Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(80)

Finding her way out of the Abbey.

Pride, and the need for stealth, kept her from asking the servants for directions; surely Jeremy must have already left the house, or she would have stumbled across him by her third pass down the corridor. Eventually, however, she managed to exit the grand house via a back way—and from across the kitchen gardens and down a dirt lane, temptation winked.

The stables.

Thistle would still be somewhat fatigued from the journey, but a leisurely ride was exactly what Lucy desired. Surely Jeremy could not object—she would even ride sidesaddle. But when she reached the stables and began searching the stalls for her sweet, plain-featured mare, Lucy looked in vain. Thistle was nowhere to be seen. When she asked the groom to locate her mount, he directed her instead to a gleaming white gelding with haunches of carved marble and ribbons braided into his mane.

Ribbons!

“He’s been groomed jes’ for you, my lady. His Lordship said Paris here was to be set aside for your particular use.”

“Did he now?” Lucy gritted her teeth. It was one thing for Jeremy to foist pin money and household ledgers upon her—but to replace her beloved Thistle with this equine dandy? Insupportable.

“Shall I saddle ’im for you, my lady?”

“No. That won’t be necessary.” Fuming, Lucy kicked a loose board at the bottom of the stall.

Something on the other side kicked back.

Intrigued, Lucy walked slowly over to the next stall. There stood a magnificent black colt, stamping and snorting and whinnying with restless energy. The animal’s nostrils flared as Lucy held out her hand, and he nosed it roughly before giving her fingers an impatient nip.

Fiend, Lucy read from the small plaque above the colt’s stall. Perfect. She smiled to herself and turned to the groom. “I’ll take this one out instead.”

Jeremy slowed his mount to a walk when he reached the pebbled bank. The river wound through a narrow valley here, tumbling over small rapids under a mantle of fallen leaves. On the other bank, steep bluffs rose from the river’s edge. Rocky outcroppings and lopsided trees covered their face. It all looked much the same as he remembered.

But it felt different, somehow.

He’d experienced the same curious sensation, surveying the western fields with Andrews that morning. A field harvested of its barley looked much the same as one harvested of wheat in years previous. A new irrigation ditch here or there scored the soil, but there was nothing so remarkably altered it could account for this feeling he had, of looking on Corbinsdale with new eyes.

It wasn’t a sense of optimism, precisely. The landscape looked no more smooth or accommodating, now that he’d brought home a countess. So far, marriage itself was a rather rocky affair. But although Jeremy’s mind was still full of problems, they werenew problems. And therefore the world, and these woods in particular, appeared—not better, exactly—but different. He couldn’t dwell on past tragedy when he had a marital crisis to solve in the present, it would seem. Perhaps now he, and Corbinsdale, were ready to move into the future.

Then a sharp crack jerked Jeremy’s attention to the craggy bluffs. And he found himself right back in a twenty-year-old nightmare.

“Lucy?” Jeremy did not want to believe that it was his wife, the figure scaling the precipitous outcropping on the other side of the stream. But he would know that russet velvet habit and tangle of chestnut curls anywhere. And really, he admitted with a tortured groan, who else could it possibly be?

“Lucy!” he shouted again, nudging his horse into the stream. If she heard him, she did not acknowledge the call, but continued picking her way up the rocky slope. Dear God. If she fell from there, with those boulders below …

She disappeared around the far side of a pointed outcropping. Jeremy’s heart raced as he spurred his mount to give chase. He rounded the corresponding bend in the river …

And then his heart stopped beating.

She was climbing up to the hermitage.

A centuries-old cottage perched on a rocky ledge, the hermitage had been built by the Abbey’s monks as a place for solitary prayer and reflection. Fashioned from stones and built to hug the sloping terrain, the tiny dwelling looked like a natural part of the bluff itself. A thin chimney leaned mostly heavenward. Two glazed windows were dark with grime. To anyone else, it must present a harmless, even a romantic picture. No doubt Lucy would think it an irresistible invitation to explore. There had been a time Jeremy had thought so, too.

But not anymore.

He slid down from his horse, landing in knee-deep icy water, and began scaling the bluff in pursuit. “Lucy!” he called up at her, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Lucy, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She heard him this time and looked up sharply. Jeremy cursed his idiocy. He should never have drawn her attention away from her feet. She stepped on a loose rock and lost her footing, swaying perilously above him. Dread hollowed out his chest. Arms flailing, Lucy caught herself on a jutting lip of rock.

“Stay right there!” Jeremy ordered.Good God, let her listen , he half-cursed, half-prayed as he resumed his own climb. For once in what seemed fated to be an abbreviated life, give Lucy the sense to follow a simple command.

At last he reached her side, huffing for breath and weak with fear. And his wife had the audacity to look cool and calm and unjustly beautiful, flashing him the sweetest smile he’d seen in three days. “Hullo, Jeremy. Isn’t it a lovely day?” She tilted her head up at the hermitage. “Let’s explore it together, shall we?”