Chapter 4

N either," Connor replied, shaking the length of rope from his wrists as if it were a silken ribbon and neatly plucking the pistol from Pamela's hand. "If you want bawds or brides on this night, you'll have to hunt them yourself."

Pamela gaped at him in disbelief.

He tucked her pistol into his breeches and tipped her jaw closed with one finger. "Don't blame yourself, lass. I once used the same skills to escape the hangman's noose and his knots were much better than yours."

Pamela began to sputter. She couldn't have said why she was so outraged that he had foiled her one pathetic attempt at a kidnapping by leading them straight into a trap, but she was. "Why, you—you—"

"Blackguard?" one of the men provided.

"Rapscallion?" offered another.

"Swivin', whoremongerin' son of a—"

"That's enough," Connor snapped. "I doubt the young lady needs any help comin' up with a vile-enough insult for me."

Pamela snapped her mouth shut and folded her arms over her chest. "He's right. There's no need to waste your breath. There is no insult vile enough for the likes of him."

The giant who had perused her and her sister with such glassy-eyed lust chortled with glee, a cloud of copper braids bristling around his head. "Oh, she's a spirited one, isn't she? I do love a spirited lass. I'll give ye a jar o' whisky and a pouch o' tobacco for an hour alone with her."

Pamela instinctively edged closer to Connor, preferring the devil she knew to this leering ogre.

Connor snorted. "And just what do you plan to do with the remainin' fifty-seven minutes, Brodie?" When the rest of the men burst into raucous laughter, Connor included them in his glare. "I'll thank you all to get your tongues back in your mouths and your pistols back in your breeches. The lass belongs to me."

That bold claim silenced the men and sent a peculiar shiver rippling across Pamela's flesh. One by one, both the grins and the pistols disappeared.

"What about the wee one, then?" Brodie asked, his voice rising to a childish whine that seemed at odds with his impressive girth and the beefy slabs of muscle that composed his upper arms. "I've no doubt ye could handle the both o' them with yer hands still tied behind yer back, but there's no need to be greedy, is there?"

Connor's face went so still that Pamela feared he was actually considering the cretin's request. She curled her hands into claws, fully prepared to launch herself at the first man who dared to lay a finger on her sister—even if that man was Connor.

Especially if that man was Connor.

"What I'd like you to do, Brodie," he finally said, "is take the ‘wee one' into the next room and fix her a nice cup of hot tea with a splash of whisky to warm up her blood." When Brodie's expression brightened, he narrowed his stormy gray eyes in warning. "The lass is a lady and I'll expect her to be treated as such."

Brodie's broad face fell. Connor reached to draw Sophie forward. She dragged her feet and cast Pamela a beseeching glance, her eyes huge and her beautiful face as pale as wax.

"She won't come to any harm," Connor murmured, his smoky voice dangerously close to Pamela's ear. "You have my word on it."

Pamela had no idea why she was so inclined to believe him. Especially when he wasn't offering her any similar promises.

For Sophie's sake, she managed to dredge up a comforting smile. "He's right, dear. You must be chilled to the bone. Why don't you go and have a hot cup of tea with the nice man?"

"What about you?" Sophie asked, shooting Connor a worried look.

Pamela held her breath, waiting for him to proclaim that she too was a lady and would be treated with all the tender regard due to such a delicate and refined creature.

As his stony silence stretched, she was forced to fill it with a burst of high-pitched laughter. "Don't you worry your pretty little head about me. This will give me and Mr…." She slanted him a questioning look.

"Kincaid," he volunteered.

"…me and Mr. Kincaid a chance to discuss our business in private."

One of the men nudged the fellow next to him, his stage whisper clearly audible throughout the room. "The lass'll be walkin' bow-legged for a fortnight after discussin' her business with our Connor."

His friend nodded in agreement. "Aye, there's some that say the hangman had to let the lad go after he realized he couldna hang him no better than he was already hung."

As several of the men snickered, Pamela bowed her head, wishing desperately that she could sink through the stone floor.

At Connor's curt signal, Brodie stepped forward and offered Sophie his burly arm. One would have thought he was about to escort her into supper at a private ball in Mayfair.

"So are ye married, lass?" he inquired of Sophie as she gingerly tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. When she shook her head, still eyeing him warily, he beamed down at her, his gold tooth winking in the firelight. "Would ye like to be?"

Pamela sighed. She had rescued her sister from the viscount's lascivious offer just so Sophie could receive her first legitimate proposal from a randy bandit with a silver hoop in his ear and a tattoo of a wriggling serpent on his upper arm.

