Goddess of the Hunt: A Novel Page 5

  But that was just it. Jeremy had not wanted to consort with other boys of his rank, nor be addressed as “Warrington”—the title that, in Jeremy’s ten-year-old mind, still belonged to his older brother. Why should he suffer constant reminders of Thomas’s death, when he could play with boys who knew nothing of it? Boys like Henry, Felix, and Toby.

  Good friends, the three of them, but Henry most of all. Henry didn’t allow him to sit brooding in his club when there was a prizefight to see, any more than he allowed him to stew at home over a failed wheat harvest when there were trout to be netted. Without stooping to methods so grating as cheerfulness, Henry simply refused to indulge his darker moods. But the same qualities that made him a valued friend made Henry a miserable excuse for a guardian. Now that Jeremy began to see what that blithe irreverence was costing Lucy, his humor was growing black indeed.

  “You know how persistent Lucy can be when she sets her mind to something,” he said testily. “She’s going to throw herself at Toby at every opportunity. This afternoon she missed and hit the river instead. She’s like to do herself in, and take a few of us with her.”

  “And what, precisely, do you recommend I do?” Henry asked.

  “Not you,” Jeremy said. “Toby.”

  “Oh, no.” Alarm flared in Toby’s eyes. “I’m not having that conversation with Lucy. I take no pleasure in breaking young ladies’ hearts.”

  The other three stared at him.

  “Well, I don’t,” he said defensively. “Of late.”

  “You don’t have to break her heart.” Jeremy was becoming exasperated. “At least, not to her face. You just have to propose to Miss Hathaway. Once you’re engaged, Lucy will be forced to give up this absurd notion of seduc—distracting you.”

  “I shall be perfectly happy to propose marriage to Miss Hathaway,” said Toby. “At the end of our holiday.”

  “Why the end?” asked Felix. “Kitty’s been after me daily, asking when you’re finally going to propose to Sophia. She thinks you’ve got the gout, you’re so reluctant to bend a knee.”

  “I may as well be infirm, for all the fun I’ll have once I’m engaged,” Toby said. “I can’t very well bag a bride in the morning and a pheasant that same afternoon. Once I’ve asked for her hand, I’ll have a hundred things to do. Go apply to her father in Kent. See my solicitor in Town. Make appointments with my tailor. Retrieve my grandmother’s ring from Surrey. I’ll be running all over England like a Norman invader, and that will spell the end of all amusement.”

  “What rot,” Henry said. “Felix and I are both married, as you see, and we manage a bit of sport despite it.”

  “Yes, but you’re married,” Toby replied. “A married woman likes nothing better than to be left alone. A betrothed woman won’t leave a man be. I’ll be obliged to take ambling strolls in the garden and read poetry over tea, when I ought to be tramping through the woods, taking nips off a flask of whiskey.”

  “Courting can be a sport in its own right,” Felix said with a sly smile.

  Toby countered, “Yes, but blushing virgins are always in season.” He rose from his seat and went to stand by the window, gazing out over the park. “Miss Hathaway is an enchanting creature. I admire her beauty and esteem her character. I may even love her. But this autumn is my last gasp of bachelorhood, and I mean to enjoy it. While there are still coveys in Henry’s woods, I have no intention of proposing marriage to Sophia Hathaway.”

  “And what about Lucy?” Jeremy asked.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I shan’t propose to her, either.”

  Jeremy regarded his friend through narrowed eyes. Toby’s brand of reckless charm wore well on a youth of one-and-twenty, but it ill became a gentleman nearing thirty. Not that the young ladies had ceased swooning in his direction. Falling in love with Sir Toby Aldridge was still a rite of initiation for debutantes. But this wasn’t another simpering heiress they were discussing. This was Lucy.

  He turned to Henry. “Aren’t you the least bit concerned for your sister’s welfare?”

  “Of course I’m concerned for her welfare. I’m her guardian.”

  Jeremy snorted.

  “You’re making too much of this,” Henry said. “So Lucy is infatuated with Toby. It’s an all-too-common affliction. One many a girl has survived, with no lasting ill effects.”

  “Unless you count near-drowning.”

