When she reached him, Harry was very still. Then she saw why. The body
of a sheep twisted slowly in the water; the rain pelting the fleece gave
it a strange, lifelike movement.
She shuddered. “Why doesn’t it float away?”
“It’s tethered.” Harry nodded grimly to a branch hanging over the water.
She saw that a rope was tied around the branch and disappeared into the
water. Presumably, the other end attached to some part of the sheep.
“But why would anyone do such a thing?” She felt a frisson run down her
spine. “It’s mad.”
“Maybe to foul the stream.” He sat and began to pull off his boots.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to cut it loose.” He unbuttoned his coat. “It’ll fetch up on
a bank farther downstream and a farmer will pull it out. At least it
won’t spoil the whole stream.”
By now he was in shirtsleeves, soaked through by the rain. He pulled his
knife out of his boot and slid down the bank into the stream. The water
came to midthigh, but as he waded slowly out, the water quickly rose to
chest level. The rain had made the normally placid stream boil.
“Do be careful,” George called. If he lost his footing, he might be
swept downstream. Did he know how to swim?
He didn’t acknowledge her call and kept wading. When he reached the
rope, he grabbed it where it stretched above the water and started to
saw. The strands unraveled rapidly, and suddenly the sheep spun away
downstream. Harry turned and began to wade back, the water whirling
angrily about him. He slipped and his head disappeared beneath the water
without a sound.
/Oh, God./ George’s heart leaped painfully in her chest. She started for
the bank without knowing what she could do. But then he was upright
again, his soaked hair plastered to his cheeks. He emerged and wrung out
the front of his shirt, transparent now from the water. George could see
his nipples and the swirl of dark hair where the shirt stuck against his
chest.
“Someday I’d like to see a man nude,” she said.
Harry froze.
Slowly he straightened from pulling on his boots. His green eyes met
hers, and she could have sworn a fire burned there. “Is that an order,
my lady?” he asked, his voice so deep it was almost a dark purr.
“I—” /Oh, goodness gracious, yes!/ A part of George desperately wanted
to see Harry Pye take off that shirt. To see what his shoulders and
belly looked like naked. To find out if there really were curls of hair
on his chest. And after that, if he removed his breeches . . . She
really couldn’t help it. Her eyes dropped to that part of a man’s
anatomy that a lady never, /ever,/ under any circumstances let her gaze
wander to. The water had done an exquisite job of molding Harry’s
breeches to his lower limbs.
George drew a breath. Opened her mouth.
And Harry cursed and turned away. A cart and pony were coming up the lane.
Well, damn.
“YOU CAN’T REALLY THINK Harry Pye is poisoning your sheep.” Bennet’s
words were phrased as a question but said as a statement.
Not two minutes back and the lad was already setting himself against
him. But then the boy had always taken Pye’s part. Silas snorted. “I
don’t think. I /know/ Pye is doing the killing.”
Bennet frowned and poured himself a tumbler of whiskey. He held the
decanter up in question.
Silas shook his head and leaned back in the leather-covered chair behind
his study desk. The room was his favorite, all male in its feel. Mounted
antlers circled the study, just below the ceiling. A deep, black
fireplace took up the entire wall at the room’s far end. Over it was a
classical painting: /The Rape of the Sabine Women./ Swarthy men tearing
the clothes from fair-skinned, screaming wenches. He sometimes got
prick-proud just looking at the thing.
“But poison?” Bennet threw himself into a chair and started tapping his
fingers on the arm.
His younger son aggravated him; but even now, Silas could not help
feeling proud of him. This one should have been his heir. Thomas would
never have the balls to confront his father. Silas had known it the
moment he’d first seen Bennet, bawling and red-faced, in his mother’s
arms. He’d looked into the infant’s face and a voice inside him had
whispered, /this/ one—this one out of all his other get—would be the son
he, Silas, would be proud of. So he’d taken the babe from that whore’s
arms and brought him home. His wife had pouted and wept, but Silas had
soon let her know he wouldn’t change his mind and she’d had to relent.
Some might still remember that Bennet wasn’t legally born, that he’d
come from the loins of the gatekeeper’s wife, but they wouldn’t dare
speak that knowledge aloud.
Not while Silas Granville ruled this land.
Bennet shook his head. “Poison isn’t the method Harry would use if he
wanted revenge on you. He loves the land and the people who farm it.”
“Loves the land?” Silas scoffed. “How can he? He doesn’t own any land.
