The Serpent Prince (Princes #3)(33)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

Lucy shrugged.

“Three. Long. Years.” A gold curl had worked itself loose from Patricia’s bun and bounced with each word as if in emphasis. “And Eustace finally, finally gets around to asking for your hand in holy matrimony and what do you do?”

Lucy swallowed. “I turn him down.”

“You turn him down,” Patricia echoed as if Lucy hadn’t spoken. “Why? What could you have been thinking?”

“I was thinking that I couldn’t stand fifty more years of listening to him talk about the church roof repairs.” And that she couldn’t stand the thought of living intimately with any man other than Simon.

Patricia recoiled as if Lucy had held up a live spider in front of her nose and suggested she eat it. “Church roof repairs? Haven’t you been paying attention the last three years? He always prattles on about church roof repairs, church scandals—”

“The church bell,” Lucy cut in.

Her friend frowned. “The churchyard—”

“The tombstones in the churchyard,” she pointed out.

“The church sexton and the church pews and the church teas,” Patricia trumped her. She leaned forward, china-blue eyes widening. “He’s the vicar. He’s supposed to bore everyone stiff about the bloody church.”

“I’m quite certain you shouldn’t use that adjective in conjunction with the church, and I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“After all this time?” Patricia looked like an outraged titmouse. “Why don’t you do what I do and think about hats or shoes while he talks? He’s quite happy as long as you interject a ‘yes, indeed’ every now and again.”

Lucy picked up yet another Turkish delight and bisected it with her teeth. “Why don’t you marry Eustace, then?”

“Don’t be silly.” Patricia folded her arms and looked away. “I need to marry for money, and he’s as poor as a . . . well, a church mouse.”

Lucy paused with the remaining half of the confection hovering before her mouth. She’d never considered Eustace and Patricia before. Surely Patricia didn’t actually have a tendre for the vicar? “But—”

“We’re not discussing me,” her friend said firmly. “We’re discussing your appalling marriage prospects.”

“Why?”

Patricia rolled right over her. “You’ve already wasted your best years on him. You were, what? Five and twenty last birthday?”

“Four and twenty.”

“Same thing.” The other woman waved away a full year with a dimpled hand. “You can’t start over now.”

“I don’t—”

Patricia raised her voice. “You’ll just have to tell him you’ve made a terrible mistake. The only other marriageable male in Maiden Hill is Thomas Jones, and I’m almost certain he lets his pigs in the cottage at night.”

“You’re making that up,” Lucy said rather indistinctly because she was chewing. She swallowed. “And who, exactly, are you planning to wed?”

“Mr. Benning.”

It was a good thing she’d swallowed the sweet already, because she would’ve choked on it now. Lucy gave a most unladylike shout of laughter before she looked at her friend and realized she was serious.

“You’re the one who’s mad,” she gasped. “He’s easily old enough to be your father. He’s buried three wives. Mr. Benning has grandchildren.”

“Yes. He also has . . .” Patricia ticked off her fingers as she spoke. “A fine manor, two carriages, six horses, two upstairs maids and three downstairs ones, and ninety arable acres, most of it tenanted.” She lowered her hands and poured herself more tea in the silence.

Lucy gaped at her.

Patricia sat back on the settee and raised her brows as if they were discussing bonnet styles. “Well?”

“You truly frighten me sometimes.”

“Really?” Patricia looked pleased.

“Really.” Lucy reached for another sweet.

The other woman slapped her hand away. “You won’t fit in your wedding dress if you keep gobbling those.”

“Oh, Patricia.” Lucy sank into the pretty cushions. “I’m not going to be married, to Eustace or anyone else. I’m going to become an eccentric spinster and look after all the children you and Mr. Benning will have in his wonderful manor with the three downstairs maids.”

“And two up.”

“And two up,” she agreed. She might as well start wearing a spinster’s mobcap at once.

“It’s that viscount, isn’t it?” Patricia took one of the forbidden Turkish delights and nibbled absently. “I knew he was trouble the moment I saw him eyeing you like Puss does the birds at the window. He’s a predator.”

“A snake,” Lucy said softly, remembering how Simon would smile with just his eyes over his glass at her.

“What?”

“Or a serpent, if you prefer.”

“Whatever are you gibbering about?”

“Lord Iddesleigh.” Lucy took another candy. She wasn’t getting married anyway, so it didn’t matter if she couldn’t fit into any of her dresses. “He reminded me of a great silver snake. Sort of shiny and rather dangerous. I think it’s his eyes. Even Papa saw it, although he took it in a less flattering way. For Lord Iddesleigh, that is.” She nodded and ate the sticky confection.

Patricia eyed her. “Interesting. Undoubtedly bizarre, but still interesting.”

“I think so, too.” Lucy cocked her head. “And you needn’t tell me he’s not coming back, because I already had that discussion with Eustace.”

“You didn’t.” Patricia closed her eyes.

“I’m afraid so. Eustace brought him up.”

“Why didn’t you change the subject?”

“Because Eustace deserved to know.” Lucy sighed. “He deserves someone who can love him, and I just can’t.”

She felt slightly queasy. Maybe that last piece of candy hadn’t been a good idea. Or maybe the realization that she would spend the remaining years of her life never seeing Simon again had finally caught up with her.

“Well.” Patricia set her teacup down and brushed an invisible crumb from her skirt. “Eustace may deserve love, but so do you, my dear. So do you.”

SIMON STOOD ON THE STEPS to hell and scanned the crowd of revelers.