Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(62)

“Take care, Lucy.” Jeremy bent his head and brushed a warm kiss against her fingers. “I won’t be long.” Then he let go of her hand and walked back toward the house, leaving her alone.

Lucy realized, too late, that she ought to have said something in the way of farewell, or at least met his eyes before he turned away. She ought to have watched him go and cemented the memory in her mind. But she hadn’t thought of any of those things. She’d been too preoccupied staring stupidly down at her hand. The hand he had kissed.

And when at last she was back in her bed, staring up at the ceiling and wishing she’d pulled from him some kind of reassuring glance, or said a single word to him a bit kinder than“Friday,” she blew out the candle, rolled onto her side, and laid her cheek against that hand. And then she did the most silly, girlish, ridiculous thing imaginable.

She kissed it back.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Two days passed.

Very slowly.

There were a few hours that rushed by in a rustle of silk and sewing pins. The task of packing her belongings filled a half-dozen trunks and most of an afternoon. But even when her hands were occupied, the frantic workings of Lucy’s mind stretched each second into an eternity. Past, present, future—her brain tried desperately to grasp all three at once and bind them together into something that resembled certainty.

She relived every minute she’d spent in Jeremy’s company—every argument, every glance, every meal.

Every kiss.

She tried to imagine what he might be doing that very moment—riding to London, procuring the license, meeting with his solicitors.

Soaking in his bath.

Then her mind ventured forth into the uncharted void of the future and wandered there for hours. Springtime in London, summer by the sea, winters at Jeremy’s estate—the location of which Lucy dearly wished she could recall.

A year’s worth of nights in bed.

Every minute—waking or asleep—Lucy guessed and second-guessed everything that had occurred in the past week and everything that lay ahead. In her memory Jeremy looked so improbably handsome, she feared disappointment when he actually appeared. He’d been so determined that night in the garden, but would his resolve survive two days’ separation? She expected his return any moment and imagined that event in a thousand ways, wonderful and not.

When she went out for her Thursday morning ride, she knew he couldn’t possibly be coming back yet. But searched the horizon for his figure anyway. She imagined him galloping toward her on his stallion, man and beast moving as one. Power, grace, and purpose—intent on one destination. Intent on her.

Then at breakfast, she imagined him rounding the doorway and fixing her with that same cold blue stare of disapproval he’d worn the morning after they’d kissed. He looked over her olive skin and her ill-fitting gown and her mother’s earrings and saw her for the impostor she was. Then he turned on his heel and left.

Later, Lucy stood on a stool in her bedchamber while her maid pinned the hem of a borrowed gown. In her mind, Jeremy burst through the door, ripped the dress from her body, and tumbled her onto the bed without speaking a word. Lucy’s involuntary gasp at this vision drew concern from the maid, but a straight pin conveniently shouldered the blame.

And that afternoon, as the sunlight began to fade, Lucy strolled through the orchard. She leaned back against a pear tree and shut her eyes. Long minutes she stood there, waiting for him to come find her. Waiting for his kiss.

Then afternoon became evening, and Lucy began to worry that he wouldn’t come at all. She suffered silently through dinner. Afterward, she declined to play cards and repaired to a corner of the drawing room instead, to hide behind a book. She tried to imagine what might have kept him away. Perhaps he hadn’t been able to procure the license. Perhaps he’d changed his mind entirely—come to his senses and realized he couldn’t make an awkward, penniless hoyden his countess. Perhaps his horse had stumbled in the dark and he lay in a ditch by the side of the road, staring up at the stars and whispering her name with his dying breath.

Lucy snapped her book shut and shook herself. That third “perhaps” was a horrible, horrible thought to have. And it was horribly, horribly wrong of her to prefer it to the second.

Then she looked up, and he was there. Standing in the doorway wearing a rumpled greatcoat and polished Hessians and his usual inscrutable expression. For the first time in two days, the whirring gears in Lucy’s mind ground to a halt. And the churning fire in her belly roared to life.

If he had looked improbably handsome in her memory, he looked impossibly so now. Oh, but handsome wasn’t the word for it. A handsome face, one could gaze upon for idle enjoyment, simply admiring the ideal features and pleasing symmetry. And although his features were as strong and well-balanced as ever, this—this was something altogether different than handsome. There was nothing pleasing or idle about it. One glance at him, and her stomach began pitching and rolling like a cork tossed about in a stream. She could scarcely stand to look at him, but she could hardly turn away.

And surely he hadn’t grown four inches taller in two days. Surely it was only the fact that she was sitting and he was standing that made it seem so. But he looked so tall and broad-shouldered he nearly filled the doorframe; so solid and strong he might just be the cornerstone of the whole blasted house. Lucy blinked and bit the inside of her cheek, just to be sure she wasn’t dreaming.