The Serpent Prince Page 10

  He seemed startled.

  She raised her brows and waited.

  “Actually, he did a little.” He half smiled. “Ethan was a bit shorter than I—no more than an inch or so—but he was broader and heavier.”

  “What about his hair?” She looked at his nearly colorless locks. “Was he fair as well?”

  “Mmm.” He ran his palm over his head. “But more a golden color with curls. He left it long and didn’t wear wigs or powder. I think he was a bit vain about it.” He smiled at her mischievously.

  She smiled back. She liked him like this, teasing and carefree, and suddenly realized that despite Simon’s careless manner, he was very rarely at ease.

  “His eyes were a clear blue,” he continued. “Mother used to say they were her favorite color.”

  “I think I prefer gray.”

  He bowed with a flourish. “My lady honors me.”

  She curtsied in reply, but then sobered before asking, “How did Ethan die?”

  He stopped, forcing her to a halt as well. She looked up into his face.

  He seemed to be struggling; his brows were pulled together over those beautiful ice-gray eyes. “I—”

  An insect buzzed past her head, followed by a loud shot. Simon grabbed her roughly and pushed her into the ditch. Lucy landed on her hip, pain and astonishment streaking through her, and then Simon landed on her, squashing her into the mud and dead leaves. Lucy turned her head, trying to draw a full breath. It felt like a horse was sitting on her back.

  “Don’t move, goddamnit.” He placed his hand over her head and pushed it back down. “Somebody’s shooting at us.”

  She spat out a leaf. “I know that.”

  Oddly, he chuckled in her ear. “Wonderful angel.” His breath smelled of tea and mint.

  Another shot. The leaves exploded a few feet from her shoulder.

  He swore rather colorfully. “He’s reloading.”

  “Can you tell where he is?” she whispered.

  “Across the road somewhere. I can’t pinpoint the exact location. Hush.”

  Lucy became aware that aside from the problem with breathing and the fact that she might die violently at any second, it was rather nice having Simon lying on her. He was wonderfully warm. And he smelled quite nice, not of tobacco like most men, but of some exotic scent. Maybe sandalwood? His arms, bracketing her body, felt comforting.

  “Listen.” Simon placed his mouth next to her ear, his lips caressing her with each word. “At the next shot, we run. He has only the one rifle, and he has to reload. When he—”

  A ball burrowed into the ground inches from her face.

  “Now!”

  Simon pulled her to her feet and ran before she had time to even register his command. Lucy panted to keep up, expecting any minute to feel the next shot between her shoulder blades. How long did it take to reload a gun? Only minutes, surely. Her breath rasped painfully in her chest.

  Then Simon was shoving her ahead of him. “Go! Into the woods. Keep running!”

  He wanted her to leave him? Dear God, he would die. “But—”

  “He’s after me.” He glared fiercely into her eyes. “I cannot defend myself with you here. Go now!”

  His last word coincided with the blast of yet another shot. Lucy turned and ran, not daring to look behind her, not daring to stop. She sobbed once and then the woods enveloped her in cool darkness. She ran as best she could, stumbling through the undergrowth, the branches catching on her cloak, tears of fear and anguish streaming down her face. Simon was back there, unarmed, confronting a man with a gun. Oh, God! She wanted to go back, but she couldn’t—with her out of the way, he at least had a chance against their attacker.

  Footsteps sounded heavily behind her.

  Lucy’s heart pounded right into her throat. She turned to face her attacker, her fists raised in puny defiance.

  “Hush, it’s me.” Simon clasped her to his heaving chest, his breath panting across her face. “Shh, it’s all right. You are so brave, my lady.”

  She laid her head against his chest and heard the pounding of his heart. She clutched the fabric of his coat with both hands. “You’re alive.”

  “Yes, of course. I fear men like me never—”

  He stopped because she couldn’t keep back a choked sob.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered in a more grave voice. He tilted her face away from his chest and wiped her tears with the palm of his hand. He looked concerned and weary and uncertain. “Don’t cry, sweeting. I’m not worth it, really I’m not.”

