Harry was mesmerized; he couldn’t take his eyes away from her sorrow. He
wanted to yell at the young king, /Here is your magic! Look to the lady
beside you./ But, of course, he couldn’t speak. And it turned out he was
wrong: It was actually the princess, not the young king, who wanted the
tin stag. The young king was merely acting as the princess’s agent.
Well, here was an entirely different matter. If Princess Georgina
desired the stag, she should have it, even if it was a ratty old thing.
But the ugly ogre loved the tin stag; it was his most precious
possession. To prove it, he threw the stag down and stamped on it until
the stag groaned and broke into pieces. The ogre stared at it, lying
there at his feet, bleeding lead, and smiled. He looked into the
princess’s eyes and pointed. /There, take it. I’ve killed it, anyway./
Then a wondrous thing happened.
Princess Georgina knelt beside the shattered stag and wept, and as she
did, her golden tears fell upon the beast.
Where they lay, they formed a bond, soldering together the tin until the
stag was whole again, made of both tin and gold. The princess smiled and
held the strange animal to her breast, and there the stag nuzzled his
head. She lifted him up, and she and the young king turned with their
dubious prize.
But Harry could see over her shoulder that the ogre did not like this
outcome. All the love he’d borne the tin stag had now turned to hatred
of the princess who had stolen it away. He wanted to shout to the young
king, /Be careful! Watch the princess’s back! The ogre means her harm
and will not rest until he has his revenge!/ But however much he tried,
he could not speak.
You never can in dreams.
GEORGE CRADLED HARRY’S HEAD in her lap and tried not to sob at the
terrible marks on his face. His lips and eyes were swollen black. Fresh
blood was smeared from a cut across an eyebrow and another beneath an
ear. His hair was stringy and dirty, and she very much feared that part
of the dirt was actually dried blood.
“The sooner we’re out of here, the better,” Oscar muttered. He slammed
the carriage door behind him.
“Indeed.” Tony rapped sharply on the ceiling, signaling the driver.
The carriage pulled away from Granville House. George didn’t need to
look back to know that its owner stared malevolently after them. She
braced her body to cushion the bumps from Harry as he lay on the seat
beside her.
Oscar studied him. “I’ve never seen a man beaten so badly,” he
whispered. The words /and live/ hung in the air unspoken.
“Animals.” Tony looked away.
“He’ll live,” George said.
“Lord Granville didn’t think so; otherwise he’d never have let us take
him. As it was, I rather had to throw my title around.” Tony’s lips
pressed together. “You need to prepare yourself.”
“How?” George almost smiled. “How do I prepare myself for his death? I
can’t, so I won’t. I’ll believe in his recovery instead.”
“Oh, my dear,” Tony said, and sighed, but he made no further remark.
It seemed like forever before they eventually drew up in front of
Woldsly. Oscar tumbled out, and Tony followed more sedately. George
could hear them organizing footmen and finding a door to lay Harry on.
She looked down. Harry hadn’t moved an inch since he’d been laid on her
lap. His eyes were so swollen, she wasn’t sure he’d be able to open them
even if he was awake. She placed her palm against his neck and felt his
pulse, slow but strong.
The men came back and took over. They wrestled Harry out of the carriage
and onto the door they’d found. Four men carried him up the steps and
into Woldsly. Then they had to take him up more steps, sweating and
cursing despite George’s presence. Finally, they placed Harry on a bed
in a little room in between Tony’s and her own, a compromise. The room
was hardly big enough to hold a bed, chest of drawers, bedside table,
and chair. It was really meant to be a dressing room. But it was near
her own, and that was all that mattered. All the men, even her brothers,
trooped out, leaving the room suddenly quiet. Harry hadn’t so much as
twitched during the entire process.
George sat down wearily next to him on the bed. She laid her hand at his
neck again, feeling for that heartbeat
and closed her eyes.
Behind her, the door opened.
“Dear Lord, what they’ve done to that bonny man.” Tiggle stood beside
her with a basin of hot water. The lady’s maid met George’s eyes, then
squared her shoulders. “Let’s make him comfortable, anyway, shall we, my
lady?”
SIX DAYS LATER, HARRY OPENED his eyes.
George was sitting by his bed in the dim little room as she had every
day and almost every night since he’d been laid there. She didn’t let
her hopes get away from her when she saw his eyelids flicker. He’d
opened his eyes briefly before and hadn’t seemed to recognize her or
even to be fully awake.
