Some Like It Wild (9 page)

Pamela settled herself on the settee. Sophie was about to plop down beside her when Pamela cleared her throat pointedly. Puffing out a long-suffering sigh, Sophie moved to stand at the far end of the settee, her hands clasped in front of her like a dutiful servant.

Connor gingerly lowered himself to a delicate Hepplewhite chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him. Brodie stationed himself directly behind Connor’s chair, standing at rigid attention like an enormous bewigged bulldog.

The duke nodded toward Sophie. “Why don’t you make yourself useful, girl, and help my sister serve?”

When Sophie simply nodded and moved to join Astrid at the tea cart, the duke asked Pamela, “What’s wrong with the chit? Is she mute or just as slow witted as she looks?”

“Neither, your grace,” Pamela replied, thankful she was a much better liar than Sophie. “She’s simply shy.”

The duke’s sister poured while a sullen Sophie
distributed the cups of tea, then brought around a tea tray laden with pastries. Although Connor declined both, Brodie reached over Connor’s shoulder, plucked a cream-filled cake from the tray and popped it in his mouth whole, chewing with relish. Pamela winced as the silver spoon vanished from the clotted cream as well, disappearing up his sleeve without a trace.

While Sophie returned to her station beside the settee, the duke squinted at the drooping feathers on Pamela’s bonnet. “Although your dowdy ensemble might suggest otherwise, I suppose you’re fresh from Paris and itching to collect my little reward?”

Thankful to have something to occupy her trembling hands, Pamela took a genteel sip of her tea. “Not Paris, your grace, but Scotland.”

“Scotland! Why would anyone waste their time in Scotland? Why, the Scots are nothing but a bunch of skirt-wearing barbarians too ignorant and insolent to recognize their betters.” He cast Connor’s kilt a sly glance. “No offense, lad.”

“None taken,” Connor murmured, his eyes narrowed to glittering slits.

Pamela downed the rest of her tea in a noisy gulp. She knew she’d best plead their case before Connor stormed out or stabbed their potential benefactor in the throat with a pastry fork. A pastry fork probably pilfered from the tea tray by Brodie.

Resting her empty cup on the delicate pier table at her elbow, she said, “I didn’t waste my time in
Paris, your grace, because I knew your son wasn’t to be found there.”

The duke bestowed a benevolent smile upon her. “And just how did you come to this rather unique conclusion, my dear? Based upon our limited interaction thus far, I can only assume it wasn’t as a result of your keen wits.”

Connor rose halfway out of his chair but Pamela steadied him with a pleading look. He sank back down in the chair, his smoldering glance warning her she would not be so successful a second time.

Pamela reached into her reticule, drew forth her mother’s letter and held it out to the duke. “Perhaps your wife’s words will speak with more eloquence than I can.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Archibald!” his sister exclaimed. “Why don’t you let me ring for the footmen and have these scoundrels removed? I know you’re bored half out of your mind and enjoy torturing them for your own amusement, but there’s really no need to waste your breath or your time by reading some ridiculous forgery that—”

“Hush, Astrid!” the duke barked. “Still that flapping tongue of yours for five seconds and fetch me that letter.”

His sister reluctantly obeyed, marching over to Pamela and sweeping the letter from her outstretched hand. It was all Pamela could do not to snatch it back. The duchess’s letter might have cost her mother dearly but it was still all she and Sophie had left of her.

The duke scowled down at the letter, turning it
over in his hands. The wax seal might have crumbled over time but it was still recognizable as his own.

Pamela held her breath as he unfolded the pages, knowing he would recognize his wife’s flowing script as well, no matter how blurred or faded.

When he was done scanning its contents, he crumpled the letter up in his fist and shook it at Pamela, his expression fierce. “Who was this Marianne person? Why would my wife exchange such shocking intimacies with her?”

“She was your wife’s dear childhood friend.” Pamela sat up straighter in her chair, unable to keep the prideful note from her voice. “And my mother.”

