Chapter 2

I n his twenty-nine years of life, Connor Kincaid had been shot twice, stabbed three times and nearly drowned in the rushing waters of a burn. He had survived a botched hanging and had both his nose and his ribs broken in brawls more times than he could count. But he could honestly say he'd never been assaulted by a shrieking virago wielding a parasol.

The assault might not have been so startling if he hadn't been rendered deaf, dumb and blind to everything but the intoxicating taste of the woman in his arms. The thick coils of her hair played through his callused fingers, trapping him in a web of silk. Her breathless sighs were like a song only he could hear. The eager press of her hands against his chest betrayed both innocence and hunger—tempting him to steal the one and satisfy the other. He was a kiss away from carrying her into the forest, laying her back on a bed of moss and doing just that when reality came crashing down on his head in the form of something frilly and pink.

Had his assailant been armed with a pistol instead of a parasol, she could have shot him in the back with equal ease. It would be no more than he deserved for being such a careless fool. He had learned long ago that fate was a heartless mistress, who would simply laugh in his face if he escaped the hangman's noose only to be shot dead for stealing a kiss.

"Unhand my sister, sirrah!" his attacker shrieked, her delicate arm rising and falling as she continued to beat him about the head and shoulders with her makeshift weapon.

Connor wheeled around and raised one arm to ward off the blows. Since the parasol was trimmed with feathers, it was like being attacked by a flock of bloodthirsty pink sparrows.

As she landed a savage blow to his right ear, Connor roared an oath and instinctively raised the pistol in his other hand.

The girl went stumbling backward, still clutching the parasol. Before he could gather his scrambled wits, the woman whose kiss could have cost him his life darted out from behind him and threw herself in front of his attacker so that his pistol was once again leveled at her heart. Her striking amber eyes had lost none of their defiance, but her entire body was trembling with reaction.

The sight of the two women cowering before him only sharpened the edge of his temper. He'd never had much of an appetite for bullying women, but when word had reached his ears that two Englishwomen draped in jewels and furs were traveling these roads without the protection of armed outriders, he had been unable to resist the temptation. He had planned to rob them and send them on their way, confident that they could easily coax their wealthy fathers, husbands or lovers into replacing what he took from them. But just a few seconds earlier he had been considering taking something that could never be replaced.

He glared right back at the woman for a moment, resenting her for making him feel like the villain he was, then slowly lowered the pistol, tucking it into the waist of his breeches.

"‘Unhand my sister, sirrah'?" he echoed. "And you dare to scold me for spoutin' drivel!" He flung a finger toward the wee blonde peeping over her shoulder. The girl's cornflower blue eyes were as round as saucers. "Who writes her dialogue?"

Before either of them could react, he stalked over and snatched the parasol from the blonde's hand. He slammed it down over his knee, snapping it neatly in two. As he flung the pieces into the forest the girl had the nerve to look crestfallen, as if he had just beheaded her favorite doll.

Shooting him an equally reproachful look, the brunette with the tart tongue and the honeyed lips gently took the girl by the shoulders. "How could you have been so foolish, Sophie? You could have gotten us both killed."

"I'm sorry, Pamela," the girl replied, wrinkling her pert nose at Connor, "but I wasn't about to just stand by and let some barbarian ravish my sister."

At Sophie's words, Pamela lowered her lashes and stole a look at the barbarian in question. He was watching their exchange, his arms folded over his chest. Oddly enough, his smoldering glare and the sulky set of his jaw only served to make him more attractive. She could hardly accuse him of attempting to ravish her when she had not only allowed his kiss, but welcomed it. If he had dragged her off into the woods and had his way with her, she would have had no one to blame but herself.

A damning mixture of dismay and shame flooded her. She'd always prided herself on her restraint where the male sex was concerned. What was to become of them if she had inherited their mother's weakness for a pretty face and a brawny shoulder?

"There was no need for you to risk your parasol or your life defending me. I was in no danger whatsoever," she lied, tearing her gaze away from his face with more difficulty than she cared to admit.

Sophie blinked up at her. "Well, I know you told me that most Highlanders were more inclined to ravish their sheep than their wom—"

Pamela clapped a hand over her sister's mouth. "You must have misunderstood me. I simply said they prefer women who are more…docile."

She stole another nervous glance at the Scotsman. His eyes didn't betray so much as a spark of amusement, but she could have sworn his dimple deepened.

"I was simply trying to distract the man so you could make your escape," she told Sophie before releasing her and turning stiffly to face the highwayman. "I can assure you, sir, that I am not in the habit of kissing strangers. Or highwaymen," she added as an afterthought.

His stony expression never wavered. "Oh, I believe you, lass."

