The Serpent Prince Page 5

  “Once there was a little frog and a great big snake,” Papa began. “The snake wanted to cross a stream. But snakes can’t swim.”

  “Are you sure?” the viscount murmured. “Don’t some types of vipers take to the water to catch their prey?”

  “This snake couldn’t swim,” Papa amended. “So he asked the frog, ‘Can you take me across?’”

  Lucy had stopped even pretending to eat. She switched her gaze back and forth between the men. They were engaged in a conflict with multiple layers that she was powerless to influence. Her father leaned forward, red-faced under his white wig, obviously intent. The viscount was bare-headed, pale hair glinting in the candlelight. On the surface he was relaxed and at ease, maybe even a little bored, but below that surface she knew he was just as focused as the older man.

  “And the frog says, ‘I’m not a fool. Snakes eat frogs. You’ll gobble me down, sure as I’m sitting here.’” Papa paused to take a drink.

  The room was silent, save for the snap of the fire.

  He set down his glass. “But that snake, he was a sly one, he was. He said to the little frog, ‘Never fear, I’d drown if I ate you crossing that big stream.’ So the frog thinks things over and decides the snake is right; he’s safe while he’s in the water.”

  Lord Iddesleigh sipped his wine, his eyes watchful and amused. Betsy began clearing the dishes, her fat, red hands quick and light.

  “The snake creeps on the little frog’s back, and they start into the stream, and halfway across, do you know what happens?” Papa glared at their guest.

  The viscount slowly shook his head.

  “That snake sinks his fangs into the frog.” Papa slapped the table to emphasize his point. “And the frog, with his last breath, calls, ‘Why did you do that? We’ll both die now.’ And the snake says—”

  “Because it’s the nature of snakes to eat frogs.” Lord Iddesleigh’s voice mingled with her father’s.

  Both men stared at each other for a moment. Every muscle in Lucy’s body tightened.

  The viscount broke the tension. “Sorry. That story made the rounds several years ago. I just couldn’t resist.” He drained his glass and set it carefully by his plate. “Perhaps it’s in my nature to spoil another man’s tale.”

  Lucy let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Well. I know Mrs. Brodie has made apple tart for dessert, and she has a lovely cheddar cheese to go with it. Would you care for some, Lord Iddesleigh?”

  He looked at her and smiled, his wide mouth curving sensuously. “You tempt me, Miss Craddock-Hayes.”

  Papa slammed his fist on the table, rattling the dishes.

  Lucy jumped.

  “But as a lad, I was warned many times against temptation,” the viscount said. “And although, sadly, I’ve spent a lifetime disregarding the warnings, tonight I think I shall be prudent. If you will excuse me, Miss Craddock-Hayes. Captain Craddock-Hayes.” He bowed and left the room before Lucy could speak.

  “Impudent young bounder,” Papa growled, pushing his chair back from the table suddenly. “Did you see the insolent look he gave me as he left? Damn his eyes. And fleshpots. Ha, London fleshpots. I don’t like that man, poppet, viscount or no viscount.”

  “I know that, Papa.” Lucy closed her eyes and wearily laid her head in her hands. She felt the beginnings of a migraine.

  “The entire house knows that,” Mrs. Brodie proclaimed, banging back into the room.

  CAPTAIN CRADDOCK-HAYES HAD IT RIGHT, the old bombastic bore, Simon reflected later that evening. Any man—especially a shrewd, eagle-eyed father—would do well to guard an angel as fine as Miss Lucinda Craddock-Hayes against the devils in the world.

  Such as himself.Simon leaned against the window frame in his borrowed bedroom, watching the night outside. She was in the dark garden, apparently strolling in the cold after that delicious but socially disastrous supper. He followed her movements by the pale oval of her face, the rest of her lost to the shadows. It was hard to tell why she fascinated him so, this rural maiden. Perhaps it was simply the draw of dark to light, the devil wanting to despoil the angel, but he thought not. There was something about her, something grave and intelligent and harrowing to his soul. She tempted him with the perfume of heaven, with the hope of redemption, impossible as that hope was. He should leave her alone, his angel entombed in the country. She slumbered innocently, doing good works and managing with a steady hand her father’s house. No doubt she had a suitable gentleman who called upon her; he’d seen the trap and horse pull away the other day. Someone who would respect her position and not test the iron that he sensed lay underneath her facade. A gentleman entirely unlike himself.

