The Serpent Prince Page 2

  “But it would not be in your best interest to betray me,” Sir Rupert said flatly. He bowed to a passing acquaintance.

  “I’m not saying I would let it out.”

  “Good. You profited as much as I from the business.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then all’s well that ends well.”

  “Easy for y-y-you to s-s-say.” James’s stutter was growing more frequent, a sign the man was agitated. “You didn’t see Hartwell’s body. He was skewered through the throat. Must’ve bled to death. His seconds said the duel lasted only two minutes—two minutes, mind you. A-a-awful.”

  “You’re a better swordsman than Hartwell ever was,” Sir Rupert said.

  He smiled as his eldest, Julia, started a minuet. She was wearing a gown in a becoming shade of blue. Had he seen it before? He thought not. It must be new. Hopefully it hadn’t beggared him. Her partner was an earl past his fortieth year. A mite old, but still, an earl . . .

  “P-p-peller was an excellent swordsman, too, and he was k-k-killed first.” James’s hysterical voice interrupted Sir Rupert’s thoughts.

  He was too loud. Sir Rupert tried to calm him. “James—”

  “Challenged at night and d-d-dead before breakfast the next morn!”

  “I don’t think—”

  “He lost three f-f-fingers trying to defend himself after the s-s-sword was wrenched from his hand. I had to search the g-g-grass for them afterward. G-g-god!”

  Nearby heads swiveled their way. The younger man’s tone was growing louder.

  Time to part.

  “It’s over.” Sir Rupert turned his head to meet James’s gaze, holding and quelling him.

  There was a tic under the other man’s right eye. He inhaled to begin speaking.

  Sir Rupert got there first, his voice mild. “He’s dead. You’ve just told me.”

  “B-b-but—”

  “Therefore, we have nothing further to worry about.” Sir Rupert bowed and limped away. He badly needed another glass of Madeira.

  “I’ LL NOT HAVE HIM IN MY HOUSE,” Captain Craddock-Hayes pronounced, arms crossed over his barrel chest, feet braced as if on a rolling deck. His bewigged head was held high, sea-blue eyes pinned on a distant horizon.

  He stood in the entrance hall to Craddock-Hayes house. Usually the hall was quite large enough for their needs. Right now, though, the hall seemed to have shrunk in proportion to the amount of people it held, Lucy thought ruefully, and the captain was right in the center of it.“Yes, Papa.” She dodged around him and waved the men carrying her stranger farther in. “Upstairs in my brother’s bedroom, I think. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Brodie?”

  “Of course, miss.” The Craddock-Hayes housekeeper nodded. The frill of her mobcap, framing red cheeks, bobbed in time with the movement. “The bed’s already made, and I can have the fire started in a tick.”

  “Good.” Lucy smiled in approval. “Thank you, Mrs. Brodie.”

  The housekeeper hurried up the stairs, her ample bottom swaying with each step.

  “Don’t even know who the blighter is,” her father continued. “Might be some tramp or murderer. Hedge said he was stabbed in the back. I ask you, what sort of a chap gets himself stabbed? Eh? Eh?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure,” Lucy answered automatically. “Would you mind moving to the side so the men can carry him past?”

  Papa shuffled obediently nearer the wall.

  The laborers panted as they wrestled the wounded stranger inside. He lay so terribly still, his face pale as death. Lucy bit her lip and tried not to let her anxiety show. She didn’t know him, didn’t even know the color of his eyes; and yet it was vitally important that he live. He’d been placed on a door to make it easier to carry him, but it was obvious that his weight and height still made the maneuver difficult. One of the men swore.

  “Won’t have such language in my house.” The captain glared at the offender.

  The man flushed and mumbled an apology.

  Papa nodded. “What kind of a father would I be if I allowed any sort of gypsy or layabout into my home? With an unmarried gel in residence? Eh? A damned rotten one, that’s what.”

  “Yes, Papa.” Lucy held her breath as the men negotiated the stairs.

  “That’s why the blighter must be taken somewhere else—Fremont’s house. He’s the doctor. Or the poorhouse. Maybe the vicarage—Penweeble can have a chance to show some Christian kindness. Ha.”