  “She’s mistaken Toby’s kindness for some deeper emotion,” Henry continued, ignoring Jeremy’s remark. “It’s entirely understandable. She ought to have had her season by now, and fallen in and out of love a dozen times. As it is, she’s a complete innocent.”

  Jeremy snorted again. Obviously Henry did not know about the book.

  “She feels left out,” Henry went on. “She’s surrounded by ladies who are either happily married or engaged.” He waved off Toby’s interjection. “Nearly engaged. She wants a bit of romance all her own.” Apparently satisfied with this deduction, Henry saluted his own ingenuity by pouring another round of brandy. “It will pass.”

  Jeremy felt creeping tendrils of madness winding around his brain. It will pass? Henry couldn’t possibly know how wrong he was. And Jeremy couldn’t possibly tell him. “And in the meantime?” he asked. “You just allow her to keep up these … these antics?”

  “Jem has a point there,” said Toby. “I can’t very well have Lucy hanging all over me if I’m meant to be courting Miss Hathaway. A bit awkward, that.”

  Henry shrugged. “I don’t see what else there is to do.”

  “Perhaps you should invite the vicar’s son to tea,” Felix suggested.

  “Impossible,” said Henry. “He’s off to Oxford.”

  Jeremy shook his head. This conversation was becoming nonsensical. He glowered at Toby. Selfish ass. So cocksure of captivating any and every woman’s affections. Of course he saw no reason to rush a proposal. The idea of Miss Hathaway refusing him would never cross his mind. It would serve him right if she did.

  Toby noted Jeremy’s sullen expression. “Don’t look at me like that! It’s not my fault, you know. If you find Lucy’s ‘antics’ so annoying, why don’t you distract her?”

  “Please.” Jeremy tipped his glass to drain the last of his brandy, then lowered it slowly. Henry was giving him the most distressing look.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Henry said.

  “What’s not a bad idea?” asked Felix.

  “Jem distracting Lucy.” A mischievous grin spread across Toby’s face.

  “Oh, no.” Jeremy rose from his chair and stepped behind it, as though the wing-backed barrier of civility might shield him from their lunacy. “If by ‘distract,’ you mean—distract—and if by ‘Lucy,’ you mean Henry’s sister … the answer is no. No.”

  “Relax, Jem,” Henry said. “We’re not suggesting you court her in earnest. Just pay her a bit of attention. Take her on an amble through the garden. Read her one of Byron’s poems.”

  “And don’t forget the pie.” Felix was enjoying this far too much.

  “You can’t be serious, Henry.” Henry had never been a model guardian, but this strained the definition of the term. “Are you honestly suggesting—inviting me to play loose with your sister’s affections?”

  “Her affections?” Henry laughed. “As if you could engage Lucy’s affections. It’s nothing so dreadful. Her pride’s been bruised, and she wants a bit of admiring. Just do your best to stand in for the vicar’s spotty son.”

  Good Lord, had Henry met his sister? Lucy was many things, but easily dissuaded was not one of them. She’d invested eight years in this misplaced adulation, and if Henry thought a few pretty words would snap her out of it now, he was a bit late on the draw.

  “You’ll not touch her, of course,” Henry added, his voice deep with mock warning.

  A bit late on that one, too.

  “Come on,” Toby pleaded. “Do a man a favor. I’d do it for you, were our situations reversed.”

  “I don’t doubt you would
,” Jeremy said. “But oddly enough, Toby, I’ve never aspired to your example of conduct.”

  They were closing in on him, all three of them wearing expressions of great amusement. Jeremy began to feel a bit desperate. “It won’t work,” he protested.

  “Are you so out of practice then?” Toby taunted. “You typically cut quite a swath through the ton, but not this season. Perhaps you’re just not up to the task?”

  Jeremy’s hands were fists at his sides. His right itched to connect with Toby’s jaw. The left had distinctly lower ambitions. “My ability is not in question.”

  Henry clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. “Good. Then it’s settled.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Come to call me a fool again?” Lucy asked from behind her book. “Or perhaps you’ve devised a fresh insult?”

  Jeremy pulled a chair up to the hearth. Aunt Matilda dozed on a nearby divan, her turbaned head slumped to her chest. The turban’s indigo plume dangled in front of her nose, and each rattling snore set it dancing in the breeze.

