Some Like It Wild (7 page)

Eyeing the elaborate fall of lace-trimmed ruffles adorning the collar and cuffs, Brodie snickered. “Aye, lass. Our Connor’ll be so comely in that, even I won’t be able to resist the lad’s charms.”

“I’d suggest you try,” Connor growled with a marked absence of any charm.

Hoping to avert disaster, Pamela bustled forward to relieve Brodie of the next garment on the pile. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a waistcoat fashioned from bright lavender silk.

“You needn’t look so dismayed,” she told Connor, struggling to hide her own consternation. “All the most fashionable gentlemen are wearing them.”

Connor scowled at the meadow of yellow flowers dotting the shiny fabric. “The gentlemen or the ladies?”

Brodie choked back a guffaw.

“Perhaps you’d prefer to wear your mask,” Pamela said stiffly. “And in place of an elegant
walking stick, you could carry your pistol so you could shoot anyone who dares to offend your stubborn pride. In lieu of a nicely tied cravat, we could simply drape a noose around your thick neck.”

Muttering something mercifully unintelligible beneath his breath, Connor strode forward. Sophie skittered backward, clearly aware that he could snap her in two just as easily as he had her parasol.

But he simply snatched the shirt from her hands, the waistcoat from Pamela’s and the rest of the garments from Brodie’s arms before storming from the chamber.

When Connor reappeared in the doorway, Pamela didn’t know whether to clap a hand over her mouth or her eyes.

The actor who had originally worn the costume was obviously a much smaller man than Connor.
Much
smaller. In
every
way. The lavender waistcoat gaped open over Connor’s broad chest with no hope of button and hole ever meeting. His well-muscled shoulders had already split the delicate stitching of the shirt. As they watched, the seams of the buff breeches clinging to his powerfully built calves and thighs like a second skin threatened to give way as well.

“Cover your eyes, Sophie,” Pamela ordered.

Her sister quickly obeyed but Pamela glanced over to catch her peeping through her fingers. Pamela wasn’t sure she could blame her. Nor could she deny her own fascination with the battle being
waged between the fragile fabric and the magnificent masculine specimen that was Connor Kincaid.

Another man might have looked ridiculous standing there in clothes tailored for a man half his size. Connor simply looked dangerous. Although it was Brodie who finally burst into hearty hoots of laughter, it was Pamela who bore the brunt of Connor’s accusing gaze.

“I have a
much
better idea,” he bit off, turning on his heel and marching back down the stairs.

Connor was gone even longer this time. So long that Pamela feared he had reconsidered their unholy little alliance and was even now racing away from the castle on his stallion, abandoning her and Sophie to the dubious mercies of Brodie and his companions.

While Sophie taught Brodie the words to a bawdy ditty she had learned while in the chorus of
Winifred Wooster, Fishwife of Ulster
, Pamela waited in front of the ugly gash that had once been a window. Last night she would have sworn the sea surrounding the castle was as dark and unfathomable as India ink. But the sunbeams slanting through the clouds revealed a shimmering swath of blue-green water that made her think of white sandy beaches and swaying palm trees she would never see. If not for the frigid snap of the wind against her cheeks, she would have sworn she was in Barbados, not Scotland.

A rainbow melted out of the misty horizon right
before her eyes. Despite the sun streaming through the window, it was still raining somewhere beyond that magical arch of color. The bruised tint of the distant sky made the rainbow’s ethereal hues appear even more vivid. As she watched, a second rainbow—just as impossible and equally glorious—appeared just to the left of the first.

For the first time she wondered if a man who had awakened to the breathtaking beauty of the Scottish landscape every morning of his life could ever be truly happy beneath the gray soot-laden clouds of the London sky.

When she heard a footfall at the top of the stairs, she turned, prepared to tell Connor that it had all been a terrible mistake. That she and Sophie would return to London to fight their own battles without his help.

She heard a gasp. If not for the bedazzled expression on Sophie’s face, she would have sworn it was her own.

Connor stood in the doorway. The ill-fitting breeches had been replaced with the soft woolen folds of a green and black kilt. His knees were bare but tartan stockings hugged his muscular calves, disappearing into a pair of polished black shoes crowned with silver buckles. A ruffled jabot flowed down the front of his ivory shirt, accentuating the rugged masculinity of his jawline. A plaid that matched his kilt in both pattern and fabric was draped over one broad shoulder and secured with a copper brooch.

