Page 10 of To Hunt the Hunter

It wasn’t him she doubted. It came as something of a shock to discover she did trust him after he’d been so blasé about her becoming his mistress. He knew her feelings and, finally, he seemed to have accepted them. So, she was trusting him with her reputation, her virtue. Everything. He would not betray that trust. She believed that.

“Are you afraid of your uncle?”

The question slipped out, rather balder than she’d intended, but she needed to put some emotional distance between them as badly as she did the space of a picnic blanket.

Remember why you came.

His demeanour changed in an instant, and she regretted her demand, but still, it had to be asked. She was not here to become his mistress. She really had no right to be here at all, not as she was, neither lover nor an acceptable friend, fish nor fowl. It was unfair to Phoebe to allow her to believe that Matilda could be a part of their lives. She must help Lucian resolve whatever trouble he was in—if it was within her power—and then she must leave.

“Yes.”

She hadn’t expected such an answer and was momentarily too surprised to react. So it had been fear she’d seen in his eyes. How strange. She had thought of Lucian—no, of Montagu, for she was beginning to see that these were two distinct personalities—as being arrogantly confident, fearless, emotionless. Powerful. Yet that rather bumbling, gently smiling man with the sparkling eyes had turned him as white as alabaster and sent him running from town. Why?

“Must we talk of him?”

He wasn’t looking at her, his blond brows drawing together, his gaze intent and his elegant, long fingers worked at snapping a twig into increasingly tiny pieces and arranging them as if for a small bonfire. A heavy gold signet ring glinted on his little finger, the eagle crest catching her eye.

“It’s why I came,” she said.

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

He swept the small pile of twigs away with the side of his hand, an irritated gesture, and then leant his head back against the tree trunk, closing his eyes.

“Lucian, what happened between you? Your uncle told me you tried to kill him.”

“That’s true.”

Matilda gasped as his eyes flicked open, a flash of silver like the darting of fish in the stream below.

“Fair’s fair,” he said, his tone mocking. “It was my turn.”

Chapter 4

Dearest Aashini,

I am going away for a few days. I have sent word to my brother that I am staying with you. If anyone asks, please confirm this and tell them I have caught a chill and am indisposed. I know it is wretched of me to ask this of you, but I do ask, my dear friend. Please. I assure you I am quite safe and in my right mind—more or less. Don’t worry for me, though I know you shall all the same. I will explain all on my return. I know that you, of all people, understand that we must sometimes take a risk to defend what is most important to us. I thank you with all my heart.

―Excerpt of a letter from Miss Matilda Hunt to Aashini Anson, Countess Cavendish.

25th April 1815. Dern, Sevenoaks, Kent.

Matilda stared at him, her stomach roiling. “You can’t be serious. Surely? Lucian, tell me, what happened?”

In one fluid movement he was on his feet and stalked to the far side of the oak tree.

“Lucian!” she called, but he did not answer.

Unable to leave it at that and knowing he would turn the subject given the least opportunity, she got up, ducking under a low branch to follow him. She held onto it, as though needing to cling to something solid as reality shifted beneath her feet. She was standing behind him, seeing only the rigid set of his shoulders.

“He tried to hurt you?” she asked.

“No. He did hurt me. He tried to kill me. He’s tried many times.”

Matilda stared at his back, her breath suspended.

“Why?” she whispered.