  After this afternoon’s dousing, Lucy had traded her ruined silk gown for a simple dark-green dress with—thankfully—a modest neckline. Her hair was braided into a thick rope of chestnut that tapered to a gentle curve at her waist. A leather-bound volume hid her face from view. She had maintained this studious attitude ever since the group retired to the drawing room following dinner, but Jeremy hadn’t seen her turn a single page.

  He maneuvered a chess table into the space between them and began arranging the pawns in neat rows. “I did not come to insult you. Quite the opposite.” He leaned forward across the game board, as though preparing to spill a great secret. “I’ve come to seduce you.”

  She peeked at him over the top of her book. Her eyes flared momentarily before narrowing to slits. “I prefer insult to ridicule.”

  He shrugged and continued arranging the chess pieces. “Perhaps I simply want a game of chess.”

  She snorted in disbelief and glanced over toward the card table, where the Hathaway sisters were on the verge of bankrupting all three gentlemen. “Henry put you up to this, didn’t he?”

  Jeremy’s fingers tightened around a black rook.

  “I don’t want your pity, Jemmy.” Lucy snapped her book closed. “And what’s more, I don’t need it.”

  She met his eyes directly, and the force in her gaze nearly knocked him off his chair. Her green eyes were clear and alive with intelligence, not red or brimming with tears. He shook his head, chiding himself for underestimating her resilience. Lucy had not sequestered herself to nurse her wounded pride or lament her disappointed hopes. She was plotting her next move.

  “I’m not here to pity you. Nor am I acting at Henry’s behest.” Jeremy placed the last pieces on the board. “I have my own reasons to speak with you.”

  She rotated the chessboard to situate the white pieces before her. Winding her braid around her right hand, she advanced a pawn with her left. She glanced up at him through thick, curving eyelashes. “To apologize?”

  To apologize, indeed. Lucy ought to be thanking him. He intended to bring a swift end to this absurd scheme of her brother’s. At dinner, he had suffered winks from Henry, grins from Toby, Felix’s jab to the ribs—even Marianne’s sly expression when she seated Lucy at his elbow. Well, Henry could make accomplices of every last footman, for all Jeremy cared. He’d be damned if he’d spend his holiday reciting Byron in the garden, simply to coddle their consciences. Neither did he intend to stand watch in the corridor each night, or keep fishing Lucy out of danger. If neither Henry nor Toby were man enough to simply tell her the truth, Jeremy would.

  He brought out a pawn to meet hers. “I’ve come to tell you the good news. Toby will propose marriage to Miss Hathaway at the end of the holiday.”

  “That is the good news?” She moved a bishop across the board, claiming a black pawn. “I can scarcely contain my joy. Please excuse my display of wild jubilation.”

  “At the end of the holiday, Lucy. Weeks from now. Any attempt to prevent the engagement would be futile”—he continued speaking over her objection—“but if you insist on trying, you have ample time. There is no need to commit a brazen act of seduction. Or subversion.”

  “On the contrary.” The corners of her lips curled in an impish grin. “With so much time at my disposal, I can commit more brazen acts than ever.”

  “And do you suppose brazenness is a quality Toby seeks in a wife?”

  His barb hit home, and Lucy’s mouth thinned to a line. She glanced over at the card players. “What does he see in her?”

  “As I told you, she is beautiful, accomplished, and—most importantly—wealthy.”

  “And these are the qualities that inspire a man to the heights of passion? A large dowry and cunning tea trays?”

  “No, they are not the qualities that inspire a man to passion. They are the qualities that inspire a man to propose.”

  Lucy studied the chessboard, twining the curled end of her braid around her fingers and touching it against the corner of her mouth. Her tongue flicked out from between her parted lips, drawing on a strand of hair. Jeremy shifted in his seat.

  “We seem to be back where we began,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “I have no dowry or tea tray to inspire a man to propose. Therefore, I shall have to summon the qualities that inspire a man to passion.” She looked up at him, green eyes dancing with reflected firelight. “And those would be?”