The duke leaned his head against the back of the chair as if suddenly too weak to hold it upright. “Dear God, she’s really dead, isn’t she?”

At first Pamela thought he was referring to her mother, but in the space between one breath and the next, she realized he was speaking of the duchess…his wife.

She exchanged a dismayed glance with Connor. It had never occurred to her that in some small corner of what passed for his heart, the duke might have been seeking news of his runaway wife as well as his heir. The realization made her feel even more wretched with guilt.

“I’m afraid so, your grace,” she said gently. “She never arrived at her grandfather’s cottage. She didn’t survive the journey to the Highlands.”

“I suppose I’ve always known it.” He sighed, his
blue-veined lids fluttering shut over his weary eyes. “The headstrong minx probably died just to spite me.” When he opened his eyes again, they were as dull and flat as his voice. “Since it’s the reward you’re seeking to line your greedy little purse, I’m guessing you’ve brought me word of my son as well.”

Pamela drew in a deep breath, praying God would forgive her for damning them all with her lie. “I’ve done better than that, your grace. I’ve brought you your son.”

T
he duke jerked upright in his chair, feverish spots of color darkening the hollows of his cheeks. His hazel eyes burned with an unholy fire, and for an elusive instant he bore more resemblance to the vital young man in the portrait behind him than the wizened, prematurely aged man he had become.

He opened his mouth but only a racking cough came forth. Lady Astrid leaped up from her chair and began to pound him on the back, shooting Pamela an accusing glare. “Look what you’ve done to him, you wicked girl! You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Why, such a strain could prove too great for his weakened heart!” As Astrid tenderly mopped his brow with her own handkerchief, then poured a fresh cup of tea and pressed it to his lips, Pamela frowned. Her concern for her brother’s
welfare seemed to be genuine. “Just say the word, Archie,” she told him when his wheezing had subsided, “and I’ll dismiss these charlatans and their preposterous claims and send for the physician.”

Pamela could not stop herself from flinching in pity when the duke fitfully batted his sister’s hand away. She retreated to stand at his right shoulder, wounded dignity evident in every line of her rigid posture.

The duke’s piercing gaze was no longer fixed on Pamela but on Connor.

“You,” he croaked out, pointing a palsied finger at Connor. “You don’t look the sort who’d be content to hide behind a woman’s skirts while she fights your battles for you.”

Pamela began, “Your grace, I—”

“He’s right,” Connor said, rising from his chair. “I’ve done all the hiding I care to do.”

The duke’s voice was little more than a growl. “Then get over here, lad, and let me have a look at you.”

Pamela held her breath, knowing Connor wouldn’t take kindly to being ordered about. Especially in such an imperious manner.

But after a brief hesitation, he sauntered over to the duke’s chair and simply stood there, gazing down at the man.

“Don’t just stand there hovering over me like the angel Gabriel come to condemn my black-hearted soul,” the duke rasped, crooking a finger at him. “Come down here where I can see your face.”

His command left Connor with only one choice.
Knowing that all of their fates hinged on this moment, Pamela dug her fingernails into her palm as he dropped to one knee in front of the duke’s chair, bringing them face to face and eye to eye.

Pamela couldn’t see Connor’s face, but she had a clear view of the duke’s. It had gone as still as a death mask as he searched Connor’s face, his burning eyes its only trace of life.

It wasn’t until he lifted a trembling hand to cup Connor’s cheek that she realized with a jolt of wonder that the sparkle in those eyes was no longer malice, but tears. “I should have known the moment you walked in the room,” he whispered, drinking in Connor’s features with a feverish thirst. “You have the look of your mother about you. Her eyes…”

To Connor’s credit, he did not shy away from the man’s touch but simply placed his own hand over the duke’s to steady it.

Pamela bowed her head, battered by a dizzying mixture of shame and triumph. The plan she’d set in motion when she and Sophie had fled London was finally coming to fruition. She truly hadn’t wanted to trick a sick old man, but by doing so, she had given Connor a chance to unmask her mother’s killer, and she had ensured her sister’s future. Her role here was done. At least for now.

