Daring (11 page)

Chapter

10

“
I
swear I never laid a hand on her. We were having a rational conversation. She got upset because she’d remembered something important. I was trying to find her clothes. Then all of a sudden she passed out on the floor.”

“You intimidated her, Connor,” Ardath said in an admonishing voice. “You always do that to people. Imagine telling a duke’s daughter you were going to put her in prison. The shock could have killed her on the spot.”

Connor frowned down at the still woman on the bed, more concerned by her pale appearance than he could admit. He’d nearly had a heart attack himself when she had collapsed in his arms. Despite what she’d put him through, he still felt that irrational sense of responsibility toward her. Watching her during the night had been a trial. He’d checked her repeatedly to make sure she hadn’t lapsed into a coma. He’d laid his head on her chest to listen to her heartbeat, ignoring the sweet scent of roses on her skin, the soft female curves that aroused him on a fundamental level.

He had studied her classical features, her slender neck and shoulders, wondering about her past, about what part she would play in his future. He’d been tempted more than
once to touch her, not only to tread the dangerous waters of attraction between them, but to reassure himself she wasn’t slipping away from him. And he’d smiled ruefully as he remembered their absurd conversation in the parlor, that only a few hours ago he’d offered to walk with her in the rain.

“I thought she remembered something about the abduction,” he said defensively.

“Anybody would faint, waking up to see you hover
ing over them. You look like a…
a scoundrel. You really ought to shave and change those clothes.”

Maggie opened her eyes at that moment, her attention drifting from Ardath to Connor. “What happened?” she whispered dryly.

“Go back to sleep, dear,” Ardath said.

“I can’t sleep,” Maggie said in panic, her gaze still transfixed to the forbidding male figure who stood before her. “I have to go to work in a half hour. I’m very dependable.”

“Work?”
Ardath pronounced the word as if Maggie had just confessed she had a terminal illness. “Did you hear that, Connor? On top of everything else she’s endured, the poor girl thinks she has to work.”

“It happens to the best of us,” he retorted, folding his arms over his broad chest. “Besides, that’s why she fainted. On top of the concussion, she worked herself into a state over being late. I told you it wasn’t my fault.”

Ardath bent to tuck the covers around Maggie, her face a study in concern. “Gracious, she’s as cold as ice. Help me get her settled in and stop behaving like such a beast.”

He looked anything but pleased as he moved to the other side of the bed. “I don’t have time for this,” he said in a gravelly voice, dragging the comforter over Maggie with all the enthusiasm of an undertaker arranging a shroud. “I have two more ransom notes to investigate, and briefs to review, not to mention getting ready to leave for the Highlands after court tomorrow.”

Maggie pushed the comforter off her nose, piqued by his indifference. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“Did you hear that?” Connor scowled at Ardath. “Concussion or not, there isn’t a damn thing wrong with her mind.”

“You’ve offended her,” Ardath said in a stage whisper, which Maggie was obviously to pretend she didn’t hear. “You do it all the time. It’s your way of talking down as if the other person is either dense or deceitful.”

“Unfortunately in my experience one or the other is usually true.”

“Listen to you.” Ardath released a rueful sigh. “Perhaps all that power has gone to your head. My mother warned me, but did I believe her?”

“When have I ever talked down to you?” Connor demanded,
glancing at Maggie from the corn
er of his eye. She was watching him with unabashed interest. It unnerved him. He never knew what the girl was thinking, but the glint in her pretty blue eyes assured him she didn’t miss a thing.

“When haven’t you?” Ardath replied, clearly miffed.

“I suppose your professor treats you like a doctor of philosophy, does he?” Connor dragged his attention away from Maggie, annoyed that she was witnessing yet another private scene from his life. “I suppose you sit around all the time playing chess and translating Greek tragedies into English.”

