Maggie drew her cloak around her as he opened the door to the misty courtyard, murmuring, “What a wild, desolate place.” She felt a shiver go through her at the thought of a woman abducted, alone with a man in such an untamed setting. But, stealing a glance at Connor, she wondered if she was really that much safer herself.
“Would you mind bringing my hatboxes, my lord?”
“We are in the Highlands, lass. Where would you be wearing one of those silly hats?”
“Are you going to be this surly to me the entire journey?”
“Miss Saunders, I am tired. You and your dog refused to let me sleep. You will forgive me if my social skills are not quite up to snuff.”
“I hadn’t noticed that having a nap makes much difference to your manners,” she retorted. “However, whether one is in an uncivilized setting or not, one can still take pains to look presentable. Kindly hand me that hatbox.”
The innkeeper’s pretty brunette daughter, Isabel, was delighted to be dragged from her supper chores to see Connor. “What perfect timing,” she exclaimed, clumping down the stairs in a pair of leather brogues. “Papa is in Caithness. Evan, you’ll see that we aren’t disturbed for the rest of the night, won’t you? The doctor for Mrs. Gloag should be here in a few minutes.”
The rough-faced man polishing glasses at the bar stared at Maggie, who stood looking indignant and ignored in the middle of the taproom with Claude and Daphne. Connor glanced back at her helplessly as Isabel tugged him toward a private hallway.
“I got your message about your sister,” Isabel was saying in a troubled voice. “We’ve put the posters up, but there hasn’t been a single carriage by here in months.”
The barkeep gave Maggie a curious look. “Sit by the fire, lassie, and have a hot whisky toddy on the house. There’s no tellin’ how long the pair of them will be in that parlor.”
Maggie frowned. “I’d like to know what they do in the parlor that can’t be done in the public room.”
A grin lit the man’s bearded face. “ ’Tis a secret best left unsolved.” He glanced curiously at Claude and Daphne. “Are they yours?”
“Yes.” Maggie sighed, trudging toward the inviting peat fire. “They’re mine.”
Claude came up behind her and touched her arm. He was hobbling badly from his arthritis, and his earlier trek across the heath after the horses. “Come sit by the fire and warm your feet, my lady.”
“Warm your own feet, Claude,” she said with uncharacteristic irritation as she stared down the darkened hallway. “You’re in worse shape than I am.”
“I can’t balance you on my knee and drink a glass of whisky at the same time, Isabel,” Connor complained. “Something is going to spill.”
She grinned and bounced back down onto the sofa, curling around him like a kitten. “Who was that girl with the horrible hat?”
He took a sip of whisky. “Someone I’m supposed to be looking after.”
“I thought she might be one of your sisters.”
“She isn’t.” He glanced around the stuffy room, then closed his eyes, disturbed as the image of Maggie, as he’d abandoned her, popped into his mind. “What do you want to talk to me about?” he said wearily.
“I wrote a poem in honor of my tragically short-lived romance with Mr. Donaldson.”
“I’m sure he’d be flattered,” Connor lied. “Isabel, could you move a moment? I’ve pulled a muscle in my groin.”
She laid her head on his shoulder. “You promised you were going to take me hunting with you and Donaldson this year. Did you forget, Connor?”
“The only thing Thomas and I will be hunting this year is a killer and a kidnapper,” he said grimly.
She shuddered, drawing her knees to her sides. “Do you know who they are?”
“We know who the killer is, but we haven’t identified the kidnapper—yet.”
“And that girl you brought along with you is involved?” Isabel whispered. “You’re supposed to keep her safe from the kidnapper?”
“Yes.” He released a deep sigh. “I’m to keep her safe. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from my sister Rebecca lately, have you?”
“Rebecca? I only see her once a year at the cattle drovers’ fair. Did I mention I might be getting married in January?”
“Really?” Connor tried to look like he cared, but he felt grumpy and guilty for leaving Maggie in the taproom. Not that anything was liable to happen to her in an empty inn so early at night. And did he owe her every hour of the day? Did he have to hover over her like a nursemaid to make sure she didn’t so much as break a fingernail?
