The Leopard Prince - Page 9/44

“I don’t mean that!” Now she was frowning at him, looking insulted. “Do you think me such a… a fribble that I’d care for my income over a tenant’s ability to feed his children?”

Harry couldn’t think of anything to say. All the landowners in his experience did indeed have more concern for their income than the well-being of the people who worked their land.

She continued, “We will, of course, waive the rent monies due me for this year if the harvest fails. And I will make available loans to any farmer who might need one to see him through the winter.”

Harry blinked, startled by a sudden lightness in his heart. Her offer was more than generous. She’d removed a burden from his shoulders. “Thank you, my lady.”

She looked down at her gloved hands. “Don’t thank me,” she said gruffly. “I should have realized. And I’m sorry for being cross with you. I was embarrassed to know so little about my own estate. You must think me an idiot.”

“No,” he replied softly, “only a lady who is city bred.”

“Ah, Mr. Pye.” She smiled, and his chest seemed to warm. “Ever the diplomat.”

They crested a rise, and Harry slowed the gig to turn into a rutted lane. He hoped they wouldn’t lose a wheel in the potholes. The lane led to a crofter’s cottage, long and low, with a thatched roof. Harry pulled the horse to a halt and jumped from the gig.

“Who lives here?” Lady Georgina asked when he went to her side to help her down.

“Sam Oldson.”

A shaggy terrier ran out from around the building and began barking at them.

“Sam!” Harry shouted. “You there, Sam! Are you home?”

He wasn’t about to go nearer the cottage with that dog growling so seriously. It was a smallish dog, true, but the small ones were more apt to bite.

“Aye?” A burly man wearing a reaper’s straw hat came from the shed. “Shuddup, dog!” He roared to the still-barking terrier. “Get on with you!”

The dog tucked its tail under its rear and sat.

“Good morning.” Lady Georgina spoke brightly from beside Harry.

Sam Oldson snatched the hat from his head, baring a wild nest of black hair. “Ma’am. I didn’t see you there at first.” He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up even more, and looked helplessly at the cottage. “My woman’s not home. Visiting her mum she is, otherwise she’d be out here offering you a drink and a bite to eat.”

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Oldson. We did arrive unexpectedly, I know.” She smiled at the man.

Harry cleared his throat. “This is Lady Georgina Maitland from Woldsly.” He thought it best not to introduce himself, though Sam was no fool. Already he was beginning to scowl. “We’ve come to ask you about the sheep you lost. The ones that were poisoned. Did you find them yourself?”

“Aye.” Sam spat into the dust at his feet, and the terrier cringed at his tone. “A little over a fortnight ago, it were. I’d sent my lad to bring them in and he come running back quick. Said I’d better come see myself. There they were, three of my best ewes, rolled on their sides with tongues sticking out and bits of green leaves still in their mouths.”

“Do you know what they’d eaten?” Harry asked.

“False parsley.” Sam’s face turned purple. “Some son of a bitch had cut down false parsley and fed it to my sheep. And I says to my lad, I says, when I get my hands on the villain that’s killed my sheep, he’ll wish he’d never been born, he will.”

Time to go. Harry grabbed Lady Georgina around the waist and threw her up onto the carriage seat. She squealed.

“Thank you.” He walked swiftly around the front of the carriage, keeping an eye on Sam Oldson. The dog had begun to growl again.

“Here now, why’re you asking questions?” Sam started toward them.

The dog lunged and Harry bound into the carriage and caught up the reins. “Good day, Sam.”

He turned the horse’s head and slapped it into a trot down the track. Behind them, Sam made a reply not fit for a lady’s ears. Harry winced and glanced at Lady Georgina, but she was looking thoughtful rather than outraged. Maybe she hadn’t understood the words?

“What is false parsley?” she asked.

“It’s a weed that grows in wet places, my lady. About the height of a man with little white flowers at the top. It looks something like parsley or wild carrots.”

“I’ve never heard of it before.” Lady Georgina’s brows were knit.

“You probably know it by its other name,” Harry said. “Hemlock.”

Chapter Five

“Do you know that when I first met you I didn’t like you?” Lady Georgina asked idly as the old gig jolted over a hole in the road.

They were driving slowly down a track on the way to Tom Harding’s cottage. Harding had lost two sheep last week. Harry only hoped he wasn’t pushing their luck, staying on Granville land so long. He tore his mind away from thoughts of hemlock and dead sheep and stared at her. How was he supposed to answer a question like that?

“You were so stiff, so correct.” She twirled her parasol. “And I had the distinct feeling you were looking down your nose at me as if you didn’t particularly like me, either.”

He remembered the interview many months before in her London town house. She’d kept him waiting in a pretty pink sitting room for over an hour. Then suddenly she’d blown in, chattering at him as if they’d already met. Had he glowered at her? He didn’t know, but it was likely. Back then she’d conformed to all his expectations of an aristocratic lady.

Funny how his estimation of her had changed since.

