Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare Page B

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.

    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