The Serpent Prince (13 page)

It had just gone eleven o’clock, and somewhere in this mass of humanity hid his prey. Simon sauntered down the steps into the main room. A passing footman offered a tray of watered-down wine. The libations were free. The more a man drank, the more apt he was to gamble and to stay gambling once started. Simon shook his head, and the footman turned away.

In the far right-hand corner, a golden-haired gentleman leaned over the table, his back to the room. Simon craned to look, but yellow silk obscured his view. A soft, feminine form bumped against his elbow.

“
Pardon moi.
” The demimondaine’s French accent was quite good. It almost sounded real.

He glanced down.

She had plump rosy cheeks, dewy skin, and blue eyes that promised things she shouldn’t have any knowledge of. She wore a green feather in her hair and smiled artfully. “I shall fetch some champagne in apology, yes?” She couldn’t be more than sixteen, and she looked like she belonged on a farm in Yorkshire, milking the cows.

“No, thank you,” he muttered.

Her expression revealed her disappointment, but then she’d been trained to show what men wanted. He moved away before she could reply and glanced back at the corner. The golden-haired man was no longer there.

He felt weary.

This was irony: only just past eleven o’clock and he wished he was in his bed, asleep and alone. When had he become an old man with a shoulder that ached if he stayed up too late? Ten years ago he would’ve barely begun the night. He would’ve taken the little harlot up on her offer and not even noticed her age. He would’ve gambled half his allowance away and not flinched. Of course, ten years ago he’d been twenty, finally set up in his own establishment, and a hell of a lot closer in age to the harlot than he was now. Ten years ago he hadn’t the sense to be afraid. Ten years ago he hadn’t felt fear or loneliness. Ten years ago he’d been immortal.

A gilt head to the left. It turned and he saw a wizened old face wearing a wig. Simon pushed through the crowd slowly, making his way to the back room. That was where the truly reckless gamblers congregated.

De Raaf and Pye seemed to think he had no fear, that he still thought and acted like that stripling lad ten years ago. But it was just the opposite, really. The fear was more intense with each duel, the knowledge that he could—probably would—die more real. And in a way, the fear drove him forward. What kind of a man would he be if he gave in to it and let his brother’s murderers live? No, every time he felt fear’s icy fingers trailing up his spine, every time he heard her siren call to
just give up, let it be,
he strengthened his resolve.

There.

Golden Hair ducked through black-velvet-lined doors. The man wore purple satin. Simon set his course, sure of the scent now.

“Thought I’d find you here,” Christian said from beside him.

He whipped around, his heart nearly stuttering out of his chest.
Ghastly
to be caught so flat-footed. The younger man could have slipped a stiletto between his ribs and he would never have known before he died. Another problem of age—the reflexes slowed. “How?”

“What?” The other man blinked red-tipped eyelashes.

Simon took a breath to control his voice. There was no point in taking out his temper on Christian. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“Oh. Well, I called ’round your place, asked Henry, and voila.” Christian spread his arms like a jester performing a trick.

“I see.” Simon knew he sounded irritated. It was becoming a habit with Christian to show up unexpectedly, rather like a case of the clap. He took a deep breath. Actually, now that he thought about it, he realized it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to have the younger man as company. Made one feel less alone at least. And it was rather soothing to be idolized.

“Did you notice that gel?” Christian asked. “The one with the green feather?”

“She’s too young.”

“Maybe for you.”

Simon glared. “Are you coming with me or not?”

“’Course, ’course, old man.” Christian smiled weakly, probably rethinking the advisability of tracking down Simon in the first place.

“Don’t call me that.” Simon started for the black velvet doors.

“Sorry,” Christian muttered behind him. “Where’re we going?”

“Hunting.”

They’d reached the doors now, and Simon slowed to adjust his eyes to the dim room. There were only three tables here. Each table had four players seated at it. No one looked around at the newcomers. Golden Hair sat at the farthest table with his back to the door.

Simon halted and took a breath. It felt like his lungs couldn’t expand enough in his chest to let in the air. Clammy sweat broke out on his back and under his arms. He suddenly thought of Lucy, her white breasts and her serious amber eyes. What a fool he’d been to leave her.

“I should’ve at least kissed her,” he muttered.

Christian’s ears were good. “The green feather girl? Thought she was too young.”

“Not her. Never mind.” Simon watched Golden Hair. He couldn’t tell from this angle—

“Who’re you looking for?” Christian at least had the sense to whisper the question.

“Quincy James,” Simon murmured, and strolled forward.

“Why?”

“To call him out.”