“That’s probably why Violet so dislikes you,” she said now.

“What?” He’d lost the thread of her conversation. Again.

She waved a hand. “The sternness, the correctness that you display. I think that’s why Violet doesn’t care for you very much.”

“I’m sorry, my lady.”

“No, no, you needn’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“It’s our father’s.” She glanced at him and must have read the puzzlement on his face. “Father was stern and terribly correct as well. You probably remind Violet of him.”

“She said I reminded her of your father? An earl?”

“No, of course not. I doubt she consciously has noticed the superficial resemblance.”

His mouth twisted. “I’m flattered to be compared to your father, my lady, superficially or not.”

“Oh, Lord, and now you’re using that terribly dry tone.”

He shot a startled look at her.

Her eyes widened. “I never know if I should throw myself from a cliff when I hear it or simply slink into some corner and try and make myself invisible.”

She could never make herself invisible. At least not to him. He’d smell her exotic fragrance if nothing else. He straightened. “I assure you—”

“Never mind.” She cut him off with a wave. “If anyone should apologize, it should be me. My father was an awful man, and I had no business comparing the two of you.”

How to reply to that? “Huh.”

“Not that we saw Father all that much, of course. Only once a week, sometimes less, when Nanny brought us down for inspection.”

Inspection? He’d never understand the rich.

“It really was the most terrifying thing. I never could eat beforehand, or I’d be in danger of losing the meal on his boots, and wouldn’t that be a horror.” She shivered at the thought. “We’d line up, my brothers and I, all in a row. Scrubbed, polished, and silent, we’d wait for Father to give his approval. Quite, quite agonizing, I assure you.”

He glanced at her. Despite her words, Lady Georgina’s face was bland, almost careless, but she wasn’t quite as good at disguising her voice. He wouldn’t have noticed it a week ago, but today he detected the strain. Her old man must’ve been a right bastard.

She was looking down at her hands now, folded in her lap. “And, you see, at least we had each other, my brothers and I, when we went for inspection. But Violet is the youngest. She had to do it all alone after the rest of us grew up and left.”

“When did the earl die?”

“Five years ago, now. He was on a foxhunt—he was very proud of his kennel of foxhounds—and his horse balked at a hedge. The horse stayed behind, but father went over and broke his neck. He was already dead when they brought him home. Mother had an hysterical fit and took to bed for the next year. She didn’t even rise for the funeral.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I. Mostly for Violet’s sake. Mother has always been delicate—her words. She spends a great deal of her time inventing illnesses and then calling for the latest ridiculous cure.” She stopped suddenly and inhaled.

He waited, handling the reins as the horse trotted around a bend.

Then she said softly, “I’m sorry. You must think me terrible.”

“No, my lady. I think that your sister is lucky to have you.”

She smiled then, that bright, open smile that made his balls tighten and his breath catch. “Thank you. Although I don’t know if she would agree with you at the moment.”

“Why is that, my lady?”

“I don’t know why, exactly,” she said slowly. “But something seems to be wrong. She’s angry at me… no, it’s not that plain. She’s distant, as if she’s keeping part of herself back from me.”

He was out of his depth here, but he tried. “Perhaps it is simply that she’s growing out of the schoolroom.”

“Maybe. But Violet has always been such a cheerful, open girl, and we’ve been very close. With Mother the way she is, well, I’ve had to step in. We’re closer than most sisters.” She smiled mischievously at him. “It’s why I’m so sure of the reason she distrusts you.”

“No doubt you’re right about that.” They’d come to a gate, and he pulled the horse to a stop. “But you’re wrong on one other thing.”

“What is that?”

He tied the reins and stood in preparation to swing down from the gig. “I never disliked you, my lady.”

THE KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL alfresco picnic was in the packing. George peered into the wicker basket and hummed in approval. Squishy foods, like cream cakes, for instance, were bound to come to grief no matter how carefully the hamper was handled. She lifted out some smoked ham and placed it on a cutting board next to the cheese and crusty bread. If one forgot important utensils, one was likely to end up having to tear things apart with one’s bare hands. She handed the corkscrew to Mr. Pye. It was also most imperative that the foods not spoil during the day. A pear tart followed. And the little details should not be forgotten in order to have a really splendid picnic. She took out a small jar of pickled gherkins and sighed in satisfaction.

“I just adore picnics.”

Mr. Pye, wrestling with the cork in a bottle of white wine, looked up and smiled at her. “So I see, my lady.”

For a moment, George felt lost in that smile, the first full one she’d ever seen on his face.

The cork let go with a soft pop. Mr. Pye poured a glass of the translucent liquid and handed it to her. She took a sip, savoring the tart bite on her tongue, and then set the glass down on the throw where they sat. A white butterfly that had been resting on the throw took off.

“Look.” George gestured to the insect. “I wonder what kind it is?”

“It’s a cabbage butterfly, my lady.”

“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose. “What an awful name for such a pretty thing.”