The Golden Leopard

by Lynn Kerstan

  He ran his fingers through already rumpled hair. “But I’ve no intention of harming you. How could I?”

  “By exploiting my good name to sell stolen property. It’s what I presume you are about, although your scheme may not be so straightforward as that. It doesn’t matter. Under any circumstances, to associate with you would be disastrous.”

  He exhaled slowly. “There was a time you didn’t feel that way.”

  “I know.” Her pulse beat erratically. “I was foolish then, and indiscreet. Had anyone caught us out, I would have been ruined. Not that I minded greatly at the time, it’s true, but now the stakes are greatly increased. Now I have more to lose than a chance of marrying well.”

  “But I thought you had resolved never to marry. You told me so at regular intervals, in case I harbored ambitions above my station.” His voice softened. “Or were you taking care not to break my heart?”

  She threw him an annoyed glance. “I’m sure there was no danger of that. And as you have reminded me several times since your return, there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on the past. Happily, no harm came of it. But my circumstances have changed, and the slightest breath of scandal would undo everything I have worked for.”

  “Have I suggested more than a business transaction? I am looking for a statue, Jessie. The only difference between this transaction and the others you engage in is that I cannot pay you.”

  “You aren’t listening! There are a number of people, some of them malicious, who disapprove of me and are eager to prove themselves right. I am a freak of nature, sir. An unmarried woman engaged in trade. Oh, elegant trade, to be sure, but it is a short step from the shop to the streets. Even impeccable behavior cannot shield me from criticism. To be seen in company with a”—she faltered momentarily—“with a bachelor of dubious background and uncertain respectability would compromise me altogether.”

  “I see.” His voice was tinged with self-derision. “You must pardon me. I had not understood what you would be risking.”

  Nor cared, she thought, a cramp gripping her stomach. He was standing quietly, his eyes focused somewhere beyond her, his brow wrinkled with thought. He’d not given up, she was sure. He was merely calculating how to leap this temporary obstacle and bend her to his will.

  But she had learned prudence in a hard school, with Hugo Duran as master tutor. Rising, she brushed down her skirts and, without looking at him again, crossed to the door. “I believe there is no more to be said,” she interrupted when he began to speak her name. “Put out the lights, if you will, before leaving. And don’t forget to pack up your leopard.”

  She had just reached the velvet rope and slipped under it when he caught up with her.

  “Wait, please,” he said. “Please.”

  Ahead of her, the passageway was silent and empty. It was late, but there might be guests still awake behind the bedchamber doors. She turned, a finger held to her lips.

  “Is there nothing,” he said, obediently softening his voice, “that I can offer in exchange for your help?”

  Light from the flickering wall sconces danced over his face, obscuring his eyes and his intentions. “You’ll not seduce me into compliance, Duran.”

  His hand closed around the rope. “I wish you would permit me to try. But that possibility hadn’t occurred to me. I thought there might be something else, though.”

  “I cannot imagine what,” she said, distracted by an unwelcome notion that had sprung into her head.

  Gerald. Her demonic brother-in-law. Perhaps Duran would . . . But no. That would be trading one devil for another. There wasn’t a hair’s difference between them, really, except that she couldn’t imagine Duran brutalizing a woman.

  “What if,” he said, “you could help me track the leopard without putting your reputation in question? Your good taste, perhaps, but not your virtue. What if, in return for a few weeks of your time, I could secure for you a degree of latitude you have never before enjoyed? What if I gave my word to disappear within, say, three weeks or so, and never return to trouble you again? Interested?”

  Preoccupied with visions of setting Duran on her brother-in-law and hoping they’d tear each other apart, she had scarcely heard what he was saying until the last few words. Never trouble her again? Was that truly what she wanted?

  Of course it was. When he was near her, she longed for all the things she could never have.

  “I have been advising you to leave ever since you arrived,” she pointed out, studying his face. From down the passageway, a longcase clock chimed the hour. Midnight. Only that? She’d have sworn they had been together in her mother’s room for much, much longer. Half a lifetime.

  “You are armed with a sword of fire,” he said quietly, “and have set dragons to guard your gates. It is wise to take care, princess, and to protect yourself, but not if it means closing out the world. I can give you something you want. Not without risk, I’m afraid. But if you weigh the advantages against the hazards, you may find it a good bargain.”

  “That begs the important question, doesn’t it? How can I trust you to keep your word?”

  “And how am I to persuade you that I will? All the high cards are yours, you know. My need is greater than you can imagine. I will agree to any conditions you impose. But in the end, you must put aside your fear and trust me. You must close your eyes and jump.”

  He had taken leave of his senses. No, he expected her to do that. To take another headlong plunge into disaster because she could not resist him.

  But he had miscalculated. She was no longer an irresponsible young rebel with uncontrollable passions. “Good night, Duran,” she said, smiling to show she bore him no ill will for being an arrogant nitwit.

  He was over the velvet rope and at her side before she’d gone more than a few steps. With one hand on her shoulder and the other gentle on her bare forearm, he turned her to face him.

