The Leopard Prince (Princes #2)(29)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

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 his 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?”