The Serpent Prince

So orderly a world.



Lucy settled herself into one of the wing chairs before the fireplace. With the study door open, she had a view into the hallway and all that happened there. Simon would have to pass her by when he came home. She intended to quiz him on his nocturnal ramblings when he did.



APHRODITE’S GROTTO WAS A DEN of howling wolves tonight.



Simon advanced into the main hall of the brothel and looked around. He hadn’t set foot in here since before he’d met Lucy, but the place hadn’t changed. Half-dressed whores paraded their wares, enticing men, some barely old enough to shave, some toothless with age. Minor royalty rubbed shoulders with upstart merchants and foreign dignitaries. Aphrodite didn’t care. As long as the color of the money was gold. In fact, it was rumored that she had just as many female customers as male. Perhaps she charged them both, Simon thought cynically. He looked around for the madam but didn’t see her distinctive gold mask. Just as well. Aphrodite frowned on violence in her house, and that was exactly what he was intent on doing.



“What is this place?” Christian whispered beside him.



He’d picked up the younger man two—no, three—houses before. Christian still looked fresh-faced after the theater earlier in the evening, the fight outside it, and the three increasingly seedy gambling places they’d visited before this. Simon very much feared that he himself resembled a newly unearthed corpse.



Damn youth anyway. “Depends.” He started up the stairs, dodging the race going on there.



Female jockeys wearing only brief corsets and masks rode bare-chested steeds. Simon winced as a jockey drew blood with her quirt. Although, judging by the bulge in the trousers of her mount, he didn’t mind at all.



“On what?” Christian watched wide-eyed as the winning pair galloped up and down the upper hall. The jockey was bare-breasted and bouncing exuberantly.



“On your definition of heaven and hell, I suppose,” Simon said.



His eyes felt as if a handful of sand were under each lid, his head ached, and he was tired. So very tired.



He kicked in the first door.



Christian exclaimed something behind him, but he ignored it. The occupants, two girls and a red-headed gentleman, didn’t even notice the intrusion. He didn’t bother to apologize, just shut the door and moved on to the next. He didn’t have much hope of finding Walker. According to his sources, Walker had never patronized Aphrodite’s Grotto before. But Simon was getting desperate. He needed to find Walker and get this over with. He needed to make Lucy safe again.



Another door. Shrieks from within—two women this time—and he closed it. Walker was married with a mistress, but he liked the bawdy houses. If Simon visited every single brothel in London, eventually he’d find him, or so he hoped.



“Won’t we get thrown out doing this?” Christian asked.



“Yes.” Kick. His knee was beginning to hurt. “But hopefully not before I find my quarry.”



He was at the end of the hall now, at the last door, in fact, and Christian was right. It was only a matter of time before the house thugs arrived. Kick.



He nearly turned away, but he looked again.



The man on the bed had his cock buried in a saffron-haired wench on her knees. She was naked, save a demi-mask, and had her eyes closed. Her partner hadn’t noticed their interruption. Not that it mattered. He was short and swarthy and black haired. No, it was the second man, the one almost in the shadows observing the show, that made the squawk. And a good thing, too, since Simon had almost overlooked him.



“What the hell—”



“Ah. Good evening, Lord Walker.” Simon advanced and made a bow. “Lady Walker.”



The man on the bed started and swung his head around, although his hips still moved instinctively. The woman remained oblivious.



“Iddesleigh, you bastard, what . . . ?” Walker lurched to his feet, his now-limp prick still hanging from his breeches. “That’s not my wife!”



“No?” Simon cocked his head, examining the woman. “But she looks like Lady Walker. Particularly that mark there.” He pointed with his stick at a birthmark high on her hip.



The man humping her opened his eyes wide. “This ’ere your wife, guvnor?”



“No! Of course not.”



“Oh, but I’ve known your fair lady intimately for quite some time, Walker,” Simon drawled. “And I’m quite certain this is she.”



The big man threw back his head suddenly and laughed, although it sounded a bit weak. “I know your game. You’re not going to trick me into—”



“Never had quality before,” the stud said from atop the woman. He increased his pace, possibly in appreciation.



“She’s not—”



“My acquaintance with Lady Walker goes back many years.” Simon leaned on his stick and smiled. “Before the birth of your first child—your heir, I believe?”



“Why, you—”



The black-haired man gave a yell and bucked his hips into the woman, shuddering as he obviously deposited a load of sperm into her. He sighed and fell off her, revealing a cock that, even half-deflated, was of equine proportions.



“Jesus,” Christian said.



“Quite,” Simon concurred.



“How the hell did he get that thing in her?” the younger man muttered.



“I’m glad you asked,” Simon said as if instructing a pupil. “Lady Walker is quite talented in that regard.”



Walker gave a roar and charged across the room. Simon tensed, the blood singing in his veins. Maybe he could finish this tonight.



“See, here,” a voice exclaimed from the door at the same time.



The house bullies had arrived. He stepped aside and Walker ran into their waiting arms. The big man struggled ineffectually in their grasp.



“I’m going to kill you, Iddesleigh!” Walker panted.



“Possibly,” Simon drawled. God, he was tired to the bone. “At dawn, then?”



The man merely growled.



The woman on the bed chose that moment to roll over. “Would you like a go?” she asked no one in particular.



