Duchess Quartet - A Wild Pursuit Part 28

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, matching 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 pa.s.sion 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 b.u.t.tocks 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 hoa.r.s.ely, "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 hoa.r.s.ely. "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.

Chapter 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.

"He's caught a cold," Esme said, her voice strangling on a sob.

Sebastian could see that she had obviously been crying for a long time. He put an arm around her shoulder and peered down at William again.

His rosy little lips opened in a snore.

"There! Do you hear it?" Esme said.

"He's snoring," Sebastian said. "Did Miles snore?"

"That's not a snore. He's caught a cold... probably inflammation of the lung," Esme said, tears rolling down her face. "Now I'll only have him with me for a few days at most. I knew this would happen; I knew this would happen!" Her voice rose to a near shriek.

William stirred. He could hardly move, he was wrapped in so many blankets.

"I think he's hot," Esme continued, and the broken despair in her voice caught Sebastian's heart. She put

a trembling hand to the baby's head. "I keep feeling his head and one moment I think he's caught a fever, and the next he seems to be perfectly all right. What do you think, Sebastian?"

"I'm hardly an expert." He cautiously felt William's forehead. It felt sweaty to him. "Do you think he might

be wearing a few too many blankets? There's quite a fire in here, after all." "No, no," Esme said, tucking his blankets around him even more securely. "Why don't you ask your nanny?" Sebastian asked, inspired. "I sent her to bed. She's too old to be awake at night." "The nursemaid, then? Surely you have some help at night." "I sent the woman away. She just didn't understand babies. She didn't understand William, not at all. She never forgave me for nursing him myself, and she was always trying to bathe him in the midst of a cold draft."

"Oh," Sebastian said. He fished in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. Esme wiped her eyes. "She kept talking about strengthening him. But William is far too frail to beexposed to drafts, or to the fresh air. Why, she actually wanted to take him outdoors! She was beinggrossly imprudent, and I had to tell her so."

She sniffed, and a few more tears rolled down her cheeks. "And then-and then she said that William was as fat as a porkchop and didn't have a cold at all. It was as if she'd never been around babies at all!

Any fool could hear that William was having trouble breathing when he's asleep."

William snored peacefully. Sebastian looked closely at Esme and was shocked. All the generous lushness in her face was gone, replaced by a drawn exhaustion and a brutal whiteness. "Poor darling," he said. "You're all topped out, aren't you?"

"It's just that it's so tiring! No one understands William, no one! Even nanny keeps saying he's a brawny boy and I should just leave ham in the nursery at night. But I can't do that, Sebastian, you must see that.

What if he needed me? What if he were hungry? What if his cold worsened, or his blankets slipped?"

Sebastian pushed himself back against the headboard and then gently pulled Esme into his arms. She leaned back with a great, racking sigh, her head falling on his shoulder.

"He's a bonny lad," he said.

"Yes." She was utterly exhausted. He could see violet shadows under her eyes. Slowly he curled an arm around her and eased her back more comfortably against his shoulder. "Rest," he said softly.

"You shouldn't be here!" she said, sitting up again. "My mother-well, surely you met my mother at dinner. She's come for a visit."

Sebastian had decided not to say a word about Esme's mother. "She can have no idea that I'm in your chamber. Rest, Esme."

William snored on. After a few moments, Esme's long eyelashes fluttered closed and her body relaxed against his. Sebastian waited for a few minutes more, eased her back against the pillows, and gently took William from her arms.

Esme's eyes popped open. "Make sure you hold his head up," she said Wearily. "Tuck in his blankets."

"I will," Sebastian said soothingly. "Lie down."

"You mustn't forget to prop up his neck," she insisted, but she was already toppling to the side, her whole body a testament to acute exhaustion.

Sebastian experimented cautiously for a moment and discovered what she was talking about. William's head seemed to be too heavy for his body. "I hope you outgrow this problem," he told the baby, walking over to the rocking chair by the fire. Perhaps it was just because the child was sleeping.

In the light thrown by the firelight, he could see two things. One was that William was definitely overheated. His hair was damp with sweat and his cheeks were rosy. But it didn't look like a fever; it looked as if four blankets were too much. He gently loosened some of the blankets, and it seemed to him that the baby was a little more comfortable. The second thing he noticed was that William did indeed look like Miles Rawlings. His eyes were closed, of course, but surely those were Miles's plump cheeks and Miles's rounded chin? Even the fact that William had no hair seemed evocative of Rawlings's balding state.

