The Serpent Prince Read online

  Eustace looked round the church door. “Coming?”

  Lucy blinked and conjured a smile. “Of course.”

  SIMON EXTENDED HIS RIGHT ARM at shoulder height and very carefully lifted it. Flames of pain pulsed across his shoulder and down the arm. Damn. It was the day after he’d woken to find Miss Craddock-Hayes sitting beside him—and he hadn’t seen her since. A fact that irritated him. Was she avoiding him? Or worse—did she just not feel inclined to visit him again? Maybe he’d bored her.

  He winced at that depressing thought. His head was better, and they’d removed the ridiculous bandages, but his back still felt like it was on fire. Simon lowered the arm and breathed deeply while the pain subsided to a dull ache. He looked down at his arm. His shirtsleeve ended six inches short of his wrist. This was because the shirt he was wearing belonged to David, the absent brother of the angel. Judging from the length of the garment, which made rising from the bed embarrassing, the brother was a midget.Simon sighed and glanced around the little room. The one window had begun to darken with night. The room was large enough to hold the bed—which was rather narrow for his taste—a wardrobe and dresser, a single table by the bed, and two chairs. That was all. Spartan by his standards, but not a bad place to convalesce in, especially since there was no other choice. At the moment, the fire was dying, making the room chill. But the cold was the least of his worries. He needed his right arm to hold a sword. Not just to hold it, but to parry, riposte, and repel. And to kill.

  Always to kill.

  His enemies may not have murdered him, but they’d certainly disabled his right arm, at least for a while—maybe permanently. Not that it would stop him in his duty. They’d killed his brother after all. Nothing but death could stop him in his pursuit of vengeance. Nevertheless, he must be able to defend himself when next they attacked. He gritted his teeth against the pain and raised the arm again. He’d dreamed last night of fingers again. Fingers blooming like bloody buttercups in the green grass at Peller’s feet. In his dream, Peller had tried to pick up his severed digits, horribly scrabbling in the grass with his mutilated hands. . . .

  The door opened and the angel entered, carrying a tray. Simon turned to her gratefully, glad to push aside the madness in his mind. Like the last time he’d seen her, she was dressed in nun gray with her dark hair pulled into a simple knot at the back of her neck. Probably she had no idea how erotic a woman’s nape could be when exposed. He could see little wisps of hair curling there and the beginning of the delicate slope of her white shoulders. Her skin would be soft, vulnerable, and if he ran his lips along that angle where shoulder met neck, she would shiver. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought, like a half-wit given a cherry pie.

  She frowned austerely at him. “Should you be doing that?”

  Most likely she was referring to his exercise, not the fatuous expression on his face. “Undoubtedly not.” He lowered his arm. This time it felt like only a thousand bees were stinging it.

  “Then I suggest you stop and have some supper.” She put the tray down on the table by his bed and went to the hearth to stir the fire, returning with a taper to light the candles.

  He raised his arm. “Ah. What delectable dishes do you have there? Pap in warm milk? A cup of beef tea?” Such had been the menu for the last two days. Hard, dry bread was beginning to sound downright delicious.

  “No. A slice of Mrs. Brodie’s beef and kidney pie.”

  He lowered the arm too fast and had to bite back a groan. “Really?”

  “Yes. Now stop that.”

  He inclined his head in a teasing half-bow. “As my lady commands.”

  She arched her eyebrow at him but didn’t comment. Simon watched her remove the dish cover. Praise whatever saints would listen, the lady did not lie. A thick slab of meat pie reposed on the plate.

  “Blessed, blessed lady.” He broke off a piece of crust with his fingers and almost wept when it touched his tongue. “Like the ambrosia of the gods. You must tell the cook that I am overwhelmed with devotion and will die if she won’t run away with me at once.”

  “I’ll tell her that you thought the pie very good.” She placed a slice of pie on a plate and handed it to him.

  He settled the plate on his lap. “You refuse to convey my offer of marriage?”

  “You didn’t mention marriage the first time. You only offered to disgrace poor Mrs. Brodie.”

  “The love of my life is named Mrs. Brodie?”

