4 1/2 stars--Top Pick!
“Hoyt tunes her erotic romantic style to readers’ deepest fantasies.
She merges the fairy tale with reality, drawing on our childhood dreams of magic
merged into the adult world of passion and suspense. Playing on the classic theme
of the lady and the commoner, she has created an unforgettable love story that
ignites the pages not only with heated love scenes but also with a mystery that
holds your attention and your heart with searing emotions and dark desires.”
--Kathe Robin, Romantic Times BOOK Reviews
"[Hoyt] has followed up The Raven Prince with
another winner!"
--Susan Tam, The Road to Romance
Read
the full review
"The Leopard Prince is a spellbinding and sensually
charged novel that will grab you from the first page"
--Lauren, The Mystic Castle
Read
the full review
Desert Isle Keeper Review!
“Elizabeth Hoyt soars.”
--Kate Cuthbert, All About Romance
Read
the full review
This is a book I never wanted to end…I loved it!”
--Virginia, Historical Romance Writers
Read
the full review
“I highly recommend this absolutely fantastic historical novel to
readers. I want to read more about these characters as they practically
leap out of each page and grab onto the reader with a tenacity that is
unusual. I read much too late into the night getting this one finished. I
could not put it down so start reading it early in the day!”
--Jeri Neal, The Romance Readers Connection
Read
the full review
Yorkshire, England
September, 1760
After the carriage wreck and a bit before the horses ran away, Lady Georgina
Maitland noticed that her land steward was a man. Well, that is to say, naturally
she knew Harry Pye was a man. She wasn’t under the delusion that he was
a lion or an elephant or a whale, or indeed any other member of the animal kingdom—if
one could call a whale an animal and not just a very big fish. What she meant
was that his maleness had suddenly become very evident.
George knit her brow as she stood in the desolate high road to the East Riding
in Yorkshire. Around them the gorse covered hills rolled away into the gray horizon.
Darkness was rapidly falling, brought on early by the rainstorm. They could’ve
been standing at the ends of the earth.
“Do you consider a whale to be an animal or a very big fish, Mr. Pye?”
she shouted into the wind.
Harry Pye’s shoulders bunched. They were covered only by a wet lawn shirt
that clung to him in an aesthetically pleasing way. He’d previously discarded
his coat and waistcoat to help John Coachman unhitch the horses from the overturned
carriage.
“An animal, my lady.” Mr. Pye’s voice was, as always, even
and deep with a sort of gravelly tone towards the bottom.
George had never heard him raise his voice or show passion in any other way.
Not when she’d insisted on accompanying him to her Yorkshire estate, nor
when the rain had started, slowing their travel to a crawl, nor when the carriage
had overturned twenty minutes ago.
How very irritating. “Do you think you will be able to right
the carriage?” She pulled her soaked cloak up over her chin as she contemplated
the remains of her vehicle. The door hung from one hinge, banging in the wind,
two wheels were smashed, and the back axle had settled at an odd angle. It was
a thoroughly idiotic question.
Mr. Pye didn’t indicate by action or word that he was aware of the silliness
of her query. “No, my lady.”
George sighed.
Really, it was something of a miracle that they and the coachman hadn’t
been hurt or killed. The rain had made the roads slippery with mud and as they
had rounded the last curve, the carriage had started to slide. From inside, she
and Mr. Pye had heard the coachman shouting as he tried to steady the vehicle.
Harry Pye had leapt from his seat to hers, rather like a large cat. He'd braced
himself against her before she could even utter a word. His warmth had surrounded
her, and her nose, buried intimately in his shirt, had inhaled the scent of clean
linen and male skin. By that time the carriage had tilted, and it was obvious
they were falling into the ditch.
Slowly, awfully, the contraption had tipped over with a grinding crash. The
horses had whinnied from the front and the carriage had moaned as if protesting
its fate. She'd clutched Mr. Pye's coat as her world up-ended and Mr. Pye grunted
in pain. Then they were still again. The vehicle had rested on its side, and Mr.
Pye rested on her like a great warm blanket. Except Harry Pye was much firmer
than any blanket she'd ever felt before.
