Hoyt, Elizabeth - The Leopard Prince2.txt

by The Leopard Prince

  breeze. She looked dainty and aristocratic, like she was out for a

  picnic in the country.

  “I’ve had Cook pack a luncheon,” she called as he neared, confirming his

  worst fears.

  Harry stopped himself in time from casting his eyes heavenward. /God

  help me./ “Good morning, my lady.”

  It was another dreary, gray day. No doubt they would be rained on before

  the morning was out.

  “Would you like to drive?” She scooted across the seat to make room for him.

  “If you don’t mind, my lady.” He climbed in, making the gig rock on its

  oversized wheels.

  “Oh, no, I don’t mind at all.” He could feel her gaze as he gathered the

  reins. “I can drive, naturally; it’s how I arrived here this morning,

  after all. But I find it’s much nicer to watch the scenery without

  worrying about the horses and the road and all that.”

  “Indeed.”

  Lady Georgina sat forward, her cheeks flushed with the wind. Her lips

  were slightly parted like a child looking forward to a treat. He felt a

  smile form on his own lips.

  “Where will we be going today?” she asked.

  He brought his eyes back to the road. “I want to visit another of the

  farmers whose sheep were killed. I need to find out what exactly killed

  the animals.”

  “Wasn’t it a poisonous weed?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “But no one I’ve talked to seems to know what kind,

  and it could be several. Wolfsbane is poisonous, though rare in these

  parts. Some folk grow belladonna and foxglove in their gardens—both can

  kill sheep and people as well. And there are common plants, such as

  tansy, that grow wild in pastures and will kill sheep if they eat enough.”

  “I had no idea there are so many poisons growing in the countryside. It

  quite makes one shiver. What did the Medicis use?”

  “The Medicis?”

  Lady Georgina wriggled her little rump on the carriage seat. “You know,

  those deliciously horrible Italians with the poison rings that went

  about killing anyone who looked at them askance. What d’you suppose they

  used?”

  “I don’t know, my lady.” The way her mind worked.

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “What about arsenic? That’s very

  poisonous, isn’t it?”

  “It’s poisonous, but arsenic isn’t a plant.”

  “No? Then what is it?”

  He had no idea. “A sort of seashell that is ground into a powder, my lady.”

  There was a short pause while she thought that one over.

  Harry held his breath.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her squint at him. “You’re making

  that up.”

  “My lady?”

  “That bit about arsenic being a /sort of seashell./” She lowered her

  voice on the last words to mimic him.

  “I assure you”—Harry kept his tone bland—“it’s a pinkish seashell found

  only in the Adriatic Sea. The local villagers harvest the shells with

  long rakes and sieves. There is a yearly festival to celebrate the

  catch.” He fought to prevent his lips from twitching. “The Annual

  Adriatic Arsenic Assail.”

  Silence—and, he was fairly certain—stunned silence at that. Harry felt a

  surge of pride. It wasn’t just any man who could make Lady Georgina lose

  her power of speech.

  Not that it lasted long.

  “I shall have to watch you, Mr. Pye.”

  “My lady?”

  “Because you are /evil./” But her words shook as if she barely held in

  the laughter.

  He smiled. He hadn’t felt so light in a very, very long time. He slowed

  the horse as they came to the stream that separated her estate from

  Granville’s land. He scanned the horizon. Theirs was the only vehicle on

  the road.

  “Surely Lord Granville wouldn’t be so rash as to attack us here.”

  He glanced at her, brows raised.

  She frowned impatiently. “You’ve been watching the hills since we neared

  the stream.”

  Ah. She’d been aware. He reminded himself not to underestimate her, even

  when she played the aristocratic ninny. “Granville would be insane to

  try an attack.” Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

  Reapers harvested barley to their right. Usually reapers sang as they

  worked, but these labored in silence.

  “Lord Granville has his workers out on a misty day,” Lady Georgina said.

  He pressed his lips together to forestall a comment on Granville’s

  agricultural practices.

  A sudden thought occurred to her. “I haven’t noticed anyone in my fields

  since I’ve arrived at Woldsly. Are you worried they might get the ague?”

  Harry stared at her. /She didn’t know./ “The grain is still too damp to

  store. Only a fool would order the reapers out on a morning like this.”

  “But”—she knitted her brows—“don’t you need to harvest it before frost?”

  “Yes. But if the grain is wet, it’s worse than useless to harvest it. It

  would merely spoil in the storage bins.” He shook his head. “Those

  workers are wasting their strength on grain that will rot, anyway.”

