Hoyt, Elizabeth - The Leopard Prince2.txt
Page 15
be better employed as M’man’s companion. Her absentmindedness would
certainly do no harm there. “Well, I thank you for your insight. And now
if you will excuse me?” George stood and walked out of the breakfast
room as Euphie was still murmuring her consent.
She hurried up the stairs to Violet’s room.
“Violet, dear?” George knocked at her door.
“What is it?” Her sister’s voice sounded suspiciously stuffy.
“I wanted to talk with you, if I may?”
“Go away. I don’t want to see anyone. You never understand.” The key
turned in the lock.
Violet had locked her out.
George stared at the door. Fine, then. She was certainly not going to
engage in an argument through solid wood. She stomped down the hallway.
Euphie was in her own little world, Violet was sulking, and Harry . . .
George opened the door to her bedroom so forcefully it banged against
the wall. Harry wasn’t anywhere to be found. She’d had her gig at his
cottage at seven this morning, and he’d already left. /Coward!/ And men
thought women faint of heart. He was probably out doing male things in
the delusion that work needed being done, when in reality, he was simply
avoiding her. Ha! Well, two could play at that game. She struggled out
of her day dress and yanked on a riding costume. She turned in a
complete circle, trying to fasten the hooks in the back before she
conceded defeat and rang for Tiggle.
The maid arrived wearing the same half-mournful, half-consoling
expression she’d worn since the previous disastrous night.
George nearly lost control at the sight. “Help me do this up, please.”
She presented her back.
“You’re going riding, my lady?”
“Yes.”
“In this weather?” Tiggle looked doubtfully at the window. A wet tree
branch lashed against it.
“Yes.” George frowned at the tree branch. At least there was no lightning.
“I see.” Tiggle bent behind her to reach the hooks at her waist. “It’s a
pity about last night—that Mr. Pye turned down your invitation.”
George stiffened. Did all the servants feel sorry for her now? “He
didn’t turn me down. Well, not precisely.”
“Oh?”
George could feel the heat stealing up her face. Drat pale complexions.
“He asked me what I wanted from him.”
Tiggle, who was picking up the discarded day dress, stopped and stared
at her. “And what did you answer, my lady? If you don’t mind me asking.”
George threw up her hands. “I didn’t know what to say. I mumbled
something about never having done this before and he left.”
“Oh.” Tiggle frowned.
“What does he want me to say?” George paced to the window. “ ‘I want you
naked, Harry Pye?’ Surely it’s usually done with more finesse than that?
And why demand my intentions? I can’t imagine most /affairs de coeur/
begin on such a lawyerly note. I’m surprised he didn’t ask for them in
writing: ‘I, Lady Georgina Maitland, do request Mr. Harry Pye to make
very fine love to me.’ Really!”
There was silence behind her. George winced. Now she’d shocked Tiggle.
Could this day get any—
The maid started laughing.
George turned.
Her maid was doubled over, trying to catch her breath. “Oh, my lady!”
George’s mouth twitched. “It isn’t that funny.”
“No, of course not.” Tiggle bit her lip, plainly struggling. “It’s just,
‘I want you naked, Ha-Ha-Harry Pye.’” She went off again.
George plopped on the side of the bed. “What am I going to do?”
“I’m sorry, my lady.” Tiggle sat beside her, the dress still in her
arms. “Is that what you want from Mr. Pye? An affair?”
“Yes.” George wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. If I’d met him at a
ball, I wouldn’t have asked him for an affair.”
She would’ve danced with him, then flirted and exchanged witty banter.
He would’ve sent flowers the next morning and maybe asked her to drive
in the park. He would’ve courted her.
“But a land steward wouldn’t be invited to the balls you attend, my
lady,” Tiggle said soberly.
“Exactly.” For some reason this simple fact had George blinking back tears.
“Well, then”—Tiggle sighed and rose—“since there isn’t any other choice,
maybe you should just tell him what you’ve told me.” She smiled without
meeting George’s eyes and left the room.
George flopped back on her bed. /I wish . . ./ She sighed. If wishes
were horses, then beggars would ride.
HARRY CLOSED THE DOOR to his cottage and leaned his head against it. He
could still hear the rain beating on the wood. The grain was rotting in
the fields, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Despite
Lady Georgina’s kind offer of loans for the tenants, they would lose a
great deal of money, a great deal of /food,/ if the harvest failed. Not
only that, but more dead sheep had been found on Granville land today.
