Hoyt, Elizabeth - The Leopard Prince2.txt
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was flung above his head and on the index finger was an impression where
a ring had once been. His killers must’ve stolen it along with
everything else. Around the body the mud was scuffed, the imprint of a
boot heel stamped deep beside the dead man’s hip. Other than that, there
was no sign of whoever had dumped him here like so much offal.
Lucy felt silly tears prick at her eyes. Something about the way that
he’d been left, naked and degraded by his murderers, seemed a terrible
insult to the man. It was so unbearably sad. /Ninny,/ she chided
herself. She became conscious of a muttering drawing steadily closer.
Hastily, she swiped at the moisture on her cheeks.
“First she visits the Joneses and all the little Joneses, snotty-nosed
buggers. Then we march up the hill to old woman Hardy—nasty biddy; don’t
know why she hasn’t been put to bed with a shovel yet. And is that all?
No, that’s not all by half. Then, /then/ she must needs call round the
vicarage. And me carting great jars of jelly all the while.”
Lucy suppressed an urge to roll her eyes. Hedge, her manservant, wore a
greasy tricorne smashed down over a shock of gray hair. His dusty coat
and waistcoat were equally disreputable, and he’d chosen to highlight
his bowlegs with scarlet-clocked stockings, no doubt Papa’s castoffs.
He halted beside her. “Oh, gah, not a deader!”
In his surprise, the little man had forgotten to stoop, but when Lucy
turned to him, she saw his wiry body decay before her eyes. His back
suddenly curved, the shoulder bearing the awful weight of her now empty
basket fell, and his head hung to the side listlessly. As the pi?ce de
rŽsistance, Hedge took out a checkered cloth and laboriously wiped his
forehead.
Lucy ignored all this. She’d seen the act hundreds, if not thousands, of
times in her life. “I don’t know that I would have described him as a
/deader,/ but he is indeed a corpse.”
“Well, best not stand here gawping. Let the dead rest in peace, I always
say.” Hedge made to sidle past her.
She placed herself in his path. “We can’t just leave him here.”
“Why not? He was here before you trotted past. Wouldn’t never have seen
him neither, if we’d’ve taken the shortcut through the common like I said.”
“Nevertheless, we did find him. Can you help me carry him?”
Hedge staggered back in patent disbelief. “Carry him? A great big bloke
like that? Not unless you want me crippled for sure. My back’s bad as it
is, has been for twenty years. I don’t complain, but still.”
“Very well,” Lucy conceded. “We’ll have to get a cart.”
“Why don’t we just leave him be?” the little man protested. “Someone’ll
find him in a bit.”
“Mr. Hedge . . .”
“He’s stabbed through the shoulder and all over bloody. It’s not nice,
that.” Hedge screwed up his face until it resembled a rotten pumpkin.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to be stabbed, through the shoulder or not, so
I don’t think we can hold that against him,” Lucy chided.
“But he’s begun to go off!” Hedge waved the handkerchief in front of his
nose.
Lucy didn’t mention that there hadn’t been any smell until he’d arrived.
“I’ll wait while you go fetch Bob Smith and his cart.”
The manservant’s bushy gray eyebrows drew together in imminent opposition.
“Unless you would prefer to stay here with the body?”
Hedge’s brow cleared. “No, mum. You knows best, I’m sure. I’ll just trot
on over to the smithy—”
The corpse groaned.
Lucy looked down in surprise.
Beside her, Hedge jumped back and stated the obvious for both of them.
“Jaysus Almighty Christ! That man ain’t dead!”
/Dear Lord./ And she’d been standing here all this while, bickering with
Hedge. Lucy swept off her wrap and threw it across the man’s back. “Hand
me your coat.”
“But—”
“Now!” Lucy didn’t bother giving Hedge a look.
She rarely used a sharp tone of voice, making it all the more effective
when she did employ it.
“Awww,” the manservant moaned, but he tossed the coat to her.
“Go fetch Doctor Fremont. Tell him it’s urgent and that he must come at
once.” Lucy gazed sternly into her manservant’s beady eyes. “And Mr. Hedge?”
“Yes’m?”
“Please run.”
Hedge dropped the basket and took off, moving surprisingly fast, his bad
back forgotten.
Lucy bent and tucked Hedge’s coat around the man’s buttocks and legs.