But this time his emerald eyes settled on her and stayed. “My lady.” His
voice was a whispered croak.
/Oh, sweet Lord, thank you./ She could have sung hallelujahs. She could
have danced a reel around the room all by herself. She could have fallen
upon her knees and offered up a prayer of thanksgiving.
But she merely lifted a cup to his lips. “Are you thirsty?”
He nodded without ever taking his eyes from hers. When he had swallowed,
he whispered, “Don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry.” George replaced the cup on the bedside table. “They’re
tears of joy.”
He watched her a few minutes longer; then his eyes closed again, and he
fell asleep.
She put her hand to his neck as she had innumerable times over the last
terrible week. She’d done it so often that it had become habit. The
blood beneath his skin beat strong and steady. Harry murmured at her
touch and shifted.
George sighed and rose. She spent an hour in a luxurious, slow bath and
took a nap that somehow lasted until nightfall. When she woke, she
dressed in a yellow dimity gown with lace at the elbows and requested
that her supper be brought to Harry’s room.
He was awake when she entered his room, and she felt her heart skip.
Such a small thing, seeing his eyes alert, but it made all the
difference in her world.
Someone had helped him to sit up. “How’s Will?”
“He’s fine. Will is staying with Bennet Granville.” George went to open
the curtains.
The sun was dying, but even that little light made the room seem less
gloomy. She made a mental note to have the maids open the one window in
the morning to get rid of the stuffy sickroom odor.
She came back beside the bed. “Apparently, Will hid when they took you
and then ran all the way back to West Dikey to tell the Cock and Worm’s
landlord what had happened. Not that the landlord could do much.”
“Ah.”
George frowned at the thought of Harry in that cell being
beaten every
day with no one to help him. She shook her head. “Will was most anxious
about you.”
“He’s a good lad.”
“He told us what happened that night.” George sat down. “You saved his
life, you know.”
Harry shrugged. Obviously he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Would you like some beef tea?” She removed the cover to the tray of
food the maids had already brought.
On her side was a plate of roast beef, steaming in juice and gravy.
There were potatoes and carrots and a savory pudding. On his side of the
tray stood a single cup of beef tea.
Harry eyed the food and sighed. “Beef tea would be very nice, my lady.”
George brought the cup to his face, intending to hold it as she had
before while he drank from it, but he took the cup from her fingers.
“Thank you.”
She busied herself arranging her tray and pouring a glass of wine, but
she watched him from the corner of her eye. He drank from the cup and
rested it on his lap without spilling. His hands seemed steady. She
relaxed a bit inside. She hadn’t wanted to embarrass him by hovering,
but only a day ago he’d been quite insensible.
“Will you tell me your fairy tale, my lady?” His voice had strengthened
since this afternoon.
George smiled. “You’ve probably been on tenterhooks, wondering about the
ending.”
Harry’s bruised lips twitched, but he replied gravely, “Yes, my lady.”
“Well, let’s see.” She popped a piece of beef into her mouth and thought
as she chewed. The last time she had told him the story . . . Suddenly
she remembered that she’d been quite naked and Harry had . . . George
swallowed too suddenly and had to grab for her wine. She just /knew/ she
was blushing. She snuck a look at Harry, but he was looking resignedly
down at his beef tea.
She cleared her throat. “The Leopard Prince turned into a man. He
grasped his crown pendant and wished for a cloak of invisibility. Which
would have been quite handy since, as we discussed before, he was most
probably nude when he turned into a man.”
He raised his eyebrows at her over the rim of his cup.
She nodded primly. “He put the cloak on and set out to defeat the nasty
witch and win the Golden Swan. And while there was a small setback when
she turned him into a toad—”
Harry smiled at her. How she gloried in his smiles!
“Eventually he was able to resume his natural form and steal the Golden
Swan and bring it to the young king. Who, of course, immediately carted
it off to the beautiful princess’s father.”
She cut a piece of beef and held it out to Harry. He eyed the fork, but
instead of taking it, he merely opened his lips. His eyes met hers and
held them as George placed the food in his mouth. For some reason this
transaction made her breath quicken.
George looked down at her plate. “But the young king was out of luck
again, for the Golden Swan could talk just as well as the Golden Horse.
The father king took the Golden Swan aside and quizzed it and soon
discovered the young king wasn’t the one who’d stolen the Golden Swan
from the nasty witch. Potato?”
