The Golden Leopard

by Lynn Kerstan

  Escape had seemed a simple enough matter with an entire year to play in, covertly hoarding money and laying his plans. Even the Others, however many they were and however conscientious, could not have tracked his every move for so long a time. But they could keep him well boxed in for the short time he had left.

  While tramping across the moorlands, Arjuna at his side and the sounds of gunfire all around him, he evaluated his options with the detachment of an experienced campaigner on the eve of battle. Above all, he knew, there must be no predictable routine for the Others to exploit. He required to be constantly on the move, carrying his opponents into unfamiliar territory. Jessica’s help was the linchpin. In her company, he could undertake a tour of potential leopard holders, the targets selected by an expert. Shivaji could hardly object to that.

  Meantime he had to secure passage on a ship bound for South America, one scheduled to sail no later than his deadline. And he must see to it that his Grand Tour wound up within reach of the harbor, in case he had not managed to elude his captors before then.

  What else? What else?

  Now and again, confronted with a black grouse, he accepted a loaded rifle from Arjuna and took his shot, paying little attention to the results even though Pageter would be laying wagers on his tally for the day. Considering his distracted state of mind, he hoped that Pageter was betting him to lose.

  He walked. He thought. He shot. He wanted, more than anything else, to know that Jessica was no longer in pain. In a fair universe, he would be the one laid low with a brutal headache.

  Shortly after noon, summoned by a whistle, the scattered sportsmen gathered alongside a narrow late-summer river where a luncheon had been spread out under a silk pavilion. There, separated at last from his gun bearer, Duran was able to steal a few words in private with John Pageter, who took the news of the abbreviated deadline with a shrug.

  “Then we must get on with it,” he said, adding a chicken leg to his plate. “Under the circumstances you can’t be choosy about where you wind up, so I think you should have passage booked out of several ports. Liverpool and Plymouth at the very least, although the shipping schedules will decide for us in the end. You may safely leave the business to me.”

  “With pleasure.” Duran accepted slices of roast beef from a servant, although the prospect of eating turned his stomach. “And with gratitude, although I’m sure you don’t want to hear it. But Shivaji will be watching for trouble. Assuming I manage to lead him on a wild goose chase across England, how am I to stay in touch with you?”

  “Perhaps Lady Jessica will agree to serve as intermediary. Or do you still mean to engage her in your schemes?”

  “Some of them. But she cannot be involved with my escape, even inadvertently. On that point, I’m afraid, there is no room for compromise.”

  “Ah.” With no change of expression, Pageter turned to speak with Sir Clyde Wilcombe, allowing Duran to move past him in the queue.

  Glancing around, Duran spotted the reason for Pageter’s evasive action. Arjuna had taken a position under a nearby tree, his dark-eyed gaze focused attentively on the privileged gentlemen lined up at the buffet table. The young man—not yet in his twenties, Duran would guess—was an inch or two shorter than his father, broader in the shoulders, and not so lean. There was a sweetness about his lips and unabashed curiosity in his eyes as he looked upon the aristocrats of a culture so unlike his own.

  Despite Arjuna’s youth, Duran recognized in him all of Shivaji’s ruthless dedication to duty. No weak link there, unfortunately. And while Arjuna addressed him only in Hindi, he was fairly sure the boy spoke English reasonably well. He had concealed his own facility with languages often enough to recognize the tactic. No doubt Arjuna reported to his father everything he overheard of Duran’s conversation, along with what he guessed from a little surreptitious lipreading.

  If it came down to it, the assassin-in-training would readily put a dagger between the sahib’s ribs.

  For the rest of the long afternoon, burning under Arjuna’s scrutiny, he was careful to keep distance between himself and Pageter. It was a disgruntled Lord Marley, sitting in a Bath chair on the lawn when Duran made his sleepy way back to the house, who informed him that he had brought down a record number of birds that afternoon. And that Pageter had been betting on him to win.

