Chapter
24
E
vening had fallen when t
hey reached the restored Tudor-
style mansion, driven at breakneck speed by the duchess’s robust female driver, Frances. Maggie, Rebecca, and the duchess embraced like long-lost relatives as they parted with promises to meet the following afternoon for tea. Connor staggered out of the coach covered in dog hair.
The friendship between the three women had been strengthened by the fact that, on the way back through the woods to the coach, Maggie’s poodle had rescued one of the duchess’s pups from drowning in the rain-swollen bu
rn
. The duchess had sent her driver back to her house to reward Daphne with a basket of venison bones. It occurred to Connor that the three women had only their association with him and a love of animals in common. He did not care to speculate what this meant.
“You mind that you protect that girl, Buchanan,” the duchess warned him from the carriage window as she prepared to leave. Then she pulled out a pistol and fired a shot into the air. “If any kidnappers show up, send them over to me. I know how to take care of that sort.”
Connor closed his eyes, shuddering at the thought.
The carriage barreled off into the dark with Rebecca, the duchess, and a half dozen hounds. Connor hadn’t taken his first fateful step up the drive than a parade of servants came pouring out of the gray stone house.
“My lord, is that you?” someone shouted. “Thank God. At last.”
“Well, at least your staff hasn’t tried to shoot you,” Maggie murmured, smothering a yawn. “That’s reassuring.”
Connor narrowed his eyes. “No, it isn’t. I don’t have that many servants. Only a steward, a housekeeper, and a butler. What the devil is going on?”
The steward, a short white-haired Highlander with a straggly beard that reached his chest, approached Connor first. He was out of breath and struggling to shove his arms into his wrinkled tweed jacket. “We were expecting you days ago, my lord. I was afeared you weren’t coming after all.”
“Is something wrong?” Connor said.
“Only everything that could be wrong, my lord,” the steward replied.
“What the blazes is that supposed to mean?”
A trim brown-haired woman in brown muslin came forward to break into the conversation. “Ladies first, Dougie. His lordship will hear my side of the situation before you fill his head with a pack of lies.”
Connor blew out a sigh of impatience. “Who are all these people in the driveway, Mrs. Urquhart?”
“Unfortunately, I am no longer Mrs. Urquhart,” the housekeeper said. She pointed her finger at the steward’s bulbous nose. “Two ill-fated months ago I married that awful man there.”
“And my life has been hell on earth ever since,” Dougie said morosely. “The nasty woman has taken over the house, my lord. I’m an outcast in my own domain.”
Connor glanced up the driveway at the line of servants bowing and curtsying at him like mechanical dolls. “Who are all these people?” he asked in a clipped voice.
“That is your new staff, my lord, as befitting the most powerful man in Scotland,” Mrs. Urquhart replied with pride.
Connor’s lips thinned. “The most powerful does not mean I am the richest, Mrs. Urquhart.”
“Well, one has to keep up appearances,” Maggie said, empathizing with the housekeeper’s efforts. “Especially a man in your position.”
“I doubt there has ever been a man in my position, Miss Saunders.”
Dougie scowled. “My wife, and I use the term loosely, hasna been the same since she visited her snooty cousin in London last summer. She says we Highlanders are barbaric and out of fashion, sir. She thinks I ought to shave.”
Maggie, who had never been able to resist taking sides, regarded the man’s unkempt beard with a critical eye. “She does have a point. I’ve seen rats’ nests that were tidier.”
Connor rubbed the stubble that shadowed his own jaw. “I advise you not to intervene,” he said tiredly. “These trivial domestic matters are best left to be solved by themselves.”
“On the contrary.” Maggie suddenly saw a chance to repay Connor for protecting her, using her past expertise as the member of a tightly run noble household to put things right in his home. “These matters must be nipped in the bud before a rebellion ensues.”
“Nipped in the bud?” Connor stared down at her, in her silly hat with the crushed ostrich feathers, and squelched the urge to kiss her senseless in front of everyone. The trouble was, he wouldn’t be satisfied with just kissing her. He’d want to carry her up to his room, throw her on his big bed, and strip her naked, revealing one delectable inch of creamy skin at a time. Then, with only a bottle of whisky and a blazing fire in the background, he would make love to her. Hard and hot. Slow and tantalizing. His body tightened at the thought of her graceful dancer’s legs spreading to welcome him, the soft cries she’d utter as he drove—
He thwarted the fantasy by scrubbing his hand over his chin, feeling Maggie’s curious blue eyes examining his face. “Nip away, Miss Saunders. I’m going to drown my sorrows in some raw Highland whisky and then ride over to talk to the sheriff about Sheena. Settling a dispute between servants is the farthest thing from my mind.”