He’d apologized most correctly, disentangled himself from her, and climbed
up the seat to wrest open the door above them. He’d crawled through and
then pulled her bodily out. George rubbed the wrist he’d gripped. He was
disconcertingly strong--one would never know it to look at him. At one point,
almost her entire weight had hung from his arm and she wasn’t a petite woman.
The coachman gave a shout, snatched away by the wind, but it was enough to
bring her back to the present. The mare he’d been unhitching was free.
“Ride her to the next town, Mr. Coachman, if you will,” Harry Pye
directed. “See if there is another carriage to send back. I’ll remain
here with her ladyship.”
The coachman mounted the horse and waved before disappearing into the downpour.
“How far is the next town?” George asked.
“Ten or fifteen miles.” He pulled a strap loose on one of the horses.
She studied him as he worked. Aside from the wet, Harry Pye didn’t look
any different than he had when they'd started out this morning from an inn in
Lincoln. He was still a man of average height. Rather lean. His hair was brown,
neither chestnut nor auburn, merely brown. He tied it back in a simple queue,
not bothering to dress it with pomades or powder. And he wore brown: breeches,
waistcoat, and coat, as if to camouflage himself. Only his eyes, a dark emerald
green that sometimes flickered with what might be emotion, gave him any color.
“It’s just that I’m rather cold,” George muttered.
Mr. Pye looked up swiftly. His gaze darted to her hands, trembling at her throat,
and then shifted to the hills behind her.
“I’m sorry, my lady. I should have noticed your chill earlier.”
He turned back to the frightened gelding he was trying to liberate. His hands
must be as numb as her own, but he labored steadily. “There’s a shepherd’s
cottage not far from here. We can ride this horse and that one.” He nodded
at the horse next to the gelding. “The other is lame.”
“Really? How can you tell?” She hadn’t noticed the animal
was hurt. All three of the remaining carriage horses shivered and rolled their
eyes at the whistling of the wind. The horse he had indicated didn’t look
any more ragged than the rest.
“She’s favoring her right foreleg.” Mr. Pye grunted and suddenly
all three horses were free of the carriage, although they were still hitched together.
“Whoa, there, sweetheart.” He caught the lead horse and stroked it,
his tanned right hand moving tenderly over the animal’s neck. The last two
joints on his ring finger were missing.
She turned her head away to look at the hills. Servants—and really a
land steward was just a superior sort of servant—should have no gender.
Of course, one knew they were people with their own lives and all that, but it
made things so very much easier if one saw them as sexless. Like a chair. One
wanted a chair to sit in when one was tired. No one ever thought about chairs
much otherwise and that was how it should be. How uncomfortable to go about wondering
if the chair had noticed that one’s nose was running, wishing to know what
it was thinking, or seeing that the chair had rather beautiful eyes. Not that
chairs had eyes, beautiful or otherwise, but men did.
And Harry Pye did.
George faced him again. “What will we do with the third horse?”
“We’ll have to leave her here.”
“In the rain?”
“Yes.”
“That can’t be good for her.”
“No, my lady.” Harry Pye’s shoulders bunched again, a reaction
that George found oddly fascinating. She wished she could make him do it more
often.
“Perhaps we should take her with us?”
“Impossible, my lady.”
“Are you sure?”
The shoulders tensed and Mr. Pye slowly turned his head. In the flash of lightning
that lit up the road in that instant, she saw his green eyes gleam and a thrill
ran up her spine. Then the following thunder crashed like the heralding of the
apocalypse.
George flinched.
Harry Pye straightened.
And the horses bolted.
***
“Oh, dear,” said Lady Georgina, rain dripping from
her narrow nose. “We seem to be in something of a fix.”
Something of a fix indeed. More like well and truly buggered. Harry squinted
up the road where the horses had disappeared, running like the Devil himself was
chasing them. There was no sign of the daft beasts. At the rate they’d been
galloping, they wouldn’t stop for half a mile or more. No use going after
them in this downpour. He switched his gaze to his employer of less than six months.
Lady Georgina’s aristocratic lips were blue and the fur trimming the hood
of her cloak had turned into a sopping mess. She looked more like an urchin in
tattered finery than the daughter of an earl.
