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

“My mother—” He turned back to the portraits and nodded toward a painting of a delicate-featured lady wearing the lace-trimmed sleeves and powdered curls that were the fashion some thirty years past. “She had always been fragile. Thomas’s death destroyed her. She took to her chambers and went into permanent mourning. She couldn’t bear to look at me, because I only reminded her of the son she’d lost.

“My father only spoke to me to criticize. My mother couldn’t speak to me without bursting into tears. And I …” That shrug again. “I was sent off to school.” He firmed his jaw and cast her a sidelong glance. “It’s not such a long story after all. But there you have it. No need to go asking the servants.”

Jeremy turned and locked gazes with her, clearly awaiting her reaction.

Her reaction. Several reactions battled within her for prominence, and they all involved an explosion of physical energy. The first was an irrational impulse to simply turn on her heel and run. Run away and hide. Her second thought, equally childish, was to pick up the china vase from a nearby table and hurl it against the wall. The third reaction that sprang to mind was to run at her husband, climb him like a tree, and kiss him until he forgot his own name, much less the fact that he belonged to this ghastly assortment of relations.

But none of these seemed the appropriate reaction for a countess. Moreover, she knew none of them were the reaction Jeremy needed. His eyes were clear and unwavering. Daring her to run away or fly into rage. Forbidding her to pity him. And were their situations reversed, Lucy knew pity to be the last reaction she would wish.

So she fought against all three impulses and a good dozen more for an age. And then, because the still air around them and the silence between them threatened to suffocate her, she spent all that hard-won equanimity to purchase a single, round syllable.

“Oh.”

His mouth softened slightly. She had the terrible suspicion that he might be priming his lips to impart another grim detail. Desperation loosened her tongue. “Is that all, then?”

He blinked.

Lucy forced a smile into her voice. “No raving bedlamite locked away in the turret?”

He slowly shook his head.

“No bastard children peeling onions in the scullery?”

The corner of his mouth quirked. “No.”

“Well, then. And here I was expecting something truly dreadful.”

His face relaxed. Relief washed through her. They couldn’t have been standing more than a dozen inches apart. It was twelve inches too many, but she settled for narrowing the gap to two. Lightly threading her arm through his, she pivoted him back to face the portrait of his father.

“When I was a girl,” she said, “I used to lie on the floor and stare up at my father’s portrait. I would look up at him for hours, just listening.”

“Listening?”

She nodded. “He told me long, fantastic stories. About his childhood, or mine. Sometimes about Tortola.”

“But …” Jeremy’s gaze clouded with confusion. “Didn’t your father die before you were born?”

“Oh, yes.” When he continued to simply stare at her, Lucy decided to humor his lack of imagination. “I have found,” she said quietly, “and perhaps you have, as well …”—she tilted her head toward the row of portraits—“these things have a way of speaking to me, whether I wish it or not. And it’s more comforting by half to imagine they have pleasant things to say.

“For example,” she continued, pulling him toward a portrait of a frightfully ugly gentleman dressed in Navy regalia, “your father is telling me that he was greatly relieved, on the day you were born, to see that you did not have your great-uncle Frederick’s ears. Like bat-wings, those ears. Positively terrified him when he was a child.”

She turned to the portrait of his mother. “And your mother says she was simply glad you didn’t come out all puckered and orange, because she ate nothing but jellied quince for the whole of her confinement.”

Jeremy shook his head. “Lucy, when you asked earlier if there was a bedlamite locked in the turret—I didn’t realize you meant to apply for the position.”

She ignored him and pasted a sweet smile on her face. Gently tugging Jeremy’s arm, she led him down the row to yet another portrait of Thomas. “Now this handsome young man is complaining that it’s dreadfully difficult to haunt twenty portraits at once. He’s begging us to pare down the number to three or four.”

“You may do as you wish, Lucy. You’re mistress of this estate. It’s your house now.”

“Mine?” She tightened her grip on his arm. “Oh, dear. I had been under the rather comforting impression that it wasours.”

He looked down at her, the corner of his lips slightly crooked. It was the barest suggestion of a smile, and the most wonderful thing she’d seen in the past week. “So it is.”

He placed his hand over hers where it lay on his arm. “I believe I’ve had enough ofour house for one morning. Would you care to go riding? I imagine Thistle would enjoy the exercise.”

“I can ride Thistle?” She lifted an eyebrow. “But must I have a complement of footmen trailing along behind me?”