Some Like It Wild (21 page)

I
t appears that someone is trying to upstage you,” Connor murmured, chuckling beneath his breath.

Pamela’s amber eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “Someone has been trying to upstage me since the day she was born. Why, the little vixen is wearing my new dress!”

Within seconds everyone was whispering and pointing and gawking at the mysterious beauty who had been bold enough to wear a mask to a ball that didn’t require one.

Crispin’s jaw had gone slack, along with the jaws of most of the men in the ballroom. He seemed to have forgotten all about his errand and its urgency.

“If you’ll excuse me…” he murmured, drifting away from them and toward the ravishing creature
in the doorway like a man sleepwalking through a beautiful dream.

Pamela started to follow, but Connor seized her by the elbow and hauled her back. “There’s no harm in it. Let the lass have her fun.”

A throng of admirers quickly gathered in the middle of the ballroom floor to gape at the new arrival. Before Crispin could even elbow his way through their ranks, rumors had begun to ripple through the crowd.

The mysterious comtesse with the velvet choker fastened around her slender throat was a French orphan whose parents had been taken by the guillotine. She was an infamous courtesan who hoped to secure a position as the marquess’s mistress. She was a French spy who had been sent to wrangle secrets from the militia by seducing their commanding officers.

Crispin didn’t hear a single person guess that she might be a common maidservant masquerading as a comtesse in her mistress’s pilfered clothes.

When an eager young fellow tried to cut in front of him so he could reach her first, Crispin neatly hooked his foot around the man’s ankle, sending him sprawling to the parquet floor.

“Forgive my clumsiness. So terribly sorry,” he murmured, stepping right over the man without breaking his stride.

She had been expecting him. She didn’t even bat an eyelash when he caught her elbow in a possessive grip and urged her into the crush. “So is your
mistress going to send you packing for pulling this reckless little stunt?”

She bit her bottom lip, looking more coy than worried. “No, but she might very well spank me.”

“She beats you?” Crispin was incredulous. As far as he was concerned, it would be criminal to leave any mark on such exquisite flesh.

“Not even when I deserve it,” she admitted with a sigh. “But she has been known to send me to bed without my tea and biscuits when I’ve been exceptionally naughty.”

As several provocative images of her being “exceptionally naughty” in his bed flashed through his mind, Crispin tightened his grip on her elbow, shepherding her into a curtained alcove and away from the prying eyes of his uncle’s guests.

“Who are you?” he demanded, urging her around to face him.

Now that they were all alone she didn’t seem nearly so bold. As he began to back her toward the wall, the feathers on her mask began to tremble ever so slightly. “You know who I am. I’m Miss Darby’s—”

“—maidservant,” he finished for her. “And I’m the Prince Regent.” He planted his hands against the wall on either side of her head, making it impossible for her to escape his piercing gaze. “
Who are you
?”

“I’m Sophie,” she whispered.

“Sophie,” he echoed and somehow in that heartbeat of time before his lips descended on hers, it was enough for the both of them.

Crispin felt a surge of triumph when he felt her clutch the back of his coat, not to pull him away but to urge him closer.

“Sophie,” he breathed against her parted lips, suddenly finding it the most entrancing name in all the world.

He drew away first, desperate to bring his rioting passions under control before he did something they would both regret.

“How did you recognize me tonight?” She blinked up at him, her sultry blue eyes shadowed by the cat-eye slant of the mask’s eyeholes. “How did you know I was the comtesse?”

Unable to keep his hands off of her despite his best intentions, he traced the delicate curve of her jaw with the back of his fingers. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to find you. I would have known you anywhere. Anytime.”

She ducked her head, her unexpected shyness just as entrancing as her boldness had been. “I don’t suppose I made a very convincing comtesse.”

“On the contrary. I thought it was a remarkable performance. Had I been at the theater I would have leapt to my feet and shouted, ‘Bravo!’ at the top of my lungs.”

She slowly lifted her head, her eyes narrowing. “What did you say?”