“
W
ell.” Maggie turned to Mrs. Urquhart as Connor strode off toward the house, his male servants in tow and
loudly registering their complaints. “It seems we have the makings of a crisis here.”
Mrs. Urquhart took out her hanky and dabbed at her perfectly dry eyes. “I only want to improve the household for his lordship’s sake. Is that such a crime?”
“Not in the least,” Maggie said. “Men would never improve themselves without our prompting, Mrs. Urquhart. They would behave like perfect beasts if left to their own devices. But take heart. You shall have my full support in this situation. I do not think I am bragging when I say that his lordship and I, due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, have been forced to develop a close friendship in an unnaturally short time.”
“Ah.” Mrs. Urquhart nodded. “I see.”
Maggie smiled sagely. “I am not without my influence on him. If you take my meaning.”
“Bless you, miss. I think I do.”
“The battle is half won already,” Maggie said, squaring her small shoulders in a militant stance. “A de Saint-Evremond can be a most powerful ally.”
C
ha
pter
25
M
aggie cradled her teacup in her hands and walked around the darkened pine-paneled room. She felt safe in the heart of this mellow Highland house. She felt safer than she’d felt since leaving France, knowing Connor slept just down the hall from her. A strange tingle went down her spine as she remembered the sensation of lying beneath him in the straw. She had never felt so defenseless and desirable as at that moment.
She sipped her chamomile tea and crossed the room to the window. The wooded hills that rose into the mist and moonlight isolated the house from the rest of the world, a comforting sight.
But did the hills hide danger and not discourage it? Were Connor’s enemies waiting there, closing in around them?
She couldn’t remember anything more about the men who had kidnapped Sheena. Even if she’d had time to scrutinize them, what would she have been able to tell from a masked face and nondescript clothing? They could have been anyone.
And yet there had been something oddly familiar about the figure at the stone wall, the man’s voice at her door at
the inn.
Had
he been one of the men in Connor’s courtyard? Had something else happened that night, something so disturbing that she’d suppressed the memory like many other details in her past?
On impulse she put down her cup, turned from the window, and walked swiftly down the hall to Connor’s room. His door was shut. She opened it. She didn’t intend to wake him. She just wanted to look at him once before she fell asleep.
She knew now that this man would risk his life to keep her safe.
But could she do the same for him?
H
e lay sprawled half drunk across his bed, trying to think up a thousand excuses to enter her room. He could warn her about the warped windows. He could explain how to find the privy in the middle of the night. He could pretend he’d heard a noise and needed to check her wardrobe for a hidden intruder.
He wanted her. He wanted to fall asleep with her beside him, their bodies fitted together. He wanted to wake up in the middle of the night and make love to her, to breathe her bewitching scent, to soothe his black mood with her bright spirit. He was obsessed with her.
The meeting with the sheriff had depressed him. Yes, the man and his deputy had gotten Connor’s letters. They were searching for Sheena, posting reward notices all the way to the Isle of Skye. Yes, they had been keeping an eye on Rebecca, but the stubborn woman refused to move from her isolated cottage. The sheriff intended to investigate a report of strangers in the area the very next morning. An unknown man had leased the old Jacobite castle on the hill, presumably for hunting purposes. Connor hated the thought of his Highland hideaway being taken over by outsiders, but there was no time to worry about that now.
And, no, the sheriff and his deputy didn’t expect to find Sheena alive, if at all. Connor was experienced enough to read that grim suspicion, though they wouldn’t dare voice such an opinion to his face. They didn’t like him much, but they respected him. And Connor refused to accept the worst
about his sister. She
was
safe. He believed it with all his heart.
Maggie was still awake.
He could hear her pacing, light troubled footfalls around her room. He pictured her undressing for bed, that perfect body burnished in firelight. Midnight-black hair tangled over her breasts. Delicate, a body made for loving. Made for him. Loneliness and longing combined forces against him in a challenge fiercer than he had waged in any courtroom. He had no defense prepared. He was guilty of loving her.
