Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(101)

It was nearing midnight when Jeremy finally reached the Corbinsdale stables. Lucy would surely be abed, he thought, handing his reins to a sleepy groom and making his way up to the house. Mounting the stairs two at a time, he considered whether he ought to rouse her. Certainly not in his present state, he thought ruefully. A day of hard riding on dusty roads did little to recommend a man when his object was persuasion. He would have a bath drawn, and then he would wake her. He hadn’t looked on his wife in five days, and he didn’t think he could wait until morning to see her again.

He didn’t have to wait another minute.

Jeremy entered the sitting room to find his wife curled up on the ivory damask sofa, asleep. He quietly crossed the room to stand before her. She did not wake. He sank down on the carpet next to his wife, his legs suddenly weak. He couldn’t blame physical exhaustion, or mental fatigue. Lucy was just so damned beautiful, it brought him to his knees.

She lay on her side, one hand slid between the sofa’s creamy upholstery and the golden skin of her cheek. Thick, dark eyelashes fluttered fetchingly as she dreamed. Her hair was unbound, rippling over her shoulder and glowing almost red in the firelight. And what she was wearing—dear God. It was a very good thing Lucy was asleep, because anything tender or honorable or gently persuasive in him instantly went up in flames.

A thin strap of black lace looped over the enticing curve of her exposed shoulder, and Jeremy’s eyes followed it down, and down, to where plunging black lace framed the valley between her br**sts. Red silk skimmed over the flat planes of her belly and the rounded swell of her hip, then diverged in another V of lace. The narrow slit began at the crest of her thigh, then widened as it wandered down the side of her leg. The silk fell away completely just below her knee, exposing the sweet curve of her calf as it tapered to her ankle.

Her ankle flexed.

A sleepy sigh pulled his gaze back up to her face. To heavy-lidded emerald eyes and slightly parted, sweetly bowed, dusky red lips.

“Jeremy?”

Lucy blinked again. Perhaps she was dreaming. She often dreamt of him like this, coming to her fresh from the stables—rumpled and unshaven, cool wind clinging to his hair and clothes. And sometimes, in her dreams, he murmured her name in this same reverent whisper and reached out like this to gently touch her cheek.

“Come with me to London.”

But never in her dreams did he saythat .

She rose up on her elbow, rubbing her eyes with her other hand. “What?”

“Come with me to London,” he repeated, smoothing a lock of hair from her brow.

Lucy shook herself, trying to dispel the sleepy fog in her brain. “Now?”

He smiled. For the first time in weeks, he smiled. Her heart turned over in her chest.

“No, not now. But soon. I’m having my town house—ourtown house—prepared. Your suite is being redecorated. You’ll have a carriage for your own particular use, and the phaeton, of course. Anything else you wish.”

“But—”

He put a finger over her lips. “Don’t answer yet. I’m getting ahead of myself.” He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a velvet pouch. Loosening the knotted string at the top, he said, “I know I’ve been remiss in my duty to you as your husband. I want you to know that’s going to change.”

He opened the pouch and emptied its contents into his palm. Filigreed gold and glowing red stones coiled in his hand like an exotic snake. Lucy gasped and clapped a hand to her mouth.

“To match your ring,” he said, pulling her hand from her mouth and draping the necklace over her palm. “Come with me to London. I’ll make no demands on you, I swear it. Just let me take care of you. Whatever you desire, whatever you need—it will be yours.”

Lucy tore her gaze away from the jewels in her hand and looked up at her husband. Drat him. His little impassioned speech was wreaking havoc with all the words she’d practiced so faithfully and waited up late to say. That she didn’t want to go back to Waltham Manor. That the past five days had been sheer agony, and she never wanted to be parted from him again. She would go with him to Cornwall, if he asked it. Or Australia, or the moon.

But he wanted her to go to London. He wanted to buy her jewels and carriages and take care of her. He would make no demands on her, he said.

Even if she wanted him to?

Lucy loved him too much to let him go, even if she wasn’t loved in return. If he had wanted her enough to marry her, then being wanted would have to suffice. So she’d practiced her seductive speech and donned this tarty red negligee of Sophia’s—after all, something similar had worked once before. And now he was here on his knees, with jewels and promises and that beautiful, sincere blue gaze of his. Vowing not to desire her at all. Retreating back into that shell of indifference. Offering her a lifetime of opulent misery.

She didn’t know how to respond.

Her fingers tightened over the necklace. The polished stones felt like liquid under her fingertips. “It’s lovely, Jeremy. But I don’t need this. And I don’t need carriages, or a redecorated suite, either.” His brow furrowed, and his jaw tensed. Lucy sat up. This was coming out all wrong.

Pulling on his lapel with her empty hand, she slid the necklace inside and let it drop back into his pocket. Then she ran both hands up to his shoulders.

“Jeremy, can’t you see?” She swallowed hard, meeting his now-troubled gaze. “I don’t need you to take care of me. All I need is—”