Hoyt, Elizabeth - The Leopard Prince2.txt

by The Leopard Prince

“Gracious, my lady, you’re that pale. What you need is a nice cup of hot

  tea.” She bustled to the door.

  George lay back down, closing her eyes. Maybe if she was very still for

  a bit . . .

  Tiggle returned, her heels tapping across the wood floor. “I thought

  that pale green gown would look very good when Mr. Pye comes to call—”

  “I’ll wear the brown print.”

  “But my lady.” Tiggle sounded scandalized. “It’s simply not the thing to

  see a gentleman in. At least not a special gentleman. Why, after last

  night—”

  George swallowed and tried to summon the strength to battle her lady’s

  maid. “I won’t be seeing Mr. Pye again. We’ll be leaving for London today.”

  Tiggle drew in a sharp breath.

  George’s stomach gurgled. She braced herself.

  “My lady,” Tiggle said, “just about every servant in this house knows

  who came to call last night in your private rooms. And then the brave

  thing he did at Granville House! The younger maids have been sighing

  over Mr. Pye all morning, and the only reason the older maids aren’t

  sighing as well is the look in Mr. Greaves’s eyes. You cannot leave Mr.

  Pye.”

  /The whole world was against her./ George felt a wave of self-pity and

  nausea well up in her. “I’m not leaving him. We’ve simply come to an

  agreement that we’re better off apart.”

  “Nonsense. I’m sorry, my lady. I don’t usually speak my mind,” Tiggle

  said with apparent sincerity, “but that man loves you. He’s a good man,

  Harry Pye is. He’ll make a good husband. And you’re carrying his babe.”

  “I’m well aware of that.” George belched ominously. “Mr. Pye may love

  me, but he doesn’t want to. Please, Tiggle. I can’t remain, hoping and

  clinging to him.” She opened her eyes wide in desperation. “Can’t you

  see? He’ll marry me out of honor or pity and he’ll spend the rest of his

  life hating me. I must go.”

  “Oh, my lady—”

  /“Please.”/

  “Very well,” Tiggle said. “I think you’re making a mistake, but I’ll

  pack to leave if that’s what you want.”

  “Yes, it’s what I want,” George said.

  And promptly threw up into the chamber pot.

  THE SUN HAD LIT THE morning sky for more than an hour by the time Harry

  and Bennet rode up to the small, dilapidated cottage. They’d spent most

  of the night waiting at the Cock and Worm, even though Harry had

  suspected it was useless within the first half hour.

  They’d first made sure of Will’s safety by taking the sleepy boy to

  Mistress Humboldt’s cottage. Despite the unholy hour, that lady had been

  glad to have the boy and they’d left him contentedly stuffing his face

  with muffins. Then they’d ridden to the Cock and Worm.

  Dick Crumb and his sister both lived above the tavern in low-ceilinged

  rooms that were surprisingly tidy. Searching the rooms, his head grazing

  the lintels, Harry had thought that Dick must have to continuously stoop

  in his own house. Of course, neither Dick nor Janie had been there; in

  fact, the tavern had never opened that night, much to the disgust of

  several yokels hanging about the door. Dick and Janie had so few

  possessions, it was hard to tell if anything had been removed from the

  rooms. But Harry didn’t think they’d taken anything. That was odd.

  Surely if Dick had decided to run with his sister, he would have taken

  at least Janie’s things? But her few clothes—an extra dress, some

  chemises, and a pathetic pair of stockings riddled with holes—still hung

  from the pegs in her room beneath the eaves. There was even a small

  leather pouch with several silver coins hidden under Dick’s thin mattress.

  So, thinking the tavern keeper would come back for the money if nothing

  else, Harry and Bennet had lurked in the dark tavern. They had coughed

  and spit up black phlegm once or twice, but they hadn’t talked. Thomas’s

  death had stunned Bennet. He stared into space, his eyes far, far away.

  And Harry had considered his future life with a wife and a child and a

  whole new way of living.

  As the dawn gave light to the dim room and it became evident that Dick

  wasn’t going to show up, Harry remembered the cottage. The Crumb

  cottage, the hovel where Dick and his sister had been raised, had long

  ago fallen into ruin. But maybe Dick might use it as temporary shelter?

  Far more likely he was in the next county by now, but they might as well

  check it.

  Now as they neared, the cottage looked deserted. The thatched roof had

  mostly fallen in, and one wall was crumbled, leaving the chimney

  pointing nakedly to the sky. They dismounted and Harry’s boots sank into

  mud, no doubt the reason for the cottage having been abandoned. The

  river behind the tiny house spread over her banks here, making a marshy

  area. Every spring the cottage probably flooded. It was an unhealthy

  place to live. Harry couldn’t think why anyone would build here.

  “Don’t know if we should even try the door,” he said.