From this day forward, any communication between her and Connor would have to be conducted through whispered messages delivered by Brodie. There was no place in the life of a future duke—even a counterfeit one—for an actress’s daughter
born on the wrong side of the blankets. She trusted Connor would keep his end of their devil’s bargain and help her expose her mother’s killer, but once that task was done, their association would come to an end as well. He would be free to live out his life as the next Duke of Warrick and she would be free to retire to the seaside to bake shortbread and collect cats.

Suddenly desperate to escape this tender reunion that was no reunion at all, she surged to her feet. “Forgive me, your grace, but I realize you and your son are strangers to each other and must be eager to get reacquainted. I’m glad my search was fruitful and I was able to return him to you. I’ll leave the address of my lodgings and you can have your solicitor contact me about delivery of the reward.” She turned blindly toward the door, trusting Sophie would follow.

“Don’t be so hasty, Miss Darby. Or so modest.”

That commanding voice stopped her in her tracks. Because it did not belong to the duke, but to Connor. She slowly turned to find him standing at the duke’s side. If Pamela didn’t know better, she would have sworn he belonged there. The duke still clung to his hand, as if reluctant to surrender it for fear he would vanish back into the wild, never to be seen again.

There had been some indefinable shift of power in the room. One that left Pamela feeling as breathless and bewildered as the duke’s sister looked.

Connor’s cool gray eyes were more inscrutable than ever before, his heathered burr more musical
to the ear. “Surely you don’t plan to rush off before my”—he hesitated for less than a heartbeat “—my
father
and I can properly thank you for bringing us together.”

She dredged up a nervous smile. “I’m sure the reward will express your gratitude far more effectively than your words ever could.”

Connor smiled at her, the dimple in his cheek even more devastating when complemented by the beguiling crinkles around his eyes. The smile was eerily similar to the man’s in the portrait behind him. “Just listen to her, your grace. The lass would have you believe she’s nothing but a greedy opportunist, when the exact opposite is true.”

“It is?” Pamela whispered weakly.

“It is?” Sophie echoed, forgetting all about her own vow of silence.

“Aye, it is.” Gently extracting his hand from the duke’s grip, Connor sauntered toward Pamela, his grace as beautiful to behold as any predator’s. And just as dangerous. “She’s trying to hide her generous heart from us all so she won’t spoil our reunion. She doesn’t want you to know that I was truly lost until she found me.” Pamela held her breath as Connor took her hand and brought it to his mouth, brushing his warm, moist lips over her knuckles with an intimacy that made her shiver. “I know what we agreed upon, lass, but I can no longer keep our little secret.”

Pamela gasped, believing he was about to blurt out that he was an imposter and get them all tossed into jail, if not hanged.

She was too numb with dread to protest when he slipped an arm around her waist and steered her toward the duke, who had been watching their exchange with avid fascination. “I didn’t come here today to claim my birthright, your grace,” he said earnestly. “All I would seek on this day is your blessing.” Too late, Pamela saw the spark of devilry in Connor’s eyes. A spark she had seen once before when he had pressed the prop pistol to her heart and pulled the trigger. “Miss Darby’s only use for the reward will be for her dowry, because much to my humble gratitude and amazement, she has agreed to be my wife.”

T
hat miserable scoundrel! That wretched blackguard! That—that—” Pamela struggled to recall some of the insults so generously offered to her by the smugglers in the outlaw’s den. “That swiving, whoremongering son of a—” She slammed a hare’s foot into a dish of rice powder, sending a choking cloud of the stuff into the air and setting Sophie off on a chain of delicate sneezes. “Why, I should have let Colonel Munroe hang him with his own jabot!”

Sophie shooed the cloud of powder away, then went back to trying to arrange the thick coils of Pamela’s hair into some sort of manageable coif. “If I’m not mistaken, I believe it’s customary to accept a marquess’s marriage proposal with a tad more grace.”

