A Wild Pursuit (14 page)

“Wine?” Bea said with a nervous giggle. She felt utterly unbalanced by her inability to see. She was used to directing the conversation.

“Not rust. Beetroot, perhaps?”

“How very poetic of you. I prefer comparisons to red roses or flame.”

“Beetroot has this precise blending of deep red and an almost orange undertone.”

“Marvelous. Bea the Beetroot.”

“Mellifluous,” he agreed. “Of course, it might look less beetlike if you had pearls and flowers entangled in it like the boy in this poem. After all, his amber locks are—let me see if I've got this right—enameled with pearl and flowers.”

“Flowers are not in style,” Bea said dismissively. “A feather, perhaps. Pearls are so antiquated.”

“If it be sin to love a lovely Lady,”
he read,
“Oh then sin I, for whom my soul is sad.”

Bea almost couldn't breath. She wanted to drink that voice; she wanted that voice to drink her. She wanted that voice to tell her—“You've changed the poem,” she said rather shakily. “The line reads, ‘If it be sin to love a lovely lad.'”

“There's no
lad
in my life whom I love,” Stephen said. He couldn't not touch her for another moment. He closed the book and put it to the side. She was still curled like a kitten, strangely defenseless without those flashing eyes that seemed to send invitations in every direction. He rather missed them.

Dimly he noticed that his fingers were trembling as they reached toward her. He lifted her head and just rubbed his lips across hers. She sighed—could it be that she wanted his kiss as he longed to give it? Her arms slipped around his neck.

But he didn't like the fact that those magnificent eyes of hers were covered. So what if they sent him a message they'd sent a hundred other men? He pulled the cravat off her head in one swift movement and then, before she could even open her eyes, he cupped that delicate face in his hands and kissed her again, hard this time, demanding a true response: one that she hadn't given another man.

Her lips didn't taste of the worldly smiles that so often sat there. They tasted sweet and wild, and they opened to him with a gasp of pleasure. He invaded her mouth, only meaning to tell her that he felt desire when he wanted to, not when she willed it.

But she tasted like lemons, sweet and tart, and her mouth met his with a gladness that couldn't be feigned. Nor could the shiver in her body when he pulled her against him, nor could the tightness with which she wound her arms around his neck. Oh, she was—she was glorious, every soft, yielding inch of her. He longed to lick her whole body, to see if she tasted as tart and sweet behind her knees, and on her belly, and between her legs…aye, there too. Because she would let him: he knew that without a doubt. All the respectable women he'd slept with, wives and widows, none of them had even dreamed of such a thing.

He had never even tried, knowing one can only take such liberties with a courtesan, a woman paid to accept the indignities of sensual activity. But Bea…sweet, unmarried Bea…

God, what was he doing?

He tore his mouth away and she leaned back toward him, her mouth bee-stung and her eyes closed. He went back for one last taste, just licked her mouth, except she opened to him and then her lips drew his tongue into her mouth. His hands turned to steel on her shoulders, even as his lower body involuntarily jerked toward her. Lust exploded in his loins at the precise moment that rage turned his vision dark.

“Where the devil did you learn that trick?” he said, pulling back.

She opened her eyes, and for a moment Stephen was bewildered: her eyes were so velvety soft, innocent seeming, dazzled looking. She must have looked dazzled for many a man. Even as he watched her eyes focus. But she didn't lose her languorous, desirous look.

“Do this?” she said softly, leaning forward. She almost took him by surprise, but he jerked back.

Bea sighed. Obviously the rake had turned back into a Puritan. She might as well infuriate him since he clearly wasn't planning on further kisses—or anything else, for that matter. “I believe that was Billy Laslett,” she said. Now she really wanted to return to her bedchamber. How excruciatingly embarrassing this was. “Lord Laslett now, since his father died a few months ago.”

“Laslett taught you that kiss and didn't marry you?” Stephen asked, feeling as if he'd been pole-axed.

“Oh, he asked,” Bea said, standing up. Her knees were still weak. “He asked and asked, if that makes you feel any better.”