  They looked at the door, tilting inward under a leaning lintel.

  “Let’s check around back,” Bennet said.

  Harry walked as quietly as he could in the mud, but his boots made a

  squishing sound as the muck sucked at them with each step. If Dick was

  here, he was already warned.

  He was in the lead when he rounded the corner and stopped short. Plants

  as tall as a man grew in the boggy ground behind the cottage. They had

  delicate, branching fronds, and some still bore flat seed heads.

  Water hemlock.

  “Jesus,” Bennet breathed. He’d come around Harry, but it wasn’t the

  plants he looked at.

  Harry followed the direction of his gaze and saw that the entire back

  wall of the cottage was gone. From one of the remaining rafters a rope

  was tied and a pathetic bundle dangled at its end.

  Janie Crumb had hung herself.

  /Chapter Nineteen/

  “She didn’t know what she was doing.” Dick Crumb sat with his back

  against the decayed stone of the cottage. He still wore his stained

  tavern apron, and one hand clutched a crumpled handkerchief.

  Harry looked at Janie’s body, swaying only feet away from where her

  brother sat. Her neck was grotesquely elongated, and her blackened

  tongue protruded from swollen lips.

  Nothing could be done for Janie Crumb now.

  “She was never right, poor lass, not after what he did to her,” Dick

  continued.

  How long had he been sitting there?

  “She used to slip away at night. Wander the fields. Maybe do other

  things I didn’t want to know about.” Dick shook his head. “It took me a

  while to realize she might be up to something else. And then Mistress

  Pollard died.” Dick looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, his eyelids

  reddened. “She came in after they took you, Harry. She was wild, her

  hair all flying away. Said she hadn’t done it. Hadn’t killed Mistress

  Pollard like she killed the sheep. Was calling Lord Granville the devil

  and cursing him.”

  The big man knit his
brows like a puzzled little boy. “She said Lord

  Granville killed old woman Pollard. Janie was crazy. Just plum crazy.”

  “I know,” Harry said.

  Dick Crumb nodded, as if relieved by his agreement. “I didn’t know what

  to do. She was my little sister, crazy or no.” He wiped the dome of his

  head with a shaking hand. “The only family I had left. My baby sister. I

  loved her, Harry!”

  The body on the rope seemed to twist in horrible reply.

  “So I did nothing. And last night, when I heard that she’d fired the

  Granville stables, I came a running down here. The old place had always

  been her hidey-hole. Don’t know what I would’ve done. Only I found her

  like this.” He threw his hands out to the corpse as if in prayer. “Like

  this. I’m so sorry.” The big man began to cry, great heaving sobs that

  shook his shoulders.

  Harry looked away. What could one do in the face of such overwhelming grief?

  “You have no reason to apologize, Mr. Crumb,” Bennet spoke from beside

  Harry.

  Dick raised his head. Snot shone beneath his nose.

  “The blame lies with my father, not you.” Bennet nodded curtly and

  walked back around the cottage.

  Harry took out his knife. Dragging a chair over beneath the corpse, he

  climbed up and cut the rope. Janie slumped, suddenly freed from her

  self-imposed punishment. He caught the body and gently lowered her to

  the ground. As he did so, he felt something small and hard fall out of

  Janie’s pocket. He bent to look and saw one of his own carvings: a duck.

  Quickly, he palmed the little bird. Had Janie been placing his carvings

  at the poisonings all along? Why? Had she meant to set him against

  Granville? Perhaps she’d seen Harry as her instrument of revenge. Harry

  darted a glance at Dick, but the older man was simply staring into the

  face of his dead sister. It would only grieve Dick further to tell him

  Janie had meant for Harry to take the blame for her crimes. Harry

  pocketed the duck.

  “Ta, Harry,” Dick said. He took off his apron and covered his sister’s

  distorted face.

  “I’m sorry.” Harry laid his hand on the other man’s shoulder.

  Dick nodded, grief overtaking him again.

  Harry turned to join Bennet. The last sight he had of Dick Crumb was the

  big man bending, a mountain of sorrow, over the slight form of his

  sister’s body.

  Behind them, the water hemlocks danced gracefully.

  “THERE CERTAINLY HAS BEEN a lot of traveling of late,” Euphie murmured,

  smiling benignly around the carriage. “Back and forth between Yorkshire

  and London. Why, it seems that everyone barely draws breath before they

  rush off again. I don’t believe I remember so much coming and going

  since, well, since ever.”

  Violet sighed, shook her head slightly, and gazed out the window.

  Tiggle, sitting with Violet, looked puzzled. And George, scrunched next

  to Euphie on the same seat, closed her eyes and gripped the tin basin

  she’d brought along just in case. /I will not cast up. I will not cast

  up. I will not cast up./

  The carriage lurched around the corner, jostling her against the

  rain-streaked window. She decided abruptly that her stomach was better

  with her eyes open.

