The Leopard Prince (Princes #2)(34)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

With one cold word, he could send her flying, this woman whose station so far outranked his. Had he ever had that much power over an aristocrat? He doubted it. The problem was that sometime in the last week she’d stopped being merely a member of the aristocracy and had become… a woman. Lady Georgina.

His lady.

“Please tell me your story, my lady.” Harry ate some more of Mrs. Burns’s soup, chewing on a piece of mutton.

She seemed to relax and turned back to the mantel, playing with the whittled animals as she spoke. “The Leopard Prince defeated the ogre and brought back the Golden Horse. Did I tell you that part?” She glanced at him.

Harry nodded.

“Yes, now…” She scrunched her nose in thought. “The young king, do you remember him?”

“Mmm.”

“Well, the young king took the Golden Horse from the Leopard Prince, probably without even a ‘thank you very much,’ and carted it off to the princess”—she waved a hand—“or rather to her father, the other king. Because the princess doesn’t have any say-so, does she?”

He shrugged. It was her fairy tale; he’d no idea.

“They very rarely do. Princesses, I mean. They get sold off to old dragons and giants and such all the time.” Lady Georgina was frowning at a badger. “Where’s the stag?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The stag.” She pointed at the mantel. “It’s not here. You didn’t knock it into the fire, did you?”

“I don’t think so, but I might’ve.”

“You’ll have to find another place for them. It’s too dangerous here.” She began lining the carved animals at the back of the mantel.

“As you wish, my lady.”

“Anyway,” Lady Georgina continued, “the young king brought the Golden Horse to the father king and said, ‘Here you are, and how about your beautiful daughter, then?’ But what the young king didn’t know was that the Golden Horse could speak.”

“It’s a talking metal horse?”

She appeared not to hear him. “The minute the young king left the room, the Golden Horse turned to the other king, the father king—are you following me?”

“Mmm.” His mouth was full.

“Good. All these kings are very confusing.” She heaved a sigh. “And the Golden Horse said, ‘That’s not the man who freed me. You’ve been tricked, Your Majesty.’ And didn’t that make the father king mad.”

“Why?” Harry drank some ale. “The father king had possession of the Golden Horse. Why would he care one way or the other who actually stole it?”

She set her hands on her hips. “Because stealing the Golden Horse is a test. He wants only the man who can do that to marry his daughter.”

“I see.” The whole thing sounded silly. Wouldn’t a noble father be more interested in the richer man rather than the stronger? “So, then, he didn’t really want the Golden Horse.”

“He probably wanted the Golden Horse as well, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“But—”

“What is important”—Lady Georgina glared at him—“is that the father king marched straight back to the young king and said, ‘See here, the Golden Horse is all very well, but what I really want is the Golden Swan that belongs to a very nasty witch. So if you want the princess, off you go to get it.’ What do you think of that?”

It took a moment for Harry to realize that the last was said to him. He swallowed. “There seem to be a lot of golden animals in this fairy tale, my lady.”

“Ye-es,” Lady Georgina said. “That did occur to me, too. But they can’t very well be anything else, can they? I mean, it wouldn’t do to have a copper horse or a lead swan.” She frowned and switched a mole with a sparrow.

He watched her thoughtfully. “Is that all, my lady?”

“What?” She didn’t look up from the little animals. “No, there’s lots more.” But she didn’t elaborate.

He pushed the remains of his supper away. “Are you going to tell me the rest?”

“No. Not right now, anyway.”

He got up from the table and took a step closer. He didn’t want to frighten her. He felt as if he had his own golden swan within reach. “Then, will you tell me why you’ve really come, my lady?” he asked. He could smell the perfume in her hair, an exotic scent like spices from distant lands.

She set a thrush next to a cat. The bird toppled over, and he waited while she carefully righted it. “I need to tell you something. Besides the fairy tale.” Her face was half turned away, and he could see the glistening trail of a tear on her cheek.

A kind man—an honorable man—would leave her alone. He would pretend he didn’t see the tears and would turn away. He would not trespass upon her fears and desires. But long ago Harry had lost what little honor he’d ever had.

And he had never been kind.

He touched her hair with a fingertip, feeling the soft strands. “What do you need to tell me?”

She turned to face him, and her eyes were bright in the firelight, uncertain and hopeful and as alluring as Eve herself. “I know now what I want from you.”

Chapter Ten

Harry stood so near, his breath caressed her face. “And what is it you want from me, my lady?”

George’s heart beat in her throat. This was so much harder than she’d imagined back in her room at Woldsly. She felt like she was laying her soul before him. “I want you.”

He bent closer, and she thought she felt his tongue touch her ear. “Me?”

She gasped. This was what drove her on, despite her embarrassment, despite her fear: desire for this man.

“Yes. I… I want you to kiss me like you did before. I want to see you naked. I want to be naked for you. I want…”

But her thoughts scattered because this time she was sure of it—he was tracing the rim of her ear with his tongue. And while the idea of such a caress might seem rather odd, in reality it was divine. She shivered.

Harry’s chuckle puffed against her wet ear. “You want many things, my lady.”

“Mmm.” George swallowed as another thought occurred to her. “And I want you to stop calling me my lady.”

“But you order me about so masterfully.” His teeth closed on her earlobe.

George had to press her knees together to contain her own excitement. “E-even so—”