  A glimmer of optimism creaked past his defenses. By the grace of some benevolent fate, he had drawn a surprisingly crafty friend to his corner. If he could lure Jessica there as well, he might just have a chance.

  Not for the first time, he pushed aside his qualms about embroiling two decent people in his troubles. Pageter knew the score, and soon Jessica would know nearly all of it. Both were free to walk away at any time.

  In the dressing room, Shivaji awaited him with hot water, clean linens, a folded sheet of paper, and the ghost of a frown. After reading the brief message, which his valet had doubtless read before him, Duran made a request that led to a dispute, which rather to his surprise, he won.

  All at once nervous, exultant, and resolute, he permitted a tight-lipped Shivaji to help him dress for dinner, selecting a gold brocade waistcoat with a small inside pocket to hold Jessica’s note and its directions to their meeting place.

  Soon. Soon. In two hours, give or take a bit, he would lure her into his web.

  If she listened.

  If she believed him.

  If she gave a damn.

  At precisely five minutes before the appointed time, Duran set out for his appointment.

  The room to which Jessica had directed him was in the east wing and on the second floor, a position similar to that occupied by her own chambers at the opposite end of the house. Not far down the passageway, a velvet rope suspended between two waist-high brass pillars marked the point beyond which guests were excluded. He ducked to the other side and proceeded along the corridor toward the shadowy outline of a door.

  The hand wrapped around the grip of the heavy case he carried had begun to perspire. So had his other hand, he realized when he raised it to knock. He paused to regather his savoir faire before rapping lightly.

  After a heart-stopping silence, Jessica’s voice gave him permission to enter. The delay had been just long enough to remind him that she had reluctantly granted this favor and was capable of snatching it away in an instant. With amused respect, he opened the door and stepped inside.

  Like the passageway, the rectangular room was badly lit. To his left a bed draped with burgundy velvet sprawled atop a three-stepped pedestal, with plump cupids aiming gilt arrows from the nibs of the bedposts. Across the way, a half-open door appeared to lead to a dressing room.

  To his right, separated from the sleeping area by a lush expanse of carpet, a sitting room of sorts was stocked with a sofa, several chairs, a secretaire, what looked to be a game table, and a small dining table set with china and silver. Everything was meticulously arranged and spotlessly clean, as if the resident expected to return momentarily.

  “I call it the shrine,” Jessica said, rising from a wingback chair and moving around it to face him. “Only the servants ever come here. We’ll not be disturbed.”

  Realizing he was still holding the case, Duran set it down and was about to approach her when she picked up a candle brace and crossed to a spot in the middle of the room. He drank her in, slim and elegant in a simple moss-green gown, her hair caught up in a loose knot. A surge of pure lust shot through him.

  It was sublimely inappropriate, but he couldn’t help himself. Adversary or ally, Jessie was the most splendid female he had ever met. Even with shadows under her eyes. As he drew closer, he saw the fine-grained skin tightly drawn over her cheekbones and the small single line that marred the smoothness of her forehead.

  “This was my mother’s chamber,” she said in a dispassionate tone that reminded him of Shivaji. “The last few years of her life she rarely left it. And this is her portrait.” Turning, she lifted the candle brace toward a life-size painting suspended between
two narrow mirrors. “As you see, we look very much alike.”

  At first glance, he would not have agreed. The woman in the picture, full bosomed and somewhat plump, appeared to be in her forties. Exotic in purple satin with explosions of silver lace at her neck and wrists, she was seated on a throne-like chair with her lavishly ringed fingers folded in her lap. Dark eyes gazed imperiously from a face too round for beauty, and thick mahogany hair flowed from a center part in the style of a young, unmarried girl.

  Hair very like Jessie’s, he realized, as were the nearblack eyes and the brows slightly winged at the tips. The straight posture was hers as well, and the forthright gaze.

  “Don’t you agree?” she asked, a breath of urgency in her voice.