Stephen felt sour and enraged. He stood up and towered over Bea. “At least you remember his name,” he said with deliberate crudity.

Bea rolled her eyes. “There haven't been that many, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy. I'm only twenty-three. Ask me again when I'm fifty. But may I say that I am quite impressed with
your
stamina? After all, it's not every man in his forties who could frolick so gaily with a countess and then prepare such an…impressive welcome for me.” She let her eyes drift to his crotch.

Then she smiled gently at the outrage in his face and walked from the room, leaving Stephen Fairfax-Lacy alone in the library with a libidinous book of poetry.

And an impressive welcome.

E
sme was having second thoughts. Her heart was still pounding from the pure terror of seeing Jeannie move toward the windows. She wrapped the towel tighter around her shoulders. “This is a foolish idea. The babe is due any day now.”

“Oh, I know that,” he said with some amusement. “I can count as well as any, you know. Last July, when you and I met in Lady Troubridge's drawing room, is almost precisely eight and a half months ago.”

“This is Miles's baby,” she said, fully aware of just how obstinate she sounded. But it was terribly important to her that Miles have the child he wanted so much.

“Surely it has occurred to you that your certitude that this child is Miles's may be an error? After all, you had not yet reconciled with your husband when you and I enjoyed each other's company.”

“Miles and I reconciled the very next night,” Esme said hastily. But she knew it was of no use.

“This may well be my babe. Mine and yours. In fact, mathematically speaking, I believe that Miles and I are in a dead heat, given that we each had the pleasure of one night, and one night only.”

“It is surely Miles's. He wanted a child so much!”

“Unfortunately, wishes have never influenced paternity in the past.”

Esme had to acknowledge the truth of that statement. “Do you remember when I told you about my mother's letter? The one in which she told me that she didn't feel she could attend my confinement?”

“Of course.” He began unbuttoning his shirt.

“She added a postscript saying that she hoped I knew who the father was. That was the worst of it. Because I don't
know.
If only we hadn't slept together, I could have written my mother an indignant letter, and perhaps she would have attended my confinement. Perhaps she would be here at this very moment.”

“I trust not in this particular room,” Sebastian said, pulling her into his arms. He smelled gloriously male and windswept. “I wish your mother felt differently.”

His hand was so comforting on her back. It was no wonder that Esme kept blurting out every humiliating secret she had.

“I love you, do you know that?” he said.

She chose her words carefully. “I believe that you
think
you love me, Sebastian. But I know the guilt you feel because of Miles's death as well. There is no need to compensate for what happened, truly.”

“Compensation has nothing to do with what I feel for you.”

“How could it not?” she asked, looking into his clear blue eyes.

“Because when I fell in love with you, Miles was alive and sporting with his mistress,” Sebastian said, watching her just as steadily. “I loved you all the time I was engaged to your friend Gina. I watched you dance; I watched you flirt; I watched you think about an affair with that abominable idiot, Bernie Burdett.”

Esme turned away, wrapping her towel tighter around her shoulders. She
would
cry in a moment, and she needed to keep her head.

“Esme,” he said.

She sat down heavily in a chair, heedless of the fact that her damp towel was likely to spot the pale silk. “I know you think you love me. But there's lust—and then love. And I don't think you know the difference.”

He watched her for a second. She bit back tears. Why couldn't he just see that it was impossible? She couldn't marry the man who had caused her husband's death. The scandal would never die, and she couldn't revisit that scandal on her child.

He walked over and picked her up.

“I must be straining all your gardener's muscles,” she whispered, turning her face against his shirt.

“Not you,” he said, carrying her to the bed. “I think we've talked enough, Esme mine. The night is long.”

She felt the breath catch in her chest. But Sebastian was as methodical in seduction as he was in every other part of his life. He turned down the wicks and poked the fire before he returned to the bed. She watched the long line of his thigh and tried to remember if his legs had been so muscled last summer when he'd been a mere earl. Before he was a gardener. She didn't think so. His legs had been muscled, but not with the swelling sense of power they had now.

“Oh, Sebastian,” she said, and the aching desire was there in her voice for anyone to hear.

