Page 19 of Some Like It Wild
“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.Muchsmaller. Ineveryway. 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 amuchbetter 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 ofWinifred 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, securing 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—”