He’d smoothed his hair away from his face, se
curing it at the nape with a black velvet queue. The sunlight streaming into the chamber burnished the streaks of honey in the rich maple of his hair to pure gold. Without the whiskers to mask it, the sun-kissed planes of his face were even more striking. He had only his stubborn scowl and slightly crooked nose to rescue him from being too pretty.

He did not look like a duke. He looked like a prince.

When in the company of Sophie and their mother, Pamela had often felt like a dowdy wren next to a pair of preening peacocks. Now she felt more like a humble dormouse in danger of being snatched up by the talons of a magnificent hawk and gobbled down in a single bite.

Brodie let out a low whistle. “For a second there I thought it was the ghost o’ Bonnie Prince Charlie hisself!”

“Have you ever thought about treading the boards, sir?” Sophie asked Connor, unable to resist giving her silky eyelashes a fresh flutter. “Why, you’d make a marvelous MacBeth!”

They both fell back a step as Pamela glided toward Connor. When she reached his side, she took up a corner of the plaid, unable to resist touching him—even if it was only to finger a fold of the rich wool. “Where did you find such garments?”

“On the back of a haughty Englishman who liked to play at being a Scottish lord. He kicked all the Scot tenant farmers off his lands and replaced them with sheep.” Connor’s devilish dimple reappeared.
“One afternoon when he went strolling through the heather in his kilt and plaid to admire his fine flocks, he found me waiting for him instead.”

Pamela felt her heart plummet toward her boots. “So you killed him,” she said flatly, letting the corner of the plaid fall from her fingers as if it was still stained with his victim’s blood.

“He was unarmed, so I demanded his purse and ordered him to strip. The last I saw of him, he was rolling down a hill as naked as on the day he was born, cursing me, the Scottish curs who had spawned me and my future offspring.” Connor chuckled. “It probably took days for his valet to pluck all the thistles from his—”

Pamela cleared her throat, shooting a warning glance at her wide-eyed sister.

“—
toes
,” Connor finished with deliberate care as Brodie rolled his eyes and Pamela nodded in approval.

The sunlight winked off of something shiny nestled in the folds of Connor’s jabot. Intrigued, Pamela reached into the ruffles and drew forth a gold locket suspended on a delicate length of chain.

She held the lovely trinket up to the light. “Did this belong to your haughty Englishman as well?”

Connor removed the locket from her hand, his touch gentle but intractable. “No.”

That one softly spoken word felt almost like a rebuke. He dropped the locket inside his shirt where it would be safe from prying eyes, including hers.

Pamela lowered her lashes, feeling unaccountably embarrassed. The locket must not be ill-gotten gain but some sentimental keepsake from a woman he had once loved and perhaps still did. Why else would he wear it next to his heart?

“So when do we leave for London?” Brodie asked.

“
We?
” Connor, Pamela and Sophie all said in unison.

“Aye,” Brodie replied, blinking innocently at them. “Ye can’t expect a fine gentleman like our Connor here to travel without his devoted valet, can ye?”

Pamela opened her mouth to protest, but Connor caught her by the arm and tugged her onto the landing, where they could converse in private.

“It wouldn’t hurt for me to have an ally in the house,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Someone I could trust.”

“So why take
him
?” Pamela whispered between clenched teeth.

“Brodie has a good heart.” Connor frowned at his friend, who was at that very moment showing Sophie how he could make his serpent tattoo dance by flexing his upper arm. “A wee brain, but a very good heart. I can trust him to have my back in a fight.”

Eyeing Brodie’s barrel chest and massive forearms, Pamela sighed. “If you insist, we can bring him along. But he’ll never fit into the lavender waistcoat and I have no intention of letting him marry my sister.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Connor assured her, his expression grave. “He’ll have plenty of chances to kidnap a bride while he’s in London.”

Her mouth fell open. “But we can’t allow him to…” She trailed off, beginning to recognize the twinkle of mischief in Connor’s eyes. A reluctant grin curved her own lips. “Why, you shameless—”

A deafening explosion rocked the tower, sending her careening into his arms.