  Simon sighed and pushed away from the window frame. He’d never dealt very well with the shoulds and shouldn’ts of his life. He left his temporary room and stole down the stairs, moving with ridiculous care. Best not to alert the protective papa. An angle on the dark landing caught him on the shoulder and he swore. He was using his right arm as much as possible, trying to exercise it, but the damn thing still felt like the very devil. The housekeeper and maid were working in the kitchen when he passed through. He smiled and walked swiftly.

  He was already through the back door when he heard Mrs. Brodie’s voice. “Sir—”

  He gently shut the door.

  Miss Craddock-Hayes must have heard it. Gravel crunched beneath her feet as she turned. “It’s cold out here.” She was only a pale shape in the dark, but her words floated toward him on the night breeze.

  The garden was perhaps a quarter acre. What he’d seen of it in daylight from his window was very neat. A low-walled kitchen garden, a small lawn with fruit trees, and beyond, a flower garden. Gravel walks connected the different parts, all of them properly put to bed for the winter, no doubt the work of her hands as well.

  By the light of the dim sickle moon, though, it was hard to get his bearings. He’d lost her again in the dark, and it bothered him inordinately. “Do you think it cold? I hadn’t noticed, really. Merely brisk.” He shoved his hands in his coat pockets. It was bloody freezing in the garden.

  “You shouldn’t be out so soon after being ill.”

  He ignored that. “What are you doing here on a chilly winter night?”

  “Looking at the stars.” Her voice trailed back to him as if she were walking away. “They’re never so bright as they are in winter.”

  “Yes?” They all looked the same to him, whatever the season.

  “Mmm. Do you see Orion over there? He glows tonight.” Her voice dropped. “But you should go in, it’s too cold.”

  “I can do with the exercise—as I’m sure your father would point out—and winter air is good for a decrepit fellow like myself.”

  She was silent.

  He thought he moved in her direction, but he was no longer sure. Shouldn’t have mentioned the father.

  “I’m sorry about Papa at supper.”

  Ah, farther to the right. “Why? I thought his story quite clever. A trifle long, of course, but really—”

  “He’s not usually so stern.”

  She was so close he could smell her scent, starch and roses, curiously homey and yet arousing at the same time. What an ass he was. The crack to his head must have addled his wits.

  “Ah, that. Yes, I did notice the old boy was a bit testy, but I put it down to the fact that I’m sleeping in his house, wearing his son’s clothes, and eating his very fine food without a proper invitation.”

  He saw her face turn, ghostly in the moonlight. “No, it’s something about you.” He could almost feel her breath brushing against his cheek. “Although you could have been nicer, too.”

  He chuckled. It was that or weep. “I don’t think so.” He shook his head, though she couldn’t see it. “No, I’m certain. I definitely can’t be any nicer. It’s simply not in me. I’m like that snake in your father’s story, striking when I shouldn’t. Although in my case, it’s more that I quip when I shouldn’t.”

 
The treetops moved in the wind, raking arthritic fingers against the night sky.

  “Is that how you ended up nearly dead in the ditch outside Maiden Hill?” She’d crept closer. Lured by his studied frankness? “Did you insult someone?”

  Simon caught his breath. “Now why do you think the attack was any fault of mine?”

  “I don’t know. Was it?”

  He settled his rump against the kitchen garden wall, where it promptly started freezing, and crossed his arms. “You be my judge, fair lady. I shall set my case before you, and you may pronounce sentence.”

  “I’m not qualified to judge anyone.”

  Did she frown? “Oh, yes, you are, sweet angel.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Hush. Listen. I got up that morning at a horribly unfashionable hour, dressed, after a small argument with my valet over the advisability of red-heeled pumps, which he won—Henry absolutely terrorizes me—”

  “Somehow I very much doubt that.”

