Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(52)

“Very well,” Sophia sighed. “My dear little rabbit.”

Lucy did not move her quill. “Surely you’re joking.”

“Not at all.”

“Yourrabbit? And a ‘dear, little’ one at that? Are you certain you wouldn’t prefer to begin with something a bit less … furry? ‘Dear Gervais’ seems a likely choice.”

“But it’s what I always called him,” Sophia insisted. “And if the letter is in your hand, and in the wrong language, he has to know it’s truly me somehow.”

Lucy shrugged. “My … dear … little … rabbit,” she said, scrawling the words as she spoke. “And then?”

“Forgive me, my darling,” Sophia continued, reclining again on one elbow and gesturing grandly with her wineglass. “I regret our quarrel more than you could know. Sir Toby is nothing to me. You alone are—”

“Just a moment,” Lucy interrupted. “You’re speaking too fast.” She wrote furiously. “You … alone … are … All right, go on.”

“You alone are my love. I cannot forget you. I think of you constantly by day, and your face fills my dreams each night. I long for you. I long for your touch. When I close my eyes, my body remembers the warmth of your hands.” She paused to take a large sip of wine. “When I taste wine, my lips remember your kiss.”

“Ooh, that’s very good,” Lucy said, dipping her quill.

“Thank you. It just came to me.” Sophia studied her glass of claret. “This is very good wine.”

“Go on, then.”

Sophia paused a moment before speaking. “Doubt not the depth of my feeling, nor the constancy of my love. Come to me, I beg you. Make me yours in every way.”

Lucy smothered a small laugh.

“What?” asked Sophia.

“It’s only … I thought he had already done that. Made you his in every way.”

Sophia tossed her head. “Oh, Lucy,” she said knowingly. “There are ever so many ways we hadn’t tried yet.”

Lucy’s eyes widened. She turned her attention back to the paper.

“I shall await you this night,” Sophia continued, “and every night thereafter.” She waited for Lucy’s quill to cease scratching. “All my love—no, wait. All myundying andeverlasting love … Yours and yours alone … Signed, your little cabbage.”

“Dear Lord.” Lucy looked over her shoulder at Sophia. “First rabbits, now cabbage?”

“It sounds lovely in French.”

“I suppose I’ll take your word for it.”

“It does.Ton petit chou.”

Lucy shook her head. “Cabbage it is. Or rather, cabbage you are.” She blew lightly over the paper until the ink was dry, then folded it. “The direction?”

Sophia gave an address which Lucy dutifully transcribed. She turned to Sophia, lifting the decanter and one eyebrow, and Sophia eagerly held out her glass. Lucy poured out half the remaining wine into the glass. The rest she drank directly from the decanter.

“Ànotre santé,” said Sophia, raising the glass to her lips.“Et à l’amour.” She drained the glass and let it slip from her hand as she reclined fully. “I do believe I’m drunk.”

Lucy laughed. “I do believe you are.”

Then Sophia rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in her forearm. Her shoulders shook. It took Lucy more than a few moments to realize she wasn’t laughing, but sobbing.

“Sophia?” Lucy sat down gently on the bed. She reached out and patted her shoulder awkwardly, searching her mind for some comforting words.Blast . Yet another area in which her comportment was lacking. She wasn’t particularly accomplished in comfort—neither giving nor receiving.

“Oh, Lucy, what shall become of me?”

“Why, you’ll elope with Gervais. You’ll have your little cottage by the sea. Painting, making love. Rabbits, cabbage. You’ll be brilliantly happy.”

“If only I could believe you.” Sophia raised her head. Her eyes and nose were red. She sniffed loudly.

“Believe me,” Lucy said. She stretched out next to Sophia on the bed, lying flat on her stomach and stacking her arms under her chin. “You don’t want to marry Toby anyway. If he catches the slightest cold, he takes to his bed and moans as if he’d succumbed to the putrid fever. He’d take your dowry and spend it all on new boots. Or lose it at cards. He’s hopeless at cards.”

“Oh, don’t go making me like him!” Sophia smiled and wiped her cheeks. “It all seemed so different once, didn’t it? When we were girls? As if only we imagined something and wanted it deeply and believed it with all our hearts, it would come true.”

She pulled back the counterpane and nestled under the sheets. “When I was a girl,” she said, flipping her golden hair over the pillow, “I had a porcelain doll called Bianca. And I always knew that Bianca could become real. If only I minded my nursemaid and ate all my porridge and believed it with all my soul, she would one day spring to life. She would walk and talk and play with me like a real girl.”

Her brow wrinkled. “She never did, of course. But it’s funny—I’m still not sure why. There’s the obvious answer—because Bianca was never more than a piece of china and a few scraps of cloth. But somehow I remain unconvinced. Perhaps it was just because I never ate all my porridge.”