The Leopard Prince

Page 34

“Wha—?”
Harry slapped his hand back down again, grunting as Bennet elbowed him. “Hist, you beef-wit. It’s me.”
Bennet fought for a second more, and then Harry’s words seemed to reach his brain. He froze.
Cautiously, Harry lifted his hand.
“Harry?”
“You’d better hope.” He spoke barely above a whisper. “The way you sleep, it could be marauders. Even the boy woke before you.”
Bennet leaned over the bed. “Will? Are you there?”
“Yes, sir.” Will had sat up sometime during the struggle.
“Jesus.” Bennet flopped back on the bed, covering his eyes with an arm. “You nearly gave me apoplexy.”
“You’ve gotten soft living in London.” The corner of Harry’s mouth twitched. “Hasn’t he, Will?”
“We-ell.” The boy clearly didn’t want to say anything against his new mentor. “Wouldn’t hurt to be more alert.”
“Thank you, young Will.” Bennet removed his arm to glare at Harry. “What’re you doing, creeping into my bedroom in the wee hours?”
Harry sat on the bed, his back against one of the posts at the end. He nudged Bennet’s legs with a boot. The other man stared at the boot indignantly before moving.
Harry stretched out his legs. “I’m leaving.”
“So you’ve come to say good-bye?”
“Not exactly.” He looked down at the fingernails on his right hand. To the place where one should be but wasn’t. “Your father is hell-bent on having me killed. And he’s none too happy with Lady Georgina for saving me.”
Bennet nodded. “He’s been rampaging around Granville House the last week, roaring that he’d have you arrested. He’s insane.”
“Aye. He’s also the magistrate.”
“What can you do? What can anybody do?”
“I can find whoever is really killing the sheep.” Harry glanced at Will. “And Mrs. Pollard’s murderer as well. It might dampen his temper.” And turn it away from his lady.
Bennet sat up. “Very well. But how are you going to find the killer?”
Harry stared. A pendant on a thin chain around Bennet’s neck had swung forward: a small, crudely carved falcon.
Harry blinked, remembering.
Long, long ago. A morning so bright and sunny it hurt to open your eyes wide to the full, blue sky. He and Benny had stretched on their backs on top of the hill, chewing grass.
“Lookee here.” Harry took the carving out of his pocket and handed it to Benny.
Benny turned it over in his dirty fingers. “A bird.”
“It’s a falcon. Can’t you see?”
“ ’Course I can see.” Benny glanced up. “Who made it?”
“Me.”
“Really? You carved it?” Benny stared at him with awe.
“Aye.” Harry shrugged. “My da taught me. It’s only my first, so it’s not so good.”
“I like it.”
Harry shrugged again and squinted into the blinding blue sky. “You can keep it if you want.”
“Thanks.”
They had lain for a while, almost falling asleep in the warm sun.
Then Benny sat up. “I’ve got something for you.”
He’d turned out both pockets and then dug down again, finally bringing up a small, dirty penknife. Benny rubbed it on his breeches and handed it to Harry.
Harry looked at the pearl handle and tested the edge with his thumb. “Ta, Benny. It’ll be good for whittling.”
Harry couldn’t remember what he and Bennet had done the rest of that day. Probably rode their ponies about. Maybe fished in the stream. Come home hungry. That was how they’d spent most days back then. And it didn’t really matter. The next afternoon Da had found his mother humping old Granville.
Harry looked up and met eyes as green as his own.
“I’ve always worn it.” Bennet touched the little falcon.
Harry nodded and glanced away from Bennet for a moment. “I had started asking around, before I was arrested, and I’ve tried again this last week, discreetly, lest your father track me.” He looked back at Bennet, his face under control now. “Nobody seems to know much, but there’s plenty besides me who have a reason to hate your father.”
“Probably most of the county.”
Harry ignored the sarcasm. “I thought maybe I should search a bit further back.”
Bennet raised his eyebrows.
“Your nurse is still alive, isn’t she?”
“Old Alice Humboldt?” Bennet yawned. “Yes, she’s alive. Her cottage was the first place I stopped when I got back into the district. And you’re right, she might know something. Nanny is very quiet, but she always noticed everything.”
“Good.” Harry stood up. “Then she’s the person to question. Want to come?”
“What, now?”
Harry’s mouth twitched. He’d forgotten how fun it was to bait Bennet. “I had thought to wait for sunrise,” he said gravely, “but if you’re eager to go now…”
“No. No, sunrise is fine.” Bennet winced. “I don’t suppose you could wait until nine o’clock?”
Harry looked at him.
“No, of course not.” Bennet yawned again, nearly unhinging the back of his head. “I’ll meet you at Nanny’s cottage, shall I?”
“I’ll go, too,” Will spoke up from the pallet.
Harry and Bennet glanced at the boy. He’d nearly forgotten Will. Bennet raised his eyebrows at Harry, leaving the decision to him.
“Aye, you’ll go, too,” Harry said.
“Ta,” Will said. “I’ve got something for you.”
He burrowed under his pillow and came out with a long, thin object wrapped in a rag. He held it out. Harry took the bundle and unrolled it. His knife, cleaned and oiled, lay on his palm.