What was she doing here?
If not for Lady Georgina he would’ve ridden a horse from London to her
estates in Yorkshire. He would’ve arrived a day ago at Woldsly Manor. Right
now he would be enjoying a hot meal in front of the fire in his own cottage. Not
freezing his baubles off, standing in the middle of the highroad in the rain with
the light fading fast. But on his last trip to London to report on her holdings
Lady Georgina had decided to travel with him back to Woldsly Manor. Which had
meant taking the carriage, now lying in a heap of broken wood in the ditch.
Harry swallowed a sigh. “Can you walk, my lady?”
Lady Georgina widened eyes as blue as a thrush’s egg. “Oh yes.
I’ve been doing it since I was eleven months old.”
“Good.” Harry shrugged on his waistcoat and coat, not bothering
to button either. They were soaked through like the rest of him. He scrambled
down the bank to retrieve the rugs from inside the carriage. Thankfully, they
were still dry. He rolled them together and snagged the still-lit carriage lantern.
Then he gripped Lady Georgina’s elbow, just in case she was wrong and fell
on her aristocratic little arse, and started trudging up the gorse-covered hill.
At first, he’d thought her urge to travel to Yorkshire a childish fancy.
The lark of a woman who never worried where the meat on her table or the jewels
at her throat came from. To his mind, those who didn’t labor to make their
living often had flighty ideas. But the more time he spent in her company, the
more he began to doubt that she was such a woman. She said gormless things, true,
but he’d seen almost at once that she did it for her own amusement. She
was smarter than most society ladies. He had a feeling that Lady Georgina had
a good reason for traveling with him to Yorkshire.
“Is it much further?” The lady was panting and her normally pale
face sported two spots of red.
Harry scanned the sodden hills, looking for a landmark in the gloom. Was that
twisted oak growing against an outcropping familiar? “Not far.”
At least he hoped not. It had been years since he’d last ridden these
hills, and he might’ve mistaken where the cottage lay. Or it might have
tumbled down since he last saw it.
“I trust you are skilled at starting fires, Mr. P-pye.” Her voice
shook and his name chattered on her lips.
She needed to get warm. If they didn’t find the cottage soon, he’d
have to make a shelter from the carriage robes. “Oh, yes. I’ve been
doing it since I was four, my lady.”
That earned him a cheeky grin. Their eyes met and he wished— A sudden
bolt of lightening interrupted his half-formed thought and in the flash he saw
a stone wall.
“There it is.” Thank God.
The tiny cottage still stood at least. Four stone walls with a thatched roof
black with age and the rain. He put his shoulder to the slick door, and after
one or two shoves it gave. Harry stumbled in and held the lantern high to illuminate
the interior. Small shapes scurried into the shadows. He checked a shudder.
“Gah! It does smell.” Lady Georgina walked in and waved her hand
in front of her pink nose as if to shoo the stink of mildew.
He banged the door closed behind her. “I’m sorry, my lady.”
“Why don’t you just tell me to shut my mouth and be glad I’m
out of the rain?” She smiled and pulled back her hood.
“I think not.” Harry walked to the fireplace and found some half-burned
logs. They were covered with cobwebs.
“Oh, come, Mr. Pye. You know you wish t-t-to.” Her teeth still
chattered.
Four rickety wooden chairs stood around a lopsided table. Harry placed the
lantern on the table and picked up a chair. He swung it hard against the stone
fireplace. It shattered, the back coming off and the seat splintering.
Behind him, Lady George squeaked.
“No, I don’t, my lady,” he said.
“Truly?”
“Yes.” He knelt and began placing small splinters of the chair
against the charred logs.
“Very well. I suppose I must be nice then.” Harry heard her draw
up a chair. “That looks very efficient, what you’re doing there.”
He touched the lantern flame to the slivers of wood. They lit and he added
larger pieces of the chair, careful not to smother the flame.
“Mmm. It feels good.” Her voice was throaty behind him.
For a moment Harry froze, thinking of what her words and tone might imply in
a different context. Then he banished the thoughts and turned.
