Some Like It Wild

by Teresa Medeiros

  “Let’s have done with this!” Munroe shouted, flexing his hands on the balcony rail. “My tea is cooling.”

  The soldiers retreated to either side of the platform. The hangman rested his hand on the lever. For the first time, Connor saw the familiar tattoo of a serpent writhing on the bulging muscles of his upper arm. Hope surged in his heart, forcing him to bite back a grin.

  That grin faded with the first ugly call of “Hang the bastard!”

  “Stretch his miserable neck!”

  “Hang him! Hang him!” the onlookers began to shout in unison, the virulence of their rising chant making even the soldiers look uneasy.

  Connor watched as one of the gawkers reached into his picnic basket and retrieved a shiny red tomato. As it came sailing through the air, he braced himself, helpless to avoid its impact.

  But the tomato hit the soldier closest to him square in the face, eliciting a startled yelp. The man was still swiping pulp from his eyes when a fat cabbage flew past Connor, striking the second soldier so hard it knocked him clean off the platform. Suddenly the air was full of flying produce, all of it aimed at the hapless redcoats. Before long, they were all staggering about, half blind and cursing.

  That quickly, Connor had the irons unlocked. As the chains clanked to the platform, Brodie jerked off his hangman’s hood and tossed him a pistol, his gold tooth winking in the middle of his familiar grin.

  Connor watched in amazement as the crowd took advantage of the chaos they had created. They dropped their parasols and whipped off their hats and bonnets in one smooth motion to reveal that most of them were men. This time when they reached into the picnic baskets, their hands didn’t emerge with produce but with pistols. Pistols they quickly trained on the English soldiers.

  Connor swung his own pistol toward the balcony only to find it deserted. Munroe had always been a coward when not backed by a battalion of soldiers. When Connor saw a single horse with a lone red-coated rider go thundering down the road in a cloud of dust, he knew that the colonel had beat a wise and hasty retreat, preferring to run so he could live to fight another day.

  As Connor and Brodie descended the steps, the redcoats reluctantly tossed down their weapons, realizing they were both outnumbered and out-armed. After that, it only took a handful of men to round them up and herd them toward the gatehouse, where they could be safely secured before they had time to gather their wits and decide to hang the whole lot of them.

  As Connor tucked his pistol in the waistband of his breeches, a woman appeared at the bottom of the hill. Throwing off her cumbersome black cloak, she came sprinting up the hill and into his arms, her face alight with joy.

  Connor lifted her clean off the ground, crushing her to his chest while sweeping her in a wide circle. “You wee fool! I always said you had more courage than common sense and now you’ve gone and proved it.”

  She beamed up at him as he reluctantly set her on her feet. “We didn’t have any choice. The duke is on his way here with a full pardon from the king, but we knew he wouldn’t arrive in time to save you. We had to do something.”

  He glowered at her. “So you decided to just rush in and rescue me all on your own.”

  “Well, not exactly…”

  She stepped aside, giving him a clear view of the rest of his rescuers for the first time. He spotted Crispin first, surrounded by a dozen or more cocky young bucks, most of them still grinning with delight.

  Crispin sauntered forward, jerking a thumb at his friends. “Most of them were bored with the brothels and the gambling tables and wanted a more scintillating challenge than just dunking some hapless stranger in a horse trough.”

  “And what about you?” Connor asked. “Were you bored as well?”

  Crispin shrugged, keeping his face carefully bland. “I figured it was the least I could do after what my mother did to you.”

  “We won’t have to worry about Lady Astrid anymore,” Pamela assured him, shooting Crispin an awkward glance. “When the duke found out what she did, he had her committed to Bedlam. She has private quarters with a private nurse. He believed it would be kinder than Newgate.”

  Connor studied the fresh tomato spattered across Crispin’s cheek and down the front of his shirt. “Did you suffer from friendly fire, lad?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it friendly.” Crispin’s eyes narrowed. “I’m afraid some of us don’t have very good aim.”