  “Yes, that’s because she’s married to Mr. Brodie, who is away at sea at present.” She sat in the chair by his bedside and looked at him. “You might be interested to know that he is considered the strongest man in Maiden Hill.”

  “Is he? And by that remark, I suppose you wish to cast aspersions on my strength?”

  Her gaze wandered over his form, and his breath quickened.

  “You are lying in bed recovering from a near-fatal beating,” she murmured.

  “A mere technicality,” he said airily.

  “But a decisive one.”

  “Hmm.” He forked up some of the pie. “I don’t suppose there is red wine as well?”

  She gave him a chiding look. “Water for now.”

  “Too much to hope for, I agree.” He swallowed a meat-filled bite. “Yet the wise men do counsel us to be content with what we have and so I shall.”

  “You’re very welcome,” she said dryly. “Is there a reason you’re torturing yourself by exercising your arm?”

  He avoided her topaz eyes. “Boredom, simple boredom, I’m afraid.”

  “Indeed?”

  He’d forgotten how quick she was. He smiled charmingly. “I didn’t get very far with my fairy tale last night.”

  “Do you really have a niece?”

  “Of course I do. Would I lie to you?”

  “I think, yes. And you don’t seem the kind of man who would be a doting uncle.”

  “Ah. What kind of man do I seem to you?” he asked without thinking.

  She cocked her head. “One who tries too hard to hide his soul.”

  Good God. For the life of him he didn’t know how to reply to that.

  Her lips twitched in that bewitching way she had. “My lord?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, now as to my fairy tale, where was I?” What a spineless ass he was! Next he would be fleeing toddlers with sticks. “Poor Angelica, the goat maid, the tall, white castle, and—”

  “The prince who wasn’t the Serpent Prince.” She conceded defeat and picked up a charcoal stick. She’d brought a different book this time—one bound in sapphire blue—and she opened it now, presumably to draw his story.

  A great feeling of relief came over him that she wouldn’t pursue her questions, wouldn’t find him out—at least not yet. Maybe never, if he was lucky.

  He tucked into the pie, speaking between bites. “Quite. The prince who wasn’t the Serpent Prince. Need I mention that this prince was a fine, handsome fellow with golden curling hair and sky-blue eyes? In fact, he was almost as beautiful as Angelica herself, who rivaled the sparkle of the stars with her midnight tresses and eyes the color of treacle.”

  “Treacle.” Her voice had a disbelieving, flat tone, but her mouth pursed as if she fought back a smile.

  How he wanted to make her smile. “Mmm, treacle,” he said softly. “Ever noticed how pretty treacle is when light shines through it?”

  “I’ve only noticed how very sticky it is.”

  He ignored that. “Now, although poor Angelica was as beautiful as a celestial orb, there was no one about to notice. She had only the goats to keep her company. So imagine her thrill when she did catch a glimpse of the prince. He was a person far, far above her, both literally and figuratively, and she longed to meet him. To gaze into his eyes and watch the expressions on his face. Merely that, for she dared not hope to even speak to him.”

  “Why not?” Miss Craddock-Hayes murmured the question.

  “To be frank, it was the goats,” he said solemnly. “Ange
lica was rather conscious of the odor she’d picked up from them.”

  “Of course.” Her lips twitched, reluctantly forming a curving smile.

  And a strange thing happened. His cock twitched as well, although what it formed was definitely not a curve—or a smile, for that matter. Good Lord, how gauche to become blue-veined over a girl’s smile. Simon coughed.

  “Are you all right?” She’d lost the smile—thank God—but now she was looking at him with concern, which was not an emotion he usually elicited in the fairer sex.

  His pride would never recover from this low. “I’m fine.” He took a drink of water. “Where was I? Ah, yes, so it seemed that Angelica would spend the rest of her days mooning about for the golden-haired prince, doomed to never even be on the same level as he. But one day something happened.”

  “I should hope so; otherwise, this would be a terribly short fairy tale,” Miss Craddock-Hayes said. She’d turned back to her sketchbook.

