The Leopard Prince (Princes #2)(12)

The gelding turned in at the great stone gates, and Silas nudged the horse into another gallop. He topped a rise and Granville House appeared. Gray granite, four stories high, with wings that formed a square around an inner courtyard, Granville House loomed over the surrounding countryside. The building was imposing and stern, meant to signal here is authority to any who saw it.

Silas cantered to the front door. He pursed his lips in distaste as he saw the figure in crimson and silver on the steps.

“Thomas. You look like a sodomite in that rig.” He dismounted and threw the reins to a stable hand. “How much did that garment set me back at the tailor’s?”

“Hullo, Father.” His eldest son’s face blotched red. “It really wasn’t all that dear.” Thomas stared at the blood on the gelding’s heaving sides. He licked his lips.

“Gad, you’re blushing like a lass.” Silas brushed past the boy. “Come and sup with me, Miss Nellie.”

He smirked as his son hesitated behind him. The boy didn’t have much choice, did he? Not unless he’d grown a set of bollocks overnight. Silas stomped into his dining room, perversely pleased to see that the table wasn’t set.

“Where the hell’s my dinner?”

Footmen jumped, maids scurried, and the butler babbled out apologies. Too soon the table was ready and they sat down to dine.

“Eat some of that.” Silas pointed with a fork at the rare meat, lying in a pool of blood on his son’s plate. “Mayhap you’ll grow hair on your chest. Or elsewhere.”

Thomas hazarded a half smile at Silas’s baiting and shrugged one shoulder nervously.

Jesus! How had he ever thought this boy’s mother would make a good breeder? His offspring, the fruit of his loins—which he never doubted, because his late wife hadn’t the spirit to cuckold him—sat across from him and poked at his meat. His son had inherited Silas’s height and brown eyes but that was all. His overlong nose, lipless mouth, and puling nature were all his mother’s. Silas snorted in disgust.

“Were you able to see Lady Georgina?” Thomas had taken a bite of the beef and was chewing it as if he held dung in his mouth.

“Oh, aye, I saw the arrogant bitch. Saw her in the library at Woldsly. And Harry Pye, damn his green eyes.” He reached for a roll.

Thomas stopped chewing. “Harry Pye? The same Harry Pye who used to live here? Not a different man with the same name? Her steward, I mean.”

“Aye her steward.” Silas’s voice rose on the last word to a mincing falsetto. His son flushed again. “It’s not like I’m apt to forget those green eyes any time soon.”

“I suppose not.”

Silas looked hard at his son, his eyes narrowed.

“You’ll have him arrested?” Thomas spoke quickly, one shoulder up.

“As to that, I’ve run into a slight problem.” Silas curled his upper lip. “Seems Lady Georgina doesn’t want her steward arrested, stupid wench.” He took another swig of ale. “Doesn’t think the evidence is damning enough. Probably doesn’t care one way or the other about dead livestock—my dead livestock—seeing as she’s from London.”

“The carved figurine didn’t convince her?”

“No, it did not.” Silas picked a bit of gristle from between his front teeth. “Ridiculous to let a woman have that much land, anyway. What’s she want it for? Probably cares more for gloves and the latest dance in London than she does for her estate. The old woman should have left it to a man. Or made her get married so she’d have a husband to run it.”

“Perhaps…” Thomas hesitated. “Perhaps I could talk to her?”

“You?” Silas flung back his head and laughed until he began to choke. Tears appeared in his eyes, and he had to take a drink.

Thomas was silent on the other side of the table.

Silas wiped his eyes. “It’s not as if you have a way with the ladies, now, is it, Tommy, my boy? Not like your brother, Bennet. That lad had his first cream jug while still in the schoolroom.”

Thomas’s head was bowed. His shoulders twitched up and down.

“Have you ever even bedded a wench?” Silas asked softly. Slyly. “Ever felt soft, fat titties? Ever smelled the fishy odor of eager twat?” He leaned back, balancing his chair on two legs, and watched his son. “Ever plunged your pud into a willing woman and f*cked her until she screamed?”

Thomas jerked. His fork slid off the table and rattled onto the floor.

Silas sat forward. The front legs of his chair came down with a thump. “I thought not.”

Thomas stood so suddenly his chair crashed over. “Bennet isn’t here, is he? And not likely to be here anytime soon.”

Silas pursed his lips at that.

“I’m your oldest son. This will be my land someday. Let me try to talk to Lady Georgina.”

“Why?” Silas cocked his head.

“You can go there and take Pye by force,” Thomas said. “But it isn’t likely to endear her to us. And while she’s our neighbor, it behooves us to remain on good terms. He’s only her steward. I can’t believe she’d start a feud over the man.”

“Aye. Well, I don’t suppose you can make it any worse.” Silas drained his ale and banged down his cup. “I’ll give you a couple of days to try and talk sense into the woman.”