Page 47 of Some Like It Wild
Connor watched her scamper over to the display of slippers, wishing her sister could be so easily seduced by a taffeta bow or a shiny buckle.
Chapter 18
Pamela felt as if she were floating down the grand staircase. Her white satin slippers gently hugged her feet without pinching. With each step the hem of her evening gown rippled over the lustrous pearl buckles that adorned them. The gown was fashioned from sea-green crepe with a pleated skirt that seemed to waltz with each graceful sway of her hips and a rounded bodice trimmed in blonde lace that displayed the creamy swell of her bosoms to their best advantage without threatening to evict them every time she drew in a deep breath.
She was doubly grateful for that when she spotted Connor waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. She sucked in an uneven breath, her heart betraying her with a stumbling lurch.
Apparently, while her new French modiste was cobbling together a handful of dresses she could wear until the rest of her trousseau was completed, Connor’s tailor had paid him a visit.
His transformation from highwayman to gentleman was now complete. He wore the elegant doeskin breeches, striped gold waistcoat and black cutaway tail coat as if he’d been born to them. Since the clinging breeches were cut to just below the knees, a pair of plain silk stockings hugged his powerful calves. He wore polished black shoes and a snowy white cravat tied in a simple bow that complemented the sun-bronzed strength of his jaw.
Oddly enough, he didn’t look any less dangerous than he had the first time they’d met. Instead of polishing away his rugged edges, the trappings of civilization only sharpened them.
Pamela breathed a sigh of relief to see he hadn’t succumbed to the fickle whims of fashion by cutting his hair. He was still wearing it tied back at the nape. Her fingers twitched with a wicked urge to tug away that velvet ribbon and run her fingers through it.
As she neared the bottom of the stairs, trailing her gloved fingers lightly along the mahogany baluster, he sketched her a graceful bow. “Miss Darby.”
“My lord,” she replied primly, bobbing him an equally graceful curtsy as she stepped off the last stair.
He straightened, his eyes gleaming with appreciation. As he leaned down to whisper in her ear, his warm breath ruffled the upswept coils of her hair, sending a delicious little shiver down her spine. “I trust you were finally able to replace all of those raggedy drawers of yours.”
“Oh, my new drawers won’t be ready until next week. So I decided not to wear any,” she informed him, smiling sweetly.
His mouth fell open but before he could respond, a shrill creaking warned them that a footman was pushing the duke’s wheeled chair across the marble floor toward them.
“I just came to see you off,” the duke said. “Astrid is almost ready. She’ll be along in a few minutes.”
As Pamela exchanged a guarded glance with Connor, the duke rubbed his hands together, his eyes sparkling with an emotion that could have been either malice or glee. “I might be too weak to venture out myself, but you didn’t think I was going to send the two of you off without a chaperone, did you? I’m not so close to the grave that I can’t remember what it was like to be young and desperately in love.”
Pamela plucked a speck of invisible lint off the ivory silk of her elbow-length gloves, suddenly even more eager to avoid both men’s eyes.
“So is it true what they’re saying about her? That her mother was an opera dancer?”
“I heard she was anactress.”
“Well, I heard her mother was a common little…” An inaudible whisper was followed by a flurry of malicious female titters. “That came straight from Lord Biffledown’s wife. Apparently her husband had somedealingswith the woman.”
“What can one expect?” interjected a new voice that was so tart one could almost smell vinegar in the air. “After all, he’s been living among those savage Scots for all these years. He probably believes a lady is any female who wears shoes and bathes once a month—whether she needs to or not.”
One of the voices dropped to a sly murmur. “I’ve heard the Scots are cursed with insatiable carnal appetites. Perhaps he was afraid a true lady wouldn’t be able to satisfy him.”
“If what his tailor is bandying about town regarding hismeasurementsis true, I wouldn’t mind trying.”
That droll pronouncement was greeted by a scandalized ripple of laughter and a flutter of fans.
Connor inclined his head toward Pamela and whispered, “I do believe that’s our cue.”
They stood in the foyer of Lord Newton’s stately Wimpole Street town house, waiting for the red-faced footman to announce them. Pamela was staring straight ahead, her cheeks burning with humiliation and her spine stiff with pride. It hadn’t surprised her in the least when Lady Astrid had abandoned them at the front door, drawing a hare’s foot from her reticule and claiming she needed to powder the shine from her nose.
Connor offered her his arm. She tucked her gloved hand in the crook of it.
As the liveried footman stepped into the arched doorway that led into the drawing room, an expectant hush fell over the guests. “The Marquess of Eddywhistle and Miss Pamela Darby,” he announced, his voice cracking like a lad’s in the first throes of manhood.
Pamela felt a petty twinge of satisfaction as the circle of women who had been gathered by the doorway went scurrying off in different directions like a pack of wide-eyed rats that had just spotted a hawk circling overhead.
The spacious drawing room was occupied by a veritable crush of guests. The pungent scents of the wax wall lights mingled with the heady aroma of the freshly cut flowers decorating the tables and a variety of perfumes to form a cloying potpourri in the overheated, overcrowded room. Pamela was grateful the stays of her new gown allowed her room to breathe. Had she been wearing one of Sophie’s gowns, she would have probably fainted dead away.
As they drifted further into the room, accepting flutes of smuggled French champagne from a footman’s tray, the idle chatter resumed but the curious stares only intensified. The very women who had been denouncing Connor as a savage Scot only minutes before were now eyeing him with open appreciation. Had she not been on his arm, Pamela suspected he could have found any number of willing women to woo before the night was over.