“What was that?” she gasped, clutching at the soft folds of his plaid.

Connor gazed down at her, his face so grim it sent a chill of foreboding down her spine. “If I’m not mistaken, I believe the redcoats have come to rescue you.”

G
et the women to the vault!” Connor snapped, shoving both Pamela and Sophie into Brodie’s burly arms.

He turned and went flying down the spiral stairs, cursing himself as every kind of fool. He should have known better than to bring the women to this den of smugglers and thieves. The local authorities had been looking for an excuse to raid the ruins for months, and he’d finally given them a reason to bring the wrath of the redcoats and their cannons down on them.

A second blast rocked the tower, rattling the rusty iron bars in the windows. Connor missed a step and slammed into the wall. Biting off an oath, he dug his fingers into his throbbing shoulder. He had to stop them before one of those warning shots went astray, taking off the top of the tower before Brodie could get the women to safety.

He stumbled into the courtyard, not surprised to find it deserted. At the first sign of trouble, the outlaws who shared this haunt would have scattered like rats, disappearing into the secret catacombs beneath the castle to wait for high tide and a chance to launch their boats. By nightfall the ruin would once again belong only to night swallows and ghosts.

If not for the two women trapped in the tower, Connor might have vanished with them. Simply melted into the mist and sailed away to a place where the law would never find him.

“Hold your fire!” someone shouted as he went striding beneath the ruins of the castle gatehouse and onto the broad grassy bluff that bordered the bridge.

Just on the other side of the bridge a battalion of redcoats was swarming over the meadow. A sooty plume of smoke drifted heavenward from the mouth of a massive cannon, profaning the misty blue of the morning sky. The soldier who had been preparing to relight the cannon’s fuse looked to his commander for confirmation before dousing his torch in a bucket of water.

Even from this distance, Connor recognized the man’s short-cropped steel gray hair and squat, bowlegged stance. He felt a sneer curl his lips. Colonel Alexander Munroe was the worst sort of traitor. One born a Scot but who had sold his soul to the English for the power and privileges of military rank. He was nothing but a puppet of the local gentility. He and his regiment spent their days driv
ing poor tenant farmers off the lands their families had worked for generations and their nights being welcomed as conquering heroes into the homes of those they served.

Munroe barked out a command. The soldiers raised their muskets to their shoulders, training them on Connor.

Munroe walked to the very edge of the chasm before shouting, “Put your hands in the air, sir, before we blow you and this wretched eyesore to kingdom come!”

Rolling his eyes, Connor reluctantly complied, wondering what Pamela would think of the colonel’s dialogue.

He waited patiently while Munroe gathered a healthy complement of his men around him and came marching across the bridge. Even though they kept their muskets at the ready, Connor saw several of the soldiers cast nervous glances at the churning sea below.

As soon as they stepped off the bridge, Connor called out, “And a good morn to you, Colonel. To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”

Monroe stopped a few feet in front of him, his men fanning out to flank him. “I’m looking for two women.”

Connor smiled pleasantly. “Aren’t we all? Although most of us have to be content with only one.”

Several of the soldiers chuckled, but their mirth was quickly stifled by a black look from their commander.

“I can certainly see why you’re still looking,”
Connor added, nodding toward the cannon on the opposite side of the bridge. “Your courtship technique leaves much to be desired.”

One of the men cleared his throat and stared fixedly at the ground, having learned his lesson.

Munroe’s bushy gray eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “I’ve no time for your pathetic attempts at levity, sir. Two women were abducted from their hired carriage last night on the Stirlingshire Road. Two
Englishwomen
,” he added, making it clear that the disappearance of two Scottish women would have been beneath his concern. “According to a witness, they were taken by a man who perfectly matches your description.” He reached into his scarlet frock coat and pulled out a tube of paper. He unfurled the scroll with a brisk snap of his wrist, revealing the broadsheet that had been nailed up in every market square from Inverness to the Orkneys. “By
this
very man, according to our witness’s account.”

“Hmmm…fine looking fellow, isn’t he?” Connor leaned closer to study the crudely sketched likeness. “Though it’s a wee bit hard to tell with that mask hiding so much of his face. He could almost be anyone.” Connor nodded toward a strapping young soldier to Munroe’s left who matched him in height, breadth of shoulder and strength of jaw. “Including him.”