“That’s the second time the conniving wretch has
led me straight into a trap. And the last, I should add.” Pamela leaned forward on the skirted stool, scowling at her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. She was starting to look nearly as feverish and mad as the duke. “I still can’t figure out why he would do such a wicked thing.”

“What?” Sophie sighed wistfully, tucking a curl behind Pamela’s ear and securing it with a mother-of-pearl comb. “Declare his love for you in front of a roomful of people and announce that you’ve agreed to be his bride?”

“Precisely! I knew he was a born villain but I never expected him to sink to such monstrous depths. Did you see the way that nasty Lady Astrid was looking at me? You’d have thought I was something he’d dragged in on the heel of his boot! And I thought the duke was going to have an apoplexy and drop dead right then and there. They no doubt believe I’ve decided the reward’s not good enough for me. That I’ve set my sights on the duchy itself!”

Sophie leaned over Pamela’s shoulder, clutching the silver-backed hairbrush to her bosom. “Perhaps he spoke from the heart. Perhaps he’s fallen
madly
in love with you and can’t bear the thought of living another hour of his life without you by his side.”

Somehow her sister’s teasing words cut deeper than Connor’s betrayal. Because for an elusive moment—when Connor had gazed deep into her eyes and tenderly brushed his lips over her hand—her own heart had dared to entertain such a ridiculous notion.

But then she’d seen that wicked sparkle in his eyes and remembered that she was not her mother. Or even Sophie, for that matter. She would never be the sort of woman who inspired such passion in a man. Connor’s earnest words were meant to mock everyone in that room, including her.

She sat up straighter on the stool. “I can assure you that Connor Kincaid loves only himself and what he stands to gain from our unholy little alliance.”

“Well, if you don’t want to marry him, then I will. Or at least I would if he knew I was alive.” Sophie sighed. “I’ve never met a man so immune to my charms. You’d almost swear his heart already belonged to someone else.”

“Perhaps it does,” Pamela replied softly, remembering the gold locket he had handled with such tender care and still wore next to his heart. “Ow!” she added as Sophie yanked another coil of her hair into submission. She rubbed her smarting head, glaring at her sister in the mirror. “I can’t believe Mama allowed you to dress her hair for all those years. It’s a miracle she didn’t end up bald.”

“Maman
didn’t wriggle nearly so much or have such impossible hair,” Sophie retorted, stabbing a hair pin into Pamela’s tender scalp. “And you shouldn’t be complaining. After all, you get to go have a proper supper while I’m left to languish here all alone.”

Although Sophie made it sound like the foulest of dungeons, their elegant suite with its cozy sitting room, dressing room and adjoining bedchamber
was more spacious than any lodgings they’d ever shared with their mother. In truth it was Pamela who envied Sophie. She would have liked nothing more than to crawl into the charming hand-painted half-tester and pull the sumptuous bedclothes up over her head.

“If you don’t stop whining,” she said, “I’ll demote you to scullery maid and you can go gnaw on a chicken bone in the kitchens.”

When her sister failed to laugh at her jest, Pamela sighed and swung around on the stool to face her. “I’m truly sorry about all of this, darling. If I’d have known we were going to be staying for more than afternoon tea, I’d have told them you were my sister, not my servant. I know this role won’t be an easy one for you to play, but at least I’ll know you’re safe and not at the mercy of some leering nobleman. I promise you that I’ll reveal your true identity just as soon as…” She hesitated, still determined to shield Sophie from the truth about their mother’s grim fate. “As soon as it’s prudent.”

Although she appeared to be somewhat mollified by Pamela’s sympathy, Sophie’s nostrils still flared in a wounded sniff. “You could have at least had the decency to tell them I was a
French
maid.”

Pamela swiveled back around on the stool, grinning at Sophie in the mirror. “You know, there are ladies who beat their maids regularly with a hairbrush to improve their dispositions.”

