The Leopard Prince

Harry looked back impassively.

“And everyone since only yesterday afternoon when we arrived.” She’d run out of fingers and let her hand drop.

Harry said nothing. He felt a twisting in his chest, but that was bootless. Why should she be any different from everyone else?

“They all seem to be under the impression that you’ve been poisoning the neighbor’s sheep with some kind of weed. Although”—her brow puckered—“why everyone should fly up into the boughs about sheep, even murdered sheep, I’m not quite sure.”

Harry stared. Surely she jested? But then again, she was from the city. “Sheep are the backbone of this country, my lady.”

“I know the farmers all raise them hereabouts.” She peered at the cake tray, hand hovering above it, apparently choosing a sweet. “I’m sure people become quite fond of their livestock—”

“They aren’t pets.”

She looked up at his sharp tone, and her eyebrows drew together.

He was impertinent, he knew, but damn it, she needed to know. “They’re life. Sheep are a man’s meat and his clothes. The income to pay the landowner his due. The thing that keeps his family alive.”

She stilled, her blue eyes solemn. He felt something light and frail connect himself and this woman, who was so far above his station. “The loss of an animal might mean no new dress for a man’s wife. Maybe a shortage of sugar in the pantry. A couple of dead sheep could keep his children from winter shoes. For a farmer living lean”—he shrugged—“he might not make the rent, might have to kill the rest of his herd to feed his family.”

Her eyes widened.

“That way lies ruin.” Harry gripped the settee arm, trying to explain, trying to make her understand. “That way lies the poorhouse.”

“Ah. So the thing is more serious than I knew.” She sat back with a sigh. “It would appear I must act.” She looked at him, it seemed, regretfully.

Here it was, finally. He braced himself.

The front doors slammed.

Lady Georgina cocked her head. “What…?”

Something crashed in the hall, and Harry leaped to his feet. Arguing voices and a scuffle were coming nearer. He placed himself between the door and Lady Georgina. His left hand drifted down to the top of his boot.

“I’ll see her now, damn your eyes!” The door flew open, and a ruddy-faced man stormed in.

Greaves followed, panting, his wig crooked. “My lady, I am so sorry—”

“That’s all right,” Lady Georgina said. “You may leave us.”

The butler looked like he wanted to protest, but he caught Harry’s eye. “My lady.” He bowed and shut the door.

The man wheeled and looked past Harry to Lady Georgina. “This cannot go on, ma’am! I have had enough. If you cannot control that bastard you employ, I will take matters into my own hands and have great pleasure in doing so.”

He started forward, his heavy face flushed red against his white powdered wig, his hands balled threateningly at his sides. He looked almost exactly the same as he had that morning eighteen years ago. The heavy-lidded brown eyes were handsome even in age. He had the shoulders and arms of a strong man—thick, like a bull. The years had brought closer the gap in their heights, but Harry was still half a head shorter. And the sneer on the thick lips—yes, that was certainly unchanged. Harry would carry the memory of that sneer to his grave.

The man was abreast of him now, paying no attention to him, his gaze focused solely on Lady Georgina. Harry shot out his right hand, his arm a solid bar across the other man’s path. The intruder made to barrel through the barrier, but Harry held firm.

“What th—” The man cut himself off and stared down at Harry’s hand. His right hand.

The one with the missing finger.

Slowly, the other man raised his head and met Harry’s eyes. Recognition flamed in his gaze.

Harry bared his teeth in a grin, though he had never felt less amused in his life. “Silas Granville.” Deliberately he left off the title.

Silas stiffened. “Goddamn you to hell, Harry Pye.”

Chapter Three

No wonder Harry Pye never smiled. The expression on his face at that moment was enough to scare little children into fits. George felt her heart sink. She’d rather hoped that all the gossip about Mr. Pye and Lord Granville was just that: stories made up to entertain bored country folk. But judging from the filthy looks the two men were exchanging, not only did they know each other, but they did indeed have a nasty past.

She sighed. This complicated matters.

“You cur! You dare show your face to me after the -criminal damage you’ve done on my land?” Lord Granville shouted directly in Mr. Pye’s face, spittle flying.

Harry Pye did not reply, but he had an incredibly irritating smirk on his lips. George winced. She could almost sympathize with Lord Granville.

“First the tricks in my stable—the cut halters, the ruined feed, the vandalized carriages.” Lord Granville addressed George but never took his eyes from Mr. Pye. “Then sheep killing! My farmers have lost over fifteen good animals in the last fortnight alone. Twenty, before that. And all of it began when he returned to this district, employed by you, madam.”

“He had excellent references,” George muttered.

Lord Granville swung in her direction. She recoiled, but Mr. Pye moved smoothly with the larger man, keeping his shoulder always between them. His show of protectiveness only enraged Lord Granville further.

“Enough, I say. I demand you dismiss this… this scoundrel!” Lord Granville spat the word. “Blood always shows. Like his father before him, he’s the lowest form of criminal.”

George inhaled.

Mr. Pye didn’t speak, but a soft noise came from between his drawn-back lips.