The soldier flushed and began to sputter. “Why, C-Colonel, I would never—”

“Silence!” Munroe barked. “I seriously doubt my lieutenant spent last night abducting and ravishing two innocent women.”

As the soldier’s flush deepened, Connor grinned. “
Two
innocent women? I can’t say I’m not flattered, Colonel, but you may be giving me credit for more stamina than I possess.” He started to lower his hands. Monroe’s men tensed, their fingers twitching on the triggers of their muskets. Connor kept his hands at the level of his shoulders. “There’s no need for such caution. As you and your men can see, I’m not only outnumbered but unarmed.”

Munroe’s skeptical
harrumph
told him what he thought about that. They both knew a man his size was never truly unarmed. “Seize him!” the colonel commanded, stepping back so the men under his command could do his dirty work for him.

As half a dozen soldiers lowered their muskets and swarmed around him, roughly jerking his arms behind his back, Connor felt a pang of regret to think of how crushed Pamela would be when she realized he would not be able to help her find her mother’s murderer or win her reward from the duke. He wondered if she would shed a pretty tear when they led him to the gallows or if she’d join the rest of the English on the lawn with their picnic baskets and parasols to watch him hang.

One of the soldiers was closing an iron cuff around his wrist when suddenly the chains went clanking to the ground. Connor jerked up his head to find the men gaping in the direction of the gatehouse in open-mouthed fascination.

He took advantage of their distraction to swing in the same direction.

His own jaw dropped. Pamela and Sophie should
have been safely secured in the vault by now, awaiting their rescue by these fine young English soldiers. Yet here they came, strolling across the grass in their perky little bonnets with their arms linked and their yellow and blue skirts rippling in the breeze, looking like twin buds of English womanhood. All they lacked was a parasol to twirl.

As they meandered into musket range, Connor’s hands closed into fists. “When I get my hands on Brodie…” he muttered beneath his breath.

Munroe looked equally flummoxed. He turned his glare on Connor. “Just what is the meaning of this, sir?”

“Damned if I know,” Connor murmured, watching warily as Pamela detached herself from Sophie and wended her way through the soldiers to his side.

While the soldiers cast Sophie dazzled glances, which she received with downcast lashes and a demure smile, Pamela stood on tiptoe and pressed a chaste kiss to Connor’s cheek, her lips soft and warm. “Hello, darling. You didn’t tell me we had gentlemen callers.” Tucking her small hand in the crook of his arm, she beamed at Munroe and his men. “So have you come to tour the ruins as well on this fine April morn?”

Connor gazed down at her, unable to believe he had once thought her face only pleasing. With her amber eyes sparkling and that wicked little smile playing around her lush lips, she was absolutely ravishing. And ravishable.

“They wouldn’t have brought a cannon if they
had come to tour the ruins…dear,” he gently pointed out.

Pamela shaded her eyes against the sun to view the distant cannon. “Are they in the middle of some sort of military exercise? Might we be allowed to watch while we enjoy our picnic?” she asked hopefully.

Munroe’s lips were pressed into a tense line. “We’re not here on an exercise or to see the ruins, miss. We’re here to rescue you.”

Pamela arched one graceful wing of a brow, giving him an incredulous look. “From what? The only thing I care to be rescued from on this fine spring day is the incessant threat of rain.”

“Bring the witness,” Munroe snapped through clenched teeth, sending one of his men scurrying back over the bridge.

He reappeared a few minutes later, dragging the wiry old coachman behind him. Feeling Pamela’s nearly imperceptible flinch, Connor covered the hand still nestled in the crook of his arm with his own and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Munroe snatched the coachman out of the soldier’s grip and shoved him forward. “Are these the two women who hired your conveyance?”

The coachman slanted the women a nervous look, as if fearing one of them might whip a pistol out of her garter and shoot him between the eyes. “Aye, sir, they are.”

The colonel nodded toward Connor. “And is this the man who accosted them last night?”

The coachman scratched his head, eyeing Con
nor’s freshly shaven jaw, neatly groomed hair, and the plush wool of his kilt and plaid. “Now that I canna say for sure. It was full dark and the scoundrel was wearin’ a mask.”

