A Wild Pursuit

  And then he heard a thin wail. Esme shot him a look of pure rage, and turned to the child. Miraculously, the anger dropped away, and her face turned to an expression of pure adoration. She started cooing at the baby, and smiling at him, and dusting his little face with kisses. Naturally the child stopped crying immediately. Even more so when Esme offered him her breast. Sebastian sat down next to the bed and watched as moonlight washed over Esme’s tumbling hair, her breast, the baby’s little hand holding her finger as he suckled. Surely it was wrong to feel such longing to be part of the group. But he did. He wanted to climb onto the bed, to help position William at her breast, to…

  To be there.

  “He seems to be a good-natured child,” Sebastian ventured, once Esme had tucked William over her shoulder and was patting his back.

  Her eyes flashed at him. “He’s very delicate. I shall have to be quite careful that he doesn’t take cold.”

  Sebastian watched William’s chubby legs kicking. “He is delicate?”

  Esme nodded as William gave a burp.

  “He sounds like one of the lads down at the tavern,” Sebastian said. William looked at him with a beery expression. “He even looks drunk.”

  “He does not!” Esme said indignantly. “But Sebastian, don’t you think he’s the image of Miles? I knew he would be. I just knew he would be.”

  To Sebastian, William looked like most of the babies he’d seen in his life: bald, round and red. Yes, he looked like Miles. But then all babies looked like Miles.

  “I have blue eyes,” he said, unable to stop himself.

  “Not that azure blue,” Esme said. “And it’s not the color that matters anyway. It’s the way he looks at one, with such a deep sweetness…just like Miles. He’s the sweetest boy in the whole world, aren’t you?” And she gathered little William up into her arms and kissed him all over his face again. “Now he has to go to sleep,” Esme said, looking expectantly at Sebastian. So he left.

  She likely thought he would leave the house as well. But no. He would stay. And his mother would have to stay as well, like it or not. If the ton discovered the whereabouts of the notorious Marquess Bonnington, the presence of his stodgy mother would likely dispel some suspicion.

  Or perhaps it wouldn’t. He didn’t really give a damn.

  William slept most of the following day while Esme and Arabella hovered over the crib, pointing out the pink perfection of his toes, and the sweetness of his round tummy. Esme was convinced he already knew who she was. “That’s a loving look,” she told her aunt when William finally opened his eyes.

  “If you say so,” Arabella said.

  “I know it. Do you think William is warm enough? I think his cheek is a bit chilled.” She felt it with the back of her hand and tucked his blankets around him even more securely.

  “I’ll ring the footman for another log,” Arabella said, going to the other side of the room. That was one of the things that Esme loved about her aunt. Unlike the nursemaid, who was annoyingly contentious, and even her own nanny, Arabella never questioned Esme’s judgement.

  Esme picked William up and put his little cheek against her own. It felt like the softest silk in the world.

  “So your mother writes that she will visit at her earliest convenience?” Arabella asked, coming back and fingering the delicate embroidery on William’s coverlet.

  “I’m so happy about it,” Esme said. “It was disappointing when she didn’t visit during my confinement. But she can’t help but love William.”

  Arabella cast her a worried look. “Of course Fanny will love William. But I just…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Don’t worry. William will enchant her.”

  Arabella took another glance at her niece’s hopeful face and decided that she had to speak. “I’m worried for you, Esme. Your mother has suffered many disappointments in her life. She’s not always as agreeable as she could be.”

  “I know that,” Esme said instantly. She had always been aware that she was her mother’s primary trial. “But William will make up for all that, don’t you see? And of course, I’m going to be just the sort of daughter she always wished for. She won’t have to be ashamed of me anymore.”

  “Yee-es. I certainly hope that’s the way of it.”

  “But you don’t believe it?”

  “I’m afraid that you may be disappointed,” Arabella admitted. “I shall scream at Fanny if she hurts your feelings. But, I just—”

  “You mustn’t worry so much. Truly, Mama has always wished me to be respectable, and now I am. I’m living in Wiltshire like the virtuous widow I am. What more could she want?”

