The pain was unexpected and excruciating. It brought tears to her eyes. She doubled over, cursing fluently in French. She barely noticed Connor swing around to stare at her.
“What is it, lass?” He was panting, his face panicked. “Have you been hurt?”
“Yes,” she wailed.
“Did he shoot you?” he said, or something like that; Maggie was feeling too sorry for herself to pay attention to anything else. “I’ll kill him,” he roared. “I’ll kill the bastard with my bare hands.”
Maggie sniffed; she thought she’d broken her baby toe. As the pain began to recede, she heard the bloodcurdling Buchanan war-shout, made famous at the Battle of Agincourt, rise from the middle of the field. Then there was a pistol shot, followed by the muted rhythm of rain and wind.
She straightened, half afraid to look around. Connor was staggering toward her like a bedraggled warrior, his long hair plastered on his neck like wet yam, his pistol hanging limply from his hand.
Rain ran in rivulets down his rigid face. Her startled gaze flew to the figure of a man in the field. The figure who was suddenly missing a head. “Oh, my goodness,” she whispered, her eyes widening with realization. “You’ve just killed—”
“A scarecrow.”
He stumbled past her to the wall, coat hanging open, chest heaving with exertion and disgust.
“Thank you,” he said, folding down numbly to stare through the trees. “I have just sunk to the lowest depths of humiliation. I have been outwitted by a bag of straw.”
“But there was a man standing by the wall,” she insisted. “He knew my name. He said you were going to hurt me.”
“He could be right about that,” he muttered.
Maggie bit her lip, glancing across the field and then back at Connor. “You look as if you’re going to faint,” she said in concern.
His head snapped up. “Well, would you blame me? I thought I had cornered a kidnapper. I thought he had shot you in the leg. I wanted to kill him. I emptied my pistol into him.”
He rose to his feet, walking her backward into the wall. His eyes burned like a demon’s. “And do you know what happened after I emptied my pistol?”
Maggie shook her head from side to side, her hand at her throat.
“His head exploded off his body and landed at my feet! His arms went flying in the air.” His voice climbed, challenging the howl of the wind. “I caught his nose before it hit the ground. It was a carrot. A CARROT.”
Maggie winced, closing her eyes in empathy.
He advanced another step, his jaw practically jutting into her forehead. “I saw what I believed was a human being blown into pieces before my eyes—”
“Oh, my—”
“I stumbled over its turnip head in shock before I realized what I had done. I murdered a bunch of vegetables on your behalf, Miss Saunders. So, yes, if I look like I might faint, forgive me.”
“Perhaps you’d feel better if you put your head between your legs,” she whispered hesitantly.
The suggestion earned her a furious scowl. She couldn’t blame him, although Maggie, in her own defense, knew what she had seen and heard. She knew the man at the wall had been real.
She also knew that she’d been right about Connor Buchanan from the start.
He wasn’t the beast of popular legend.
He wasn’t simply a hero. He was a man to slay scarecrows. He was a man she could love for the rest of her life.
Chapter
22
“Ye’ve overpaid me for the hole in the roof, Lord Buchanan.” Mrs. Pringle looked up respectfully at the somber figure on horseback. “And ye didn’t have to pay me for the scarecrow at all. ’Twas just a silly old thing we’d sewn together with Daniel’s old clothes. Half the time the crows just sat on his head and pecked on his carrot.”
“It was the least I could do.” Connor barely glanced at Maggie, mounted on a sturdy dun mare beside him. “You are ready, Miss Saunders?” he said in a glacial voice.
“Yes, I am.” She smiled warmly at Mrs. Pringle. “Lead on, my lord. I’m looking forward to a stimulating ride after being cooped up in that stuffy carriage.”
“Dinna forget the lunch I packed in yer saddlebags,” Mrs. Pringle called after them. “And thank ye for helping with the children, Lady Marguerite. That herbal tea of yers worked wonders for the coughs.”