“I said I would have leapt to my feet and shouted, ‘Bravo’…” He trailed off, watching in alarm as the color began to drain from the bottom half of her face. “Sweeting, what is it?”

“
You!
” she breathed, backing away from him.

He followed her step for step, bewildered by the abrupt change in her demeanor. Before he knew it, they were on the other side of the curtain and beginning to attract a small but fascinated audience.

She pointed a trembling finger at him. It didn’t take him more than a glimpse of her stormy eyes to realize it was trembling not with fear, but with rage. “You! I know who you are! You’re one of those miserable wretches from the theater who pelted me with rotten vegetables.”

She reached up and tore off the mask, baring her face to him and the world. Crispin’s heart plummeted toward his shoes as he finally remembered
exactly
where he’d seen that magnificent face before.

It wasn’t uncommon for him and a bunch of other rowdy young bucks to terrorize the town on a weekend. Usually their mischief was limited to seeing who could swill the most cheap gin without casting up their accounts on their shoes or tossing unsuspecting passersby into a horse trough. But on one fateful Friday night, when they were already deep in their cups, they had stumbled into a smoky, second-rate theater off Drury Lane.

When Sophie had taken the stage, he had been just as transfixed by her beauty as he was now. Then she had opened her exquisite mouth and ruined everything.

As she had stuttered out her lines in a wooden monotone, the theater had erupted in catcalls and hoots of laughter. Before he knew it, one of
his friends had shoved a rotting tomato into his hand. He had tossed it without thinking, then felt worse than rotten when he saw that beautiful face streaked with tomato juice and bits of pulp. She had turned and looked right at him in that moment, her face proud and pale, her blue eyes darkened by accusation just as they were now.

“You threw a tomato at me!”

He raised both hands as if to ward off an attack. “I was foxed out of my head on cheap gin that night! If I hadn’t been, I would have remembered it before now.”

She snorted. “Ah yes, because you’ve been waiting your whole life to find me. You would have known me anywhere. Anytime. Except for the night you and your horrid friends bombarded me with rubbish and ran me out of town!”

He shook his head, helpless to defend the indefensible. “Well, you have to admit you were a really awful actress.”

She sucked in an outraged breath. “I’d rather be an awful actress than an awful man!” With those words, she snatched a glass of champagne from a footman’s tray and tossed its contents right in his face.

She spun around and went storming off, leaving behind a trail of shocked gasps and muffled titters.

“Lovers’ quarrel,” Crispin muttered to the man nearest to him, earning a knowing and sympathetic nod as he used his cravat to mop his face.

By the time he had swiped all the champagne
from his eyes, the exquisite Comtesse d’Arby had vanished as mysteriously as she had appeared.

When the musicians struck up yet another infernal Viennese waltz, Connor grabbed Pamela by the hand and began to drag her toward the middle of the floor. He’d had just about enough of watching her wistfully moon over the couples sweeping gracefully around the ballroom. He’d already decided that there would be none of those ridiculous country dances or stately minuets for him. If he was going to make a complete ass of himself in front of half of London, it was going to be with her in his arms.

“Where are we going?” Pamela asked, alarmed by Connor’s ferocious scowl. He looked as if he were ready to do murder.

“I’m going to dance with you,” he growled. “But if I break your toe as I did my mother’s, you have only yourself to blame.”

Her heart soared in time to the music as he drew her into his arms, cupping one of her gloved hands in his much larger one and pressing his other hand firmly to the small of her back. As he swept her into the waltz, other couples eager to spy on them rushed to join the dance.

For a dizzying moment it was as if they were right back in her bed, their gazes locked, their bodies moving in perfect rhythm.

Until his foot came down firmly on her toes.

“Ow!” she exclaimed, making an involuntary little leap of protest.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Connor said grimly as their next giddy turn nearly bumped a couple right off their feet.

It quickly became apparent that they were posing a danger not only to themselves but to the other dancers as well. Pamela laughed aloud, marveling that a man so graceful both on his feet and off of them could be such a wretched dancer.

She tugged him to a halt. “We can practice later,” she told him. “In private.”

