A Wild Pursuit by Eloisa James

woman. In fact, it was as if he were seeing her for the first time. He didn’t look Elizabethan at all. He looked…
    Bea’s stomach took a funny little hop, and she felt a wave of unaccountable shyness. So she kept her eyes down as he unbuttoned the rest of her spencer. It was all very romantic, what with the odoriferousness of his person and the grinding sound of a goat munching her extravagantly expensive garment.
    Once it was unbuttoned, she managed to squirm the rest of the way out of her left sleeve, and then quickly shed the right. One could have sworn that the goat had been waiting for that moment. The very second her body was free of the spencer he took a bigger bite and then bared his teeth in a smile.
    Bea felt a wave of anger. “Go get him!” she ordered the Puritan.
    He laughed. He was still looking at her as if she were a person, rather than an annoying insect, but Bea didn’t let that distract her.
    â€œThen I shall do so myself,” she said, unlatching the gate and pushing it open. There was a ghastly squishing noise as her boot sank into brown muck. Bea ignored it.
    He closed the gate behind her and leaned on it with a huge grin on his face. She thought about sticking her tongue out at him and rethought it. She was twenty-three, after all.
    â€œGoat,” she said, in the low, threatening tone she had perfected on her four smaller sisters. “Goat, give me that garment.”
    The goat stopped chewing for a second and looked at her, and Bea knew she had him.
    She walked over, ignoring the Puritan’s shouts. Apparently Fairfax-Lacy had realized she was serious and seemed perturbed that she might get injured.
    â€œDon’t even think about kicking me,” she told the goat. “I’ll tie your ears in a bow and you’ll look so stupid that no lady goat will ever look at you again.”
    He stopped chewing. Bea took another step and then held out her hand. “Drop that coat!” she said sharply.
    The goat just stared at her, so she used the meanest tone she had, the one she reserved for little sisters who were caught painting their cheeks with her Liquid Bloom of Roses. “Drop it!”
    He did, naturally.
    Bea cast a triumphant look over her shoulder and bent to pick up her coat. Fairfax-Lacy was tramping across the field after her, no doubt impressed by her magnetic effect on animals.
    Time has a way of softening memories. Yes, her meanest tone had been successful. But how could she have forgotten that her wicked little sisters often found retribution?
    The kick landed squarely on her bottom and actually picked her off her feet. She landed with a tremendous splash, just at the feet of Mr. Stephen Fairfax-Lacy.
    â€œOw!”
    At least he didn’t laugh at her. He squatted next to her, and his blue eyes were so compassionate that they made her feel a little teary. Or perhaps that was due to the throbbing in her bottom.
    â€œYou’ve still got your spencer,” he said reassuringly.
    Bea looked down at her hand, and sure enough, she was clutching a muddy, chewed-up garment. The goat may have got his revenge, but she’d kept his supper. She started to giggle.
    A smile was biting at the corners of the Puritan’s mouth too. A splatter of warm rain fell on Bea’s cheeks, the kind that falls through sunshine. Water slid behind her ears and pattered on the leaves of a little birch. Bea licked her lips. Then, as suddenly as it started, the shower stopped.
    â€œI didn’t realize how much you treasure your clothing,” he said, touching her cheek. For a moment Bea didn’t know what he was doing, and then she realized he was wiping mud from her face.
    Without even thinking, she leaned against the Puritan and just let laughter pour out of her. She howled with laughter, the way she used to, back when she and her sisters would lark around in the nursery. The way she did when the world was bright and fresh and new.
    She laughed