He could feel Christian’s stare. “What for? What’d he do to you?”

“Don’t you know?” Simon turned his head to meet his companion’s clear gaze.

The hazel eyes looked honestly puzzled. Simon sometimes wondered nonetheless. Christian had met him at a crucial point in Simon’s life. The younger man had made himself quite friendly in a short period of time, and he didn’t seem to have anything better to do than to tail Simon about. But perhaps Simon was being overly fearful, seeing enemies in every shadowy corner.

They reached the far table, and Simon stood behind the golden-haired man. Fear was embracing him now, sucking at his mouth with her frosty lips, rubbing her cold breasts against his chest. If he survived tomorrow’s dawn, he was going back for Lucy. What use to play the gallant knight if one died at sunrise without ever tasting the maiden’s lips? He now knew he couldn’t do this alone anymore. He needed her on some basic level to reaffirm and maintain his humanity even as he summoned up the most bestial part of himself. He needed Lucy to keep him sane.

Simon pasted a smile on his face and tapped the man on the shoulder. Beside him, Christian drew in his breath sharply.

The man looked around. Simon stared for a second, stupidly, before his brain registered what his eyes had already told him. Then he turned away.

The man was a stranger.

“Such as?” There, that was better. Hedge really had the most extraordinary nose.

They were in the little back sitting room. The light was best here during the afternoon, shining in unobstructed through the tall mullioned windows. Hedge perched on a stool in front of the fireplace. He was attired in his usual rumpled coat and breeches with the addition of an oddly spotted purple neckcloth. Lucy couldn’t imagine where he’d gotten it. Papa would have died before wearing such a thing.

“I gotta feed and groom old Kate,” the manservant groaned.

“Papa did that this morning.”

“Well, then, I should muck out her stall.”

Lucy shook her head. “Mrs. Brodie paid one of the Jones boys to clean Katie’s stall only yesterday. She got tired of waiting for you to do it.”

“Ain’t that cheek!” Hedge looked as indignant as if he hadn’t neglected the horse for days. “She knew I was plannin’ to do it today.”

“Hmm.” Lucy shaded in his hair carefully. “That’s what you’ve said the last week. Mrs. Brodie says she could smell the stable from the back door.”

“That’s only ’cause she’s got such a great hooter.”

“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” She switched pencils.

Hedge wrinkled his brow. “What d’you mean, glass houses? I’m talking about her nose.”

Lucy sighed. “Never mind.”

“Humph.”

There was blessed silence for a moment while Hedge regrouped. She started sketching in his right arm. The house was quiet today with Papa gone and Mrs. Brodie busy in the kitchen baking bread. Of course, it always seemed quiet now that Simon had left. The house was almost lifeless. He’d brought excitement and a type of companionship she hadn’t known she was missing until he went away. Now the rooms echoed when she walked into them. She caught herself restlessly wandering from room to room as if she unconsciously searched for something.

Or someone.

“How about that letter to Master David, then?” Hedge interrupted her thoughts. “The captain asked me to post it.” He rose.

“Sit back down. Papa posted it on the way to Doctor Fremont’s.”

“Awww.”

Someone banged on the front door.

Hedge started.

Lucy glanced up from the sketch to pin him with her stare before he could make a move. The manservant slumped. Lucy finished the right arm and started on the left. They could hear Mrs. Brodie’s quick footsteps. A murmur of voices, then the footsteps neared.
Bother.
She was nearly finished with the sketch, too.

The housekeeper opened the door looking flustered. “Oh, miss, you’ll never guess who’s come—”

Simon walked around Mrs. Brodie.

Lucy dropped her pencil.

He picked it up and held it out to her, his ice eyes hesitant. “May I talk to you?”

He was hatless, his coat wrinkled, and his boots muddy as if he’d ridden. He’d left off his wig, and his hair was a trifle longer. There were dark circles under his eyes, and the lines bracketing his mouth were deeper. What had he been doing in London this past week to make him look so tired again?

She took the pencil, hoping he wouldn’t notice how her hand trembled. “Of course.”

“Alone?”

Hedge jumped up. “Right, then, I’ll leave.” He darted out the door.

Mrs. Brodie looked at Lucy questioningly before following the manservant. She shut the door behind her. Suddenly Lucy was alone with the viscount. She folded her hands in her lap and watched him.

Simon paced to the window and gazed out as if he didn’t see the garden at all. “I had . . . business to do this last week in London. Something important. Something that’s been preying on my mind for some time now. But I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t focus on what needed to be done. I kept thinking of you. So I came here, despite vowing I wouldn’t bother you again.” He threw a look at her over his shoulder, part frustration, part puzzlement, part something she didn’t dare interpret. But it made her heart—already laboring from his entrance—stutter.

