Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(107)

After closing the door as best he could, he heaped her with furs and placed a folded blanket under her head. He stacked the fireplace with tinder and wood. Once the draw of smoke from a single lit branch assured him the chimney was clear, he added the burning twig to the rest of the kindling. The fire caught quickly, snapping and sparking and filling the room with sweet, smoky warmth and an amber glow. He knelt beside her, watching her chest rise and fall with every breath. Drawing a grateful breath of his own when the color returned to her cheeks and her lips. He reached out to caress her cheek, and she stirred, nuzzling into his touch. Cupping her face in his palm, he brushed his thumb across her lower lip.

He would hold this moment forever. Hold her face in his hand, her lips grazing his thumb in a secret kiss. When she woke up, it would be over. She would gather up her hounds and her cat and her senile aunt and leave, taking everything good in his life along with her.

She stirred again, shifting under the blankets. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Jeremy?” His name flowed from her lips slow and thick and sweet, like honey. It wouldn’t last, he told himself. She’d be cursing him soon.

“Don’t move.” He pulled his hand away from her face. “Just rest.”

She slid one arm out from under the blankets and rubbed her eyes with her fist. She might as well have driven her fist straight into his gut. Red, angry bruises blossomed along the skin of her wrist. Bruises from where he’d grabbed her arm and pinned it to the tree. Bile churned in his stomach. He’d hurt her, and not just there. He had to see.

He lifted the blankets gently, casting them to the side. She made a small sound, but he placed a finger on her lips.

“Let me look at you,” he said, drawing aside the edges of her dressing gown. She nodded drowsily.

The red silk nightgown clung to her body in tatters. Jeremy tore the remaining strap of lace and drew the fabric aside. He steeled his jaw, swallowed hard, and forced himself to take a good, long look at what he’d done.

There were little marks on her neck and shoulder, where he’d kissed and sucked and bitten her flesh. Between her legs she was swollen and red, where he’d wedged himself and rutted like a beast.

“Turn over,” he choked.

She obeyed in silence, and he forced his gaze to wander her body from the feet up, noting every scrape and scratch the tree bark had wrought on her perfect, golden skin. The marks were sparse on her calves and the backs of her thighs, but her back was a crosshatch of red streaks. He followed the curve of her spine up.

And then he saw it, and his breath caught in his chest.

A round, angry welt on her shoulder blade. A deep-red circle of raised, swollen flesh. This was no scratch. This was nothing he had done. He traced the wound with his fingertip, and Lucy winced.

“He did this to you.”

She nodded.

Jeremy stood up. He picked up his coat and shrugged into it before looking about for his gun.

“What are you doing?” she asked, rolling onto her side and propping herself up on one elbow. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to kill him.” Where had he put his damn gun? “I’m going to find that bastard and shoot him dead.”

She sat up, grabbing the red silk dressing gown and pulling it on. “Jeremy, no. You can’t.”

“I assure you, I can.” He must have left the gun outside. He put his hand to the door, but suddenly she was there, pulling on his sleeve.

“He’s only a boy, Jeremy!” With a sharp yank on his arm, she wheeled him to face her. She repeated gently, “He’s only a boy.”

Only a boy.

The words ripped through him like a shot. Jeremy choked on a curse. Lucy reached for his other hand, but he recoiled from the touch. He couldn’t even look at her. “How—” His voice was a rusty creak. He swallowed and tried again. “How old?”

“Twelve. Thirteen, perhaps.” Jeremy stared mutely at Lucy’s hand where it clutched his arm. Her grip softened. Her voice, as well. “I tried to explain to you earlier. His name is Albert. His father’s been transported for poaching. His mother is dead. He has a five-year-old sister to look after, and they’re hungry. I took him by surprise in the dark. He can’t be blamed for injuring me.”

He shook her hand from his arm and turned away. He ran his hands through his hair, then slammed the table with his fists. An earthenware mug crashed to the floor. Behind him, Lucy gave a startled cry.

Damn him. Another crash.

Damn him. Damn him to hell. He pounded the words into the table again and again. He wasn’t even certain which “him” he meant. His father, himself—it didn’t matter. They were one and the same. Both destructive. Both damned.

For twenty-one years, he’d feared this moment. For twenty-one years, he had known it would come. Jeremy had lived his life to distance himself from his father’s mistakes. That quiet, cold cruelty that made enemies of his tenants, a wretch of his wife, and a ghost of his eldest son.

Even as a boy, Jeremy had tried to resist. He’d tried to cheat fate. If his father said “Turn left,” Jeremy went right. If his father urged, “Go faster,” Jeremy slowed down. None of it mattered in the end. He was right back in the same damned place, paying for all the same sins. The tenants despised him, even before he’d chased them all off with a gun. He was pushing his wife up against trees and driving her to despair.