Lady Georgina held out her hands to the blaze. Her ginger hair was drying into
fine curls around her forehead and her white skin glowed in the firelight. She
was still shivering.
Harry cleared his throat. “I believe you should remove your wet gown
and wrap the rugs about yourself.” He strode over to the door where he’d
dumped the carriage robes.
From behind him, he heard a breathless laugh. “I don’t believe
I have ever heard such an improper suggestion made so properly.”
“I didn’t mean to be improper, my lady." He handed her the
robes. "I’m sorry if I offended.” Briefly his eyes met hers,
so blue and laughing, then he turned his back.
Behind him there was a rustling. He tried to discipline his thoughts. He would
not imagine her pale, naked shoulders above—
“You aren’t improper, as well you know, Mr. Pye. Indeed, I’m
beginning to think it would be impossible for you to be so.”
If she only knew. He cleared his throat, but made no comment. He forced himself
to gaze around the little cottage. There was no kitchen dresser, only the table
and chairs. A pity. His belly was empty.
The rustling by the fire ceased. “You may turn around now.”
He braced himself before looking, but Lady Georgina was covered in furs. He
was glad to see her lips were pinker.
She freed a naked arm from the bundle to point at a robe at the other side
of the fireplace. “I’ve left one for you. I’m too comfortable
to move, but I’ll close my eyes and promise not to peek if you wish to disrobe
as well.”
Harry dragged his gaze away from the arm and met her clever blue eyes. “Thank
you.”
The arm disappeared. Lady Georgina smiled and her eyelids fell.
For a moment Harry simply watched her. The reddish arcs of her eyelashes fluttered
against her pale skin and a smile hovered on her crooked mouth. Her nose was thin
and over-long, the angles of her face a bit too sharp. When she stood she almost
equaled his own height. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, but he found himself
having to control his gaze when he was around her. Something about the twitching
of her lips when she was about to taunt him. Or the way her eyebrows winged up
her forehead when she smiled. His eyes were drawn to her face like iron filings
near a lodestone.
He shucked his upper garments and drew the last robe around himself. “You
may open your eyes now, my lady.”
Her eyes popped open. “Good. And now we both look like Russians swathed
for the Siberian winter. A pity we don't have a sleigh with bells as well."
She smoothed the fur on her lap.
He nodded. The fire crackled in the silence as he tried to think of how else
he could look after her. There was no food in the cottage, nothing to do but wait
for dawn. How did the upper crust behave when they were in their palatial sitting
rooms all alone?
Lady Georgina was plucking at her robe, but she suddenly clasped her hands
together as if to still them. "Do you know any stories, Mr. Pye?”
“Stories, my lady?”
“Mmm. Stories. Fairy tales, actually. I collect them.”
“Indeed.” Harry was at a loss. The way the aristocracy thought
was truly amazing sometimes. “How, may I ask, do you go about collecting
them?”
“By inquiring.” Was she having fun with him? “You’d
be amazed at the stories that people remember from their youth. Of course old
nursemaids and the like are the best sources. I believe I’ve asked every
one of my acquaintances to introduce me to their old nurse. Is yours still alive?”
“I didn’t have a nursemaid, my lady.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks reddened. “But someone—your mother?—must’ve
told you fairy tales growing up.”
He shifted to put another piece of the broken chair on the fire. “The
only fairy tale I can remember is Jack and the Beanstalk.”
Lady Georgina gave him a pitying look. “Can’t you do better than
that?”
“I’m afraid not.” The other tales he knew weren’t exactly
fit for a lady’s ears.
“Well, I heard a rather interesting one recently. From my cook’s
aunt when she came to visit Cook in London. Would you like me to tell it to you?”
No. The last thing he needed was to become any more intimate with his employer
than the situation had already forced him to be. “Yes, my lady.”
“Once upon a time, there was a great king and he had an enchanted leopard
to serve him.” She wiggled her rump on the chair. “I know what you’re
thinking, but that’s not how it goes.”
Harry blinked. “My lady?”
“No. The king dies right away, so he’s not the hero.” She
looked expectantly at him.