No, he told himself. He didn’t. Then again, he didn’t have to think about her all the time either, but he did. “I’m happy for you, Isabel,” he said, forcing his attention back to her announcement. “You can tell me the details in the morning, but for now I—”
“You can’t go yet.” She rose onto her knees to stop him. “I have to recite my poem first. I wrote it to immortalize the night Mr. Donaldson almost seduced me in the carriage house.”
The way Thomas had related that night, it had been the other way around. Connor looked up. “Someone’s knocking at the door.”
“I don’t care.” She raised her voice. “Come back in a few minutes. We cannot be disturbed right now.”
Connor frowned. “I think you should open the door.”
“Not until after I recite my poem.”
He wondered if it had been Maggie knocking, and what she wanted, and why she thought she had the right to interrupt his conversation. “Hurry up, Isabel. It’s past my suppertime.”
“All right.” She drew a long breath, closing her eyes in concentration. “It’s called The Plucking of a Pretty Rosebud in the Carriage House.”
“That’s a hell of a title.” Connor took another deep drink of whisky and dropped his head back against the sofa. He was in the Highlands now, the one place he felt free to be himself, but he couldn’t relax. Not with so much on his mind. He glanced toward the window. “Do I hear people running about in the courtyard?”
“Not unless it’s the doctor, or it’s starting to rain. Do be quiet, Connor. ‘Oh, pretty rosebud,’ ” she began, “ ‘innocent rosebud, pink rosebud—’ Why is that girl waving a ribbon in the window?”
He put down his glass. “Either this whisky is stronger than I realized, or you’ve skipped a line. That doesn’t make any sense.”
She slid to the edge of the sofa, gesturing behind them. “Oh, my goodness, that girl—it’s not a ribbon, it’s a garter. She’s waving a garter at us.”
“Donaldson never took your garters off in the carriage house, Isabel, and don’t you dare tell anyone he did.” He stifled a yawn. “I’m not one for poetry, but it seems to me you could work a little more on—” He didn’t finish. He had just glanced past Isabel to the familiar silhouette waving at him in the window. Alarmed, he jumped up and crossed the room. “What in God’s name is going on?”
He wrenched open the window and leaned across the sill. “Why are you waving a garter at me, Miss Saunders?”
“I was trying to get your attention,” she whispered.
Connor wasn’t about to tell her that the interruption had been a relief. “It couldn’t have waited?”
She looked past him to Isabel. “There are some things more important than drinking whisky with a woman.”
“Not that I can think of," Connor retorted.
Maggie frowned. “While you were enjoying a reprieve from your responsibilities, Claude, Evan, and I managed to catch the man who’s been following me.”
“What man?” Isabel asked, coming up behind Connor.
Maggie hesitated for effect. “The man in a dark cloak who demanded that I disrobe.”
Connor didn’t think he could have heard her correctly. “He what?”
“In my establishment?” Isabel said weakly.
Maggie nodded, clearly gratified by their reaction. “You heard me. I told you, my lord, and I must admit it was
a terrifying experience, me sitting there helpless and—”
Connor turned, his face black with a fury that silenced the two women watching him. “Get back inside,” he ordered Maggie, storming across the room. “Isabel, send a servant for the local magistrate right away. You two are to remain inside until I return for you.”
Isabel nodded numbly.
Maggie, impressed by his response, found her voice. “Claude and Evan have got him locked in the stable,” she tailed after him. “Be careful—the man is obviously deranged.”
Energized by pure emotion, Connor didn’t take the time to think. If he had, he might have reconsidered his hotheaded reaction.
He might have avoided disaster.
Chapter
18
He thumped up against the headboard and watched her tiptoeing across the room. The rain pattering on the inn’s heather-thatched roof drowned out the faint sound of her footsteps. She moved with the bewitching ease of a prima ballerina. How was it possible to be so attracted to a woman who had thoroughly humiliated you only an hour ago? “What do you want now, Miss Saunders?”