Connor sent the other men fleeing from the room with little more than a look. Although they muttered beneath their breaths and scuffed the stone floor with their booted toes as they filed out, they didn't seem any more inclined to defy him than the coachman had been. Apparently he didn't even require a loaded pistol to impose his will on others.

Which didn't bode well for her own future, Pamela thought grimly.

A future that grew even darker when Connor bent to scoop up the length of rope she had used to bind him. When he came for her, she stood her ground, knowing it would only embarrass them both if she tried to flee. She held herself stiff as a plank as he wrapped one powerful hand around her upper arm and backed her toward the wooden chair nearest the hearth with a grip that warned it would brook no disobedience.

One minute she was standing on her own two feet; the next she was landing in the chair with an undignified plop . He looked even larger looming over her in the firelight. She had to tilt back her head just to shoot him a defiant glare.

As he studied her through narrowed eyes, his capable hands toyed with the rope, wrapping one end around his right fist, then taking up the slack with his left. Pamela swallowed back an icy lump of fear, waiting for him to whip the rope around her wrists—or more likely her throat. She was helpless to hide her start of surprise when he tossed it to the hearth.

"I don't really think we'll have need of that, do you?" he asked, his voice as gentle as if he was speaking to a child.

Pamela let out a shuddering breath, knowing he was right. Given his superior strength and size, she could fight him to her dying breath and still be utterly at his mercy.

"Especially not when I have this," he added, drawing her delicate pearl-plated pistol from the waist of his breeches.

As he held the weapon up to the firelight, turning it this way and that, Pamela couldn't quite take her eyes off of it. Or him.

He admired the pistol's gleaming beauty from all angles. "'Tis hard to believe such a bonny wee thing could be an instrument of death, is it not?"

She held her tongue, afraid to let out so much as a squeak. If he had bound her to the chair hand and foot, she would have been no less paralyzed.

He leaned closer, covering her with his shadow. She gasped aloud at the cool kiss of the pistol's mouth against her temple.

His voice deepened to a husky whisper as he stroked the barrel down her cheek to the curve of her jaw. "It's so beautiful, yet so dangerous. Much like its mistress."

The barrel brushed her trembling lips so softly she might have imagined it, then glided slowly downward to the delicate hollow at the base of her throat. She closed her eyes, feeling her flesh betray her by heating beneath that steely caress.

Her eyes flew open as the barrel of the pistol continued its downward slide, nudging the lapel of her pelisse aside until the mouth of the pistol was resting against the soft swell of her breast, directly over her stuttering heart.

Connor looked her dead in the eye.

And pulled the trigger.

A bouquet of colorful feathers burst from the pistol's muzzle while the music box concealed within its grip lurched into a bright and tinkling tune. Pamela flinched and let out a muffled shriek, her nerves completely undone by his wicked game.

Connor leaned back and blew across the mouth of the gun, ruffling the plume of feathers. His gray eyes sparkled with devilish amusement.

Pamela glared up at him, her heart still on the verge of pounding its way out of her chest. "How long have you known?"

"I began to suspect it was nothin' more than a toy when you were so squeamish about pointin' my own pistol at me."

"And if you had been wrong?"

He shrugged. "We wouldn't be havin' this conversation, now, would we?" As if unable to resist the temptation, he tickled her beneath her chin with the plume of feathers like a doting uncle trying to coax a smile from a surly baby.

Infuriated by his cavalier attitude, she smacked the gun out of his hand. It went skittering across the floor and struck the stone wall, its last tinkling note dying on an off-key whine.

"If you knew the gun was only a prop, then why did you allow yourself to be taken captive?"

He grinned. "I was still holdin' out hope you and your sister might ravish me."

The reappearance of his dimple only made her feel more peevish. "Why? Did your favorite sheep run away?"

The dimple vanished. He folded his brawny arms over his chest, deliberately deepening his burr. "Oh, we only dally with the livestock when we canna find a willin' woman."

"Or an unwilling one?" she snapped, regretting the words the instant they left her lips.

Their gazes collided and held until the smoldering heap of logs on the fire collapsed in a cascade of fiery sparks. Pamela was the first to look away.

When she finally spoke, her voice was low but steady. "Set my sister free. She doesn't deserve to be punished for my folly. See her to safety and I won't fight you. I'll…I'll…"—she swallowed and closed her eyes—"I'll do whatever pleases you."

