The Serpent Prince (Princes #3)(73)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“I’m going to Papa.”

A ridiculous spurt of hope. “Wait and I’ll—”

“I’m leaving.” Her cold lips barely moved as she mouthed the words.

Horror fisted around his vitals. “No.”

For the first time she met his eyes. Hers were red-rimmed but dry. “I have to leave, Simon.”

“No.” He was a little boy denied a sweet. He felt like falling down and screaming.

“Let me go.”

“I can’t let you go.” He half laughed here in the too-bright, cold London sun before his own house. “I’ll die if I do.”

She closed her eyes. “No, you won’t. I can’t stay and watch you tear yourself apart.”

“Lucy.”

“Let me go, Simon. Please.” She opened her eyes, and he saw infinite pain in her gaze.

Had he done this to his angel? Oh, God. He unclasped his hands.

She brushed past him and walked down the steps, the wind playing with the hem of her mantle. He watched her climb into the carriage. The footman shut the door. Then the coachman slapped the reins, the horses stepped out, and the carriage pulled away. Lucy didn’t look back. Simon watched until the carriage was lost in the bustle of the street. And still he stared.

“My lord?” Newton spoke beside him, probably not for the first time.

“What?”

“It’s cold, my lord.”

So it was.

“Perhaps you’d like to go in,” his butler said.

Simon flexed his hand, surprised that his fingertips were numb. He looked around. Someone had taken away his horse, but the rectangular package still lay on the cobblestones.

“Best come inside, my lord.”

“Yes.” Simon started down the steps.

“This way, my lord,” Newton called as if Simon were a senile old man in danger of toddling into traffic.

Simon ignored him and picked up the package. The paper was torn at the corner. Perhaps he could have it rewrapped, this time in pretty paper. Lucy would like pretty paper. Except Lucy wouldn’t ever see it. She’d left him.

“My lord,” Newton still called.

“Yes, all right.” Simon went inside, the package in his hand.

What else was there to do?

Chapter Eighteen

“Who’s there?” Papa called from the doorway, his nightcap pulled down almost to his ears. He wore an old coat over his nightshirt and buckle shoes on his feet, wiry ankles poking out. “It’s past nine o’clock. Decent folk are all in their beds by now, y’know.”

He held a lantern high to throw light into the gravel drive before the Craddock-Hayes house. Behind him, Mrs. Brodie in mobcap and shawl peered over his shoulder.

Lucy opened the carriage door. “It’s me, Papa.”

He squinted, trying to see her in the gloom. “Lucy? What’s Iddesleigh thinking to travel this late at night? Eh? Must’ve gone mad. There’s highwaymen about, or doesn’t he know that?”

Lucy descended the carriage steps with the help of a footman. “He isn’t with me.”

“Mad,” her father repeated. “The man’s mad to let you travel alone, footmen or no. And at night. Bounder!”

She felt a contrary urge to defend Simon. “He didn’t have a say in it. I’ve left him.”

Mrs. Brodie’s eyes widened. “I’ll make tea, shall I?” She turned and hurried into the house.

Papa merely harrumphed. “Come home in a tiff, have you? Smart gel. Keeps a man on his toes when he doesn’t know what a gel will do next. No doubt good for him. You can stay a couple of days and go home after Christmas.”

Lucy sighed. She was tired to her bones, tired to her soul. “I’m not going back to him. I’ve left Simon for good.”

“What? What?” Her father looked alarmed for the first time. “Now see—”

“Jaysus, don’t anybody sleep around here?” Hedge came around the corner, his nightshirt escaping from his breeches, gray hair poking out from a greasy tricorne. He caught sight of Lucy and stopped dead. “Is she back already? Thought we just got her packed off the place.”

“I’m pleased to see you, too, Mr. Hedge,” Lucy said. “Perhaps we can continue this conversation inside, Papa?”

“That’s right,” Hedge muttered. “I’ve been here nearly thirty years—the best years of my life, too—and does anyone care? No, they do not. I’m still not to be trusted.”

“See to the horses, Hedge,” Papa ordered as they went inside.

Lucy heard Hedge groan. “Four big beasties. My back’s not good . . .” Then the door closed behind them.

Papa led the way into his study, a room that she wasn’t used to entering. Papa’s study was his own domain; even Mrs. Brodie wasn’t allowed to clean it. Not, at least, without a lot of fussing first. Papa’s great oak desk was placed at an angle to the fire, too close really, as was attested by the blackened wood on the leg nearest the hearth. The surface of the desk was obscured by piles of colorful maps. They were held in place by a brass sexton, a broken compass, and a short length of rope. To the side of the desk was an enormous globe of the world on its own stand.

“Now, then,” her father started.

Mrs. Brodie bustled in with a tray of tea and buns.

Papa cleared his throat. “Best see if there’s some of your good steak and kidney pie left from dinner, Mrs. Brodie, if you will.”

“I’m not hungry,” Lucy began.

“Looking pale, poppet. Steak and kidney pie do you good, eh?” He nodded at the housekeeper.

“Yes, sir.” Mrs. Brodie hurried out.

“Now, then,” Papa began again. “What’s happened that you’ve come running home to your father?”

Lucy felt her cheeks heat. Put like that, her actions sounded childish. “Simon and I have had a difference of opinion.” She looked down as she carefully pulled her gloves off, one finger at a time. Her hands were shaking. “He is doing something that I cannot agree with.”

Papa slammed his hand down on his desk, making her and the papers lying there jump. “Cad! Hasn’t been married more than a few weeks and already messing with ladies of low repute. Ha! When I get my hands on that bounder, that scoundrel, that . . . that rake, I’ll see him horsewhipped—”

“No, oh, no.” Lucy felt a bubble of hysterical laughter well up inside her. “That’s not it at all.”