“It was a wonder she didn’t poison them,” Connor said under his breath. “Or burn down the farm. Or shoot out all the windows. Or cause me to murder an innocent man.”
Maggie spurred her horse after him. “That remark was uncalled for.”
Connor would not even acknowledge her. He was never going to forgive her for mistaking that scarecrow for a man. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, my lord. It only proved you’re perfectly capable, and willing, of protecting me when the need arises. The Chief always says that a man shows his colors in a crisis. I believe this incident will only end up deepening our friendship.”
He stopped briefly at the stone wall, raking her with a faint sneer. Maggie rode up beside him. “He was standing right here in the rain, just as plain as the nose on your face.” Mischief lit her eyes. “Or should I say carrot?”
He didn’t appreciate the joke. He just set his heel to his horse and trotted off without looking back. Maggie hurried after him as realization dawned.
“Your male pride has been hurt,” she said understandingly. “Well, you needn’t worry about looking foolish in front of me. With my family history, I’m in no position to pass judgment. My great-grandfather liked to dress up like a shepherdess. My uncle wrote poetry in the privy. We all have our little secrets.”
He was galloping away from her again, on one of the horses Mrs. Pringle had loaned them. Maggie caught up with him at the edge of the bog. The mud-encrusted carriage sat in the weeds where Connor and the driver had dragged it to dry. Maggie decided to make another attempt at drawing him out of his shell.
“It looks rather forlorn sitting here all by itself, doesn’t it?” she said breathlessly.
Connor didn’t say a word. In fact, he refused to speak to her for the next seven miles, even though Maggie did enough talking for both of them. She studied her surroundings with interest, the blue haze of the hills broken by an occasional castle ruin or burial cairn. The heath spread before her like a tapestry, the browning bell-heather interwoven with spaghnum moss.
Connor had deigned to mention earlier that if the mist didn’t obscure the way, they should reach Kilcurrie before nightfall. Claude and the driver were bringing along the rest of her belongings in Mrs. Pringle’s pony cart.
“I hope they don’t get lost,” she thought aloud. “Claude and I have that tendency in common.”
By this time she didn’t expect Connor to answer. She understood that his injured pride needed to heal, and that in time he would forgive her. Still, halfway down the hill into a wooded strath, she realized she could have a more serious problem on her hands.
After last night’s embarrassment, he wouldn’t be so quick to spring into action. The next time the man in black approached her, she might have to be ready to protect herself.
The coachman scratched his belly through his tunic and yawned into the mug of steaming tea Mrs. Pringle placed on the table before him. “Lord,” he said, “what a night.”
“And how would ye know what sort of night it was?” Her voice was tart. “It took me and this good man here an hour to rouse you from yer drunken stupor.”
This good man was Claude, who was removing a half dozen oatcakes from the griddle. The coachman frowned.
“Aye, well. I may have had a dram too much, but ’twasn’t whisky that interrupted me sleep. There was a gunshot, that’s what it was.”
“I did not hear any gunshot,” Claude remarked from the stove. “It was thunder. His lordship said it was thunder.”
Mrs. Pringle nodded. “If his lordship said it was thunder, then that’s what it was. I’m not one to argue with the Lord Advocate of Sco
tland.” Especially not when she had a thick wad of his lordship’s bank notes tucked in her apron pocket to cover the cost of repairing the roof from the “thunder.”
The coachman picked up his mug, his face dour. Drunk or not, he knew what he’d heard. And seen. That sweet little noblewoman in her nightdress and a man all in black beckoning to her by the wall. He’d thought it a bit odd, but since he’d been answering nature’s call at the time, he hadn’t exactly been in a position to interfere. Not that anyone would have believed him. No one had much respect for a professional coachman who had driven his coach into a bog.
Chapter
23
“At least my house is still standing,” Connor said as he surveyed his estate from the crest of the Highland foothill where he and Maggie had slowed to rest their horses. “I don’t know what I expected with so much turmoil in my life. Nothing would have surprised me at this point.”
