The Leopard Prince (20 page)

Definitely Oscar’s fault.

“They are much too sentimental, poor dears,” Aunt Beatrice continued. She bit into a piece of cake and then frowned down at it. “Is this a prune filling, Georgina? I’ve specifically told you that prunes do not agree with me.”

George glanced at the offending slice of cake. “I believe it is chocolate cream, but I can ring for a different pastry.”

Aunt Beatrice had invaded George’s London town house, settled into a gilt chair in her pretty blue and white sitting room, and all but demanded tea. George thought Cook had done an outstanding job, considering she’d had no notice of potential guests.

“Humph.” Lady Beatrice poked at the cake on her plate, disemboweling it. “It looks like prunes, but if you are quite sure.” She took another bite, masticating thoughtfully. “As a result, they are competent—barely—at running the government but a complete wash at domestic doings.”

George was at a loss for a second before remembering that her aunt had been discussing men before prunes. “Quite.”

Perhaps if she feigned an attack of the vapors . . . But knowing Aunt Beatrice, she’d probably throw cold water in her face until George admitted consciousness and then continue with her lecture. Best to sit it out.

“Now, contrary to what men will tell you,” her aunt continued, “an affair or two or more is good for a lady. Brings a certain mental alertness and, naturally, roses to the cheeks.”

Lady Beatrice touched her own cheek with one manicured fingernail. It was indeed rosy, but more from rouge than nature. It was also decorated by three black velvet patches: two stars and a crescent moon.

“The most important thing for a lady to remember is to be discreet.” Aunt Beatrice sipped her tea. “For instance, I have found that if one is engaged with two or more gentlemen over the same period of time, it is imperative they not find out about each other.”

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.”

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 taken 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.