Simon smiled and led Christian away. They passed a new race on the stairs. The male mounts this time had actual bits in their mouths. One man had blood running down his chin and a cock-stand in his breeches.



He’d have to bathe before he returned to Lucy. He felt like he’d rolled in manure.



Christian waited until they made the front steps before he asked, “Was that really Lady Walker?”



Simon caught himself mid-yawn. “I’ve no idea.”



WHEN LUCY WOKE AGAIN, it was to the sound of Simon entering the study. The room was that gray shade that foretold the dawn of a new day. Simon walked in, carrying a candle. He set it on the corner of his desk and, still standing, pulled out a sheet of paper and began writing.



He never looked up.



At the far side of the room, partially hidden by the arms of the wing chair and in shadows, she must’ve been nearly invisible to him. She had meant to accost him on his return, to demand answers. But now she merely studied him, her hands curled beneath her chin. He looked tired, her husband, as if he hadn’t slept in years. He wore his clothes from the night before: a deep blue coat and breeches with a silver waistcoat, creased and stained now. His wig had lost some of its powder and looked dingy. Shocking, because she’d never seen him—at least in London—other than sartorially correct. Deep lines bracketed his mouth, his eyes were red-rimmed, and his lips had thinned, as if he pressed them together to keep them from trembling. He finished whatever he was writing, dusted it with sand, and straightened the paper on the desk. In doing so, he knocked the pen to the floor. He cursed and bent slowly like an old man to pick it up, placed it carefully on the desk, and sighed.



Then he left the room.



Lucy waited several minutes before rising, listening to his footfalls on the stairs. She padded over to the desk to see what he’d written. It was still too dark to read. She took the note to the window, parted the curtains, and angled the paper to read the still-damp writing. The dawn was just breaking, but she could make out the first lines:



In the event of my death, all my worldly possessions . . .



It was Simon’s will. He was leaving his estate to her. Lucy stared at it a moment longer, then replaced the paper on the desk. From the hallway came the sounds of her husband descending the stairs. She moved to stand beside the doorway.



“I’ll take my horse,” Simon was saying, apparently to Newton. “Tell the coachman I won’t have need of him anymore tonight.”



“Yes, my lord.”



The front door closed.



And suddenly Lucy felt a wave of anger. He hadn’t even tried to wake her, else he would’ve noticed her absence from his bed. She strode into the hall, her skirts swishing about her bare ankles. “Newton, wait.”



The butler, his back to her, started and whirled. “M-my lady, I hadn’t realized—”



She waved his apology aside and came straight to the point. “Do you know where he’s going?”



“I . . . I . . .”



“Never mind,” she said impatiently. “I’ll simply follow him.”



Lucy cautiously opened the front door. Simon’s carriage was still sitting out front, the coachman almost asleep on the box. A stable hand was yawning as he returned to the mews.



And Simon was riding away.



Lucy closed the door, ignoring Newton’s hissed exclamations behind her, and ran down the steps, shivering in the morning chill. “Mr. Coachman.”



The coachman blinked as if he’d never seen his mistress with her hair undone, as indeed he hadn’t. “My lady?”



“Please follow Lord Iddesleigh without letting him know.”



“But, my lady—”



“Now.” Lucy didn’t wait for a footman to place the step but scrambled into the carriage. She stuck her head back out again. “And don’t lose him.”



The carriage lurched forward.



Lucy sat back and pulled a rug over herself. It was bitterly cold. Scandalous of her to be driving about London not fully dressed and her hair down, but she couldn’t let modesty keep her from confronting Simon. He hadn’t had any decent sleep for days, and he wasn’t that long recovered from the beating. How dare he continue to risk his life and not think she should know about it? Cut her off, in fact, from that part of himself. Did he think she was a doll to be taken out and played with and then packed away again when he had other matters to see to? Well, it was long past time that she discuss with him exactly what she considered came under the duties of a wife. Her husband’s health, for one thing. Not keeping secrets from her, for another. Lucy harrumphed and folded her arms across her chest.



The December sun had finally dawned, but the light was poor and didn’t seem to affect the cold at all. They turned in to the park, the cobblestones changing to gravel beneath the carriage’s wheels. A mist hung eerily about the ground, shrouding the trunks of trees. From the small carriage window, Lucy couldn’t see any movement and had to trust that the coachman was still following Simon.



They rolled to a halt.



A footman opened the door and peered in at her. “John Coachman says if he gets any closer, his lordship will see.”



“Thank you.”



With the man’s help, Lucy alighted and turned to where he pointed. About a hundred yards away, Simon and another man faced each other like figures in a pantomime. At this distance, she could only tell it was Simon from the way he moved. Her heart seemed to stop dead. Dear Lord, they were ready to begin. She wasn’t in time to persuade Simon to stop this terrible rite.



“Wait for me here,” she ordered the menservants, and walked toward the scene.



There were six men in all—four others stood apart from the duelists, but none looked in her direction or even seemed to notice her at all. They were too involved in this masculine game of death. Simon had removed his coat and waistcoat, as had his opponent, a man Lucy had never seen before. Their white shirtsleeves were almost ghostly in the gray morning mist. They must be cold, but neither man shivered. Instead Simon stood still, while the other man swooshed his sword about, perhaps in practice.