The Leopard Prince
Page 2
“Mmm. It feels good.” Her voice was throaty behind him.
For a moment Harry froze, thinking of what her words and tone might imply in a different context. Then he banished the thoughts and turned.
Lady Georgina held out her hands to the blaze. Her ginger hair was drying into fine curls around her forehead, and her white skin glowed in the firelight. She was still shivering.
Harry cleared his throat. “I believe you should remove your wet gown and wrap the rugs about yourself.” He strode over to the door where he’d dumped the carriage robes.
From behind him, he heard a breathless laugh. “I don’t believe I have ever heard such an improper suggestion made so properly.”
“I didn’t mean to be improper, my lady.” He handed her the robes. “I’m sorry if I offended.” Briefly his eyes met hers, so blue and laughing; then he turned his back.
Behind him was a rustling. He tried to discipline his thoughts. He would not imagine her pale, naked shoulders above—
“You aren’t improper, as well you know, Mr. Pye. Indeed, I’m beginning to think it would be impossible for you to be so.”
If she only knew. He cleared his throat but made no comment. He forced himself to gaze around the little cottage. There was no kitchen dresser, only the table and chairs. A pity. His belly was empty.
The rustling by the fire ceased. “You may turn around now.”
He braced himself before looking, but Lady Georgina was covered in furs. He was glad to see her lips were pinker.
She freed a naked arm from the bundle to point at a robe on the other side of the fireplace. “I’ve left one for you. I’m too comfortable to move, but I’ll close my eyes and promise not to peek if you wish to disrobe as well.”
Harry dragged his gaze away from the arm and met her clever blue eyes. “Thank you.”
The arm disappeared. Lady Georgina smiled, and her eyelids fell.
For a moment Harry simply watched her. The reddish arcs of her eyelashes fluttered against her pale skin, and a smile hovered on her crooked mouth. Her nose was thin and overlong, the angles of her face a bit too sharp. When she stood, she almost equaled his own height. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, but he found himself having to control his gaze when he was around her. Something about the twitching of her lips when she was about to taunt him. Or the way her eyebrows winged up her forehead when she smiled. His eyes were drawn to her face like iron filings near a lodestone.
He shucked his upper garments and drew the last robe around himself. “You may open your eyes now, my lady.”
Her eyes popped open. “Good. And now we both look like Russians swathed for the Siberian winter. A pity we don’t have a sleigh with bells as well.” She smoothed the fur on her lap.
He nodded. The fire crackled in the silence as he tried to think of how else he could look after her. There was no food in the cottage; nothing to do but wait for dawn. How did the upper crust behave when they were in their palatial sitting rooms all alone?
Lady Georgina was plucking at her robe, but she suddenly clasped her hands together as if to still them. “Do you know any stories, Mr. Pye?”
“Stories, my lady?”
“Mmm. Stories. Fairy tales, actually. I collect them.”
“Indeed.” Harry was at a loss. The aristocracy’s way of thinking was truly amazing sometimes. “How, may I ask, do you go about collecting them?”
“By inquiring.” Was she having fun with him? “You’d be amazed at the stories people remember from their youth. Of course, old nursemaids and the like are the best sources. I believe I’ve asked every one of my acquaintances to introduce me to their old nurse. Is yours still alive?”
“I didn’t have a nursemaid, my lady.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks reddened. “But someone—your mother?—must’ve told you fairy tales growing up.”
He shifted to put another piece of the broken chair on the fire. “The only fairy tale I can remember is Jack and the Beanstalk.”
Lady Georgina gave him a pitying look. “Can’t you do better than that?”
“I’m afraid not.” The other tales he knew weren’t exactly fit for a lady’s ears.
“Well, I heard a rather interesting one recently. From my cook’s aunt when she came to visit Cook in London. Would you like me to tell it to you?”
No. The last thing he needed was to become any more intimate with his employer than the situation had already forced him to be. “Yes, my lady.”
“Once upon a time, there was a great king and he had an enchanted leopard to serve him.” She wiggled her rump on the chair. “I know what you’re thinking, but that’s not how it goes.”
Harry blinked. “My lady?”
“No. The king dies right away, so he’s not the hero.” She looked expectantly at him.
“Ah.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
It seemed to do.
Lady Georgina nodded. “The leopard wore a sort of gold chain around its neck. It was enslaved, you see, but I don’t know how that came about. Cook’s aunt didn’t say. Anyway, when the king was dying, he made the leopard promise to serve the next king, his son.” She frowned. “Which doesn’t seem very fair, somehow, does it? I mean, usually they free the faithful servant at that point.” She shifted again on the wooden chair.
She smiled blindingly at him. “What a good idea.”
He spread out the cloak and rolled his own clothes to form a pillow.
Lady Georgina shuffled over in her robes and plopped down on the crude bed. “That’s better. You might as well come lie down as well; we’ll be here until morning, most likely.”
Christ. “I don’t think it advisable.”
She looked down her narrow nose at him. “Mr. Pye, those chairs are hard. Please come lie on the rugs at least. I promise not to bite.”
His jaw clenched, but he really had no choice. It was a veiled order. “Thank you, my lady.”