Connor gazed down at Pamela's averted face, his wayward imagination providing lurid images of all the things she could do that might please him. A faint blush graced her cheek. She was an English rose, never meant to bloom in the stony soil of this wild and brutal land. And here he stood with the power to crush her tender petals—and her prickly pride—in his fist. The realization should have made him feel strong, invincible. Instead, he felt dirty and dangerous. Like a man who would tear a flower from the dirt just so he could watch it wither in his hand.

"That's a noble offer indeed, lass. And a very temptin' one as well. But I've no intention of throwin' your wee lamb of a sister—or you—to that pack of wolves in the next room."

He had to admire her nerve as she mustered up the courage to look him in the eye. "What about the wolf in this room?"

The wolf in this room had spent too many years paying for his pleasures with stolen coins and was starved for a morsel of something tender.

Afraid she would catch a glimpse of that hunger in his eyes, Connor dropped to one knee at her feet and began to unlace one of her kid half boots.

"What are you doing?" Pamela demanded of her captor, half afraid he would answer.

But he held his tongue and all she could do was watch helplessly as he tugged off her boot and set it aside. He rested the sole of her foot against his muscled thigh, the firelight picking out the streaks of honey in the warm maple sugar hue of his hair.

Her stockings were in even more shameful condition than her drawers had been. Her little toe was peeping out of the shattered silk, rosy with mortification.

As he tugged off her other boot, then encircled one of her slender ankles with his hand, she could feel her cheeks growing equally pink. Men weren't even supposed to see ankles, much less touch them. That's why so many of them delighted in coming to the theater, where they could gawk at the scantily clad opera dancers to their heart's content.

Pamela hadn't realized how cold and numb her feet were until Connor began to briskly massage the feeling back into them. Heat seemed to radiate from his touch, penetrating the threadbare silk of her stockings. As he pressed the broad pad of his thumb into the sole of her foot, she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from betraying herself with a moan.

He stole a glance at her face, a knowing smile playing around his lips. "You English never take the dangers of the Highlands to heart," he said as he began to subject her other foot to the same irresistible torture. "You may think your feet are just a wee bit chilled, but add the damp to the cold and before you know it, you've lost a toe or two."

Pamela sank deeper into the chair, her eyes drifting out of focus as the tension oozed out of her body and into his capable hands. If he kept stroking his thumb down the center of her foot in that provocative manner, she was going to be in danger of losing more than just a toe.

Her eyes snapped into focus. She sat up with a jerk, going as stiff as a marionette. It had happened again. She had succumbed to the lure of the sensual just as her mother would have done.

Yanking her feet out of his grasp, she tucked them beneath the hem of her skirts. "I'd rather lose a toe or two to the cold than have them nibbled off by a wolf."

Amused by Pamela's wary scowl, Connor rose and began to circle her chair. "And I'd rather be branded a wolf than a wolf in sheep's clothin'. Especially one wearin' fake furs, fake jewels and carryin' fake pistols. Is there anythin' real about you, Miss Pamela Darby?" He reached down to rub a shiny coil of her hair between his fingers, wishing he could forget how warm and real her mouth had felt beneath his when she had opened it to welcome his kiss. "Or is that even your name?"

"Of course it's my name! Our mother was the great stage actress Marianne Darby. Perhaps you've heard of her?"

She looked so hopeful that Connor bit back his sarcastic retort and instead said gently, "I'm afraid I haven't had many chances to attend the theater of late. You mentioned earlier that your mother had passed on, but where is Mr. Darby? Why hasn't your father locked you and your sister away in an attic or a convent…or perhaps an asylum?"

"There is no Mr. Darby," she informed him. "Unless you count my mother's father, and he died when she was still a babe."

Her matter-of-fact confession only served to remind Connor that he had once been blessed with two parents who adored him. "So after your mother died, you decided to journey to the Highlands and kidnap the first highwayman who crossed your path."

"Need I remind you, sir, that you were the one who accosted us," she said with an exasperated sniff. "We came here searching for a man, not a highwayman. And not just any man, but the heir to a vast fortune."

Connor dragged a second chair around to face her and sank into it. Now she had his attention. "How vast?"

"His father is one of the wealthiest nobleman in all of England. And one of the most powerful. The Duke of Warrick can command a dozen households of servants, a fleet of trading ships and most of the members of Parliament with nothing more than the snap of his fingers." She boldly snapped her own fingers beneath his nose to illustrate her point. "But none of his wealth or power has been able to win him the one prize he desires above all others—the return of the son who went missing nearly thirty years ago."

