The Serpent Prince (Princes #3)(67)

On stage, an overlarge Ophelia sang her despair at the desertion of her lover. God, he hated this play. He shifted in his chair. If he could just get it over with. Duel Walker, kill him, put the man in his grave, and let his brother rest at last. Maybe then he could look Lucy in the eye without seeing accusation—imaginary or real. Maybe then he could sleep without fear that he’d wake to the destruction of all his hopes. Because he couldn’t sleep now. He knew he woke Lucy at night with his movements, but there seemed no help for it. His dreams, both waking and sleeping, were filled with images of Lucy. Lucy in danger, or injured or—God!—dead. Lucy finding out his secrets and turning from him in disgust. Lucy leaving him. And when he had respite from those nightmares, there were the older ones to haunt him. Ethan imploring. Ethan needing. Ethan dying. He fingered the place where the Iddesleigh signet ring should have lain. He’d lost it. Another failure.

The crowd erupted in shouts. Simon looked up and was just in time to see the final bloodbath that ended the play. Laertes’s sword work was particularly egregious. Then the audience applauded—and jeered.

Simon got up to hold Lucy’s cloak for her.

“Are you all right?” she asked him under cover of the noise.

“Yes.” He smiled for her. “I hope you enjoyed the theater.”

“You know I did.” She squeezed his hand, a secret wifely touch that made the entire tedious evening worth it. “Thank you for bringing me.”

“It was my pleasure.” He lifted her palm to his lips. “I shall take you to every one of the bard’s plays.”

“You’re so extravagant.”

“For you.”

Her eyes grew round and liquid, and she seemed to search his face. Didn’t she know the lengths he would go to for her?

“I never know what to make of Hamlet,” Christian said behind them.

Lucy glanced away. “I adore Shakespeare. But Hamlet . . .” She shivered. “It’s so dark at the end. And I never think he fully realizes the hurt he’s done poor Ophelia.”

“That business when he jumps into the grave with Laertes.” Rosalind shook her head. “I think he felt the most pity for himself.”

“Perhaps men never do comprehend the wrongs they’ve done to the women in their lives,” Simon murmured.

Lucy touched her hand to his arm, and then they were moving with the crowd toward the doors. The cold air smacked him in the face as they made the entrance. Gentlemen stood on the wide theater steps, shouting as they ordered footmen to fetch their carriages. Everyone was leaving at once, and naturally there weren’t enough runners to go around. Lucy shivered in the winter wind, her skirts whipping against her legs.

Simon frowned. She’d catch a chill if she stayed outside much longer. “Stay here with the ladies,” he told Christian. “I’ll fetch the carriage myself.”

Christian nodded.

Simon shoved through the milling crowd, making slow progress. It wasn’t until he’d reached the street that he remembered he shouldn’t leave Lucy. His heart jumped painfully at the thought. He glanced back. Christian stood between Rosalind and Lucy at the top of the stairs. The younger man was saying something that made Lucy laugh. They looked fine. Still. Best to be cautious. Simon started back.

Which was when Lucy suddenly disappeared.

LUCY STARED AFTER SIMON as he made his way through the crowd in front of the theater. Something was bothering him, she could tell.

Rosalind shivered on the other side of Mr. Fletcher. “Oh, I do hate these crushes after the theater lets out.”

The young man smiled down at her. “Simon will be back soon. He’ll be faster than waiting for one of the footmen to get the carriage.”

Around them the crowd surged and flowed like the sea. A lady bumped Lucy from behind and muttered an apology. Lucy nodded in reply, still staring after her husband. Simon had disappeared the last couple of nights and had returned late. When she tried to question him, he’d joked, and if she questioned him more, he’d made love to her. Urgently. Relentlessly. As if it was the last time every time.

And tonight during the play he’d been muttering with Mr. Fletcher. She hadn’t caught the words, but his face had been grim. Why wouldn’t he confide in her? Surely that was part of marriage, for the wife to be a helpmeet to her husband and take some of his cares onto her own shoulders. To provide relief from his worries. She thought when they’d married that she and Simon would become closer. That they would attain that state of harmony that she’d glimpsed in some older couples. Instead they seemed to be growing ever further apart, and she wasn’t sure what to do. How to bridge the gap, or was it even bridgeable? Perhaps her marriage ideal was merely the naive dream of a maiden. Perhaps this distance between them was the reality of marriage.

Mr. Fletcher leaned down. “Should have tipped Simon better.”

Lucy smiled at his silly jest. She turned to reply and felt a shove from her right. She fell to her knees on the hard marble steps, her palms stinging even through the leather of her kid gloves. Someone grabbed her hair and pulled her head back painfully. Shouts. She couldn’t see. Her vision was composed of skirts and the dirty marble beneath her palms. A kick landed on her ribs. She gasped and then her hair was released. Mr. Fletcher was grappling with another man directly over her. She shielded her head as best she could, fearful of being trampled or worse. Rosalind screamed. Another blow to Lucy’s bottom and a weight shoved against her back.