Free Daring by Jillian Hunter

reason. He wouldn’t care that she’d only wanted to help a friend. All the dreadful things she’d heard about him were true.
    The situation called for desperate measures.
    She broke out of his arms with such an unexpected burst of energy that Connor, taken off guard, almost lost his hold on her. For a breathless moment she believed she had a chance at freedom. She actually thought she could escape him. Then he snagged a handful of her cloak just in time.
    Maggie’s toes never even touched the ground. He lifted her in the air with the amount of effort it would have taken him to pluck a daisy from a flowerpot.
    She gasped, her feet dangling between his legs, his large hands clamped around her waist. To make matters worse, Dr. Sinclair hadn’t stuffed the stolen éclairs back into her pockets and they were sliding free. Fortunately, in all the commotion, an insignificant thing like a few pastries falling to the ground went unnoticed.
    Unfortunately, she couldn’t say the same for the other bottle of champagne she’d crammed in the pocket of her cloak. It was a wonder it had survived her fall from the carriage.
    His mistress was right. The man obviously did not know his own strength.
    When he yanked her back toward him, and into the darkness, the bottle finally dislodged and hit the stone walkway with the force of a lead ball hurtling from a cannon. The cork exploded in midair. The silence amplified the deafening pop.
    Ardath uttered a startled shriek. “Good Lord, a gunshot! Someone’s shooting at us.”
    “The boy on the balcony,” Norah cried. “I thought I saw something in his hand!”
    The earl threw his arms around Ardath’s mother and began dragging her down the steps. “Everyone on the ground! Connor, protect that girl—we need her help. Guard her with your life.”
    The old groom came running up from the courtyard, drawn by all the shouting. “What’s the matter? Are the kidnappers back?”
    “Someone is shooting at Connor,” Ardath said breathlessly, picking up her skirts to run. “Take cover, Jacob.”
    The groom stumbled down the steps, shouting back at the servants who were spilling out of the house. “Someone is trying to assassinate the Lord Advocate! Save yourselves.”
    Maggie never had a chance to explain. All of a sudden she was flying backward, sailing over the steps, with Connor’s big hard body breaking the fall. She credited his reflexes that he reacted so swiftly. She’d been too stunned to do anything but stare.
    He rolled her beneath him, cushioning her head with his arm. The impact knocked the breath from her body. A monument of muscle, bone, and sinew smothered her, making it impossible to move. The man might have been sculpted out of stone. His straight blond hair tickled her chin. His massive chest crushed hers, their hearts beating in wild harmony. She groaned to protest her discomfort.
    “Lord Buchanan—”
    “Don’t talk.”
    “But there isn’t—”
    “Damn it, be quiet, would you? This is a life or death situation. Someone wants to kill us.”
    The others had all taken cover under the row of topiary animals that surrounded the darkened terrace. Ardath and her mother were crou ched arm-in-arm under a spread- winged evergreen dragon; Norah, the earl, and Dr. Sinclair huddled together in fear of their lives under a bush trimmed to be a pair of Minoan bulls.
    Maggie winced inwardly as she heard the champagne bottle roll down the terrace steps toward them, where it began spinning like a Chinese firecracker.
    Champagne sprayed through the air in a bubbling mist. Connor raised his head, muttering, “What the hell?” just as a final jet of yellow-label hit him full in the face.
    Mortified, Maggie watched his expression of alarm transform into outrage as he realized what had happened. He pushed up on his elbows, allowing her the space to gasp for a breath, but not to escape. A shudder of apprehension seized her as he stared down at her in silence. She almost wished an