Goddess of the Hunt (35 page)

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 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 think
you’re
doing?”

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

A harsh bark of laughter tore from his chest. He turned and stalked away, flinging his rifle to the ground.

Lucy clenched her fists in exasperation. She looked up at the still-smoking tiger. “How did you make that shot?”

“What?”

“You’re a terrible marksman. You can’t shoot a pheasant at six paces. How did you make that shot?” She tilted her head up at the striped, three-eyed beast.

He brushed past her in silence and stalked out of the room.

Gasping with indignation, she rushed after him.

“Don’t you walk away from me,” she called, chasing him up the stairs. She caught up to him in the corridor. “As you just so charmingly pointed out to all our guests, I am your wife.” She followed him into their sitting room. He turned toward his rooms, but she rushed around him and blocked the door.

“Lucy,” he warned, his voice a dark growl, “don’t push me right now.”

“Or what? You’ll glare at me? Oh, dear. I may swoon.”

He fumed at her in silence. Exasperating man. Tall, dark, brooding, exasperatingly attractive man. His hair was plastered to his head in damp, black locks. His shirt clung to the hard muscles of his chest.

But the heat of his body radiated through the layer of cool damp, bathing her in heady, leather-scented steam. She melted against the door, suddenly remembering the whole reason behind this evening’s debacle.

She loved the addle-brained brute.

Lucy drew a deep breath and composed herself. “Jeremy, it wasn’t meant to happen like that. You were supposed to come back in time for dinner.” She stroked the wet lapel of his coat. “Where have you been, anyway? I was worried sick.”

She was worried sick.

Jeremy shook his head in disbelief. Lucy couldn’t know the meaning of the phrase. It was a very good thing he’d missed his dinner, or he surely would have lost it by now.

He’d ridden home through cold and wet, but—as always—thoughts of her had kept him warm. After a week of increasingly pleasant days as husband and wife, Jeremy’s patience was at an end. This, he had vowed, would be their first equally pleasant night. Then he’d come home to a scene that chilled his blood—tenants on the verge of a riot, men shooting up his hall, a filthy, hulking brute poised to assault his wife—and
she
was worried sick. Standing there in a devil-red dress and looking up at him with guileless green eyes and
petting
him like a cat. As if she were never in any danger from that mob. As if she were in no danger from him. With every bone and muscle and sinew in his body, he wanted to grab her. To hold her close or to shake her silly, he didn’t know. But he trembled with the sheer effort of restraint. He’d been holding too much in, for far too long, and he felt perilously close to exploding.

Her slender fingers curled around his lapel. “Is it the expense you’re angry about? You needn’t be. I used my pin money.”

The expense? Now she thought he was concerned about the expense. She was so utterly wrong about so many things, he didn’t know how to begin to set her straight.

“Lucy, listen to me.” She tightened her grip on his lapel. “A bridge was out, and I got caught in the rain. I don’t give a damn about any expense. And just because I don’t hit a pheasant, it doesn’t mean I can’t shoot.” Her brow wrinkled with confusion, and she opened her mouth to speak. He jabbed a finger under her chin, cutting her off.

“And now that I’ve answered all of your nonsensical questions, you’re going to answer some of mine. What the devil were you thinking? That getting the tenants good and drunk would just magically solve everything?”

She blinked. “Well … yes. Why shouldn’t it? You were supposed to be a kind and generous host, and then they would see that you’re nothing like your father. And then they would like us, and you would

…” Her voice trailed off as her gaze slanted to the floor.

“Well you were wrong, on several counts. I’m very much like my father, in too many ways. In every way that matters to them. This evening confirmed
that
perfectly. And those people did not come here tonight to like us. They came to take from us. They will eat our food and drink our ale, not because they enjoy your gentle company, but because they feel it’s owed them. Because it’s Kendall food, and Kendall drink. They shot at those trophies because they belonged to my father. And those men wanted to …” The vile words stuck in his throat.
“Kiss
you—and no doubt more—simply because you belong to me.”

She laughed. A harsh, bitter sound.

He cupped her chin in his hand, his fingers pressing into her cheeks. “It’s not a laughing matter.”

“Isn’t it?” Her green eyes glimmered. “If only they knew. They could kiss me a thousand times and not take anything from you. How can they steal something you’ve already thrown away?”

He pulled his hand away from her face. What the hell did she mean by that? Confusion swirled in his mind, and its mate, anger, coursed in his blood.

“Good night,
my lord.”
She brushed past him, heading toward her chambers. He grabbed her elbow, whirling her to face him.

“Not so fast,
my lady,”
he said, closing the distance between them.

He struggled to keep his voice calm, but raw hurt frayed the edge of his words. His threadbare patience was nearly worn through. He had waited for her, so patiently, at no small cost to his sanity. He could continue to wait, if he knew she would one day turn to him.