So Sebastian, Marquess Bonnington, rocked the baby in front of the fire and thought hard about how much he wanted the child to be his, because he hoped that if the child was his, Esme couldn't deny him fatherhood. But fatherhood wouldn't be enough anyway. He looked over at the utterly silent mound of womanhood in the bed. He didn't want Esme as a wife merely because she felt it necessary to give his son a father.

He wanted Esme to love him for himself, love him so much that she braved scandal. It was almost comical. How on earth had it happened that he, an excruciatingly correct marquess whose ideas of propriety were so rigidly enforced, had ended up asking a lady to disregard social mores, cause a scandal of profound proportions, and marry him?

And more to the point, how was he to get her to that point? He knew instinctively that it was no use asking her to marry him again. She cared only for William at the moment. Somehow, he had to bring her around to see him as a man again. And herself as a woman, as well as a mother. Sebastian rocked and thought, and William snored.

Chapter 35.

Lady Beatrix Entertains.

Bea had never allowed a gentleman to repeat the experience of bedding her, she had no idea whether she was expected to articulate a further invitation, or whether Stephen would take it for granted that he could knock at her bedchamber door. He had given no sign of his intentions over dinner. But fairness led her to admit that there was little he could have done, since he was seated between Arabella and f.a.n.n.y. The two ladies spent dinner hissing insults around his shoulders, and ignoring his attempts at polite conversation. Bea's own enjoyment in the meal was dimmed when she distinctly heard Esme's mother reproach Arabella for allowing Bea to live in the same house with the pure little soul in the nursery.

Bea clenched her fists at the memory. Could she possibly marry Stephen? She, with her tarnished reputation and a malevolent influence that apparently extended to babes in the nursery? She dismissed the thought for the four hundredth time. Tonight was just another seduction, not a wooing. And she had dressed for that seduction-or undressed, howsoever one wished to put it. After all, her flimsy negligee was, well, flimsy. And she was painted, and perfumed, and curled to within an inch of her life. The only thing that seemed to calm her was applying another layer of kohl to her eyelashes, or adjusting the candles so that they fell on the bed just so. For a while she lay on the bed in a posture that displayed her entire body to its best advantage, but her stomach was jumping so much that she had to hop off the bed and pace.

There was nothing to worry about. The candles were lit, and she was perfumed in every conceivable spot that he might wish to kiss. She'd even placed a gla.s.s of water next to the bed, as she'd felt appallingly thirsty after their encounter in the goat pasture. But should she have arranged two gla.s.ses of water there, offering him one? Or would that look too rehea.r.s.ed?

By the time the knock came on her door, Bea was more overwrought than she'd ever been in her entire life. "One moment!" she croaked, flinging herself toward the center of the bed. To her horror, the edge of her trailing sleeves caught the gla.s.s of water. It arched through the air, splashing water as it flew, and ended up on the bed next to her hip.

"d.a.m.nation!" Bea cried, under her breath. There was another discreet knock on the door. Of course Stephen didn't want to stand about in the corridor: what if he were seen by Helene, Esme or-a rather more terrifying possibility-Esme's mother?

"Enter!" she called hoa.r.s.ely, rolling on top of the wet spot and positioning herself on her side with a hand propping up her head. Her hair was falling in the right direction to be enhanced by the pearl blue of her negligee, but she was uncomfortably aware of dampness soaking through the said garment.

He walked through the door looking as urbane and composed as if he often conducted this sort of excursion. Which, of course, he did, Bea reminded herself. Stephen was the man with two mistresses and a fiancee, after all.

"Good evening, lovely Bea," he said, closing the door and walking over to the bed.

Bea cleared her throat. "Good evening," she managed, with reasonable serenity. She looked surrept.i.tiously down her body and was horrified to see that the silk of her negligee was apparently soaking up the water from her coverlet. Just at her hip there was a spreading patch of dark greenish-looking silk. Quickly she pulled the silk behind her and rolled onto her back so that her bottom covered the spilled water.

"And how are you, sir?" she said, smiling up at Stephen. He had seated himself on the side of the bed and was looking at her with a rather quizzical expression.

"The better for seeing you," he said.

What was that in his eyes? Bea wiggled a little. Her bottom was growing distinctly damp. Who would have thought there could be that much water in one gla.s.s?

