Chapter 17

W hat's wrong with what you're wearing right now?" Connor asked cautiously, prepared to duck should Pamela hurl another unexpected object at him—a lace garter or perhaps the dressing-table stool.

He'd seen her stand down an entire regiment of English soldiers armed with nothing but a smile. He never thought he'd see her trembling on the brink of hysteria over a rumpled heap of taffeta.

She eyed him disbelievingly. "Are you blind as well as daft? I only had two suitable frocks of my own and I wore both of those the first day we were here. I've already been reduced to borrowing Sophie's gowns."

Sophie snorted and rolled her eyes. "Borrowing? Destroying is more like it. She returned my favorite gown with the sleeve all slashed to ribbons! And that's not even counting the damage she did to my prettiest pair of slippers with her enormous feet."

Ignoring her sister's pout, Pamela waved a hand toward the pile of garments on the bed. "I've tried on every one of her gowns and each one is less flattering than the last."

"I've always been more inclined to notice the female in the frock than the frock itself," Connor admitted. "If you must know, most men would rather do away with the frock altogether."

"Well, I may have to do just that." Clutching her skirt in both fists, Pamela lifted the scalloped hem of the pastel pink confection she was modeling at the moment, giving him an enticing glimpse of trim ankles and a pair of bare feet that looked incredibly dainty to him, especially compared to his own. "Because this one is at least five inches too short."

"Indeed," he murmured, afraid to say more.

"And just look at this bodice. It's a disaster!" She dropped the skirt and cupped her hands beneath her breasts, hiking them upward. "If I so much as take one deep breath, my bosoms are going to pop right out for all the world to see!"

Since she had invited him to look, Connor gazed his fill at the luscious globes threatening to spill over the top of the low-cut bodice. He could still remember how warm and soft they'd felt in his hands. "And that would be a bad thing?" he asked, forced to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.

"It most certainly would! Especially since Sophie just told me she overheard the servants in the kitchen saying we've been invited to our first soiree tomorrow evening. I can't even find a gown to wear to breakfast. How am I supposed to dress for a soiree!"

"I'm not even sure what a soiree is," Connor confessed.

"It's a deliciously sophisticated French word for party," Sophie offered with a superior little smirk.

"We're not in France," Connor retorted. "Why don't they just call it a party?"

Pamela collapsed to a sitting position on the foot of the bed, her proud shoulders slumped in defeat. "It's going to create enough of a scandal when everyone discovers the future Duke of Warrick has pledged his troth to an actress's daughter who was born on the wrong side of the blanket. Once I make an appearance in my ill-fitting, unfashionable gowns, no one will believe you could have fallen in love with me. Not when they can plainly see how common I truly am." She bowed her head, her voice fading until it was barely audible. "I shall be ridiculous in their eyes and I will make you ridiculous, too."

Connor's amusement faded as Pamela's words slowly sank in. She wasn't ashamed of him. She was afraid she would shame him. Connor Kincaid. A dirty, thieving Highlander with rope scars on his throat and a price on his head.

He ached to touch her, but he was afraid of further bruising her already battered pride.

Knitting his hands at the small of his back to keep them off of her, he turned to address Sophie. "Look after your sister. Get her a cool rag for her eyes and ring for breakfast." He turned toward the door, then turned back. "Order her a hot bath as well…with some of those flowers or leaves they sprinkle in to make the water smell nice."

Sophie gaped at him, plainly insulted at being treated like the servant she was pretending to be. "Aye, my lord," she said, bobbing him a mocking curtsy. "Will his lordship be requiring anything else?"

He stole a look at Pamela, who was eyeing him with equal bewilderment. "No. You can trust me to take care of the rest."

Connor strode through the long corridors of Warrick Park as if he were already its master. As he rounded a corner without breaking his stride, a pair of young maidservants dusting the wainscoting exchanged a nervous glance and went scurrying out of his way.

He arrived back at the morning room to find it already deserted. A lone footman was removing dishes from the sideboard. When Connor cleared his throat, the man jumped as if he'd been shot. The silver platter in his hand slipped through his fingers and went crashing to the floor, scattering the remnants of the coddled eggs across the priceless Aubusson carpet.

Connor had no time to waste on apologies or pleasantries. "Where can I find the duke?"

"Your father, my lord?" The servant stole a furtive glance at the mantel clock. "At this time of the morning, you can usually find him in the portrait gallery."

Connor was already striding back down the corridor when he realized he had no idea where the portrait gallery was.

He stopped at the foot of the grand staircase in the entrance hall, raking a hand through his hair in frustration. He could pinpoint his exact location in the Highland wilderness using nothing more than the angle of the sun and the thickness of the moss growing on the side of a tree, but he couldn't seem to navigate this damn maze of a house.

He was about to return to the morning room to demand directions when a rhythmic squeak came floating down the stairs. Connor had heard that sound before, each time some flustered footman rolled the duke's wheeled chair into a room with his master berating him the entire time for going too fast or not fast enough.

Connor took the stairs two at a time, turning left at the second-story landing. His brisk strides soon carried him to a long, spacious gallery with a balcony overlooking the darkened ballroom on one side and a wall lined with formal portraits of all shapes and sizes on the other. The flickering wall lamps failed to completely dispel the gloom.

