Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(24)

Good friends, the three of them, but Henry most of all. Henry didn’t allow him to sit brooding in his club when there was a prizefight to see, any more than he allowed him to stew at home over a failed wheat harvest when there were trout to be netted. Without stooping to methods so grating as cheerfulness, Henry simply refused to indulge his darker moods. But the same qualities that made him a valued friend made Henry a miserable excuse for a guardian. Now that Jeremy began to see what that blithe irreverence was costing Lucy, his humor was growing black indeed.

“You know how persistent Lucy can be when she sets her mind to something,” he said testily. “She’s going to throw herself at Toby at every opportunity. This afternoon she missed and hit the river instead. She’s like to do herself in, and take a few of us with her.”

“And what, precisely, do you recommend I do?” Henry asked.

“Not you,” Jeremy said. “Toby.”

“Oh, no.” Alarm flared in Toby’s eyes. “I’m not havingthat conversation with Lucy. I take no pleasure in breaking young ladies’ hearts.”

The other three stared at him.

“Well, I don’t,” he said defensively. “Of late.”

“You don’t have to break her heart.” Jeremy was becoming exasperated. “At least, not to her face. You just have to propose to Miss Hathaway. Once you’re engaged, Lucy will be forced to give up this absurd notion of seduc—distractingyou.”

“I shall be perfectly happy to propose marriage to Miss Hathaway,” said Toby. “At theend of our holiday.”

“Why the end?” asked Felix. “Kitty’s been after me daily, asking when you’re finally going to propose to Sophia. She thinks you’ve got the gout, you’re so reluctant to bend a knee.”

“I may as well be infirm, for all the fun I’ll have once I’m engaged,” Toby said. “I can’t very well bag a bride in the morning and a pheasant that same afternoon. Once I’ve asked for her hand, I’ll have a hundred things to do. Go apply to her father in Kent. See my solicitor in Town. Make appointments with my tailor. Retrieve my grandmother’s ring from Surrey. I’ll be running all over England like a Norman invader, and that will spell the end of all amusement.”

“What rot,” Henry said. “Felix and I are both married, as you see, and we manage a bit of sport despite it.”

“Yes, but you’remarried,” Toby replied. “A married woman likes nothing better than to be left alone. A betrothed woman won’t leave a man be. I’ll be obliged to take ambling strolls in the garden and read poetry over tea, when I ought to be tramping through the woods, taking nips off a flask of whiskey.”

“Courting can be a sport in its own right,” Felix said with a sly smile.

Toby countered, “Yes, but blushing virgins are always in season.” He rose from his seat and went to stand by the window, gazing out over the park. “Miss Hathaway is an enchanting creature. I admire her beauty and esteem her character. I may even love her. But this autumn is my last gasp of bachelorhood, and I mean to enjoy it. While there are still coveys in Henry’s woods, I have no intention of proposing marriage to Sophia Hathaway.”

“And what about Lucy?” Jeremy asked.

“Oh, don’t worry. I shan’t propose to her, either.”

Jeremy regarded his friend through narrowed eyes. Toby’s brand of reckless charm wore well on a youth of one-and-twenty, but it ill became a gentleman nearing thirty. Not that the young ladies had ceased swooning in his direction. Falling in love with Sir Toby Aldridge was still a rite of initiation for debutantes. But this wasn’t another simpering heiress they were discussing. This wasLucy .

He turned to Henry. “Aren’t you the least bit concerned for your sister’s welfare?”

“Of course I’m concerned for her welfare. I’m her guardian.”

Jeremy snorted.

“You’re making too much of this,” Henry said. “So Lucy is infatuated with Toby. It’s an all-too-common affliction. One many a girl has survived, with no lasting ill effects.”

“Unless you count near-drowning.”

“She’s mistaken Toby’s kindness for some deeper emotion,” Henry continued, ignoring Jeremy’s remark. “It’s entirely understandable. She ought to have had her season by now, and fallen in and out of love a dozen times. As it is, she’s a complete innocent.”

Jeremy snorted again. Obviously Henry did not know aboutthe book .

“She feels left out,” Henry went on. “She’s surrounded by ladies who are either happily married or engaged.” He waved off Toby’s interjection.“Nearly engaged. She wants a bit of romance all her own.” Apparently satisfied with this deduction, Henry saluted his own ingenuity by pouring another round of brandy. “It will pass.”

Jeremy felt creeping tendrils of madness winding around his brain.It will pass? Henry couldn’t possibly know how wrong he was. And Jeremy couldn’t possibly tell him. “And in the meantime?” he asked. “You just allow her to keep up these … these antics?”

“Jem has a point there,” said Toby. “I can’t very well have Lucy hanging all over me if I’m meant to be courting Miss Hathaway. A bit awkward, that.”