  Lucy frowned and tried to blink away the tears that kept coming. “Why do you always say that?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  She shook her head. “You are very, very important to me, and I’ll cry for you if I want.”

  The corner of his mouth curved up tenderly, but he didn’t mock her silly speech. “I am humbled by your tears.”

  Lucy looked away; she couldn’t bear to hold his gaze. “The shooter, is he . . . ?”

  “He’s gone, I think,” Simon murmured. “A rather rickety farmer’s cart came along the road, drawn by a swaybacked gray. The cart was filled with laborers, and it must’ve scared the shooter off.”

  Lucy puffed out a laugh. “The Jones boys. They’ve been useful for once in their lives.” Then a sudden thought struck and she leaned back to look at him. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.” He smiled at her, but she could tell by his eyes that his thoughts were elsewhere. “We’d better get you home and then . . .”

  She waited, but he’d trailed off again, thinking.

  “Then what?” she prompted.

  He turned his head so his lips brushed across her cheek, and she almost missed his words. “Then I need to leave this place. To protect you.”

  “SHOT AT!” CAPTAIN CRADDOCK-HAYES roared an hour later.

  All at once, Simon could see the iron hand that had commanded a ship and men for thirty years. He half expected the diamond segments in the windowpanes to rattle right out of their lead frames. They were in the formal sitting room of the Craddock-Hayes house. It was prettily decorated—puce-and-cream-striped curtains, similarly colored settees scattered here and there, and a rather nice china clock on the mantel—but he preferred Lucy’s little sitting room at the back of the house.Not that he’d been given a choice.

  “My daughter, a flower of womanhood, a meek and dutiful gel.” The captain paced the length of the room, arm batting the air for emphasis, bandy legs stomping. “Innocent of the ways of the world, sheltered all her life, accosted not half a mile from her childhood home. Ha! Haven’t had a murder in Maiden Hill in a quarter century. Five and twenty years! And then you show up.”

  The captain halted in midpace between the mantel and a table set with naval bric-a-brac. He drew an enormous breath. “Scoundrel!” he blasted, nearly taking Simon’s eyebrows off. “Ruffian! Cad! Vile endangerer of English, ah, er . . .” His lips moved as he searched for the word.

  “Wenches,” Hedge supplied.

  The manservant had brought in the tea earlier, instead of Betsy or Mrs. Brodie, apparently to deny Simon the succor of female sympathy. Hedge still lurked, fiddling with the silverware as an excuse, listening eagerly.

  The captain glared. “Ladies.” He transferred his glower to Simon. “Never have I heard of such villainy, sirrah! What do you have to say for yourself? Eh? Eh?”

  “I say you’re quite right, Captain.” Simon leaned back wearily on the settee. “Except for the ‘meek and dutiful’ part. With all due respect, sir, I’ve not noticed Miss Craddock-Hayes to be either.”

  “You dare, sir, after nearly causing my daughter’s death!” The older man shook a fist in his direction, his face purpling. “Ha. Have you packed off from this house before the hour’s gone, I will. I’ll not stand for it. Lucy’s the very heart and soul of this community. Many people, not just me, hold her dear. I’ll see you run out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered, if I have to!”

  “Cor!�
� Hedge interjected, his emotions obviously stirred by the captain’s speech; although, it was hard to tell whether from fondness for Lucy or the prospect of seeing a member of the nobility on a rail.

  Simon sighed. His head was beginning to hurt. This morning he’d experienced the most bone-chilling fear he had ever felt, wondering if a bullet would kill the precious creature beneath him, knowing he would go mad if it did, terrified he would be unable to save her. He never wanted to feel that helpless dread for another’s life again. Of course, he hadn’t had much actual contact with the ground since Lucy’s soft limbs interposed themselves between his body and the earth. And hadn’t that been wonderful in a heart-stoppingly god-awful way? To feel what he’d vowed he never would—her face next to his, her rump snug against his groin. Even in the midst of his horror that this was all his fault, that his very presence had put her life in danger, even with layer upon layer of good English cloth between them, even then he’d responded to her. But Simon knew now that his angel could get a rise out of him if he were ten days dead, and it certainly wouldn’t be of the religious variety.