Connor and Ardath started to argue in earnest. Maggie sighed, glancing from one to the other as if she were watching a tennis match. Did he care for Ardath? she wondered. Did he really dislike the professor, or was his male pride only piqued? She couldn’t imagine Ardath choosing another man over Lord Buchanan. He was breath-catchingly handsome, and for a few wonderful moments last night, before he’d realized she was a housebreaker, he had stolen a piece of Maggie’s heart with his unabashed charm.

He wasn’t as mean as everyone said he was, either. More than once during the night she had felt him watching over her. She’d felt his hand brush her face. She’d sensed his worry, the inne
r struggle of a man who wasn’t u
sed to a situation he could not control, who wasn’t used to showing his weaknesses to the world. She hadn’t been sure at first whether or not she was dreaming.

In the midst of the argument, the Earl of Glenbrodie popped into the room. “And how is our little patient doing today?”

Ardath stopped scolding Connor long enough to answer. “She thinks she’s going to work. Of course Connor isn’t allowing it.”

“Work? The daughter of a duke going to work?” This horrifying prospect brought the earl right into the room. “She must mean charity work. Dr. Sinclair said she’s a regular angel of mercy at the Infant Pauper Asylum. I’m surprised you’ve never met her before, Ardath.”

“Actually,” Maggie said, struggling to sit up, “I give French and deportment lessons to old women and impolite children. It doesn’t pay well, but it’s decent employment. You see, I’m saving to have the family name and chateau restored. You wouldn’t believe the cost of legal counsel and court complications back and forth across the Channel.”

She paused. The three of them—Maggie, Ardath, and Glenbrodie—stared briefly at Connor as if he, by dint of his elevated position, were somehow personally to blame for the problems of jurisprudence between the two countries.

“The Chief helps whenever he can,” she added. “But even a man of his stature can’t cut through the bureaucracy. The worst part is that I’ve been unable to trace my older brother and sister. Everyone has to work in Heaven’s Court—it’s really only fair.”

There was another moment of deep silence as if the others were mourning her loss of dignity and lapse into reduced circumstances. The earl shook his head and sat at her side, taking her hand in a gesture of fond affection.

“Never mind, my dear. Those degrading days are behind you now.”

She sneaked a look at the Lion’s face to confirm this statement, but his stern expression wasn’t exactly encouraging. “They are?”

The earl and Ardath exchanged meaningful looks. “You mean Connor hasn’t explained the Arrangement to you yet?” the earl said, his thick white eyebrows raised in disapproval.

“No,” Connor said in a testy voice. “Connor hasn’t explained the Arrangement to her yet. Connor hasn’t had a chance. He’s been busy investigating the ransom notes. He hasn’t had any sleep, either.”

The earl frowned. “Are these outbursts of bad temper quite necessary?”

“You’re doing it again, Co
nnor,” Ardath said under her breath. “That just goes to prove my point.”

Connor didn’t bother defending his position; he had to save whatever fight he had left in him to continue looking for Sheena, a
nd to give his final argument in
a rape case later this morning. It was a highly publicized trial, the plaintiff a young cleaning woman in a theater.

The defendant, or panel, a popular actor, was as guilty as they came, the evidence presented against him indisputable. But since rape could be a capital crime, it was a battle to win a conviction from an all-male jury.

“You are in danger, my dear,” the earl said to Maggie. “Grave danger.”

Studying Connor’s face, she didn’t doubt that for a moment. His black scowl was the most intimidating thing she’d ever seen. “May I borrow something to wear to work please?” she asked quietly. “The Kennedy twins are going to Paris at the end of the week, and I’ve taught them just enough French to get them into trouble.”

“The children can wait,” Ardath said somberly. “Your life is at stake, and it would be irresponsible of Connor to let you leave this house without protection.”

The Kennedy twins were in their nineties and probably couldn’t wait. But Maggie decided not to point this out in light of Ardath’s alarming revelation about Maggie’s own impending doom. “How could my life be in danger? I admit it was wrong to break into—”

“She isn’t talking about the housebreaking.” Connor had flung his big frame back into the armchair as if he resented being part of the discussion. “Inspector Davies has convinced everyone that since you were the only one to witness my sister’s abduction, there is a chance the kidnappers will return for you. To stop you from identifying them.”

