The Serpent Prince

Page 12

Lucy nearly groaned. Papa’s hints that the viscount should leave were growing more and more explicit.
“Thank you, sir, for inquiring.” Lord Iddesleigh poured more wine for himself. “Except for the stabbing pain in my back, the unfortunate loss of sensation in my right arm, and a sort of nauseous dizziness when I stand, I’m as fit as a fiddle.”
“Good. You look well enough. Suppose you’ll be leaving us soon, eh?” Her father glowered from beneath his furry white brows. “Maybe tomorrow?”
“Papa!” Lucy cut in before her father had their guest out the door tonight. “Lord Iddesleigh just said he’s not fully recovered.”
Mrs. Brodie and Betsy came in to remove the soup dishes and serve the next course. The housekeeper took a look around at the uncomfortable faces and sighed. She met Lucy’s eyes and shook her head in sympathy before she left. Everyone started on the roast chicken and peas.
“I once went in Westminster Abbey,” Mr. Fletcher said.
“Were you lost?” Lord Iddesleigh inquired politely.
“Not at all. Mother and the sisters were on an architectural binge.”
“I didn’t know you had any sisters.”
“I do. Three.”
“Good God. Excuse me, Vicar.”
“Two elder,” Mr. Fletcher said chattily, “one younger.”
“My felicitations.”
“Thanks. Anyway, we toured the Abbey about ten years ago now, in between St. Paul’s and the Tower.”
“And you but a young and impressionable lad.” The viscount shook his head sorrowfully. “It’s so sad when one hears about this type of debauchery at the hands of one’s elders. Makes one wonder what England is coming to.”
Papa made an explosive sound beside Lucy, and Lord Iddesleigh winked across the table at her. She tried to frown at him as she raised her wineglass, but however awfully he behaved, she found it hard to censor him.
Next to the viscount’s magnificence, Eustace was a dusty sparrow in his usual brown broadcloth coat, breeches, and waistcoat. Of course, Eustace looked quite well in brown, and one didn’t expect a country vicar to go about in silver brocade. It would be improper, and he’d probably seem merely silly in such splendor. Which made one wonder why the viscount, instead of looking silly, appeared downright dangerous in his finery.
“Did you know if you stand in the middle of the Westminster nave and whistle, there is quite a nice echo?” Mr. Fletcher said, looking around the table.
“Absolutely fascinating,” the viscount said. “I’ll keep that in mind should I ever have occasion to visit the place and feel an urge to whistle.”
“Yes, well, try not to do it within sight of a female relative. Got my ears boxed.” Mr. Fletcher rubbed the side of his head, remembering.
“Ah, the ladies do keep us in line.” Eustace elevated his glass and looked at Lucy. “I don’t know what we would do without their guiding hands.”
She raised her eyebrows. She wasn’t certain that she’d ever guided Eustace, but that seemed beside the point.
Lord Iddesleigh toasted her as well. “Here, here. My dearest wish is but to lie prostrate and humble beneath my lady’s iron thumb. Her stern frown makes me tremble; her elusive smile causes me to stiffen and shake in ecstasy.”
Lucy’s eyes widened even as her nipples tightened. The wretch!
Mr. Fletcher started coughing again.
Papa and Eustace scowled, but it was the younger man who got in the first word. “I say, that’s a bit bold.”
“It’s quite all right—” Lucy attempted, but the men weren’t listening to her, despite their flowery words.
“Bold?” The viscount lowered his glass. “In what way?”
“Well, stiffen.” The vicar blushed.
Oh, for goodness’ sake! Lucy opened her mouth but was interrupted before she could get a word out.
“Stiffen? Stiffen? Stiffen?” Lord Iddesleigh repeated, sounding uncommonly silly. “A perfectly nice English word. Descriptive and plain. Used in all the best houses. I’ve heard the king himself employ it. In fact, it describes exactly what you are doing now, Mr. Penweeble.”
Mr. Fletcher was bent double, his hands covering his reddened face. Lucy hoped he wouldn’t choke to death in his amusement.
Eustace flushed an alarming shade of puce. “What about ecstasy, then? I’d like to see you defend that, sir.”
The viscount drew himself up and looked down his rather long nose. “I would think that you of all people, Vicar, a soldier in the army of His Majesty’s church, a man of learning and exquisite reasoning, a soul seeking the divine salvation only available through Christ our Lord, would understand that ecstasy is a most righteous and religious term.” Lord Iddesleigh paused to eat a bite of chicken. “What else did you think it meant?”
For a moment, the gentlemen around the table goggled at the viscount. Lucy looked from one to another, exasperated. Really, this nightly war of words was getting tiresome.
Then Papa spoke. “Believe that may be blasphemy.” And he started chuckling.
Mr. Fletcher stopped choking and joined in the laughter. Eustace grimaced and then he, too, laughed softly, although he still looked uncomfortable.
Lord Iddesleigh smiled, raised his glass, and watched Lucy over the rim with his silver eyes.
He’d been both blasphemous and improper—and Lucy didn’t care. Her lips were trembling, and she felt short of breath just looking at him.
She smiled back helplessly.