  “I apologize most profusely for putting Miss Craddock-Hayes in danger, Captain,” he said now. “I assure you, though I know it does little good at this late date, that had I any inkling she would be imperiled, I would’ve slit my own wrists rather than see her harmed.”

  “Fffsst.” Hedge made a derisive sound, oddly effective despite its wordlessness.

  The captain merely stared at him for a very long minute. “Ha,” he finally said. “Pretty words, but I think you mean them.”

  Hedge looked as startled as Simon felt.

  “Still want you out of this house,” the captain grunted.

  Simon inclined his head. “I already have Henry packing my things, and I’ve sent word to Mr. Fletcher at his inn. We will be out within the hour.”

  “Good.” The captain took a seat and contemplated him.

  Hedge hurried over with a cup of tea.

  The older man waved him away. “Not that bilge water. Get the brandy, man.”

  Hedge reverently opened a cupboard and brought out a cut-glass decanter half-full with a rich amber liquid. He poured two glasses and brought them over, then stood looking wistfully at the decanter.

  “Oh, go ahead,” the captain said.

  Hedge poured himself a scant inch and held the glass, waiting.

  “To the fairer sex,” Simon proposed.

  “Ha,” the older man grumbled, but he drank.

  Hedge tossed back his brandy in one gulp, then closed his eyes and shuddered. “Wonnerful stuff, that.”

  “Indeed. Know a smuggler on the coast,” the captain muttered. “Will she still be in danger once you leave?”

  “No.” Simon tilted his head against the back of the settee. The brandy was fine, but it merely made his head worse. “They’re after me, and like the jackals they are, they’ll follow the scent away from here once I leave.”

  “You admit you know these murderers?”

  Simon nodded, eyes closed.

  “Same ones as left you for dead?”

  “Or their hired thugs.”

  “What’s all this about, eh?” the captain growled. “Tell me.”

  “Revenge.” Simon opened his eyes.

  The old man didn’t blink. “Yours or theirs?”

  “Mine.”

  “Why?”

  Simon looked into his glass, swirling the liquid, watching it paint the interior. “They killed my brother.”

  “Ha.” The older man drank to that. “Then I wish you luck. Elsewhere.”

  “I thank you.” Simon drained his glass and stood.

  “’Course, you know what they say about revenge.”

  Simon turned and asked the question, because it was expected and because the old man had been more lenient than he had any right to hope for. “What?”

  “Be careful with revenge.” The captain grinned like an evil old troll. “Sometimes it twists around and bites you on the arse.”

  LUCY STOOD AT HER NARROW BEDROOM window overlooking the drive and watched Mr. Hedge and Simon’s valet load the imposing black carriage. They appeared to be arguing over how to stack the luggage. Mr. Hedge was gesticulating wildly, the valet had a sneer on his uncommonly handsome lips, and the footman actually holding the box in question was staggering. They didn’t look like they would have the project done anytime soon, but the fact remained—Simon was leaving. Although she’d known this day would come, she somehow still hadn’t been expecting it, and now that it was here, she felt . . . what?

  Someone knocked at her door, interrupting her confused thoughts.“Come.” She let the gauzy curtain drop and turned.

  Simon opened the door but remained in the hall. “May I have a word with you? Please.”

  She nodded mutely.

  He hesitated. “I thought we could take a turn around your garden?”

  “Of course.” It wouldn’t be proper for her to talk to him alone here. She caught up a woolen shawl and preceded him down the stairs.

  He held the kitchen door for her, and Lucy stepped into the cold sunshine. Mrs. Brodie’s vegetable garden was in a sad state this time of year. The hard earth was crusted with a thin layer of killing frost. Skeleton stalks of kale leaned in a drunken row. Beside them, some thin onion leaves were frozen to the ground, black and brittle. A few shrunken apples, missed at picking time, clung to the bare branches of the pruned trees. Winter overlaid the garden in a sleep that mimicked death.

