The Leopard Prince

  Aunt Beatrice was the youngest of the Littleton sisters. Aunt Clara, who’d left George her fortune, had been the eldest, and George’s own mother, Sarah, the middle sister. The Littleton sisters had been considered beauties in their day, cutting a devastating swath through London society. All three sisters had married unhappily. Aunt Clara had wed an insanely religious man who had died young, leaving her childless but wealthy. Aunt Beatrice had married a much older man who had kept his wife constantly pregnant while he lived. Tragically, all her babies had died in miscarriages or stillbirth.

  As for Sarah, her own mother… George took a sip of her tea. Who knew what exactly was wrong with her parents’ marriage? Maybe only that her mother and father had not cared for each other. In any case, Lady Maitland was bedridden with imagined ills and had been for years.

  “Even the most sophisticated man becomes like a little boy unable to share his toys,” Lady Beatrice continued now. “No more than three is my motto, and really with three one has to do a fine balancing act.”

  George choked.

  “Whatever is the matter with you, Georgina?” Lady Beatrice looked at her with annoyance.

  “Nothing,” George gasped. “A bit of crumb.”

  “Really, I do worry about the English as a race with—”

  “What luck to find not one, but two examples of womanly pulchritude.” George’s sitting room door was flung open to reveal Oscar and a fair young man who bowed to the ladies.

  Lady Beatrice frowned and lifted her cheek for Oscar’s buss. “We are busy, dear. Go away. Not you, Cecil.” The other man had started to back out the door. “You may stay. You are the only man I know with any sense, and that should be encouraged.”

  Cecil Barclay smiled and bowed again. “Your ladyship is kind indeed.”

  He quirked an eyebrow at George, who patted the settee cushion next to her. She’d known Cecil and his younger brother, Freddy, since they’d all been in leading strings.

  “But if Cecil stays, then I beg leave to do so also.” Oscar sat down and helped himself to a slice of cake.

  George glared at her brother.

  Oscar mouthed What? at her.

  She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Will you take tea, Cecil?”

  “Yes, please,” Cecil said. “Oscar dragged me all over Tattersall’s this morning to look at horses. He wants a matched set for his new carriage and claims none in London will do.”

  “Gentlemen spend entirely too much money on horseflesh,” Lady Beatrice pronounced.

  “What other type of flesh would you have us spend our blunt upon?” Oscar opened his wicked brown eyes wide.

  Lady Beatrice tapped him overhard on the knee with her fan.

  “Ow!” Oscar rubbed the spot. “I say, is this a prune filling in the cake?”

  George repressed another sigh and looked out her town house windows. It wasn’t raining here in London, but there was a kind of gray mist that covered everything and left behind a sticky grime. She’d made a mistake. She knew that now after more than a week away from Harry and Yorkshire. She should’ve stuck it out and made him talk. Or talked herself until he broke down and told her… what? His fears? Her faults? Why he didn’t care for her? If it was the last, at least she would know. She wouldn’t be stuck here in this limbo, not able to return to her old life and yet unable to go on with what might be a new one.

  “Can you come, George?” Cecil was speaking to her.

  “What?” She blinked. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I didn’t catch that last bit.”

  Her aunt and the gentlemen exchanged a look that said they had to make allowances for her mental state.

  George grit her teeth.

  “Cecil said he was going to the theater tomorrow night and wanted to know if he could escort you,” Oscar explained.

  “Actually, I—” George was saved from making an excuse by the entrance of her butler. She knit her brows. “Yes, Holmes?”

  “I beg your pardon, my lady, but a messenger has just arrived from Lady Violet.” Holmes proffered a silver plate on which lay a rather muddy letter.

  George took it. “Thank you.”

  The butler bowed and exited.

  Had Wentworth pursued Violet north? They’d thought it best to leave Violet at Woldsly in the assumption that she was safest there away from society, but perhaps they’d been wrong.

  “If you don’t mind?” George didn’t wait for her guests’ permission but used a butter knife to break the seal on the letter. Violet’s handwriting sprawled frantically across the page, obliterated here and there by inkblots.

