contrite attitude at face value, he dug the knife of his disapproval a little deeper. “It would have spared us both a load of embarrassment if you had, for example, simply knocked upon my door last night and requested a private interview.”
Maggie nodded miserably. “Isn’t that the truth, my lord?”
He glanced back at her, swallowing a groan as she scrubbed another tear from her cheek. He couldn’t believe that he had almost seduced a hurt and helpless woman. A few more minutes, and he would have taken her innocence and dear Lord, he shuddered to imagine the scandal that would have ensued. “Don’t cry, damn it,” he said stiffly.
There was a knock at the door, Dr. Sinclair asking, “Is everything all right in there, Maggie?”
“Everything is fine,” Connor said in a toneless voice.
“No, it is not,” she whispered, raising her knees to hide her ravaged face.
Connor observed her in bewildered silence, reaching his hand out to comfort her before he could stop the impulse. “There, there.” He patted her awkwardly, amazed that a common little thief could arouse his protective instincts. Innocence, or ingenuity? He grunted, deciding it didn’t matter. She looked so upset that he couldn’t help himself. “Hell,” he thought aloud. “What a mess, and you and I are in it together now.”
She nodded again. “I only broke into your house to steal the confession. I suppose you have every right to put me in prison.” She hesitated, her voice a thread of sound. “Do you mind not patting me so hard? I know you mean well, but that’s the shoulder I hurt when I fell.”
Connor released a sigh and pulled his hand back to his side, rising as if in a daze to his feet. “You’re not going to prison.” God, what was he saying? What kind of example was he setting? He took a step away from the bed, hitting his own shoulder against the bedpost. Was this really happening to him? He caught an unwelcome glimpse of himself in the mirror. Long hair disheveled. Cravat pulled loose. Shirttails hanging around his hips. This—this was the man who bore sole responsibility for the safety of Scotland? He looked like a barbarian. He felt like one. He frightened himself.
Ardath pounded on the door. “It’s too quiet in there, Connor. What on earth is going on?”
He forced out a breath and took a moment to tuck in his shirt. He pivoted slowly, stumbling over a pillow on the floor. “I’ll still need your cooperation, lass,” he said heavily. “And by the way, I am the senior advocate the Crown appointed to advise the young lawyer who is handling Munro’s defense. That confession was never intended to be used against him. He’s only being held for his own protection. I was working to help him for free.”
Chapter
8
Maggie gas
ped as if he’d dealt her a physical blow, raising her small white face in shock. Good Lord, she had become a felon—she’d committed her first crime—for nothing. He had been helping Jamie all along. She was going to throttle the Chief if she ever got back to Heaven’s Court, which seemed highly unlikely to judge by the unforgiving look on the Lion’s face. One daring mistake, a misjudgment, and her life was in ruins.
“Where are you going?” she asked him in apprehension as he reached the door.
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “To try to find my sister again.”
“And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“Eat me out of house and home to judge by the past hour.”
She pressed her hand to her heart. “But you can’t keep me here. Can you?”
He glanced at her over his shoulder, his face haggard, his smile merciless. “Not unless you want to change your mind about prison. Malicious mischief. Theft aggravated by housebreaking. Drunkenness. Why, it’s enough to have you transported to Tasmania. As bad as I am, I think you’ll agree you’re better off in that bed, lass.”
She wondered about that, remembering the violently pleasurable sensations he’d just aroused in her. Yet even though he intimidated her, even though his behavior had proven unpredictable, she was more afraid to be left alone. “But the newspapers said you were going to prosecute Jamie,” she said in confusion.
“The newspapers made a mistake,” he said coldly, thrusting his arms into his jacket. “I don’t broadcast the cases I take for the poor.”
“Whyever not?”
His flashed her another pitiless smile as he opened the door. “Because it isn’t good for my image.”
Her expression of despair gave Connor little satisfaction. He strode from the room, cursing his helplessness and feeling more numb than anything. The anxious faces that awaited him in the hallway destroyed any lingering hopes he’d held that tonight had been a practical joke. If someone wanted to punish him, they’d made a damn good start. For all his complaining, he cared more about his sisters than he’d ever admitted.
It was Connor who, at thirteen, had raised his orphaned family of six little girls. A half dozen fussy, demanding, endearing, emotional females who had driven him to the brink of madness so many times he’d earned a place of honor in Bedlam. He’d gotten four of them settled down; although Rebecca had never married, she claimed to be happy enough in her solitary life. But none of them had ever given him half as much trouble as Sheena: Sheena who had never really known their parents and who had taken their death the hardest, whose grief had left her emotionally scarred and grasping for affection.
Just let her be safe. Even if she never speaks to me again. Even if she bedevils my life until the day I die, just let her come home unharmed.
He rubbed the muscles corded along his neck, frowning to make sense of Ardath and his uncle’s voices, talking at once, telling him what to do. Connor had wanted to be a lawyer ever since he could remember. He had raised himself from the ashes of poverty and abandonment to achieve his success after his parents died. But if his early experiences had toughened his character, they’d also destroyed the last of his boyish idealism. He had grown up hard and fast, relying on his fists as much as his wits. Cynicism had begun to corrode his heart even in childhood.
Ardath moved around him, darting him a guarded look. Her face suspicious, she poked her head into the guest suite as if to scrutinize Maggie for battle scars. “She looks horribly upset.”
