Page 23 of Some Like It Wild
“I think we’d best leave for London as soon as Brodie can find that spineless coachman of yours and drag him back here.”
As Sophie went ahead of them into the tower, Connor tugged at Pamela’s arm, urging her to a halt in the cool shadows of the doorway. He braced his forearm against the stone arch above her head, shamelessly using the muscular wall of his body to imprison her there.
“Now that I’ve seen you act with such skill, lass, how will I ever know when you’re telling the truth?”
Her lips may have trembled at their proximity to his but that didn’t stop them from curving in a wistful little smile. “You won’t.”
She ducked beneath his arm and lifted the hem of her skirts to proceed up the stairs, leaving him alone to ponder her warning.
Chapter 9
I’m sorry, miss, but the duke refuses to receive you.”
Pamela leaned out of the hired carriage parked in the long curving drive of the palatial estate, eyeing the footman’s bland face in disbelief. “How could His Grace refuse to receive us? Did you tell him I’ve brought word of his son?”
The footman let out an inelegant snort that was at direct odds with his starched scarlet livery and powdered wig. “You and every other charlatan between here and Paris. Why, in the past week alone, three Frenchmen and a Belgian dwarf have come knocking on the door, claiming to be His Grace’s long lost heir. One impertinent fellow even slipped through the duke’s bedchamber window while he was sleeping. He insisted the heart-shaped birth-mark on his”—the footman’s patrician nostrils flared in distaste—“personwould prove him to be the true heir. It took three footmen to drag him from the duke’s presence and toss him out on his”—he sniffed again—“person.”
Pamela leaned back in the carriage seat, struggling to hide her dismay. It had never occurred to her that there would be other attempts to dupe the duke, other imposters.
Despite the footman’s disapproving sneer, she refused to accept that they’d come all this way—enduring days of grueling travel—for nothing. She was no Belgian dwarf to be dismissed without an audience or tossed out on her…person.
She leaned forward again, giving the footman her warmest and most winsome smile. “I can assure you that we have no desire to waste the duke’s valuable time—or yours. I truly believe he will be interested in what we have to share.”
The footman’s skeptical gaze swept her from bonnet to boots. Although she’d worn her finest frock—a sherry-colored walking dress that complemented the color of her eyes—she knew her lace-trimmed collar and cuffs and matching silk spencer were at least three seasons out of date. And while the addition of a plume of fresh feathers had restored a jaunty air to her battered bonnet, her trusty kid half boots still bore the scuffs and scars of trekking through the rugged climes of Scotland.
Her pride chafed beneath the footman’s scornful gaze, much as it had when Connor had exposed the frayed seams of her drawers.
“Do forgive me, miss,” he said, looking decidedly unrepentant, “but I sincerely doubt a woman of your…standingcould have anything of interest to offer my master.”
Pamela bit back a squeal as a pair of warm masculine hands closed around her waist from behind, lifting her clean off the carriage seat and depositing her feet on the ground with an ease that left her breathless. She opened her mouth to protest being treated in such an undignified manner, but snapped it shut when she saw the smirk vanish from the footman’s smug face.
He went stumbling backward as Connor emerged from the carriage, unfolding his imposing form to tower over the both of them. The footman’s wide-eyed gaze traveled up, up, up—past Connor’s broad chest to the impressive width of his shoulders, finally coming to rest on his intractable face.
“Perhaps you didn’t understand the lady,” Connor said, his velvety burr even more beguiling when contrasted with the footman’s clipped tones. “She wishes to see your master and she has no intention of standing out here in the drive all afternoon awaiting his pleasure. Nor do I.”
The footman swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his pasty throat. “But—but—His Grace is not receiving callers. He ordered me to turn you away.”
“And I’m ordering you to march right back in there and tell him we’re not going anywhere until he agrees to hear the lady out.” As Connor leaned over Pamela’s shoulder, the footman grew even pastier. “And if someone has to come tell us the duke has been foolhardy enough to refuse her again, you might want to make sure it’s not you. Because I can promise you ’twill take more than three footmen to toss me out on my…person.”
Lest there be any doubt about that, Brodie squeezed down out of the carriage behind them, the brass buttons of his own navy livery straining to contain his barrel chest. A powdered wig sat askew on his broad brow, one copper braid peeping out from beneath it.
As Brodie bared his gold tooth, growling deep in his throat, the footman scrambled backward, nearly tripping over his own buckled shoes in his haste to escape them. He was halfway to the door when he stammered out, “Who—who shall I say is calling, sir?”
When Connor hesitated, it was Pamela who answered. “Someone His Grace would very much like to see.”
Situated on the outskirts of London, Warrick Park had been the ancestral home of the dukes of Warrick for over three centuries. The main house was a graceful three-story structure in the Georgian style, its mellow red brick dressed out in elegant limestone. Tidy rows of white sash windows gave the mansion a far more welcoming mien than it deserved. Two Elizabethan wings from some earlier incarnation of the house fanned out from the structure on either side.
All of this understated grandeur was surrounded by acre upon acre of perfectly groomed parkland. It was clear from the cropped grass, clean-swept paths and neatly trimmed shrubbery that every effort was being made to subjugate the whims of nature to the mastery of man. Such a Herculean goal no doubt required a regiment of gardeners working around the clock. Pamela suspected that in the autumn they were probably ordered to catch the falling leaves before they hit the ground. She caught a glimpse of a Doric temple perched on the edge of a pristine blue lake through a sweeping stand of willows—another place where man had put his stamp upon nature.
As a pair of footmen escorted her and her party to the graceful portico sheltering the front entrance of the house, a balmy breeze warmed by the afternoon sun stirred the loose tendrils of hair at her nape. While she and Sophie had been traipsing around the Highlands, spring had arrived in England. Tender green buds misted the branches of the oaks lining the drive. A carpet of new grass bordered the drive—its baby blades the invigorating shade of fresh mint.
Pamela stole a look at Connor from beneath the brim of her bonnet. Did he appreciate the day’s genteel grace or did he miss the tumultuous beauty of his own home—the brisk winds whipping down from the north, the ever-present threat of rain, the tantalizing promise of the rainbows to follow?
There were no forbidding thunderheads here, only delicate white wisps of cloud drifting across the placid blue pool of the sky. Connor should have looked out of place surrounded by the trappings of civilization, but his long stride was every bit as confident as it had been in the Highland forest.
The footmen flanked the entranceway, sweeping open the tall double oak doors to usher them into a three-story entrance hall floored in Italian marble. A pair of grand staircases curved up to the second floor balcony, their polished mahogany balusters gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the enormous arched window over the door.
Pamela drew in a shaky breath. She was the one who did not belong here. She belonged backstage at some musty theater, safe from the glaring footlights and gawking eyes. It was her mother who could have played such a role with relish, who would have tossed back her golden curls and strode into this magnificent mansion as if she owned it.