Ardath lowered her voice. “To silence you.”

“You mean—”

“Permanently,” the earl concluded, drawing his hand across his throat in a grim gesture.

Maggie stared in horror across the room at Connor, hoping she had misunderstood. “But I don’t remember what they looked like. Why would they want to hurt me? I couldn’t possibly identify them.”

“Well, they don’t know that, do they?” He stretched out his long legs, his voice sharp with frustration. “After all, you
got cl
ose enough to the driver to bash him over the head with a bottle. Of my best yellow-label.”

“And that’s why your life is at stake,” the earl added darkly. “We don’t have any idea what sort of monsters we’re dealing with. Connor has helped convict the worst of them in his day. Cutthroats, murderers, arsonists.”

Maggie eased up higher against the headboard, her heart thumping against her bruised ribs. Her life wasn’t only in danger—it was literally in Connor Buchanan’s big hands. Unexpectedly his enemies were her enemies, and she’d become a pawn like his sister in their dangerous game. A tingle of primitive fear shot down her spine as she stared across the room at the man who refused to look at her and who held the power to decide her fate.

C
onnor gazed into the fireplace, more disturbed by the conversation than he showed. Cutthroats, murderers, arsonists. His uncle was frightening the girl to death. Still, Connor couldn’t deny there was a chance, a slim chance, that she might be in danger, depending on who had taken his sister, and why.

His instincts told him that Sheena had not been kidnapped by someone with a past grudge against him. Still, once, a long time ago, only once, his instincts had betrayed him, and the cost had been a helpless old woman’s life.

The memory haunted him even now, eight years later. The shock of learning how wrong he could be. That power gave him the ability to not only help people, but to hurt them.

He rarely thought about that time in his life, it was a painful wound, but he’d never forgotten the details of his first and only legal failure.

Early in his career he had defended a brash newspaper editor named William Montrose against a charge of brutally murdering a prostitute. A rose had been found in the abandoned warehouse where Montrose had left the woman’s body. Connor fought passionately to prove that the highly educated Montrose was innocent.

He had nearly burst with pride at his first legal victory. He’d paraded his exonerated client around like a trophy. He’d even invited Montrose to his home and granted him
an exclusive interview—until the night the police caught the man strangling his landlady, claiming she had tried to cheat him.

The woman, frail and in her seventies, had died with a black silk rose in her hands.

Over the years that black rose had become an emblem of revenge for Connor’s rivals, a cruel blow at his recovering confidence. They would never let him forget his one mistake, no matter how high he climbed.

Neither would he. He would never forgive himself for what had happened to that old landlady. A prickle of cold sweat broke out on his back at the thought of his sister meeting a similar fate. Sheena was so blasted impetuous, too much like him for her own good.

He released his breath, refusing to let the dark thoughts dominate. His spirits lifted unexpectedly as he sent an unwilling glance at the girl ensconced in his bed. How ridiculous, how unfair for Miss Saunders that by a quirk of timing and character she alone held the key to identifying the men who’d taken Sheena.

She looked infinitely vulnerable as their eyes met, and he experienced an unwelcome stab of raw longing, remembering how her lithe body had fit so snugly into his last night. She might be an amateur thief, but in sexual matters she was still an innocent. Connor would stake his reputation on that. Her response to him had been artless and infinitely arousing.

But a duke’s daughter? He doubted it.

Perhaps she’d grown up as the offspring of a favored servant in a fine household, which would account for the airs she gave herself. A diamond in the gutter made for a nice fairy tale, but he questioned her story. The Chief was known to protect his “clan” of criminals, and she was apparently under Arthur’s protection. Connor was surprised the man hadn’t already put in an appearance, demanding her release.