Page 22 of Some Like It Wild
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 Connor’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 thisrogueisn’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!”
Connor inclined his head toward Pamela, speaking softly so his words wouldn’t carry on the wind. “One word from you, lass, and he would have seen me hanged today.”
“And just where would I have found another Scotsman with a thick neck and a thicker skull to impersonate the duke’s son?” She cast him a sideways look from beneath her lashes. “Besides, you just don’t seem the sort to drown a litter of kittens in a bucket.”
“If you must know, I’m rather fond of kittens. But don’t tell anyone. I’d hate to spoil my reputation.” As they passed beneath the gatehouse, he scowled up at the tower. “So just how did you convince Brodie to let you pull this incredibly foolhardy stunt? After I strangle him with my bare hands, I’d like to know how sorry I should be.”
Pamela gave Sophie a pointed look. She responded with a feline smile.
“Ah,” Connor said. “So what did she do? Promise to marry him and give him a cottage full of wee bairns?”
Sophie shuddered. “I should say not. But I did offer to teach him all the words to ‘Haughty Maude, the Banbury Bawd.’”
Pamela stole a worried glance over her shoulder, where Munroe and his men were staging their reluctant retreat. “Do you think he meant what he said? That he would see you hanged if you ever set foot in the Highlands again?”
