The Leopard Prince (8 page)

“Watch it! He’s got a knife!”

That wasn’t Mr. Pye’s voice. George chanced raising her head and saw to her relief that Harry Pye did indeed have a knife. He held a thin, gleaming blade in his left hand. Even from this distance it looked rather nasty. He was in a strangely graceful fighter’s crouch in the road, both hands in front of him. He appeared to know what he was doing, too. One of the villains was bleeding from his cheek. But the other three were circling, trying to flank him, and the odds didn’t look good.

The gig lurched again. She lost sight of the action as she fell and cracked her shoulder against the seat.

“Will you hold still, you silly beast?” she muttered.

The reins were sliding toward the front, and if she lost them, she’d never get control of the gig. Shouts and grunts came from the fighters, interspersed with the awful sound of fists hitting flesh. She daren’t risk looking up again. She held on to the seat with one hand to steady herself and strained with the other toward the slithering reins.
Almost.
Her fingertips grazed the leather, but the horse jolted, sending her back against the seat. She just kept her footing. If the horse would only hold still.

One.

More.

Second.

She dived and triumphantly came up with the reins. Quickly she sawed them, little minding the horse’s mouth, and tied them to the seat. She chanced a glance. Harry Pye was bleeding from his forehead. As she watched, an attacker lunged at him from his right. Mr. Pye whirled in a powerful move and kicked at the other man’s legs. A second thug clawed at his left arm. Mr. Pye twisted and performed some sort of maneuver, too fast for her to see. The man screamed and staggered back with a bloody hand. But the first man took advantage of the distraction. He hit Mr. Pye again and again in the middle. Harry Pye grunted with each blow, doubling over, valiantly trying to swing his knife.

George set the carriage brake.

The third and fourth men advanced. The first man punched Mr. Pye once more, and he fell to his knees, retching.

Mr. Pye was going to die.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!
George scrambled under the seat and brought up a sackcloth-wrapped bundle. Shaking the cloth free, she clutched one of the dueling pistols in her right hand, raised it with a straight arm, aimed at the man standing over Mr. Pye, and fired.

Bang!

The explosion nearly deafened her. She squinted through the smoke and saw the man reel away, clutching his side. Got the bastard! She felt a thrill of bloodthirsty glee. The remaining men, including Harry Pye, had turned in her direction with varying degrees of shock and horror. She raised the second pistol and took aim at another man.

The man flinched and ducked. “Gorblimey! She’s got a pistol!”

Apparently the thought that she might be dangerous had never crossed their minds.

Harry Pye rose, pivoted silently, and slashed at the man nearest him.

“Jaysus!” the man screamed, holding a hand to his bloody face. “Let’s go, lads!” The thugs turned and dashed back the way they’d come.

The lane was suddenly quiet.

George heard the blood rushing in her veins. She carefully set the pistols down on the seat.

Mr. Pye still looked in the direction the men had disappeared. He seemed to decide that they were gone, for he lowered the hand holding the knife. Bending, he slipped it inside his boot. Then he turned to her. The blood from the wound on his forehead had mixed with sweat and smeared down the side of his face. Stray hairs from his queue stuck to the gore. He breathed deeply, his nostrils flaring as he tried to catch his breath.

George felt strange, almost angry.

He walked toward her, his boots scraping against the rocks in the road. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d brought pistols?” His voice was raspy and deep. It demanded apology, concession, even submission.

George didn’t feel like giving any.

“I—” she began firmly, strongly, even haughtily.

She didn’t have a chance to finish because he was in front of her. He grabbed her about the waist and yanked her from the carriage. She half-fell against him. She put her hands on his shoulders to keep from toppling over. He pulled her against him until her breasts were quite squashed into his chest, which, strangely, felt very nice. She lifted her head to ask him what, exactly, he thought he was about—

And he kissed her!

Luscious, firm lips that tasted of the wine they’d drunk at luncheon. They moved over hers in an insistent rhythm. She could feel the prickle of his stubble and his tongue, running over the crease of her lips until she opened them and then . . .
Ohm.
Someone was moaning, and it might very well be her because she had never, never,
never
been kissed like this before in her whole life. His tongue was actually inside her mouth, stroking and teasing hers. She was about to melt—maybe she already was melting, she felt absolutely drenched. And then he lured her tongue into his mouth and suckled it, and she lost all control and wrapped her arms about his neck and suckled him back.