He strode to the other side of the room to snuff yet another light. Firelight danced on his back. He must have done some work without a shirt because his skin was golden to his waist, and then it turned a dark honey cream over his buttocks. There were two dimples just there…Esme found herself moving her legs restlessly, and she almost blushed. He had snuffed the candle and seemed to be inspecting the wick.

Finally he turned around. Esme's mouth went dry. He stood there with just a whisper of a smile on his face. He knew what he did to her. Firelight flickered over his thighs, over large hands, over golden skin, over…

And still he smiled, that wicked, slow smile that promised everything.

“Was there something you wished?” he asked, mischief dancing in his eyes.

Esme felt nothing more than liquid invitation between her thighs. How had she survived even a single night without this—without him? How could she survive another moment? “You
are
beautiful,” she said, and the hoarseness in her own voice surprised her into silence. He sauntered over toward the bed, looking like Adonis and Jove all rolled into one: golden boy and arrogant king, sensual devil and English aristocrat.

It was no time to worry about what
she
looked like. If a woman is lucky enough to lure such a man into her bedchamber, it would be a true waste to let an enormous expanse of belly get in the way. So she sat up and reached for him. When he stood just before her, she wrapped her legs around his so he couldn't escape.

“I have you trapped,” she said, smiling a little.

“And what will you do with me?” he said, and he wasn't smiling at all.

She reached up and ran her fingers over his nipples, felt the tiny tremor that rippled through his body, right down through his legs. Her fingers drifted south, touching muscled ridges, skin kissed by the sun, drifted around his bottom and pulled him even closer. He seemed to be holding his breath, silenced.

Whereas she…she felt greedy and loving all at once. She wanted him never to forget her. In fact, had Esme admitted it, the thoughts she was having were hardly generous. Distilled, they ran like this: she couldn't marry him herself, but she could make it very, very hard for him to marry someone else.

And besides, she wanted
him
, every sun-ripened inch of him. There was no better place to start than the hard length of him, straining toward her even as he stood still. She bent forward and he said something, strangled in his throat, drowned by her warm mouth. She pulled him closer, hands on his muscled rump, and he arched, not pushing forward, simply a body exalting in pleasure.

The pleasure she was giving him. A shiver of delight pulsed down Esme's body, and she leaned even closer, torturing him, loving him. He arched his back again and groaned, a deep pulse of need that made Esme's heart pound.

But then he reached down and pushed her back onto the bed. She resisted for a second and then melted under the pressure of his powerful hands. She felt like the merest wisp of a girl, lying back on the bed with Sebastian towering over her. “I can't wait,” she said, her voice revealingly hoarse. But there was no room for embarrassment between them.

Powerful hands pulled her to the edge of the bed. He leaned over her, cupping her face in his hands, kissing her until she was senseless, delirious, but not so lost that she didn't feel him there.

Asking.

 

“You do remember,” he said some time later, and now that wicked grin was back, “that I'm a virgin, don't you?”

She couldn't help laughing.

“Not anymore.”

Sebastian's voice was an amused, dark whisper against her skin. “Do you remember the night when you took my virginity, Esme?” His hand was on her womb. “This child might well be mine,” he said into her hair.

“Or Miles's,” she said, but the shrillness of her tone was wearisome even to her. She closed her eyes and leaned back against his shoulder, letting him continue his gentle caress.

“It makes me very happy.” She could hear the joy in his voice. “The very thought of the child.”

“And what if we married, and the child was Miles's? You would never know.”

“I would love him or her as my own,” he said. “I would never do otherwise, Esme.”

“I know,” she said, humbled by the look on his face.

“If you allow me to have a place in this child's life,” he said, cupping her belly in his warm hand, “propriety will not be foremost on my mind. I'm not criticizing Miles's wish that you become a respectable woman. But I don't think it's the most important aspect of raising a child either.” She couldn't see his face because a lock of hair had fallen over his eyes.

He leaned forward and dropped butterfly kisses on her stomach. “You have to understand that I don't want to imitate my father, for all you wish to imitate your mother. He was quite respectable. I have trouble remembering his first name.”

She reached out and pushed the hair back so she could see his eyes.