She took a breath to steady her voice. “Would you care to sit?”

He hesitated as if considering. “Thank you.”

He sat across from her, ran his hand over his head, and abruptly stood up again.

“I should leave, just walk out that door and continue walking until I’ve put a hundred miles between us, maybe an entire watery ocean. Although I don’t know if even that would be enough. I promised myself that I would leave you in peace.” He laughed without humor. “And yet, here I am back at your feet, making an ass of myself.”

“I’m glad to see you,” she whispered. This was like a dream. She’d never thought to see him again, and now he was pacing agitatedly in front of her in her own little sitting room. She didn’t dare let herself wonder why he had come.

He swung around and suddenly stilled. “Are you? Truly?”

What was he asking? She didn’t know, but she nodded anyway.

“I’m not right for you. You’re too pure; you see too much. I’ll hurt you eventually, if I don’t . . .” He shook his head. “You need to be with someone simple and good, and I am neither. Why haven’t you married that vicar?” He was frowning at her, and his statement sounded like an accusation.

Lucy shook her head helplessly.

“You won’t speak, won’t tell me,” he said huskily. “Are you taunting me? You taunt me in my dreams sometimes, sweet angel, when I’m not dreaming of . . .” He sank to his knees before her. “You don’t know me, don’t know what I am. Save yourself. Throw me from your house. Now. While you still can, because I’ve lost my determination, my will, my very honor—what little of it I had left. I cannot remove myself from your presence.”

He was warning her, she knew it, but she couldn’t tell him to go. “I won’t turn you away. You can’t ask that of me.”

His hands were at either side of her on the settee. They bracketed her but did not touch her. He bowed his head until all she could see was his crown of shorn pale hair. “I’m a viscount; you know that. The Iddesleighs go back a fair ways, but we only managed to pocket a title five generations ago. I’m afraid we have a tendency to pick the wrong side in royal wars. I have three homes. A town house in London, one in Bath, and the estate in Northumberland, the one I told you about when I woke that first day. I said it was a wilderness, and it is, but it’s also quite beautiful in a savage way, and of course the land’s profitable, but we needn’t ever go there, if you don’t wish. I have a steward and plenty of servants.”

Lucy’s eyes were blurred with tears. She muffled a sob. He sounded as if he were . . .

“And there are some mines, copper or tin,” he continued, staring at her lap. Was he afraid to look her in the eye? “I can never remember which, and it doesn’t really matter because I have a man of business, but they pay quite well. There are three carriages, but one was my grandfather’s and is getting rather moldy. I can have a new one made, if you want one of—”

She caught his chin with her shaking hands and tilted his face up so she could see his pale gray eyes, looking so worried, so alone. She placed a thumb over his lips to still the river of words and tried to smile through the tears coursing down her cheeks. “Hush. Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”

She could feel the beat of his pulse against her fingers, warm and alive, and it seemed to echo the wild fluttering of her own heart. She’d never felt joy such as this, and she had the sudden fierce thought,
Make it last, please, Lord. Don’t ever let me forget this moment.

But he searched her eyes, neither triumphant nor happy, only waiting. “Are you sure?” His lips caressed her thumb with the words.

She nodded. “Yes.”

He closed his eyes as if terribly relieved. “Thank God.”

She leaned down and kissed him softly on the cheek. But when she would’ve pulled back, he moved his head. His mouth connected with hers.

He kissed her.

Brushing across her lips, teasing her, tempting her, until she finally opened to him. He groaned and licked the inside of her lower lip. She brought her tongue forward at the same time and tangled with his. She didn’t know if she was doing it right. She’d never been kissed like this before, but her heart beat loudly in her ears, and she couldn’t control the trembling of her limbs. He grasped her head between his hands and held it, angling his face across hers to deepen the embrace. This wasn’t like Eustace’s gentlemanly kiss. This was darker—hungry and almost frightening. She felt as if she were on the verge of falling. Or of breaking apart into so many pieces she’d never be able to put them back together again. He took her lower lip between his teeth and worried it. What should’ve been pain, or at least discomfort, was pleasure that went to her very center. She moaned and surged forward.

Crash!

Lucy jerked back. Simon looked over her shoulder, his face taut, a sheen of moisture on his brow.

“Oh my goodness!” Mrs. Brodie exclaimed. A tray of demolished china, oozing cake, and puddling tea lay at her feet. “Whatever will the captain say?”

That’s a good question,
Lucy thought.