A Wild Pursuit by Eloisa James Read Free Book Online Page A

shirt. He’d rolled it to the elbow, and his forearms swelled with muscle. He was everything the smooth, delicate gentlemen of her acquaintance were not: There was something wild and untamed about him. Esme felt a shock of shyness and couldn’t meet his eyes.
    â€œMy lady,” he said, and his voice was as smooth and deep as that of any marquess. “What are you doing in my humble abode?”
    She bit her lip and said nothing. Embarrassment was creeping up her spine. Hadn’t she told him last time that she would never visit again?
    â€œYou are responsible for the loss of my meal,” he said, and his hand pushed up her chin so she had to meet his eyes. He loomed in front of her, the sort of man all young girls are warned to stay away from. The kind who knows no laws and no propriety, who sees what he wants and takes it.
    â€œIt was purely an accident,” Esme pointed out.
    â€œThen you must provide me with another.” She barely caught a glimpse of the hunger in his eyes before his mouth closed on hers.
    It was always the same with them. There were no words for it, really. Esme had been married. She’d had lovers. But she clung to Baring, her gardener, as if he were the first man on earth, and she the first woman. As if a smoky little hut smelling of charred stew were the famous Garden itself and she, Eve shaking in Adam’s arms. And he held her with the same desperate hunger and the same deep craving.
    It was a good ten minutes later when Esme remembered why she’d come to the hut. By then she was tucked in his arms and they were sitting on the bed, albeit fully clothed. “You’re sacked,” she said against his shoulder. He smelled of woodsmoke, and Rosalie’s stew and more, strongly, of a clean, outdoors smell that no nobleman had.
    â€œIndeed?” His voice had a husky, sleepy tone that made her breasts tingle.
    â€œMrs. Cable is beginning a campaign to stamp out all incorrigible sinners in the village, and surely you qualify.”
    â€œIs she a little woman who wears her hair scraped into a bun?”
    Esme nodded.
    â€œShe’s already tried,” he said with a chuckle. “Came around to The Trout and handed out a lot of pamphlets to the lads last week. They were all about God’s opinion of the Ways of the Wicked. I gather she forgot that reading is not a strong point in the village.”
    â€œWait until she discovers that my aunt Arabella has arrived and brought a houseful of guests with her. Not a one of them has a decent reputation. Are you listening?”
    â€œOf course.” He was dropping small kisses on her neck.
    â€œIt’s not a laughing matter,” Esme said crossly. “You of all people should understand how important it is to be respectable. Why, only last year you were thought of as the most proper man in all the ton. ”
    At that, he did grin. “Yes, and you can see how much that affected me. Here I am, living in disgrace on the Continent, and a very small Continent it is,” he added, glancing around his hut.
    â€œEntirely your fault!” she snapped. Esme was starting to feel a wicked temper. “If you hadn’t lurched into my bedchamber in the middle of the night, you’d still be in the judgement seat, pronouncing verdicts on all the poor dis-repectable souls like myself.” She brooded over that for a moment. “I used to feel as if you were always watching me.”
    She glanced up and found he was indeed watching her. His eyes were a darkish blue form of periwinkle.
    â€œI was.”
    â€œNot just watching. Judging. ”
    â€œI had to,” he said cheerfully. “I was so utterly miserable about your married state that it drove me mad.”
    Esme felt a slight cheer in her heart. No woman in the world would dislike hearing that. “Truly, Sebastian, what am I to do? I know you think it’s foolish, but I did promise Miles that I would become a