“WAIT!” SIMON SCRAMBLED DOWN the front steps the next morning, ignoring the pain in his back. Miss Craddock-Hayes’s trap was almost out of sight down the drive. “Oy, wait!” He had to stop running, as his back was burning. He bent over, propping his hands on his knees, and panted, head hung down. A week ago he wouldn’t have even been winded.
Behind him, Hedge was muttering near the entrance to the Craddock-Hayes house. “Young fool, lord or no. Fool to get stabbed and fool to run after a wench. Even one like Miss Lucy.”
Simon heartily agreed. His urgency was ridiculous. When had he ever run after a woman? But he had an awful need to talk to her, to explain his ungentlemanly conduct of the night before. Or perhaps that was an excuse. Perhaps the need was simply to be with her. He was conscious that the sands of time were running swiftly through his fingers. Soon he would run out of excuses to stay in tranquil Maiden Hill. Soon he would see his angel no more.
Thankfully, Miss Craddock-Hayes had heard his shout. She halted the horse just before the drive disappeared into a copse and turned in her seat to look back at him. Then she pulled the horse’s head around.
“What are you doing, running after me?” she asked when the cart had drawn alongside him. She sounded not at all impressed. “You’ll reopen your wound.”
He straightened, trying not to look like a decrepit wreck. “A small price to pay for a moment of your sweet time, oh fair lady.”
Hedge snorted loudly and banged the front door shut behind him. But she smiled at him.
“Are you going into town?” he asked.
“Yes.” She cocked her head. “The village is small. I can’t think what you could find there to interest you.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. The ironmonger’s, the cross in the center of the square, the ancient church—all are items of excitement.” He vaulted into the cart beside her, making it rock. “Would you like me to drive?”
“No. I can manage Kate.” She chirruped to the sturdy little horse—presumably Kate—and they lurched forward.
“Have I thanked you for your charity in rescuing me from a ditch?”
“I believe you have.” She darted a glance at him, then turned again to the road so that he couldn’t see her face around the brim of her hat. “Did I tell you we thought you dead when I first saw you?”
“No. I am sorry for your distress.”
“I’m glad you weren’t dead.”
He wished he could see her face. “As am I.”
“I thought . . .” Her words trailed away; then she started again. “It was so strange finding you. My day had been very ordinary, and then I looked down and saw you. At first I didn’t believe my eyes. You were so out of place in my world.”
I still am. But he didn’t speak the thought aloud.
“Like discovering a magical being,” she said softly.
“Then your disappointment must’ve been severe.”
“In what way?”
“To discover me to be a man of earthen clay and not magical at all.”
“Aha! I shall have to note this day in my diary.”
He rocked against her as they bumped over a rut in the road. “Why?”
“December the second,” she intoned in a grave voice. “Just after luncheon. The Viscount of Iddesleigh makes a humble statement regarding himself.”
He grinned at her like an idiot. “Touché.”
She didn’t turn her head, but he saw the smile curve her cheek. He had a sudden urge to pull the reins from her hands, guide the horse to the side of the road, and take his angel into his clayish arms. Perhaps she had the spell that could turn the misshapen monster into something human.
Ah, but that would involve degrading the angel.
So instead Simon lifted his face to the winter sun, thin though it was. It was good to be outdoors, even in the chill wind. Good to be sitting beside her. The ache in his shoulder had subsided to a dull throb. He’d been lucky and not reopened the wound, after all. He watched his angel. She sat with her back upright and managed the reins competently with very little show, quite unlike the ladies of his acquaintance who were apt to become dramatic actresses when driving a gentleman. Her hat was a plain straw one, tied underneath her left ear. She wore a gray cloak over her lighter gray gown, and it suddenly occurred to him that he’d never seen her in any other color.
“Is there a reason you always wear gray?” he asked.
“What?”
“Your dress.” He indicated her apparel with his hand. “You’re always in gray. Rather like a pretty little dove. If you aren’t in mourning, why do you wear it?”
She frowned. “I didn’t think it was proper for a gentleman to comment on a lady’s attire. Are the social conventions different in London?”
Ouch. His angel was in fine fettle this morning.
He leaned against the seat, propping his elbow behind her back. He was so close he could feel her warmth at his chest. “Yes, actually they are. For instance, it is considered de rigueur for a lady driving a gentleman in a trap to flirt with him outrageously.”
She pursed her lips, still refusing to look at him.
That served only to egg him on. “Ladies not following this convention are frowned upon severely. Very often you will see the elder members of the ton shaking their heads over these poor, lost souls.”
“You are terrible.”
“I’m afraid so,” he sighed. “But I’ll give you leave to disregard the rule since we are in the benighted country.”
“Benighted?” She slapped the reins, and Kate rattled her bridle.
“I insist on benighted.”
She gave him a look.
He stroked one finger down her ramrod-straight spine. She stiffened even more but didn’t comment. He remembered the taste of her fingers on his tongue the night before, and another less polite part of his anatomy stiffened as well. Her acceptance of his touch was as erotic as a blatant display in another woman. “You can hardly blame me, since, were we in the city, you would be compelled to say suggestive things to me in my blushing ear.”
She sighed. “I can’t remember what you asked me before all this nonsense.”
He grinned even though it was gauche. He couldn’t recall when he’d last had this much fun. “Why do you wear only gray? Not that I have anything against gray, and it does lend you an intriguing ecclesiastical air.”