Chapter 6

N ow that the dam was broken, the words came pouring out of Pamela in a steady stream. "Sophie doesn't know. She can't know. It would break her heart. But my mother's death was no accident. Someone set the fire that killed her. And when her solicitor gave us this letter—the one he'd been protecting for all these years at my mother's request, I knew why. Because—"

"—someone wanted to destroy the letter and anyone who might have known about it," Connor finished for her. "Someone wanted to make sure the duke's heir was never found." He scowled at her, haunted by a grim image of what might have happened had she and her sister been in the theater when that fire was set. "Once you knew, why didn't you go straight to the law?"

"I'm the illegitimate daughter of an actress, Mr. Kincaid. What was I supposed to do? March up to the nearest constable and accuse someone in the duke's household of burning my mother alive? Why, they would have laughed in my face and thrown me into Newgate! Or Bedlam!"

"So you decided to take matters into your own hands."

She nodded. "And what better way to foil this murderer's plot and lure him out of hiding than to show up on the duke's doorstep with the man's long lost heir in tow?"

Connor shook his head, torn between disbelief and admiration. "'Tis a crafty plan, lass. And it might even have worked if the duke's heir had been long lost instead of long dead."

"Which is why I need you to help me resurrect him."

Pamela crumpled her mother's fragile letter in her white-knuckled fist, her gaze both fierce and pleading. It had been a long time since a woman had looked at him like that.

A lifetime.

Connor's voice came out far brusquer than he intended. "Last I heard, there was only one fellow who could raise the dead. And he came to a very bad end at the hands of the law." He shook his head with genuine regret. "I'm truly sorry about your mother, lass, but my services are not for hire. I can't help you."

Pamela's lips tightened. "If you won't help me, then why don't you help yourself? Have you thought about what you would stand to gain?"

"What? Another date with the hangman? One I won't be able to wiggle my way out of this time?"

As Pamela took one step toward him, then another, he sat up straight in the chair. Her voice softened, hypnotizing him with a beguiling note of huskiness he hadn't noticed before. "What about wealth and power beyond your wildest imaginings? What about never having another door slammed in your face but being welcomed into the drawing rooms of noblemen and the palaces of kings? What about having your opinion lauded and your approval courted by everyone you meet? You could have respectability, admiration"—she dared to draw within his reach, leaning close enough to whisper in his ear—"and all the willing women you care to woo."

Connor surged to his feet, his hand shooting out to seize her wrist. She tried to twist away from him, but he bent her arm up between them, drawing her roughly against his chest. The lush lips that had courted him so boldly only seconds ago were now trembling just a few inches away from his.

He gazed down into her eyes, noticing for the first time how thick and dark her spiky lashes were. "It sounds like you're tryin' to trap me in a cage, lass. A gilded one, but a cage all the same. At least if I die swingin' at the end of a hangman's noose here in these mountains, I'll still be free."

He allowed his gaze to linger on her lips for a dangerous moment before releasing her wrist and turning his back on her.

He was striding toward the door, eager for a breath of fresh air to drive the enticing scent of lilac from his nostrils, when she said, "There's one more thing you stand to gain."

He didn't slow or turn around. "And what would that be?"

"Revenge."

Connor stopped and slowly turned on his heel to face her.

This time she was wise enough to keep her distance. "You can't honestly believe I've already forgotten all of your impassioned speeches about the oppression of your people by the English. If you agree to play this role for me, you'll still be a thief. You'll simply be stealing an Englishman's birthright just as Jacob stole Esau's. It will be your ultimate joke on your enemies."

Connor studied her through narrowed eyes. However lovely and clever she might be, she was still one of those enemies.

But she was also offering him a way to take a life without staining his hands with a single drop of blood. A way to take revenge on the ruthless redcoat bastards who had murdered his parents and the wealthy landowners who had sent them. And he would still be doing what he'd always done best—robbing the English.

