Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(59)

But someone was. Someone was looking ather . And the hot intensity of his gaze set Lucy ablaze with conflicting sensations. She felt stripped naked and exposed to the cold. She felt blanketed in warmth. She felt bolted to the stone beneath her, and she felt like running into his arms. In one second, she went numb with shock; in the next, every inch of her body burst into exquisite awareness. His gaze was holding her together and tearing her apart, and Lucy’s heart raced so fast, she feared it would break.

Her heart was breaking.

Jeremy watched Lucy watch her life’s dream slip away. No matter how hard he stared, no matter how hard he willed her to look away, she wouldn’t. Her eyes were riveted to Toby’s imbecilic display of ardor and bare chest. She turned deathly pale. Then she flushed. She shivered with cold, but he saw the sheen of perspiration on her brow.

Her heart was breaking, and there wasn’t anything he could do. She wasn’t his sister. She wasn’t his betrothed. She wasn’this , and that was the whole damned problem.

Any of the others—they could have done something, but they didn’t. No one cared. Toby, self-absorbed ass that he was, had shuffled his feet for weeks over this proposal, waiting for his perfect moment, only to choosenow , of all times. Felix, who ought to have tossed Toby’s self-absorbed ass into the fountain for mauling his sister-in-law, had the nerve to laugh. And Henry—oldest friend or no, Jeremy hated him. He was no excuse for a guardian and only a poor imitation of a brother. His sister’s heart and hopes were being ripped to pieces in front of him, and he was either too stupid to notice or too insensitive to care.

Two footmen hastened toward the fountain, bearing a pallet between them.

“Come on, then,” Henry said. “Let’s get back to the house. I’m freezing my stones off out here.”

Lucy and Marianne took Aunt Matilda by either arm and helped her onto the pallet. As the footmen carried her away, a scrap of white fluttered to the ground.

“What’s this?” Kitty bent over and picked it up. She turned it over and lifted the broken seal. “There’s no name.” She unfolded the letter, and Jeremy felt his gut twist into a knot. Her eyes began to scan the page, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh goodness.” Her eyes widened.

“What is it?” Felix asked. He tried to look over her shoulder, but Kitty turned away. She read further.

“Oh my,” she said, her lips curling into a feline smile.

Felix grabbed the paper from her hand. He held it at arm’s length and knitted his brows. “My … dear … little …radish?”

“No, no.” Kitty grabbed the paper away from her husband. “It says ‘rabbit,’ not ‘radish,’ you simpleton.”

Felix shrugged. “Looks like ‘radish’ to me.”

“Oh, Felix, that is clearly a ‘b.’ My. Dear. Little. Rabbit,” Kitty read aloud, jabbing her finger at each word.

Jeremy looked at Lucy. Lucy was looking at Sophia. And Sophia was clinging to Toby’s neck in wide-eyed terror. She bit her lip and gave Lucy a barely perceptible shake of the head.

“Give me that,” Henry said testily, leaving Aunt Matilda to his wife and reaching toward Kitty. Kitty reluctantly put the letter into his outstretched hand. Henry took it and shook the creases from the paper with a flick of his wrist. He lowered his torch to provide better reading light. “No wonder you can’t decipher it. This is Lucy’s handwriting. But it’s rabbit. Definitely rabbit.” He shook the paper again.

Jeremy looked back to Lucy. Now hers was the expression of wide-eyed terror.

“My dear little rabbit,” Henry read in a booming voice. “Forgive me, my darling.Darling?” He shot an amused glance over the paper and continued. “I regret our quarrel more than you could know. Sir Toby is nothing to me. You alone are—” He stopped reading and looked up at Lucy, eyebrows raised.

“Henry, stop,” she pleaded.

“You alone are my love,” he continued with a smirk, affecting a girlish tone.

“Henry,” Marianne warned.

Lucy looked to Jeremy, panic written across her face. Jeremy ran both hands through his hair. Damnation, this was like watching a rider thrown from a horse and being powerless to stop it. Helplessness roiled in his stomach like bile. What could he do? He couldn’t very well tell Henry it was Sophia’s letter. He would have to explainhow he knew it was Sophia’s letter, and he’d ruin two ladies in the space of one minute. Even he wasn’t that great a rake.

“I cannot forget you,” Henry continued in his high, mocking voice. “I think of you constantly by day, and your face fills my dreams each night.”

Jeremy frantically tried to recall the exact contents of the letter. Perhaps it wasn’t as damning as he remembered. Perhaps Henry would simply laugh and chalk it all up to girlish fancies.

“I long for you,” Henry crooned. “I long for your …” His grin faded. His mouth thinned to a line. “I long for yourtouch?”

Jeremy groaned. Damned they were.

Henry skimmed the remainder of the letter, muttering more damning phrases as he read. “I remember the warmth of your hands … When I taste wine, I remember … I shall await you tonight … Make me yours in every way …Cabbage!” Henry held up the paper and shook it at Lucy. “What’s the meaning of this?”