She jumped, putting her hand to her heart. “Goodness, you gave me a turn. I didn’t know you were awake.”
His voice deepened in indignation. “Do you think I could possibly sleep after making a complete ass out of myself in front of the entire inn?”
“There’s no need to use that tone,” Maggie said. “It was a logical mistake, a misunderstanding. After all, the man did insist I go upstairs with him and disrobe.”
“Because he was a damned doctor, and he thought you were the woman who had summoned him here for acute stomach pain.” He raked her with a resentful glance, noting how her soft black hair curled over her shoulders, how tantalizing she looked in a pale nightrail with a frilly hem. “What do you want with me in the middle of the night, anyway?”
“It’s only eleven o’clock,” she said.
“Most people were asleep an hour ago,” he retorted.
She crept to the edge of the bed. He imagined he could see the shape of her breasts through the thin ivory batiste. His body tightened at the enticing illusion. It didn’t take much to excite him these days.
“I want to stay here until morning,” she explained. “A man just knocked on my door.”
She sat down uninvited on the edge of the bed. Her thigh brushed his. He leaned forward with a growl that sounded inhuman in the darkness. “You’re imagining things again. It was probably a guest who’d returned to the wrong room.”
She closed her eyes as the covers fell to his waist, revealing his broad shoulders and bare chest. “I am not imagining anything. The man at my door said that someone important wanted to talk to me, that I was in danger, and that if I knew what was good for me, I’d come with him right away.”
Connor couldn’t deny that the fear in her voice was genuine. He rose, a sheet draped around his waist, and dressed swiftly in the shadows. “Almighty God. I never heard of a kidnapper who bothered to knock. I don’t suppose you got a look at him?”
“Of course not.” She opened her eyes warily, hesitant to look his way. “I did, however, get a look at your torso, and while I realize that most virile men enjoy sleeping in the buff, it is not a practice I can recommend. What if the inn were to catch fire and you were forced to make an emergency exit?” She frowned down at her lap. “Are you dressed yet?”
“Yes, I’m dressed.” He bumped back into a footstool, swearing to himself. “Did you think I was going to conduct an official investigation in the nude?”
“Considering your recent lapse in the social graces, I wasn’t entirely sure. You haven’t been at all yourself lately.”
It was an absurd remark since she didn’t know him well enough to comment on his past behavior. “I don’t suppose anyone else heard this mysterious man at the door, did they?”
“I wouldn’t know. I waited until I knew he was gone, then I ran to your room as fast as I could. I think you ought to keep your door locked in future. To be on the safe side.”
Connor frowned at this useless piece of advice and combed his fingers through his hair. “I’ll have to alert Isabel. She isn’t going to like this.”
“May Daphne and I stay in your room until you return?” Maggie asked nervously.
It was the first time Connor noticed the dog at the door, wiggling its behind in greeting at his bewildered glance. Was this a bad dream? Was he really going to disturb the entire inn looking for an anonymous man while a girl and her annoying poodle slept in his bed?
“Bolt the door behind me,” he said testily. “Don’t open it to anyone except me.”
Maggie had already settled under the covers and made space for Daphne. “How will I know it’s you?”
“By my voice, Miss Saunders.”
“Perhaps we ought to have a secret password. The Chief always—”
Connor uttered a colorful obscenity.
“Well, I certainly won’t forget that phrase,” Maggie said to herself as he strode from the room, closing the door with a bang.
“Wake up, Miss Saunders. Rise and bloody shine.”
Maggie roused herself and rolled onto her back, wondering if she’d imagined the rude slap to her rear end. Beside her Daphne wagged her tail in welcome, recognizing the unsmiling figure who leaned over the bed. The dog apparently didn’t care that Lord Buchanan had been transformed into an untamed beast over the past few days. Or perhaps the pair of them had begun to communicate on some primitive level. Connor did exhibit quite a few animal tendencies. “Did you find the man?” she whispered.
