Page 6 of Some Like It Wild
Gritting her teeth in exasperation, Pamela turned her back on him only to find the coachman gawping at her, his knobby hands still thrust into the air. Muttering beneath her breath, she faced the woods and reached beneath her skirts. She was determined to deny the larcenous scoundrel so much as a glimpse of stocking or well-turned ankle. After much struggle, she finally managed to extract herself from her drawers by clutching the trunk of a nearby alder and hopping up and down on each foot in turn.
She turned to hurl them at the highwayman. “There! I hope you’re happy, you odious, insufferable boor!”
He caught them neatly with one hand, no longer bothering to hide his smirk. “And just when I feared your affections for me were wanin’.”
She averted her eyes from him, heat rising in her cheeks. Despite the sheltering layers of pelisse, skirts, petticoat and stockings, she still felt woefully exposed. It was almost as if the chill night wind was deliberately whistling its way beneath her hem and between her clenched thighs.
She stole a sullen look at the highwayman. At least she didn’t wear ridiculous scraps of French silk like her mother had. Her drawers were sturdy English wool—decent, practical, and dull…just like her.
As she watched him examine the worn garment with far more care than he had shown the stole or the brooch, curiosity overcame her annoyance. “What on earth are you doing?”
“A woman can lie in a thousand different ways with her lips and her eyes, but not with her undergarments.” He ran his hand along a recently darned seam until he reached a frayed hem. When he finally lifted his eyes to her, they were darkened by a mixture of disbelief and contempt. “Why, you’repoor, aren’t you?”
Pamela recoiled. He had bitten off the word as if it were the most damning of accusations—far worse than being charged with accosting two helpless women in the wilderness.
One would have thought that being pelted with rotten cabbages and wormy potatoes while fleeing an angry mob would have squashed the last of her pride. But as she met this man’s condemning gaze, she felt her spine stiffen and her chin lift.
“My sister and I may have fallen on difficult circumstances since our mother’s death. That doesn’t mean we’re destitute.”
“Oh, no?” He balled up her drawers and tossed them into the underbrush, then began to stalk her, backing her up with each step. “Then why are you wrappin’ yourselves in dead rodents and wearin’ paste jewelry? Why have your drawers been darned so many times they’re fit for little more than the rag bin?” He kept right on coming until she backed into a tree, leaving her with no way to escape him, no way to catch a breath that wasn’t laced with his smoky, masculine scent. “And why did you venture onto these roads with only a pathetic old man to protect you?”
“Eh!” the coachman brayed in protest.
“Hush!” Pamela and the highwayman snapped in unison, still glaring at each other.
The driver subsided into a sullen pout.
The highwayman reached to tuck a tumbled coil of hair behind her ear, his voice deepening and softening until it was all velvet and thistles again. “Have you any idea what could happen to a bonny pair of lassies out here with no man to protect them?”
Pamela was trying to decide if that was a warning or a threat when Sophie piped up. “They could be set upon by a wicked highwayman and have their drawers stolen?”
He ignored her, all of his attention still fixed on Pamela. “Why are you pretendin’ to be rich, lass?”
Pamela could feel her temper rising again. “Because people treat you differently if they believe you have means. They’re kinder and more helpful and don’t look at you as if you’re about to nick the silver. They don’t mock the shabbiness of your bodice or whisper that your bonnet has been out of fashion for three seasons. Perhaps we didn’t care to be scorned—or worse yet—pitiedby a man who’s probably never earned an honest day’s wage in his life.”
“Oh, I tried earnin’ an honest day’s wage once,” he replied, his face hard. “But it didn’t take much more than a day of strugglin’ to survive on the pennies they paid me to learn that I didn’t care for bein’ cold and hungry and barefoot. That I’d rather take what I wanted without the by-your-leave of some fat English overlord.”
Although Pamela was loath to admit it, his defiant words stirred her blood, as did the ruthless glint in his eye. In that moment, there was something almostnoblein his bearing.
Her hand slid into her reticule. Before she could regain her sanity or lose her nerve, she drew out a pretty little pearl-plated pistol and leveled it at his chest, raking back the hammer with her thumb. “I hate to interrupt another stirring speech about Scots’ rights and the tyranny of the English, but I’m afraid it’smyby-your-leave you’ll be needing from this moment on.”
Chapter 3
The coachman squeaked in shock as the pistol appeared in Pamela’s hand. “Why, ye’ve all gone mad as March hares,” he cried, “the whole lot o’ you!” Before any of them could react, he sprang to his feet and went scrambling down the hillside, abandoning coach, musket, horses, and paying customers without so much as a backward glance.
“If you weren’t pointin’ that pistol at my heart, lass, I might be tempted to agree with him,” Connor said, eyeing the woman holding him at gunpoint with newfound respect.
With its dainty size and pearl plating, the pistol looked more like a feminine trinket than a weapon capable of blasting a hole through his chest and putting an end to his misspent life.
“Pamela, what on earth are you doing?” her sister demanded, looking even more shocked than the coachman had. “Have you lost your wits?”
“Hush, Sophie. I know exactly what I’m doing.”
Connor nodded toward the weapon in her hand. A hand that was remarkably steady, he noted with reluctant admiration. “Then I suppose you also know a weapon that size only holds one shot.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “At this range one shot is all I would need. So why don’t you be a gentleman and hand over your pistol?”
He smiled back at her, just as sweetly. “If you want it, you’ll have to come get it.”
