Free The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt

so long. He tore his mind away from thoughts of hemlock and dead sheep and stared at her. How was he supposed to answer a question like that?
    “You were so stiff, so correct.” She twirled her parasol. “And I had the distinct feeling you were looking down your nose at me as if you didn’t particularly like me, either.”
    He remembered the interview many months before in her London town house. She’d kept him waiting in a pretty pink sitting room for over an hour. Then suddenly she’d blown in, chattering at him as if they’d already met. Had he glowered at her? He didn’t know, but it was likely. Back then she’d conformed to all his expectations of an aristocratic lady.
    Funny how his estimation of her had changed since.
    “That’s probably why Violet so dislikes you,” she said now.
    “What?” He’d lost the thread of her conversation. Again.
    She waved a hand. “The sternness, the correctness that you display. I think that’s why Violet doesn’t care for you very much.”
    “I’m sorry, my lady.”
    “No, no, you needn’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”
    He raised an eyebrow.
    “It’s our father’s.” She glanced at him and must have read the puzzlement on his face. “Father was stern and terribly correct as well. You probably remind Violet of him.”
    “She said I reminded her of your father? An earl?”
    “No, of course not. I doubt she consciously has noticed the superficial resemblance.”
    His mouth twisted. “I’m flattered to be compared to your father, my lady, superficially or not.”
    “Oh, Lord, and now you’re using that terribly dry tone.”
    He shot a startled look at her.
    Her eyes widened. “I never know if I should throw myself from a cliff when I hear it or simply slink into some corner and try and make myself invisible.”
    She could never make herself invisible. At least not to him. He’d smell her exotic fragrance if nothing else. He straightened. “I assure you—”
    “Never mind.” She cut him off with a wave. “If anyone should apologize, it should be me. My father was an awful man, and I had no business comparing the two of you.”
    How to reply to that? “Huh.”
    “Not that we saw Father all that much, of course. Only once a week, sometimes less, when Nanny brought us down for inspection.”
    Inspection? He’d never understand the rich.
    “It really was the most terrifying thing. I never could eat beforehand, or I’d be in danger of losing the meal on his boots, and wouldn’t that be a horror.” She shivered at the thought. “We’d line up, my brothers and I, all in a row. Scrubbed, polished, and silent, we’d wait for Father to give his approval. Quite, quite agonizing, I assure you.”
    He glanced at her. Despite her words, Lady Georgina’s face was bland, almost careless, but she wasn’t quite as good at disguising her voice. He wouldn’t have noticed it a week ago, but today he detected the strain. Her old man must’ve been a right bastard.
    She was looking down at her hands now, folded in her lap. “And, you see, at least we had each other, my brothers and I, when we went for inspection. But Violet is the youngest. She had to do it all alone after the rest of us grew up and left.”
    “When did the earl die?”
    “Five years ago, now. He was on a foxhunt—he was very proud of his kennel of foxhounds—and his horse balked at a hedge. The horse stayed behind, but father went over and broke his neck. He was already dead when they brought him home. Mother had an hysterical fit and took to bed for the next year. She didn’t even rise for the funeral.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “So am I. Mostly for Violet’s sake. Mother has always been delicate—her words. She spends a great deal of her time inventing illnesses and then calling for the latest ridiculous cure.” She stopped suddenly and inhaled.
    He waited, handling the reins as the horse trotted around a bend.
    Then she said softly, “I’m sorry. You must think me