  “I see.” She seemed to think about that for a minute. “What will you do

  with the Woldsly harvest, then?”

  “There’s nothing to do, my lady, except pray for a break in the rain.”

  “But if the harvest is ruined . . .”

  He straightened a bit in the seat. “Your revenue will be considerably

  lessened from the estate this year, I’m afraid, my lady. If the weather

  clears, we might still get most of the crop in, maybe all of it. But

  every day that goes by lessens that chance. The tenants on your land

  need those crops to feed their families as well as pay you your share.

  The farmers won’t have much left over—”

  “I don’t mean that!” Now she was frowning at him, looking insulted. “Do

  you think me such a . . . a /fribble/ that I’d care for my income over a

  tenant’s ability to feed his children?”

  Harry couldn’t think of anything to say. All the landowners in his

  experience did indeed have more concern for their income than the

  well-being of the people who worked their land.

  She continued, “We will, of course, waive the rent monies due me for

  this year if the harvest fails. And I will make available loans to any

  farmer who might need one to see him through the winter.”

  Harry blinked, startled by a sudden lightness in his heart. Her offer

  was more than generous. She’d removed a burden from his shoulders.

  “Thank you, my lady.”

  She looked down at her gloved hands. “Don’t thank me,” she said gruffly.

  “I should have realized. And I’m sorry for being cross with you. I was

  embarrassed to know so little about my own estate. You must think me an

  idiot.”

  “No,” he replied softly, “only a lady who is city bred.”

  “Ah, Mr. Pye.” She smiled, and his chest seemed to warm. “Ever the

  diplomat.”

  They crested a rise, and Harry slowed the gig to turn into a rutted

  lane. He hoped they wouldn’t lose a wheel in the potholes. The lane led

  to a crofter’s cottage, long and low, with a thatched roo
f. Harry pulled

  the horse to a halt and jumped from the gig.

  “Who lives here?” Lady Georgina asked when he went to her side to help

  her down.

  “Sam Oldson.”

  A shaggy terrier ran out from around the building and began barking at them.

  “Sam!” Harry shouted. “You there, Sam! Are you home?”

  He wasn’t about to go nearer the cottage with that dog growling so

  seriously. It was a smallish dog, true, but the small ones were more apt

  to bite.

  “Aye?” A burly man wearing a reaper’s straw hat came from the shed.

  “Shuddup, dog!” He roared to the still-barking terrier. “Get on with you!”

  The dog tucked its tail under its rear and sat.

  “Good morning.” Lady Georgina spoke brightly from beside Harry.

  Sam Oldson snatched the hat from his head, baring a wild nest of black

  hair. “Ma’am. I didn’t see you there at first.” He ran a hand through

  his hair, making it stand up even more, and looked helplessly at the

  cottage. “My woman’s not home. Visiting her mum she is, otherwise she’d

  be out here offering you a drink and a bite to eat.”

  “That’s quite all right, Mr. Oldson. We did arrive unexpectedly, I

  know.” She smiled at the man.

  Harry cleared his throat. “This is Lady Georgina Maitland from Woldsly.”

  He thought it best not to introduce himself, though Sam was no fool.

  Already he was beginning to scowl. “We’ve come to ask you about the

  sheep you lost. The ones that were poisoned. Did you find them yourself?”

  “Aye.” Sam spat into the dust at his feet, and the terrier cringed at

  his tone. “A little over a fortnight ago, it were. I’d sent my lad to

  bring them in and he come running back quick. Said I’d better come see

  myself. There they were, three of my best ewes, rolled on their sides

  with tongues sticking out and bits of green leaves still in their mouths.”

  “Do you know what they’d eaten?” Harry asked.

  “False parsley.” Sam’s face turned purple. “Some son of a bitch had cut

  down false parsley and fed it to my sheep. And I says to my lad, I says,

  when I get my hands on the villain that’s killed my sheep, he’ll wish

  he’d never been born, he will.”

  Time to go. Harry grabbed Lady Georgina around the waist and threw her

  up onto the carriage seat. She squealed.

  “Thank you.” He walked swiftly around the front of the carriage, keeping

  an eye on Sam Oldson. The dog had begun to growl again.

  “Here now, why’re you asking questions?” Sam started toward them.

  The dog lunged and Harry bound into the carriage and caught up the

  reins. “Good day, Sam.”

  He turned the horse’s head and slapped it into a trot down the track.

  Behind them, Sam made a reply not fit for a lady’s ears. Harry winced

  and glanced at Lady Georgina, but she was looking thoughtful rather than

  outraged. Maybe she hadn’t understood the words?

