The Serpent Prince (Princes #3)(16)

A lock of her hair bridged the scant inches between them and caressed his throat. His cock came painfully erect, its beat echoing the one in his heart.

“I have no idea what that means,” she whispered.

“Perhaps that’s just as well.”

She reached her hand out, hesitated, then touched his cheek lightly with one fingertip. He felt the contact sizzle throughout his body down to his very toes.

“Sometimes I think I know you,” she murmured so low he almost didn’t catch the words. “Sometimes I think that I’ve always known you, from the very first moment you opened your eyes, and that, deep inside your soul, you know me, too. But then you make a joke, play the fool or the rake, and turn aside. Why do you do that?”

He opened his mouth to shout his fear or say something else entirely, but the kitchen door opened, spilling an arc of light into the garden. “Poppet?”

The guardian father.

She turned so that her face was silhouetted against the light from the kitchen. “I must go in. Good night.” She withdrew her hand, and it brushed across his lips as she retreated.

He had to steady his voice before he could speak. “Good night.”

She walked toward the kitchen door, emerging into the light. Her father took her elbow and searched the shadows of the garden over her head before closing the door behind her. Simon watched her go, choosing to stay in the dark rather than confront Captain Craddock-Hayes. His shoulder ached, his head pounded, and his toes were frozen.

And he played a game he could not possibly win.

“I D-D-DON’T BELIEVE YOU.” Quincy James paced to Sir Rupert’s study window and back, his strides quick and jerky. “They t-t-told me he was bleeding from the head. They stabbed him in the b-b-back and left him in the freezing cold, naked. How c-c-could a man survive that?”

Sir Rupert sighed and poured himself a second whiskey. “I don’t know how he survived, but he did. My information is impeccable.”

The third man in the room, Lord Gavin Walker, stirred in his armchair by the fire. Walker was built like a navvy, big and broad, his hands the size of hams, his features course. If not for the costly clothes and wig he wore, one would never guess he was an aristocrat. In fact, his family line dated back to the Normans. Walker withdrew a jeweled snuffbox from his coat pocket, deposited a pinch of snuff on the back of his hand, and inhaled it. There was a pause; then he sneezed explosively and employed a handkerchief.

Sir Rupert winced and looked away. Filthy habit, snuff.

“I don’t understand, James,” Walker said. “First you say Iddesleigh is dead and we have no further worries, and then he resurrects himself. Are you sure your men got the right gentleman?”

Sir Rupert leaned back in his desk chair and looked at the ceiling as he waited for the inevitable outburst from James. His study walls were a masculine deep brown, broken at waist height by a cream chair rail. A thick black and crimson carpet lay underfoot, and old-gold velvet curtains muffled the street noise from without. A collection of botanical engravings hung on the walls. He’d started the collection with a small study of a Chrysanthemum parthenium—feverfew—that he’d found in a bookshop over thirty years ago now. The print was not a good one. It had a water stain in the corner, and the engraved Latin name of the plant was smudged, but the composition was pleasant, and he’d bought it at a time when it meant going without proper tea for a month. It hung between two much larger, more expensive prints. A Morus nigra—mulberry—and a rather elegant Cynara cardunculus. Cardoon.

His wife, children, and servants knew never to disturb him in his study unless it was the most dire of emergencies. Which made it all the more galling to give up his personal domain to James and Lord Walker and the troubles they brought with them.

“Sure? Of c-c-course I’m sure.” James whirled and tossed something to Walker. It glittered as it flew through the air. “They brought that back to me.”

Walker, usually a slow, lumbering fellow, could move quickly when he wanted to. He caught the object and examined it, and his eyebrows rose. “Iddesleigh’s signet ring.”

The hairs on the back of Sir Rupert’s neck stood up. “Dammit, James, what the hell did you keep that for?” He was working with dangerous idiots.

“Didn’t matter, d-d-did it, with Iddesleigh d-d-dead.” James looked petulant.

“Except that he’s not dead anymore, is he? Thanks to the incompetence of your men.” Sir Rupert tossed back a healthy swallow of his whiskey. “Give it to me. I’ll get rid of it.”

“S-s-see here—”

“He’s right,” Walker interrupted. “It’s evidence we don’t want.” He crossed the room and set the ring on Sir Rupert’s desk.

Sir Rupert stared at the ring. The Iddesleigh crest was shallow, the gold eroded with age. How many generations of aristocrats had worn this ring? He covered it with his hand and palmed it, transferring it to his waistcoat pocket.

Covertly, he massaged his right leg under the table. His father had been an import merchant in the city. As a boy, Sir Rupert had worked in the great storehouse his father had maintained, carrying sacks of grain and heavy crates of merchandise. He didn’t remember the accident that had crushed his leg—not entirely, at least. Only the smell of the cod packed in salt that had spilled from the broken barrel. And the pain of the smashed bone. Even now, the smell of salted fish was enough to turn his stomach.