Page 51 of Some Like It Wild
“Let’s get the bloody hell out of here,” he said, grabbing Pamela’s hand and starting for the door.
Given his preoccupation with the lovely stranger, she supposed she should be thankful he even remembered she was there.
“What about Lady Astrid?” she asked, forced to take two steps for every one of his long strides.
“She’ll find a way home,” he said, waiting impatiently as the footman went to retrieve Pamela’s cashmere shawl and swansdown muff. “Perhaps Lady Newton has a broom she could borrow.”
Connor didn’t say a word while they were waiting for their driver to bring the carriage around. His stony silence continued on the long ride back to Warrick Park. Pamela huddled in her corner of the carriage, growing more miserable with each passing league. By the time the carriage rolled up the long curving drive and halted in front of the house, she was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to speak again.
He threw open the door and leaped down from the carriage the minute it stopped, ignoring the flustered groomsman who was waiting to assist them. Pamela half expected him to just leave her there—forgotten and alone—but he reached back in and closed his powerful hands around her waist, sweeping her out of the carriage and to her feet just as he had on the afternoon they’d arrived at Warrick Park for the first time.
He stood staring up at the lighted windows of the house as the coach rattled away toward the stables. “I can’t bear to be locked up in a cage tonight.”
Turning on his heel, he started down the hill toward the stand of swaying willows, tugging off his cravat as he walked. Pamela hesitated for a second, then followed. She could feel the evening dew soaking through the flimsy soles of her slippers with each step. Although Connor’s stride was as steady and sure as it had been in the mountains, she began to pick up momentum as they neared the bottom of the hill, tripping over the hem of her gown and rending the delicate gauze.
Connor strode right past the graceful columns of the Doric temple beyond the willows, rejecting any claim of civilization on the land or the night. He didn’t stop until he reached the edge of the lake. Resting his hands on his hips, he stood on the bank, gazing out over the moonlit water.
Pamela trailed him all the way to the water’s edge, wrapping her arms around herself to hug back a shiver. She had left her cashmere shawl in the carriage, along with her lovely new swansdown muff.
When she could no longer bear Connor’s silence, she said softly, “She’s the one, isn’t she? The one who gave you the locket you wear over your heart.”
Connor glanced at her, bewilderment flashing like quicksilver in his eyes. “The locket was my mother’s. It was the last thing she ever gave to me.”
Pamela drew closer to him, still not daring to hope. “I don’t understand. I saw the way you looked at her. As if you were aching to touch her just to make sure she was real.”
He went back to gazing over the water, his eyes as distant as the silvery orb of the moon hanging in the eastern sky. “Oh, I know she’s real. She’s my sister.”
“Your sister?” Pamela sank down to a sitting position in the wet grass, her relief so keen she no longer cared if he found her ridiculous. “That woman was your sister?”
“Aye.” He shook his head, a bitter smile touching his lips. “Did you see her? She looked right at me and didn’t even know me. I suppose I can’t blame her though. She hasn’t laid eyes on me since the night the redcoats came.”
Pamela hugged one knee to her chest. Now that Connor’s silence was broken, she was afraid to speak; afraid to so much as breathe for fear he would retreat back into his impenetrable shell. She sensed that he wasn’t just breaking the silence of moments, but of years.
His burr seemed to deepen as if he was traveling further backward in time with each word. “When we heard the redcoats comin’, I begged my father to let me stay. I was a gangly lad of fifteen who fancied himself a man. I demanded a gun so we could fight them side by side, but my father kept insistin’ I had to take Catriona and hide, that I was her only hope. He wanted my mother to go too, but she refused to leave his side.”
“They were nearly upon us then.” Connor cocked his head as if he could still hear the swelling thunder of hoofbeats, could feel the ground beginning to quake beneath their feet. “For the first time ever, I defied my da. I shouted that I was nearly full grown and he had no right to tell me what to do. Then my father—my gentle, soft-spoken father who had never lifted a hand to me in anger—struck me so hard he broke my tooth.”
Connor ran a finger over the chipped edge of the tooth that made his smile so dear to her.
“He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. He told me that if I didn’t hide Catriona, the soldiers would do terrible things to her…unspeakable things. They wouldn’t care that she was just a wee lass of ten.
“I couldn’t speak by then. I could only nod. When I did, my father snatched me against him, nearly squeezin’ the breath out of me. Then he shoved me away, shoutin’, ‘Go! Go lad!Now!’”
Connor unfastened the top studs of his shirt, drawing forth the delicate chain with the gold locket dangling from the end of it. “That was when my mother pressed this into my hand, told me to guard it with my life so I’d always have a piece of her with me. So I’d never forget who I was.” His fist tightened around the locket. “Then I grabbed Catriona and I went. There was a hollow tree at the edge of the woods where we used to play. I dragged her inside and held her against me. I made her bury her face in my shirt and I covered her ears so she wouldn’t hear what was goin’ to happen.”
Pamela ached to cover her own ears, so she wouldn’t have to hear it either.
“The redcoats came then. The lamps were still lit and I could see everythin’ through the window of our cottage.” All of the passion left his voice, leaving it as hard and brittle as flint. The very absence of emotion gave Pamela a harrowing glimpse into his anguish, his helpless rage. “They grabbed my father, took turns striking him until he hung limp between two of them, bloody and battered but still conscious. Then they went after my mother, laughin’ and makin’ jokes about what a fine time they were goin’ to have with her.”
Connor swung around to face her, the raw hatred in his eyes chilling her to the bone. “If I could have got to them in that moment, I swear to God I’d have killed them all with my bare hands.”
“You couldn’t leave Catriona.” Pamela’s voice was equally fierce. “You made a vow to your father. In your heart of hearts, you knew he was right. If you had let the redcoats get their hands on her…” She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.
“When they came for my mother, she pulled a pistol out of her skirt and pointed it at them.” One corner of Connor’s mouth slanted upward in the ghost of a smile. “She looked so beautiful standin’ there—tall and proud, facin’ them down as if she was a queen and they were nothin’ but a bunch of slaverin’ goblins. For a breath or two, I even dared to hope.” His smile faded. “But she only had one shot and there were nearly a dozen of them, circlin’ her like a pack of wolves.”
Pamela came to her feet, transfixed against her will. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and press her mouth to his to silence him, to drag him down into the wet grass and do whatever it took to stop him from telling her what happened next.
“When she lifted the gun to her temple, I heard my father shout, ‘No!’ But she just smiled at him, the same way she always smiled at me when she was rufflin’ my hair before bedtime or scoldin’ me for wearin’ my muddy boots in the house. You see, sheknewthey were goin’ to kill them both and she wasn’t about to make my father watch those animals take turns rapin’ her before they did.”