The duke's wheeled chair had been silenced and a footman was just disappearing through a far door, having been dismissed by his master. The duke sat all alone, huddled in his chair with a shawl wrapped around his shoulders and a lap rug draped over his wasted legs.

He was gazing up at the wall, his attention so transfixed, he might have been the only living creature in the house.

Connor had to steel his heart against another one of those disturbing pangs of pity. This man was his enemy, he reminded himself. If the duke was alone, it was because he had driven away everyone who had ever loved him.

Connor's strides slowed. For the first time since arriving at Warrick Hall, he truly felt like the intruder he was. As he traversed that seemingly endless gallery, his steps as stealthy as a thief's, the Warrick ancestors in their ornate garments and gilded frames seemed to be sneering down their noses at him, mocking him for daring to pretend to be one of them.

His curiosity sharpened as he approached the duke's chair. He could not imagine any likeness that could have so captured the man's jaded attentions. His curiosity shifted to bewilderment as he realized the duke wasn't gazing up at a portrait, but at a large blank space on the wall between two portraits. Judging by the faded condition of the gold-flecked wallpaper that surrounded the perfect square, the space had not always been empty.

Connor would have sworn the man wasn't even aware of his presence, which was why he started when the duke said softly, "Everyone believes I had her portraits removed because I despised her for leaving me. But the truth was that I simply could not bear to look upon them. Couldn't bear to be reminded every miserable day of my life that I'd been fool enough to lose her." He shook his head. "I said such terrible things to her. Made such dreadful threats. I was trying to frighten her into not leaving me, but all I succeeded in doing was driving her away. What I should have done—what I was too young and proud and foolish to do—was fall on my knees and beg her to forgive me."

He sighed, his hollow-eyed gaze still devouring that empty wall. "I come here every day and gaze up at the place where her portrait used to hang and I can still see her. Those long, shiny curls she would let me brush before bedtime. Her laughing eyes. That maddening dimple that would only appear when she was teasing me."

Connor gazed up at the wall with equal fascination, almost able to see the woman the duke was describing.

The duke wheeled his chair around to face him. "I suppose you find me ridiculous. She would laugh in my face if she could see me now. She never did have any patience for my pride. Or my weaknesses."

"After she deserted you, why didn't you divorce her or have her declared dead so you could remarry and produce another heir?" Connor asked, genuinely curious.

"Because I knew there would be no point in it. She would always be the wife of my heart. Do you know that I never slept with another woman after she left me? All these years I've been faithful to a ghost." A bleak chuckle escaped him. "That would please her too, you know. She'd tell me I got just what I deserved for breaking our marriage vows—and her heart." He tipped his head back to meet Connor's gaze, his expression defiant. "How you must hate me!"

"I don't hate you," Connor told him, relieved to be able to pull a thread of truth out of his own web of lies.

The canny glitter had returned to the duke's eyes. "Ah, but you pity me, which is even more galling to a sick old man who was once as brash and robust as you. I suppose I should be grateful to you and your Miss Darby. Until you returned and told me what had become of your mother, I was still able to pretend she might come walking back through my door someday—as young and beautiful as on the day she left me. But now that I know she's well and truly gone, I have one more reason to welcome death. Although given the blackened condition of my soul," he added dryly, "there's little chance we'll ever be reunited, even on the other side of that great void."

"If you had the chance," Connor asked softly, "whose forgiveness would you seek? God's? Or hers?"

"Since I'm not likely to receive mercy from either one of them, perhaps I should content myself with asking for yours."

Connor went down on one knee in front of the chair, putting them at eye level just as he had on the first day he'd arrived at Warrick Park. He placed one hand on the man's bony knee, willing to beg if he had to. "It's not your remorse or your regrets I need today, your grace, but something else entirely."

The duke laid his hand atop Connor's, giving it a surprisingly hearty squeeze. "Anything, son. Anything at all."

When a timid rap sounded on her bedchamber door that afternoon, Pamela swung it open to find two young maidservants tittering and bobbing like a pair of fledgling pigeons.

"G'day, miss," chirped the plump, rosy-cheeked one with the carrot-colored curls peeping out from beneath her mobcap. "We've come to fetch you. Lord Eddywhistle requests your presence in the ballroom."

"Lord Eddywhistle?" Pamela repeated, momentarily baffled. Despite enjoying a hearty breakfast and a long hot bath, her head was still a little foggy from her embarrassing bout of tears. "Oh! You mean the marquess!"

"Aye, miss, the marquess." The tall, willowy maid tossed her pale yellow braid over her shoulder. "And it weren't so much a request, really, as a demand."

"Or a command," her plump companion offered helpfully. "I believe his exact words was"—she lowered her voice in a passable imitation of Connor's burr—"‘If the lass balks, remind her I'm goin' to be the duke someday and my word will be law.'"

Pamela cast a disbelieving glance over her shoulder at her sister. Sophie had been stretched out on her stomach on the bed, devouring the latest issue of La Belle Assemblée , which she'd nicked from Lady Astrid's bedchamber, but she was now watching the proceedings at the door with avid interest.

