Goddess of the Hunt (21 page)

“What is it?” Felix asked. He tried to look over her shoulder, but Kitty turned away. She read further.

“Oh my,” she said, her lips curling into a feline smile.

Felix grabbed the paper from her hand. He held it at arm’s length and knitted his brows. “My … dear … little …
radish?”

“No, no.” Kitty grabbed the paper away from her husband. “It says

‘rabbit,’ not ‘radish,’ you simpleton.”

Felix shrugged. “Looks like ‘radish’ to me.”

“Oh, Felix, that is clearly a ‘b.’ My. Dear. Little. Rabbit,” Kitty read aloud, jabbing her finger at each word.

Jeremy looked at Lucy. Lucy was looking at Sophia. And Sophia was clinging to Toby’s neck in wide-eyed terror. She bit her lip and gave Lucy a barely perceptible shake of the head.

“Give me that,” Henry said testily, leaving Aunt Matilda to his wife and reaching toward Kitty. Kitty reluctantly put the letter into his outstretched hand. Henry took it and shook the creases from the paper with a flick of his wrist. He lowered his torch to provide better reading light. “No wonder you can’t decipher it. This is Lucy’s handwriting. But it’s rabbit. Definitely rabbit.” He shook the paper again.

Jeremy looked back to Lucy. Now hers was the expression of wide-eyed terror.

“My dear little rabbit,” Henry read in a booming voice. “Forgive me, my darling.
Darling?”
He shot an amused glance over the paper and continued. “I regret our quarrel more than you could know. Sir Toby is nothing to me. You alone are—” He stopped reading and looked up at Lucy, eyebrows raised.

“Henry, stop,” she pleaded.

“You alone are my love,” he continued with a smirk, affecting a girlish tone.

“Henry,” Marianne warned.

Lucy looked to Jeremy, panic written across her face. Jeremy ran both hands through his hair. Damnation, this was like watching a rider thrown from a horse and being powerless to stop it.

Helplessness roiled in his stomach like bile. What could he do? He couldn’t very well tell Henry it was Sophia’s letter. He would have to couldn’t very well tell Henry it was Sophia’s letter. He would have to explain
how
he knew it was Sophia’s letter, and he’d ruin two ladies in the space of one minute. Even he wasn’t that great a rake.

“I cannot forget you,” Henry continued in his high, mocking voice. “I think of you constantly by day, and your face fills my dreams each night.”

Jeremy frantically tried to recall the exact contents of the letter.

Perhaps it wasn’t as damning as he remembered. Perhaps Henry would simply laugh and chalk it all up to girlish fancies.

“I long for you,” Henry crooned. “I long for your …” His grin faded.

His mouth thinned to a line. “I long for your
touch?”

Jeremy groaned. Damned they were.

Henry skimmed the remainder of the letter, muttering more damning phrases as he read. “I remember the warmth of your hands …

When I taste wine, I remember … I shall await you tonight … Make me yours in every way …
Cabbage!”
Henry held up the paper and shook it at Lucy. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“Henry, please,” she begged, shooting a glance toward Sophia.

“Can we discuss this inside?”

“No, I think we had better discuss this now.”

Lucy shook her head. “Henry, you don’t understand. It isn’t real.”

Her voice grew shrill with desperation. “It isn’t even mine!”

Sophia burrowed her head into Toby’s shoulder. Kitty clutched Felix’s arm with glee.

Lucy buried her face in her hands. Her shawl slipped off one hunched shoulder, and Jeremy watched the ridge of her neck shiver

hunched shoulder, and Jeremy watched the ridge of her neck shiver into gooseflesh. Damn Henry. She was cold and heartbroken, and Jeremy was incensed. It was all mixed up inside him—this need to protect her; the desire to possess her. Anger and lust wrestled in his chest, spurring his heart into a furious rhythm. He wanted nothing more than to go to her. Cover her. Warm her. He had no coat, but he had his body. He had his hands and his lips and his tongue.

“Well if this letter isn’t yours,” Henry demanded, “then whose is it?”