“Found it in the stream,” Will said, “after they took you. I been taking care of it for you. Until you was ready for it again.”
It was the most Harry had ever heard from the boy’s mouth.
Harry smiled. “Ta, Will.”
GEORGE TOUCHED THE LITTLE SWAN swimming on her pillow. It was the second carving Harry had given her. The first had been a rearing horse. He’d been gone from her seven days, but he hadn’t left the neighborhood. That much was obvious from the tiny carvings he’d somehow placed on her bed.
“Gave you another one, has he, my lady?” Tiggle bustled about the room, putting away her dress and gathering soiled things for the laundry.
George picked up the swan. “Yes.”
She’d questioned the servants after the first carving. Nobody had seen Harry enter or leave Woldsly, not even Oscar, who kept the irregular hours of a bachelor. Her middle brother had remained behind after Tony had left for London. Oscar said it was to keep her and Violet company, but she suspected the real reason had more to do with his creditors in London.
“Romantic of Mr. Pye, isn’t it?” Tiggle sighed.
“Or irritating.” George wrinkled her nose at the swan and placed it carefully on her dressing table beside the horse.
“Or irritating, I guess, my lady,” Tiggle agreed.
The maid came over and laid a hand on George’s shoulder, gently pressing her into the chair before the dressing table. She took up the silver-backed brush and began to stroke it through George’s hair. Tiggle started at the ends and worked to the roots, teasing out the tangles. George closed her eyes.
“Men don’t always see things the same way we do, if you don’t mind me saying so, my lady.”
“I can’t help but think that Mr. Pye was dropped on his head as a baby.” George squeezed her eyes shut. “Why won’t he come back to me?”
“Can’t say, my lady.” The tangles worked out, Tiggle began stroking from her crown down to the ends of her hair.
George sighed in pleasure.
“But he hasn’t gone too far away, now, has he?” the maid pointed out.
“Mmm.” George tilted her head so Tiggle could do that side.
“He wants to go—you’ve said so yourself, my lady—but he hasn’t.” Tiggle started on the other side, brushing gently from the temple. “Stands to reason, then, that maybe he can’t.”
“You’re speaking in riddles and I’m too tired to understand.”
“I’m just saying maybe he can’t leave you, my lady.” Tiggle set down the brush with a thump and began braiding her hair.
“A lot of good that does me if he can’t bring himself to face me, either.” George frowned in the mirror.
“I think he’ll be back.” The maid tied a ribbon at the end of George’s braid and leaned over her shoulder to meet her eyes in the mirror. “And when he comes, you’ll be needing to tell him, if you don’t mind my saying so, my lady.”
George blushed. She had hoped Tiggle wouldn’t notice, but she should have realized the maid kept track of everything. “There’s no way of knowing yet.”
“Aye, there is. And you being so regular like…” Tiggle gave her an old-fashioned look. “Good night, my lady.”
She left the room.
George sighed and dropped her head into her hands. Tiggle had better be right about Harry. Because if he waited too long to return, there would be no need to tell him she was expecting.
He’d see it.
Chapter Seventeen
“Aye?” The wizened face peeped out the door crack.
Harry looked down. The old woman’s head didn’t come to his breastbone. The hump on her back bent her until she had to peer sideways and up to see her caller.
“Good morning, Mistress Humboldt. My name is Harry Pye. I’d like to talk with you.”
“Best come in, then, hadn’t you, young man?” The tiny figure smiled at Harry’s left ear and opened the door wider. Only then, in the light let in by the open door, did he see the cataracts that clouded the old woman’s blue eyes.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Bennet and Will were there before him. They sat by a smoldering fire, the only light in the dim room. Will was munching on a scone and eyeing another on a tray.
“Late, aren’t you?” Bennet was more alert than he’d been five hours before. He looked quite pleased to have got the first dig in.
“Some of us have to travel by back lanes.”
Harry helped Mistress Humboldt lower herself into a fan-backed chair piled with knitted pillows. A calico cat padded over, meowing. It leaped into the old lady’s lap and purred loudly even before she started stroking its back.
“Have a scone, Mr. Pye. And if you don’t mind, you can help yourself to tea.” Mistress Humboldt’s voice was thin and whistling. “Now. What have you lads come to talk to me about that you must do it in secret?”
Harry’s mouth twitched. The old woman’s eyes might be fading, but her mind surely wasn’t. “Lord Granville and his enemies.”
Mistress Humboldt smiled sweetly. “Have you got all day, then, young man? For if I was to list everyone who ever had a grudge against that lord, I’d still be talking tomorrow morning.”
Bennet laughed.
“You’re quite right, ma’am,” Harry said. “But what I’m after is the person poisoning the sheep. Who has such -hatred of Granville that they’d want to do these crimes?”
The old woman cocked her head and stared at the fire for a moment, the only sound in the room the purring of the cat and Will eating his scone.
“As it happens,” she said slowly, “I’ve been thinking on these sheep killings myself.” She pursed her lips. “Bad things they are and evil because while it hurts the farmer, it merely bothers Lord Granville. Seems to me that what you really should be asking, young man, is who has the heart to do this.” Mistress Humboldt took a sip of tea.