  Simon placed a hand over his heart, even though the movement was wasted in the dark. “I do assure you. Then I descended my front steps, magnificently arrayed in a dashing blue velvet coat, curled and powdered wig, and the aforementioned red-heeled pumps—”

  She snorted.

  “Strolled down the street less than a quarter mile and was there set upon by three ruffians.”

  She caught her breath. “Three?”

  Gratifying.

  “Three.” He made his voice light. “Two I might have bested. One, assuredly. But three proved to be my downfall. They relieved me of everything I had on, including the pumps, which put me in the embarrassing position of having to meet you for the first time both in the nude and—even more shockingly—unconscious. I don’t know if our relationship will ever recover from the initial trauma.”

  She declined the bait. “You didn’t know your attackers?”

  Simon started to spread wide his arms, then winced and lowered them. “On my honor. Now, unless you consider red-heeled pumps to be an unbearable temptation to London robbers—in which case I was certainly asking for a drubbing going out in broad daylight wearing them—I think you will have to pardon me.”

  “And if I don’t?” So soft, the wind nearly bore the words away.

  Such a cautious flirt. Yet even this little hint of laughter caused his loins to tighten. “Then, lady, best call my name no more. For Simon Iddesleigh will be naught but a wisp, an exhalation. I will expire and disappear utterly, were you to denounce me.”

  Silence. Perhaps the exhalation bit was overdone.

  Then she laughed. A loud, joyful sound that made something in his breast leap in reply.

  “Do you feed the ladies in London this poppycock?” She was literally gasping for breath. “If you do, I think they would all go about with grimaces on their powdered faces to keep from giggling.”

  He felt unaccountably put out. “I’ll have you know, I am considered quite a wit in London society.” Good Lord, he sounded like a pompous ass. “The great hostesses vie to have me on their invitation lists.”

  “Really?”

  Imp!

  “Yes, really.” He couldn’t help it; the words came out sounding disgruntled. Oh, that would impress her. “A dinner party can be proclaimed a success when I attend. Last year a duchess fainted dead away when she heard I couldn’t make it.”

  “Poor, poor London ladies. How sad they must be at the moment!”

  He winced. Touché. “Actually—”

  “And yet they survive without you.” The laughter still lurked. “Or perhaps not. Perhaps your absence has caused a rash of hostess faintings.”

  “Oh, cruel angel.”

  “Why do you call me that? Is that a name you give many of your London ladies?”

  “What, angel?”

  “Yes.” And suddenly he realized that she was closer than he’d thought. Within reach, in fact.

  “No, only you.” He touched a fingertip to her cheek. Her skin was warm, even in the night air, and soft, so soft.

  Then she stepped away.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Did she sound breathless? He grinned like a demon in the dark but didn’t answer. God, he wished he could simply pull her into his arms, open her sweet lips beneath his, feel her breath in his mouth and her breasts against his chest.

  “Why angel?” she asked. “I’m not particularly angelic.”

  “Ah, there you are wrong. Your eyebrows are most stern, your mouth curved like a Renaissance saint. Your eyes are wondrous to look upon. And your mind . . .” He stood and ventured a step toward her, until they almost touched, and she had to turn her pale face up to his.

  “My mind?”

  He thought he felt the warm puff of her breath. “Your mind is an iron bell that rings beautiful, terrible, and true.” His voice was husky, even to his own ears, and he knew he’d revealed too much.

  A lock of her hair bridged the scant inches between them and caressed his throat. His cock came painfully erect, its beat echoing the one in his heart.

  “I have no idea what that means,” she whispered.

  “Perhaps that’s just as well.”

  She reached her hand out, hesitated, then touched his cheek lightly with one fingertip. He felt the contact sizzle throughout his body down to his very toes.

  “Sometimes I think I know you,” she murmured so low he almost didn’t catch the words. “Sometimes I think that I’ve always known you, from the very first moment you opened your eyes, and that, deep inside your soul, you know me, too. But then you make a joke, play the fool or the rake, and turn aside. Why do you do that?”

  He opened his mouth to shout his fear or say something else entirely, but the kitchen door opened, spilling an arc of light into the garden. “Poppet?”

  The guardian father.