Jeremy strode forward, calmly took the letter from Henry’s hand, and said the only word that mattered. The word that had been echoing through his mind and his heart and an ebony wardrobe for the better part of a week.

“Mine.”

Lucy uncovered her face.
No
. He hadn’t just—

Oh, but he had.

Jeremy stood next to Henry, letter in hand, wearing an expression more grave and determined than she had ever seen him wear. And that was saying something.

Felix grabbed the letter out of his hand, laughing. “Good one, Jem.

As if you’d ever be Lucy’s dear little radish.”

“Rabbit.” The low threat in Jeremy’s voice would have sent a hare bounding for its hole. He took the letter back, but in the next instant bounding for its hole. He took the letter back, but in the next instant Henry had snatched it again.

“Oh come now, stop joking.” Henry smoothed the paper against the front of his coat and then held it before his face. “You honestly expect us to believe that Lucy is … your little
cabbage?”

Jeremy clenched his jaw. He briefly closed his eyes and opened them again. “I’m rather fond of cabbage.”

“Really?” Felix asked. “Terribly bland stuff, I’ve always thought. Of course, it’s not so bad when stewed with a bit of salted pork. Or pickled in brine, that’s all right, too. But—ow!”

Kitty removed her elbow from her husband’s side.

Lucy finally caught Jeremy’s gaze.
“What. Are. You. Doing?”
she mouthed.

He gave her a serious, inscrutable look. Then he turned away.

Lucy shook her head. She couldn’t understand it. Jeremy had just sentenced himself to a lifetime of merciless teasing. Henry, Toby, Felix—they would never let him live that letter down. Endless rabbit jokes would be made at his expense. Countless dishes of cabbage would be served up for his benefit. But Jeremy had taken it anyway.

He had purchased that letter at the cost of his dignity, and Lucy knew he would rather have walked through fire. It was either the most utterly idiotic act she’d ever witnessed, or the most breathlessly romantic.

Perhaps both.

Henry perused the letter in his hand. “Your touch, your kiss, make me yours in every way,” he read. He looked up from the paper and regarded Jeremy with a skeptical expression. “You say this is your regarded Jeremy with a skeptical expression. “You say this is your letter, Jem. I don’t suppose that means you intend to answer for it?”

Jeremy nodded. Lucy’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. Answer for it? Whatever did Henry mean? Surely they wouldn’t be so idiotic as to fight? Or
duel?
The idea froze the marrow in her bones. She clutched her shawl with both hands. Jeremy couldn’t shoot a pheasant from six paces. Not even one that was already dead.

But Henry’s look to Jeremy was incredulous, not murderous. And, Lucy assured herself, even if he did believe Jeremy had compromised her, Henry would never challenge him to a duel. It just wouldn’t be sporting.

Henry folded the letter with an odd air of leisure, all trace of joking gone from his voice. “You’re really accepting responsibility for this?

And all the implications?”

“I’m accepting responsibility for
her.”
Jeremy crossed to stand beside Lucy, so close she could feel his radiant, masculine heat.

Then, in a lower voice, he added, “It’s about time someone did.”

Henry’s eyes sparked. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Lucy desperately wanted an answer to the exact same question.

And the answers to a few questions of her own. She grabbed Jeremy’s cuff and tugged until she pulled his gaze down as well. His eyes pierced her with their clear blue intensity, robbing her of the breath to manage anything above a whisper.
“What are you doing?”

He took her by the elbow and turned her slightly away from the group. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I know this isn’t what you wanted. But it’s the only way.”

“What’s
the only way?”

Jeremy’s only answer was to wheel her back to face Henry. The two men stared at one another in silence. Lucy finally excavated a shred of courage from the pit of her belly, then summoned the tone to match. “Will one of you please tell me what the devil is going on?”

Jeremy’s hand slid down to grasp hers. “We’re getting married,” he said, never taking his gaze from Henry’s.

“What?”
Lucy tried to untangle her fingers, but he only tightened his grip. Yanking her close, he tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. Lucy watched, stunned, as her fingers curled over his forearm of their own accord. As if they belonged there.

