The Serpent Prince (16 page)

But now she stood on the front stoop like a poor petitioner before the king. The king, in this case, being Newton the butler. He was splendidly arrayed in silver and black livery and an exquisite wig, despite the hour. He stared back at her down a nose that would have done any ancient Roman proud.

“I couldn’t say, miss.” Two spots of red burned in the butler’s otherwise cadaverous cheeks.

Lucy looked at them suspiciously. Her own face began to heat. Surely Simon wasn’t with another woman? No, of course not. They were to be married in less than a week. But Lucy felt shaken nonetheless. She hardly knew Simon; maybe she had misunderstood. Perhaps when he said
dawn
it had been a fashionable figure of speech, really meaning
ten o’clock.
Or maybe she’d confused the day—

A big black carriage rattled up, interrupting her thoughts. Lucy turned to look. The carriage bore Simon’s crest. A footman jumped down and set the steps. Henry and Mr. Fletcher descended. Lucy frowned. Why . . . ? Simon stepped down. Behind her, Newton exclaimed. Simon was in his shirtsleeves, despite the cold. One sleeve was streaked with blood, and he held a soaked rag to the upper arm. Spatters of red arced delicately across his chest. In strange contrast to the gore, he wore an immaculate white wig.

Lucy gasped; her lungs wouldn’t fill with air. How badly was he hurt? She stumbled down the steps. “What has happened?”

Simon stopped and stared at her, white-faced. He looked as if he didn’t recognize her.
“Merde
.
”

At least he could talk. “Newton, send for a doctor!”

Lucy didn’t bother to see if the butler followed her orders. She was afraid if she took her eyes from Simon, he might collapse. She reached him on the street and held out a hand, hesitant to actually touch him lest she harm him further.

“Where are you hurt? Tell me.” Her voice shook.

He took her hand. “I’m fine—”

“You’re bleeding!”

“There’s no need of a doctor—”

“He killed James,” Mr. Fletcher suddenly said.

“What?” Lucy looked at the younger man.

He seemed dazed, as if he’d seen a tragedy.
What had happened?

“Not out in the street for all the pious listening neighbors to gossip about, please,” Simon said. His words dragged as if he were weary to his soul. “We’ll hash it out, if we must hash it out, in the sitting room.” The fingers clutching her wrist were sticky with blood. “Come inside.”

“Your arm—”

“Will be fine as soon as I dose it with brandy—by mouth, preferably.” He marched her up the steps.

Behind them, Mr. Fletcher called, “I’m going home. Had enough. Sorry.”

Simon paused on the top step and glanced back. “Ah, the golden resilience of youth.”

Mr. Fletcher swung around violently. “You killed him! Why did you have to kill him?”

Oh, God.
Lucy stared, mute, at Simon’s young friend. She felt dread seep into her chest, paralyzing her.

“It was a duel, Christian.” Simon smiled, but his voice was still gritty. “Did you think I meant to dance a pretty gavotte?”

“Jesus! I don’t understand you. I don’t think I even know you.” Mr. Fletcher shook his head and walked away.

Lucy wondered if she should echo the sentiment. Simon had just admitted killing a man. She realized—horribly—that the bloodstains on his chest weren’t his own. Relief flooded her, and then guilt that she rejoiced at another’s death. Simon led her through the door into the great receiving hall. The ceiling, three stories overhead, was painted with classical gods lounging about the clouds, unperturbed by the upheaval below. He dragged her down the hallway and through double doors into a sitting room.

Behind them, Newton groaned. “Not the white settee, my lord.”

“To hell with the settee.” Simon pulled Lucy down beside him on the immaculate piece of furniture. “Where’s that brandy?”

Newton splashed brandy into a crystal glass and brought it over, muttering, “Blood. And it’ll never come out.”

Simon swallowed half the glass and grimaced, laying his head against the settee back. “I’ll have it re-covered, if that’ll make you feel better, Newton. Now get out of here.”

Henry entered the room, carrying a basin of water and linens.

“But, my lord, your arm—” the butler started.

“Get. Out.” Simon closed his eyes. “You, too, Henry. You can bandage, dose, and mother me later.”

Henry raised his eyebrows at Lucy. Silently, he laid the basin and bandages beside her and left. Simon still held her wrist. She reached across him with her free hand and carefully pulled back the ripped sleeve. Beneath, a narrow wound seeped blood.

“Leave it alone,” he murmured. “It’s only a shallow cut. It looks worse than it is, believe me. I won’t bleed to death, at least not right away.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m not your butler. Or your valet, for that matter.”

“No, you’re not.” He sighed. “I forgot.”

“Well, try to remember in the future that I hold an entirely different role in your—”

“Not that.”

“What?”

“I forgot we were to go riding this morning. Stupid of me. Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I came early with Rosalind.”