  “Fanny has a difficult nature. She has spent a great deal of her adult life berating you for one thing or another, and I never approved of it, never.”

  Esme gave her a rueful grin. “It’s not as if I didn’t deserve it. I’m the first to say that my reputation was precisely as black as it deserved to be.”

  “But Fanny was disappointed even before you grew into such a convenient whipping boy. When I was growing up with her, she was always finding fault with me as well. In fact, Esme, my sister Fanny is a bit of a malcontent. Your grandfather used to call her Miss Tart, because of the way she pranced around the house with her mouth tight, finding fault with everyone.”

  “I know Mama has had an onerous life,” Esme said. She was tickling William through his blankets, and he looked as if he might start smiling any moment. “But perhaps having a grandchild will transform some of her discouragement, especially if he starts smiling. Smile, William! Smile for Mama! And he is beautiful. Even Sebastian said last night that—” She stopped short and turned around to find Arabella looking at her and shaking her head.

  “A woman after my own heart,” Arabella said. “I told you that living with a man was far more fun than living alone, didn’t I?”

  Esme bit her lip. “Sebastian only—”

  “Never mind the details. What about Fairfax-Lacy? When are you planning to drop that pretense?”

  “Not yet! Not until after my mother visits. The only reason she is making a visit is due to Lady Bonnington telling her of my engagement.”

  “In that case, I would advise that you wait until nighttime to entertain Bonnington again. Lord knows, if Honoratia Bonnington found out that her son was making secret trips to your bedchamber, and you still in confinement, she’d likely shriek the roof down.”

  Esme smiled a bit at that. “I’m not worried about the marchioness. It’s Mother, of course, whom I would prefer not to realize that Sebastian and I have a friendship.”

  “Naturally,” Arabella agreed. “We definitely do not wish for sainted Fanny to discover that you have a man visiting your bedchamber in the wee hours of the night.”

  “There’s nothing salacious about his visits,” Esme hastened to say.

  Arabella bent over the crib again, and Esme couldn’t see her face. “My first husband, Robbie, used to look at me the way Marquess Bonnington looks at you.”

  “I don’t think I remember him,” Esme said. “And Sebastian doesn’t look at me in any particular fashion.”

  “Robbie died when you were a young girl. You likely never would have met him anyway. How he loathed your father!”

  “Were you very much in love?” Esme asked.

  “Too much,” Arabella answered flatly. She turned around, and her smile was bright. “Never fall in love, darling. It makes farewells utterly dreary.”

  Esme didn’t say anything to that nonsense, but just gave her a kiss.

  “I can’t be as angry at your mother as I’d like to be,” Arabella said, with one of her lightning changes of conversation, “because I was so lucky with my first marriage, and she so unlucky. Robbie was a sweet-hearted man. He died laughing, you know. We were riding in the country, and he was laughing at something I said. He wasn’t paying attention, and his horse caught a rabbit-hole.”

  “Oh, Arabella,” Esme said, putting her arms around her.

  “I o
nly tell you because your memories of your father are undoubtedly as clear as mine,” Arabella said. “That man never laughed a day in his life. Being married to him was a terrible hardship, for all your mother won’t acknowledge it. Terrible. I was allowed to choose my husband, as I was the homely sister. But Fanny went to the highest bidder.”

  “Don’t you think that William will assuage some of her grief?”

  “I hope so, darling. I hope so.”

  31

  A Proposal

  There was no saying when, if ever, Arabella might decide to return to London for the rest of the season. As far as Bea could see, Arabella spent every spare moment fussing over the baby’s clothing and counting his toes. She and Esme hovered over that fat little creature as if it were made of spun sugar. Earl Godwin left; Lord Winnamore finally left as well. There was no one in the house to talk to, given that Helene and Stephen pounded away at the keyboard for hours.

