Goddess of the Hunt (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #1)(96)

And then he confirmed what she’d always known. Nothing good ever came of tears. Quietly, wordlessly, he rose to his feet and left her.

He left her all alone.

Jeremy had to leave. It was a matter of self-preservation.

He stormed through his antechamber and into the sanctuary of his bedroom, barely managing to slam the door shut before crumpling against it.

A stronger man would have stayed—would have gathered her into his arms and held her tight and kissed the tears away. But he wasn’t a strong man at that moment, in his heart. When Lucy shrank from him and wept, twenty-one years of strength peeled away, leaving only a vulnerable boy. An eight-year-old boy who’d witnessed the sudden, violent death of his brother. A confused, grieving child who needed a mother’s comfort, but found only tears. Tears that poured salt and shame over raw, open wounds.

And it hurt. God, did it hurt.

Jeremy slammed his fist against the door, once. Twice. But the pain splintering through his bloodied knuckles did nothing to dull the agony twisting in his chest.

How many years had it taken, before he could enter a room without his mother weeping? How many times did she turn from him in tears, begging his nursemaid or tutor to take him away? Take him out of her sight, because she couldn’t look at him without seeing Thomas.

Thomas was the fortunate son.

Thomas would never feel this gnawing visceral agony, knowing his very existence caused heartache and pain. Knowing that when she looked at him, she saw only someone he wasn’t. Someone he could never replace. What was a boy to do, when a simple word or a laugh dropped into the air so innocently could land in a deluge of bitter tears?

He spoke softly, trod lightly, stayed out of his mother’s sight. He never laughed or ran or played too loudly, for fear of disturbing her fragile peace. He escaped the house and went riding, hard and fast across the open countryside. He went off to school and surrounded himself with friends, taking comfort from their jollity even when he did not share it. He occupied his mind with books and studies, to keep unpleasant thoughts at bay.

The boy grew into a man. And between Cambridge and London and his friends’ invitations, he rarely came home. He found gratification in the arms of women who would quite willingly shed their clothes, but never shed a tear. Women who gave of their bodies but withheld their hearts. Women he could never love.

Women he could never hurt.

But when Lucy turned from him and wept, she resurrected that boy. She brought back all the hurt. And that wounded, grieving eight-year-old child—he didn’t know how to protect, or console. He only knew how to survive.

Tread lightly. Speak softly. Stay out of sight.

Leave.

In the following weeks, they were like two spirits haunting the same house. While Lucy went about her daily routine, Jeremy disappeared. Into his study, sometimes. More often to places out of the Abbey. He always returned for dinner, always on time. He made the minimum of conversation courtesy required, speaking in cool, measured tones.

There were no more kisses.

Although she and her husband barely spoke, Lucy found some solace in an entirely novel form of communication.

Letters.

She received weekly letters from Marianne. Chatty, rambling missives filled with all the homely details of life at Waltham Manor. The latest escapades of the children or the servants or the dogs. Even in the Abbey’s oppressive stillness, Lucy could hear laughter and music in those letters. She read them so many times, the paper wore thin at the creases.

Sophia sent rapturous, effusive reports of her engagement and wedding plans, penned in perfectly looping script. On first reading, Lucy scanned the lines with a broad grin. The second time through, her smile would inevitably fade. Sophia’s accounts of her betrothal and betrothed were unflaggingly cheerful.Too cheerful. Lucy suffered the niggling sensation that something must be wrong. After all, experience had shown Sophia to have a rather vivid imagination where letter-writing was concerned. One need only ask Gervais.

The identity of Lucy’s most faithful correspondent came as a great surprise. Henry wrote to her two or three times a week. He had little to say in these missives—a few random remarks on the weather, or an update on the winter wheat crop. Perhaps a few words about the hounds. But the message beneath those few hastily scrawled phrases was clear. Lucy responded to each letter with her own assortment of off-hand observations, always the same answer writ between the lines.

Yes, Henry. I miss you, too.

She was learning to measure her happiness by small sources of comfort. Any day that brought a letter was a good day, in relative terms. The particular day that brought two letters, both brimming with exciting news, stood out as a banner occasion.

“We’ve received our invitation to Toby and Sophia’s wedding,” she told Jeremy at dinner that evening. “It’s to be in December.”

“That soon?” He did not appear to share her excitement. “Did you wish to attend?”

“Why, yes. Of course.”

He took a slow sip of wine. “Very well, then.”

Lucy pushed a bit of potato around her plate. “I was thinking … perhaps we could stop at Waltham Manor for a visit, after the wedding.”

Silence.

She fortified her resolve with a sip of claret. “It’s just that, I also had a letter from Marianne today. She’s increasing again. I’ve always been there to help during her other confinements, and I’m a bit anxious for her. The first few months are always the hardest. And we will be passing through the neighborhood.”