“Thank you.” Harry closed his eyes as his lips took a piece from her fork.
George’s mouth watered in sympathy. She cleared her throat. “So the
father king went storming out to confront the young king. And the father
king said, ‘Right. The Golden Swan is very nice, but not exactly useful.
You must bring me the Golden Eel guarded by the seven-headed dragon that
lives on the Mountains of the Moon.’”
“An eel?”
She held out a spoonful of pudding, but Harry was looking at her dubiously.
She waved it under his nose. “Yes, an eel.”
He captured her hand and guided the spoon to his lips.
“It does seem rather odd, doesn’t it?” George continued breathlessly. “I
did question Cook’s aunt about it, but she was quite certain.” She
speared another piece of beef and held it out. “I myself would have
thought, oh, a wolf or a unicorn.”
Harry swallowed. “Not a unicorn. Too close to the horse.”
“I suppose. But, anyway, something more exotic.” She wrinkled her nose
at the pudding. “Eels—even golden eels—don’t sound exotic to you, do they?”
“No.”
“Nor I.” She poked at the pudding. “Of course, Cook’s aunt is getting on
in years. She must be at least eighty.” George looked up to find him
staring at the pudding she’d just destroyed. “Oh, I’m sorry. Would you
like some more?”
“Please.”
She fed him some pudding, watching as his lips enveloped the spoon.
Goodness, he had lovely lips, even when they were bruised. “Anyway, the
young king trotted off back home, and I’m sure he was quite nasty when
he told the Leopard Prince that he had to retrieve the Golden Eel. But
the Leopard Prince had no choice, did he? He turned into a man and took
his emerald crown pendant in his hand, and guess what he asked for this
time?”
“I don’t know, my lady.”
“One-hundred-league boots.” George sat back in satisfaction. “Can you
imagine? You put them on and the wearer can cross one hundred leagues in
a single step.”
Harry’s mouth quirked. “I shouldn’t ask, my lady, but how would that
help the Leopard Prince get to the Mountains of the Moon?”
George stared. She’d never thought of that. “I haven’t any idea. They
would be wonderful on land, but would they work in the air?”
Harry nodded solemnly. “It is a problem, I fear.”
George absently fed him the rest of her beef while pondering this
question. She was offering the last bite when she realized that he’d
been watching her the entire time.
“Harry . . .” She hesitated. He was weak, barely recovered enough to sit
upright. She shouldn’t take advantage of him, but she needed to know.
“Yes?”
She asked before she could rethink the idea. “Why did your father attack
Lord Granville?”
He stiffened.
She immediately regretted asking. It was more than clear he didn’t want
to talk about that time. How mean of her.
“My mother was Granville’s whore.” His words were flat.
George stopped breathing. She’d never heard Harry mention his mother before.
“She was a beautiful woman, my mother.” He looked down at his right hand
and flexed it. “Too beautiful for a gamekeeper’s wife. She was all black
hair and blazing green eyes. When we went to town, men used to watch her
pass. Even as a lad it made me uneasy.”
“Was she a good mother?”
Harry shrugged. “She was the only mother I had. I’ve none other to
compare her with. She kept me fed and clothed. My da did most everything
else.”
George looked down at her own hands, fighting back tears, but she still
heard his words, rasping and slow.
“When I was small, she used to sing to me sometimes, late at night if I
couldn’t sleep. Sad love songs. Her voice was high, an
d not very strong,
and she wouldn’t sing if I looked at her face. But it was lovely when
she sang.” He sighed. “At least I thought so at the time.”
She nodded, barely moving, too afraid to interrupt the flow of his words.
“They moved here, my da and my mother, when they were first married. I
don’t know exactly—I’ve had to piece the story together from
conversations I’ve overheard—but I think she took up with Granville soon
after they came here.”
“Before you were born?” George asked carefully.
He looked at her with steady emerald eyes and nodded once.
George let out a slow breath. “Did your father know?”
Harry grimaced. “He must’ve. Granville took away Bennet.”
She blinked. She couldn’t have heard correctly. “Bennet Granville is . . .?”
“My brother,” Harry said quietly. “My mother’s son.”
“But how could he do such a thing? Didn’t anyone notice when he brought
a baby into his house?”
Harry made a sound that was almost a laugh. “Oh, everyone knew—quite a
few hereabouts probably still remember—but Granville has always been a
Hoyt, Elizabeth - The Leopard Prince2.txt Page 25