Maggie suppressed a tolerant smile. He was feeling sorry for himself again. Still, it was the first civilized thing he’d said to her all day, and she decided if he was going to extend the olive branch of reconciliation, she should graciously accept it. “It’s a lovely place,” she said. “Of course it’s small compared to the chateau, but small houses have their charm, don’t they?”
Connor turned his head to examine her in frosty silence, giving Maggie the distinct impression he’d hoped he had lost her along the way. “What chateau?” he said suspiciously.
“The one I grew up in, my lord. It was a Renaissance-style castle overlooking a river in Normandy.”
He shook his head, dismissing her with a grunt, and urged his horse down the hill into the woods. Maggie followed him, bristling with annoyance.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” she said.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Just tell me one thing,” she said. “Why would I make up a story about my past if it weren’t true?”
“Why does anyone make up anything, Miss Saunders?”
“You are such a cynical man.”
“Working with the criminal element does not predispose one to believing the best of people.” He smirked at her over his shoulder. “By the way, I’d watch where I was riding if I were you. These woods are rather dense.”
“Apparently, it is a common affliction.”
He smiled at that and rode on slowly through the tangle of birch trees and thick undergrowth of fern. Then suddenly he stopped and swiveled around in the saddle, his gaze searching the shadows.
“Did you hear something?”
“Only Daphne running off after a rabbit.”
“I heard footsteps,” he said, frowning.
“I didn’t.” At this point in their relationship Maggie was determined to prove she was levelheaded and not prone to either hysteria or hallucinations. She promised herself she wouldn’t utter a single scream even if a wildcat dropped onto her head.
Connor stared at her in critical silence. “Perhaps you should take off that hat. Someone could mistake those feathers for a bird in the underbrush.”
“These are genuine ostrich feathers,” Maggie said, stung. “When was the last time you saw an ostrich running about the Highlands?”
There was an unmistakable crunch of footsteps in the surrounding thicket. Connor narrowed his eyes, motioning her not to move.
“Those were human footsteps,” he said quietly. “Get off your horse and take cover.”
“I didn’t hear any footsteps,” Maggie argued, sounding more levelheaded than she felt.
“Poachers,” a gruff voice grumbled behind the trees. “Damned poachers are coming out now before it’s even dark. I’ll teach them a lesson. Give me that gun.”
Connor dismounted and, ignoring her squeak of protest, dragged Maggie off her horse. “I suppose you didn’t hear that, either?” he whispered roughly.
“Didn’t hear what?”
A loud crack interrupted them. Seconds later a pistol ball tore into the interlaced canopy of branches overhead, showering the clearing with broken twigs and dry leaves. Despite this alarming sign, Maggie managed to maintain her composure. She refused to obey the instinct to run for cover. She wasn’t about to give Connor another excuse to accuse her of being a hysterical female.
Another shot broke a small limb from an adjacent tree and sent it crashing down between them.
“Get on the ground—down that slope.” Connor pushed her behind him, shielding her with his body. “Someone is shooting at us.”
“Are you sure?” Maggie whispered.
“Yes, I’m—”
He broke off as a woman with unruly silver-gray hair stomped out from behind the birches. She wore black leather boots up to her thighs and a pair of tartan hunting trousers under a belted tunic. A pack of assorted dogs swarmed at her heels, sniffing and panting to be free. She carried a smoking pistol in each hand. She was almost as tall as Connor.
“Oh, my God,” he said, parting the branches that hid him for a better look. “We’re being shot at by the Duchess of Kincarden, my lunatic neighbor.”
“Is that you, Buchanan?” the older woman said in amazement, stepping around her dogs for a better look. “Good heavens, it is, and with a chit in the bushes. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“You shot at us,” Connor said angrily. “Did it ever occur to you that it might be dangerous to charge through the woods like you’re leading a lion safari? Did it ever occur to you that you could kill someone?”
“I intended to kill someone,” the duchess admitted. “This is my property you’re trespassing on, and I thought I’d caught a pair of poachers. Someone has to protect the innocent animals.”
