The Serpent Prince (Princes #3)(33)

He hesitated. “I thought we could take a turn around your garden?”

“Of course.” It wouldn’t be proper for her to talk to him alone here. She caught up a woolen shawl and preceded him down the stairs.

He held the kitchen door for her, and Lucy stepped into the cold sunshine. Mrs. Brodie’s vegetable garden was in a sad state this time of year. The hard earth was crusted with a thin layer of killing frost. Skeleton stalks of kale leaned in a drunken row. Beside them, some thin onion leaves were frozen to the ground, black and brittle. A few shrunken apples, missed at picking time, clung to the bare branches of the pruned trees. Winter overlaid the garden in a sleep that mimicked death.

Lucy folded her arms about herself and took a steadying breath. “You’re leaving.”

He nodded. “I can’t remain and put you and your family at further risk. This morning was too close, too deadly. If the assassin hadn’t missed his first shot . . .” He grimaced. “It was my own selfish vanity that let me stay so long as it is. I never should have lingered this past week, knowing what lengths they would go to.”

“So you will return to London.” She couldn’t look at him and remain impassive, so she kept her gaze on the rattling tree branches. “Won’t they find you there?”

He laughed, a harsh sound. “My angel, it is more a matter of me finding them, I fear.”

She did glance at him then. His face was bitter. And lonely.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

He hesitated, appeared to debate, then finally shook his head. “There is so much you do not know about me, will never know about me. Very few do, and in your case, I prefer it that way.”

He wasn’t going to tell her, and she felt an unreasoning spurt of rage. Did he still think she was a glass figurine to wrap in gauze? Or did he simply not respect her enough to confide in her?

“Do you really prefer I don’t know you?” She turned to face him. “Or do you say that to every naive woman you meet so they’ll think you sophisticated?”

“Think?” His lips quirked. “You cut me to the bone.”

“You’re fobbing me off with blather.”

He blinked, his head rearing back as if she’d slapped him. “Blather—”

“Yes, blather.” Her voice trembled with anger, but she couldn’t seem to steady it. “You play the fool so you won’t have to tell the truth.”

“I’ve only said it to you.” Now he sounded irritated.

Well, good. So was she. “Is that how you want to live? All alone? Never letting anyone in?” She shouldn’t push, she knew, as this was the last time they would see each other.

“It’s less a matter of wanting as it is . . .” He shrugged. “Some things can’t be changed. And it suits me.”

“It sounds a very solitary existence, and a not entirely satisfactory one,” Lucy said slowly, choosing her words carefully, lining them up like soldiers to do battle. “To go through life without a true confidant. Someone to whom you can reveal yourself without fear. Someone who knows your faults and weaknesses and who cares for you nonetheless. Someone for whom you don’t have to play a role.”

“You frighten me more than I can say at times.” His silver eyes gleamed as he whispered the words, and she wished she could read them. “Do not tempt a man so long without the bread of companionship.”

“If you stayed . . .” She had to stop and catch her breath; her chest felt tight. She gambled so much on these few seconds, and she needed to speak eloquently. “If you stayed, perhaps we could learn more about each other. Perhaps I could become that confidant for you. That companion.”

“I will not put you at further risk.” But she thought she saw hesitation in his eyes.

“I—”

“And that which you ask for”—he looked away—“I do not think I have it in me to give.”

“I see.” Lucy stared down at her hands. So this was defeat.

“If anyone—”

But she interrupted, talking quickly and loudly, not wanting to hear his pity. “You are from the fast city, and I am only a simple gentlewoman living in the country. I understand that—”

“No.” He turned back and took a step toward her so they stood only a hand’s width apart. “Don’t reduce what is between us to a conflict of rural and urban mores and ways.”

The wind blew against her and Lucy shivered.

He shifted so his body shielded hers from the breeze. “In the past week and a half, I have felt more than I ever have before in my life. You stir something in me. I . . .” He gazed over her head at the cloudy sky.

She waited.

“I don’t know how to express myself. What I feel.” He looked down at her and smiled faintly. “And that is very unusual for me, as you know by now. I can only say that I am glad that I’ve met you, Lucy Craddock-Hayes.”

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “And I, you.”

He took her hand and gently uncurled her fingers so that her palm lay cupped between his own like a flower nestled among leaves. “I will remember you all the days of my life,” he murmured so low she almost didn’t hear. “And I am not sure whether that is a blessing or a curse.” He bent over their hands, and she felt the warm brush of his lips against her cold palm.