Free Some Like It Wild by Teresa Medeiros

piles of splintered sticks. A fretful squeaking emanated from the walls, warning her that she and her sister were not the tower’s only occupants.
    Perhaps it was only fitting that she be denied the sleep of the innocent. Now that she’d convinced Connor to help her swindle the duke out of his title and riches, she supposed she was no better than a common thief herself. She sighed, envying Sophie her untroubled conscience. She had always sworn she would walk through the fires of hell to protect her sister, but this was the first time she’d felt the flames tickling her toes.
    Her heavy eyelids were beginning to drift shut again when she heard the ghost of a sound outside the wooden door. She jerked, suddenly wide awake. The blanket slipped from her shoulders as she roseto her feet, afraid she was about to be rewarded for her vigilance by an uninvited visitor.
    She cast about for a weapon but all she could find was the leg from a splintered bedstead. She tested its weight in her hand, grimacing in dismay. Even a toy gun would have been a better comfort.
    Stealing a glance at Sophie to make sure she was still sleeping, Pamela crept toward the door. She wouldn’t have been surprised to find it locked—leaving them at the mercy of whoever held the key. But when she tugged the iron handle, the door inched open.
    She pressed her eye to the narrow crack.
    Connor Kincaid was sprawled in a wooden chair at the top of the stairs, his long legs stretched out in front of him to bar the passageway, and a pistol laid across his lap. His eyes were closed, but there was a lingering tension in his muscles that belied his casual sprawl, warning that he was not a man to be trifled with, even in sleep.
    Pamela’s first thought was that he didn’t trust her. That he believed she might try to renege on their bargain and stage an escape.
    But then she realized the mouth of the pistol wasn’t pointed toward the tower but toward the stairs. Connor wasn’t holding them prisoner. He was guarding them.
    Holding her breath, Pamela gently eased the door shut, marveling at her discovery. Connor had promised her he wouldn’t let her sister come to any harm and in this—if in nothing else—he was evidently a man of his word.
    She briefly considered returning to her own guard post but an enormous yawn seized her, making Sophie’s nest of blankets look even more inviting. She hesitated for a moment, then padded over and curled up next to her sister. She gently tucked the blanket around Sophie’s shoulders before falling into a deep and untroubled sleep.

Chapter 7
    T he future Duke of Warrick leaned back in his chair, eyeing the straight razor in Pamela’s hand with palpable suspicion. “If you think I’m goin’ to let you within an inch of my throat with that blade, lass, you’d best think again.” He reached up to massage the faded scars that marred the corded muscles of his throat. “I’d as soon trust my neck to the hangman.”
    “If you don’t allow me to clean you up for our journey, you may have to,” Pamela replied. “It will be much easier to smuggle you out of Scotland if you look more like a duke’s son than an unmannered ruffian.”
    He glared at her through the tangled strands of hair that fell over his brow, looking more like a man with murder on his mind.
    Morning sunlight poured through a jagged gashin the stone in the tower chamber where she and Sophie had passed the night, gilding the dust motes that danced through the air. Unfortunately, the sun’s golden rays also highlighted the deadly gleam of the blade in her hand. She supposed she might have inspired more confidence in Connor if that hand had been completely steady. But his black scowl could have unsettled even the most skillful of barbers.
    “Why don’t you just tell this new family of mine that I was raised by wolves?” Connor suggested, running one hand over the rugged curve of his jaw. Although less than a day had passed since Pamela had stroked that jaw