  “On the contrary,” Sophie said, twirling her ruffled parasol as she sashayed forward. “Some of us have perfect aim.”

  “Does this make us even then?” Crispin asked her, swiping tomato pulp from his cheek.

  “I should say not. You still called me an awful actress.”

  “Well, you called me an awful man.”

  “You are an awful man.”

  “I’m a better man than you are an actress.”

  Biting off a strangled shriek of rage, Sophie spun around and went storming off, with Crispin fast on her heels.

  Pamela sighed. “Do you think she’ll ever forgive him?”

  “Not if she’s smart,” Connor replied with a knowing smirk. “Although maybe we should have warned him about the parasol.”

  His smile faded as a second group approached and he began to recognize many of his own clansmen. They were men he had ridden with for years before becoming a highwayman. Young Callum, no longer a gangly boy, but a man. Handsome Donel, whose sly tongue was always getting him into trouble. Cocky, rawboned Kieran—the dearest friend he’d ever had. And a host of others who had once been as close to him as brothers.

  “How?” he whispered hoarsely. “How did you come to be here?”

  Pamela stepped aside as the men parted to reveal a woman in a stylish pink bonnet. She shyly came forward, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered, golden-haired man who was eyeing Connor with more than a hint of wariness.

  Connor’s breath caught in his throat as the woman lifted her chin, revealing the face beneath the bonnet. He had once known her as a freckled moppet with a wild tangle of strawberry curls. Now she was a striking young woman with an adoring husband and two freckled moppets of her own.

  “My wee kitten,” he whispered, touching a trembling hand to her cheek.

  “You’re the only one I’ve ever allowed to call me that, you know,” Catriona said, tears shining in her misty gray eyes. “I thought I was going mad when I saw you in London. I thought I’d conjured you up out of thin air because I still missed you so badly. But when we ran into Pamela and her men when we were on the way here to try to stop them from hanging you, I discovered that you had been real all along.”

  Her pretty face crumpled as she threw her arms around his neck just as she used to do when she was a little girl. Connor squeezed his eyes shut and crushed her against him. The last time he’d held her like this, they had been two terrified children with only each other to cling to in a world gone mad. Now when they stepped out of each other’s embrace, there would be other arms waiting to enfold them.

  Connor reluctantly surrendered her to her husband, watching as the handsome Englishman whisked a perfectly starched handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to her.

  The two men sized each other up for several minutes before Simon finally said, “I’m relieved to know I won’t have to worry about you returning from beyond the grave to haunt me.”

  Connor studied him through narrowed eyes. “If you ever treat her badly, I can haunt you even more easily from this side of the grave.”

  Simon gave him a lazy grin. “You know—I can’t wait for you to meet your namesake. Our own little Connor can scowl just as fiercely when we make him wash behind his ears.”

  Still chuckling, he led his wife to the shade of a nearby elm, leaving Connor standing there with his mouth hanging open.

  When Pamela slipped her arm through his, he said, “They have a lad named Connor. Did you know that?”

  “I did. And a little girl named Francesca,” she gently informed him.

 
“Francesca,” he whispered.

  It was the name he and Catriona had known their mother by. She had kept her secrets close to her heart, preventing him from knowing her as well as he would have liked. And she had died far too young, preventing him from knowing her as long as he would have liked. But to have known her at all had been a great privilege.

  He turned to Pamela as something occurred to him. “If Catriona was here the whole time, then why did you pretend to be my sister?”

  “Oh, please! I knew I could play the role of your sister far more convincingly than she could.”

  “Ah, yes, that kiss was very convincing.”

  She rested her hands on her hips. “You were the one who kissed me.”

  “Only after you begged. And I should point out that you kissed me back. With a great deal of sisterly enthusiasm.”

  “Well, I have always wanted a brother,” she admitted.

  He cupped her cheek in his hand, stroking his thumb over the softness of her lips. “What about a husband? Would you care to have one of those instead?”