But if she meant to reject him, he wanted to hear it now. “I believe you owe me a forfeit. You did promise a kiss to the best shot, did you not?”

She swallowed and glared up at him. Ever so slightly, she leaned into his body. The firm swell of her breasts brushed against his chest. “I did.
One
kiss.”

“One kiss.”

He grasped her face in his hands, angled it back, and brought his mouth down on hers. Hard. She squirmed against him, but he held her close, tangling his fingers in that tightly coiled hair. Her lips were pressed together, and he ran his tongue over them in a desperate plea.
Open to me
, he willed.
Take me in
.

Then suddenly, her hands shot under his coat and slid up his back, pulling him tight against her soft, supple body. Her lips parted to release a breathy moan.

It was all the invitation he needed. He thrust his tongue in her mouth and drank in that moan. Drank deeply, tasting her essence—golden and cool and sweet and wild, like ripe pears and honey. His mouth moved over hers again and again, and she welcomed his tongue moved over hers again and again, and she welcomed his tongue with her own.

She moved closer. Wriggling into his coat, flattening her breasts against his chest, tilting her hips against his. He worked one hand between their bodies to knead her breast. She sighed against his mouth. Her hands moved to his shoulders, cleaving his wet coat from his body and tugging it down. Without breaking the kiss, he let his hands fall to his sides, and she yanked the coat from his arms.

One kiss
. One kiss that would never end. Not if he could help it. He cupped her face in his hands and held her mouth firmly against his as they sank down together. Down to their knees, then down to the carpet.

Then she was under him. So yielding and sweet, his body ached with desire. Her fingers worked beneath his shirt, burning trails of fire over the chilled flesh of his back. And words tumbled through his mind, so many words he longed to say.
Beautiful
and
lovely
and
dear
and
heart
and
please
. And
we
and
us
and
ours
. And
help me
and
hold me
and
take me in
. And
don’t let me go
and
never
and
never
and
never ever leave
.

But he couldn’t say them. He couldn’t risk breaking this kiss. This one kiss that was everything. He pulled up her skirts in a rustle of silk and cambric, fumbling through the layers of petticoats and finding the slit in her drawers. She was hot and wet and clasping around his fingers, and the words changed to
hurry
and
want
and
need
and
oh God
and
now
.

He tore open his breeches and slid into her, and she whimpered against his mouth. He withdrew and thrust again. She bit down on his lip. He stayed in her, grinding slowly against her. Then she threw her arms around his neck and opened her mouth to his tongue. And

she wrapped her legs around his hips and opened herself to him.

He lost himself in her mouth and her arms and her legs and her tight, wet embrace. Again and again and again. He felt her arching and tensing and convulsing around him, and when she cried out against his mouth, he took it all in. Tasted her pleasure. Felt it surge through him, send him over the edge into
yes
and
yes
and
bliss
and
heaven
and
thank you
and
always
and
mine
.

He kissed her gently now, savoring the sweetness of her tongue.

The smooth, plump curve of her lower lip. The corners of her mouth, which tasted curiously of salt.

Salt and bitterness. Like tears.

Jeremy broke the kiss and raised up on his elbows. She was shaking against him and covering her face, but she couldn’t hide the truth.

Lucy was crying.

Lucy couldn’t stop the tears.

She tried. She fought them with every ounce of her will, but she couldn’t stop them. It was too much. Too many emotions battled inside her—relief, frustration, desire, anger, joy—churning in that dark confusion of her mind. And then in one bright moment, they were all swept away in a wave of exquisite pleasure. Followed by that flood, that same strange, powerful deluge she’d experienced the first time they’d made love. A roaring tide of emotion that surged the first time they’d made love. A roaring tide of emotion that surged from her heart and swept through her body—and this time, it overflowed.

Oh, and they were terrible, the tears. So wet and messy. So helpless and weak. No dainty, ladylike tears, these. No slow, trickling drops of emotion punctuated by a delicate sniff. Lucy’s eyes spilled buckets, and her nose ran. Her shoulders shook, and her chest heaved. She pressed her hands to her face, to no avail. There were eight years’ worth of tears inside her, and she’d been strong enough to store them away one sniffle at a time. But damming all of them at once—impossible.

“Lucy.” His voice sounded muffled, far away. “My God, Lucy. What is it?”

Even if she knew what to tell him, she couldn’t have managed to speak. She could scarcely catch her breath. Sobs racked her body, and hot tears spilled through her fingers, channeling down to her ears. He withdrew from her gently and rolled away, and she cried even harder, bereft of his warmth and strength. Feeling empty and hollow and cold. She curled away from him onto her side, hugging her knees to her chest.

“Don’t cry, Lucy. I can’t bear it.” His anguished whisper tore at her heart. Strong fingers smoothed her hair, but she shrank from his touch. And she hated herself for pulling away, but she couldn’t help it. She was too exposed, too raw, and even the most tender caress rasped against her skin. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’ll do anything.