She frowned. How did he know she wasn't in the habit of kissing? Was it because she was a dreadful kisser? Was he secretly horrified by her lack of restraint? Was she supposed to keep her lips pressed tightly together when he sought to part them with the silky heat of his tongue?

Determined to seize the remaining shreds of her dignity before they could completely unravel, she said, "I suppose it's a bit late for formal introductions, sir, but my name is Pamela Darby and this is my sister, Sophie."

Well-schooled by years of helping their mother practice stage cues, Sophie stepped forward and executed a flawless curtsy. As she straightened, she tossed back her buttery curls and gave her silky golden lashes an extra flutter. Sophie was just like their mother in that respect. She couldn't help preening in the presence of any male—even a villainous cutthroat. As an enfant terrible , she'd kept every man in the theater—from the loftiest actor to the lowliest stagehand—wrapped around her pudgy little pinkie.

Pamela sighed, waiting for the highwayman to succumb to her sister's spell. It had felled far might ier men than he. Pamela knew all of the signs—the leaden clumsiness of the limbs, the dazed look in the eye, the awkward stammering of the tongue. Once a man was blinded by the glamour of Sophie's beauty, Pamela knew that she would fade into the backdrop, no more substantial or interesting than a potted palm painted on a stretch of canvas.

To her surprise, the highwayman barely flicked a gaze in her sister's direction. His glittering eyes remained locked on her as he sketched them a bow that was surprisingly graceful given his imposing size. "'Tis a pleasure to meet you and your bonny sister, Miss Darby. I'm the man who's goin' to relieve you of your valuables and be on my way."

As if to remind them all of the highwayman's nefarious goal, the coachman groaned and struggled to a sitting position on the edge of the road, blood trickling from a shallow cut above his eyebrow. Without batting an eyelash, the highwayman tugged the pistol from the waist of his breeches and swung the muzzle toward him. The grizzled old man's hands shot into the air.

"And that's where I'll thank you to keep them until I've finished my business with the ladies," the highwayman said smoothly.

Keenly aware that they now had an audience for their little drama—Or was it a farce?—Pamela relaxed her arm so that the reticule still dangling from her wrist would sink into the folds of her skirt.

As she watched the highwayman cow the coachman with little more than a look, her thoughts veered into oddly philosophical territory.

Who really determined a man's destiny? Must it always be an accident of birth? A spin on the fickle wheel of fate? Was it not possible for chance and opportunity to collide and forever alter a man's course in this life?

Pamela didn't even realize her lips had curved in a thoughtful smile until she caught Sophie's bewildered glance. She clapped a hand over her mouth, struggling to look suitably terrorized as the highwayman tugged a burlap bag from his belt and marched back over to her, tucking the pistol in its place.

"Why don't we start with that ermine tippet, lass?" he suggested, holding out his hand.

Pamela reluctantly unwound the fur scarf from her throat, shivering at the sharp bite of the night wind, and laid it across his palm. He ran his hand over it, an avaricious glint in his eye. But when he reached the end, a fat clump of fur clung to his fingers.

"What in the devil is this?" he demanded, glowering down at the offending stuff with palpable revulsion. "Rat?"

Pamela sniffed. "Of course not. I'll have you know it's prime Hertfordshire squirrel."

Still scowling, he gave the garment an experimental shake. Fur flew everywhere, including up Pamela's nose. She made no attempt to stifle her sneeze.

Tossing the rapidly balding stole over a nearby bush, he growled, "Let's have a look at those ruby earbobs, shall we?"

"If you insist," she replied, tugging the earbobs from her delicate lobes and surrendering them to his hand. The gemstones glowed like drops of fresh blood against his broad palm.

As he studied them, the appreciative gleam in his eyes slowly faded. He lifted his gaze to hers. "These are paste, aren't they? Nothin' but worthless paste."

She shrugged. "I suppose it's possible. Unscrupulous jewelers have been known to take advantage of their more na?ve customers."

He did not wait for her to hand over the diamond brooch adorning the lapel of her pelisse. Closing the distance between them with one step, he tucked his hand beneath her collar to hold the fabric steady while he deftly unfastened the brooch's pin with his nimble fingers. She shivered as his warm knuckles lingered against the vulnerable skin of her throat. Their gazes met and held for the space of a ragged heartbeat before he secured his prize and stepped away.

He didn't waste a precious second ogling the brooch. He simply tucked it between his lips and dug his teeth into it before hurling it away in disgust. "What sort of dangerous game are you and your sister playin', Miss Darby?"

"One we're determined to win," she replied, her hand inching toward her reticule.

He studied her through narrowed eyes for a moment, then held out his hand. "Give me your drawers."

Pamela's own hand froze. Behind her, she heard Sophie gasp.

"Pardon me?" Pamela asked, eyeing him with fresh suspicion.