Jeremy finally looked down at her. “We’re getting married,” he repeated. His voice rumbled through her body, sending little shivers along her skin that had nothing to do with cold.

“Married?”
Lucy felt all the blood rush from her head. The more he insisted on repeating this ridiculous notion, the easier it became to imagine. But that didn’t make it right. If only they could speak alone, she could explain that the letter was all lies and claret. Sophia’s reputation, Toby’s engagement—nothing stood to be damaged, save Lucy’s dignity. And surely Jeremy wouldn’t think that a cause worth proposing marriage.

Not that he had exactly
proposed
anything.

She dug her fingers into his arm, clutching the idea desperately.

“But … But don’t I have something to say about it? Shouldn’t we have a moment alone? I don’t recall accepting any proposal!”

“It’s a bit late for romance, Lucy.” Henry held up the folded letter and fixed her with a reproachful look. “It would seem you’ve already granted your consent.”

Say something
, Lucy prodded herself. This was the moment to tell the truth. She had only to tell Henry, and everyone else, that the letter implied nothing more than two fanciful girls drinking too much wine. Sophia certainly wasn’t going to come out and say it—she probably thought this turn of events would make Lucy ecstatically happy.

But it didn’t. Did it? Surely “ecstatically happy” would feel more like summer sunshine, or a shower of rose petals. Not like a hedgehog digging burrows in her stomach. Happiness wasn’t the reason Lucy felt herself melting against Jeremy’s arm. It was just that the night was cold, and he was warm.

Warm. And strong. Oh, and distractingly handsome. Her gaze climbed the edge of his jaw, shadowed with night and stubble. His full, strong lips, dusky in the moonlight. She watched his breath curl into vapor where it met the cool air. Like a kiss dissolving into the night.

Lucy shook herself. She had to object. The very idea was nonsensical. Whatever misplaced notions of duty or propriety had spurred Jeremy to claim that letter—what had they to do with her?

She wasn’t a lady. Certainly not the sort of lady an earl would marry.

She wasn’t elegant or accomplished or wealthy. Her only tenuous claims to beauty were wide eyes and straight teeth. If she hadn’t come downstairs with that letter, none of this would have happened.

He would have left Henry his note and then …

And then he would have left entirely.

His belongings were already packed. She shivered anew, the memory of those two valises chilling her to the bone. If she protested now, there would be no second chance. He would leave.

And by the light of day, he would surely realize the absurdity of this very scene. He would shudder to think he’d nearly married a dowerless hoyden.

Say something
, her mind screamed. But her voice just wouldn’t obey. Lucy’s grip tightened over his arm. She wasn’t ready to let him go.

Looking askance at the others, Henry approached Jeremy and lowered his voice. “You’re certain this letter belongs to you, Jem? It wouldn’t do to let a simple misunderstanding decide the rest of your life, you know. For God’s sake, you’re an
earl.”

“Yes,” Jeremy replied, his own voice firm. Firm, and deliciously dark and determined, and strong enough to drive all objections straight from Lucy’s mind. “I’m an earl. And Lucy will be a countess.”

Silence.

Lucy felt everyone staring at her. No one said a word. Really, she thought. It was more than a bit rude. From the way they all gaped at her, one would think he’d announced something truly shocking.

Something like, “Lucy is a spy for Napoleon,” or “Lucy only has six months to live,” or “Lucy has decided to take up the harp.”

She forced her chin out. Well, now she couldn’t possibly protest.

Now it was a matter of pride.

Marianne recovered first. “Two engagements in one night. How exciting!” She rose from the edge of the fountain and crossed to Lucy’s side. “How wonderful,” she said, kissing Lucy on the cheek.

The others mumbled words that sounded vaguely congratulatory.

“And when will the blessed event take place?” Henry asked.

“Friday,” said Jeremy.

“Friday! This
Friday? Two days from now?” This outburst would have mortified Lucy much less had it not come from her own lips.