Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(91)

“Mrs. Wrede?”

“That’s it. Mrs. Wrede. I asked her to give Cook the menu, since she said she’s known you for ages.”

Jeremy sipped his wine again. “Indeed she has. She wasmy nursemaid. Kept me on a steady diet of broth, boiled mutton, potatoes, porridge …”

Lucy groaned. What an idiot she was. Mrs. Wrede had given Jeremy’s favorite menu, all right—from when he was five years old. She might as well have poured him milk in place of claret. Propping her elbows on the table, she buried her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He dabbed his lips with a linen napkin. “Truthfully, I’m not very hungry anyway.” He waved away the remainder of the dishes. “Let’s just skip to dessert, shall we? Let me guess.” He smiled. “Suet pudding?”

She propped her chin on her hand. “I didn’t order any dessert,” she said plaintively.

“No dessert?” He looked stricken. “Why would you do that?”

“You don’t like dessert.”

“On the contrary,” he said, in a dark voice that made her ears tingle. “It’s my favorite course of the meal. I had rather looked forward to dessert.”

“But—” Lucy halted, at a loss for a response. What was he saying? That although, in eight years, she’d never seen a morsel of sherry trifle or gooseberry fool pass his lips, he suddenly desired suet pudding? How was she—how was any countess to guessthat?

She folded her hands in her lap. “I’m sorry. There isn’t any dessert.”

He set his napkin aside. “Very well, then,” he said, rising to his feet. “It’s late. You must be wanting to retire.”

She stared down at her hands, running her thumb along the callused ridge of her palm. “I said I’d sit with Aunt Matilda. I think she’s a bit homesick.”

“Is she?” His voice was quiet. “I see. Then I’ll order some chocolate sent up for you both.”

They remained in awkward silence for several moments. Lucy could not bear to look at him. It seemed so wretchedly unfair, how her mood, her existence, her life’s happiness were now linked inextricably with his. And she—of all the intractable chits in England,she— now craved his approval and desperately wished to please him but seemed doomed to fail at even this smallest attempt. He gave her jewels and pin money and even knew to send up chocolate, and what did she offer him? Boiled mutton, when he wanted suet pudding.

There was only one method of pleasing Jeremy in which she had shown the slightest competence—the act she yearned to repeat, lay awake in bed remembering, dreamt of every night. She’d so hoped that their conversation today, the intimate history and thoughts he’d shared, might lead to intimacies of a different nature.

But no.

It was this place, Lucy decided as she lay in bed alone that night. This cold, silent, tomb-like Abbey filled with his family’s ghosts and his own demons. Before coming to Corbinsdale, she had never appreciated how joy permeated Waltham Manor—the way each room echoed with pleasant memories, and the cheerful din of dogs and children and servants who were permitted to hum. In this house, there was no noise, no warmth, no joy. It was an antidote to ardor if ever one existed.

And outside the confines of the Abbey, the misery only increased. Every man, woman, and child within a ten-mile radius reviled anyone by the name of Kendall. That could scarcely make a man eager to procreate. Perhaps that was why Henry kept getting Marianne with child, Lucy surmised. Good harvest or bad, his tenants adored him for his convivial manner and generosity.

She thought of insolent Albert, and the satisfaction of turning his expectations inside-out. And Jeremy—the pain of losing his brother compounded by the loss of his parents’ affection. The whole of Corbinsdale was an orphaned estate. Lucy recognized that familiar combination of outward defiance and silent craving for affection everywhere she went—in the tenants, the staff, her own husband. Maybe she couldn’t change the drapes or plan the menus like a proper lady, but she knew something about relating to surly orphans. She was one herself, after all.

Perhaps, Lucy thought to herself, she did have some hidden, buried potential to become a true lady. Maybe Jeremy didn’t see it, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t unearth it herself. She might not be the sort of countess he wanted. She certainly wasn’t the sort of countess Corbinsdale expected. But maybe, just maybe, she was exactly the sort of countess theyneeded .

And then it came to her—just drifted down from the embroidered canopy over her bed, as if dropped by a passing angel or revealed in a dream—the Idea. The way to solve both problems at once, to bring this house to life and make the tenants adore her husband. The brilliant Idea that would work her into Jeremy’s good opinion, his bed, and his heart.

An Idea this perfect could not possibly go wrong.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

And it would not have gone wrong, had Jeremy not been late for dinner.

Lucy sat in the Abbey’s great hall, drumming her fingers on the empty plate that ought to be her husband’s. Her mood alternated between anxiety for his safety and fury with him for returning home so late. He had not missed dinner one night since their marriage. Now this night, of all nights, he was late. The night she’d been planning so carefully for days.

It had been remarkably easy. She’d simply mentioned to Jeremy at breakfast one morning that she’d like to invite a few guests for dinner. Perhaps on Friday next? He’d been so pleasantly surprised, he’d called in the housekeeper immediately and instructed her to obey Lucy’s every command.