She held her hand under his nose and waited, barely breathing, until she
felt the faint brush of air. He was indeed alive. She sat back on her
heels and contemplated the situation. The man lay in the ditch on
half-frozen mud and in the weeds, which were cold and hard. That
couldn’t be good for him, considering his wounds. But as Hedge had
noted, he was a big man and she wasn’t sure she could move him by
herself. She peeled back a corner of the wrap covering his back. The
slit in his shoulder was crusted with dried gore, the bleeding already
stopped to her admittedly inexperienced eyes. Bruises bloomed across his
back and side. Lord only knew what the front of him looked like.
And then there was the head wound.
She shook her head. He lay so still and white. No wonder she’d mistaken
him for dead. But all the same, Hedge could’ve already been on his way
to Doctor Fremont in the time they’d taken to argue over the poor man.
Lucy checked again that he was breathing, her palm hovering above his
lips. His breath was light, but even. She smoothed the back of her hand
over his cold cheek. Almost invisible stubble caught at her fingers. Who
was he? Maiden Hill was not so big that a stranger could pass through it
without notice. Yet she had heard no gossip about visitors on her rounds
this afternoon. Somehow he’d appeared here in the lane without anyone
noticing. And the man had obviously been beaten and robbed. Why? Was he
merely a victim or had he somehow brought this fate upon himself?
Lucy hugged herself on the last thought and prayed Hedge would hurry.
The light was fading fast and was taking with it what little warmth the
day had held. A wounded man lying exposed to the elements for Lord knows
how long . . . She bit her lip.
If Hedge didn’t return soon, there would be no need of a doctor.
THE ANGEL WAS SITTING by his bed when Simon Iddesleigh, sixth Viscount
Iddesleigh, opened his eyes.
He would’ve thought it a terrible dream—one of an endless succession
that haunted him nightly—or worse, that he’d not survived the beating
and had made that final infinite plunge out of this world and into the
flaming next. But he was almost certain hell did not smell of lavender
and starch, did not feel like worn linen and down pillows, did not sound
with the chirping of sparrows and the rustle of gauze curtains.
And, of course, there were no angels in hell.
Simon watched her. His angel was all in gray, as befit a religious. She
wrote in a great book, eyes intent, level black brows knit. Her dark
hair was pulled straight back from a high forehead and gathered in a
knot at the nape of her neck. Her lips pursed slightly as her hand moved
across the page. Probably noting his sins. The scratch of the pen on the
page was what had woken him.
When men spoke of angels, especially those of the female sex, usually
they were employing a flowery fillip of speech. They thought of
fair-haired creatures with pink cheeks—both kinds—and red, wet lips.
Insipid Italian putti with vacant blue eyes and billowy, soft flesh.
That was not the type of angel Simon contemplated. No, his angel was the
biblical kind—Old Testament, not New. The not-quite-human,
stern-andjudgmental kind. The type that was more apt to hurl men into
eternal damnation with a flick of a dispassionate finger than to float
on feathery pigeon wings. She wasn’t likely to overlook a few flaws here
and there in a fellow’s character. Simon sighed.
He had more than just a few flaws.
The angel must have heard his sigh. She turned her unearthly topaz eyes
on him. “Are you awake?”
He felt her gaze as palpably as if she’d laid a hand on his shoulder,
and frankly the feeling bothered him.
Not that he let his unease show. “That depends on one’s definition of
/awake,/” he croaked. “I am not sleeping, but yet I have been more
alert. I don’t suppose you have such a thing as coffee to hasten the
awakening process?” He shifted to sit up, finding it more difficult than
it should have been. The coverlet slipped to his abdomen.
The angel’s gaze followed the coverlet down and frowned at his bare
torso. Already he was in her bad graces.
“I’m afraid we don’t have any coffee,” she murmured to his navel, “but
there is tea.”
“Naturally. There always is,” Simon said. “Could I trouble you to help
me sit up? One finds oneself at a distressing disadvantage flat on one’s
back, not to mention the position makes it very hard to drink tea
without it spilling into the ears.”
She looked at him doubtfully. “Perhaps I should get Hedge or my father.”
“I promise not to bite, truly.” Simon placed a hand over his heart. “And
I hardly ever spit.”
Her lips twitched.
Simon stilled. “You’re not really an angel after all, are you?”
One ebony brow arched ever so slightly. Such a disdainful look for a
country miss; her expression would’ve fit a duchess. “My name is Lucinda
Craddock-Hayes. What is yours?”
“Simon Matthew Raphael Iddesleigh, viscount of, I’m afraid.” He sketched
a bow that came off rather well in his opinion, considering he was
prostrate.
The lady was unimpressed. “You’re the Viscount Iddesleigh?”
“Sadly.”
“You’re not from around here.”
“Here would be . . .?”
“The town of Maiden Hill in Kent.”