  My Dear Sister… Harry Pye beaten and arrested… in Granville’s custody… denied access… please come at once.

  Beaten.

  George’s hand shook. Oh, dear Lord, Harry. A sob caught in her throat. She tried to remember Violet’s fondness for melodrama. Perhaps she’d overstated or otherwise exaggerated. But, no, Violet didn’t lie. If Lord Granville had Harry in his hands, he might already be dead.

  “Georgie.” She looked up to find Oscar kneeling directly in front of her. “What is it?”

  Mutely, she turned the letter so he could read it.

  He frowned. “But there was no concrete evidence of his culpability, was there?”

  George shook her head and drew a ragged breath. “Lord Granville has a grudge against Harry. He doesn’t need evidence.” She closed her eyes. “I should have never left Yorkshire.”

  “There’s no way you could have foreseen this.”

  She rose and started for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Oscar caught her elbow.

  George shook him off. “Where do you think? To him.”

  “Wait, I—”

  She turned on her brother savagely. “I cannot wait. He may already be dead.”

  Oscar held up his hands as if surrendering. “I know, I know, Georgie. I meant I’ll go with you. See what I can do.” He turned to Cecil. “Can you ride and tell Tony what’s happened?”

  Cecil nodded.

  “Here.” Oscar pried the letter from George’s hand. “Give him this. He’ll need to come when he can.”

  “Of course, old chap.” Cecil looked curious but took the letter.

  “Thank you.” Tears began to run down George’s face.

  “It’s all right.” Cecil started to say more, then shook his head and left.

  “Well, I can’t say that I approve of all this, whatever it is.” Lady Beatrice had been quiet through the scene, but she rose now. “I do not like being kept in the dark. Not at all. But I will wait just this once to find out what you are all rushing about for.”

  “Of course, Aunt.” George was already half out the door, not really listening.

  “Georgina.” Lady Beatrice laid a palm on her niece’s tear-stained face, halting her. “Remember, dear, we cannot stay the hand of God, but we can be strong.” She looked suddenly old. “Sometimes it is the only thing we can do.”

  “OLD MISTRESS POLLARD WAS MURDERED, plain and simple.” Silas sat back in his leather armchair and looked at his younger son with satisfaction.

  Bennet paced the library like a young lion. In contrast, his brother cowered in a too-small corner chair, his knees drawn nearly to his chin. Why Thomas was in the library at all, Silas couldn’t fathom, but he didn’t really care either way. All his attention was on his younger son.

  In the week since his men had brought in Harry Pye, Bennet had railed and raged against his father. But however much he tried, he couldn’t get away from that one fact: A woman had been murdered. An old woman, true, and a poor one at that. One that nobody had much cared about when alive. Nevertheless, she was human and so, no matter how decrepit, several steps up from a dead sheep.

  At least in the popular estimation.

  In fact, Silas had begun to wonder if he’d made a mistake in his haste to catch Pye. Local sentiment was running very high. No one liked a murderer on the loose. Had he simply left Pye to his own devices, someone might have take
n matters into their own hands and lynched the bastard. He might already be dead by now. But in the long run it made very little difference. Dead now or dead in a week, either way, Pye would soon be very, very dead. And then his son would no longer be arguing with him.

  “She may have been murdered, but it wasn’t Harry Pye who did it.” Bennet stood in front of his father’s desk, arms crossed, eyes blazing.

  Silas felt impatience rise in him. Everyone else believed the land steward guilty. Why couldn’t his own son?

  He sat forward and tapped on his desktop with a forefinger as if he could drill through the mahogany. “Hemlock killed her, same as the sheep. His carving was found by her corpse. The second carving, remember, discovered with these crimes.” Silas thrust his hands forward, palms upward. “What more do you want?”

  “I know you hate Harry Pye, Father, but why would he leave his own carvings by the bodies? Why incriminate himself?”

  “Mayhap the man is mad,” Thomas said quietly from the corner. Silas frowned at him, but Thomas was too intent on his brother to notice. “Pye’s mother was a slut, after all; perhaps he inherited her bad blood.”