“Rosalind? Where is she?” His words were slurred as if he were so fatigued he could hardly speak.

“At the fish market. Hush. It doesn’t matter.”

He didn’t listen. “I will never be able to forgive myself, but do you think you can?”

Silly. Her eyes pricked with tears. How could he deflect her anger with such silly words? “For what? Never mind. I forgive you for whatever it is.” She dipped a cloth in the water one-handed. “This would be easier if you let me go.”

“No.”

She wiped at the blood awkwardly. She really ought to cut the sleeve off altogether. She cleared her throat to steady her voice before she inquired, “Did you really kill a man?”

“Yes. In a duel.” His eyes were still closed.

“And he wounded you in return.” She squeezed out the cloth. “What did you duel over?” She made sure her tone was even, as if she were asking the time.

Silence.

She looked at the bandages. There was no way she’d be able to tend to him, shackled as she was. “I’m going to need both arms to bandage you.”

“No.”

Lucy sighed. “Simon, you’ll have to let me go eventually. And I really think your arm should be cleaned and wrapped.”

“Severe angel.” He finally opened his eyes, frost gray and intense. “Promise me. Promise me on your mother’s memory that you won’t leave me if I give you back your wings.”

She blinked and thought about it, but in the end there was really no other answer. “I promise you.”

He leaned closer until she could see the shards of ice in his eyes. “Say it.”

“I promise on my mother’s memory,” she whispered, “that I won’t leave you.”

“Oh, God.”

She didn’t know whether it was a curse or a prayer, but his mouth came down on hers hard. Biting, licking, sucking. It was as if he meant to consume and draw her into himself so that she might never abandon him. She moaned beneath the onslaught, confused and enthralled.

He angled his head, thrusting his tongue into her mouth. She clutched his shoulders, and then he was pushing her back on the settee, climbing on top of her and shoving her legs apart with his own hard thighs. He settled on her, and even through the multiple layers of her skirt she could feel his hard shaft. She arched against him. Her breath was coming in breathless pants; she couldn’t seem to get enough air. He cupped her breast. His hand was so hot she could feel his heat through her bodice, branding her where no man had ever caressed her before.

“Angel.” He broke away to whisper against her cheek. “I want to see you, to touch you.” He trailed his open mouth over her cheek. “Let me take down your dress. Let me see you. Please.”

She shuddered. His fingers molded her shape, stroking and massaging. She felt her nipple bud, and she wanted,
needed,
him to touch it. Naked, with nothing separating their flesh. “Yes, I—”

Someone opened the door.

Simon reared up to glare over the back of the settee at whoever it was. “Get out!”

“My lord.” Newton’s voice.

Lucy wished she could dissolve this very instant and become a puddle on the settee.

“Get out now!”

“Your sister-in-law is here, my lord. Lady Iddesleigh saw your carriage in front and was concerned as to why you and Miss Craddock-Hayes had not yet gone riding.”

Or, she could simply die of mortification.

Simon stilled, breathing heavily. “Damn.”

“Yes, my lord,” the butler replied stonily. “Shall I put her in the blue sitting room?”

“Damn your eyes, Newton! Put her anywhere but here.”

The door closed.

Simon sighed and rested his forehead against her own. “I’m sorry for everything.” He brushed his lips against hers. “I’d better leave before Rosalind gets an eyeful. Stay here; I’ll send Henry with a shawl.” He got up and strode out the door.

Lucy looked down at herself. There was a bloody handprint on the bodice of her dress.

“Is that all right?” Lucy asked Pocket now.

The little girl frowned as if considering. “I guess.” Voices from farther down the hallway made her look over her shoulder before scooting into the room. She laid down the wooden box she carried and shut the door very carefully.

Lucy was instantly suspicious. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the schoolroom?”

The little girl was dressed in a cool blue gown, her hair in perfect ringlets, giving her an angelic appearance, belied by her calculating eyes. “Nanny’s napping.” She’d obviously learned her uncle’s trick of not actually answering the question.

Lucy sighed and watched Pocket carry the box to the tapestry rug, hitch up her skirts, and sit down cross-legged. This little back room had an air of abandonment, despite its recent dusting. It was too small to welcome callers, and, besides, it was on the third floor of Rosalind’s town house. Above the bedrooms and below the nursery. Yet the one window overlooked the back garden and let the afternoon sun in. The armchairs, one brown and missing an arm, the other a balding rose velvet, were large and comfortable. And the faded rose, brown, and green rug was soothing. Lucy had thought it a perfect place to come and think and be alone.

Clearly, Pocket had, too.

The little girl opened her box. Inside were rows of painted tin soldiers—Simon’s forbidden gift. Some were standing, others knelt, their rifles at their shoulders, ready to fire. There were soldiers on horses and soldiers with cannons, soldiers with rucksacks, and soldiers holding bayonets. She’d never seen such an array of tin soldiers. Obviously, this was a superior toy army.