  “What is false parsley?” she asked.

  “It’s a weed that grows in wet places, my lady. About the height of a

  man with little white flowers at the top. It looks something like

  parsley or wild carrots.”

  “I’ve never heard of it before.” Lady Georgina’s brows were knit.

  “You probably know it by its other name,” Harry said. “Hemlock.”

  /Chapter Five/

  “Do you know that when I first met you I didn’t like you?” Lady Georgina

  asked idly as the old gig jolted over a hole in the road.

  They were driving slowly down a track on the way to Tom Harding’s

  cottage. Harding had lost two sheep last week. Harry only hoped he

  wasn’t pushing their luck, staying on Granville land so long. He tore

  his mind away from thoughts of hemlock and dead sheep and stared at her.

  How was he supposed to answer a question like that?

  “You were so stiff, so correct.” She twirled her parasol. “And I had the

  distinct feeling you were looking down your nose at me as if you didn’t

  particularly like me, either.”

  He remembered the interview many months before in her London town house.

  She’d kept him waiting in a pretty pink sitting room for over an hour.

  Then suddenly she’d blown in, chattering at him as if they’d already

  met. Had he glowered at her? He didn’t know, but it was likely. Back

  then she’d conformed to all his expectations of an aristocratic lady.

  Funny how his estimation of her had changed since.

  “That’s probably why Violet so dislikes you,” she said now.

  “What?” He’d lost the thread of her conversation. Again.

  She waved a hand. “The sternness, the correctness that you display. I

  think that’s why Violet doesn’t care for you very much.”

  “I’m sorry, my lady.”

  “No, no, you needn’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s our father’s.” She glanced at him and must have read the

  puzzlement on his face. “Father was stern and terribly correct as well.

  You probably remind Violet of him.”

  “She said I reminded her of your father? An earl?”

  “No, of course not. I doubt she consciously has noticed the superficial

  resemblance.”

  His mouth twisted. “I’m flattered to be compared to your father, my

  lady, superficially or not.”

  “Oh, Lord, and now you’re using that terribly dry tone.”

  He shot a startled look at her.

  Her eyes widened. “I never know if I should throw myself from a cliff

  when I hear it or simply slink into some corner and try and make myself

  invisible.”

  She could never make herself invisible. At least not to him. He’d smell

  her exotic fragrance if nothing else. He straightened. “I assure you—”

  “Never mind.” She cut him off with a wave. “If anyone should apologize,

  it should be me. My father was an awful man, and I had no business

  comparing the two of you.”

  How to reply to that? “Huh.”

  “Not that we saw Father all that much, of course. Only once a week,

  sometimes less, when Nanny brought us down for inspection.”

  /Inspection?/ He’d never understand the rich.

  “It really was the most terrifying thing. I never could eat beforehand,

  or I’d be in danger of losing the meal on his boots, and wouldn’t /that/

  be a horror.” She shivered at the thought. “We’d line up, my brothers

  and I, all in a row. Scrubbed, polished, and silent, we’d wait for

  Father to give his approval. Quite, quite agonizing, I assure you.”

  He glanced at her. Despite her words, Lady Georgina’s face was bland,

  almost careless, but she wasn’t quite as good at disguising her voice.

  He wouldn’t have noticed it a week ago, but today he detected the

  strain. Her old man must’ve been a right bastard.

  She was looking down at her hands now, folded in her lap. “And, you see,

  at least we had each other, my brothers and I, when we went for

  inspection. But Violet is the youngest. She had to do it all alone after

  the rest of us grew up and left.”

  “When did the earl die?”

  “Five years ago, now. He was on a foxhunt—he was ve
ry proud of his

  kennel of foxhounds—and his horse balked at a hedge. The horse stayed

  behind, but father went over and broke his neck. He was already dead

  when they brought him home. Mother had an hysterical fit and took to bed

  for the next year. She didn’t even rise for the funeral.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. Mostly for Violet’s sake. Mother has always been delicate—her

  words. She spends a great deal of her time inventing illnesses and then

  calling for the latest ridiculous cure.” She stopped suddenly and inhaled.

  He waited, handling the reins as the horse trotted around a bend.

  Then she said softly, “I’m sorry. You must think me terrible.”

  “No, my lady. I think that your sister is lucky to have you.”

  She smiled then, that bright, open smile that made his balls tighten and

  his breath catch. “Thank you. Although I don’t know if she would agree

  with you at the moment.”