Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(18)

“I thought you had forgotten my title.”

“Forgotten it? Me? Perhapsyou mislaid it. I’m certain I saw it lying about somewhere. Right next to your cravat.”

His jaw tensed. “I was out riding. When I learned you were already at table, I thought it unwise to delay my own repast.” His derisive glance wandered from her earrings to her neckline. “It appears my concern was warranted.”

“When did you appoint yourself Toby’s protector? He’s a grown man, is he not?”

Toby returned to the table with coffee and toast. He sat down next to Sophia Hathaway and murmured something Lucy could not hear. Sophia smiled demurely and fluttered her eyelashes. The eggs scrambled in Lucy’s stomach.

Jeremy reached for a dish of marmalade, obstructing her view. “Have you considered,” he asked, “that it may not be Toby I’m attempting to protect?”

Before Lucy could summon a sufficiently indignant response, Felix interrupted. “What’s our sport today, Henry?”

“It’s a fine, warm day,” Henry replied. “I thought a spot of fishing?”

“Just the thing!” said Felix. “Will you join us, Lucy?”

Lucy felt Kitty and Sophia staring at her. Well-bred ladies, evidently, did not fish.

“Oh, no! I assure you, Mr. Crowley-Cumberbatch, I have given up those hoyden pursuits of my youth.” She turned to Toby. “I haven’t been fishing in ages. I can’t remember the last time.”

“Really, Luce?” Toby sounded incredulous. “Henry—is it true?”

Henry sawed away at a slice of ham. “If you count six days as ‘ages,’ then I suppose it’s true. But if you can’t remember six days back, Lucy, and you’ve forgotten Felix’s Christian name, I’m concerned for you. Perhaps you’ve been spending too much time with Aunt Matilda.”

“Henry!” said Marianne. “Don’t say such things in front of the poor dear.”

“Oh, she has no idea.” He leaned over and shouted in Aunt Matilda’s ear. “Lucy’s given up fishing, Aunt Matilda! She’s going about dripping in silk and baubles. Next she’s going to paint her face and run off to become an actress! Won’t that be lovely?”

Aunt Matilda slurped her chocolate. “Lovely.”

Lucy smiled and tightened her grip on her knife.

“Since the day is so fine, perhaps the ladies would enjoy a picnic by the stream,” said Marianne.

“Oh, how delightful!” Sophia fairly jumped in her seat. “I’ll bring my watercolors.”

“Miss Hathaway is a very accomplished painter,” said Toby. “Just the other week, she showed me a cunning little tea tray she’d adorned with … roses, was it?”

“Orchids.” Sophia blushed.

“Do you sketch, Miss Waltham?” Kitty asked in a smug tone.

“Oh, yes. I adore sketching. And painting. I shall bring my watercolors, too.” She knew one of those governesses had left behind some paints somewhere. Perhaps in the old schoolroom. Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud, rasping slurp.

“Lucy, pour Aunt Matilda more chocolate,” said Henry. “She’s sipping air again.”

She rose from her chair, lifting the chocolate pot with as much grace as she could muster.

“I never knew you were an artist, Lucy,” Toby said.

Lucy leaned forward as she filled Aunt Matilda’s cup, giving Toby a view of her brimming décolletage. She made her voice low and breathy.

“Oh, but Sir Toby,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes like mad, “there are ever so many things you don’t know about me.”

Her mother’s opal earring slipped from her ear, landing in Aunt Matilda’s cup with a splash.

“Don’t laugh, Jemmy. Don’t you dare laugh.”

Drat. Given the endless parade of governesses that had marched through Waltham Manor, Lucy was forced to admit that she ought to have paid the tiniest bit of attention to one or two of them.

Jeremy stood over her shoulder, looking down at her easel. Her work of the past hour had resulted in a tolerably good likeness of a mud puddle.

She had meant to capture the autumn glory of a distant oak tree, its orange-red foliage branching across a clear blue sky. She had begun by coating the entire paper with a lovely wash of brilliant blue. It was an excellent sky. Bold, cloudless, and indicative of untapped creative genius. No mundane tea tray, no matter how cunning, could possibly hope to touch her sky.

But then she’d started in with the orange. Only, when she laid the brush to the still-wet sky, she did not get orange, but brown. Worse yet, the brown would not stay put in nice little leaf-like shapes. Watery brown rivulets streaked the paper like muddy tears. The more she attempted to fix it, the more hideous it became, until the entire painting was nothing but a soggy mess.

“Don’t. You. Dare,” she ground out.

He bent low over her shoulder, as if examining her work. There was something vaguely unsettling in the way he loomed over her, his broad shoulders blotting out the sun. She felt the sudden impulse to shrink away—or shrink closer.

“I would not dream of daring.” The solemn bass of his voice resonated deep in her body, thrilling her in an intimate, unexpected fashion. An unwelcome fashion. “And neither should you. Daring only invites disaster. By all means, stick to watercolors.”