Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(26)

“I’m not here to pity you. Nor am I acting at Henry’s behest.” Jeremy placed the last pieces on the board. “I have my own reasons to speak with you.”

She rotated the chessboard to situate the white pieces before her. Winding her braid around her right hand, she advanced a pawn with her left. She glanced up at him through thick, curving eyelashes. “To apologize?”

To apologize, indeed. Lucy ought to be thanking him. He intended to bring a swift end to this absurd scheme of her brother’s. At dinner, he had suffered winks from Henry, grins from Toby, Felix’s jab to the ribs—even Marianne’s sly expression when she seated Lucy at his elbow. Well, Henry could make accomplices of every last footman, for all Jeremy cared. He’d be damned if he’d spend his holiday reciting Byron in the garden, simply to coddle their consciences. Neither did he intend to stand watch in the corridor each night, or keep fishing Lucy out of danger. If neither Henry nor Toby were man enough to simply tell her the truth, Jeremy would.

He brought out a pawn to meet hers. “I’ve come to tell you the good news. Toby will propose marriage to Miss Hathaway at the end of the holiday.”

“Thatis the good news?” She moved a bishop across the board, claiming a black pawn. “I can scarcely contain my joy. Please excuse my display of wild jubilation.”

“At theend of the holiday, Lucy. Weeks from now. Any attempt to prevent the engagement would be futile”—he continued speaking over her objection—“but if you insist on trying, you have ample time. There is no need to commit a brazen act of seduction. Or subversion.”

“On the contrary.” The corners of her lips curled in an impish grin. “With so much time at my disposal, I can commit more brazen acts than ever.”

“And do you suppose brazenness is a quality Toby seeks in a wife?”

His barb hit home, and Lucy’s mouth thinned to a line. She glanced over at the card players. “Whatdoes he see in her?”

“As I told you, she is beautiful, accomplished, and—most importantly—wealthy.”

“And these are the qualities that inspire a man to the heights of passion? A large dowry and cunning tea trays?”

“No, they are not the qualities that inspire a man to passion. They are the qualities that inspire a man to propose.”

Lucy studied the chessboard, twining the curled end of her braid around her fingers and touching it against the corner of her mouth. Her tongue flicked out from between her parted lips, drawing on a strand of hair. Jeremy shifted in his seat.

“We seem to be back where we began,” she said.

“How so?”

“I have no dowry or tea tray to inspire a man to propose. Therefore, I shall have to summon the qualities that inspire a man to passion.” She looked up at him, green eyes dancing with reflected firelight. “And those would be?”

If he were being honest, Jeremy would be forced to tell her that the saucy gleam in her eye was a powerful start. And that the way she kept teasing that stray chestnut curl with her tongue—nibbling it, sucking it, drawing it into her mouth—had him feelinginspired indeed.

But Jeremy had no particular desire to be honest. In fact, he heartily wished to change the subject. And if he managed to change Lucy’s mind in the process, so much the better. “It isn’t only Miss Hathaway’s dowry,” he said. “I believe Toby does feel a genuine attachment to her.”

Lucy looked disbelieving. She moved her bishop across the board. “You can’t expect me to believe it was love at first sight.”

“Not at all. More like the second.” This captured her attention. She leaned forward slightly in her chair. Jeremy bent over the chessboard and lowered his voice. “Toby was first introduced to Miss Hathaway at a dinner party at Felix’s house. She was every bit as lovely and charming as you see her now. She made trifling conversation at dinner and played the pianoforte afterward, quite capably. Toby took no notice.” He moved a knight into play.

“And the second time?”

“The second time we were all in company, we met at a ball. On that occasion, Miss Sophia had a bevy of admirers surrounding her before the first set. Toby was instantly enthralled. For weeks afterward, he spoke of nothing but Miss Sophia Hathaway. He was quite insufferable.”

Lucy looked nonplussed. “So you’re telling me Henry should host a ball?”

He sighed. “I’m telling you to stop flinging yourself at Toby’s feet. A man doesn’t want to stoop to love. He wants to reach higher, stand taller. He desires something more than a woman. He wants an angel. A dream.”

“A goddess?”

“If you will.”

Her voice grew wistful. “Toby always called me a goddess. His Diana. Goddess of the hunt.”

“She was the goddess of chastity, too,” he scoffed. “But no matter. You’re beginning to comprehend the principle. The allure of the unattainable. You’d be foolish to keep flashing your … yourcharms at Toby so brazenly. Men want what it seems they can’t have.”

And God help him, he was a man. He wanted what he could not have. That must be the reason Jeremy felt himself growing stiff at the mere mention of Lucy’scharms . Lucy was unattainable, he reminded himself for what must have been the nineteenth time that day. And whatever strange allure she held, it logically proceeded from that fact. Not from her enticing, womanly curves, or her golden, petal-soft skin. Not from the obvious challenge of her flinty spirit or the veiled invitation in her smoky voice. And most definitely not from her lips—those lush, bowed, dusky red lips that Jeremy now knew to be formed for something wholly apart from stinging retorts. Sweet, sensual kisses that stirred a man’s blood and tasted of wild, ripe fruit. Forbidden fruit.