Good Lord, it sounded like a snarl. Hastily, she broke into speech. “Now, Lord Granville, I think you’re being rather rash in your condemnation of Mr. Pye. After all, have you any reason to suppose it is my steward instead of someone else doing the damage?”

“Reason?” Lord Granville hissed the word. “Reason? Aye, I’ve got reason. Twenty years ago this man’s father attacked me. Nearly killed me, he was so insane.”

George lifted her eyebrows. She darted a look at Mr. Pye, but he’d controlled his face into its customary impassivity. “I don’t see why—”

“He assaulted me as well.” Lord Granville speared a finger at the land steward’s chest. “Joined his father in trying to murder a peer of the realm.”

“But”—she looked from one man to the other, the first the very embodiment of rage, the other showing no expression at all—“but he could hardly have been full grown twenty years ago. Wouldn’t he be a boy of… of—”

“Twelve.” Mr. Pye spoke for the first time since he’d uttered the other man’s name. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper. “And it was eighteen years ago. Exactly.”

“Twelve is plenty old enough to murder a man.” Lord Granville batted aside the objection with the flat of his hand. “It’s well known that the common rabble mature early—the better to breed more vermin. At twelve, he was as much a man as he is now.”

George blinked at this outrageous statement, said with a perfectly straight face and apparently believed as fact by Lord Granville. She glanced again at Mr. Pye, but if anything, he appeared bored. Obviously, he’d heard this sentiment or ones very like it before. She wondered briefly how often he’d listened to such drivel in his childhood.

She shook her head. “Be that as it may, my lord, it does not sound as if you have concrete evidence of Mr. Pye’s culpability now. And I really do feel—”

Lord Granville threw something down at her feet. “I have evidence.” His smile was quite odious.

George frowned and looked at the thing by her embroidered shoe tip. It was a little wooden figure. She bent to pick it up, a small, treacle-colored figurine, no larger than the ball of her thumb. Its features were partially obscured by dried mud. She turned it over, rubbing the dirt off. A hedgehog carved in exquisite detail emerged. The artist had cleverly taken advantage of a dark spot in the wood to highlight the bristles on the tiny animal’s back. How sweet! George smiled in delight.

Then she became aware of the silence in the room. She looked up and saw the dreadful stillness with which Mr. Pye stared at the carving in her hand. Dear Lord, surely he hadn’t really—

“That, I think, is evidence enough,” Lord Granville said.

“What—?”

“Ask him.” Granville gestured at the hedgehog, and George instinctively closed her fingers as if to protect it. “Go on, ask him who made that.”

She met Mr. Pye’s eyes. Was there a flicker of regret in them?

“I did,” he said.

George cradled the carving in her two hands and brought them to her breast. Her next question was inevitable. “And what does Mr. Pye’s hedgehog have to do with your dead sheep?”

“It was found next to the body of a ram on my land.” Lord Granville’s eyes bore the unholy light of triumph. “Just this morning.”

“I see.”

“So you must dismiss Pye at the very least. I’ll have the charges written up and a warrant for his arrest drawn. In the meantime, I’ll take him into my custody. I am, after all, the magistrate in this area.” Lord Granville was almost jovial in his victory. “Perhaps you can lend me a brace of strong footmen?”

“I don’t think so.” George shook her head thoughtfully. “No, I’m afraid that just won’t do.”

“Are you out of your mind, woman? I offer to solve the problem for you—” Lord Granville cut himself off impatiently. He marched to the door, waving his hand. “Fine. I’ll just ride back to my estate and bring my own men to arrest the fellow.”

“No, I think not,” George said. “Mr. Pye is still in my employ. You must let me handle this matter as I see fit.”

Lord Granville stopped and turned. “You’re insane. I’ll have this man by sundown. You have no right—”

“I have every right,” George interrupted him. “This is my steward, my house, my land. And you are not welcome upon it.” Striding swiftly, she took both men by surprise, moving past them before they could object. She threw open the door and continued into the hall. “Greaves!”

The butler must have been hovering nearby because he appeared with amazing speed. He was accompanied by the two biggest footmen in her service.

“Lord Granville will be leaving now.”

“Yes, my lady.” Greaves, a perfect example of his kind, showed no satisfaction as he hurried forward to offer Lord Granville his hat and gloves, but his step was bouncier than usual.

“You’ll regret this.” Lord Granville shook his head slowly, heavily, like an enraged bull. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Mr. Pye was suddenly at George’s side. She fancied she could feel his warmth even though he touched her not at all.

“The door is this way, my lord,” Greaves said, and the footmen moved to flank Lord Granville.

She held her breath until the big oak doors banged shut. Then she blew it out. “Well. At least he is out of the manor.”

Mr. Pye brushed past her.

“I haven’t finished talking to you,” George said, irritated. The man could at least thank her before leaving. “Where are you going?”

“I have some questions that need answering, my lady.” He bowed briefly. “I promise to present myself to you by tomorrow morning. Anything you have to say to me can be said then.”

And he was gone.

George slowly unclasped her fist and looked again at the elfin hedgehog. “And what if what I have to say can’t wait until tomorrow?”