Some Like It Wild (12 page)

D
read quickened in Pamela’s heart as Crispin came sauntering across the parquet floor. The blade of his epee, graceful and deadly, glinted in the sunlight streaming through the French windows.

She turned back to Connor, her whisper low and urgent. “You mustn’t do this.”

“And why not?” Connor responded, an all too familiar gleam in his narrowed eyes as he watched Crispin approach. “I thought we’d already determined my blade was up to any challenge.”

“You know very well why not. If he’s the one who murdered my mother, then you couldn’t give him a better opportunity to finish you off. You heard the duke last night at supper. He called him one of the finest swordsmen in London.”

“I’m not from London,” Connor reminded her.

She dug her fingers into the front of his shirt. A few more steps and Crispin would be within earshot of her frantic whisper. “You didn’t see the look in his eye last night when I was taunting him. You mustn’t do this! Please, Connor, I’m begging you!”

Connor gazed down into Pamela’s imploring eyes, wishing he could have heard those very words tumbling from her luscious lips when he was holding her in his arms last night. Then he could have given her everything she wanted…and more.

Ignoring a pang of regret, he gently disengaged her fingers from the front of his shirt and set her away from him. “Don’t fret, lass,” he said, raising his voice so that it could be clearly heard. “I promise to go easy on the lad for your sake.”

Crispin barked out a laugh. “Don’t make any promises you can’t keep. Because I’ve no intention of going easy on you, not even for the lady’s sake.” He turned his brash smile on Pamela. “If you don’t wish to watch us make fools of ourselves to impress you, I’d advise you to go. There must be a piece that requires practicing on the piano or a sampler that needs stitching.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Pamela replied, her tone so frigid Connor wouldn’t have been surprised to see icicles sprout from the chandeliers. “I can assure you that I’ll be here to witness
every
parry and thrust.”

Crispin shot Connor a bemused glance. “That doesn’t surprise me. It’s been my experience that the female is frequently the more bloodthirsty of
the sexes. Not that any blood will be shed today, of course,” he hastened to add.

He strode over to the tall cherrywood cabinet on the other side of the suit of armor to retrieve a
fleuret
, the knob used by fencers to blunt the deadly points of their swords. When he turned around, the delicate
fleuret
was already fastened to the tip of his blade. “You’ll find I’m not as squeamish as Monsieur Chevalier. You’re welcome to use the weapon of your choice.” He gave the massive broadsword in Connor’s hand a derisive look. “Even if it does put you at a disadvantage.”

Connor said, “I would think the disadvantage would be yours since there’s no way for me to blunt the edge of my sword.”

Crispin gave him another of those shameless grins. “Ah, but you’ll have to get close enough to me to use it first.” A thoughtful look crossed his face. “There must be something we can do to make this contest even more enticing—a prize, perhaps?”

“What sort of prize did you have in mind?”

Crispin slanted Pamela a provocative look. “Since I sincerely doubt you’d be fool enough to wager the dukedom, how about a kiss from your lady?”

Pamela gasped, outraged at his audacity. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot, waiting for Connor to inform the scoundrel that her kisses were not cheap favors to be rewarded to the winner of some ridiculous contest.

“A kiss it is,” Connor agreed.

Pamela’s mouth fell open, then snapped shut. As the two men lifted their weapons and began
to warily circle each other, she backed away from them until she felt her shoulder blades hit the wall. Crispin’s attempt to dismiss her had only fueled her suspicions. Although she would have liked nothing better than to flee the ballroom with her hands over her eyes, she had no intention of leaving Connor at his mercy.

When it came to size and strength Connor had every advantage, but Crispin was quick and light on his feet, anticipating each of Connor’s moves with the elegance and poise of a dancer.

It didn’t take Pamela long to realize that Connor was also surprisingly light on his feet. He moved with the feline grace of a predator—all muscle, stealth and power. When Crispin feinted, he dodged, using the broad blade of his sword to parry each of Crispin’s thrusts.

Crispin danced around him, taking great care to stay out of his impressive reach between attacks. Both of them knew that one sound blow from Connor’s sword could cut the delicate blade of the epee right in two.

