A Wild Pursuit

  “You see, I need her any way she’ll have me,” Stephen said. His voice had lost all those liquid rolling tones he used so well. It was almost hoarse. “Any time she’ll give me. I don’t care. I won’t make any demands.”

  Bea couldn’t quite meet his eyes. She fidgeted with the ribbon on her parasol, tilting it slightly so that she couldn’t see his face. “I’ve decided to return to my father’s house,” she said almost inaudibly. He was silent, and all she could hear was her own pulse beating in her throat and the goat ambling away to the other side of the pasture.

  “Am I too late, then?” he said finally. There was a bleakness in his voice that wrenched her heart.

  She took the parasol and neatly closed it. He would always have a patrician’s face. It was the face of an English gentleman, long chin and lean cheeks, laughter wrinkles around his eyes, tall, muscled body. He would wear well. She raised her eyelashes and gave him the most smoldering look she had in her repertoire.

  He made a hoarse sound in his voice and pulled her into his arms so fast that her parasol flew into the air.

  “Will you, Bea, will you let me…” He was plundering her mouth, and he couldn’t seem to finish the sentence. Finally he raised his mouth a fraction of an inch from hers, so close that she was almost touching his lips. His voice was husky. “Will you seduce me, Bea? Or let me seduce you?”

  She strained forward, trying to catch his mouth with hers, but he held back.

  “Please?” The urgency in his voice awed her. “I was a fool to refuse you. I’ll take anything, any little bit you’ll give me. Of course you don’t wish to woo me, marry me. But I’ll take whatever you give me, Bea. Please.”

  She closed her eyes. One of the proudest gentlemen in the kingdom was literally, as well as metaphorically, at her feet. “I didn’t mean that,” she whispered, clutching his shoulders as hard as she could. “It’s not that I don’t wish to marry you—”

  “Hush,” he said, rubbing his lips across hers. “I know you don’t want to marry me. I was a conceited fool to think you’d even consider me. But I don’t care, Bea. Just—just seduce me, Bea.”

  She could untangle this later. At the moment she unwrapped her arms from his neck and smiled at him with the slumberous smile of Cleopatra. “But what if I lead you to do things that are less than gentlemanly?”

  “You already have,” he said. “This is absolutely the first time in my life that I have begged a young unmarried woman to seduce me.”

  “Oh, well, in that case,” she said, with a gurgle of laughter. Then she settled back against the tree trunk and, looking at him, very, very slowly raised the ruffled dimity of her skirt. She was wearing gossamer silk stockings, with clocks, and her slender ankes were crossed. She pulled her skirts up just past her knee, so that Stephen could see the pale blue stocking, and its darker garter, and then the pale cream of her thigh.

  She saw him swallow. “Bea, what are you doing?” he said, and the rasp in his voice was a warning.

  “Seducing you.” Her smile was blinding. He didn’t seem to be able to stop staring at her legs.

  “What if someone comes?”

  “No one ever comes down this lane,” she said blissfully. “It leads nowhere except to the goat. And you and I, Stephen, are the only persons who have ever shown interest in the goat.”

  Just as deliberately she uncrossed her legs and drew them slightly higher. Her skirt fell back against her thighs.

  “And where is the damned goat?” he said hoarsely.

  “The other side of the field.” Her knees came a little higher, and her skirts slid farther down, exposing smooth, milky thighs.

  “If I touch you, Bea, there’s no stopping this,” Stephen said, meeting her eyes.

  Her heart tumbled in her chest. “I wouldn’t want to stop you. I never have.”

  He put his hands gently on her ankles. “Last chance, Bea. Are you sure you wish to make love in a goat’s pasture?” But she was laughing, and her eyes were shining. There was desire there, so that was all right. And obviously, she didn’t mind the goat’s pasture. So Stephen let his fingers wrap around that delicate little ankle, slide up the faint softness of her stockings. He stopped at the garters and untied them. They left angry red marks on her skin.

  She was watching him with a half smile, but there was something uncertain there too, for all she was such an accomplished seductress. He smoothed the red marks with his fingers. “Why so ruthless with your poor skin?” he said, as he lowered his head and ran his tongue along the groove in her leg.