“You'll be a wonderful mother, Esme.”

She bit her lip hard. It was that or cry, and she had firmly resolved not to cry. “I worry,” she said, and her voice cracked.

“Nothing to worry about. The child is lucky to have you.”

“I couldn't…I didn't…” The tears were coming anyway. They blinded her.

“Why on earth are you worried, sweetheart?”

“Benjamin,” she said, “just my brother Benjamin. You do remember that he died as a baby? I'm afraid. I'm…I'm just afraid.”

“Of course I remember that you told me of Benjamin.” He folded her in his arms then, and rocked her back and forth. “Nothing will happen to your baby. I promise you.”

They fell asleep together, she curled in his arms as if he could protect her from all the evils that life could offer. When she woke, hours later, Sebastian was still holding her against his chest. The fire had burned out, and the room had taken on a pearly, luminous light. He was sleeping, lashes thick against his cheeks. His hair gleamed as if it were gilt. All her fear seemed to have been burned away.

“Sebastian,” she said, and his eyes opened immediately. They looked black in this light. She licked her lips and tasted salt tears and desire.

“How are you?” His voice was deep with sleep.

It set off a quiver between her thighs. “I don't think that I have the imprint of your body on mine yet,” she whispered.

“Oh?” He raised one eyebrow. How had she ever thought he was a priggish Holy Willy? She must have been blind.

“Not at all.” She shook her head sadly. “I'm sorry. All your efforts don't seem to have succeeded.”

“You'll have to excuse my failures.” His voice purred with seductive power. “I
am
practically a virgin.” One hand brushed over her nipple, returned, returned again.

A strangled little sigh came from Esme's throat.

“I need practice.” His voice was dark, gutteral, possessive. A shiver of ecstasy jolted Esme's spine. “You will have to give me another chance.”

She couldn't answer. His lips had replaced his hands, and his hands had drifted lower. He was fierce and possessive, and he left no space for words. All Esme could do was try to stop the broken moans that came from her chest. But she had his smooth skin to put her mouth to, all those muscles to shape with her tongue.

It was around an hour later that he asked her a question. “Did you ever read
Romeo and Juliet
?”

“Well, of course. I only read it once. She was daft to kill herself for the sake of that lovelorn boy, that I remember.”

“My hardheaded Esme,” he said, dropping a kiss on her nose. “That's the sound of the lark outside your bedchamber window. I must leave soon.”

The light filtering in her window was a watery yellow, filtered through spring leaves. Esme didn't want to acknowledge what those greenish ribbons of light meant. “Would you massage my back?” she asked, ignoring the whole exchange.

Sebastian pushed his thumbs into the very base of Esme's spine. She seemed to have forgotten that mornings always come. That she had told him to leave at the very first light. The sun was pouring under the curtains, and her maid would arrive any moment. She moaned like a woman in ecstasy. Her gorgeous hip rose from her waist like a creamy wave.

“My back hurts more than normally this morning,” Esme said in a fretful voice. “You don't suppose we did it any injury, do you?”

Sebastian rolled her over on her back and grinned down at the huge mound of belly that reared between them. “Not the slightest,” he said, rubbing a little hello to the babe. His babe.

“I suppose you should make your way out of here,” Esme said, eyeing him. She had a distinctly jaundiced and irritable air. “Where are you planning to travel, anyway?”

“I've always enjoyed France,” he said rather evasively.

If he didn't wish to give her his direction, that was quite all right. “Well, drink some champagne for me,” Esme managed.

“Don't you wish to give me a weeping farewell?”

“I'm not up to hysterical farewells at the best of times,” Esme snapped. She struggled up on her elbows and then Sebastian helped her to her feet. “You'll have to leave, because Jeannie will appear soon.”

Sebastian smiled to himself. Esme was protecting that vulnerability of hers, the heart she hid amidst all her seductions and flirtations. The heart she had never given to anyone—but him, he thought. Although she didn't seem to know it.

He bundled a dressing gown around her and pushed her glorious tumbling locks back over her shoulders. “You're beautiful in the morning,” he said, cupping her face in his hands.