“You’re a far more worthy opponent than I’d supposed, Cousin Percy.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Connor replied, using the flat side of his blade to strike a savage blow that left the finely honed steel of the epee singing in Crispin’s hand.

“What would you prefer I call you?” Crispin bared his clenched teeth in a smile. “Bart? Reggie? Cecil?”

“I was called Connor in Scotland. But since I’m
going to be a duke and you never will be, you might try simply addressing me as ‘my lord.’”

Pamela gasped as that single, well-executed blow drew first blood. Crispin’s smile vanished. His dark eyes flashed in his pale face as he lunged forward, doubling the ferociousness of his attack.

“And what should I call you?” Connor asked. “
Cuz
?”

Backing toward the French doors, he neatly blocked each of Crispin’s blows, his own lazy smile deepening.

As Crispin’s upper lip curled in a snarl, Pamela realized Connor was deliberately baiting him, seeking to taunt him into making a mistake, perhaps even into revealing his part in her mother’s death. She squeezed her eyes shut, praying that mistake wouldn’t be fatal for either one of the men.

Her eyes flew open at the shrill clash of steel on steel. Gripping the basket-hilt of his sword in a white-knuckled hand, Crispin had launched into a vicious sally, leaving Connor with no choice but to continue his retreat. Pamela flinched as Crispin lunged, his blade narrowly missing Connor’s ear.

Crispin’s forward momentum caused him to stumble. He quickly recovered his balance, but the ragged rasp of his breathing had deepened. Sweat darkened the back of his waistcoat.

The men circled each other again, reversing positions. Pamela realized that Connor hadn’t been retreating at all, but simply biding his time while Crispin wore himself out. Now he pressed his advantage, swinging the blade of the mighty broad
sword in one relentless arc after another, driving Crispin right out the open French windows and into the garden.

Pamela snatched up her skirts and followed, her heart pounding in her throat.

As the two men abandoned the flagstone path for a grassy clearing flanked by a sweeping pair of willows, Pamela spotted the duke and Lady Astrid taking tea on an elevated terrace just off the drawing room.

Lady Astrid froze in the motion of pouring her brother another cup of tea. Was that fear or excitement glittering in her eyes? Pamela wondered, her sense of foreboding deepening.

There was no mistaking the sparkle of glee in the duke’s eyes. He put aside his tea and clapped his wiry hands, leaning forward in his wheeled chair. “Why, look at this, Astrid! You didn’t tell me you’d arranged for an afternoon entertainment! How grand!”

Although the footmen stationed on either side of the terrace did not dare to relax their rigid stances, their eyes eagerly followed the contest taking place in the clearing below. The grunts of exertion and the ear-jangling clang of steel against steel drowned out the peaceful burbling of a marble fountain.

Pamela drew as close as she dared and pressed her back to an apple tree in full bloom, her nerves shredded by the unbearable suspense.

Now that he had an audience, Crispin seemed to have regained both his confidence and his footing. He went on the attack, his blade a steely blur in
his capable hand. But Connor continued to block him at every turn, finally landing a blow of his own that came close to wrenching the epee from Crispin’s hands.

Something came skittering down the path toward Pamela. She bent to pick it up only to discover it was the
fleuret
from the tip of Crispin’s sword. The
fleuret
he had slid onto his blade while his back was still to them.

Her breath froze in her throat. Without the
fleuret
, the deadly point of the epee was exposed. If some terrible
accident
should befall Connor now, no court in the land would be able to convict Crispin. There would be no way to prove he had sought to do his opponent deliberate harm by improperly applying the
fleuret
.

He wouldn’t even have to run Connor through the heart. Piercing one of his lungs would kill him just as quickly.

As her imagination conjured up a stark image of Connor sprawled in the grass, gasping for breath as his life’s blood soaked through the pristine white of his shirt, she felt as if an invisible blade had pierced her own heart.

She lunged forward, shouting Connor’s name.

He glanced in her direction, a puzzled scowl clouding his brow, and she realized that distracting him had been a terrible miscalculation. Time seemed to slow until Pamela could see every delicate white petal of the apple blossoms drifting down from the boughs above, the hint of cruel satisfaction in Lady Astrid’s expression, the fierce
concentration on Crispin’s lean face as he drew back his blade for the fatal thrust.

