The Leopard Prince (Princes #2)(63)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“But—”

“Do you remember the mice he’d catch sometimes when he was a boy? I found him once with one he’d caught. He’d cut off it’s feet. He was watching it try to crawl.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Bennet muttered.

“I had to kill it. But then I couldn’t punish him, poor lad. His father beat him enough already. I never saw him again with a mouse, but I don’t think he stopped. He just got better at hiding it from me.”

“We don’t have to pursue this,” Harry said.

Bennet swung around, his eyes desperate. “And what if he is the sheep poisoner? What if he kills someone else?”

His question hung in the air. No one could answer it but Bennet.

He seemed to realize it was up to him. He squared his broad shoulders. “If it is Thomas, he’s murdered a woman. I need to stop him.”

Harry nodded. “I’ll talk to Dick Crumb.”

“Fine,” Bennet said. “You’ve helped us, Nanny. You see things nobody else does.”

“Maybe not with my eyes anymore, but I always could read a person.” Mistress Humboldt held out a wavering hand to her former charge.

Bennet grasped it.

“God save and protect you, Master Bennet,” she said. “It’s not an easy task you have.”

Bennet leaned down to kiss the withered cheek. “Thank you, Nanny.” He straightened and clapped Will on the shoulder. “We best be going, Will, before you finish those last two scones.”

The old woman smiled. “Let the lad take the rest. It’s been so long since I had a boy to feed.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Will stuffed the scones into his pockets.

She saw them to the door and stood and waved as they rode away.

“I’d forgotten how sharp Nanny is. Thomas and I could never get anything past her.” Bennet’s face darkened when he spoke his brother’s name.

Harry glanced at him. “If you want, you can put off talking to Thomas until tomorrow, after I’ve sounded out Dick Crumb. I’ll have to wait until nightfall to find him, anyway. Best time to catch Dick is at the Cock and Worm after ten o’clock.”

“No, I don’t want to wait another day to talk to Thomas. Better to do it right away.”

They rode for a half mile or more in silence, Will clinging behind Bennet.

“So once we find whoever’s doing this,” Bennet said, “you’ll be leaving?”

“That’s right.” Harry watched the road ahead but could feel the other man’s gaze on him.

“I was under the impression that you and Lady Georgina had an… uh… understanding.”

Harry gave Bennet a look that usually shut a man up. Not him. “Because, I mean, it’s a bit thick, what? A fellow just up and leaving a lady.”

“I’m not from her class.” “Yes, but that obviously doesn’t matter to her, does it? Or she’d never have taken up with you in the first place.”

“I—” “And if you don’t mind me being blunt, she must be pretty gone on you.” Bennet looked him up and down as if he were a side of spoiled beef. “I mean, you don’t exactly have the sort of face that women swoon over. More in my line, that.”

“Bennet—” “Not to blow my own horn, but I could tell you quite a tale of a delectable bird in London—”

“Bennet.”

“What?”

Harry nodded at Will, who was wide-eyed and listening to every word.

“Oh.” Bennet coughed. “Quite. Shall I see you tomorrow, then? We’ll meet and exchange information.”

They had neared a copse of trees that marked where the main road crossed the lane they traveled on.

“Fine.” Harry pulled his mare to a halt. “This is where I must turn off, anyway. And Bennet?”

“Yes?” He turned his face and the sun fell full upon it, tracing the laugh lines around his eyes.

“Be careful,” Harry said. “If it is Thomas, he’ll be dangerous.”

“You be careful as well, Harry.”

Harry nodded. “Godspeed.”

Bennet waved and rode off.

Harry spent the rest of the daylight hours laying low. When dusk fell, he made his way to West Dikey and the Cock and Worm. He ducked his head as he entered and scanned the crowd from under his low hat brim. A table of farmers, smoking clay pipes in the corner, burst into boisterous laughter. A weathered-looking barmaid dodged with practiced ease a heavy hand aimed at her rump and made her way to the counter.

“Dick in tonight?” Harry bawled in her ear. “Sorry, luv.” She pivoted and shouldered a tray of drinks. “Maybe later.”

Harry frowned and ordered a pint from the counterman, a lad he remembered seeing once or twice before. Was Dick hiding in back or was he really not in the building? He leaned on the wood counter while he thought and watched a gentleman, obviously a traveler, judging from the mud on his boots, enter and stare bemusedly around. The man’s face was handsome but long and bland, rather like a goat’s. Harry shook his head. The traveler must’ve missed the sign for the White Mare. He wasn’t the Cock and Worm’s usual type of customer.

The boy slid Harry his mug of ale, and Harry rolled a few coins back. He moved over and took a sip as the traveler came to the counter.

“Pardon me, but do you know the way to Woldsly Manor?”

Harry froze for a second, his mug at his lips. The stranger hadn’t paid him any attention; he was leaning over the counter to the boy.

“Say again?” the boy shouted. “Woldsly Manor,” the stranger raised his voice. “Lady Georgina Maitland’s estate. I’m an intimate of her younger sister, Lady Violet. I can’t seem to find the road—”

The boy’s gaze darted to Harry.

Harry clapped his hand on the other’s shoulder, making the stranger start. “I can show you the way, friend, soon as I finish my ale.”

The man turned, his face brightening. “Would you?” “No problem at all.” Harry nodded at the boy. “Another pint for my friend here. I’m sorry, didn’t catch your name?”

“Wentworth. Leonard Wentworth.” “Ah.” Harry suppressed a feral smile. “Let’s find a table, shall we?” As the other man turned, Harry leaned over the counter and murmured urgent instructions to the boy, then passed him a coin.

An hour later, when the middle Maitland brother strolled into the Cock and Worm, Wentworth was on his fourth pint. Harry had been nursing his second for some time now and felt as if he needed a bath. Wentworth had been quite forthcoming about bedding a fifteen-year-old, his marriage hopes, and what he would do with Lady Violet’s money once he got his hands on it.