  “Hmmmm…I’m not sure. Since your father is doing so well and has even abandoned his chair for a walking stick, you may not be able to make me a duchess for quite some time.” She sighed. “I’m just not sure I could settle for being a mere marchioness.”

  Connor tugged her into his arms with a growl. “Have you forgotten that we’re back in the Highlands, you wicked lass? If you refuse my suit this time, I’ll just get Brodie to help me kidnap you and force you to marry me at gunpoint. Then I’ll keep you chained to my bed until I can persuade you that you belong there.”

  “Which, if memory serves me correctly,” Pamela replied breathlessly, “would probably take about three minutes.” She lowered her eyes shyly. “If you must know, I was thinking that we should probably stop at Gretna Green on the way back to England and let one of those blacksmiths marry us. I wouldn’t want our first babe to be born on the wrong side of the blanket.”

  “Our first babe?” Connor scowled down at her until comprehension slowly dawned, leaving him slack-jawed with astonishment.

  He nudged her chin up with his finger and Pamela nodded, joyful tears shimmering in those extraordinary eyes of hers. “I’m afraid your devoted efforts to get an heir on me as quickly as possible have met with success.”

  He reached down to cup a reverent hand over her belly, marveling that the child they had made could be growing inside her slender body.

  She grinned up at him through her tears. “If it’s a boy, do you think your father is going to insist that we call him Percy?”

  “If he does, I’m afraid I’ll have to shoot him.”

  Pamela laughed aloud as he swept her into a dizzying embrace, raining kisses down on her upturned face.

  A disgusted voice interrupted their joyful reunion. “Now, there’s somethin’ I never thought I’d live to see.”

  Connor reluctantly lifted his head. “And what’s that, Brodie?”

  The Highlander shook his head, his braids waggling in mock disapproval. “Connor Kincaid surrenderin’ to the English without even puttin’ up a fight.”

  “Oh, he put up quite a fight,” Pamela assured him, patting Connor’s chest.

  “I most certainly did,” Connor said. “But even the bravest and boldest warrior knows when it’s time to lay down his arms.”

  Ignoring Brodie’s snort, Connor crushed Pamela’s lips beneath his in a tender and fierce kiss, joyfully surrendering his freedom and his future to the bonny English lass who had captured his heart.

  Epilogue

  As Pamela carried a piping hot tray of shortbread onto the terrace, a plump yellow kitten darted between her ankles, nearly sending her sprawling. While she regained her balance, swearing softly beneath her breath, the cat retreated to lick its front paw and give her an offended look—making her feel as if she had deliberately set out to crush a kitten or two beneath her heel before the morning was done.

  The kitten and its four siblings delighted in frolicking beneath their feet at every opportunity. Even the shortest stroll or jaunt down the stairs had become an exercise in survival. At least the mother cat was content to spend her days stretched out on the low stone wall surrounding the terrace, basking in the warm September sun.

  Pamela might not have been so clumsy if she hadn’t felt so ungainly. But the babe inside of her seemed to be growing as fast as the kittens.

  As she approached the wrought-iron table where Connor was jotting down figures in a set of leather ledgers, she held the pan out in front of her, displaying it proudly. “Look, darling. I baked you some more shortbread.”

  Connor groaned. “Oh, dear Lord, not again.”

  Pushing the ledgers aside, she set the pan on the table. “I do believe it’s my best effort yet.”

  “Well, I can’t argue with that,” he said, tentatively poking the smoldering lump of dough with his finger. “You know—I don’t understand why you don’t just let Cookie make the shortbread. After all, the duke did send her all the way from London to be our cook.”

  “And when would she have time? Ever since she and Brodie eloped, I can’t get either one of them out of bed.”

  Connor slipped an arm around her waist, drawing her into his lap and nuzzling her neck. “Perhaps we should follow their example.”