  “You’re quite right, but he’s already here,” Lucy said soothingly. “It would be a shame to have to move him again.”

  One of the men on the stairs gave her a wild-eyed look.

  Lucy smiled back reassuringly.

  “Probably won’t live long in any case.” Papa scowled. “No point ruining good sheets.”

  “I’ll make sure the sheets survive.” Lucy started up the stairs.

  “And what about my supper?” her father grumbled behind her. “Eh? Is anyone seeing to that while they rush about making room for scoundrels?”

  Lucy leaned over the rail. “We’ll have supper on the table just as soon as I can see him settled.”

  Papa grunted. “Fine thing when the master of the house waits on the comfort of ruffians.”

  “You’re being most understanding.” Lucy smiled at her father.

  “Humph.”

  She turned to go up the stairs.

  “Poppet?”

  Lucy stuck her head back over the rail.

  Her father was frowning up at her, bushy white eyebrows drawn together over the bridge of his bulbous red nose. “Be careful with that fellow.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Humph,” her father muttered again behind her.

  But Lucy hurried up the stairs and into the blue bedroom. The men had already transferred the stranger to the bed. They tramped back out of the room as Lucy entered, leaving a trail of mud.

  “You shouldn’t be in here, Miss Lucy.” Mrs. Brodie gasped and pulled the sheet over the man’s chest. “Not with him like this.”

  “I saw him in far less just an hour ago, Mrs. Brodie, I assure you. At least now he’s bandaged.”

  Mrs. Brodie snorted. “Not the important parts.”

  “Well, maybe not,” Lucy conceded. “But I hardly think he poses any risk, the condition he’s in.”

  “Aye, poor gentleman.” Mrs. Brodie patted the sheet covering the man’s chest. “He’s lucky that you found him when you did. He’d’ve been frozen by morn for sure, left out there on the road. Who could’ve done such a wicked thing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Nobody from Maiden Hill, I’m thinking.” The housekeeper shook her head. “Must be riffraff down from London.”

  Lucy didn’t point out that riffraff could be found even in Maiden Hill. “Doctor Fremont said he’d be around again in the morning to check his bandages.”

  “Aye.” Mrs. Brodie looked doubtfully at the patient, as if assessing his odds of living to the next day.

  Lucy took a deep breath. “Until then, I suppose we can only make him comfortable. We’ll leave the door ajar in case he wakes.”

  “I’d best be seeing to the captain’s supper. You know how he gets if it’s late. As soon as it’s on the table, I’ll send Betsy up to watch him.”

  Lucy nodded. They only had the one maid, Betsy, but between the three women, they should be able to nurse the stranger. “You go. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  “Very well, miss.” Mrs. Brodie gave her an old-fashioned look. “But don’t be too long. Your father will be wanting to talk to you.”

  Lucy wrinkled her nose and nodded. Mrs. Brodie smiled in sympathy and left.

  Lucy looked down at the stranger in her brother, David’s, bed and wondered again, who was he? He was so motionless that she had to concentrate to see the slight rise and fall of his chest. The bandages about his head only emphasized his infirmity and highlighted the bruising on his brow. He looked so terribly alone. Was anyone worried about him, perhaps
anxiously awaiting his return?

  One of his arms lay outside the covers. She touched it.

  His hand flashed up and struck at her wrist, capturing and holding it. Lucy was so startled she only had time for a frightened squeak. Then she was staring into the palest eyes she’d ever seen. They were the color of ice.

  “I’m going to kill you,” he said distinctly.

  For a moment, she thought the grim words were for her, and her heart seemed to stop in her breast.

  His gaze shifted past her. “Ethan?” The man frowned as if puzzled, and then he shut his weird eyes. Within a minute, the grip on her wrist grew slack and his arm fell back to the bed.

  Lucy drew a breath. Judging from the ache in her chest, it was the first breath she’d taken since the man had seized her. She stepped back from the bed and rubbed her tender wrist. The man’s hand had been brutal; she’d have bruises in the morning.

  Whom had he spoken to?

  Lucy shuddered. Whoever it was, she did not envy him. The man’s voice held not a trace of indecision. In his own mind, there was no doubt that he would kill his enemy. She glanced again at the bed. The stranger was breathing slowly and deeply now. He looked like he was slumbering peacefully. If not for the pain in her wrist, she might have thought the whole incident a dream.

