Some Like It Wicked Read Free Page A

them.”
    The girl cradled the kitten beneath the challenging tilt of her chin. “I suppose that would make you an honorable man.”

    Donning his hat, Simon gave her his cockiest grin—the one he saved for displaying his winning hand over the whist tables at Boodle’s. “On the contrary, Miss Kincaid. That would make me Lieutenant Simon Wescott, a bastard in both birth and deed.”
    He left her haloed by a crown of shimmering dust motes—a bedraggled Celtic princess without a kingdom, a kitten her sole subject. It was only as he flung himself onto his saddle and kicked his horse into a furious canter that he realized he had never learned her Christian name.
    Catriona ran to the stable door, gazing after the brash young lieutenant until nothing remained of him but the clouds of dust stirred up by his mount’s hooves. When even those had drifted away on the wind, she sank against the splintery doorframe, still clutching the kitten.
    “What say you, Robert?” she whispered, burying her wistful smile in the kitten’s downy fur. “Perhaps our Lieutenant Wescott is more honorable than he realizes. If he’s brave enough to throw himself in front of Alice on my behalf, facing down Napoleon’s cannons should be no more taxing than a stroll through Hyde Park.”
    Robert the Bruce butted his small head against her chin, purring in assent.

CHAPTER 2
1810
    C atriona Kincaid ducked as a silver hairbrush went sailing past her head.
    It was hardly the first object her cousin had hurled at her head during the ten years of their acquaintance and she doubted it would be the last. Fortunately, Alice’s normally keen aim had been weakened by the wrenching sobs buffeting her slender frame. Her weeping was so piteous it had stirred even Catriona’s sympathy, but it was Catriona’s cautious offer of comfort that had resulted in the flying hairbrush.
    She backed toward the doorway of Alice’s bedchamber, prepared to beat a hasty retreat should any more items come winging her way.
    Alice was sprawled full-length across the elegant four-poster. She submitted to her older sister’s ministrations with slightly more grace, allowing Georgina to pat her heaving shoulder and murmur, “There, there, pet,” in soothing tones.
    Alice’s tear-streaked face briefly emerged from the nest of pillows to glare daggers at Georgina. “You can’t possibly know how much I’m suffering. You have a husband.” Her voice rose to a wail. “Oh, how could a fat cow like you snare a husband when I can’t?”
    She rolled over and dove back beneath the pillows, punctuating each sob by driving a fist into the feather tick.
    Georgina may have been a little on the placid and plump side compared to the temperamental and sylphlike Alice, but she was hardly bovine. Patting with just a fraction more force, she cast Catriona a helpless look over her shoulder. They both knew Alice and Georgina’s mother would be of little assistance. Aunt Margaret was huddled in the wing chair by the hearth, weeping copiously, if silently, into her lace handkerchief.
    She hadn’t budged since drawing all of the damask drapes in the bedchamber as if her daughter were suffering from a fatal illness rather than a broken engagement.
    “What did you do, Alice?” Catriona asked softly. From the abrupt silence that fell over the room, she knew no one else had dared to ask. “A man like the Marquess of Eddingham isn’t going to stir up the scandal broth of a broken betrothal for naught.”
    Alice rolled back over, her disheveled blond head reemerging from the pillows. She sniffled sullenly. “I only allowed him one kiss.”
    Catriona drifted closer to the bed, frowning in puzzlement. “Virtue is a quality highly prized by most gentlemen. Surely the marquess wouldn’t be so cruel as to end your engagement just because you refused to allow him a second kiss.”
    Alice sat up, plucking fretfully at the satin counterpane. Her eyes were swollen, her fair skin mottled and grubby with