Connor pulled a twig out of his hair. “Be that as it may, you can’t take the law into your own hands. That’s what we have sheriffs and magistrates for.”
A branch rustled behind the duchess as a young woman with blond hair in a coronet limped into the clearing. Hefting her musket onto her shoulder, she stared past the duchess in astonishment.
“Connor!” she exclaimed.
He looked her up and down disapprovingly. “Rebecca. My God.”
“I almost shot you,” she said, hiding a lopsided grin that radiated irresistible Buchanan charm. “You might have warned us to expect you.”
He wrested the musket from her arm and propped it up carefully against a tree. “Didn’t you get my letters? I told you I was coming.”
Her clear blue eyes danced with curiosity as she glanced at Maggie. “Well, I did receive them, Connor, I can’t lie. But I didn’t read them yet.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because they always say the same thing. You’re like an old woman, forever fussing me to move into the city so that I can find a husband. Your letters are boring and bossy.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “If you didn’t read my letters, then you don’t know that your sister Sheena has been kidnapped, and that the kidnappers are threatening to make you their next victim.”
Rebecca stared at him in disbelieving silence. “Sheena? Why would anyone want to kidnap Sheena?”
“I’ve no idea. Presumably it has something to do with my appointment to the Lord Advocacy.” Connor turned to Maggie, his gaze meeting hers. “I have reason to believe the kidnappers might be in the area to pursue you, Rebecca. This young woman had the misfortune to be the only witness to Sheena’s disappearance and is under my official protection.”
The amusement faded from Rebecca’s eyes. “If you’re teasing me, Connor, you have the cruelest sense of humor. And if you’re trying to frighten me into leaving here, it won’t work. I won’t be bullied.”
Maggie brushed herself off and stepped forward, regarding Rebecca with sympathy. “I’m afraid he’s telling the truth, although he did leave out a few pertinent details. Not only did I witness your sister’s abduction, I also tried to rescue her by crowning the getaway coachman with a champagne bottle. I was assaulted myself in the process.”
“A ch
ampagne bottle. That shows initiative,” the duchess said in approval. “I’m honored to make your acquaintance. My name is Morna Mainwaring, Duchess of Kincarden.”
Maggie dipped into an elegant curtsy. “I am Marguerite de Saint-Evremond, daughter of the late Duc and Duchesse de Saint-Evremond. The honor is mine, your grace. I apologize for trespassing on your property. His lordship led me to believe we had entered his estate. Poachers must be severely dealt with.”
The duchess studied her in open appraisal for several seconds. Then she noticed the little white dog growling protectively at Maggie’s feet. The woman’s wrinkled face softened. Jamming her pistols into her waistband, she squatted with her gloved hand outstretched.
“What a splendid dog,” she said.
“It’s a poodle,” Rebecca said quietly, her troubled gaze lifting back to Connor’s face as if she were still hoping he was teasing her about Sheena.
“Nice doggie,” the duchess said. “Good doggie. You won’t let me hurt your mistress, will you? Well, that’s as it should be. Good breeding shows.” She rose spryly to confront Connor again. “That dog is doing its job, Buchanan, protecting this brave girl. How dare you drag her into the woods where she could have been caught by dangerous poachers.”
“Not to mention dangerous neighbors,” he said in a dry voice.
The duchess put her hand on Maggie’s arm. “You’re looking peaked, my dear, and after your ordeal, I’m not surprised. Come back to the house with me and Rebecca for some bracing brandy—de Saint-Evremond, you said? You don’t mean Simon de Saint-Evremond, by any chance?”
Maggie took a breath. “Yes. My father.”
“Oh, my heavens.” The duchess studied Maggie’s face with a look of wonder. “It was Simon who introduced me to my own late husband at a charity ball in London so many decades ago. William and I lost touch with him over the years when we moved to Scotland to breed hounds. There were rumors your dear Papa was involved in helping Britain squash that little dictator Napoleon.”
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