He leaned forward and dropped a kiss on her forehead. "My word, that's a very elegant perfume you're wearing," he whispered against her cheek.

He was hovering above her. Perhaps she should give him a kiss? She brushed her lips over his, but he pulled back suddenly and sneezed. Bea sat up, realizing as she did so that she was now damp all the way to the small of her back. If she didn't change clothing, she would be sneezing as well.

"Excuse me," he said, bracing a hand on the bed and reaching into his pocket, presumably for a handkerchief.

Bea shivered. His shoulders... and the way his neck rose out of his shirt. Who would have thought Stephen Fairfax-Lacy was a symphony of muscle under all that linen? She was trembling, literally trembling, to take off his clothes again. She leaned toward him. "I missed you during dinner," she said. The naked longing in her voice was rather embarra.s.sing. Why hadn't he given her a proper kiss?

He frowned, held up his hand and said, "Bea, your coverlet appears to be rather damp."

Bea bit her lip. "I spilled a gla.s.s of water."

"Ah." He bent close to her again and-sneezed. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I'm terribly sorry to say that I-achoo!"

"You caught a chill in the pasture," Bea said, her heart sinking.

"Not I." He looked at her and smiled. For the first time since he entered the room Bea felt a rush of confidence. His smile said volumes about the cut of her bodice. She shifted slightly, just enough so the neckline fell off her shoulder.

The look in his eyes was dark and seductive. Bea quivered all over. Her knees suddenly felt weak, and her breath disappeared. A strong hand rounded her ankle, and the melting sensation crept up to her middle. He was on the bed now, leaning over her; Bea raised her arms to pull that hard body down on hers and- He sneezed again.

"You are ill!" Bea said with anguish as he pulled away again.

Stephen almost wished he were. But there was no way he was leaving the room without tasting Bea's perfect little body. "It's the perfume," he admitted.

Bea's eyes widened. "My perfume?"

He nodded.

"One moment. I shall-" She scrambled off the bed and headed toward her dressing table and the pitcher of water that stood there. She began pouring water into a bowl.

Stephen swallowed. The backside of her negligee was drenched. The wet silk clung to the middle of her back, clung to the round curve of her a.s.s, to a secret curve that turned inward, drawing a man's eye. He was off the bed in a moment, splaying his hand across that sweet bottom, eyes meeting hers in the mirror.

"Stephen!" she cried, shocked.

"Yes, Bea?" he said with a grin, his fingers slipping over the wet silk, letting the cool fabric rumple against his fingers, against the smooth skin of her bottom as he curved his fingers in and under. Silk met silky flesh and her head fell back against his shoulder. Stephen reached around her with his free hand and scooped water from the bowl.

"This may be chilly," he murmured, opening his hand on the smooth column of her neck. Her eyes flew open and she began to protest, but he had her now, wet silk over one breast, and wet silk below, and both hands slipping and rubbing. Her head fell back again and she made that little throaty moan he loved. It sounded different in a bedchamber than it had in the pasture: less thin, more deep with womanly delight. She was liquid in his arms, and the chilly silk was taking heat from her burning skin.

She turned in his arms, and her curious eyes, always so vigilant, so watchful, so wicked, were dazed. He kissed her fiercely and she begged him without words, so he cupped her bottom and pulled her hard against him.

But he couldn't concentrate because of the d.a.m.n perfume, so he pulled the negligee over her head in a moment, took more water, and used his fingers as a facecloth. He started at her neck, at the smooth skin just under her ears, water dripping from his fingers, shaping her body, singing over her skin, licking kisses from his fingers. Over her collarbone, down her arms, back to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, further down... He was on his knees, and the water came with him, cooling her burning skin until he worked his way up her legs and there, then and there, his control snapped.

Bea was throbbing so much that she felt unable to speak or move. She hardly noticed when he picked her up and put her down on the wet part of the bed. She scarcely realized that he had shed his clothing. She was too busy twisting toward him. But then he was pushing her legs apart, and that dark head was there, and she was quivering, crying, pleading- Then he cupped her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers, and she opened to him as gladly as she wound her legs around him, as joyously as she surged against him, with as much urgency as she shattered around him, waves of pleasure flooding to the very tips of her fingers.

Chapter 36.

Because It Takes Courage to Admit a Mistake.

The following afternoon.