Sophie tossed her head, her less than genteel snort telling Pamela what she thought of that idea. But she finished dressing Pamela’s hair with a mini
mum of yanking and poking, finally stepping back from the stool with a flourish of the hairbrush and a triumphant, “
Voila!
”

Pamela touched a hand to her hair. She had to admit her sister had worked wonders with the scant resources at her disposal. Sophie had laced one of her own pink ribbons through the heavy coils before twisting them into a graceful Grecian knot at Pamela’s nape. The look might have been too severe if not for the clusters of glossy ringlets she’d coaxed forward to frame Pamela’s face.

Gripping the edge of the dressing table, Pamela drew in a shaky breath. Her face might be too pale and her eyes too bright, but at least her hair was perfect.

Now all she had to do was go downstairs and face her treacherous fiancé—and possibly the villain who was going to try to kill him.

Connor restlessly prowled the length of his extravagant suite, waiting to be summoned for supper. Although the towering mahogany four-poster that dominated the bedchamber was larger than some of the jail cells he’d frequented over the years, he still felt as if the walls were closing in around him. At least each time the law had tossed him in jail, he’d known there was some chance of escape. He slipped a hand beneath his collar, rubbing the scars left by the hangman’s noose.

He’d spent too many years roaming the mountains and moors, wild and free. He could barely breathe in here.

It was the perfect den for a gentleman. The plaster walls had been painted a warm burgundy and were trimmed in forest green wainscoting. The furniture was all carved from rich warm cherry or gleaming mahogany the exact shade of Pamela’s hair. A pair of comfortable chairs upholstered in buttery brown leather sat in front of the black marble hearth.

The air was redolent with the masculine scents of wood and leather, and there wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen. It was almost as if the suite had been waiting for him.

Not for him, he corrected himself grimly. For the duke’s son.

When the duke had touched his cheek and gazed at him as if he was the answer to the man’s every prayer, he had expected to feel a rush of triumph, not an overwhelming wave of pity and guilt. In that moment he would have given anything to be back in the Highlands, thundering across the moor on his horse with the law fast on his heels.

His clansmen had once looked at him the same way—as if he had the power to make all of their dreams of reuniting Clan Kincaid come true. For almost a decade they had ridden by his side, thwarting the redcoats at every turn. They had been closer than brothers, the cords of loyalty that bound them thicker than blood. But eventually Connor had realized that the only place he was leading them was straight into a noose. So five years ago, on a misty Highland morning, he had mounted his horse and
ridden away, leaving his men and his dreams far behind.

Wheeling around, he strode to the window overlooking the gardens, desperate for a gulp of fresh air to fill his starving lungs. He grasped the window sash in both hands and tugged it upward. It did not budge. Judging from the thick layer of white along its seam, the window had been recently painted.

Cursing the careless handiwork, Connor looked around for something to help him pry it open. He strode to the hearth and returned with an iron poker. He was on the verge of loosening the paint’s grip on the sash when the poker slipped in his sweaty hands. Its tip went crashing through one of the lower panes, sending tinkling shards of glass raining down on the cobbled walk far below. A cool rush of night air came pouring into the room. Connor swore, staring in dismay at the destruction he had wrought.

“Ye’re supposed to use the poker on the fire, lad, not the window.”

Connor turned to find Brodie grinning at him from the doorway. With his knee breeches, white stockings and buckled shoes, he looked more like an overgrown schoolboy than a valet.

Connor pointed the poker at him. “Sneak up on me like that again and I’ll use it on your thick skull.”

His high spirits undampened by the threat, Brodie strutted across the room to the bed, clanking with every step. He opened his coat and a veritable treasure trove of booty came spilling out onto
the counterpane, including a pair of silver candlesticks, a delicate gold thimble, a small bird cage, a porcelain butter dish, and a filigree clock.

Connor blinked at the impressive haul. “I don’t suppose the butler asked you to bring all that up here to polish it.”

Brodie plucked a silver spoon from the pile and admired his reflection in the shining bowl. “I’m just plannin’ for the future. If this duke o’ yers decides to toss us out on our ears tomorrow, I’ve no intention o’ leavin’ empty-handed. Besides, he has so much o’ this pretty stuff lyin’ about, it’ll be months before he misses so much as a thimble.”