“Ah.” Kent? Why Kent? Simon craned his neck to try and see out the
window, but the gauzy white curtain obscured it.
She followed his gaze. “You’re in my brother’s bedroom.”
“Kind of him,” Simon muttered. “No, I can’t say I’ve ever been to the
lovely town of Maiden Hill, although I’m sure it’s quite scenic and the
church a famous touring highlight.”
Her full, red lips twitched again bewitchingly. “How did you know?”
“They always are in the nicest towns.” He looked down—ostensibly to
adjust the coverlet, in reality to avoid the strange temptation of those
lips. /Coward./ “I spend most of my wasted time in London. My own
neglected estate lies in Northumberland. Ever been there?”
She shook her head. Her lovely topaz eyes watched him with a
disconcertingly level stare—almost like a man. Except Simon had never
felt stirred by a man’s glance.
He tsked. “Very rural. Hence the appellative /neglected./ One wonders
what one’s ancestors were thinking, precisely, when they built the old
pile of masonry so far out of the way of anything. Nothing but mist and
sheep nearby. Still, been in the family for ages, might as well keep it.”
“How good of you,” the lady murmured. “But it does make me wonder,” she
continued, “why we found you only a half mile from here if you’ve never
been in the area before?”
Quick, wasn’t she? And not at all sidetracked by his blather.
Intelligent women were such a bother.
“Haven’t the foggiest.” Simon opened his eyes wide. “Perhaps I had the
good fortune to be attacked by industrious thieves. Not content to leave
me lie where I fell, they spirited me off here so I might see more of
the world.”
“Humph. I doubt they meant for you to see anything ever again,” she said
quietly.
“Mmm. And wouldn’t that’ve been a shame?” he asked, feigning innocence.
“For then I wouldn’t have met you.” The lady raised a brow and opened
her mouth again, no doubt to practice her inquisition skills on him, but
Simon beat her to it. “You did say there was tea about? I know I spoke
of it disparagingly before, but really, I wouldn’t mind a drop or two.”
His angel actually flushed—a pale rose wash coloring her white cheeks.
Ah, a weakness. “I’m sorry. Here, let me help you sit up.”
She placed cool little hands on his arms—an unsettlingly erotic
touch—and between them they managed to get him upright; although, by the
time they did so Simon was panting. His shoulder felt as if little
devils—or maybe saints, in his case—were poking red-hot irons into it.
He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again there was
a cup of tea under his nose. He reached for it, then stopped and stared
at his own bare right hand. His signet ring was missing. They’d stolen
his ring.
She mistook the reason for his hesitation. “The tea is fresh, I assure you.”
“Most kind.” His voice was embarrassingly weak. His hand shook as he
grasped the cup, the familiar clink of his ring against the porcelain
absent. He hadn’t taken it off since Ethan’s death. /“Damn.”/
“Don’t worry. I’ll hold it for you.” Her tone was soft, low and
intimate, though she probably didn’t know it. He could rest on that
voice, float away on it and let his cares cease.
Dangerous woman.
Simon swallowed the lukewarm tea. “Would you mind terribly writing me a
letter?”
“Of course not.” She set the cup down and withdrew safely to her chair.
“To whom would you like to write?”
“My valet, I think. Bound to be teased if I alert any of my acquaintances.”
“And we certainly wouldn’t want that.” There was laughter in her voice.
He looked at her sharply, but her eyes were wide and innocent. “I’m glad
you understand the problem,” he said dryly. Actually, he was more
worried that his enemies would learn that he was still alive. “My valet
can bring down miscellaneous things like clean clothes, a horse, and money.”
She laid aside her still-open book. “His name?”
&nb
sp; Simon tilted his head, but he couldn’t see the book’s open page from
this angle. “Henry. At 207 Cross Road, London. What were you writing
before?”
“I beg your pardon?” She didn’t look up.
Irritating. “In your book. What were you writing?”
She hesitated, the pencil immobile on the letter, her head still bent
downward.
Simon kept his expression light; though, he grew infinitely more interested.
There was a silence as she finished scratching out the letter; then she
laid it aside and looked up at him. “I was sketching, actually.” She
reached for the open book and placed it on his lap.
Drawings or cartoons covered the left page, some big, some small. A
little bent man carrying a basket. A leafless tree. A gate with one
broken hinge. On the right was a single sketch of a man asleep. Him. And
not looking his best, what with the bandage and all. It was an odd
feeling, knowing she had watched him sleep.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said.
“Not at all. Glad to be of some use.” Simon turned back a page. Here,
some of the drawings had been embellished by a watercolor overwash.