  She gasped and squirmed in his hands. “It’s particularly difficult to keep stockings this flimsy from collapsing around my ankles.”

  “Ah.” He had his hands on both her knees now, and he pulled them apart. She resisted for a moment and then gave in. She was wearing some sort of fluttering gown that obediently fell back, as if it had been designed for outdoor games. Stephen ran a finger down the inside of her thigh. He stopped at a burst of lacy cotton, then ran his finger over all the fabric.

  She visibly shuddered and reached for him. But he pushed her back against the tree and knelt in front of her, between her raised knees, and pressed his lips there, on the inside of a quavering knee. And then let his lips drift down, down smooth, ivory flesh.

  And all the time his finger was running inquisitively over the white cotton between her legs, dancing a little surface dance that made her hips jiggle a bit. He could hear her uneven little whoosh of breath, and it made him feel a steely wave of triumph, and then a wave of lust so pure that he almost wrenched that cotton down—

  “What do you call this?” he asked, and his voice came out hoarse. He put his hand between her legs, firm, and rocked forward.

  “Oh,” she said, and her voice seemed very small.

  He ran his thumb under the frilly border. “This?”

  “Pantalettes,” she said, quivering all over.

  He leaned foward and put a leg over her left knee so he was straddling her, and then he let that thumb sink, fall into sleek, hot folds. She had been lying against the tree as if she were too shocked to move, but that shudder woke her up; she reached out and pulled his head toward her.

  Her lips trembled under his, and opened, and Stephen let his thumb take on the same rhythm as his tongue, although his chest felt like bursting for lack of air, or for the thumping of his heart in his chest.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she was beautiful. This close, her eyes had the green of a rock glimpsed at the river bottom, greeny blue, with small specks of light. All the more beautiful for being slighty glazed.

  Suddenly she focused on him. “You seem to have forgotten that this is my seduction,” she said. Her voice was such a deep purr that he almost didn’t catch her meaning. But with one flip of her hip, she pushed his hand away and came up on her knees. Alas, her skirt fell down and covered her legs again.

  He reared up so he was facing her. Then he very, very deliberately took his thumb and rubbed it over his lips. She gasped in shock, and he felt a throb of pleasure. She wasn’t so jaded then. He licked his lips, enjoying the faint taste of her.

  “Stephen!” she said. He grinned. But she was pulling at his neck cloth. She seemed to have some trouble undoing it, so finally he tossed it to the side and undid the placket on his shirt.

  It was her turn then to inch that shirt up his muscled abdomen. Her fingers were everywhere, delicate, admiring. The shirt billowed past his eyes and disappeared. Now her fingers were at his waist. But she couldn’t seem to undo the buttons there either. She looked so serious.

  “I thought you’d make my clothes fly off like greased lightning,” he said teasingly. But she didn’t look up, so he pushed up her chin. “That was only a jest, Bea. In poor taste, to be sure, but a jest.”

  “I—” Her eyes were larger, not so passionate now. Stephen felt a pang of pure fear. She’d changed her mind. She didn’t want him. He was too old.

  “I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you,” she said.
r />   “Never.”

  “I don’t—I don’t have as much experience as you might think,” she said, staring fixedly at his waistband as she tried to undo it. The very feeling of her fingers fumbling around his pantaloons was driving Stephen crazy.

  But once he registered what she’d said, he laughed. “I don’t care what kind of experience you’ve got, Bea. All I want is you. You.” He pushed up her chin again. Her lips were swollen with his kisses. “Oh God, Bea, you’re so beautiful.”

  But she wasn’t really listening. “You see, I did—that is, there was Sandhurst, but it was only once, and I’m afraid I didn’t learn very much, especially as we were interrupted by Lady Ditcher. And then I allowed Billy Laslett, but I didn’t truly enjoy it towards the end, and so I told him to go.”

  Stephen laughed. “Are you trying to tell me that the bold seductress herself didn’t find the experience pleasurable?”

