Page 66 of Some Like It Wild
Judging by the tears shining in the man’s eyes, he was probably thinking the exact same thing.
Tugging his hand from the duke’s, Connor took one step toward the portrait, then another, gazing up at it as if hypnotized. For an elusive moment, Pamela would have almost sworn she saw the glint of tears in his eyes as well.
“That’s my mother.”
Pamela shot a nervous look at the duke, puzzled by Connor’s expression and the lack of color in his face. “Yes, dear, of course it’s your mother,” she said carefully. “That’s why the duke had the portrait put on display. To honor you and her memory.”
“No,” he replied, his lips barely moving. “You don’t understand. That really is my mother.”
When she continued to gaze at him as if he’d lost his wits, he swung toward her, the look in his eyes so fierce she took an involuntary step backward. Ignoring her dismayed gasp, he reached down and carelessly snapped the delicate gold chain holding his mother’s locket.
He pried open the locket with his thumb and handed it back to her, his expression grim.
Pamela gazed down at the miniature within. The woman in this likeness had light brown hair gathered at the nape in a much simpler coif. Her face was suffused with a glow of happiness. She looked riper, wiser, more at peace with herself and the world. Different somehow yet still unmistakably the same woman in the duke’s portrait.
Pamela lifted her disbelieving eyes to Connor’s face, stunned comprehension slowly dawning. If he was this woman’s son, then he was also the duke’s son…and the man’s true heir. He was everything he had been pretending to be while she was nothing at all.
Without even realizing it, she began to back away from him.
She had been right all along. She was the one who didn’t belong here, the one who would never truly belong here. She might have set this absurd little farce in motion, but hers was a role she was never meant to play. She should have remained backstage, far away from the glare of the footlights and the avid gazes of the audience.
Connor watched her retreat from him, bewilderment darkening his eyes.
By the time Pamela saw the shadows come creeping out of the crowd to surround them, it was too late.
Lady Astrid’s shrill voice rang out from the gallery, shattering the reverent hush that had fallen over the ballroom. “Arrest that man immediately! He’s an imposter!”
Chapter 26
The duke sat behind the immense desk in his study in his wheeled throne—judge, jury and executioner all wrapped up in one. The flames leaping on the hearth behind the desk might as well have been springing from the yawning mouth of hell itself.
Not even the constable Astrid had summoned to arrest Connor and Pamela dared to defy his authority, although judging from the disapproving set of the man’s thin lips, he would have liked nothing more. He stood stiffly at attention by the door, ready to intervene at the slightest encouragement from the duke.
At the duke’s command, the constable’s battered and bloodied men had been banished to the corridor, where they were passing the time nursing their bruises and testing for loose teeth.
Connor had not gone down without a fight. Especially not after he had seen the men wrench Pamela’s delicate wrists behind her and clap them in irons. It had taken almost a dozen men to subdue him and if one of them hadn’t had the foresight to wrest away the loaded pistol he had whipped from his plaid before he could aim and fire, someone would have been carried from the ballroom feet first.
Connor and Pamela were sitting in the leather wingback chairs in front of the desk like a pair of disobedient children awaiting a scolding.
Pamela rubbed her tender wrists, thankful that at least the duke had insisted their irons be removed. Judging by the murderous glances Connor kept throwing the constable, it might not have been his wisest decision.
She was still having difficulty looking at Connor. Still couldn’t quite comprehend that he wasn’t her highwayman after all, but the heir to a vast empire. How such a thing could have happened was beyond her comprehension. She smoothed her rumpled skirt to give her trembling hands something to occupy them. Her pretty new gown had been torn and stained when the constable’s men had dragged her out of the ballroom in front of their shocked guests.
The duke steepled his fingers beneath his bony chin and gave them both a long, hard look. “Let me make sure I have this perfectly clear. The two of you came here to Warrick Park to deliberately swindle me out of both my fortune and my title. You shamelessly used lies and trickery to gain my trust and affection and to rob my nephew of his rightful inheritance.”
“That pretty much sums it up,” Connor said, managing to look utterly unrepentant as he leaned back in the chair and folded his brawny arms over his chest.
The duke’s shrewd gaze locked on him. “And now that you’ve been caught with your greedy little hands in the till, you claim to have miraculously discovered that you’re exactly who you were pretending to be all along—Percy Ambrose Bartholomew Reginald Cecil Smythe, Marquess of Eddywhistle and heir to the duchy of Warrick.”
Connor visibly winced. “Why in the name of God would any man in his right mind name his firstborn son Percy?”
The duke stiffened. “It was my father’s name. And I’ll have you know that Percy has been a proud name along the northern border of England for generations. Why, the Percys spent years routing the Scots and…” He trailed off at the look in Connor’s eye.
Connor sat up straight in the chair, gripping its armrests. “I’m not any happier about this than you are.” He pointed at the door. “If the woman in that portrait is my mother, then that means you’re—”
The duke eyed him coolly, daring him to continue.
Connor swallowed before saying softly, “It means you’re the miserable cheating bastard who broke her heart.”