  Not that it mattered much, because all Bea could think about was the Puritan, and his wish to be wooed rather than seduced. Wooed. Whatever that meant.

  She headed off down the lane to visit the goat. It was very cold, and the wind was sprinkling small white flowers all over the lane, almost as if it were snowing. It could be a pear tree losing all its blossoms; Bea had almost made up her mind to try to find a book identifying plants. That was how boring she was becoming.

  When she rounded the bend, he was there. Bea slowed down. Wooing, wooing. She was no good at wooing. She was only good at seduction. Why didn’t he understand that? Why didn’t he know that she had nothing else to offer? She tramped up beside him and leaned on the fence without bothering to say hello. A large hand curled around her neck.

  “Bea,” he said. Why did he have to have a voice like that?

  “Doesn’t the Parliament miss you?” she asked aimlessly, trying to take her attention away from that warm hand.

  “It doesn’t seem that way. According to the morning paper, they just passed a law giving poachers seven years’ hard labor. I keep thinking of an old man named Maidstone, who lived on our estate when I was young. He was such a one, poached in my father’s forest his entire life. It was an art to old Maidstone. My father sent me out with him to learn to shoot.”

  “I wish I could shoot,” Bea said. “My father didn’t consider it a ladylike pursuit.”

  “Perhaps I’ll teach you.”

  The statement hung in the air between them. She finally risked a glance at him, and he was smiling at her.

  “When you’re my wife.”

  She suddenly felt the splintering wood of the gate under her fingers. “You are engaged already.”

  “You know as well as I do that the engagement is a temporary one, having naught to do with love nor even desire.”

  White petals had floated onto his dark hair. “I could never marry you. I thought you understood that.”

  “You must have misunderstood.” He moved closer and looked down at her. His eyes were flames, telling her something. But the misery in her heart was beating in her ears.

  “Men like you don’t take wives like me,” she cried.

  “Am I too old?”

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  He smiled a little. “Too rigid?”

  “Something like that. It would destroy your career.”

  “I don’t care about my career.”

  “Who will save the poachers from seven years’ hard labor?”

  “Someone else,” he said. “I will go home and take care of Maidstone’s son, who is undoubtedly poaching every pheasant I have in the world.”

  “You can’t marry me.” It seemed imperative to make him understand. “I am—ruined, Stephen.” Her face was wet with tears, and she didn’t even know where they had come from. “Don’t you understand that? And damn you for making me say it aloud! Why do you insist on being so cruel? I told you, you can have me!” Her voice broke with the humiliation of it. And the truth of it. He stared at her, eyes veiled. “You could have had me, anywhere,” she said brokenly. “On the billiards table, in the library. Anywhere. You’re some sort of debauchee, aren’t you? You just enjoy tormenting me. You don’t even really want me.”

  “No.” His voice was hard. “That’s not the case and you know it, Bea. I want you.” He took her shoulders. “I want you more than any other man has wanted you. But I don’t want only your delectable body. Or your mouth. Or even the direction to your bedroom door. I want more, Bea, and if you can’t give it to me, I don’t want any of it.”

  She stared ahead, and the goat’s sharp little horns were blurred by her tears. “I wish things were different,” she said. “I wish I weren’t myself, or that myself was—”

  “No! You don’t understand. I want you with all your face paints, and all your sultry glances, and all your wicked poetry. I want you just as you are, Bea.”

  It was probably a tribute to her father that she didn’t believe him for a moment.

  She cleared her throat. “That is remarkably kind of you. I am honored, truly. Of course, I might be even more honored if you didn’t already have a fiancée. But I appreciate your willingness to add me to the list.”

  “Stuff that,” he said, and his voice was harsh and utterly unlike the smooth cadences that members were used to hearing in the House. “Don’t be honored,” he said fiercely. “Be my wife.”