  “Lucy!” The bellow from below could only be her father.

  Gathering her skirts, she left the room and ran down the stairs.

  Papa was already seated at the head of the dinner table, a cloth tucked in at his neck. “Don’t like a late supper. Puts my digestion off. Can’t sleep half the night because of the gurgling. Is it too much to ask for dinner to be on time in my own home? Is it? Eh?”

  “No, of course not.” Lucy sat in her chair at the right of her father. “I’m sorry.”

  Mrs. Brodie brought in a steaming roast beef crowded with potatoes, leeks, and turnips.

  “Ha. That’s what a man likes to see on his dinner table.” Papa positively beamed as he picked up his knife and fork in preparation for carving. “A good English beef. Smells most delicious.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The housekeeper winked at Lucy as she turned back to the kitchen.

  Lucy smiled back. Thank goodness for Mrs. Brodie.

  “Now, then, have a bite of that.” Papa handed her a plate heaped with food. “Mrs. Brodie knows how to make a fine roast beef.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Tastiest in the county. Need a bit of sustenance after gallivantin’ all over the place this afternoon. Eh?”

  “How have your memoirs gone today?” Lucy sipped her wine, trying not to think of the man lying upstairs.

  “Excellent. Excellent.” Papa sawed enthusiastically at the roast beef. “Put down a scandalous tale from thirty years ago. About Captain Feather—he’s an admiral now, damn him—and three native island women. D’you know these native gels don’t wear any—Ahurmph!” He suddenly coughed and looked at her in what seemed like embarrassment.

  “Yes?” Lucy popped a forkful of potato into her mouth.

  “Never mind. Never mind.” Papa finished filling his plate and pulled it to where his belly met the table. “Let’s just say it’ll light a fire under the old boy after all this time. Ha!”

  “How delightful.” Lucy smiled. If Papa ever did finish his memoirs and publish them, there would be a score of apoplectic fits in His Majesty’s navy.

  “Quite. Quite.” Papa swallowed and took a sip of wine. “Now, then. I don’t want you worrying over this scoundrel you’ve brought home.”

  Lucy’s gaze dropped to the fork she held. It trembled slightly, and she hoped her father wouldn’t notice the movement. “No, Papa.”

  “You’ve done a good deed, Samaritan and all that. Just as your mother used to teach you from the Bible. She’d approve. But remember”—he forked up a turnip—“I’ve seen head wounds before. Some live. Some don’t. And there’s not a blessed thing you can do about it either way.”

  She felt her heart sink in her chest. “You don’t think he’ll live?”

  “Don’t know,” Papa barked impatiently. “That’s what I’m saying. He might. He might not.”

  “I see.” Lucy poked at a turnip and tried not to let the tears start.

  Her father slammed the flat of his hand down on the table. “This is just what I’m warning you about. Don’t get attached to the tramp.”

  A corner of Lucy’s mouth twitched up. “But you can’t keep me from feeling,” she said gently. “I’ll do it no matter if I want to or not.”

  Papa frowned ferociously. “Don’t want you to be sad if he pops off in the night.”

  “I’ll do my very best not to be sad, Papa,” Lucy promised. But she knew it was too late for that. If the man died tonight, she would weep on the morrow, promises or no.

  “Humph.” Her father returned to his plate. “Good enough for now. If he survives, though, mark my words.” He looked up and pinned her with his azure eyes. “He even thinks about hurting one hair on your head, and out he goes on his arse.”

  Chapter Two

  The angel was sitting by his bed when Simon Iddesleigh, sixth Viscount Iddesleigh, opened his eyes.

  He would’ve thought it a terrible dream, one of an endless succession that haunted him nightly—or worse, that he’d not survived the beating and had made that final infinite plunge out of this world and into the flaming next. But he was almost certain hell did not smell of lavender and starch, did not feel like worn linen and down pillows, did not sound with the chirping of sparrows and the rustle of gauze curtains.And, of course, there were no angels in hell.

