The Serpent Prince

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.



“OH.” POCKET STOOD IN THE DOORWAY to the little sitting room on the third floor of Rosalind’s house. She looked at Lucy and placed one foot on top of the other. “You’re in here.”



“Yes.” Lucy raised her head from where she’d propped it on a fist and tried to smile. She’d come to this room after luncheon to think about this morning’s events. Rosalind had taken to bed, pleading a headache, and Lucy could not blame her. Rosalind had to have suspected something was wrong when Simon didn’t greet her at his own home. He’d hidden in his rooms so she wouldn’t see his wound. Add to that Lucy’s near silence on the drive back to Rosalind’s town house and the poor woman probably thought they were about to break off the wedding. Altogether, it had been a trying morning.



“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.”



Chapter Eleven



“Nervous?” de Raaf asked.



“No.” Simon paced to the rail, pivoted, and strolled back again.



“Because you look nervous.”



“I’m not nervous.” Simon angled his head to search down the nave. Where the hell was she?



“You do seem nervous.” Now Pye was looking at him queerly.



Simon deliberately stilled himself and took a deep breath. It was just past ten o’clock on the morning of his wedding day. He stood in the designated sacred church, arrayed in formal wig, black brocade coat, silver-embroidered waistcoat, and red-heeled shoes. He was surrounded by friends and loving family—well, his sister-in-law and niece anyway. Pocket bounced in the front pew while Rosalind tried to shush her. Christian looked distracted in the row behind. Simon frowned. He hadn’t talked to Christian since the duel; there hadn’t been time. He’d have to do it later. The vicar was here, a young man whose name he’d already forgotten. Even de Raaf and Harry Pye had shown. De Raaf looked like a provincial squire in muddy boots, and Pye could have been mistaken for the sexton in plain brown.



The only thing missing was the bride.



Simon suppressed an urge to charge down the aisle and peer out the front doors like an anxious cook awaiting the arrival of the fishmonger with her eels. Oh, God, where was she? He hadn’t been alone with her since she’d caught him returning from the duel with James, nearly a week ago now, and while she seemed content, while she smiled at him when in the company of others, he couldn’t shake off this morbid worry. Had she changed her mind? Had he repulsed her, making love to her while his shoulder dripped gore and he wore the stain of a dead man’s blood like a badge of dishonor on his chest? He shook his head. Of course he’d repulsed her, his angel with her strict morals. She must’ve been horrified. Was it enough to make her break her promise? She’d given her word, on her mother’s memory, that she wouldn’t leave him.