  Ghosts prowled this room. Coming up beside her, he felt their malevolence as he examined Lady Sothingdon’s face. “The coloring is somewhat similar,” he said thoughtfully. “But otherwise, no, I shouldn’t think the resemblance particularly noteworthy.”

  “We are more alike in character than appearance,” she said. “Mother despised the picture, although it flatters her. When she sat for it, she looked considerably older and weighed several stone more. She had always been overfond of sweets and cordials. In any case, she refused to pay the artist, but Papa secretly settled the account. It was the only time I know of that he ever defied her wishes. Not long after her death, he had the painting brought down from the attic and mounted here. I cannot think why.”

  “Perhaps to annoy her?”

  Jessica’s lips curved in a faint smile. “I hope that was the reason. The servants are convinced her spirit inhabits this room, and no one who worked at High Tor when she was alive can be persuaded to enter. Those who sleep in the rooms above claim to hear her shrieking in pain, the way she was used to do when—”

  He took the candle brace from her trembling hand. “When—?”

  She looked neither at the portrait nor at him. “Soon after Mariah was born, Mother began to experience headaches. She ascribed them to the horrors of childbirth and barred Papa from her bed. With concessions and bribes he won his way back there, pleading the need for an heir to the title, but to general disappointment, I popped out next. It was several years before she yielded again to Papa’s advances. Aubrey’s birth was a relief to us all.”

  The personal revelation astonished him. Duran kept a politely interested expression on his face, wondering why Jessica had suddenly chosen to expose the family’s soiled laundry.

  She was studying the portrait again. “Mother, though, was left with a problem. Having delivered an heir, thereby surrendering her most powerful weapon, she required another means of controlling the household. So the migraines returned, more intense than before, and any strain on her nerves—or so she insisted—sent her into agony. Everyone took care never to cross her will.”

  Having watched Jessica endure a single night of agony, he could understand why Lady Sothingdon’s family strove to protect her. But Jessica seemed remarkably unsympathetic.

  “Come,” she said, striking out for the other end of the chamber. “I wish to show you something else.”

  He trailed behind her, perplexed by her mood and the odd confidences she had chosen to share with him. It made him realize how little he really knew about Jessica. His own errand, so compelling when he came into the room, seemed far less important than taking this strange journey with her.

  She paused by an innocuous stretch of wall. “As you might imagine, I was always the worst offender in the household—disobedient, insubordinate, obstinate, and as my mother swore to all who would listen, her unkindest tormenter. Also cruel and unnatural, because I paid no heed to the consequences of my actions. And she was quite right. This is why.”

  Where cherrywood wainscoting met burgundy silk wall covering, a line of plaster animal faces ran the length of the room. Jessica paused by an openmouthed lion with an elaborate mane and poked her little finger into one of its eyes. “When I was very young I used to hover outside her door and weep, certain that I had caused the pain that made her scream. Now, of course, I know that making a loud noise is the last thing a migraine sufferer is likely to do.”

  She withdrew her finger and gestured him to have a look. Stepping forward, he put his eye against the lion’s and saw through it to a room on the other side of the wall. A closet, he would guess, identifying a row of shelves. A colza lamp on one of them cast sparse light over stacks of folded linens.

  “What confused me,” Jessica said as he glanced over at her, “were the sounds I heard between Mother’s cries. She appeared to be speaking in a perfectly natural voice to her companion, a vicious, bat-like woman who enforced Mother’s will on the household. But of course, I am somewhat prejudiced. It was Clothilde who caned me when I misbehaved.”

  Duran’s hands curled into fists. At the school for the children of East India Company functionaries, he had been regularly caned until it occurred to him to stop showing up for lessons. For him the indignity had been more wounding than the pain, and he suspected Jessica had felt the same. But for a young girl, there would have been no way to escape.