  Bea blushed. “No, I did. Although I wish I hadn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it would make me almost like a virgin, wouldn’t it?” Her eyes were shadowed. “But I did—did enjoy it, up to a point. I haven’t liked—well, that’s irrelevant. I took another lover once too.” The last came out in a rush of admissions. “So you see, I’ve had three lovers. But I never gave anyone a second chance, and I’m not certain that I actually learned very much, if you see what I mean.”

  Stephen threw back his head and laughed, laughed so hard that four starlings and a wren flew out of the crooked tree and wheeled into the sunlight. When he looked back, she was still there, blinking at him, looking a little defensive, extraordinarily lovely, and far too young.

  “Bea, you are over twenty-one, aren’t you?” he said.

  “I’m twenty-three.”

  “Good. Are you trying to tell me that you won’t let me have a second round? That one time with lovely Bea is all any man could hope to achieve?” He let his hands settle on her waist.

  She blushed faintly. “No.” But he could hardly hear her.

  “Because I want more, Bea.” He lowered his head and brushed his mouth over hers. She opened to him, willing and shuddering. “I’m going to take more,” he told her.

  Her eyes closed, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Take me, Stephen.”

  An invitation no man could refuse. He took over the job of removing his pantaloons himself. And threw off his boots and every other stitch of clothing he had on as well. She sat on the ground in front of him, mouth open.

  He laughed at her. The sun was warm on his shoulders, and under her eyes he had that sense of his body that he only seemed to have with her. A sense of powerful muscle and a lean stomach. He came down on his haunches. She watched him in fascination, her eyes looking either at the powerful muscles in his thighs—or between them. He wasn’t quite sure. But she seemed to like what she saw. That faint blush in her cheeks had turned rosy.

  “I can’t believe you’re quite naked in the outdoors!” she said. She had her hand over her mouth, but giggles escaped.

  “Your turn,” he said, and her eyes grew serious.

  “Oh, Stephen, I don’t know…I wasn’t thinking…” She kept squealing. But Stephen was very good at removing ladies’ clothing, and so he had her dress over her head in a moment, and her chemise followed. She wore no corset, to his great interest. He left her only that flimsy little garment she called her pantalettes, a foolish little trifle of white cotton and lace.

  The sun threw dancing spots over her ivory skin, skipping shadows of dappled color. Her face was quite rosy. She sat on the ground with her hands covering her breasts, for all the world like a timid virgin. Though of course, even an experienced courtesan might never have made love outdoors.

  He kneeled just before her and put his hands over hers. “It’s all right, love,” he whispered. “Truly, no one will come down the lane.”

  “It’s not that!”

  He peeled one of her hands away from the alluring curve of her breast. They were perfect, rosy-tipped, uptilted, just the size for a man’s hand. He bent his head and drew her nipple into his mouth, roughly for such a sweet bit of flesh. One hand flew away from her breast and curled around his neck instead.

  He couldn’t play this game much longer. It had been too long, weeks of longing for her, watching her secretly, watching her openly, dreaming of her. He swept her up in one decisive movement and then put her down gently on top of his jacket. As he kissed her, he let one hand shape her breast so she strained into his hand, and he let his other hand pull down that bit of cotton she called a pantalette.

  She wasn’t sure about that. “What if someone?…” but her voice was melting. He moved down, kissed her breast in passing until she squeaked out loud, until she writhed upwards, kept going further down her body until he found her. Until he had all that sweet, lemony flesh in front of him, and she was moaning, all deep in her throat and begging him, and begging him, and—

  She reached out, grabbed his hair and yanked it hard. Bea could hardly breathe, because her whole body was on fire, but she knew there was a remedy here. There had to be. And his tormenting her was not going to be the answer.

  “I want you,” she said fiercely, having got his face where she could see it.

  “It’s your seduction, darling,” he said. His lopsided grin made her heart somersault, and she almost forgot and just started kissing him again. Instead, she reached down and wrapped her fingers around him, and that did give her a shred of sanity. He was a great deal larger than Billy Laslett, and a great deal, well, firmer than Sandhurst.