  She turned so that her face was silhouetted against the light from the kitchen. “I must go in. Good night.” She withdrew her hand, and it brushed across his lips as she retreated.

  He had to steady his voice before he could speak. “Good night.”

  She walked toward the kitchen door, emerging into the light. Her father took her elbow and searched the shadows of the garden over her head before closing the door behind her. Simon watched her go, choosing to stay in the dark rather than confront Captain Craddock-Hayes. His shoulder ached, his head pounded, and his toes were frozen.

  And he played a game he could not possibly win.

  “I D-D-DON’T BELIEVE YOU.” Quincy James paced to Sir Rupert’s study window and back, his strides quick and jerky. “They t-t-told me he was bleeding from the head. They stabbed him in the b-b-back and left him in the freezing cold, naked. How c-c-could a man survive that?”

  Sir Rupert sighed and poured himself a second whiskey. “I don’t know how he survived, but he did. My information is impeccable.”The third man in the room, Lord Gavin Walker, stirred in his armchair by the fire. Walker was built like a navvy, big and broad, his hands the size of hams, his features course. If not for the costly clothes and wig he wore, one would never guess he was an aristocrat. In fact, his family line dated back to the Normans. Walker withdrew a jeweled snuffbox from his coat pocket, deposited a pinch of snuff on the back of his hand, and inhaled it. There was a pause; then he sneezed explosively and employed a handkerchief.

  Sir Rupert winced and looked away. Filthy habit, snuff.

  “I don’t understand, James,” Walker said. “First you say Iddesleigh is dead and we have no further worries, and then he resurrects himself. Are you sure your men got the right gentleman?”

  Sir Rupert leaned back in his desk chair and looked at the ceiling as he waited for the inevitable outburst from James. His study walls were a masculine deep brown, broken at waist height by a cream chair rail. A thick black and crimson carpet lay underfoot, and old-gold velvet curtains muffled the street noise from without. A collection of botanical engravings hung on the walls. He’d started the collection with a small study of a Chrys
anthemum parthenium—feverfew—that he’d found in a bookshop over thirty years ago now. The print was not a good one. It had a water stain in the corner, and the engraved Latin name of the plant was smudged, but the composition was pleasant, and he’d bought it at a time when it meant going without proper tea for a month. It hung between two much larger, more expensive prints. A Morus nigra—mulberry—and a rather elegant Cynara cardunculus. Cardoon.

  His wife, children, and servants knew never to disturb him in his study unless it was the most dire of emergencies. Which made it all the more galling to give up his personal domain to James and Lord Walker and the troubles they brought with them.

  “Sure? Of c-c-course I’m sure.” James whirled and tossed something to Walker. It glittered as it flew through the air. “They brought that back to me.”

  Walker, usually a slow, lumbering fellow, could move quickly when he wanted to. He caught the object and examined it, and his eyebrows rose. “Iddesleigh’s signet ring.”

  The hairs on the back of Sir Rupert’s neck stood up. “Dammit, James, what the hell did you keep that for?” He was working with dangerous idiots.

  “Didn’t matter, d-d-did it, with Iddesleigh d-d-dead.” James looked petulant.

  “Except that he’s not dead anymore, is he? Thanks to the incompetence of your men.” Sir Rupert tossed back a healthy swallow of his whiskey. “Give it to me. I’ll get rid of it.”

  “S-s-see here—”

  “He’s right,” Walker interrupted. “It’s evidence we don’t want.” He crossed the room and set the ring on Sir Rupert’s desk.

  Sir Rupert stared at the ring. The Iddesleigh crest was shallow, the gold eroded with age. How many generations of aristocrats had worn this ring? He covered it with his hand and palmed it, transferring it to his waistcoat pocket.

  Covertly, he massaged his right leg under the table. His father had been an import merchant in the city. As a boy, Sir Rupert had worked in the great storehouse his father had maintained, carrying sacks of grain and heavy crates of merchandise. He didn’t remember the accident that had crushed his leg—not entirely, at least. Only the smell of the cod packed in salt that had spilled from the broken barrel. And the pain of the smashed bone. Even now, the smell of salted fish was enough to turn his stomach.