  Lucy folded her arms about herself and took a steadying breath. “You’re leaving.”

  He nodded. “I can’t remain and put you and your family at further risk. This morning was too close, too deadly. If the assassin hadn’t missed his first shot . . .” He grimaced. “It was my own selfish vanity that let me stay so long as it is. I never should have lingered this past week, knowing what lengths they would go to.”

  “So you will return to London.” She couldn’t look at him and remain impassive, so she kept her gaze on the rattling tree branches. “Won’t they find you there?”

  He laughed, a harsh sound. “My angel, it is more a matter of me finding them, I fear.”

  She did glance at him then. His face was bitter. And lonely.

  “Why do you say that?” she asked.

  He hesitated, appeared to debate, then finally shook his head. “There is so much you do not know about me, will never know about me. Very few do, and in your case, I prefer it that way.”

  He wasn’t going to tell her, and she felt an unreasoning spurt of rage. Did he still think she was a glass figurine to wrap in gauze? Or did he simply not respect her enough to confide in her?

  “Do you really prefer I don’t know you?” She turned to face him. “Or do you say that to every naive woman you meet so they’ll think you sophisticated?”

  “Think?” His lips quirked. “You cut me to the bone.”

  “You’re fobbing me off with blather.”

  He blinked, his head rearing back as if she’d slapped him. “Blather—”

  “Yes, blather.” Her voice trembled with anger, but she couldn’t seem to steady it. “You play the fool so you won’t have to tell the truth.”

  “I’ve only said it to you.” Now he sounded irritated.

  Well, good. So was she. “Is that how you want to live? All alone? Never letting anyone in?” She shouldn’t push, she knew, as this was the last time they would see each other.

  “It’s less a matter of wanting as it is . . .” He shrugged. “Some things can’t be changed. And it suits me.”

  “It sounds a very solitary existence, and a not entirely satisfactory one,” Lucy said slowly, choosing her words carefully, lining them up like soldiers to do battle. “To go through life without a true confidant. Someone to whom you can reveal yourself without fear. Someone who knows your faults and weaknesses and who cares for you nonetheless. Someone for whom you don’t have to play a role.”

  “You frighten me more than I can
say at times.” His silver eyes gleamed as he whispered the words, and she wished she could read them. “Do not tempt a man so long without the bread of companionship.”

  “If you stayed . . .” She had to stop and catch her breath; her chest felt tight. She gambled so much on these few seconds, and she needed to speak eloquently. “If you stayed, perhaps we could learn more about each other. Perhaps I could become that confidant for you. That companion.”

  “I will not put you at further risk.” But she thought she saw hesitation in his eyes.

  “I—”

  “And that which you ask for”—he looked away—“I do not think I have it in me to give.”

  “I see.” Lucy stared down at her hands. So this was defeat.

  “If anyone—”

  But she interrupted, talking quickly and loudly, not wanting to hear his pity. “You are from the fast city, and I am only a simple gentlewoman living in the country. I understand that—”

  “No.” He turned back and took a step toward her so they stood only a hand’s width apart. “Don’t reduce what is between us to a conflict of rural and urban mores and ways.”

  The wind blew against her and Lucy shivered.

  He shifted so his body shielded hers from the breeze. “In the past week and a half, I have felt more than I ever have before in my life. You stir something in me. I . . .” He gazed over her head at the cloudy sky.

  She waited.

  “I don’t know how to express myself. What I feel.” He looked down at her and smiled faintly. “And that is very unusual for me, as you know by now. I can only say that I am glad that I’ve met you, Lucy Craddock-Hayes.”

  Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “And I, you.”

  He took her hand and gently uncurled her fingers so that her palm lay cupped between his own like a flower nestled among leaves. “I will remember you all the days of my life,” he murmured so low she almost didn’t hear. “And I am not sure whether that is a blessing or a curse.” He bent over their hands, and she felt the warm brush of his lips against her cold palm.

  She looked down at the back of his head, and one of her tears fell to his hair.

  He straightened. Without looking at her, he said, “Good-bye.” And walked away.