  They were standing in the shadows, torchlight at his back, a chandelier illuminating the stairs some distance behind her. The bracelet on his wrist felt hot against her skin. His eyes, the color of the leopard’s jeweled eyes, glowed with an inner light.

  “Marry me, Jessica,” he said. “Marry me.”

  Chapter 12

  She hadn’t said no.

  It had been the logical, the necessary reply to Duran’s astonishing proposal. The word had sprung to her throat. Done pirouettes on her tongue.

  But she had only stared at him, bewildered by the softness in his eyes, and the urgency. And then she’d scampered to the stairs and down them, pausing once to glance back at the tall figure, limned with torchlight, motionless where she’d left him in the passageway.

  The moment when she might have spoken had dissolved in her fear, and the remains of the long night passed in a torment of confusion and desire. Pacing her bedchamber, she had wondered what he was thinking, just there on the opposite side of the wall.

  More than likely, the wretched man had been sleeping the peaceful sleep of the unjust. And never mind that she kept remembering how it had felt to be curled against his lean body, his arms wrapped around her, his soft breath teasing her hair. For all the years that had passed since they were lovers, he remained imprinted on her, flesh against flesh, their murmurs of desire and cries of pleasure echoing in her ears.

  It didn’t matter. Those times were gone, should never have been, would never come again.

  Watching the apricot dawn of a new day, she realized the events of the old one had taken on the insubstantiality of a dream. Stolen icons and murderous valets. Really! And that absurd offer of marriage? Another of his lies, a honeyed trap for an unwary and desperate spinster, which she was not. With her morning chocolate, she swallowed the last crumbs of temptation and prepared herself to deliver, with a flourish, the only possible answer.

  No, and no, and never.

  But like all her plans lately, this one ran swiftly aground. When she went in search of her soon-to-be-rejected suitor, he had already departed for a day of sh
ooting on the moorlands, leaving her without a target for her stored-up, vehement no’s. Finally, after picking at a breakfast of bacon and melon slices, she set off from the house on a mission that had nothing to do with importunate males.

  Well, almost nothing. She had decided to pay a call on her father’s mistress, the widowed Mrs. Bellwood, at her cottage not far from Ridington. Mariah had offered to show her the way, but being in no mood for company, she had declined. Besides, it was about Mariah that she wished to speak with Mrs. Bellwood.

  With the morning sun latticing through her straw bonnet, she strode purposefully along the path of the narrow Dart, brown and sluggish in late summer, her direction carrying her away from the distant crack of gunfire. She imagined Duran swinging his rifle up, his finger tightening, a bird falling from the sky. She imagined herself in his sights, flapping her wings, straining to break free.

  Pride, like a living creature, stretched and scratched in her belly. Years ago Lady Jessica Carville had publicly declared she would never marry, in part to rid herself of the ambitious admirers who dogged her heels, but mostly to keep herself from wavering. The unhappiest people she knew were married, and they were unhappy because they were married. If loneliness was to be her fate, she would endure it without being dictated to by a controlling husband.

  And she couldn’t very well change her mind now. In all the clubs, betting books were inscribed with wagers about when the finicky Lady Jessica would yield, and to whom. Gentlemen had far too much time on their hands, and she had no intention of putting money in the pockets of those who doubted her word. It would make her a laughingstock.

  As for the other reasons, the true ones, those would remain right where they were, buried so deeply she need never look at them again.

  The shallow, wooded valley threaded its way around the rocky Dartmoor hills and skirted patches of bogland, transforming a journey of a few miles to a walk of several hours. She didn’t mind. It was cool alongside the river. Dragonflies danced over the water, and pipits gossiped in the oak branches.

  She was rounding an especially tight curve when she saw, nearly concealed by an overhanging willow, a white-clad figure hunkered near the ground. A small cry caught in her throat.

  She had recognized him immediately. Realized that she was alone. Wondered if anything she had been told of him was true.

  Stiff with alarm, she watched the figure uncurl itself and rise, turning to face her.

  Duran’s accomplice. The assassin. He held something in his hands, but she couldn’t make out what it was.

  Why was he here? Not waiting for her, surely. And yet, he didn’t look surprised to see her.

  Well, there was nothing for it but to face him down. She was miles from help, and if she tried to escape, he could chase her down in a matter of seconds. Her back stiff with apprehension, she directed her feet to a spot a few yards from where he waited. When she came to a stop, he bowed.

  One of them ought to say something, she supposed. Unable to meet his gaze, she turned her attention to the object cradled between his palms. It appeared to be a basket of some sort, elongated and pointed at each end.

  “A boat?”

  “A prayer.” He lifted it for her inspection. “And, yes, a boat.”

  Puzzled, she drew closer. Woven of wide-bladed, deep-green grass, the boat was about ten inches long. “How is it a prayer?”

  “It will carry an offering. If I may . . . ?”

  Nodding, she watched him sink onto his heels and set the boat on a flat rock. Beside it was a small leather pouch with several compartments. He opened it and withdrew a handful of rice, which he sprinkled in the boat. Atop the rice, he laid out an intricate pattern made of almonds, golden raisins, and peppercorns.

