Page 48 of Some Like It Wild
She lifted her chin, returning their avid gazes with a cool stare of her own. That was when a familiar face near the hearth caught her eye.
“Oh, no,” she breathed, draining her champagne in a single gulp.
“What is it?”
“It’s Viscount Pemberly. The man I told you about. The one who was trying to force Sophie into becoming his mistress.” Tightening her grip on Connor’s arm, she sought to steer him in a different direction.
“Don’t be so hasty, lass,” he said, his jovial tone belied by the wicked gleam in his eye. “I’ve been wanting to make the fellow’s acquaintance ever since you told me about him.”
“You offered to kill him for me,” she reminded him.
His grin only deepened. “Precisely.”
Setting his own half-empty champagne glass on a footman’s tray, Connor made a beeline for the hearth, leaving her with no choice but to accompany him or be dragged across the floor behind him. Given that the viscount’s wife was hanging off his arm, Pemberly didn’t look any happier to see her than she was to see him.
“Why, Miss Darby,” he said, flashing his white teeth in a grimace of a smile. “How lovely to see you again. I just heard the news about your rather stunning reversal of fortune.”
“And just how is it that you and the marquess’s fiancée came to be acquainted?” his wife inquired with frosty politeness.
The viscount’s handsome face flushed. “Now, dear, you know I’ve always been a devoted patron of the arts—especially the theater. I was a great admirer of Miss Darby’s talented mother.”
“And of her charming young sister, from what I’ve heard,” Connor said, earning the nobleman an even icier look from his wife.
Pemberly suddenly seemed to be having great difficulty swallowing. He clawed at his cravat, seeking to loosen it. “And just how is dear little Sophie?”
Pamela glanced behind them, thankful Lady Astrid hadn’t yet made her entrance. She couldn’t very well tell the viscount she’d left her sister sulking in the window seat because Pamela got to go off to a party in her pretty new things while Sophie was expected to stay behind and turn down the bed.
Before she could respond, Connor edged closer to the viscount, the move emphasizing the disparity in their heights. “Dear little Sophie is under my protection now. If any man tries to make improper advances toward the lass, his own fortunes are going to suffer a stunning—and perhaps fatal—reversal.”
The viscount winced as his wife dug her fingernails into his arm. “Come, Sherman,” she said, her voice cracking like a whip. “I want you to take me home immediately. We havemuchto discuss.”
Connor watched them go, a lazy smile flirting with his lips. “’Twill be a slow death. And far more painful than any I could have devised.”
Pamela laughed and shook her head, almost pitying the poor viscount. “Remind me to never make an enemy of you.”
Connor brushed her cheek with the backs of his knuckles, his gaze searching her face. “Would you consider making a lover of me?”
At first Pamela thought he was teasing her, but all traces of humor had disappeared from his eyes. All she could see reflected in their smoky depths was her misty-eyed reflection. As Connor leaned toward her, her eyes fluttered shut and her mouth went dry with longing, already anticipating the taste of his lips, the velvety caress of his tongue against hers.
“Tsk, tsk,” someone said, practically in Pamela’s ear. “This is exactly why Uncle sent Mummy to chaperone the two of you. He’ll be quite disappointed to learn she’s faked a megrim and is languishing in Lady Newton’s dressing room with a cool cloth on her brow.”
They jerked apart to find Crispin leaning lazily against the mantel. His eyes were sparkling with a malicious glee that reminded Pamela of the duke.
She glared at him. “Did your uncle send you to chaperone us as well, or are we here to play nursemaid to you?”
“Neither. Actually, I was hoping my dear cousin here could settle an argument for me.”
“What sort of argument?” Connor asked warily.
“One that could easily lead to bloodshed if not settled quickly and definitively.”
Seizing Pamela by the hand, Crispin dragged her toward a group of guests gathered around the towering bookshelves at the far end of the drawing room, leaving Connor with no choice but to follow.
“Byron versus Burns,” Crispin said to the rapt group of young people clustered around him. “Who was blessed with the most eloquent tongue? The most persuasive pen? A living libertine or a dead Scot? That is the question I must put before you on this night.”
“I’ll vote for any poet who can romance my Emily into letting me steal a peek at her ankles,” a freckled young man called out, earning hoots of laughter from his male friends and a cuff on the arm from the blushing Emily.
While the laughter was dying down, Crispin slid a thin leather-bound volume from the shelf. “I shall begin tonight’s experiment by reading to you from Lord Byron’sWhen We Two Parted.” He thumbed through the pages until he found what he was looking for, cleared his throat and began to read:
