Page 30 of Some Like It Wild
Connor chuckled. “You’ll find my bride-to-be has a rather droll sense of humor. Since our courtship was so hasty, the lass believes we should take some time to get to know each other before we wed.”
“It sounds like a very practical notion to me,” Lady Astrid remarked with her first hint of approval.
“Ah, but since when have practicality and passion ever gone hand in hand?” Connor gave Pamela another one of those scorching looks. “She knows very well that I’ve no intention of waiting that long before making her mine.”
No longer able to hide her blush, Pamela crossed her feet at the ankles, wishing her legs were longer so she could kick him in the shin.
“Can we expect your family at the wedding, Miss Darby?” Lady Astrid inquired.
“I’m afraid not, my lady. I’m an orphan,” she confessed, watching Astrid’s face for any visible flicker of guilt.
“How tragic,” the woman replied, washing down a dainty bite of the fish with a sip of wine.
Pamela sighed and finished off her own wine. At this rate it would be December of next year before she exposed her mother’s killer.
But at the sound of a loud commotion outside the dining room door, Lady Astrid’s indifference vanished. She rose halfway out of her chair, her spine ramrod stiff but her lips trembling.
“Sit down, Astrid,” her brother snapped. “The servants will handle it. That’s why we pay them so handsomely.”
Quelled by his icy stare, Astrid sank back down in her chair, gripping the edge of the table with white-knuckled hands.
As the harsh cacophony of masculine voices swelled, Pamela shot Connor an alarmed glance. His hand was already inching beneath the table, probably to reach for a pistol he was no longer wearing. Or worse yet, she thought with a flare of panic, to reach for a pistol he was still wearing.
“Take your paws off me, Phillip!” someone shouted, the voice faintly slurred. “You’ve no right to keep me away from them!”
At that moment the dining room door came flying open and a man came staggering into the room. He yanked his arm free from the footman who had been struggling to restrain him.
The stranger glanced around the table, his contemptuous gaze finally coming to rest on Connor. “So, what they’re saying in town is true, is it? After all these years, my uncle’s long lost heir has finally returned to the adoring bosom of his family to claim his inheritance.” He swept out one arm and sketched Connor an unsteady bow, his voice dripping with scorn. “I came as soon as I heard the news. I couldn’t be more delighted to make your acquaintance,Cousin Percy.”
Chapter 12
Pamela winced in alarm as Connor rose to his full height to face the stranger. She had not forgotten his threat to shoot anyone who dared to call him Percy.
“Forgive me, your grace,” the footman said, his gloved hands trembling as he faced the duke and tugged his rumpled coat straight. The poor servant’s face was scarlet and his wig askew. “I did everything I could to discourage him.”
The duke dismissed the man with a curt flick of his hand. “It’s all right, Phillip. I know just how impossible my nephew can be.”
No wonder Lady Astrid looked so pale and miserable. This drunken interloper was no stranger, but her son—the “whelp” the duke had spoken of during their interview. The whelp who would have inherited the duke’s title and fortune if not for her mother’s letter and the unexpected return of hiscousin.
Both his eyes and hair were as dark as midnight. His unruly curls tumbled over his brow in fashionable disarray. Although Pamela judged him only a year or two older than Sophie, his air of dissipation and the cynical twist of his lips made him appear far older. He was dressed in clothes that would have been the envy of any young buck strolling down Bond Street on a Saturday night, but his cutaway tail coat was missing a button and his cravat hung loose around his throat. The aroma of brandy wafted off of him like French cologne.
Now here was someone who looked capable of murder, Pamela thought, her lips tightening.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and whipcord-lean, but still had to cock back his head to look Connor in the eye. Which he did, with equal measures of boldness and insolence. “So I hear you’ve been living in Scotland all these years. And to think, my uncle has always said the Scots never produced anything of value but decent whisky and target practice for our English soldiers.”
Pamela sucked in an audible breath, knowing perfectly well that Connor didn’t need a pistol to defend himself. He could simply clout the young man into next week with one blow from his massive fist.
“And I was told the English never produced anything of value at all.” Connor looked the man up and down. “Apparently, it’s true.”
The man’s dark eyes narrowed in an expression eerily similar to Connor’s. “Why, you—”
“May I introduce you to your charming cousin Crispin, son,” the duke said dryly, polishing off his wine. “It’s fortunate you returned before he could gamble, drink and whore away my entire fortune.”
“Archibald!”
His sister’s scandalized tones appeared to have little effect on the duke. He simply held out his wineglass so a footman could refill it. “No need for histrionics, Astrid. It’s not as if the lad was going to live long enough to inherit anyway. Given his delightful disposition and his penchant for cheating at cards and dallying with married women, someone is bound to kill him before I croak my last. He may be one of the finest swordsmen in all of London, but that’s not going to stop some jealous husband from shooting him in the back.”
Lady Astrid shrank back into her seat, two spots of color burning high on her cheekbones.