The horse—stupid,
stupid
animal—chose that moment to whicker.

Mr. Pye jerked his head away. He glanced around. “I can’t believe I did that.”

“Nor I,” George said. She tried to pull his head back down so he would do it again.

But suddenly he picked her up and deposited her on the carriage seat. While she was still blinking, he crossed to the other side and jumped in.

Mr. Pye placed the still-loaded pistol in her lap. “It’s dangerous here. They may decide to come back.”

“Oh.”

All her life she’d been warned that men were slaves to their desires, that they held their impulses in barely controlled check. A woman—a lady—must be very, very careful of her actions so she did not put spark to the gunpowder that was a man’s libido. The consequences of a lady’s carelessness were never fully explained, but the hints were dire indeed. George sighed. How deflating now to find Harry Pye was the exception to the rule of male instability.

He maneuvered the gig around, alternately cursing and cajoling the horse. Finally he got it turned back the way they’d come and urged the gelding into a brisk trot. George watched him. His face was grimly set. There was no evidence of the passion with which he’d kissed her only moments ago.

Well, if he could be sophisticated, then so could she. “Do you think Lord Granville had those men attack us, Mr. Pye?”

“They attacked only me. So, yes, it could be Lord Granville. He’s the most likely.” He looked thoughtful. “But Thomas Granville rode up the lane only minutes before we did. He could’ve warned the toughs if they were in his pay.”

“You think he is in league with his father, despite his apology?”

Mr. Pye pulled a handkerchief out of an inside pocket and gently wiped her cheek with one hand. The handkerchief came away with blood on it. He must have rubbed his blood on her when they’d kissed. “I don’t know. But there’s one thing I’m sure of.”

George cleared her throat. “What is that, Mr. Pye?”

He tucked away his handkerchief. “You can call me Harry now.”

A series of dingy rooms with exposed beams that had caught more than one customer a nasty knock on the head, the Cock and Worm had windows permanently blackened from pipe smoke. A man could sit in peace here and not be recognized by his own brother.

Harry made his way through the crowd to the bar, passing a table of workmen and farmers. One of the men—a farmer named Mallow—looked up and nodded in greeting as he passed. Harry nodded back, surprised but pleased. Mallow had asked Harry for help back in June about an argument he was having over his neighbor’s cow. The cow kept escaping its enclosure and had twice trampled the lettuce in the Mallow’s kitchen garden. Harry had settled the difficulty by helping the elderly neighbor build a new wall for his cow. But Mallow was a taciturn man and had never thanked Harry for his trouble. Harry had assumed Mallow was ungrateful. Obviously, he’d been wrong.

The thought warmed him as he reached the bar. Janie was working tonight. She was sister to Dick Crumb, the owner of the Cock and Worm, and sometimes helped at the counter.

“Yeah?” she mumbled. Janie spoke to the air over his right shoulder. Her fingernails drummed an uneven beat on the counter.

“Pint of bitter.”

She set the ale down in front of him, and he slid a few coppers across the scarred counter.

“Dick in tonight?” Harry asked quietly.

Janie was close enough to hear, but her face was blank. She’d gone back to the drumming.

“Janie?”

“Aye.” She stared now at his left elbow.

“Is Dick in?”

She turned and walked into the back.

Harry sighed and found an empty table near a wall. With Janie it was hard to tell if she’d gone to tell Dick he was here, went to fetch more ale, or simply tired of his question. In any case, he could wait.

He’d gone stark, raving mad. Harry took a sip of his beer and wiped the foam from his mouth. It was the only explanation for kissing Lady Georgina this afternoon. He’d walked toward her, his head bleeding and his gut aching from the beating. He hadn’t been thinking of kissing her at all. Then somehow she was in his arms, and there was nothing in the world that was going to stop him from tasting her. Not the possibility of being attacked again. Not the pain in his limbs. Not even the fact that she was aristocracy, for pity’s sake, and all that meant to him and his ghosts.

Lunacy. Plain and simple. Next he’d be running through the high street, naked and waving his John Thomas. He took another glum sip. And what a fine sight that would be, the state his cock had been in lately.

He was a normal man. He’d felt lust for a woman before. But at those times he’d either bedded the woman, if she was free, or made do with his hand. Over and done with. He’d never had this aching, restless feeling, a longing for something he knew damn well he couldn’t have. Harry scowled into his mug. Maybe it was time for another ale.