The poisoner was growing bold. In the last week, he’d struck three
times, killing more than a dozen sheep. Even the most loyal of the
Woldsly cottagers looked at him with suspicion now. And why not? To many
he was a stranger here.
He pushed away from the door and set the lantern on the table beside a
letter he’d opened this morning. Mrs. Burns had left his supper, but he
didn’t touch it. Instead, he lit the fire and put a kettle of water on
to heat.
He’d ridden out before dawn and had worked ever since, inspecting crops.
He couldn’t stand the stink of his own body anymore. He swiftly stripped
to the waist and poured the heated water into a basin. It was barely
tepid, but he used it to wash under his arms, his chest, and his back.
Finally, he poured clean water into the basin and dunked his head and
face in. The cool water ran down his face, dripping off his chin. It
seemed to wash away not only the filth of the day, but all the mental
ills as well— the frustration and anger and helplessness. Harry caught
up a cloth and toweled his face.
There was a knock at the door.
He froze, the cloth still in his hand. Had Granville’s men finally come
for him? He put out the lantern, drew his knife, and stole to the door.
Standing to one side, he flung it wide.
Lady Georgina stood outside, the rain dripping from her hood. “May I
come in?” Her gaze lowered and caught at his bare chest. Her blue eyes
widened.
Harry felt his cock harden at her reaction. “I didn’t think you waited
on my permission to enter, my lady.” He turned back to the table to put
on his shirt.
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.” She walked in and shut the door.
He uncovered his supper—bean soup—and sat to eat it.
Lady Georgina dropped her cloak untidily on a chair. He felt her glance
at him before she wandered to the fireplace. She touched each of the
animal carvings with a fingertip and then came back toward him.
He spooned up some of the soup. It was cold now but still tasty.
She trai
led her fingers across the table, stopping at the letter. She
picked it up. “You know the Earl of Swartingham?”
“We frequent the same coffeehouse in London.” He poured himself a mug of
ale. “Sometimes he writes me about agricultural matters.”
“Really.” She started reading the letter. “But he sounds like he
considers you a friend. His language is certainly casual.”
Harry choked and snatched the letter from her hand, startling her. Lord
Swartingham’s writing could be colorful at times—not fit for a lady.
“How can I help you, my lady?”
Lady Georgina drifted away from the table. Her manner seemed off, and it
took him a minute to place it.
She was nervous.
Harry narrowed his eyes. He’d never seen her flustered before.
“You wouldn’t let me finish my tale last time,” she said. “About the
Leopard Prince.” She halted by the fire and turned a curiously
vulnerable face to him.
With one cold word, he could send her flying, this woman whose station
so far outranked his. Had he ever had that much power over an
aristocrat? He doubted it. The problem was that sometime in the last
week she’d stopped being merely a member of the aristocracy and had
become . . . a woman. Lady Georgina.
/His/ lady.
“Please tell me your story, my lady.” Harry ate some more of Mrs.
Burns’s soup, chewing on a piece of mutton.
She seemed to relax and turned back to the mantel, playing with the
whittled animals as she spoke. “The Leopard Prince defeated the ogre and
brought back the Golden Horse. Did I tell you that part?” She glanced at
him.
Harry nodded.
“Yes, now . . .” She scrunched her nose in thought. “The young king, do
you remember him?”
“Mmm.”
“Well, the young king took the Golden Horse from the Leopard Prince,
probably without even a ‘thank you very much,’ and carted it off to the
princess”—she waved a hand—“or rather to her /father,/ the /other/ king.
Because the princess doesn’t have any say-so, does she?”
He shrugged. It was her fairy tale; he’d no idea.
“They very rarely do. Princesses, I mean. They get sold off to old
dragons and giants and such all the time.” Lady Georgina was frowning at
a badger. “Where’s the stag?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The stag.” She pointed at the mantel. “It’s not here. You didn’t knock
it into the fire, did you?”
“I don’t think so, but I might’ve.”
“You’ll have to find another place for them. It’s too dangerous here.”
She began lining the carved animals at the back of the mantel.
“As you wish, my lady.”
“Anyway,” Lady Georgina continued, “the young king brought the Golden
Horse to the father king and said, ‘Here you are, and how about your
beautiful daughter, then?’ But what the young king didn’t know was that
the Golden Horse could speak.”