Connor frowned. "What happened to the lad? Did he run away? Was he kidnapped for ransom?"

"Neither. Apparently, when he was younger, the duke had a bit of a roving eye. Most pampered ladies are content to look the other way when their husbands stray, but not his duchess." An admiring glow warmed Pamela's amber eyes. "After she found the duke's mistress in their bed during a ball, she bundled up their newborn babe and ran away with him."

Connor's voice reflected his incredulity. "And the duke's been searching for the lad for nearly thirty years?"

"I believe he lost hope a long time ago, but he's recently redoubled his efforts."

"Why now, after all this time?"

"Because he's dying," Pamela said flatly. "His health has been declining for several years now, and according to gossip he has only months—if not weeks—to live. I'm convinced that's what prompted him to offer the reward."

"Reward?" Connor edged his chair even closer to hers. He knew all about rewards. There was a rather hefty one on his own head right now. He also knew a reward on a man's head didn't mean he was worth anything.

Pamela leaned forward in her chair, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "The duke is offering ten thousand pounds to anyone who can bring him proof that his son is still alive."

Connor let out a low-pitched whistle. "With a prize like that at stake, I gather you and your sister aren't the only ones out searchin' for the lad."

"That may be true, but we were the only ones searching in the right place."

"How can you be so sure of that?"

She tilted her head to study him. "I'd be a fool to trust a man like you, wouldn't I?"

"Aye," he agreed solemnly. "That you would."

She studied him for a few seconds longer, then shook her head. "I don't suppose any of it matters now that we've learned the truth."

Connor had believed his interest had reached its peak when the words vast fortune and reward had been introduced into the conversation. But he was wrong. As Pamela slipped a hand into the bodice of her pelisse, rooting around between the generous swell of her breasts, he sat up straighter in the chair, feeling the rest of his body snap to attention with equal fascination. He was on the verge of offering her his eager assistance when she finally drew forth a folded scrap of foolscap, yellowed with age.

She laid the paper in her lap, handling it with the utmost of care. "For almost thirty years, everyone has believed the duchess took the baby and fled to France, which is why all of the searches have been centered there." She tapped the paper with one neatly trimmed fingernail. "This document proves otherwise."

"What is it?"

"A letter the duchess penned the night before she ran away. A letter addressed to her dear childhood friend—a woman she could no longer acknowledge in polite society without fear of damaging her own reputation but who had always been her most faithful and treasured confidante—one Marianne Darby."

Pamela's amber eyes grew misty as she tenderly stroked the crumbling wax seal that had once shielded the letter from prying eyes. "This is the only document proving the duchess had no intention of ever boarding that ship for France. She confessed to my mother she booked that passage to France to deliberately mislead her husband, all the while planning to seek asylum with her maternal grandfather—a man who had once been a powerful laird in the Highlands of Scotland but—"

"—who had lost everything to the English," Connor finished for her. Too many stories had the exact same ending. Including his own. He nodded toward the letter. "How did you come by it? Did you find it among your mother's things after she died?"

Pamela's face hardened. "Her belongings were all destroyed in the fire that killed her. The letter was presented to us by her solicitor upon her death." The corner of Pamela's mouth quirked in a rueful smile. "Unfortunately, it was all she left us."

"And your mother never received any other letters from this grand lady? Not even a note sayin' she'd arrived safely at her grandfather's house?"

"Not another word from her for all these years." Pamela shook her head sadly. "But now we know why. According to an old woman Sophie and I found in Strathspey, they never made it that far. It was a harsh winter and both she and the babe died of a fever somewhere near Balquhidder."

They were both silent for several minutes.

"Wouldn't this duke be equally grateful for proof of his son's fate?" Connor finally asked. "At least the poor man could die in peace, knowin' his search was over."

Pamela gave him a glum look. "Have you ever heard the old proverb about shooting the messenger? The duke has quite a fearsome reputation, and I'm afraid if we brought him ill tidings, he would be more inclined to have us tossed into Newgate, never to see the light of day again." Still clutching the duchess's letter, she rose from her chair and paced a few feet away before turning to face him. "That's why I thought that perhaps it would be far more charitable—and more profitable—to give him exactly what he's been looking for."

Her expression was so hopeful, so very winsome, that Connor could not resist asking, "And just what would that be?"

She smiled at him with all of the beguiling tenderness of a lover. "Why, you, of course!"