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

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.”

Jeremy shook his head slightly. “Your brother and I did not part well. I think a visit would be ill-advised.” He cleared his throat and picked up his fork again. “Besides, I can’t be absent overlong. Estate business, you realize.”

Lucy let her fork clatter to the table. “Estate business. Yes, of course.” She could taste the acid in her voice, and she knew he had to hear it. “Well, it was only an idea.”

Jeremy sat back in his chair and regarded her. The cool detachment in his gaze froze Lucy’s heart. “Perhaps,” he said calmly, “you would prefer to visit on your own. I can deposit you at Waltham Manor after the wedding. The carriages will be available to retrieve you whenever you wish.”

Deposither?Retrieve her? What was she to him? Just some bothersome parcel to be shuttled about from place to place?

She stared at her husband. There he sat, His Lordship, positively monolithic at his end of the table. Ever calm and composed. Suggesting their indefinite separation over the fish course, in the same tone of voice he might speak of the weather. Lucy wanted to pick up the plate before her, hurl it against the wall, and watch it smash into as many pieces as her heart.

Instead, she curled her fingers around the stem of her wineglass and bit her lip until she tasted the coppery tang of blood. “If that’s what you prefer,” she finally managed. “I’ll write to Henry tomorrow.” She looked into those ice-blue eyes, scanning his gaze for any flicker of hurt or disappointment. Even a flash of annoyance would be welcome. “Perhaps,”—she swallowed slowly—“perhaps I should just stay until the babe is born.”

Nothing.

“If you wish,” he answered, returning his gaze to his plate. Lucy stared at him in disbelief as he casually forked a bite of salmon into his mouth. “I’m going to London tomorrow.”

“To London? Tomorrow?”