The Serpent Prince (Princes #3)(64)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“But Ethan, always correct Ethan, talked them into taking out insurance against the ships and the arrival of the tea. It was expensive, but he said it was the smart thing to do. The responsible thing to do.” He ducked his head into the basin and sluiced the water over his hair.

She waited until he’d palmed the water from his hair and straightened. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged and picked up a cloth and toweled his clean hair. “The weather was fine, the ships fit, and, I suppose, the crew competent. The first ship arrived in port without problem.”

“And?”

He spent some time carefully folding the towel before laying it beside the basin. “The price of tea had fallen in the meantime. Not just fallen, but plummeted. It was one of those quirks of the market that they couldn’t have foreseen. There was a sudden glut of tea. Their tea wasn’t worth the cost of unloading the crates from the ship.” He walked into the next room, his dressing room.

“So the investors lost their money?” she called.

“They would’ve.” He returned with a razor. “But then they remembered the insurance. The insurance that Ethan had made them take out. So ridiculous at the time and their only hope now. If they sank the ships, they could recoup their loss.”

She frowned. “But Ethan . . .”

He nodded and pointed the razor at her. “But Ethan was the most honorable man I ever knew. The most honest. The most sure of himself and his morals. He refused. Damn the loss of money, damn their anger, damn the possibility of ruin, he would not take part in a fraud.” He soaped his face.

Lucy thought about Ethan’s honesty—how naive he must have been and how hard for a man like Simon to live up to. Simon’s voice was flat. Perhaps to someone else he would sound unemotional, but she was the woman who cared for him, and she heard the pain under the words. And the anger.

Simon set the edge of the razor against his throat and made the first stroke. “They determined that they must get rid of Ethan. Without him, they could wreck the ships and recover; with him, all was lost. But it’s not so easy to kill a viscount, is it? So they spread bloody, bloody rumors that were impossible to disprove, impossible to fight.” He wiped the lather from his razor onto a cloth.

“Rumors about him?” Lucy whispered.

“No.” He stared down at the razor in his hand as if he’d forgotten what it was. “About Rosalind.”

“What?”

“About Rosalind’s virtue. About Pocket’s birth.”

“But Pocket looks just like you . . .” She trailed away, the implication hitting her. Oh, dear Lord.

“Exactly. Just like me.” His lips twisted. “They called Rosalind a whore, said I’d debauched her, that Pocket was a bastard and Ethan a cuckold.”

She must’ve gasped.

He turned to her, his eyes pained, his voice finally strained. “Why do you think we haven’t attended any London balls or parties or damned musicales, for God’s sake? Rosalind’s reputation was ruined. Absolutely ruined. She hasn’t been invited anywhere in three years. An impeccably virtuous lady and she was cut dead on the street by married women who’d had too many liaisons to count.”

Lucy didn’t know what to say. What an awful thing to do to a family, to do to brothers. Poor, poor Rosalind.

Simon took a deep breath. “They left him no choice. He called out Peller, the one they’d chosen to talk the loudest. Ethan had never fought a duel, barely knew how to hold the sword. Peller killed him in less than a minute. Like leading a lamb to slaughter.”

She drew in her breath. “Where were you?”

“Italy.” He raised the razor again. “Seeing the ruins and drinking.” Stroke. “And wenching, I’ll admit as well.” Wipe. “I didn’t know until a letter was sent. Ethan, steady, boring Ethan—Ethan the good son—my brother, Ethan had been killed in a duel. I thought it was a joke; I came home anyway.” Stroke. “I’d wearied of Italy by that time. Fine wine or no, there are only so many ruins one can see. I rode to the Iddesleigh family estate and . . .”

He took some time wiping the blade this time. His gaze was averted from hers, but she could see his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed.

“It was winter and they’d preserved his body for my return. Couldn’t hold the funeral without me, it seems. Not that there were many mourners waiting, only Rosalind, nearly prostrate with shock and grief, and Pocket and the priest. No one else was there. They’d been shunned. Ruined.” He looked up at her, and she noticed that he’d cut himself under the left earlobe. “They did more than just kill him, Lucy, they destroyed his name. Destroyed Rosalind’s reputation. Destroyed Pocket’s hopes of ever marrying well, although she’s too young to know that yet.” He frowned and finished shaving without saying anything else.

Lucy watched him. What was she to do? She could understand his reasons for wanting vengeance only too well. If someone had done such a wrong to David, her brother, or to Papa, she, too, would seethe with indignation. But that still didn’t make killing right. And what of the cost to Simon, in both body and soul? He couldn’t have fought all those duels without losing a part of himself. Could she simply sit by while he annihilated himself in vengeance for a dead brother?

He washed his face and dried it off and then walked to where she sat. “May I join you?”

Did he think she’d refuse him? “Yes.” She scooted backward to make room.

He shucked his breeches and blew out the candle. She felt the bed dip as he climbed in. She waited, but he didn’t move toward her. Finally she rolled against him. He hesitated, then put his arm around her.

“You never finished the fairy tale you were telling me,” she whispered against his chest.

She felt his sigh. “Do you really want to hear it?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Very well, then.” His voice floated to her in the dark. “As you recall, Angelica wished for another dress even more beautiful than the first. So the Serpent Prince showed her a sharp silver dagger and bade her cut off his right hand.”

Lucy shivered; she’d forgotten that part.

“The goat girl did as he told her, and a silver dress trimmed with hundreds of opals appeared. It looked like moonlight.” He stroked her hair. “And she went off and had a jolly good time at the ball with pretty Prince Rutherford and returned late—”