The Serpent Prince (Princes #3)(12)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

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.”