  Bennet looked pained. “Tom—”

  “Don’t call me that!” Thomas said shrilly. “I’m your elder. I’m the heir. Give me the respect I deserve. You’re only a—”

  “Shut up!” Silas roared.

  Thomas shrank at the bellow. “But, Father—”

  “No more!” Silas glared until his elder son flushed blotchily; then he sat back in the chair and turned his attention back to Bennet. “What would you have me do?”

  Bennet shot an apologetic glance at Thomas, which the other ignored, before answering. “I don’t know.”

  Ah, the first outward show of uncertainty. It was like balm to his soul. “I am the magistrate for this county. I must uphold the law as I see fit.”

  “At least let me see him.”

  “No.” Silas shook his head. “He’s a dangerous criminal. It would not be responsible of me to let you near him.”

  Not until his men got a confession. The way Pye took a beating—absorbing blow after blow until he could no longer stand, until he staggered and fell, but still refused to talk—it might be several more days before he was broken. But break he would. And then Silas would hang him by the neck until dead, and no one, not the king nor God, would be able to gainsay him.

  Aye, he could wait.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake.” Bennet was pacing agitatedly now. “I’ve known him since we were lads. He’s my—” He broke off and dismissed the sentence with a wave. “Just let me talk to him. Please.”

  It had been a long, long while since the boy had begged. He should know by now that begging only gave the opponent ammunition.

  “No.” Silas shook his head regretfully.

  “He is still alive?”

  Silas smiled. “Yes. Alive, but not particularly well.”

  Bennet’s face paled. He stared at his father as if he would hit him, and Silas actually braced himself for a blow.

  “Goddamn you,” Bennet whispered.

  “He might indeed.”

  Bennet swung to the study door and pulled it open. A small, scrawny boy tumbled in.

  “What’s this?” Silas frowned.

  “He’s with me. Come on, Will.”

  “You ought to teach your servants not to listen at doors,” Silas drawled after his son.

  For some reason his words caused Bennet to stop and swing around. His son looked between Silas and the boy. “You really don’t know who he is, do you?”

  “Should I?” Silas studied the lad. Something about his brown eyes did look familiar. He waved away the question. It didn’t matter. “The boy is nobody.”

  “Jesus, I don’t believe you.” Bennet stared at him. “We’re all just pawns to you, aren’t we?”

  Silas shook his head. “You know I’m not fond of puzzles.”

  But Bennet had taken the boy’s shoulder and was guiding him from the room. The door shut behind them.

  “He’s ungrateful,” Thomas whispered from the corner. “After all you did for him, after all I suffered, he’s ungrateful.”

  “What’s your point, boy?” Silas growled.

  Thomas blinked, then he stood, looking oddly dignified. “I’ve always loved you, Father, always. I would do anything for you.” Then he, too, left the room.

  Silas stared after his son for a moment, then shook his head again. He swiveled to a small door set in the wood paneling behind his desk and rapped on it. For unknown reasons, an earlier Granville had made a passage from the library to the cellars. After a small wait, the door opened. A burly man emerged, ducking his head. He was bare-chested. Heavy, muscled arms hung by his sides. The brown body hair covering his upper torso was gruesomely flecked with blood.

  “Well?” Silas demanded.

  “He still won’t talk.” The big man held out swollen hands. “My knuckles are fair bloodied, and Bud has had a go as well today.”

  Silas scowled. “Do I have to bring in someone else? He’s only one man and not nearly your size. He should’ve been whistling any tune you asked by now.”

  “Aye, well, he’s a tough bugger, that one. I’ve seen blokes crying like a baby after what we’ve been giving him.”

  “So you say,” Silas taunted. “Wrap your hands and keep at it. He’s bound to break soon, and when he does, there’ll be a bonus in it for you. And if you can’t do it in the next day, I’ll find someone who can and replace you and your mate.”

  “Aye, my lord.” The big man stared at Silas, suppressed anger firing behind his eyes before he turned away. Good, he’d take it out on Pye.