Lucy picked up a little man. He stood at attention, his rifle by his side, a high military hat on his head. “How clever.”

Pocket gave her a withering look. “That’s a Frenchie. The
enemy.
He’s blue.”

“Ah.” Lucy handed her back the soldier.

“I’ve four and twenty,” the little girl continued as she set up the enemy camp. “I used to have five and twenty, but Pinkie got one and chewed off his head.”

“Pinkie?”

“Mama’s little dog. You haven’t seen him because he lives in Mama’s rooms mostly.” She wrinkled her nose. “He smells. And he snuffles when he breathes. He’s got a pushed-in nose.”

“You don’t care for Pinkie,” Lucy guessed.

Pocket shook her head vehemently. “So now this one”—she held up a headless tin soldier with fearsome teeth marks all over the remaining body—“is a Casualty of Battle, Uncle Sigh says.”

“I see.”

She laid the mutilated soldier on the carpet, and they both contemplated it. “Cannon fire,” Pocket said.

“Pardon?”

“Cannon fire. The ball took his head clean off. Uncle Sigh says he probably didn’t even see it coming.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows.

“Want to be England?” Pocket asked.

“I’m sorry?”

Pocket looked at her sorrowfully, and Lucy had the sinking feeling that her value might have fallen to the level of Pinkie, the soldier-devouring canine. “Would you like to be England? I’ll play France. Unless you
want
to be the Frogs?” She asked the last as if Lucy might just be that dim-witted.

“No, I’ll be England.”

“Good. You can sit there.” Pocket pointed to a space on the rug opposite her, and Lucy realized she was supposed to sit on the floor for this game.

She hunkered down and set up her red tin men under the little girl’s critical eye. It was actually rather soothing, and she needed a rest from her thoughts. All day she’d debated whether she should marry Simon. The violent side he’d revealed this morning had been frightening. Not because she thought he might hurt her—she knew, somehow, he would never do that. No, what made her afraid was that her attraction to him remained undimmed, despite what she’d seen. She’d even rolled about with him on that settee while he was covered with the blood of a man he’d killed. It hadn’t mattered. It still didn’t matter. If he walked in the room right now, she’d succumb again. And perhaps that was the real problem. Perhaps she feared what he could do to her: make her throw away all the lessons of right and wrong she’d grown up with, make her lose herself. Lucy shivered.

“Not there.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Your captain.” The little girl pointed to a soldier in a fancy hat. “He should be at the front of his men. Uncle Sigh says a good captain always leads his men into battle.”

“Does he?”

“Yes.” Pocket nodded decisively and moved Lucy’s man forward. “Like that. Are you ready?”

“Um . . .” Ready for what? “Yes?”

“Men, ready your cannon,” the little girl growled. She rolled a tin cannon forward and laid her fist beside it. “Fire!” She flicked her thumb, and a marble flew across the carpet and decimated Lucy’s soldiers.

Pocket hooted.

Lucy’s jaw dropped. “Can you do that?”

“It’s war,” Pocket said. “Here come the cavalry to flank your army!”

And Lucy realized the English were about to lose the war. “My captain orders his men about!”

Two minutes later the field of battle was a bloodbath. Not a single tin soldier still stood.

“Now what do we do?” Lucy panted.

“We bury them. All brave men deserve proper funerals.” Pocket lined up her dead soldiers.

Lucy wondered how much of this game was prescribed by Uncle Sigh.

“We say the Lord’s Prayer and sing a hymn.” The little girl tenderly patted her soldiers. “That’s what we did at my papa’s funeral.”

Lucy looked up. “Oh?”

Pocket nodded. “We said the Lord’s Prayer and threw dirt on the coffin. But Papa wasn’t really in there, so we don’t have to worry about him drowning in the dirt. Uncle Sigh says he’s in heaven and he watches me.”

Lucy stilled, imagining Simon comforting this little girl at his brother’s graveside, putting aside his own grief to explain in childish terms that her father wouldn’t suffocate in the ground. What a tender act. And what was she to do with this new side to Simon? It would be so much easier if he was simply a man who killed, someone who was callous and uncaring. But he wasn’t. He was a loving uncle, a man who tended roses all by himself in a glass cathedral. A man who acted like he needed her and made her promise never to leave him.

Never to leave him . . .

“Want to play again?” Pocket was looking at her, waiting patiently.

“Yes.” Lucy gathered her soldiers and set them upright.

“Good.” Pocket set to work on her own soldiers. “I’m glad you’re to be my aunt. Uncle Sigh’s the only other one who likes to play soldiers.”

“I’ve always wanted a niece who played soldiers.” She looked up at Pocket and smiled. “And I’ll be sure to invite you to come and play with me when I’m married.”

“Promise?”

Lucy nodded decisively. “Promise.”