The Serpent Prince (Princes #3)(71)

“Thank you.” Lucy accepted the light and held it higher so she could see the butler.

Newton had obviously just come from bed. A nightcap covered his bald pate, and an old coat was thrown over his nightshirt, pulled taut across his small, round belly. She looked down. He wore rather fancy, curl-toed Turkish slippers on his feet. Lucy rubbed one bare foot over the other and wished she’d thought of stockings.

“May I assist you, my lady?” Newton asked again.

“Where is Lord Iddesleigh?”

The butler averted his eyes. “I couldn’t say, my lady.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

He blinked. “Both.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows, surprised he’d answered with the truth. She studied the butler. If Simon’s absence was because of a woman, she was sure Newton would’ve made excuses for his master. But he hadn’t. She felt her shoulders relax from a tension she hadn’t even known was there.

Newton cleared his throat. “I’m sure Lord Iddesleigh will return before morning, my lady.”

“Yes, he always does, doesn’t he?” Lucy muttered.

“Would you like me to warm you some milk?”

“No, thank you.” Lucy walked to the stairs. “I’ll go back to bed.”

“Good night, my lady.”

Lucy put her foot on the first tread and held her breath. From behind her, Newton’s footsteps receded and a door closed. She waited a moment more, then turned. Quietly she tiptoed back to Simon’s study.

This room was smaller than the library but more richly appointed. It was dominated by his massive baroque desk, a recklessly beautiful piece of furniture, picked out in gilt and curlicues. She would’ve laughed at any other man owning such a piece, but it suited Simon perfectly. There was an arrangement of wingback chairs before the fireplace, and two bookcases flanked the desk, easily accessible to someone sitting at it. Many of the books were on the subject of roses. Simon had shown her this room only the other day, and she’d been fascinated by the detailed hand-colored illustrations in the big tomes. Each rose an ideal of the flower, each part identified and labeled.

So orderly a world.

Lucy settled herself into one of the wing chairs before the fireplace. With the study door open, she had a view into the hallway and all that happened there. Simon would have to pass her by when he came home. She intended to quiz him on his nocturnal ramblings when he did.

APHRODITE’S GROTTO WAS A DEN of howling wolves tonight.

Simon advanced into the main hall of the brothel and looked around. He hadn’t set foot in here since before he’d met Lucy, but the place hadn’t changed. Half-dressed whores paraded their wares, enticing men, some barely old enough to shave, some toothless with age. Minor royalty rubbed shoulders with upstart merchants and foreign dignitaries. Aphrodite didn’t care. As long as the color of the money was gold. In fact, it was rumored that she had just as many female customers as male. Perhaps she charged them both, Simon thought cynically. He looked around for the madam but didn’t see her distinctive gold mask. Just as well. Aphrodite frowned on violence in her house, and that was exactly what he was intent on doing.

“What is this place?” Christian whispered beside him.

He’d picked up the younger man two—no, three—houses before. Christian still looked fresh-faced after the theater earlier in the evening, the fight outside it, and the three increasingly seedy gambling places they’d visited before this. Simon very much feared that he himself resembled a newly unearthed corpse.

Damn youth anyway. “Depends.” He started up the stairs, dodging the race going on there.

Female jockeys wearing only brief corsets and masks rode bare-chested steeds. Simon winced as a jockey drew blood with her quirt. Although, judging by the bulge in the trousers of her mount, he didn’t mind at all.

“On what?” Christian watched wide-eyed as the winning pair galloped up and down the upper hall. The jockey was bare-breasted and bouncing exuberantly.

“On your definition of heaven and hell, I suppose,” Simon said.

His eyes felt as if a handful of sand were under each lid, his head ached, and he was tired. So very tired.

He kicked in the first door.

Christian exclaimed something behind him, but he ignored it. The occupants, two girls and a red-headed gentleman, didn’t even notice the intrusion. He didn’t bother to apologize, just shut the door and moved on to the next. He didn’t have much hope of finding Walker. According to his sources, Walker had never patronized Aphrodite’s Grotto before. But Simon was getting desperate. He needed to find Walker and get this over with. He needed to make Lucy safe again.

Another door. Shrieks from within—two women this time—and he closed it. Walker was married with a mistress, but he liked the bawdy houses. If Simon visited every single brothel in London, eventually he’d find him, or so he hoped.

“Won’t we get thrown out doing this?” Christian asked.

“Yes.” Kick. His knee was beginning to hurt. “But hopefully not before I find my quarry.”

He was at the end of the hall now, at the last door, in fact, and Christian was right. It was only a matter of time before the house thugs arrived. Kick.

He nearly turned away, but he looked again.

The man on the bed had his cock buried in a saffron-haired wench on her knees. She was naked, save a demi-mask, and had her eyes closed. Her partner hadn’t noticed their interruption. Not that it mattered. He was short and swarthy and black haired. No, it was the second man, the one almost in the shadows observing the show, that made the squawk. And a good thing, too, since Simon had almost overlooked him.