  He chose to disregard her interruption. “Late one evening, Angelica went to herd her goats home, and as she did every night, she counted them. But on this night the count was one short. The smallest of her goats, a black nanny with one white foot, was missing. Just then she heard a very faint bleat that seemed to come from the cliff on which the castle was built. She looked but saw nothing. Again the bleat came. So Angelica climbed as close as she could to the cliff, always following the bleating, and imagine her surprise when she discovered a crack in the rock.”

  He paused to take a sip of water. She didn’t glance up. Her face looked so serene in the firelight, and even though her hand moved swiftly over the page, she seemed to have a stillness within her. Simon realized that he felt comfortable with this woman he hardly knew at all.

  He blinked and began his story again. “There seemed to be a flickering light coming from the crack. The space was narrow, but Angelica found that if she turned sideways, she could just slip in, and when she did, she saw an astonishing thing. A very strange man—or at least he seemed to be a man. He was tall and lean and had long silver hair, and he was quite, quite nude. He stood in the light of a small, blue-flamed fire that was burning in a brazier.”

  Her brows arched.

  “But what was strangest of all, was that as Angelica watched, he seemed to vanish. When she went to look where he had stood, there lay a giant silver snake, coiled around the base of the brazier.” He absently rubbed his index finger, running his thumb against the place his ring should be. Suddenly he was very tired.

  “Ah, at last we come to the infamous Serpent Prince.” She looked up and must have caught the weariness in his expression. Her own face sobered. “How does your back feel?”

  Like hell. “Plucky, just plucky. I think the knife wound may’ve actually improved it.”

  She watched him for a moment. And for the life of him, even with all his years of studying women, he’d not a clue as to what she thought.

  “Are you ever serious?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “Not ever.”

  “I thought not.” Her eyes were intent on him. “Why?”

  He looked away. He could not sustain that intense, too-perceptive regard. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “I think you do know,” she said softly. “As to whether or not it matters . . . Well, that isn’t for me to say.”

  “Isn’t it?” It was his turn to stare at her, pressuring her to admit . . . what? He wasn’t sure.

  “No,” she whispered.

  He opened his mouth to argue further, but some belated sense of self-preservation stopped him.

  She inhaled. “You should rest, and I’ve been keeping you up.” His angel shut her book and rose. “I sent the letter to your valet yesterday. He should receive it soon.”

  He let his head fall back against the pillows and watched her as she gathered the empty dishes. “Thank you, beautiful lady.”

  She paused by the door and looked back at him. The candlelight flickered over her face, turning it into a Renaissance painting, most fitting for an angel. “Are you safe here?”

  Her voice was soft, and he had begun to drift into dreams, so he wasn’t sure of the words—hers or his.

  “I don’t know.”

  Chapter Three

  “Iddesleigh. Iddesleigh.” Papa frowned as he chewed his gammon steak, his chin jerking up and down. “Knew an Iddesleigh in the navy when I sailed The Islander five and twenty years ago. Midshipman. Used to get terribly seasick right out of port. Always hanging over the middeck rail looking green and heaving up his accounts. Any relation?”

  Lucy suppressed a sigh. Papa had been twitting the viscount all through supper. Normally, her father enjoyed entertaining new guests. They were a fresh audience for his hoary sea stories, retold countless times to his children, neighbors, servants, and anyone else who would hold still long enough to listen. But something about Lord Iddesleigh had gotten her father’s back up. This was the first meal the poor man had been able to come down for after spending the last four days bedridden. The viscount sat at the table appearing urbane and at ease. One had to look closely to notice he still favored his right arm.She wouldn’t blame him if he hid in his room after tonight. And that would disappoint her terribly. Even though she knew, deep in her soul, that she should stay away from the viscount, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about him. All the time. It was really rather irritating. Perhaps it was merely the novelty of a new person in her narrow circle of acquaintances. After all, she’d known the people she saw every day since infancy. On the other hand, maybe it was the man himself, and wasn’t that an uncomfortable thought?

  “No, I don’t believe so.” Lord Iddesleigh answered her father’s question as he helped himself to more boiled potatoes. “As a rule, the members of my family avoid anything resembling work. Much too taxing, and it has an unfortunate tendency to lead to sweat. We much prefer to idle our days away eating cream cakes and discussing the latest gossip.”