“With good reason,” Connor said flatly.
She turned on him, her skirts rustling in the awkward silence. “What did you say to her?” she whispered. “The girl has been crying.”
“Leave me alone,” he said. “I’m trying to think.”
The earl approached him; in the confusion he’d neglected to remove the gardener’s apron tied around his waist. “The inspector claims he has something important to show you, Connor,” he said quietly.
“Where is he?”
“Downstairs with Norah’s husband and the girls.”
His face grave, Connor nodded and strode to the top of the stairs. A short woman with bouncy blond ringlets and a large bosom bumped into him on the uppermost step, emitting a tiny shriek of excitement in his ear. He curbed his impatience and moved aside politely to let her pass. He’d completely forgotten he was supposed to be hosting a party.
“Daddy told me everything,” she said in a breathy little-girl voice. “I have to admit it came as quite a surprise. I never dreamed you harbored such strong feelings.” She batted her lashes at him. “You sly devil.”
Connor just nodded absently. He didn’t recognize her, she was quite peculiar, and he assumed she was referring to his sister’s abduction. “It is a bad situation,” he said in a dismissive tone. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Miss—”
She clamped her hand down on his arm in a grip of steel as he started around her, refusing to let him go. “Call me Philomena.” Her bosom quivered on a deep sigh. It drew Connor’s attention to the damp caviar stain on her dress “I’m not really a recluse, you know,” she said with a self-conscious giggle. “I adore parties.”
Connor almost lost his footing on the stairs, forcing a smile to hide the unpleasant jolt of realization. “Of course you do. Philomena… Excuse me a moment, won’t you?” Hell, what an annoying creature. She reminded him of an empty-headed china doll. To think he’d ever toyed with the idea of stating his interest to Elliot. The woman would drive him mad in a matter of minutes.
He pulled his arm free, spotting Aaron watching them from the bottom of the stairs with an idiotic smile of approval. But even the frightening prospect of a romance with the unappealing Philomena faded from his mind as he noticed his brother-in-law Charles and the inspector pushing through the small throng of guests to greet him. Norah, Caroline, Sarah, Jennie. His four sisters safe, at least for now. He wondered fleetingly about Rebecca. He’d feel better having her here, just knowing she was safe instead of living unprotected in those Highland wilds. A woman needed a man to take care of her.
His chest tightened at the look on Charles’s face. He hurried down the remaining stairs. Everything around them dimmed into a distant fog. Something bad had happened, some news about Sheena. He felt it in the terse silence that engulfed him. “What is it?”
Inspector Davies handed him a folded piece of parchment. The tightness in Connor’s chest turned into a vise that squeezed his heart as he recognized the broken rose seal. Memories clutched at his mind, dragging him into the past like claws. “This was just found on the front steps,” Davies said. “I took the liberty of opening it, sir. I think you’d better read it.”
The man removed his mask and rubbed at the thick scar tissue that marred the left side of his face. It was an unconscious gesture, as if he wanted to erase the pain of his original injury. He knew his appearance repulsed certain women and held an inexplicable attraction to others. He wondered if the woman who called herself Maggie Saunders would recognize him beneath the mask.
Maggie Saunders. His scarred lip flattened in disdain. What a common name. A French tutor by day and amateur thief at night who’d gotten involved in an abduction, a thief who was being hailed as a heroine for attacking a man with a champagne bottle.
He stared past the unlit grate to the older man who sat across from him. “Are you sure she’s still in his house?”
His companion stroked his thin mustache and nodded slowly. “Of course I’m sure.”
“Then why are we waiting? I told you I want to get out of the country.”
“It isn’t that simple,” the other man replied with infinite patience. “Buchanan has reason to be cautious now. As far as I can gather, his family is taking care of her. She’ll be frightened, suspicious of strangers. The abduction is fresh in her mind.” He spoke with the confidence of a man accustomed to subterfuge. “I thought we’d agreed this must be done carefully.”
A sound from the outside of the door of the quiet inn interrupted t
heir conversation. The first man picked up his mask and automatically covered his face. His companion sighed and glanced at his watch. “I’ll meet with Buchanan tomorrow. I’ll find out exactly what his plans are. He trusts me.”
“Well, I don’t trust him,” the man in the mask said bitterly. “The sooner we get her away from him, the better.”
His companion rose and pulled on a pair of gray leather gloves, then reached for his walking stick. “You’ve waited this long. Another few weeks isn’t going to make that much difference.”
“You don’t know that.” The man’s blue eyes glittered from the mask with unholy resolve. “He isn’t called a devil for nothing, is he?”
Chapter
9
Maggie was drifting in the depths of a laudanum-laced dream when the ungodly shouting in the street awakened her. Her mind in a fog, shivering from the nightmare she’d escaped, she crawled off the bed and staggered across the darkened room to investigate. She guessed she had a good hour left before it was time to get up for work.
This was the first time in years she’d overslept.
As she struggled to open the window, she wondered dimly which moron in the boardinghouse had taken it upon himself to move all her furniture during the night. The portion of her fuzzy brain that appeared to be functioning registered the fact that it was drizzling outside, she’d never had so much trouble with this wretched window, and Lord, had she fallen out of bed last night? She ached all over, starting with a dull throbbing at the back of her head.
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