  “This is ridiculous,” Violet huffed, and folded her arms. “If you’re

  going to marry, anyway, I simply do not see what is wrong with Mr. Pye.

  He likes you, after all. I’m sure we can help him if he has trouble with

  his /H/s.”

  His /H/s? “You were the one who thought he was a sheep murderer.” She

  was getting tired of the almost universal disapproval aimed at her head.

  One would think Harry a veritable saint from the shocked reaction of her

  servants at her decampment. Even Greaves had stood on the Woldsly steps,

  the rain trickling off his long nose, staring mournfully at her as she

  climbed into the carriage.

  “That was before,” Violet said with unarguable logic. “I haven’t thought

  him the poisoner for at least three weeks.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “My lady,” Euphie exclaimed. “We should, as gentlewomen, never take the

  good Lord’s name in vain. I am sure it was a mistake on your part.”

  Violet stared at Euphie in exaggerated astonishment while beside her

  Tiggle rolled her eyes. George sighed and rested her head on the cushions.

  “And besides, Mr. Pye is quite handsome.” Violet wasn’t going to let go

  of this argument. Ever. “For a land steward. You aren’t likely to find a

  nicer one.”

  “Land steward or husband?” George asked nastily.

  “Are you contemplating marriage, my lady?” Euphie inquired. Her eyes

  opened wide, like an interested pigeon.

  “No!” George said.

  Which was almost drowned out by Violet’s “Yes!”

  Euphie blinked rapidly. “Marriage is a hallowed state, becoming to even

  the most respectable of ladies. Of course, I myself have never

  experienced that heavenly communion with a gentleman, but that is not to

  say that I do not wholeheartedly endorse its rites.”

  “You’re going to have to marry /someone,/” Violet said. She gestured

  crassly toward George’s abdomen. “Unless you intend to take a protracted

  tour of the continent.”

  “Broadening the mind by travel—” Euphie started.

  “I have no intention of touring the continent.” George cut Euphie off

  before she could gather wind and babble about traveling until they

  reached London. “Perhaps I could marry Cecil Barclay.”

  “Cecil!” Violet gaped at her sister as if she’d announced her intention

  of wedding a codfish. One would think Violet would be a little more

  sympathetic, considering her own near predicament. “Have you gone raving

  mad? You’ll trample Cecil as if he were a fluffy bunny rabbit.”

  “What do you mean?” George swallowed and pressed her hand to her belly.

  “You make me sound like a harpy.”

  “Well, now that you mention it . . .”

  George narrowed her eyes.

  “Mr. Pye is quiet, but at least he never backed down from you.” Violet’s

  eyes widened. “Have you considered what he’ll do when he finds out

  you’ve run away from him? It’s the silent ones who have the worst

  tempers, you know.”

  “I don’t know where you get these melodramatic ideas. And besides, I

  haven’t run away.” George ignored her sister, pointedly glancing around

  the carriage, which was presently bumping out of Yorkshire. “And I don’t

  think he will do anything.” Her stomach rolled at the thought of Harry

  finding her gone.

  Violet looked doubtful. “Mr. Pye didn’t strike me as the kind of man to

  just sit back and let his woman find another man to marry.”

  “I am not Mr. Pye’s woman.”

  “I’m not sure what else you would call it—”

  “Violet!” George clutched the tin basin under her chin. /I will not cast

  up. I will not cast up. I will no—/

  “Are you feeling quite the thing, my lady?” Euphie piped. “Why, you look

  almost green. Do you know, your mother bore that exact same face when

&nb
sp; she was”—the companion leaned forward and hissed as if a gentleman might

  somehow hear her inside the moving carriage—“/increas-ing/ with Lady

  Violet.” Euphie sat back and blushed a bright pink. “But of course that

  can’t be your problem.”

  Violet stared at Euphie as if mesmerized.

  Tiggle buried her face in her hands.

  And George groaned. She was going to die before she made it to London.

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE’S GONE?” Harry tried to keep his voice even. He

  stood in the front hall of Woldsly. He’d come here to see his lady, only

  to have the butler tell him that she’d left over an hour ago.

  Greaves backed up a step. “Exactly that, Mr. Pye.” The butler cleared

  his throat. “Lady Georgina accompanied by Lady Violet and Miss Hope left

  quite early this morning for London.”

  “The hell you say.” Had she received urgent news about a relative, maybe

  one of her brothers?

  “Mr. Pye.” The butler drew himself up in offense.

  “I’ve had a very hard night, Mr. Greaves.” And a harder morning. Harry

  passed a hand over his aching forehead. “Was a letter brought to my

  lady? Or a rider? Did a rider come bearing some kind of news?”