Without giving herself time to think, she threw herself between the two men. Crispin balked at the last second, pulling back on his thrust. The razor-sharp point of the epee whipped across Pamela’s forearm, slicing open both fabric and flesh.

Then Connor’s strong arms were there, breaking her fall as she stumbled to her knees.

“You wee fool!” Connor sank to the ground with her, his voice hoarse. “What are you tryin’ to do? Get yourself killed?” His hands were no longer as steady as they’d been on the hilt of his sword, but shaking with reaction as he tugged up her sleeve to reveal the bloody welt on her arm.

She offered him a brave little smile. “My sleeve bore the brunt of it. It’s nothing—just a scratch. Although Sophie’s going to have my head for ruining her gown,” she added beneath her breath.

Crispin was gazing down at them, a bewildered expression on his face. He shook his head. “I’m so sorry…I never intended…”

“Oh, really?” Pamela replied coolly, squinting up at him. “Just what did you intend?”

She held out her hand, slowly opening her clenched fingers to reveal the
fleuret
. The
fleuret
that was essentially useless unless applied with the greatest of care.

Both Crispin and Connor’s gazes flew to the tip of the epee in Crispin’s hand. Its lethal point seemed to sparkle in the sunlight.

Pamela felt every muscle in Connor’s body go rigid. Despite that tension, his hands were astonishingly gentle as he removed her from his lap and settled her on a nearby carpet of apple blossoms.

He reached for his sword and rose to face Crispin, his expression resolute.

Crispin began to back away from him, shaking his head helplessly. “I swear it was nothing but an accident. I never meant to hurt her. Surely you can see that.”

Connor paced him step for step, his momentum never slowing.

Lady Astrid came to her feet, the color draining from her face. “Archibald! Do something! You must stop them!”

But the duke simply retrieved his cup and took a delicate sip of tea, his dark eyes bright with fascination as he watched the proceedings. The two footmen rushed to peer over the edge of the terrace, no longer able to maintain their own pretense of indifference.

As Connor drew back his sword, Crispin lifted his own weapon to block the coming blow, but did nothing else to defend himself.

Connor’s two-handed blow severed the thin blade in two. The basket-hilt of the epee went tumbling from Crispin’s hand, leaving him unarmed and at Connor’s mercy.

Connor just kept coming. Even as Crispin scrambled backward, nearly losing his footing in the slick grass, Connor drew back the massive broadsword a second time.

“Oh, Lord,” Pamela whispered. “He’s going to cleave his head clean off.”

Although her every instinct urged her to hide her face, she could not take her eyes off of Connor. His eyes burned in a face as beautiful and terrible as the visage of an avenging angel cast down from heaven to deliver God’s wrath.

Crispin’s eyes widened as Connor swung. At the last possible second, Connor turned the blade to its flat side, striking Crispin a jarring blow to the side of the head.

Crispin went down like a stone, howling an oath. Lady Astrid sank back down in her chair, pressing a napkin to her bloodless lips.

It took Crispin several minutes to shake off the initial effects of the blow and sit up. He glared at Connor, clutching his left ear.

Connor offered him a hand but he smacked it away. “Monsieur Chevalier was right,” he snarled. “You’ll never be anything more than a barbarian.”

“And you’ll never be anything more than the nephew of a duke and a drunken ne’er-do-well who cheats at dueling as well as cards.”

“Bravo, lads!” The duke’s dry applause echoed through the garden. “Such dramatic flair, such delicious melodrama! I haven’t been so entertained since Mrs. Siddons played Portia in
The Merchant of Venice
.” He made a shooing motion with his hands. “If I were you, I’d take your bows and exit stage left now. You should always leave your adoring audience clamoring for more.”

Shooting his uncle a look of pure loathing, Crispin climbed to his feet and went staggering back down the path.

Propping his sword against a tree, Connor returned to Pamela’s side. He knelt beside her, checking the shallow scratch on her arm for any sign of fresh bleeding. “Why would you do anything so foolhardy, lass? Weren’t you the one who told me that one careless blow can destroy even the most steadfast of hearts?”