“Ah.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
It seemed to do.
Lady Georgina nodded. “The leopard wore a sort of gold chain around its
neck. It was enslaved, you see, but I don’t know how that came about. Cook’s
aunt didn’t say. Anyway, when the king was dying he made the leopard promise
to serve the next king, his son.” She frowned. “Which doesn’t
seem very fair, somehow, does it? I mean, usually they free the faithful servant
at that point.” She shifted again on the wooden chair.
Harry cleared his throat. “Perhaps you would be more comfortable on the
floor. Your cloak is drier. I could make a pallet.”
She smiled blindingly at him. “What a good idea.”
He spread out the cloak and rolled his own clothes into a pillow shape.
Lady Georgina shuffled over in her robes and plopped down on the crude bed.
“That’s better. You might as well come lie down as well, we’ll
be here until morning, most likely.”
Christ. “I don’t think it advisable.”
She looked down her narrow nose at him. “Mr. Pye, those chairs are hard.
Please come lie on the rugs at least. I promise not to bite.”
He felt his jaw clench, but he really had no choice. It was a veiled order.
“Thank you, my lady.”
Harry gingerly sat beside her—he was damned if he would lie down next
to this woman order or no—and made sure to leave a space between their bodies.
He wrapped his arms around his bent knees and tried not to notice her scent.
“You are stubborn, aren’t you?” she muttered.
He looked at her.
She yawned. “Where was I? Oh, yes. So the first thing the young king
does is to see a painting of a beautiful princess and fall in love with her. A
courtier or a messenger or some such shows it to him, but that doesn’t matter.”
She yawned again, squeaking this time, and for some reason his prick responded
to the sound. Or perhaps it was her scent, which reached his nose whether he wished
it to or not. It reminded him of spices and exotic flowers.
“The princess has skin as white as snow, lips as red as rubies, hair
as black as, oh, pitch or the like, et cetera, et cetera.” Lady Georgina
paused and stared into the fire.
He wondered if she were done and his torment over.
Then she sighed. “Have you ever noticed that these fairy tale princes
fall in love with beautiful princesses without knowing a thing about them? Ruby
lips are all very well, but what if she laughs oddly or clicks her teeth when
she eats?” She shrugged. “Of course men in our times are just as apt
to fall in love with glossy black curls, so I suppose I shouldn’t quibble.”
Her eyes widened suddenly and she turned her head to look at him. “No offense
meant.”
“None taken,” Harry said gravely.
“Hmm.” She seemed doubtful. “Anyway, he falls in love with
this picture and someone tells him that the princess’ father is auctioning
her off to the man who can bring him the Golden Horse presently in the possession
of a terrible ogre. So”—Lady Georgina turned to face the fire and
cradled her cheek in her hand—“he sends for the Leopard Prince and
tells him to go out quick and fetch him the Golden Horse, and what do you think?”
“I don’t know, my lady.”
“The leopard turned into a man.” She closed her eyes and murmured,
“Imagine that. He was a man all along...”
Harry waited, but this time there was no more story. After a while he heard
a soft snore.
He drew the robes up over her neck and tucked them around her face. His fingers
brushed against her cheek and he paused, studying the contrast in the tones. His
hand was dark against her skin, his fingers rough where she was soft and smooth.
Slowly, he stroked his thumb across the corner of her mouth. So warm. He almost
recognized her scent, as if he’d inhaled it in another life or long ago.
It made him ache.
If she were a different woman, if this were a different place, if he were a
different man... Harry cut short the whisper in his mind and drew back his hand.
He stretched out next to Lady Georgina, careful not to touch her. He stared at
the ceiling and drove out all thought, all feeling. Then he closed his eyes, even
though he knew it would be a long while before he slept.
***
Her nose tickled. George swiped at it and felt fur. Beside her, something rustled
and then was still. She turned her head. Green, green eyes met her own, irritatingly
alert for so early in the day.
“Good morning.” Her words came out a frog’s croak. She cleared
her throat.
“Good morning, my lady.” Mr. Pye’s voice was smooth and dark,
like hot chocolate. “If you’ll excuse me.”