"He actually said his word would be law, did he? That's odd," Pamela muttered. "I didn't think he was particularly fond of the law." She surveyed the maids' eager young faces. "You can tell Lord Eddywhistle I'll be down as soon as I can find something suitable to wear. Which could be next week," she added beneath her breath.

The maids exchanged a dismayed glance. "Oh, no, miss," the slender one said. "That won't be necessary. He said all you needed to wear was your dressing gown."

"Excuse me? He wants me to wear my dressing gown downstairs in the middle of the day?"

"Aye, miss." The plump little maid's brow puckered in a determined frown. "His instructions was very clear on that matter. Very clear indeed."

Pamela shook her head, wondering what could have possessed Connor to make such a peculiar request. After a moment's thought, she squared her shoulders and jerked a fresh knot in the sash of her faded dressing gown. She ran her fingers through the loose curls piled atop her head to find them still a little damp from her bath.

"I suppose we should go then. We certainly wouldn't want to keep our future lord and master waiting, would we?"

As she sailed from the chamber, accompanied by her beaming escort, Sophie scrambled down from the bed to follow.

Pamela went marching into the ballroom with Sophie trotting at her heels. Her temper had been rising with each step and she was determined to give Connor Kincaid a piece of her mind for daring to summon her in such a high-handed manner.

But when she crossed the threshold and saw what awaited her, the pieces of her mind scattered, leaving her without a coherent thought in her head.

The ballroom had been transformed. If not for the sparkling cut-glass chandeliers and the row of open French windows on the far wall, she never would have recognized it as the same room that had housed yesterday's duel.

Almost every inch of space was occupied by bolts of fabric in a dizzying array of textures and colors. Dressmaker's dummies were scattered throughout the room, their voluptuous forms draped in luxurious lengths of silk and satin. Even the ancient suit of armor standing guard against the far wall had been recruited to model a mink tippet and a saucy little willow bonnet crowned by a towering plume of ostrich feathers.

"Oh, my!" Sophie exclaimed, slipping right past Pamela. She eyed the watercolor fashion plates that had been propped up on gilded easels throughout the room, swaying on her feet as if she might swoon. "I'm willing to wager they smuggled these right out of Paris! Aren't they the most exquisite things you've ever seen?"

A sea of expectant faces greeted Pamela, but she only had eyes for one of them. She stood frozen in place as Connor came wending his way through their ranks to greet her.

"What have you done?" she demanded, sounding nearly as breathless and prone to swoon as Sophie.

He shrugged his broad shoulders, as if assembling a virtual army of dressmakers and linen drapers was something a highwayman did every day. "I summoned them to start work on your trousseau."

"Do you even know what that word means?"

"It's a French word for—"

"Hush, Sophie," Pamela and Connor snapped in unison.

Sophie's wounded pout quickly shifted into a gasp of delight as a display of elegant silk slippers in a variety of sizes and a rainbow of colors caught her eye. Their gemstone buckles sparkled in the sunlight.

"The hardest part was getting them all to agree to close up shop for two days and work around the clock," Connor admitted, "but I'm quickly learning just how persuasive a title and the promise of a generous reward can be."

Pamela already knew exactly how persuasive he could be, even without a title or the promise of a reward. Judging from the bliss she had experienced at his skillful fingertips only last night, he could probably persuade a woman to do just about anything he wanted her to do, no matter how deliciously wicked or wanton.

"I can't do this," she said, taking a hasty step backward.

"And why not?" He narrowed his eyes and squared his freshly shaven jaw in an expression she was coming to know only too well. "You don't dare refuse me. You said it yourself, lass. I can't have my bride embarrassing herself—or me—in front of all of London."

His bride.

For a dizzying moment, it was only too easy to imagine herself on his arm, wearing one of the elegant gowns sketched in the fashion plates as she gazed up at him adoringly. Only too easy to forget that they were only playing roles and that her part in their little farce would be over long before the curtain rose for the second act.

She eyed a bolt of shimmering sea-green crepe with open longing, reminding herself that even the most miniscule of roles required a costume.

"Very well, my lord," she said softly. "I shall strive not to disgrace your good name."

Grinning his approval, Connor crooked a finger at his waiting minions.

Connor felt a brief pang of sympathy as they rushed forward, descending upon Pamela in a flurry of pins and feathers and measuring tapes and Brussels lace, all chattering at once in English and French with a smattering of Italian tossed in. She shot him a panicked look before she was swallowed up completely.

Knowing his work here was done, he started for the door only to find Sophie standing all alone, her pretty face blanched nearly green with envy.

Following her wistful gaze to the dazzling array of slippers, Connor leaned down and whispered, "Why don't you pick out a bonny pair or two for yourself and pretend they're for your mistress? Since she ruined your finest pair with her enormous feet , I'm sure she wouldn't mind."

Sophie's face lit up and for a minute Connor was afraid she was going to forget all about her role of maidservant and throw her grateful arms around his neck. But she stopped herself just in time. Lowering her eyes, she bobbed a deferent curtsy. "Aye, my lord. Whatever you wish, my lord."

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.