Her husky promise wiped the scowl right off of his face. Instead of releasing her, he splayed his powerful hand at the small of her back and urged her closer. As he gazed down at her, his eyes going smoky with want, it was as if the two of them were suspended in time while the world continued to spin around them in a whirling kaleidoscope of color and motion.

Pamela would have been content to remain that way forever if the music hadn’t lurched to an abrupt halt, leaving the dancers milling about in confusion.

Before they could regain their composure, the footman’s resonant voice reverberated from the arched doorway of the ballroom on a note of pure triumph. “His Grace, the Duke of Warrick.”

A stunned gasp went up from the crowd as two young, burly footmen appeared in the doorway, bearing the duke’s wheeled chair between them as if it were a pasha’s litter or the throne of some mighty and ancient king.

“I do believe someone is trying to upstage
you,” Pamela murmured, shooting Connor a wry glance.

He snorted. “I’m surprised he didn’t have heralds dressed as angels announce his arrival with a fanfare of trumpets.”

They watched along with the rest of the guests as the footmen carried the chair across the ballroom, then gently lowered it to the floor. Two more footmen followed in their wake, staggering slightly beneath the weight of a tall velvet-draped object. Those in the back of the room were craning their necks to get a better look at the infamous recluse and the footmen’s mysterious burden.

The duke’s gaunt cheeks were flushed, but it was impossible to tell if his sunken eyes were glittering with fever or excitement. His hair had been neatly combed and lay in a shining curtain over his shoulders. The kiss of hoarfrost at his temples lent him a dignified air. Despite being confined to the chair, he was sitting with his back ramrod straight. His elegant evening clothes masked how wasted his frame had become.

As he surveyed the crowd through his shrewd hazel eyes, Pamela caught a glimpse of the man who must have once commanded every room he entered. The man who had won his duchess’s heart, and then been foolish enough to toss it away like so much refuse.

“Most of you already know why you were invited here tonight,” he said.

Although an expectant hush had fallen over the crowd, Pamela was still surprised by how well his voice carried.

“After many long years of wandering this world alone, my son—and heir—has finally come home.”

That statement produced several surreptitious glances at Connor and a smattering of polite applause.

“At this time I would like to ask him to take his rightful place by my side.”

The duke stretched out his hand toward Connor, its palsied trembling betraying the weakness he was trying so hard to hide. Pamela could feel the tension arcing through Connor and knew he would have liked nothing better in that moment than to bolt for the door. But instead, he laced his fingers through hers and started forward, making it clear that this was one ordeal he had no intention of facing alone.

The crowd eagerly parted to clear a path between the two men. As she and Connor approached the duke, Pamela felt a peculiar chill shoot down her spine. She glanced over her shoulder to find Lady Astrid watching them from the gallery, her eyes glowing nearly as feverishly as her brother’s.

Pamela frowned, disconcerted by the woman’s gloating expression. But there wasn’t anything she could do at the moment except obey the duke’s summons.

Connor reluctantly surrendered her hand as they approached the wheeled chair. She stepped back a respectful pace, executing a graceful curtsy. Connor bowed as well, but the duke quickly caught him by the hand, urging him to straighten.

Pamela glanced behind them again, sensing movement in the crowd for the first time since the duke had made his grand entrance. There seemed to be several new arrivals slipping past the footmen and into the ballroom. Before she could blink, they had disappeared into the crowd, fanning out in all directions.

Her sense of unease growing, she returned her attention to the duke, praying his speech would be over quickly so she could warn Connor that something might be amiss.

Still gripping Connor’s hand, the duke drew him to his side so that they were both facing the crowd. “Ever since the day my son returned to Warrick Park, I’ve been trying to come up with the perfect gift with which I might welcome him home. As most of you know without my boasting, my fortune is such that I could lay many of the world’s greatest treasures at his feet. But by watching him with his lovely fiancée in the past fortnight, I have learned that my son is a much wiser man than I was at his age. He has already come to recognize the value of the dearest treasure of all.”