He rose. The robe he clutched slid off one shoulder, revealing tanned skin
before he righted it. Walking silently, he slipped out the door.
George scrunched her nose. Did nothing faze the man?
It suddenly occurred to her what he must be doing outside. Her bladder sent
up an alarm. Hastily, she struggled upright and pulled on her rumpled, still-damp
dress, catching as many of the fastenings as she could. She couldn’t reach
all the hooks and it must be gaping around her waist, but at least the garment
wouldn’t fall off. George put on her cloak to hide her back and then followed
Mr. Pye outside. Black clouds hovered in the sky, threatening rain. Harry Pye
was nowhere in sight. Looking around, she chose a falling-down shed as a likely
spot and tramped around it.
When she came back from the shed, Mr. Pye was standing in front of the cottage
buttoning his coat. He had retied his queue, but his clothes were wrinkled and
his hair not as neat as usual. Thinking about what she must look like herself,
George felt an uncharitable smirk of amusement. Even Harry Pye couldn’t
spend the night on the floor of a hut and not show the effects the next morning.
“When you are ready, my lady,” he said, “I suggest we return
to the highway. The coachman may be waiting for us there.”
“Oh, I hope so.”
They retraced their steps of the night before. In light and downhill, George
was surprised to find it not such a great distance. Soon they had topped the last
hill and could see the road. It was empty, save for the carriage wreckage, even
more pitiful in the light of day.
She heaved a sigh. “Well. I guess we’ll just have to start walking,
Mr. Pye.”
“Yes, my lady.”
They trudged up the road in silence. A nasty, damp mist hovered off the ground,
smelling faintly of rot. It seeped beneath her gown and crept up her legs. George
shuddered. She dearly wished for a cup of hot tea and perhaps a scone with honey
and butter dripping off the sides. She almost moaned at the thought and then realized
there was a rumbling coming from behind them.
Mr. Pye raised his arm to hail a farmer’s wagon rounding the curve. “Hi!
Stop! You there, we need a ride.”
The farmer pulled his horse to a standstill. He tipped the brim of his hat
back and stared. “Mr. Harry Pye, isn’t it?”
Mr. Pye stiffened. “Yes, that’s right. From the Woldsly Estate.”
The farmer spat into the road, narrowly missing Mr. Pye’s boots.
“Lady Georgina Maitland needs a ride to Woldsly.” Harry Pye’s
face did not change, but his voice had grown as chill as death. “It was
her carriage you saw back there.”
The farmer switched his gaze to George as if noticing her for the first time.
“Aye ma’am, I hope you weren’t hurt in the wreck?”
“No.” She smiled winningly. “But we do need a ride, if you
don’t mind.”
“Glad to help. There be room in the back.” The farmer aimed a dirty
thumb over his shoulder at the bed of the wagon.
She thanked him and walked around the wagon. She hesitated as she eyed the
height of the boards. They came to her collarbone.
Mr. Pye halted beside her. “With your permission.” He hardly waited
for her nod before grasping her about the waist and lifting her in.
“Thank you,” George said breathlessly.
She watched as he placed his palms flat on the bed and vaulted in with cat-like
ease. The wagon jolted forward just as he cleared the boards, and he was thrown
against the side.
“Are you all right?” She held out a hand.
Mr. Pye disregarded it and sat up. “Fine.” He glanced at her. “My
lady.”
He said no more. George settled back and watched the countryside roll by. Gray-green
fields with low stone walls emerged and then were hidden again by the eerie mist.
After last night, she should’ve been glad of the ride, bumpy though it might
be. But something about the farmer’s hostility to Mr. Pye bothered her.
It seemed personal.
They cleared a rise and George idly watched a flock of sheep grazing on a nearby
hillside. They stood like little statues, perhaps frozen by the mist. Only their
heads moved as they cropped the gorse. A few were lying down. She frowned. The
ones on the ground were very still. She leaned forward to see better and heard
Harry Pye curse softly beside her.
The wagon jerked to a halt.
“What’s the matter with those sheep?” George asked Mr. Pye.
But it was the farmer who answered, his voice grim. “They’re dead.” |