  “It’s lovely,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about your religion. Is it true that you worship many gods?”

  After a moment’s silence, he directed her to a place beside him, and at his gesture, she dropped to her knees. “Look down,” he instructed, “and tell me what you see.”

  Where the river pooled behind a fallen tree trunk, the water lay smooth as a mirror. She studied the face suspended there and the eyes that gazed back at her. “I see myself, of course.”

  “Only a reflection of yourself, memsahib. It is you, and not you.” His forefinger stirred the water, scattering her image. “Another manifestation of you, and yet, not you. Please to frown.”

  Beginning to understand, she produced a fierce scowl. “The image of a way I can be, but I’m not always that way. And of course, it’s me, but not me.”

  “There are many paths,” he said, rising, “but all of them lead to the One. Or so I believe. Shall I make for you a prayer?”

  Glancing up, she saw something flash in his hand. A knife.

  He moved to a patch of rush grass and sheared off a handful of sharp-edged blades.

  As her thudding heart began to resume its normal rhythm, she watched him plait the grass with nimble fingers. The knife had vanished as quickly as it appeared, in an undetectable motion that almost persuaded her he might well be, as Duran had told her, a professional killer.

  But an assassin wouldn’t teach catechism beside a river, would he? Or make prayer boats in a dapple-shaded glen? “You’re an odd sort of valet,” she said, wishing a second too late that she could call back the words.

  “Are you acquainted with many valets, memsahib?”

  “Only my father’s,” she admitted after some thought. “And he’s generally foxed. It must be somewhat difficult for you here in England. Do you intend to remain?”

  “It is my intention to return home before the year ends, but what man can predict his fate? And are we to converse only in questions?”

  The glint of humor in his dark eyes surprised her. “Why not?” she asked, taking up the challenge. “I have a great many of them. Did you expect to meet me here this morning?”

  “How could I?” He tied off the prow of her boat and began to shape the stern. “But then, does any encounter occur by accident?”

  “Oh, very well,” she said, standing and brushing off her skirts. “I give up. No more questions. You were referring, I presume, to fate. Of course, now I can no longer ask if you believe we lack free will, and that our actions are predestined.”

  “In that case, I cannot reply. But when you appeared, I was put in mind of a story. Would you like to hear it?”

  She wasn’t at all sure. He made her feel the way she always did in company with Duran, torn between fascination and a healthy instinct to flee. But it would be ill-mannered to leave now, before her boat was finished. She wondered where he had concealed that gleaming knife.

  “I love stories,” she said with unconvincing cheerfulness. “I hope this one is not to be a sermon in disguise.”

  “As to that, I cannot say. It is an old legend, and carries a different truth each time it is told and for each one who hears it.”

  He stood motionless, except for the hands weaving the blades of rush grass, and spoke in a quiet voice. “In the old times there was a princess, beautiful and brave, who fell in love with a gallant prince. He was rich, heir to a kingdom and the lodestar of his people, but in his thirtieth year, he fell ill of a mysterious sickness. The physicians tried every remedy, but nothing availed. Only a year of life remained to him, said the astrologers, mourning.

  “Not wishing others to witness his decline, the prince took himself into the forest where no one could find him, although everyone searched until, despairing, the king his father called them home.

  “But the princess refused to accept that he must die. Journeying from her own country, venturing deep into the forest, all alone she searched in vain. At last, shortly before the day foretold by the astrologers, the day of her beloved’s doom, she came to a precipice. At its rim, or perhaps a little beyond it, stood Yama, the Lord of Death.

  “‘Spare him,’ begged the princess, dropping to her knees. As her tears fell, they gathered at cliff’s edge and became
a waterfall, which one can see to this day if one knows where to look. ‘Take me instead. Let me die in his place.’

  “Sorrowful, Yama shook his head. ‘I am not called for you, my lady. You will sleep now, and when you waken, he will have stepped upon the moon. It will ask Who art thou? And if he knows to answer I am thou, he will be reborn. Perhaps in future you will meet, and recognize each other, and love again.’

  “The princess tried to stay awake, reaching out her arms in supplication, but her eyelids closed like the fall of night. When they opened, a year had passed, and another went by before she found her way out of the forest. It is not known what became of her after that.”

  Jessica found herself breathing heavily, her hands clenched in her skirts. “That’s a horrible story,” she said. “It has no point to it. Well, save that everyone, except maybe the prince, tried to do something to change what happened. But they all failed. What’s the use of a story where people do their best, all for nothing? And why did Yama refuse to spare the prince’s life?”

  “Because he is the Lord of Death. It is his nature to kill, and his duty. He must fulfill his dharma, as must we all.”

  “I don’t know what dharma is. Not mercy, I take it.”

  “The word encompasses many meanings. Duty. Constancy. Brightness. The order of the universe. It was only a story, memsahib. And after all, it is no great thing to die. The shedding of a skin, like the serpent does without a thought. Nothing more than that.”

  “But after molting, the snake wriggles away, quite alive.”

  The Hindu’s lips curved in a barely perceptible smile. “So he does. I bow to your wisdom. And your boat is finished. What offering will you place in it?”