Connor stared at her for several seconds, his mouth curling into an insulting smile. Exhausted, embarrassed, it didn’t do his temper a damn bit of good to see her snuggled in his bed, as dewy as a wild daisy in a meadow. “Well,” he said slowly, “after your butler nearly decapitated me outside the door, because he, being half blind, mistook me for a stranger, I began the humiliating task of waking up every man, woman, and child in the inn. It wasn’t enough to accost an innocent physician only an hour or so earlier. I had to make sure that I offended everyone in the bargain.”
Maggie sat up with the covers wrapped around her. “You’re upset because he got away again, aren’t you? You’ve committed yourself to protecting me, and the very fact that he got close enough to knock at my door makes it seem like a dereliction of duty. You are clearly a man who cannot admit failure, which is not truly a flaw. It is a mark of greatness.”
He leaned down lower, his voice like flint against stone. “Get your perfect little posterior out of my bed, Miss Saunders.”
Maggie swallowed, struggling to keep Daphne from leaping up and licking his lordship’s sternly clenched jaw. “I know you tried your best. You shouldn’t blame yourself if he got away. The criminal mind is devious—”
A muscle ticked in that sternly clenched jaw. Daphne popped out of Maggie’s arm and began running back and forth to the door, launching into a chorus of playful barks.
Maggie summoned a weak smile. “She thinks we’re going out.”
“We are.” Connor gave her a chilling smile and reached down to ply the covers out of her hands.
“But it’s almost midnight—”
“Yes. I’d noticed that.”
“And it’s raining.”
He dragged the covers to the floor, his gaze traveling over her shivering form. “That was exactly what I told Isabel’s father when he returned unexpectedly from Caithness and demanded to know what the hell I was doing interrogating his guests before he insisted I vacate the premises.”
“What a stupid man,” Maggie said sympathetically. “I hope you put him in his place. Doesn’t he know you’re the Lord Advocate of Scotland?”
“He’s a Highlander, Miss Saunders. He wouldn’t care if I were the Lord God Himself.”
“Well, he can’t throw us out at this time of night.”
Connor stared down at her in exasperation. Virginal temptation, pale skin, a vision of innocence
that conjured up thoughts of sin. She might be ruining his life, but she looked damn tempting in his bed. “He has already thrown us out. The driver is bringing the carriage around even as you argue with me. We have been evicted, given the boot, shown the proverbial door.”
Maggie pushed off the bedcovers and came to her feet. Rain beat against the roof in cascades. Connor felt a dangerous urge to force her back onto his bed and give free reign to the fever that burned in his blood for her.
“Do you want me to speak to Isabel’s father?” she asked quietly. “I have a feeling you’re not handling this as well as you could. I’m certain I could convince the man to let us stay here until morning. I have a way with people, or so I’ve been told.”
The arrogance of the woman, the naivete. She, with the tussled hair and physical might of a hummingbird, she thought she could manipulate a situation when he’d made a career of such matters.
“You’re ridiculous,” he said. Ridiculous. Desirable. The rain pounded the roof in rhythm with his pulse. The heat of her small body radiated to his. Before he knew it, he had pulled her against him and brought his mouth down on hers in a desperate, hungry kiss.
To his surprise she wrapped her arms around his waist instead of pushing him away. Her response plunged his thoughts into turmoil. He ran his hands down her back, learning the contours of her supple body, absorbing the little shivers she gave into his own.
“You’re driving me out of my mind,” he whispered roughly.
“I know,” she whispered back. “It isn’t on purpose.”
He lifted his hand to her breast, groaning deep in his throat as she arched her back, innocently offering herself to him. He wanted to touch her all over, to rub against her, to force her down on the floor. His kiss grew fiercer. Sexual excitement sizzled down his spine. He drew her into his body; she was so light and agile it was like molding a swan’s feather to his frame. Satin against steel. He walked her back to the bed, devouring her mouth, the soft cries she gave.
Maggie decided it was a good thing he was holding her so tightly. His kiss had melted her to the core, turning her insides into wax. She was in jeopardy of following in her forebearers’ sinful footsteps.
Daring Page 17