During their years in the theater, she'd encountered several actors who delighted in donning feminine garb and playing the female roles in the pantomime. But this strapping Highlander hardly seemed the sort to drape himself in ruffles and lace and prance across a stage warbling a suggestive ditty.

"You heard me, lass. Drop your drawers and hand them over."

She gave him a withering glare. "How could I deny such a romantic request? With that quicksilver tongue of yours, you must be quite irresistible to the ladies."

This time the deepening of his dimple was unmistakable. "Oh, I've other tricks for gettin' them off you, but I don't you think you want me to show you those." He cut his eyes toward Sophie. "At least not right now."

Gritting her teeth in exasperation, Pamela turned her back on him only to find the coachman gawping at her, his knobby hands still thrust into the air. Muttering beneath her breath, she faced the woods and reached beneath her skirts. She was determined to deny the larcenous scoundrel so much as a glimpse of stocking or well-turned ankle. After much struggle, she finally managed to extract herself from her drawers by clutching the trunk of a nearby alder and hopping up and down on each foot in turn.

She turned to hurl them at the highwayman. "There! I hope you're happy, you odious, insufferable boor!"

He caught them neatly with one hand, no longer bothering to hide his smirk. "And just when I feared your affections for me were wanin'."

She averted her eyes from him, heat rising in her cheeks. Despite the sheltering layers of pelisse, skirts, petticoat and stockings, she still felt woefully exposed. It was almost as if the chill night wind was deliberately whistling its way beneath her hem and between her clenched thighs.

She stole a sullen look at the highwayman. At least she didn't wear ridiculous scraps of French silk like her mother had. Her drawers were sturdy English wool—decent, practical, and dull…just like her.

As she watched him examine the worn garment with far more care than he had shown the stole or the brooch, curiosity overcame her annoyance. "What on earth are you doing?"

"A woman can lie in a thousand different ways with her lips and her eyes, but not with her undergarments." He ran his hand along a recently darned seam until he reached a frayed hem. When he finally lifted his eyes to her, they were darkened by a mixture of disbelief and contempt. "Why, you're poor , aren't you?"

Pamela recoiled. He had bitten off the word as if it were the most damning of accusations—far worse than being charged with accosting two helpless women in the wilderness.

One would have thought that being pelted with rotten cabbages and wormy potatoes while fleeing an angry mob would have squashed the last of her pride. But as she met this man's condemning gaze, she felt her spine stiffen and her chin lift.

"My sister and I may have fallen on difficult circumstances since our mother's death. That doesn't mean we're destitute."

"Oh, no?" He balled up her drawers and tossed them into the underbrush, then began to stalk her, backing her up with each step. "Then why are you wrappin' yourselves in dead rodents and wearin' paste jewelry? Why have your drawers been darned so many times they're fit for little more than the rag bin?" He kept right on coming until she backed into a tree, leaving her with no way to escape him, no way to catch a breath that wasn't laced with his smoky, masculine scent. "And why did you venture onto these roads with only a pathetic old man to protect you?"

"Eh!" the coachman brayed in protest.

"Hush!" Pamela and the highwayman snapped in unison, still glaring at each other.

The driver subsided into a sullen pout.

The highwayman reached to tuck a tumbled coil of hair behind her ear, his voice deepening and softening until it was all velvet and thistles again. "Have you any idea what could happen to a bonny pair of lassies out here with no man to protect them?"

Pamela was trying to decide if that was a warning or a threat when Sophie piped up. "They could be set upon by a wicked highwayman and have their drawers stolen?"

He ignored her, all of his attention still fixed on Pamela. "Why are you pretendin' to be rich, lass?"

Pamela could feel her temper rising again. "Because people treat you differently if they believe you have means. They're kinder and more helpful and don't look at you as if you're about to nick the silver. They don't mock the shabbiness of your bodice or whisper that your bonnet has been out of fashion for three seasons. Perhaps we didn't care to be scorned—or worse yet— pitied by a man who's probably never earned an honest day's wage in his life."

"Oh, I tried earnin' an honest day's wage once," he replied, his face hard. "But it didn't take much more than a day of strugglin' to survive on the pennies they paid me to learn that I didn't care for bein' cold and hungry and barefoot. That I'd rather take what I wanted without the by-your-leave of some fat English overlord."

Although Pamela was loath to admit it, his defiant words stirred her blood, as did the ruthless glint in his eye. In that moment, there was something almost noble in his bearing.

Her hand slid into her reticule. Before she could regain her sanity or lose her nerve, she drew out a pretty little pearl-plated pistol and leveled it at his chest, raking back the hammer with her thumb. "I hate to interrupt another stirring speech about Scots' rights and the tyranny of the English, but I'm afraid it's my by-your-leave you'll be needing from this moment on."