  Simon watched her. His angel was all in gray, as befit a religious woman. She wrote in a great book, eyes intent, level black brows knit. Her dark hair was pulled straight back from a high forehead and gathered in a knot at the nape of her neck. Her lips pursed slightly as her hand moved across the page. Probably noting his sins. The scratch of the pen on the page was what had woken him.

  When men spoke of angels, especially in the context of the female sex, usually they were employing a flowery fillip of speech. They thought of fair-haired creatures with pink cheeks—both kinds—and red, wet lips. Insipid Italian putti with vacant blue eyes and billowy, soft flesh came to mind. That was not the type of angel Simon contemplated. No, his angel was the biblical kind—Old Testament, not New. The not-quite-human, stern-and-judgmental kind. The type that was more apt to hurl men into eternal damnation with a flick of a dispassionate finger than to float on feathery pigeon wings. She wasn’t likely to overlook a few flaws here and there in a fellow’s character. Simon sighed.

  He had more than just a few flaws.

  The angel must have heard his sigh. She turned her unearthly topaz eyes on him. “Are you awake?”

  He felt her gaze as palpably as if she’d laid a hand on his shoulder, and frankly the feeling bothered him.

  Not that he let his unease show. “That depends on one’s definition of awake,” he replied in a croak. Even the little movement of speaking made his face hurt. In fact, his entire body seemed aflame. “I am not sleeping, yet I have been more alert. I don’t suppose you have such a thing as coffee to hasten the awakening process?” He shifted to sit up, finding it more difficult than it should be. The coverlet slipped to his abdomen.

  The angel’s gaze followed the coverlet down, and she frowned at his bare torso. Already he was in her bad graces.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have any coffee,” she murmured to his navel, “but there is tea.”

  “Naturally. There always is,” Simon said. “Could I trouble you to help me sit up? One finds oneself at a distressing disadvantage flat on one’s back, not to mention the position makes it very hard to drink tea without spilling it into the ears.”

  She looked at him doubtfully. “Perhaps I should get Hedge or my father.”

  “I promise not to bite, truly.” Simon placed a hand over his heart. “And I hardly ever spit.”

  Her lips twitched.

&n
bsp; Simon stilled. “You’re not really an angel after all, are you?”

  One ebony brow arched ever so slightly. Such a disdainful look for a country miss; her expression would’ve fit a duchess. “My name is Lucinda Craddock-Hayes. What is yours?”

  “Simon Matthew Raphael Iddesleigh, viscount of, I’m afraid.” He sketched a bow, which came off rather well in his opinion, considering he was prostrate.

  The lady was unimpressed. “You’re the Viscount Iddesleigh?”

  “Sadly.”

  “You’re not from around here.”

  “Here would be . . . ?”

  “The town of Maiden Hill in Kent.”

  “Ah.” Kent? Why Kent? Simon craned his neck to try and see out the window, but the gauzy white curtain obscured it.

  She followed his gaze. “You’re in my brother’s bedroom.”

  “Kind of him,” Simon muttered. Turning his head had made him realize something was wrapped about it. He felt with one hand, and his fingers encountered a bandage. Probably made him look a right fool. “No, I can’t say I’ve ever been to the lovely town of Maiden Hill; although I’m sure it’s quite scenic and the church a famous touring highlight.”

  Her full, red lips twitched again bewitchingly. “How did you know?”

  “They always are in the nicest towns.” He looked down—ostensibly to adjust the coverlet, in reality to avoid the strange temptation of those lips. Coward. “I spend most of my wasted time in London. My own neglected estate lies to the north in Northumberland. Ever been to Northumberland?”

  She shook her head. Her lovely topaz eyes watched him with a disconcertingly level stare—almost like a man. Except Simon had never felt stirred by a man’s glance.

  He tsked. “Very rural. Hence the appellative neglected. One wonders what one’s ancestors were thinking, precisely, when they built the old pile of masonry so far out of the way of anything. Nothing but mist and sheep nearby. Still, been in the family for ages; might as well keep it.”

  “How good of you,” the lady murmured. “But it does make me wonder why we found you only a half mile from here if you’ve never been in the area before?”

  Quick, wasn’t she? And not at all sidetracked by his blather. Intelligent women were such a bother. Which was why he should not be so fascinated by this one.