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

Damn.

Damn him. Damn her. Damn, damn, damn.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She wasn’t a thing to be claimed. A quarry to be bagged. She’d never wanted the indignity of a Season in London. The miserable ordeal of being preened and plumed and paraded about theton . The humiliation of waiting for some strutting peacock to cross the ballroom, shove a ring on her finger, paste his name over her own, and stamp “His” on her forehead for the world to read. The abject shame of it if no man even tried.

She was Diana. She was the goddess of the hunt. She wanted to choose. Shehad chosen, Lucy reminded herself. She had chosen Toby. Familiar features floated up into the darkness behind her eyelids. Golden-brown hair. Chiseled cheekbones and a dimpled chin. Laughing eyes and a generous, smiling mouth.Hers , she willed. All of it,hers . She wanted him with every ounce of her will and every inch of her body.

Every inch … except the little tingling patch of flesh beneath her left earlobe. That bit of her wanted someone else. Someone else’s lips. Not that generous, smiling mouth, but stern, stony-set lips that melted to fire against her skin. Against that tiny, traitorous inch of her flesh that declared itselfhis . She put her fingers to the soft hollow of her neck, and her pulse quickened under her touch.

Another piece of her rebelled. A random ridge of collarbone seceded from her will. She ran her fingers along that razor-thin republic that now lived for the weight of a heavy brow and the bracing chill of damp hair, cool and dark as ebony. Not hers any longer, buthis .

And then her br**sts were rising up against the oppression of her bodice. Yearning to be liberated into his hands. She flattened her own palms over them, and her ni**les peaked in protest.His, his , they insisted in tandem. Lucy was outnumbered. Her resolve was falling apart, and her body dissolving with it. Her mind was swirling with shadows and shards of latticed light, and she felt the dark secret of his caress burning on her skin. Rekindling that hot ache between her legs. The place where his tender assault had laid waste to her will. The place that so easily, so readily might have beenhis , yearned to behis even now.

If Toby hadn’t come …Her whole body flushed with the question, burned to know the answer. Her hands strayed lower, smoothing over her belly.

A light knock at the door yanked her out of the memory and out of the wardrobe … again. She sat up in bed.

“Lucy, it’s me.”

Lucy slid back the bolt and cracked open the door. Sophia stood in the corridor, wrapped in a blue silk peignoir. Her golden hair was loose, flowing over her shoulders in soft waves.

“May I come in?”

Lucy opened the door in a silent invitation, and Sophia entered.

“I came to see if you were feeling better,” she said, flouncing onto the edge of the bed. She eyed Lucy’s stockinged ankle dubiously. Then her gaze wandered up to Lucy’s flushed cheeks. “But I daresay you are,” she said, arching an eyebrow. She smiled. “In fact, you look very well indeed.”

Lucy sat down at her writing table and plucked a roll from the dinner tray. She bit off the end and chewed furiously. Lord, but she was hungry.

“You disappeared this afternoon,” Sophia accused.

“And so did Lord Kendall. You cannot expect me to credit coincidence.”

Lucy took another bite of bread and shrugged.

Sophia bounced on the edge of the bed. “Lucy! You know you must tell me what happened.”

“Nothing happened.”

Sophia pouted. “I know the difference between something and nothing,” she said, reclining back on her elbows. “And the look on your face does not come of doing nothing.”

“Doesn’t it?” It was just as Lucy had suspected. One look at her face, and Sophiaknew . She would never be able to leave her chamber again. Then she recalled Sophia’s aborted “shocking” tale that morning. “So tell me aboutsomething,” she said, “and I will tell you whether this afternoon fits the definition.”

Sophia toyed with the lace neckline of her peignoir. “Shall I tell you about Gervais?”

“Gervais?” Sosomething had a name.

“He was my painting master. And my tutor in the art of passion.” She sighed and laid flat on the bed. “Divinely handsome. Lean and strong, with jet-black hair and silver eyes and long, sculpted fingers. I was madly in love with him. Perhaps I still am.”

Lucy choked on her bite of roll. She poured herself a glass of claret and threw back a healthy swallow. Then another. When she had drained the glass, she drew her knees up to her chest and coiled into her chair. Sophia was still lying flat on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her bare feet dangled over the edge, and she flexed her ankles idly.