Harry gingerly sat beside her—he’d be damned if he would lie down next to this woman, order or no—and left a space between their bodies. He wrapped his arms around his bent knees and tried not to notice her scent.
“You are stubborn, aren’t you?” she muttered.
He looked at her.
She yawned. “Where was I? Oh, yes. So the first thing the young king does is to see a painting of a beautiful princess and fall in love with her. A courtier or a messenger or some such shows it to him, but that doesn’t matter.”
She yawned again, squeaking this time, and for some reason his prick responded to the sound. Or perhaps it was her scent, which reached his nose whether he wished it to or not. It reminded him of spices and exotic flowers.
“The princess has skin as white as snow, lips as red as rubies, hair as black as, oh, pitch or the like, et cetera, et cetera.” Lady Georgina paused and stared into the fire.
He wondered if she was done and his torment over.
Then she sighed. “Have you ever noticed that these fairy-tale princes fall in love with beautiful princesses without knowing a thing about them? Ruby lips are all very well, but what if she laughs oddly or clicks her teeth when she eats?” She shrugged. “Of course, men in our times are just as apt to fall in love with glossy black curls, so I suppose I shouldn’t quibble.” Her eyes widened suddenly, and she turned her head to look at him. “No offense meant.”
“None taken,” Harry said gravely.
“Hmm.” She seemed doubtful. “Anyway, he falls in love with this picture, and someone tells him that the princess’s father is giving her to the man who can bring him the Golden Horse, which was presently in the possession of a terrible ogre. So”—Lady Georgina turned to face the fire and cradled her cheek in her hand—“he sends for the Leopard Prince and tells him to go out quick and fetch him the Golden Horse, and what do you think?”
“I don’t know, my lady.”
“The leopard turned into a man.” She closed her eyes and murmured, “Imagine that. He was a man all along….”
Harry waited, but this time there was no more story. After a while he heard a soft snore.
He drew the robes up over her neck and tucked them around her face. His fingers brushed against her cheek, and he paused, studying the contrast of their skin tones. His hand was dark against her skin, his fingers rough where she was soft and smooth. Slowly he stroked his thumb across the corner of her mouth. So warm. He almost recognized her scent, as if he’d inhaled it in another life or long ago. It made him ache.
If she were a different woman, if this were a different place, if he were a different man… Harry cut short the whisper in his mind and drew back his hand. He stretched out next to Lady Georgina, careful not to touch her. He stared at the ceiling and drove out all thought, all feeling. Then he closed his eyes, even though he knew it would be a long while before he slept.
HER NOSE TICKLED. GEORGE SWIPED at it and felt fur. Beside her, something rustled and then was still. She turned her head. Green eyes met her own, irritatingly alert for so early in the day.
“Good morning.” Her words came out a frog’s croak. She cleared her throat.
“Good morning, my lady.” Mr. Pye’s voice was smooth and dark, like hot chocolate. “If you’ll excuse me.”
He rose. The robe he clutched slid off one shoulder, revealing tanned skin before he righted it. Walking silently, he slipped out the door.
George scrunched her nose. Did nothing faze the man?
It suddenly occurred to her what he must be doing outside. Her bladder sent up an alarm. Hastily she struggled upright and pulled on her rumpled, still-damp dress, catching as many of the fastenings as she could. She couldn’t reach all the hooks, and it must be gaping around her waist, but at least the garment wouldn’t fall off. George put on her cloak to hide her back and then followed Mr. Pye outside. Black clouds hovered in the sky, threatening rain. Harry Pye was nowhere in sight. Looking around, she chose a dilapidated shed behind which to relieve herself and tramped around it.
When she came back from the shed, Mr. Pye was standing in front of the cottage buttoning his coat. He had retied his queue, but his clothes were wrinkled and his hair not as neat as usual. Thinking about what she must look like herself, George felt an uncharitable smirk of amusement. Even Harry Pye couldn’t spend the night on the floor of a hut and not show the effects the next morning.
“When you are ready, my lady,” he said, “I suggest we return to the highway. The coachman may be waiting for us there.”
“Oh, I hope so.”
They retraced their steps of the night before. In light and downhill, George was surprised to find it not such a great distance. Soon they topped the last hill and could see the road. It was empty, save for the carriage wreckage, even more pitiful in the light of day.
She heaved a sigh. “Well. I guess we’ll just have to start walking, Mr. Pye.”
“Yes, my lady.”
They trudged up the road in silence. A nasty, damp mist hovered off the ground, smelling faintly of rot. It seeped beneath her gown and crept up her legs. George shuddered. She dearly wished for a cup of hot tea and perhaps a scone with honey and butter dripping off the sides. She almost moaned at the thought and then realized there was a rumbling coming from behind them.
Mr. Pye raised his arm to hail a farmer’s wagon rounding the curve. “Hi! Stop! You there, we need a ride.”
The farmer pulled his horse to a standstill. He tipped the brim of his hat back and stared. “Mr. Harry Pye, isn’t it?”
Mr. Pye stiffened. “Yes, that’s right. From the Woldsly estate.”
The farmer spat into the road, narrowly missing Mr. Pye’s boots.