Princes Trilogy: The Leopard Prince Part 23

"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 s.l.u.t, 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 G.o.d, 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.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n 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 n.o.body."

"Jesus, I don't believe you." Bennet stared at him. "We're all just p.a.w.ns 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 pa.s.sage 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 b.u.g.g.e.r, 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 would 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. n.o.body 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 Yorks.h.i.+re 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 c.o.c.ked 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.

He might have loved her, his lady.

Chapter Fifteen.

"Is he alive?" George's face looked like a piece of paper scrunched up and smoothed out again. Her gray dress was so rumpled, she must have been sleeping in it all the way from London.

"Yes." Violet hugged her sister, trying not to show shock at the change in her appearance. She'd only been gone from Woldsly less than a fortnight. "Yes, he's alive as far as I know. Lord Granville isn't letting anyone see him."George's expression didn't lighten. Her eyes still stared too intently as if she'd miss something important if she blinked. "Then he might be dead."

"Oh, no." Violet widened her own eyes frantically at Oscar. Help! "I don't think so-"

"We'd know if Harry Pye was dead, Georgie," Oscar cut in, rescuing Violet. "Granville would be crowing. The fact that he isn't means Pye is still alive." He took George's arm as if he were guiding an invalid. "Come into Woldsly. Let's sit down and have a cup of tea."

"No, I have to see him." George flung Oscar's hand off as if he were a too-eager vender importuning her with wilted flowers.

Oscar didn't turn a hair. "I know, dear one, but we need to show strength when we confront Granville, if we hope to get in. Better to be fresh and rested."

"Do you think Tony got the message?"

"Yes," Oscar said as if repeating something for the hundredth time. "He'll be on the road right behind us. Let's be ready for him when he comes." He put his hand on George's elbow again, and this time she let him lead her up Woldsly's front steps.

Violet followed behind, absolutely amazed. What was wrong with George? She'd expected her sister to be upset, to cry even. But this-this was a kind of harrowing, tearless grief. If she heard today that Leonard, her summer lover, had died, she would feel a certain melancholy. Maybe shed a tear and mope about the house for a day or two. But she wouldn't be as devastated as George seemed to be now. And Mr. Pye wasn't even dead, as far as they knew.

It was almost as if George loved him.

Violet stopped in her tracks and watched the retreating back of her sister leaning on her brother. Surely not. George was too old for love. Of course she'd been too old for a love affair as well. But, love-real love-was different. If George loved Mr. Pye, she might want to marry him. And if she married him, why . . . he'd be part of the family. Oh, no! He probably had no idea which fork to use for fish, or how to address a retired general who was also a hereditary baron, or the proper way to help a lady mount a horse sidesaddle or . . . Good Lord! What if he started dropping his Hs!

George and Oscar had reached the drawing room, and Oscar looked around as he guided her in. He saw Violet and frowned at her. She hurried to catch up.

Inside the drawing room, he was helping George to a seat. "You've ordered tea and refreshments?" he asked Violet.

She felt her face heat guiltily. Quickly she leaned out the door and told a footman what was wanted.

"Violet, what do you know?" George was looking at her fixedly. "Your letter said Harry was arrested but not why or how."

"Well, they found a dead woman." She sat and tried to order her thoughts. "On the heath. Mistress Piller or Poller or-"

"Pollard?"

"Yes." Violet stared at her, startled. "How did you know?"

"I know her grandson." George waved the interruption away. "Go on."

"She was poisoned in the same manner as the sheep. They found those weeds by her, the ones that were by the dead sheep."

Oscar frowned. "But a woman wouldn't be so stupid as to eat poison weeds like a sheep."

"There was a cup by her." Violet shuddered. "With some kind of dregs in it. They think he-the poisoner- forced her to drink it." She looked uneasily at her sister.

"When was this?" George asked. "Surely someone would have told us had they found her before we left."

"Well, it appears they didn't," Violet replied. "The local people found her the day before you left, but I only heard the day after you'd gone. And there was a carving, an animal of some sort. They say that Mr. Pye made it, so he must have done it. Murdered her, that is."

Oscar darted a glance at George. Violet hesitated, antic.i.p.ating a reaction from her sister, but George merely raised her eyebrows.

So Violet soldiered on. "And the night you left they arrested Mr. Pye. Only no one will tell me much about his arrest, except that it took seven men to do it and two were very badly wounded. So," she inhaled and said carefully, "he must have put up quite a fight." She gazed expectantly at George.

Her sister stared off into s.p.a.ce, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. "Mistress Pollard was killed the day before I left?"

"Well, no," Violet said. "Actually, they're saying it might've been three nights before."

George suddenly focused on her.

Violet hurried on. "She was seen alive in West Dikey four nights before you left-some people at a tavern saw her-but the farmer swears she wasn't there the morning after she'd been seen in West Dikey. He distinctly remembers moving his sheep to that pasture the next morning. It was several days before he went back again to the pasture where she was found. And they think, by the condition of the body, because of the . . . uh"-she wrinkled her nose in disgust-"the deterioration, that it had been on the heath more than three nights. Ugh!" She shuddered.

The tea was brought in, and Violet looked at it queasily. Cook had seen fit to include some cream cakes oozing a pink filling, which under the circ.u.mstances were quite disgusting.

George ignored the tea. "Violet, this is very important. You are sure it was three nights before the morning I left that she is thought to have been killed?"

"Mmm." Violet swallowed and dragged her eyes from the ghastly cream cakes. "Yes, I'm sure."

"Thank the Lord." George closed her eyes.

"Georgie, I know you care for him, but you can't." Oscar's voice held a warning. "You simply can't."

"His life is at stake." George leaned toward her brother as if she could infuse him with her pa.s.sion. "What sort of a woman would I be if I ignored that?"