A tinkling peal of laughter escaped Pamela. “Of course this wasn’t the man who accosted us. As soon as my fiancé arrived, that rascal ran off like the spineless coward he was.”

Munroe’s start was visible. “Your fiancé?” He flicked Connor a disgusted look. “Do you mean to tell me that you’re engaged to this rogue?”

Pamela’s smile vanished, her eyes going as chilly as the North Sea on a frosty December morn. “I’ll have you know that this
rogue
isn’t only my fiancé. He also happens to be the Marquess of Eddywhistle and the future Duke of Warrick. We had arranged to meet here to tour the castle ruins this morning. It was our extreme good fortune that he was on his way to his lodgings last night just as our carriage was being robbed on that deserted road.” She swept her reproving gaze over Munroe and his soldiers. “A road you and your men should have been patrolling so that decent Englishwomen like me and my dear sister here could travel without fear of losing our purses.” She lowered her eyes before adding softly, “Or something of even more value.”

Several of the soldiers ducked their heads or averted their eyes, shamed by her delicate blush. Connor slipped an arm around her shoulders, gently urging her face into the shelter of his shirt. “There, there, dear,” he murmured, giving Munroe
a reproachful look. “I promised you we’d never speak of that grim night again.”

The colonel was all but spitting with frustration. “I’m sorry, miss, but I find this entire tale to be utterly preposterous!”

Connor edged forward, lowering his voice to a dangerous pitch. “Surely you wouldn’t be calling the lady a liar, would you? Because as a gentleman and her fiancé, I would have to demand satisfaction.”

Munroe gritted his teeth for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and persuasive and his words were directed toward Pamela alone. “I mean no disrespect, miss, but I have every reason to believe that this is the man we’ve been hunting for months.” He waved the broadsheet at her. “A man wanted by the law and condemned by the Crown to hang by the neck until dead for the heinous crimes he’s committed.”

“Heinous?” Pamela repeated softly, the slight quaver in her voice warning Connor that she was no longer acting. “Just how heinous?” She laughed nervously. “Has he spat upon the Holy Bible? Drowned a litter of kittens in a bucket?”

“Oh, he’s committed atrocities far worse than that,” Munroe replied gravely. “Atrocities not fit for the ears of a lady.”

“Indeed?”

As Pamela melted from his grasp so she could take the broadsheet from Munroe’s hand, Connor battled an overpowering urge to seize her and hold her fast. To wrap his arms around her and whisk
her away to a place where no man—including this lying redcoat bastard—could ever take her away from him.

As she studied the likeness sketched on the broadsheet, he could almost hear her weighing Munroe’s words, hear the scales tipping in the colonel’s favor. There was no reason for her to doubt Munroe’s words, no reason for her to have faith in him.

Her hand trembled ever so slightly as she rolled up the broadsheet and slipped it into the pocket of her skirt. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll hang on to this so I can recognize the rogue should our paths ever cross. If this man is half the villain you say he is, then I pray you’ll find him and take him into custody very soon.” She slipped her arm back through Connor’s, smiling up at him. “Are you ready, darling? I do so love dining al fresco in the morning.”

Connor returned Pamela’s smile with a grin of his own. He’d bested the redcoats numerous times in the past few years, but never felt such a fierce rush of satisfaction.

They were turning away from Munroe and his men when the colonel’s hand shot out and ripped away Connor’s jabot and collar, revealing the faded rope burns that marred the side of his broad throat.

Munroe’s lip curled in a triumphant sneer. “And just how do you explain those marks,
my lord
?”

Connor lightly touched his fingers to the scars, his nostrils flaring in an aristocratic sniff. “My valet must have tied my cravat too tightly.” Plucking the jabot from Munroe’s hand and draping
it around his own neck, he inclined his head in a polite bow. “If you’ll excuse us, gentlemen, our picnic awaits.”

Leaving Munroe frothing at the mouth with rage, they turned and strolled toward the castle as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Sophie fell into step beside her sister, casting a wistful look over her shoulder at the gawking soldiers.

They were halfway to the gatehouse when Munroe shouted, “You won’t be able to hide behind a woman’s skirts forever! I don’t care if you’re calling yourself a marquess or a duke or the Prince Regent himself, if you ever set foot in the Highlands again, as God is my witness,
I’ll see you hanged!
”