A Wild Pursuit Read Free Page B

forty-three. Too old for a debutante.
    Finally Stephen shrugged on a coat and walked down the stairs. Perhaps he would plead work and return to London first thing in the morning. He might even attend a ball at Almack’s and acquire some fresh young thing who didn’t mind what an old man he was. After all, he was a good catch, to put it vulgarly. He had a resoundingly good estate.
    Of course, he hardly remembered what the property looked like, given that his work in Parliament had taken virtually all his time in the past ten years. He had a wash of longing for the lazy days of his youth, sitting around with Cam, whittling boats and fishing for trout they rarely caught. These days he fished for votes.
    What I need, he thought suddenly, is a mistress. It’s a lengthy business, fishing for a wife, and likely tedious as well. But a mistress would offer an immediate solution to his malaise. No doubt life had a plodding sensation because he hadn’t had a mistress in a donkey’s age.
    He paused for a moment and thought. Could it really have been a year since he entered a woman’s bedchamber? How could that be? Too many smoky late nights, talking votes with whiskey-soaked men. Had it truly been a year since Maribell had kissed him good-bye and walked off with Lord Pinkerton? Over a year ago. Damn.
    No wonder he was always in a foul mood. Still, Esme Rawlings’s house would be an excellent hunting ground for a mistress. He walked into the salon with a surge of enthusiasm and bowed over his hostess’s hand. “I must beg your forgiveness for my importunate arrival, my lady. Lady Withers assures me that she treats your house as her own. I trust she didn’t prevaricate?”
    Lady Rawlings chuckled, that deep, rich laugh that had entranced half the men in London. Of course, she was great with child and had presumably curtailed her seductive activities. Beautiful woman, though. She was even more lush than he remembered, with breasts that gave a man an instant ache in the groin. In fact…Stephen caught himself sharply before he formed the image. I must be getting desperate, he thought, kissing her hand.
    There was something about the way Lady Rawlings’s eyes met his that made him think she could read his thoughts, so he turned quickly to the lady next to her. It was shameful to be entertaining such thoughts about a woman on the verge of giving birth.
    â€œThis is Lady Beatrix Lennox,” Lady Rawlings said. There was an odd tone in her voice, as if he were expected to recognize the girl. “Lady Beatrix, Stephen Fairfax-Lacy, the Earl of Spade.”
    â€œI do not use the title,” he said, bowing. Lady Beatrix was clearly unmarried but equally clearly not eligible to be his wife. A wife had to have an angelic air, a sense of fragility and purity, whereas Lady Beatrix looked like a high-flying courtesan. Her lips were like a pouting rosebud, and that rosebud never grew in nature. Given that her skin was as pale as cream and red curls tumbled down her back, those velvety black eyelashes were obviously false too.
    A beauty, a seductively false beauty. He almost laughed. Wasn’t she exactly what he hoped for? A woman the precise opposite of his future bride. A woman who would likely be unrecognizable in the morning, were he ever foolish enough to spend a night in her bed. Too bad she was both well-bred and unmarried, and thus ineligible for an affair.
    â€œMr. Fairfax-Lacy,” she said, and her voice had the practiced, husky promise of a coquette. “What a pleasure to meet you.”
    He brushed a kiss on the back of her hand. Sure enough, she wore French perfume, the sort that a certain kind of woman considers akin to a night rail.
    â€œThe pleasure is all mine,” he said. She had high, delicate eyebrows, and the fact that she’d colored them black somehow suited her face.
    Lady Arabella appeared at his side. “Ah, I see you’ve met my dame de compagnie