His silence was a weapon all its own, so effective that she nearly jumped out of her skin when he finally said, “What would you prefer, lass? Should I blast you to hell first and spout the drivel later? I fear it would be even less convincin’ without an audience to appreciate it.”
His mocking burr was as rough as burlap, yet soft as velvet. It was like having both the rose and the thorn dragged across her quivering flesh at the same time.
Pamela inched sideways, thinking to lure his attention away from Sophie and the carriage door. But she had cause to regret the motion when he shifted his own weight, inviting the moonlight to spill over the long, polished barrel of the pistol cradled in his hand. The weapon rested there as if he’d been born to wield it.
Too late, she remembered the poor coachman. She glanced toward the front of the carriage to find him sprawled in the road just as she had feared. A sharp cry of dismay escaped her. She lifted the hem of her skirts and took an involuntary step toward him.
The highwayman blocked her way, his silent grace more menacing than another man’s shout. “He’s not dead. He’ll come ’round after a while with nothin’ more than an achin’ head and a story to tell his mates down at the tavern while they buy him a few pints.”
As if to prove his words, the coachman stirred and uttered a weak groan. Pamela glanced at the coach box. His musket was still neatly sheathed in its holder. He’d never even had a chance to draw it.
Emboldened by relief, she glared up at their assailant. “What a fine profession you’ve chosen for yourself, sir! Assaulting old men and frightening helpless women.”
He took a step forward, bringing them so close she could feel the heat radiating from his body through the fabric of his shirt. “You don’t seem very frightened, lass. Or very helpless.”
In truth, she was terrified. But she hid her terror behind a disgruntled sniff. “I’ve simply never been able to abide a bully.”
“And what makes you think I chose this ‘profession’?” His voice was a mocking caress that made the delicate hairs at her nape shiver with reaction. “What if it was thrust upon me by cruel fate?”
“We all have choices to make if we want to be masters—or mistresses—of our own fate.”
“And are you mistress of yours?”
His gently barbed words struck an unexpectedly tender target. After her mother’s death, she had quickly discovered that without means or a male protector, a woman was at the mercy of this world. All she could do was sit back and watch her choices vanish one by one along with her dreams.
Even when her mother had been alive, Pamela had been subject to her mama’s mercurial moods, her baby sister’s needs and demands. She’d always been the one left to pick up the pieces of her mother’s numerous broken hearts, scrimping and scheming to make sure the family didn’t end up in the streets between productions when times were lean and her mother’s lovers disappeared.
“Not at the moment,” she admitted. “But then I’m not the one with the gun in my hand.”
“What if you were? Would you be willin’ to surrender it to the first man—or woman—who branded you a bully? Maybe I made my choice a long time ago, when I decided I didn’t want to go hungry and barefoot while the English and their coffers grew fat on riches that rightly belonged to the Scots.”
“But surely you must see that it’s only a matter of time before you’re brought to justice.”
“When an Englishman robs a Scot of his land and his dignity, it’s his God-given right. But when a Scot nabs an Englishman’s purse, he’s a dirty, thievin’ criminal.” The outlaw’s snort came out of the darkness. “Where’s the justice in that?”
Pamela brought her hands together in a round of dry applause. “Bravo, sir! I was wrong about you. Your passion adds a stirring note of conviction to your dialogue. If your weapon didn’t happen to be pointed at my heart, I might even be tempted to cheer on your noble effort to relieve me of my purse.”
He surprised her by slowly lowering the pistol to his side. Oddly enough, the gesture didn’t make him look any less threatening. Her heart began to beat faster. Perhaps he’d decided to punish her for her scorn by strangling her with his bare hands.
She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could still feel his gaze against her skin—as forceful as a touch. With all of his fine talk about the oppression of the Scots, she would have expected him to be wearing a kilt and carrying a shiny claymore or a set of bagpipes. But he was garbed all in black—the midnight shade of his shirt, breeches and boots making him nearly indistinguishable from the night.