  Then again, Lucy reflected, the younger man did seem to be holding his own with her father. Papa’s eyes narrowed ominously.

  She picked up a basket and waved it under her parent’s nose. “More bread? Mrs. Brodie baked it fresh this morning.”

  He ignored her ploy. “Old landed gentry, are they?” Papa sawed vigorously at his meat while he spoke. “Let others toil on their land, eh? Spend all their time in the sinful fleshpots of London instead?”

  Oh, for goodness’ sake! Lucy gave up and set the bread basket down. She would enjoy the meal even if no one else did. Their dining room was hopelessly out of date, but it was cozy for all that. She tried to focus on her surroundings rather than on the distressing conversation. She turned to her left, noting in approval the cheerfully burning fire.

  “Why, yes, I quite like a fleshpot now and then,” Lord Iddesleigh said, smiling benignly. “That is, when I can find the energy to get myself out of bed. Have since I was but a tiny lad in leading strings accompanied by my nurse.”

  “Really—” she began, only to be cut off as Papa snorted. She sighed and looked to the other end of the room where a single door led into the hall and then the kitchen. It was so nice that the room wasn’t cursed by a draft.

  “Although,” the viscount continued, “I must confess I’m a bit hazy on what exactly constitutes a fleshpot.”

  Lucy’s gaze dropped to the table—the only safe thing to look at in the room at the moment. The old walnut dining table wasn’t long, but that made meals all the more intimate. Mama had chosen the striped burgundy and cream wallpaper before Lucy’d been born, and Papa’s collection of sailing ship prints graced the walls—

  “I mean, flesh and pot, how did the two come together?” Lord Iddesleigh mused. “I trust we are not discussing chamber pots—”

  Dangerous territory! Lucy smiled determinedly and interrupted the awful man. “Mrs. Hardy told me the other day that someone let Farmer Hope’s pigs out. They scattered for half a mile, and it took Farmer Hope and his boys a whole day to
get them back.”

  No one paid attention.

  “Ha. From the Bible, fleshpot is.” Papa leaned forward, apparently having scored a point. “Exodus. Have read the Bible, haven’t you?”

  Oh, dear. “Everyone thought it might be the Jones boys that let them out,” Lucy said loudly. “The pigs, I mean. You know how the Joneses are always up to mischief. But when Farmer Hope went round to the Jones place, what do you think? Both boys were in bed with fever.”

  The men never took their gaze from each other.

  “Not recently, I confess.” The viscount’s icy silver eyes sparkled innocently. “Too busy idling my life away, don’t you know. And fleshpot means . . . ?”

  “Harrumph. Fleshpot.” Papa waved his fork, nearly spearing Mrs. Brodie as she brought in more potatoes. “Everyone knows what fleshpot means. Means fleshpot.”

  Mrs. Brodie rolled her eyes and set the potatoes down hard at Papa’s elbow. Lord Iddesleigh’s lips twitched. He raised his glass to his mouth and watched Lucy over the rim as he drank.

  She could feel her face warm. Must he look at her like that? It made her uncomfortable, and she was sure it couldn’t be polite. She grew even more warm when he set the glass down and licked his lips, his eyes still holding hers. Wretch!

  Lucy looked away determinedly. “Papa, didn’t you once tell us an amusing story about a pig on your ship? How it got out and ran around the deck and none of the men could catch it?”

  Her father was staring grimly at the viscount. “Aye, I’ve got a story to tell. Might be educational for some. About a frog and a snake.”

  “But—”

  “How interesting,” Lord Iddesleigh drawled. “Do tell us.” He leaned back in his chair, his hand still fiddling with the glass stem.

  He wore David’s old clothes, none of which fit him, her brother being shorter and broader in the torso. The scarlet coat’s sleeves let his bony wrists stick out and at the same time the coat hung about his neck. He had gained some color in his face in the last days to replace the awful dead white he’d sported when she’d first found him, although his face seemed to be naturally pale. He should have looked ridiculous, yet he did not.