The Serpent Prince (Princes #3)(47)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

The maid quickly gathered the material and handed it to the younger maid. “Now mind you check that over good. Wouldn’t want a stain to set.”

“Yes’m,” the girl squeaked. She looked no more than fourteen and was obviously in awe of the older woman, although she towered over her.

Lucy took a deep breath as the maid undid her stays. Her underskirts and shift were whisked off and the lace chemise settled over her head. The maid brushed her hair until Lucy could stand it no longer. All this fussing was giving her too much time to think, to worry about the coming night and what would happen.

“Thank you,” she said firmly. “That’s all I need for the night.”

The maids curtsied as they left, and suddenly she was alone. Lucy sank into one of the chairs by the fire. There was a decanter of wine on the table next to her. She stared thoughtfully at it for a moment. The wine might dull her senses, but she was fairly certain it wouldn’t calm her nerves. And she knew she didn’t want her senses dull tonight, no matter how nervous she was.

A soft tap came from the door—not the one to the hall but the other one, presumably a connecting door.

Lucy cleared her throat. “Come.”

Simon opened the door. He still wore his breeches, hose, and shirt, but he’d removed his waistcoat and coat and he was bareheaded. He paused in the doorway. It took her a moment to place his expression. He was uncertain.

“Is that your room in there?” she asked.

He frowned and glanced back. “No, it’s a sitting room. Yours, actually. Would you like to see it?”

“Yes, please.” Lucy rose, very conscious that she was nude beneath her flowing lace chemise.

He stepped back, and she saw a rose and white room with several settees and armchairs scattered about. There was a door on the farther wall.

“And is your room beyond that?” She nodded to the far door.

“No, that’s my sitting room. It’s rather dark, I’m afraid. Decorated by some dead ancestor with a gloomy sensibility and a disapproval of any color but brown. Yours is much nicer.” He tapped his fingers on the door frame. “Next to my sitting room is my dressing room, equally gloomy, and beyond that, my bedroom, which, fortunately, I’ve had redecorated in my own colors.”

“Good gracious.” Lucy raised her eyebrows. “What a hike you’ve had to make.”

“Yes, I—” He laughed suddenly, covering his eyes with one hand.

She half smiled, not knowing the joke, not knowing in fact how she was supposed to act with him, now that they were finally man and wife and alone in their own rooms. It was all so awkward. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry.” He dropped his hand so she could see that his cheeks had reddened. “This isn’t the conversation I’d expected to have on our wedding night.”

He’s nervous. With that realization, a bit of her own anxiety seemed to fall away. She turned and strolled back into her bedroom. “What would you rather talk about?”

She heard him close the door. “I was going to impress you with my romantic eloquence, of course. I’d thought to wax philosophical about the beauty of your brow.”

Lucy blinked. “My brow?”

“Mmm. Have I told you that your brow intimidates me?” She felt his warmth at her back as he moved behind her, but he didn’t touch her. “It’s so smooth and white and broad, and ends with your straight, knowing eyebrows, like a statue of Athena pronouncing judgment. If the warrior goddess had a brow like yours, it is no wonder the ancients worshiped and feared her.”

“Blather,” she murmured.

“Blather, indeed. Blather is all I am, after all.”

She frowned and turned to contradict him, but he moved with her so that she couldn’t quite catch sight of his face.

“I am the duke of nonsense,” he whispered in her ear. “The king of farce, the emperor of emptiness.”

Did he really see himself so? “But—”

“Blathering is what I do best,” he said, still unseen. “I’d like to blather about your golden eyes and ruby lips.”

“Simon—”

“The perfect curve of your cheek,” he murmured close.

She gasped as his breath stirred the hair at her neck. He was distracting her with lovemaking. And it was working. “What a lot of talk.”

“I do talk too much. It’s a weakness you’ll have to bear in your husband.” His voice was next to her ear. “But I’d have to spend quite a bit of time outlining the shape of your mouth, its softness and the warmth within.”

Lucy felt a tightening in her middle. “Is that all?” And she was surprised at the low vibration of her voice.

“Oh, no. Then I’d move to your neck.” His hand came around and stroked the air inches from her throat. “How graceful, how elegant, how much I want to lick it.”

Her lungs were laboring to fill with air. He caressed her with his voice alone, and she wondered if she would be able to bear it when he used his hands.

He continued, “And your shoulders, so white and tender.” His hand hovered over her.

“And then?”

“I’d want to describe your breasts.” His tone had dipped and roughened. “But I’d have to see them first.”

She drew in a shaky breath. He breathed close to her ear. His presence surrounded her body, but he made no move to touch her. She raised her hand and grasped the ribbon at her throat. Slowly, she pulled it, and the whisper sound of the silk sliding free in the bedroom’s quiet was unbearably intimate. His breathing hitched as the edges of her chemise fell apart, baring the upper slopes of her bosom.

“So beautiful, so pale,” he murmured.

She swallowed and drew the fabric down her shoulders. Her fingers trembled. She’d never willingly exposed herself to another like this, but the roughened sound of his breathing drove her on.

“I see the soft mounds, the shadowed valley, but not the sweet tips. Let me see them, angel.” His voice shook.

Something feminine and primeval leaped within her at the thought that she could make this man tremble. She wanted to expose herself to him, her husband. She closed her eyes and pulled the chemise down. Her nipples peaked in the chilly air.

He stopped breathing. “Ah, God, I remember them. Do you know what it did to me to turn away from you that night?”

She shook her head, her throat clogged. She remembered as well, his hot gaze on her bare breasts, her own wanton craving.