  “I can’t do that.” She turned and faced him, head high. “I care for you too much. You may be exhausted by your position at the moment, but you will long for it after a few months. I don’t see you spending your days fishing and befriending poachers, Stephen. After a month, even a year perhaps, you would yearn for your position back. And they’d never give it to you, never. Not after you married me.”

  “I disagree, Bea. I could marry you and stay in Parliament. But I want to resign. If I grow bored in the country, I’ll find something to do. But not Parliament. I don’t want to think about votes again. I’d rather think about you.”

  “Leave,” she said tersely, hanging onto the splintered boards with all her might. “Just leave, Stephen.”

  The smile fell from his face.

  “Please leave,” she whispered.

  32

  And Motherly Love, Part Two

  Esme’s mother arrived on a beautiful spring day, a week after her grandson’s birth. Esme looked out her bedchamber window and there it was, rounding the bend before the road to Shantill House: a squat, ugly carriage that she remembered from her childhood. The family used to travel to and from London in it. The seats were made of slippery horsehair and sloped upward. As a child, Esme constantly slid to the carriage floor, earning a scolding for her fidgety nature.

  William was sleeping in her arms, his long eyelashes curling against his cheek. “I’ll never make you ride in a carriage for hours,” she whispered to him. And then rethought that promise. “Well, perhaps only if we make many stops.”

  Then she turned aside and rang the bell. “My mother has arrived,” she told Jeannie. “I must change my clothing. I’ll wear the gray morning gown with the white lace trim, the one with the small tippet. And I shall wear a cap as well, perhaps with a silver ribbon so it matches.”

  Jeannie looked surprised. “But, madam, that gown is half-mourning, and so heavy for this weather. Wouldn’t you prefer to wear something more cheerful? Surely your lady mother will wish to see you more lighthearted. We don’t even have such a thing as a silver ribbon in the house!”

  “No, the gray dress will be perfect.” Fanny had worn full mourning for two years after Esme’s father died. The least Esme could do was appear to have a virtue, even if she had it not.

  “Shall I take Master William to the nursery?” Jeannie said, once Esme was dressed in gray, complete with a lace cap but no silver ribbon.

  “I’ll bring him downstairs with me. I’m certain my mother is quite eager to see her grandson.”

  “Of course she is! And he’s the bonniest boy that’s ever lived. She’ll likely cry with pure j
oy. I know my mother would.”

  When Esme entered the morning parlor, she found her mother seated with Marchioness Bonnington and Arabella. To Esme’s relief, Bea was nowhere to be seen. Esme had a secret fear that her mother would take affront at the idea of staying in the same house with her sister’s dame de compagnie and leave without delay.

  She could see on the instant that Fanny and Arabella were already twitting at each other. They were seated opposite each other, and Arabella had the look of someone who has just delivered a magnificent set-down. Fanny was shaking her head sadly and looking at her younger sister as if she were addled. Esme hurried across the room toward them.

  Fanny looked like an exquisite watercolor rendition of Arabella. Arabella’s hair was ginger; Fanny’s was a pale rose. Arabella’s complexion was a tribute to French face paints; Fanny’s face had a delicate bloom all her own. Arabella’s face somehow just missed being beautiful, but Fanny had been acknowledged as flawless from the moment she’d toddled into her papa’s arms.

  “Mama, it is such a pleasure to see you!” Esme cried. “I’ve brought William, who is longing to meet his grandmother.”

  All three ladies looked up. Her mother gave her the melancholy smile with which she always greeted her daughter, a perfect blend of responsibility and disappointment. Impulsively Esme went to her knees beside her mother and folded the blanket back from around William’s face so Fanny could see him. He was still sleeping peacefully, as beautiful a child as she’d ever seen. William was the one thing in life that Esme had done perfectly.

  But her mother looked at her rather than at William. “Esme,” she said, “I must ask you to seat yourself properly. We are not en famille here. There is no need for such boisterous manners.”

  Lady Bonnington leaned forward. “Please don’t insist on convention on my account, Fanny dear. I find your daughter’s affection for her child quite refreshing.”