His time was running out. He had left behind his ancestral lands and his clansmen almost five years ago, hoping to make a better life for himself. But all he'd done was fall in with an even motlier crew of cutthroats and smugglers. More than once in the past six months he had awakened from a restless sleep, clawing at an invisible bond that sought to strangle the life from him. It was just a matter of time before he met the end he deserved and his body was tossed in some unmarked grave where the one person who might still care if he died would never find him.

He slowly sauntered toward Pamela. "You drive a hard bargain, Miss Darby. Are you sure you haven't a drop or two of Scot's blood runnin' through your veins?"

"Not that I'm aware of, Mr. Kincaid," she replied, forced to tilt back her head to look him in the eye as he stopped a scant foot in front of her.

He had to admire her courage as well as her wits. Although she looked as if she would have liked nothing better than to bolt, she stood her ground as he cupped the softness of her cheek in his callused palm. "If I'm to inherit this kingdom you've promised me, lass, then perhaps you'd best start addressing me as ‘m'lord.'"

Pamela sat with her back to the wall, watching Sophie sleep. A pale stream of moonlight trickled through the jagged gash in the stone, bathing her sister's angelic face in a wash of silver. Pamela smiled ruefully as a less than angelic snore escaped Sophie's puckered lips. She had been a sturdy seven-year-old when Sophie was born and she could still remember rocking the rosy-cheeked babe to sleep every night in her cradle while their mama took her final bows and gathered the roses thrown to her by her adoring admirers.

Pamela hugged the woolen blanket tighter around her shoulders and rested the back of her head against the wall, allowing her eyes to drift shut for a few precious seconds. Her own body was beginning to ache with exhaustion. She longed to stretch out next to Sophie on the makeshift pallet, but she had no intention of leaving her sister unguarded with that motley crew of bandits and smugglers still making merry in the vault below.

As she felt her head beginning to nod toward her chest, she jerked her eyes open and gave herself a brisk shake. She gazed around the dusty tower, wondering if it had once been a bedchamber shared by some lusty lord and his lady. Except for a crude table and chair, there was nothing left of its furnishings but piles of splintered sticks. A fretful squeaking emanated from the walls, warning her that she and her sister were not the tower's only occupants.

Perhaps it was only fitting that she be denied the sleep of the innocent. Now that she'd convinced Connor to help her swindle the duke out of his title and riches, she supposed she was no better than a common thief herself. She sighed, envying Sophie her untroubled conscience. She had always sworn she would walk through the fires of hell to protect her sister, but this was the first time she'd felt the flames tickling her toes.

Her heavy eyelids were beginning to drift shut again when she heard the ghost of a sound outside the wooden door. She jerked, suddenly wide awake. The blanket slipped from her shoulders as she rose to her feet, afraid she was about to be rewarded for her vigilance by an uninvited visitor.

She cast about for a weapon but all she could find was the leg from a splintered bedstead. She tested its weight in her hand, grimacing in dismay. Even a toy gun would have been a better comfort.

Stealing a glance at Sophie to make sure she was still sleeping, Pamela crept toward the door. She wouldn't have been surprised to find it locked—leaving them at the mercy of whoever held the key. But when she tugged the iron handle, the door inched open.

She pressed her eye to the narrow crack.

Connor Kincaid was sprawled in a wooden chair at the top of the stairs, his long legs stretched out in front of him to bar the passageway, and a pistol laid across his lap. His eyes were closed, but there was a lingering tension in his muscles that belied his casual sprawl, warning that he was not a man to be trifled with, even in sleep.

Pamela's first thought was that he didn't trust her. That he believed she might try to renege on their bargain and stage an escape.

But then she realized the mouth of the pistol wasn't pointed toward the tower but toward the stairs. Connor wasn't holding them prisoner. He was guarding them.

Holding her breath, Pamela gently eased the door shut, marveling at her discovery. Connor had promised her he wouldn't let her sister come to any harm and in this—if in nothing else—he was evidently a man of his word.

She briefly considered returning to her own guard post but an enormous yawn seized her, making Sophie's nest of blankets look even more inviting. She hesitated for a moment, then padded over and curled up next to her sister. She gently tucked the blanket around Sophie's shoulders before falling into a deep and untroubled sleep.