“Hope that look isn’t for me, lad.” Two mugs were slammed down in front of him, foam sloshing over their tops. “Have one on the house.”

Dick Crumb slid his belly, covered in a stained apron, under the table and took a swig from his mug. Small, piggy eyes closed in ecstasy as the beer slid down his throat. He took out a flannel cloth and mopped his mouth, his face, and his bald pate. Dick was a large man, and he sweated all the time, the bare dome of his head shining greasy red. He sported a tiny gray pigtail, scraped together from the oily strands of hair still clinging to the sides and back of his head.

“Janie told me you were out here,” Dick said. “Been a while since you stopped by.”

“I was set on by four men today. On Granville land. Do you know anything about it?” Harry raised his mug and watched Dick over the rim. Something flickered in the piggy eyes. Relief?

“Four men, you say?” Dick traced a wet spot on the table. “Lucky you’re alive.”

“Lady Georgina had a pair of pistols.”

Dick’s eyebrows flew up to where his hairline should have been. “That so? You were with the lady, then.”

“Aye.”

“Well.” Dick sat back and tipped his face to the ceiling. He took out the flannel and began wiping his head.

Harry was silent. Dick was thinking, and there was no point in hurrying him. He sipped his ale.

“See here.” Dick sat forward. “The Timmons brothers usually stop in at night, Ben and Hubert. But tonight only Ben’s been by, and he was limping a bit. Said he was kicked by a horse, but that don’t seem likely, do it, seeing as how the Timmons haven’t got a horse.” He nodded triumphantly and upended his mug again.

“Who do the Timmons work for, d’you know?”

“We-ell.” Dick stretched the word out as he scratched his head. “They’re jacks-of-all-trades, see. But they mostly help out Hitchcock, who tenants for Granville.”

Harry nodded, unsurprised. “Granville was behind it.”

“Now I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you didn’t have to.”

Dick shrugged and raised his mug.

“So,” Harry said softly, “who do you think killed Granville’s sheep?”

Dick, caught as he swallowed, choked. Out came the flannel again. “As to that,” he gasped when he could speak again, “I figured like everyone else in these parts that it was you.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Did you?”

“Made sense, what Granville did to you, did to your father.”

Harry was silent.

Which must’ve made Dick uneasy. He patted the air. “But after I’d mulled on it a bit, it didn’t seem right. I knew your da, and John Pye wouldn’t never hurt another man’s bread and butter.”

“Even after Granville?”

“Your da was the salt of the earth, lad. He wouldn’t have harmed a fly.” Dick raised his mug as if in toast. “The salt of the earth.”

Harry was silent as he watched the other man make his tribute. Then he stirred. “If you’ve ruled me out, who do you think is poisoning the sheep?”

Dick frowned into the bottom of his empty mug. “Granville’s a hard man, as well you know. Some say he’s got the devil riding his back. It’s as if he takes his joy in life from causing misery to others. There’s more than your father that’ve been blasted by him over the years.”

“Who?”

“Plenty of men were thrown off land their families had farmed for decades. Granville don’t make allowances for bad years when he collects his money,” Dick said slowly. “Then there was Sally Forthright.”

“What about her?”

“She was Martha Burns’s sister, as is the Woldsly gatekeeper’s wife. Granville messed with her, it’s said, and the lass ended her life in a well.” Dick shook his head. “Wasn’t more than fifteen.”

“There are probably many like her in these parts”—Harry studied the depths of his own mug—“knowing Granville.”

“Aye.” Dick turned his face to the side and wiped it with the flannel. He sighed heavily. “Bad business. I don’t like talking about it.”

“Nor do I, but someone’s killing those sheep.”

Dick suddenly leaned across the table. His ale-soaked breath washed over Harry as he whispered, “Then maybe you should be looking a little closer to the Granville estate. They say Granville treats his firstborn son like a turd in his tea. The man must be your age, Harry. Can you imagine what that would do to your soul after thirty years?”

“Aye.” Harry nodded. “I’ll keep Thomas in mind.” He drained his mug and set it down. “Is that everyone you can think of?”

Dick grabbed all three mugs in one fist and stood up. He hesitated. “You might try Annie Pollard’s family. I don’t know what went on there, but it was bad, and Granville was in the middle of it. And, Harry?”

Harry had risen and put on his hat. “Yes?”

“Stay away from aristo ladies.” The piggy eyes were sad and old. “They won’t do you any good, lad.”