  Pamela wrapped her arms around his neck, shivering with delight. Connor had loved her body when it was new to him and he loved it even more now that it was ripe with his child. She knew at least one Scot who did have insatiable carnal appetites and she took great delight in satisfying them at every opportunity.

  She rested her head on his shoulder, feeling as warm and content as the mama cat as she gazed out over the breathtaking vista before her.

  She had finally gotten her cottage by the sea. Who knew that one of the duke’s largest holdings was on the east coast of Scotland? The stone manor house perched on the majestic cliffs overlooking the North Sea was so vast and sprawling that she and Connor still both got lost occasionally and had to find their way back to each other.

  For a semi-reformed highwayman, Connor had settled quite comfortably into the role of lord of the manor. He’d spent the last few months welcoming the Scottish tenants back to the land and teaching them how to manage the sheep that had displaced them. Swayed by his influence, several of the local English landowners had begun to do the same.

  “I got a letter from Sophie today,” Pamela informed him. “She’s coming for Christmas.”

  “Uh-oh,” he said. “I got a letter from Crispin today. He’s coming for Christmas too.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t tell her. We’ll let it be a surprise,” Pamela said, already gleefully anticipating her sister’s reaction. “I’m afraid Crispin is going to be quite distraught when he discovers she’s cajoled the duke into sending her to Paris to study acting as soon as the war is officially over.”

  Connor snorted. “If she takes to the stage again, Crispin won’t be the only one distraught. They might just decide to bring back the guillotine.”

  Pamela began to count potential guests on her fingers. “So if Sophie and Crispin and Catriona and Simon and their brood and your clansmen and their families and the duke all come for Christmas, we’re going to have quite a houseful.”

  Connor gently rested his hand on the impressive mound of her belly. “With any luck we’ll be able to add one more to the guest list before Christmas Day arrives.”

  “Ah, yes, wee Percy!”

  He gave her a look that made her glad he no longer carried a loaded pistol. At least not all the time.

  She offered him a tender kiss to soften his scowl. “If it’s a boy, we’ll call him David—Davey for short, just like your da,” she said, referring to the man who had finally given his mother a future—and a love—she could believe in.

  “And if it’s a girl,” Connor assured her, “we’ll call her Marianne, after your mother.”

  She rested her cheek against his, gazing out over the tum
ultuous sea. “Are you ever bored, my love? Do you ever miss being a highwayman?”

  “Are you joking? Between those bloodthirsty kittens and your shortbread, every day is a new adventure. I was more afraid this life would be too tame for a lass like you. A lass accustomed to swindling men out of their inheritances…and their hearts.”

  “Well, I might be a wee bit bored at this very minute,” she confessed, giving his ear a teasing nibble. “Perhaps I just need some big, strong highwayman to carry me off and have his way with me.”

  “Well, you don’t have to ask twice, lass.”

  She squealed as Connor swept her up in his arms and started across the terrace, his effortless strength making her feel as if she wasn’t the size of a small cow.

  “Look out!” she shrieked as one of the kittens darted into their path.

  He stepped over it without breaking his stride, as eager as she was to embark upon their next grand adventure.

  Acknowledgments

  Without my devoted readers, neither this book nor any other would be possible. I cherish your letters and e-mails and your bright, shining faces at my book signings. Thank you for opening your hearts to my characters and for making the story of my own life such a joyful one by allowing me to tell you the stories I’ve been given to tell. I treasure each and every one of you.

  About the Author

  New York Times bestseller TERESA MEDEIROS wrote her first novel at the age of twenty-one, introducing readers to one of the most beloved and versatile voices in romantic fiction. She has appeared on every national bestseller list, including the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly lists, and has been published in more than a dozen languages. Her numerous accolades include being a two-time recipient of the Waldenbooks Award for bestselling fiction. She makes her home in Kentucky and is never happier than when she has her grumpy cat (or her cheerful husband) in her arms. You can visit her website at www.teresamedeiros.com.