  The door closed behind him and Silas smiled. Soon, very soon now.

  SOMEWHERE WATER was dripping.

  Slowly.

  Steadily.

  Endlessly.

  It had dripped when he had first woken in this room, it had dripped every day since then, and it dripped now. The dripping might very well break him before the beatings did.

  Harry hunched a shoulder and dragged himself painfully upright against the wall. They held him in a tiny room. He thought it must have been at least a week since they’d taken him, but time was hard to judge here. And there were hours, maybe days, that he’d lost to insensibility. There was a window the size of a child’s head high on one wall, covered by a rusted iron grill. Outside, a few weeds poked through, so he knew the window was at ground level. It gave enough light to illuminate his cell when the sun was at a certain height. The walls were of damp stone, the floor of dirt. There was nothing else in the room save himself.

  Well, usually, that is.

  At night he could hear the scratching of tiny feet, scurrying here and there. Squeaks and rustlings would suddenly still and then begin again. Mice. Or perhaps rats.

  Harry hated rats.

  When he’d gone to the poorhouse in the city, he’d quickly figured out that he and Da would starve if he couldn’t fight off the others to keep their ration of food. So he’d learned to fight back, fast and ruthless. The other boys and men stayed away after that.

  But the rats didn’t.

  When dusk fell, they would come out. The wild creatures of the countryside feared people. Rats did not. They would creep right into a man’s pocket to steal his last bite of bread. They would nose through a boy’s hair, looking for crumbs. And if they couldn’t find any leavings, they’d make their own. If a man slept too deeply, whether from drink or sickness, the rats would take a nibble. From toes or fingers or ears. There were men in the poorhouse whose ears were ragged flowers. You knew those wouldn’t last much longer. And if a man died in his sleep, well, by morning sometimes you didn’t know his face.

  You could kill the rats, of course, if you were quick enough. Some boys even roasted them over a fire and ate them. But however hungry Harry got—and there’d been days when his insides twisted with need—he could never imagine putting that meat in his mouth. There was an evil in rats that wo
uld surely transfer to your belly and infect the soul if you ate them. And no matter how many rats you killed, there were always more.

  So now at night, Harry didn’t really sleep. Because there were rats out there and he knew what they could do to an injured man.

  Granville’s thugs had been beating him daily, sometimes twice a day, for a week now. His right eye was swollen shut, the left not much better, his lip split and resplit. At least two ribs were cracked. Several of his teeth were loose. There wasn’t more than a handspan on his entire body that wasn’t covered with bruises. It was only a matter of time until they hit him too hard or in the wrong place or until his body just gave out.

  And then the rats…

  Harry shook his head. What he couldn’t understand was why Granville hadn’t killed him at once. When he’d woken the day after he’d been caught at the stream, there’d been a moment when he had been stunned just to find himself alive. Why? Why capture him alive when Granville surely meant to kill him anyway? They kept telling him to confess to killing Will’s gran, but surely that didn’t really matter to Granville. The baron didn’t need a confession to hang him. Nobody would care much about Harry’s death or would protest it, except maybe Will.

  Harry sighed and leaned his aching head against the mildewed stone wall. That wasn’t true. His lady would care. Wherever she was, either in her fancy London town house or her Yorkshire mansion, she’d weep when she heard of her lowborn lover’s death. The light would go out of her beautiful blue eyes, and her face would crumple.

  In this cell he’d had many hours to ponder. Of all the things in his life that he regretted, he regretted that one thing the most: that he would cause Lady Georgina pain.

  A mutter of voices and the scuff of boots on stone came from without. Harry cocked his head to listen. They were coming to beat him again. He flinched. His mind might be strong, but his body remembered and dreaded the pain. He closed his eyes in that moment before they opened the door and it all began again. He thought about Lady Georgina. In another time and place, if she’d not been so highborn and he not so common, it might have worked. They might have married and had a little cottage. She might have learned to cook, and he might have come home to her sweet kiss. At night he might have lain beside her and felt the rise and fall of her body and drifted into dreamless sleep, his arm draped over her.