He didn’t care anymore if she had lied about her past; she could be the daughter of a dustman for all he cared. They could both be a little mad. He was no longer a rational man. Since that humiliating night when he had assassinated a scarecrow in the rain, he knew how he’d react if he caught anyone trying to hurt her. A tide of hot fury swept through him at the thought.
His rivals had been right. Beneath his image of self-possession beat the black heart of a barbarian, a beast, with all its raging passion. The man who held the power to condemn or condone was capable of committing murder himself. He would kill anyone who touched her.
In fact, he would kill for the chance just to be touching her himself.
M
aggie crept across the room, then stopped midstride as she caught a glimpse of Connor through the parted bed curtains. She picked up the quilt to cover him. She was afraid he never protected his health. At first she thought it was a touching sight, that fierce body sprawled out like a little boy’s. Except that, on closer inspection, she was forced to admit there wasn’t anything little about him. And he wasn’t asleep at all, his hazel eyes glinting up at her with predatory anticipation. He was totally nude, shameless and doing nothing to conceal the unsettling fact.
“Touch me at your own peril,” he said in a low conversational tone, leaning up on one elbow to watch her.
She lowered the quilt to the bed. “You’re not going to assault me with your pistol again?”
He sat up without warning. “What are you doing in my room?” he demanded quietly. “Is there a homicidal scarecrow in the house?”
“There is no need for sarcasm. I merely wanted to make sure you’d returned from meeting the sheriff and were well.”
His teeth flashed in a grin. He reminded her of a dangerous tousled lion, an animal too unpredictable to trust. His room seemed to fit his personality, bare but for a few pieces of rough-hewn furniture and a leather armorial shield on the wall. “I am quite well,” he said. “And you?”
“I’m feeling rather foolish if you must know,” she admitted, turning away. “I don’t know why I was worried about you at all.”
“What did you imagine would happen to me?” he asked in an amused voice.
She glanced back in irritation. “I was raised by unconventional parents with liberal standards. Even so, I hardly think it’s appropriate to be having a personal conversation with a naked man in his bedchamber. You ought to have a little more decency.”
Connor snorted at this logic. “Who entered the naked man’s bedchamber, may I ask?”
“That is beside the point.”
He rolled onto his stomach, his mouth stretched into a smile of male superiority. “I think something other than concern over my welfare brought you into this room.”
Maggie told herself to back away from the bed, but a perverse curiosity kept her rooted to the spot. “Such as?”
His smile deepened. “It’s that sexual attraction I warned you about before.”
She frowned, trying not to admire the breadth of his shoulders, his naked torso. What a magnificent man. “Not that nonsense between the virgin and the beast?”
“Precisely.” He stretched forward, the sheet casually draped around his waist. “A powerful force, sexual attraction. It makes people do the most unreasonable things.”
Maggie cleared her throat as he rose from the bed to face her, flexing his well-muscled arms above his head. Strong chest and shoulders. Narrow waist. One deep breath, he’d lose that sheet, and she could describe the rest of him in vivid detail, too. “Good night, my lord,” she said decisively.
“I’m sorry I disturbed you. I am leaving before either of us succumb to the unreasonable.”
She barely reached the door than she felt him stealing up behind her. The heat of his body ignited invisible sparks in the air between them. If she tinned to face him, it would be like staring into the center of the sun. She would melt at his feet, in his arms. His whisky-scented breath brushed her hair. Desire rushed through her veins, temptation tingling in its wake.
“I don’t believe I heard you putting on your clothes,” she said with a catch in her voice.
“I don’t believe I did, lass.”
“Then, aside from the sheet, you are—”
“As naked as a newborn bairn.”
“But bigger.”
“Aye.” She heard a hint of laughter in his voice.
“Much
bigger. In fact—”
“I don’t need to know the exact proportions.”
He brushed a strand of hair from her shoulder, the gesture seductive and sweet. “It’s cold standing here by the door. Come back to bed with me,” he coaxed. “We’ll keep each other warm.”
Maggie didn’t feel cold at all. Especially not when he lowered his mouth to the nape of her neck. His kisses, scattered across her shoulder, scorched like wildfire. She took a steadying breath. She would be lost if she didn’t leave soon.
