Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(93)

Lucy frowned, bewildered. “What do you suggest?”

“To the winner goes a forfeit, my lady.” He fixed her with a lascivious grin. “A kiss.” The crowd whooped and resumed chanting his name. The ginger-haired ruffian pumped his fist in the air, egging them on.

Lucy sized up the competitors. None of them looked particularly kissable, but she didn’t know how to refuse without seeming rude. A little peck on the cheek couldn’t do any harm, she supposed. She met Hanson’s eyes. It was a challenge he’d laid down, she realized. A dare. And Lucy never backed down from a dare. She lifted her chin. “Very well.”

The guests roared their approval so loudly, she worried the Abbey roof might collapse.

“On my signal, then,” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth. The crowd hushed as the men drew back their bows. “Fire!”

Two arrows sailed into their targets, both landing wildly off-center. The third target remained unmarked. Lucy looked back to the dark, stocky man and saw he had not yet fired. Instead, he leaned back, releasing the arrow up and to the right.

The shaft soared up toward the rafters. The guests gasped and scrambled for cover, elbowing one another out of the way. Then the arrow reached the zenith of its arc and began its descent. Somewhere in the throng, a woman screamed.

Thwack.

The missile collided with the mounted head of a stag, piercing it straight through one glassy eye.

The crowd erupted into its loudest cheers yet. Several men stepped forward to clap the rogue archer on the back.

Hanson, not to be outdone, fitted another arrow to his bow and shot. The shaft buried itself in the leathery hide of the bull elephant trophy. The tenants went wild, stamping and howling with glee.

Now all of the men were refitting their bows, and Lucy began to grow more than a bit alarmed. Not because she cared one whit for the late earl’s prized collection, but because the longer this went on, the greater the likelihood that someone would get hurt.

“Gentlemen!” she cried. “Stop!”

But then the dark, stocky man sent another arrow sailing into the mouth of a boar, and Lucy’s cries were drowned out by the thunderous wave of applause. She marched across the hall to stand directly in front of Hanson. If he could incite the masses to this fervor, she reasoned, he could quell them.

She was right. He lowered his bow. With a wave of his arm, he silenced the crowd.

“You must stop this,” she said firmly. “Someone could get hurt.”

He smirked, eyeing her from head to toe with a leer that made her skin crawl. “Well, my lady. Does that mean you’re ready for your kiss?”

The tenants exploded into the loudest roar yet. Whoops and whistles resounded from the rafters. Lucy’s cheeks burned with rage. Hanson stepped toward her, and the din grew louder still. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of shrinking away. He was only a bully, and she knew how to handle bullies. Bullies, as a rule, feed on fear. Refuse to flinch, and they quickly grow bored.

She would not flinch.

As Hanson approached her, however, and she was forced to crane her neck to maintain eye contact, she admitted with some trepidation another trait bullies typically shared.

They were big.

He pursed his revolting, bearded mouth and made a disgusting smacking noise. She grimaced. If that was what passed for kissing with him, she pitied Mrs. Hanson.

The crowd, however, did not share her revulsion. They whooped and hollered louder than ever, until the Abbey walls seemed to shake with the effort of containing their tumult.

Do not flinch, Lucy told herself.Do. Not. Flinch .

A loud crack rent the air.

Hanson flinched.

The tenants went dead silent. One hundred heads swiveled to face the hall’s entrance. Jeremy stood in the arched doorway, a rifle at his shoulder.

One hundred heads swiveled the other direction, tracing the angle of his shot. A cloud of smoke rose from the snarling tiger mounted above the massive hearth. The acrid scent of singed fur filled the air. As the smoke dissipated, Lucy watched a round, black hole appear in the exact center of the tiger’s head, like a third eye.

Jeremy lowered his gun and strode to the center of the room. Each footfall echoed off the stone floor. He stopped, standing eye-to-eye with Hanson.

“Get away from my wife,” he said quietly, pronouncing each word as a distinct, murderous threat. Then he turned his ice-blue glare on the crowd. “And get out of my house.”

No one moved. No one breathed.

“Now.”

The crowd emptied the hall faster than water pours through a sieve. Within the space of a minute, Jeremy and Lucy stood completely alone in the center of the hall.

Lucy surveyed her husband from the feet up. His typically polished Hessians were muddied to mid-calf. Her gaze wandered up the mile-long, muscled columns of his thighs. His shirt, she noticed, was rumpled and wet. The pungent odor of wet wool suggested his dark blue coat was likewise damp. He wore no cravat, and dark hair curled in the notch of his open shirt. Stubble shaded his throat and jaw.

His cold glare awaited her when she finally met his eyes.

She would not flinch.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

“I,” he forced out, “am preventing a riot. The more appropriate question would be, what the hell do you thinkyou’re doing?”

“I’m convincing the tenants to like us, you imbecile. And now you’ve gone and ruined everything!”