“It’s a talking metal horse?”
She appeared not to hear him. “The minute the young king left the room,
the Golden Horse turned to the other king, the father king—are you
following me?”
“Mmm.” His mouth was full.
“Good. All these kings are very confusing.” She heaved a sigh. “And the
Golden Horse said, ‘That’s not the man who freed me. You’ve been
tricked, Your Majesty.’ And didn’t that make the father king mad.”
“Why?” Harry drank some ale. “The father king had possession of the
Golden Horse. Why would he care one way or the other who actually stole it?”
She set her hands on her hips. “Because stealing the Golden Horse is a
test. He wants only the man who can do that to marry his daughter.”
“I see.” The whole thing sounded silly. Wouldn’t a noble father be more
interested in the richer man rather than the stronger? “So, then, he
didn’t really want the Golden Horse.”
“He probably wanted the Golden Horse as well, but that’s neither here
nor there.”
“But—”
“What /is/ important”—Lady Georgina glared at him— “is that the father
king marched straight back to the young king and said, ‘See here, the
Golden Horse is all very well, but what I really want is the Golden Swan
that belongs to a very nasty witch. So if you want the princess, off you
go to get it.’ What do you think of that?”
It took a moment for Harry to realize that the last was said to him. He
swallowed. “There seem to be a lot of golden animals in this fairy tale,
my lady.”
“Ye-es,” Lady Georgina said. “That did occur to me, too. But they can’t
very well be anything else, can they? I mean, it wouldn’t do to have a
copper horse or a lead swan.” She frowned and switched a mole with a
sparrow.
He watched her thoughtfully. “Is that all, my lady?”
“What?” She didn’t look up from the little animals. “No, there’s lots
more.” But she didn’t elaborate.
He pushed the remains of his supper away. “Are you going to tell me the
rest?”
“No. Not right now, anyway.”
He got up from the table and took a step closer. He didn’t want to
frighten her. He felt as if he had his own golden swan within reach.
“Then, will you tell me why you’ve really come, my lady?” he asked. He
could smell the perfume in her hair, an exotic scent like spices from
distant lands.
She set a thrush next to a cat. The bird toppled over, and he waited
while she carefully righted it. “I need to tell you something. Besides
the fairy tale.” Her face was half turned away, and he could see the
glistening trail of a tear on her cheek.
A kind man—an /honorable/ man—would leave her alone. He would pretend he
didn’t see the tears and would turn away. He would not trespass upon her
fears and desires. But long ago Harry had lost what little honor he’d
ever had.
And he had never been kind.
He touched her hair with a fingertip, feeling the soft strands. “What do
you need to tell me?”
She turned to face him, and her eyes were bright in the firelight,
uncertain and hopeful and as alluring as Eve herself. “I know now what I
want from you.”
/Chapter Ten/
Harry stood so near, his breath caressed her face. “And what is it you
want from me, my lady?”
George’s heart beat in her throat. This was so much harder than she’d
imagined back in her room at Woldsly. She felt like she was laying her
soul before him. “I want you.”
He bent closer, and she thought she felt his tongue touch her ear. “Me?”
She gasped. This was what drove her on, despite her embarrassment,
despite her fear: desire for this man.
“Yes. I . . . I want you to kiss me like you did before. I want to see
you naked. I want to be naked for you. I want . . .”
But her thoughts scattered because this time she was sure of it—he was
tracing the rim of her ear with his tongue. And while the /idea/ of such
a caress might seem rather odd, in reality it was /divine./ She shivered.
Harry’s chuckle puffed against her wet ear. “You want many things, my lady.”
“Mmm.” George swallowed as another thought occurred to her. “And I want
you to stop calling me /my lady./”
“But you order me about so masterfully.” His teeth closed on her earlobe.
George had to press her knees together to contain her own excitement.
“E-even so—”
“Maybe I should call you George, as your sister does.” He trailed a line
of kisses up to her temple.
She frowned as she tried to concentrate on his words. It wasn’t very
easy. “Well—”
“Although I’m afraid I don’t see you in the same way as your sister.
George is such a mannish name.” His hand wandered to her breast. “And I
don’t find you mannish at all.” One thumb brushed her nipple.
She almost stopped breathing.
He circled the tip through the fabric of her dress. /Oh, dear Lord./ She