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

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 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. Don’t cry.”

He’d do anything, he said. But he’d already done too much. He’d made her love him so completely, the love would not be contained. He’d breached every last one of her defenses, and now there was nothing left to keep him out. Nothing left to hold back the tears.

And these tears, they were everything Lucy had tried so hard, for so long to avoid. Vulnerability. Helplessness. She couldn’t stop herself from crying any more than she could keep herself from loving him—and what he did, with the tears or the love, was completely beyond her control. She was down on the floor, curled into a ball, sobbing into her hands. Defenseless and weak and utterly at his mercy.

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.