“Do you still want to tuck me in for the night, lass?” he asked with a wicked chuckle. Then, “Maggie, darling, the next time you have the urge to sneak into my bed, you don’t need to use such a pathetic excuse. You don’t need an invitation. My door is always open. I know you want me, lass. I want you, too.”
She swallowed a retort, realizing her good intentions had just been reduced to the most insulting motive imaginable. His male arrogance astonished her. She would have kicked him if she’d had the nerve to turn around.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding, my lord.”
“Of course there has.” He took delight in teasing her. She could sense him grinning like a satyr, so smug and confident of his sexual prowess. “But tuck me in anyway.” He brought
his hands upward, spanning her rib cage, to cup her breasts in his big palms. “I won’t be able to sleep now unless you do.”
Her smile was brittle. The need he stirred in the depths of her body was undeniable. “So you want to be tucked in for the night, do you?”
She caught her breath as he pulled her back against his chest, his thumbs rubbing in tantalizing circles across her breasts. “Yes, please,” he said, nuzzling her neck.
Maggie felt the power and response of his body to her nearness, his hard shaft pressed against her hip. “Do you mind waiting for a few moments before you’re ‘tucked in’?” she asked thoughtfully.
Connor traced her earlobe with the tip of his tongue, his voice husky with arousal. “Don’t be long then. I’m not at all a patient man.”
M
aggie leaned against the doorjamb, biting her lip against laughter at the loud shocked voice that resonated down the hall. He would never forgive her for sneaking downstairs to engage his housekeeper’s help, but she hadn’t been able to resist her own mischievous revenge. Didn’t his ego deserve a little deflation?
I know you want me, lass.
Indeed.
“Really, sir! Not a stitch of clothing. I canna believe my eyes.”
“Close your damn eyes, Mrs. Urquhart, or at least have the decency to turn around. You had no business barging into my room uninvited in the middle of the night.”
Mrs. Urquhart raised her tone to a warbling soprano. “I was under the impression that you wanted to be tucked in for the night.”
“Do I look like a child, Mrs. Urquhart?”
“Common decency forbids that I come close enough to give you an answer, sir.”
“Miss Saunders is going to pay for this.” His voice crackled like a thunderbolt through the house. “I hope she can hear me.”
Maggie grinned, whispering in the darkness, “She certainly can.”
“The considerate young woman was only following your orders, sir,” the housekeeper retorted. “Your very peculiar orders.”
“The hell she was. She wanted to embarrass me.”
“Excuse me, sir, but you are embarrassing yourself, summoning female servants into your room in that disgraceful state of undress.”
Connor sounded as if he were choking on his words. “Nobody was invited anywhere, you thickheaded woman.”
“Now you’re stooping to insults. I knew that would come next. But did you or did you not request that you be tucked in for the night, sir?”
Connor could be heard stomping across the room like an ogre and wrenching open his wardrobe door. “Stop using that ridiculous term. And who the devil moved all my clothes? What are these damn dresses doing here?”
“Kindly answer the question, sir.”
Maggie winced as she heard the wardrobe doors slam, followed by Mrs. Urquhart’s gasp of unadulterated horror. Surely he wasn’t parading around nude in front of the poor woman?
“We are not in a court of law, Mrs. Urquhart,” Connor said. “This is my house, in case you have forgotten. You are a servant in my employ, and I am not a criminal on trial. I do not have to answer your stupid questions. Hell’s bells, where are my trousers?”
“Lady Marguerite took them to the laundry, sir.”
“She did
what?”
Mrs. Urquhart began retreating into the hall. Realizing the danger of being caught eavesdropping, Maggie turned to tiptoe back to her room. Too late. Connor stood cloaked in the darkness of his doorway, glowering at her with one hand on his hip, the other covering his naked torso with a huge leather shield that was emblazoned, appropriately enough, with the Buchanan lion rampant.
“Did you enjoy that, Miss Saunders?”
Maggie tried not to stare at the family crest that barely reached his massive chest. “Did I enjoy what?”
He slammed the door in her face. The reverberation echoed through the stillness of the house. It drew a cluster of curious servants in their nightclothes to the bottom of the stairs.