  He studied her face as she spoke, her tone reflective, her gaze unfocused. “They rarely left this room, but I watched for my chance, and when it came, I filched the housekeeper’s keys, let myself inside, and dug out this hole. It opens to the linen closet next door, as you saw, and for several months, I hid in that closet and spied on this room through the lion’s eye. During that time, Mother experienced none of the headaches she was pretending to endure. I saw her sitting with Clothilde at the game table, drinking wine and playing cards, now and again remembering to emit a terrible cry. From then on, there was no controlling me. I did exactly as I liked and despised those who allowed her to manipulate them.”

  “Did you tell anyone what you had seen?”

  “To be sure. Tact has never been my long suit. I marched directly to Papa and made my case, even offering to take him to my spy hole so he could see for himself. But he had developed the habit of yielding to her, you see. To admit she had gulled him for so long would make him look a fool. I was not wise enough to understand that for him, knowing the truth would be more painful than continuing to live the lie. He forbade me to set foot in this wing of the house, and I was never again to speak of my misguided fantasies to anyone. You will have noticed that I am disobeying him.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t close up your spy hole.”

  “So was I, when I came here after her death.” Her lips curved. “I often wonder if he used it. In any case, it makes no difference now.”

  But it did, he could tell. In the candlelight, shadows carved hollows of worry in her cheeks and under her eyes.

  Old ghosts, restless and unhappy, reaching out from the past. When he was not vigilant, they broke through his own defenses as well.

  “Have I embarrassed you?” she asked, looking at him directly for the first time since he entered the room. “How tedious of me. You came on a mission of your own, and here I am spewing family secrets like a volcano.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said. “But I admit that I’m puzzled. Why did you wish me to know this?”

  “Not very subtle, was I? You may take that as a mark of desperation. I was trying to explain why I would not permit you to summon help last night. Must I spell it out by the letter?”

  “Only if you expect me to understand,” he said with a rueful smile.

  “I wish only to silence you. I am, you see, very much like my mother. I have inherited the color of her hair and eyes, her temper, her drive to be in control of every situation, and of course, the migraines. I do not wish anyone at High Tor to know about them.”

  “Because . . . ?”

  “What is it to you?” she snapped, spinning on her heel and striding quickly to the other side of the long room. “I have said all I can. Too much. And all wasted.”

  He was right behind her, close enough to put a hand on her shoulder. At the touch she stopped immediately, stiff as a
gravestone. “Not wasted, Jessie. Unnecessary. You had only to ask.”

  “Last night you threatened to tell my father. Send for a doctor.”

  “That’s because you scared the devil out of me. I may have been as useless as feathers on a fish, but at least I was there to fill a cup with lavender tea and hold out a basin. If necessary, I could have summoned help. Dear God, how do you survive an attack like that on your own?”

  “I don’t,” she replied after a moment. “In London, my servants are well prepared to assist me. When I travel I am generally accompanied by my secretary, who is nearly as solicitous as you. The point is, I am almost never at High Tor, and only my family needs to be spared. They dislike me for a number of reasons, which I no doubt provide in abundance. But I prefer to be judged for what I am, not for my likeness to my mother.”

  “Which may be,” he said carefully, “in your own mind. You refine too much on a superficial resemblance.”

  “Perhaps. But the consequences remain. Lady Sothingdon, never mind she’s been dead these last seven years, continues to rule this house and family with an iron will.”

  “Except for you.”

  “Oh, me most of all.” She moved toward the chair she had been occupying when he entered. “I expect you’ll find cognac in the sideboard cabinet. And then you must explain precisely why you are here and what it is you wish me to do.”

  The melancholy was gone from her voice, and the hesitation as well. What she had confided had been difficult to say, especially to him, and he understood that the subject was never again to be addressed. After locating the cognac, he poured a large helping for himself and looked a question at her.

  “Thank you, no,” she said. “I have a feeling that in the next few minutes, I shall require to have all my wits about me.”

  Now that the opportunity he had sought was upon him, he found it oddly difficult to proceed. Truth. Slippery, disorderly truth. A well-devised lie was much easier to tell and far more likely to be believed. He rested his hips against the sideboard and crossed his ankles, testing the position for comfort.