She took an experimental step backward, then another. He followed, shadowing her every move. She continued to back away from him, wondering if there was some way to use their dangerous dance to her advantage. If she could lure him away from the carriage door, perhaps Sophie would be clever enough to slip out and run for help.
Or for her life.
Pamela stole a glance over her shoulder at the sweeping arms of the towering Caledonian pines bordering the rocky trail. There was only one sure way to distract him. One chance for Sophie to make her escape.
Knowing she might very well earn a pistol ball in the back for her efforts, Pamela spun around to run.
She had barely taken two steps when the highwayman seized her wrist and roughly jerked her around to face him. She stumbled over a rock and right into his broad, unyielding chest. She shook her hair out of her eyes and tipped back her head to glare at him, anger once again foolishly displacing her fear.
For the first time, the moonlight shone full upon his face.
Pamela froze, all of her schemes for escape forgotten.
The narrow slits in his black leather half mask revealed eyes as luminous and silvery gray as the light of the moon. Pamela was close enough to count each of the thick lashes that framed their striking depths. His nose was strong but slightly crooked, as if he’d started more than his share of tavern brawls.
Although it was no struggle for him to subdue her with just one hand, he was breathing hard and his jaw was clenched as if he was doing battle with some enemy neither of them could see.
It was a rugged jaw with an unlikely dimple set deep in his right cheek. At the moment his mouth was set in a stern line, but it wasn’t difficult for Pamela to imagine the devastating effect that dimple might have on a woman’s heart should he smile.
Her breath caught in her throat. She was just as powerless to resist its charm as she had been when gazing upon the broadsheet in the village. Some might argue that the crudely drawn sketch could have been any one of a dozen men, but Pamela would have recognized its subject anywhere.
He held himself as still as a granite statue as she lifted one trembling hand and lightly brushed her fingertips over his cheek. The broadsheet had been cool to the touch; his cheek was warm and rough with a day’s growth of stubble.
His indrawn breath was both sharp and audible.
“I saw the broadsheet in the village,” she confessed, lifting her gaze shyly to his eyes. “If they catch you, they have every intention of hanging you.”
“Then perhaps it’s time I stole somethin’ worth bein’ hanged for,” he replied, his voice a husky rumble she felt all the way to the tips of her toes.
“Such as?” she whispered.
He lowered his gaze to her lips, giving her the answer she both feared and longed for.
His grip on her wrist gentled; the callused pad of his thumb caressed her fluttering pulse. He closed his eyes and lowered his mouth to hers, his lips no longer stern but soft and warm with invitation. They played over hers with a deliberate tenderness that was far more dangerous than force.
Pamela was well acquainted with the art of the stage kiss. How its purpose was to convey passion without actually provoking it. This was accomplished with the merest brushing of lips—neat and dry, with no communion of hearts or souls.
Which was why it came as such a shock when the highwayman boldly breached the seam of her lips with the rough, si
lky heat of his tongue. There was nothing neat or dry about his kiss. His tongue swirled over hers—tasting, teasing, tantalizing—urging her to take him deeper inside of her with each maddening pass of his mouth over hers. He smelled like freshly crushed pine needles and wood smoke and tasted of whisky and danger.
Too late, she realized she was no longer his prisoner. She had no recollection of him freeing her wrist, yet somehow both of her hands had ended up flattened against the muscular contours of his chest. Her palms measured each thundering beat of his heart as if it were her own.
Despite his threat, he hadn’t yet committed a hanging offense. Her kiss was not stolen after all, but freely given. And given with such generosity and enthusiasm that no court of law in the land would dare to convict him.
He threaded his fingers through the thick coils of her hair, knocking her bonnet away until it was hanging down her back by its velvet ribbons and tilting her head back to allow him to take even more shocking liberties with her mouth.
In that moment, she forgot Sophie, forgot all about their doomed quest for the duke’s heir, forgot they were only a few shillings away from utter ruin, forgot everything but the utter joy and madness of kissing a highwayman in the moonlight.
Until a shrill shriek pierced the pleasant roaring in her ears and a fluttery, pink object came crashing down on his head.
Chapter 2
In 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 mightier 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. Onc
e 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.