He’s naught but a paid custodian. The land he tends and works on belongs
to someone else.”
“But the farmers still come to him, don’t they?” Bennet asked softly,
his eyes narrowed. “They ask him his opinion; they follow his guidance.
Even many of your own tenants go to Harry when they have a problem—or at
least they did before all this started. They wouldn’t dare come to you.”
A line of pain shot along Silas’s left temple. “Why should they? I’m not
the tavern keep, someone for the farmers to bawl their troubles to.”
“No, you’re not interested in other people’s troubles, are you?” Bennet
drawled. “But their respect, their allegiance—that’s a different matter.”
He had the allegiance of the local people. Didn’t they fear him? Stupid,
dirty peasants, to seek the council of one of their own just because
he’d risen a little from their ranks. Silas felt sweat drip down his
neck. “Pye’s envious of his betters. He wishes he was an aristocrat.”
“Even if he was envious, he wouldn’t use this method to get back at /his
betters,/ as you term it.”
“Method?” Silas slammed the flat of his hand on his desk. “You talk as
if he were a Machiavellian prince instead of a common land steward. He’s
the son of a whore and a thief. What type of method do you think he’d
use other than sneaking around poisoning animals?”
“A whore.” Bennet’s lips thinned as he poured himself another finger of
whiskey. Probably how he spent all his time in London—on drink and
women. “If Harry’s mother—/my/ mother—was a whore, who do you think made
her so?”
Silas scowled. “What do you mean, talking to me in that tone? I’m your
father, boy. Don’t you ever forget that.”
“As if I’m likely to forget that you sired me.” Bennet gave a bark of
laughter.
“You should be proud—” Silas began.
His son sneered and emptied his glass.
Silas surged to h
is feet. “I saved you, boy! If it weren’t for me—”
Bennet flung his tumbler into the grate. The glass exploded, flinging
sparkling shards onto the carpet. “If it weren’t for you, I would’ve had
a mother, not your frozen bitch of a wife who was too proud to show
affection for me!”
Silas swept the papers from his desk with his arm. “Is that what you
want, boy? A mother’s tit to suckle?”
Bennet turned white. “You’ve never understood.”
“Understood? What’s there to understand between a life lived in the muck
and one in a manor? Between a starving bastard and an aristocrat who can
afford all that’s good in life? I gave you that. I gave you everything.”
Bennet shook his head and stalked to the door. “Leave Harry alone.”
He shut the door behind him.
Silas raised his arm to swipe at the only thing still on his desk, the
inkstand, but he paused when he saw his hand. It was shaking. Bennet. He
sank into his chair.
/Bennet./
He’d brought him up strong, made sure he could ride like a demon and
fight like a man. He’d always favored the boy and made no bones about
it. Why should he? Couldn’t anyone see that this was the son a man could
be proud of? In return he’d expected . . . what? Not like or love, but
respect, certainly. Yet, his second son treated him like a pile of dung.
Came to Granville House only for money. And now took the side of a
baseborn servant against his own sire. Silas pushed away from his desk.
He needed to deal with Harry Pye before he became any more of a threat.
He couldn’t let Pye drive a wedge between himself and Bennet.
The door opened a crack, and Thomas peeked around it like a timid girl.
“What do you want?” Silas was too tired to yell.
“I saw Bennet rush by. He’s back, eh?” Thomas eased into the room.
“Oh, yes, he’s back. And that’s why you invited yourself into my study?
To exchange the news that your brother has returned?”
“I heard some of the words you had with him.” Thomas crept another few
steps forward as if approaching a wild boar. “And I wanted to offer my
support. About seeing Harry Pye punished, I mean. He’s quite obviously
the one doing this, anyone can understand that.”
“Lovely.” Silas eyed his eldest with a curled lip. “And what, exactly,
can you help me with?”
“I talked to Lady Georgina the other day. I tried to tell you.” The
muscle under Thomas’s right eye had started to twitch.
“And she told you she would hand over Pye, tied with a pretty bow, at
our convenience?”
“N-no, she seemed charmed by him.” Thomas shrugged. “She is a woman,
after all. But perhaps if there was further evidence, if we had men
guarding the sheep . . .”
Silas chuckled hoarsely. “As if there are enough men in the county to
watch all the sheep on my land every night. Don’t be more of a fool than
you can help.” He crossed to the whiskey decanter.