  If he were being honest, Jeremy would be forced to tell her that the saucy gleam in her eye was a powerful start. And that the way she kept teasing that stray chestnut curl with her tongue—nibbling it, sucking it, drawing it into her mouth—had him feeling inspired indeed.

  But Jeremy had no particular desire to be honest. In fact, he heartily wished to change the subject. And if he managed to change Lucy’s mind in the process, so much the better. “It isn’t only Miss Hathaway’s dowry,” he said. “I believe Toby does feel a genuine attachment to her.”

  Lucy looked disbelieving. She moved her bishop across the board. “You can’t expect me to believe it was love at first sight.”

  “Not at all. More like the second.” This captured her attention. She leaned forward slightly in her chair. Jeremy bent over the chessboard and lowered his voice. “Toby was first introduced to Miss Hathaway at a dinner party at Felix’s house. She was every bit as lovely and charming as you see her now. She made trifling conversation at dinner and played the pianoforte afterward, quite capably. Toby took no notice.” He moved a knight into play.

  “And the second time?”

  “The second time we were all in company, we met at a ball. On that occasion, Miss Sophia had a bevy of admirers surrounding her before the first set. Toby was instantly enthralled. For weeks afterward, he spoke of nothing but Miss Sophia Hathaway. He was quite insufferable.”

  Lucy looked nonplussed. “So you’re telling me Henry should host a ball?”

  He sighed. “I’m telling you to stop flinging yourself at Toby’s feet. A man doesn’t want to stoop to love. He wants to reach higher, stand taller. He desires something more than a woman. He wants an angel. A dream.”

  “A goddess?”

  “If you will.”

  Her voice grew wistful. “Toby always called me a goddess. His Diana. Goddess of the hunt.”

  “She was the goddess of chastity, too,” he scoffed. “But no matter. You’re beginning to comprehend the principle. The allure of the unattainable. You’d be foolish to keep flashing your … your charms at Toby so brazenly. Men want what it seems they can’t have.”

  And God help him, he was a man. He wanted what he could not have. That must be the reason Jeremy felt himself growing stiff at the mere mention of Lucy’s charms. Lucy was unattainable, he reminded himself for what must have been the nineteenth time that day. And whatever strange allure she held, it logically proceeded from that fact. Not from her enticing, womanly curves, or her golden, petal-soft s
kin. Not from the obvious challenge of her flinty spirit or the veiled invitation in her smoky voice. And most definitely not from her lips—those lush, bowed, dusky red lips that Jeremy now knew to be formed for something wholly apart from stinging retorts. Sweet, sensual kisses that stirred a man’s blood and tasted of wild, ripe fruit. Forbidden fruit.

  It was all too true. Men want what it seems they can’t have.

  Lucy leveled her green gaze at him. “Jealous.”

  He groaned inwardly. Not that word again. He was not—not—jealous. He began piecing together an objection, but she spoke first.

  “I comprehend you perfectly. I need to make Toby jealous.”

  He stared at her. Not comprehending.

  “You said yourself that he never looked twice at Sophia until she showed up with a throng of suitors. That’s what I need. A suitor. A throng of them would be preferable, but I suppose one will have to do.” She wound the braid around her finger and began toying with it again. “Too bad the vicar’s son is off to Oxford. He’s positively mad for me.”

  She stared at the carpet, brow furrowed. Then she raised her head and locked gazes with him. “It will have to be you.”

  “Me?”

  “I know, I know. It sounds ridiculous, but there’s no one else. It’s nothing so terrible. Just pretend to court me for a while. Until Toby realizes he loves me.”

  “I could court you forever, and that plan would never work.”

  Lucy sank back in her chair and folded her arms. She exhaled forcefully. “I suppose you’re right.” She regarded him with an expression that struck Jeremy as uncomfortably close to disdain. “No one would ever believe it.”

  Jeremy couldn’t decide which facet of this disturbingly familiar conversation should perturb him more. To begin with, there was the repeated insistence that, heedless of his own feelings or principles, he must perforce strike up a counterfeit courtship with Lucy. Then there was the fact that he once again came in second to the vicar’s spotty son in his desirability for this appointment. Most galling of all, however, seemed the general skepticism of his ability to convincingly woo even a country-bred innocent.