The Serpent Prince (Princes #3)(36)

“Why?” Eustace’s voice was husky. He sounded close to tears.

Lucy felt moisture prick her own eyes. How could she have brought such a good man so low?

“Do you think you love that fellow?”

“I don’t know.” She closed her eyes, but the tears overflowed nevertheless. “All I know is that he opened a door into a whole new world I never even knew existed. I’ve stepped through that door, and I can’t return.”

“But—”

“I know.” She made a slashing motion with her hand. “I know he won’t be coming back, that I’ll never see or speak to him again. But it doesn’t matter, don’t you see?”

He shook his head and, once started, couldn’t seem to stop. His head swung back and forth in a stubborn, bearlike movement.

“It’s like . . .” Lucy raised her hands in a pleading gesture as she tried to think of the analogy. “Like being blind from birth and then one day suddenly being able to see. And not just see, but to witness the sun rising in all her glory across an azure sky. The dusky lavenders and blues lightening to pinks and reds, spreading across the horizon until the entire Earth is lit. Until one has to blink and fall to one’s knees in awe at the light.”

He stilled and stared at her as if dumbstruck.

“Don’t you understand?” Lucy whispered. “Even if one were made blind again in the next instant, one would ever after remember and know what was missed. What could be.”

“So you won’t marry me,” he said quietly.

“No.” Lucy let her hands drop, deflated and weary. “I won’t marry you.”

“DAMMIT!” EDWARD DE RAAF, the fifth Earl of Swar-tingham, roared as yet another boy whizzed past. The boy somehow managed to avoid seeing de Raaf’s large, waving arm.

Simon stifled a sigh. He sat in his favorite London coffeehouse, his feet—shod in new red-heeled pumps—propped on a nearby chair, and yet he could not drag his mind away from the little town he’d left over a week ago.

“D’you think the service is getting worse?” his companion asked as he was passed over again. The boy must be blind. Or willfully not seeing. De Raaf stood a solid six feet and some inches, had a sallow, pockmarked face, and striking midnight black hair worn in a messy queue. His expression at the moment was enough to curdle cream. He didn’t exactly blend into a crowd.

“No.” Simon sipped his own coffee thoughtfully. He’d arrived earlier than the other man and was thus already set up. “It’s always been this awful.”

“Then why do we come here?”

“Well, I come here for the excellent coffee.” Simon glanced around the dingy, low-ceilinged coffeehouse. The Agrarian Society, an eclectic, loose-knit club, met here. The only terms of membership were that the man had to have an interest in agriculture. “And, of course, the sophisticated atmosphere.”

De Raaf shot him a ludicrously outraged look.

A fight broke out in the corner between a macaroni in a deplorable pink-powdered, three-tailed wig, and a country squire wearing muddy jackboots. The boy scurried past them again—de Raaf didn’t even get a chance to raise his hand this time—and Harry Pye stole into the coffeehouse. Pye moved like a cat on the hunt, gracefully and without any sound. Add to that his nondescript appearance—he was of average height and looks and favored a dull brown wardrobe—and it was a wonder anyone noticed him at all. Simon narrowed his eyes. With his physical control, Pye would have made a formidable swordsman. But since he was a commoner, no doubt he had never held a sword; only nobility could wear one. Which didn’t stop Pye from carrying a wicked little blade in his left boot.

“My lords.” Pye sat in the remaining chair at their table.

De Raaf let out a long-suffering sigh. “How many times have I told you to call me Edward or de Raaf?”

Pye half smiled in acknowledgment at the familiar words, but it was to Simon he spoke. “I am glad to see you well, my lord. We had news of your near murder.”

Simon shrugged easily. “A trifle, I assure you.”

De Raaf frowned. “That’s not what I heard.”

The boy slammed a full mug of coffee down beside Pye.

De Raaf’s jaw dropped. “How did you do that?”

“What?” Pye’s gaze lowered to the empty space on the table before the earl. “Aren’t you having a cup today?”

“I—”

“He’s decided to give up coffee,” Simon cut in smoothly. “Heard it’s not good for the libido. Huntington wrote a treatise on it recently, didn’t you hear? It especially affects those nearing their middle years.”

“Really.” Pye blinked.

De Raaf’s pale, pockmarked face crimsoned. “What a lot of rot—”

“Can’t say I’ve noticed it affecting me.” Simon smiled blandly and sipped his coffee. “But then again, de Raaf is considerably older than I.”

“You lying—”

“And he’s recently married. Bound to have a slowing-down consequence, that.”

“Now see here—”

Pye’s lips twitched. If Simon hadn’t been watching closely, he’d have missed it. “But I’m newly married as well,” Pye interrupted softly. “And I can’t say I’ve noticed any, ah, problem. Must be the age.”