  For a moment she froze. What if this wasn’t possible? Billy had been difficult enough. It was embarrassing to have been a party to that encounter. She had been phenomenally pleased when he’d stopped bucking about on top of her and taken himself away.

  But Stephen was smiling down at her, and he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. He unwrapped her fingers and brought himself forward, nudging her knee out of the way. Bea couldn’t help herself. She arched up to meet him. But he was just teasing her, bringing her that hardness and taking it away again.

  She may not have learned much, but she had learned one thing, because Billy Laslett had asked her to…. She brought her hands down from his neck and deliberately brushed his flat nipples with her fingers. He jumped and arched forward for a moment, deliciously hard. How could she ever have thought that—but this wasn’t the moment for comparisons.

  Instead, she gave him the same lazy, mischievous grin he gave her, and leaned forward and nipped him with her teeth. He groaned and drove forward. The rush of feeling was so exquisite that she flopped backwards and clutched his shoulders. And this time their eyes were serious.

  “All right?” he said, hardly able to recognize his own voice.

  And she nodded, clutching him so hard that he was going to have ten small bruises on his shoulders. He drove forward again. She cried out, unintelligible, the sound swallowed into the bright air. But it didn’t seem to be pain she was registering.

  He bent to kiss her, and she made startled, gulping sounds, as if she thought he might lose his balance if he tried to do two things at once. He finally managed to coax her mouth open, but she kept trying to speak.

  “What is it?” he finally said, huskily.

  “Nothing—oh! Don’t stop that!”

  Stephen smiled to himself. He pulled himself even higher and listened to her squeals floating into the meadow.

  After a bit, he came up on his knees and caught her slender hips in his hands. She gasped and said, “No!” and then said nothing. So he taught her that if she lifted her hips to meet him, that was very pleasant too.

  At some point she really did seem to have something to say, so he stopped kissing her. “Do you…”, she was panting. “Do you—could you just keep going a little longer?”

  He grinned, a fiendish grin. “I’m better at this than I am at billiards,” he said. His voice was guttural, deep with desire. She was coming to meet him now, ma
tching him. Her skin was gleaming with sweat in the sunlight. Stephen knew at that exact moment that his Bea had experienced no real woman’s pleasure with those other lovers of hers.

  She was a virgin, in all real senses of the word.

  He felt as if the raw joy burning in the back of his throat might explode, so he simply tucked back, concentrating on showing the woman he loved that she didn’t know a thing about making love. Great waves of passion kept swamping the joy. Far off in the distant recesses of his mind not occupied by the sweet undulations of her body, with the way she panted with surprise and the way her eyes were squeezed tight now, as if she were going somewhere that couldn’t be seen, he was conscious of two things. One was that his buttocks had never been exposed to an English summer, and they were definitely beginning to feel as if a sunburn might be in the offing. And the second was that that infernal goat had stolen Bea’s dress and galloped to the other side of the field with yards of white lace falling from its mouth.

  But then even those bits of rational thought flew from him. He dove higher into her body, and she cried out, cries that spiraled, falling away into the bright air. Stephen ground his teeth and said hoarsely, “Come on, Bea, come with me!”

  And Bea opened her eyes and saw him poised above her, outlined in the indigo blue sky, her beautiful, proper Puritan.

  He stopped for a moment, bent his head and crushed his mouth against her. “I love you,” he said hoarsely. “My Bea.”

  She arched up to meet him, heard his groan, lost herself in the prism of sunshine and pleasure that rained on her, spiraling through her arms and legs, driving her against his chest, telling her without words the difference between wooing and seduction.

  34

  Yours Till Dawn

  “Esme, what’s the matter?” She was even whiter than when he’d seen her last, her face pallid and drawn. There was a gleaming trail of tears down her cheek. “Is William all right?” Sebastian sat down on the bed and peered at the babe. William looked just as moon-faced as he had last week. Long lashes brushed his cheeks, and he was snoring a little bit. Sebastian felt a funny sensation around his chestbone. He was a sweet-looking child, as children went.