“But if there was evidence linking him—”
“She wouldn’t accept anything but a signed confession from Pye. We
/have/ evidence—Pye’s carving, found right by the dead sheep—and she
still thinks him innocent. It’d be different if instead of a sheep, a
man, or—” Silas stopped midsentence, staring sightlessly at his newly
filled whiskey glass. Then he threw back his head and began to laugh,
great, bellowing guffaws that shook his frame and spilled the whiskey in
his glass.
Thomas looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
Silas slapped the boy on the back, nearly bowling him over. “Aye, we’ll
give her evidence, boy. Evidence that not even she can ignore.”
Thomas smiled tremulously, the pretty boy. “But we haven’t any evidence,
Father.”
“Oh, Tommy, my lad.” Silas took a gulp of the whiskey and winked. “Who
says evidence can’t be made?”
“THAT WILL BE ALL. You may have the rest of the night off.” George
smiled in what she hoped was a casual manner. As if she always dismissed
Tiggle before supper.
Apparently it didn’t work.
“All, my lady?” The maid straightened from putting away a stack of
linens. “What do you mean? You’ll be undressing later, surely?”
“Yes, of course.” She felt her face heat. “But I thought I’d manage it
myself tonight.”
Tiggle stared.
George nodded confidently. “I’m sure I’ll be able. So you may go.”
“What are you up to, my lady?” Tiggle placed her hands on her hips.
This was the problem with having the same servants for years on end. One
“I’m having a guest to dinner.” She waved a hand airily. “I just thought
you wouldn’t want to wait for me.”
“It’s my job to wait for you,” Tiggle said suspiciously. “Has Lady
Violet’s maid had the night off as well?”
“Actually”—George ran a fingertip along her dresser— “it’s a very
private dinner. Violet won’t be attending.”
“Won’t be—”
The maid’s exclamation was interrupted by a knock on the door. Darn!
She’d hoped to have Tiggle out of the way by now.
George opened the door. “In my sitting room, please,” she told the
footmen outside.
“My lady,” Tiggle hissed as George passed her on the way to the
connecting door.
George ignored her and opened the door. In the sitting room, the footmen
were busy rearranging the furniture and setting up the table they’d had
to bring in. A fire was flickering in the grate.
“What . . .?” Tiggle dogged George into the sitting room but immediately
quieted in the presence of the other servants.
“Is this how you want it, my lady?” one of the footmen asked.
“Yes, that will do nicely. Now, be sure and alert Cook when Mr. Pye
arrives. We’ll want supper promptly.”
The footmen bowed out, which, unfortunately, freed the lady’s maid from
her self-imposed silence.
“You’re having Mr. Pye to dinner?” Tiggle sounded scandalized. “All alone?”
George tilted her chin in the air. “Yes, I am.”
“Oh, my Lord, why didn’t you tell me, my lady?” Tiggle abruptly turned
and ran back into the bedroom.
George stared after her.
The maid’s head popped around the door frame, and she beckoned urgently.
“Hurry, my lady! There’s not much time.”
Feeling like she’d been goosed, George followed her into the bedroom.
Tiggle was already at the vanity table, rummaging through bottles. She
held up a small glass vial as George neared. “This’ll do. Exotic, but
not overwhelming.” She snatched the fichu from around her mistress’s neck.
“What are you—” George raised her hands to her suddenly bare dŽcolletage.
The maid batted her hands away. She removed the bottle’s glass stopper
and stroked it down George’s neck and between her breasts. The scent of
sandalwood and jasmine hovered in the air.
Tiggle recapped the bottle and stepped back to look at her assessingly.
“I think the garnet drops inst
ead.”
George obediently searched through her jewelry box.
From behind her Tiggle sighed. “It’s a pity I haven’t time to redo your
hair, my lady.”
“It was fine a moment ago.” George squinted into the mirror as she
replaced her earrings.
“A moment ago I didn’t know you were meeting a gentleman.”
George straightened and turned.
Tiggle knit her brows as she inspected her.
George ran a hand self-consciously across her green velvet gown. A row
of black bows marched down the bodice, echoed at the elbows. “Will I do?”
“Yes.” Tiggle nodded firmly. “Yes, my lady, I think you’ll do.” She
walked swiftly to the door.
“Tiggle,” George called.
“My lady?”
“Thank you.”
Tiggle actually blushed. “Good luck, my lady.” She grinned and disappeared.
George strolled back into the sitting room and shut the door to her
bedroom. She sat down in one of the armchairs by the fire and