title: The Leopard Prince
author:  Elizabeth Hoyt 
description: Elizabeth Hoyt is the <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of over seventeen lush historical romances including the Maiden Lane series. <i>Publishers Weekly</i> has called her writing "mesmerizing." She also pens deliciously fun contemporary romances under the name Julia Harper. Elizabeth lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with three untrained dogs, a garden in constant need of weeding, and the long-suffering Mr. Hoyt.<br /><br />The winters in Minnesota have been known to be long and cold and Elizabeth is always thrilled to receive reader mail. You can write to her at: P.O. Box 19495, Minneapolis, MN 55419 or email her at: Elizabeth@ElizabethHoyt.com.<br /><br />You can learn more at:<br />ElizabethHoyt.com<br />Twitter @elizabethhoyt<br />Facebook.com/ElizabethHoytBooks
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  The Leopard Prince
  
  
  
  
  
  Elizabeth Hoyt
  
  
  
  
  
  YORKSHIRE,
  
  
  ENGLAND SEPTEMBER 1760
  
  
  
  
  
  After the carriage wreck and a bit before the horses ran
  
  
  away, Lady Georgina Maitland noticed that her land steward was a man. Well,
  
  
  that is to say, naturally she knew Harry Pye was a man. She wasn’t under the
  
  
  delusion that he was a lion or an elephant or a whale, or indeed any other
  
  
  member of the animal kingdom—if one could call a whale an animal and not
  
  
  just a very big fish. What she meant was that his maleness had suddenly become
  
  
  very evident.
  
  
  
  
  
  George knit her brow as she stood in the desolate high road leading
  
  
  to East Riding in Yorkshire. Around them, the gorse-covered hills rolled away
  
  
  into the gray horizon. Dark was rapidly falling, brought on early by the
  
  
  rainstorm. They could’ve been standing at the ends of the earth.
  
  
  
  
  
  “Do you consider a whale to be an animal or a very big fish,
  
  
  Mr. Pye?” she shouted into the wind.
  
  
  
  
  
  Harry Pye’s shoulder