Connor returned the poker to the hearth before Brodie could steal it. “I hate to point this out, but if I’m to be master of this house someday, those are
my
things you’re stealing.”

“In that case I’ll just consider it a wee advance on me salary.”

“I’m not paying you a salary.”

“Then I’d best go back for that silver-plated snuff box I saw in the library.”

Brodie started for the door, but Connor stepped neatly into his path, forcing him to execute an abrupt about-face.

“Aren’t you supposed to be polishing my boots or something?” he asked as Brodie made himself at home on the bed—reclining against the headboard and lighting a fat cigar he’d no doubt pilfered from the duke’s private stock.

“Ye don’t have any boots yet. The cobbler’s comin’ first thing in the mornin’.”

Raking a hand through his hair, Connor wheeled around and resumed his pacing. “So I’ve been told. Along with the tailor, the linen draper, the haberdasher, the hatter, the stationer, the jeweler, the fencing master and some fellow whose sole purpose in life seems to be helping me pick out the right case for my toothpicks.” He swung around to glower at Brodie. “I don’t even have any bloody toothpicks!”

Brodie fished a silver toothpick from his heap of treasure and offered it to him. “I don’t know why ye’re so crotchety, lad. Ye’ve barely been here for an afternoon and ye’ve already found yerself a bride. How do ye think that makes me feel?”

Connor folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t want to confess the stab of panic he had felt in that moment when Pamela had turned to walk out of the solarium. Didn’t want Brodie to guess that his ears had suddenly echoed with the damning clang of cell doors slamming shut. “You know very well that I’ve no intention of marrying Miss Darby. I just wasn’t about to let her stroll out of here and leave us imprisoned in this gilded cage. For all I know she could be planning to make off with the reward, then send the authorities an anonymous note telling them I’m an imposter.”

“So you don’t trust the lass then?”

Connor felt his face harden. “Of course I don’t trust her. She’s English, isn’t she?”

“Well, that’s a relief, isn’t it? I always thought I’d see ye hanged before I saw ye leg-shackled to some lass for the rest o’ yer life.” Brodie blew out
a smoke ring, watching Connor from beneath his heavy eyelids as it floated toward the medallioned ceiling. “’Twas a wee bit odd, wasn’t it, when the duke said ye had eyes just like yer mother? Gave me a bit of a shiver, it did.”

Connor shrugged off another uncomfortable pang of guilt. “Gray eyes are common enough. Both of my parents had them. Besides, Pamela was right about one thing. People tend to see exactly what they want to see instead of recognizing what’s right in front of them.”

Pamela lost her way three times on her way to the dining room. The maid who had knocked on her door to inform her that supper was being served had pointed her in the right direction, then vanished down a back staircase. Pamela quickly discovered that Warrick Park was a maze of long, soaring corridors and immense rooms that led one into another with no particular pattern or predictability.

Her stomach growled a protest as she took another wrong turn. She hadn’t eaten since that morning and was beginning to fear that some haughty footman would find her bones months from now at the end of a dead-end corridor.

After an arduous trek through a portrait gallery lined with generations of dour Warricks who all seemed to be sneering down their aristocratic noses at her, she was finally rewarded for her persistence. As she approached a tall oak door, a bewigged footman dutifully threw it open, pausing only long enough to cast her ensemble a withering glance.

Slowing her steps, she smoothed her skirt, suddenly wishing she had remained lost until supper was over. Since she’d worn her best frock to their audience with the duke that afternoon, she’d had no choice but to don her second-best frock for supper.

The white poplin gown with its blonde lace flounce was more suited to morning wear. The gown’s deep, square-cut neckline only served to make her feel more woefully exposed. Fearing the sharp-eyed duke and his sharp-tongued sister would recognize paste jewelry when they saw it, she’d had no choice but to leave her throat and the creamy swell of her bosom unadorned. At least no one could see the toe peeping out of her ragged right stocking or would know that she’d squeezed her long feet into Sophie’s only decent pair of slippers.