The Golden Leopard

by Lynn Kerstan

  “Insults are always so effective when trying to win someone over, don’t you think?” she said, moving past him and down the passageway.

  He soon caught up with her, and when she glanced over, looked entirely unrepentant. “I learned the technique from you,” he said. “You insult me constantly, and behold, I am your slave.”

  Against every instinct of self-preservation, she felt a laugh rise to her throat. Please, no. Nothing, not even his skill as a lover, was more dangerous than his gift for making her laugh.

  They had come to a crossing of two passageways. Jessica started to turn to the right, wondering if Duran meant to follow her back to the salons, wondering if she wanted him to. But before she could complete the turn, a chubby man with side-whiskers barged out of a room a few yards ahead, staggered a little way in their direction, and halted.

  Eyes narrowing, head jutted out like a chicken’s, he stared at Duran as if trying to place him. Then his face tightened. “You!” he bawled. “I know you. Know what you did.”

  Jessica glanced at Duran, but his expression was infuriatingly neutral.

  The man jabbed a finger toward him. “Saw you yesterday as well, damned if I didn’t, sneaking around Leadenhall, making mischief. Treason, that’s what. We—”

  She lost what he said next because Duran swung around in front of her, seized her arm, and thrust her to the left. Understanding, she darted into the unlit passageway and pressed herself against the wall.

  As always, the stratagems required to preserve her reputation were forcing her to miss out on something she very much wanted to witness. Treason, of all things. What had Duran been up to? But she could see nothing, and sounds failed to make the turn without becoming distorted.

  The man, whom she hadn’t recognized, was still shouting something about theft, treason, and hanging Duran from the highest tree. And for all she knew, Duran had done everything he was being accused of, although the charges stretched from training the enemy and supplying heathens with guns all the way to plucking food from his children’s mouths. That last was unlikely, but there was little else she would put past him.

  Other voices filtered to her ears. She edged deeper into the shadows, but the shouting had ceased and the more restrained speech of the newcomers was barely audible. What was going on there? Looking around, she saw a door not far from where she was standing and realized where in the villa she had come to. She knew of a perfect vantage point, so long as the gentlemen stayed where they were.

  The door opened to a courtyard, one of Beata’s Mediterranean fancies, with a fountain at the center and, curled around it, a labyrinth maze marked out with knee-high box hedges and ornamental trees. Tonight the fountain was still, and no torches or lanterns had been lit. She slipped outside and paused a moment to get her bearings.

  Scents of lemon and orange, lavender and laurel and roses, hovered in the warm air. She looked to her right where a line of windows, some with their top casements lowered to admit the evening air, marked the passageway where the whiskered man had been throwing his tantrum. Holding to the shadows, she stole toward the likeliest of the windows, searching for a good spot to see without being seen. Finally she settled on a fat potted shrub and crouched behind it, peering through the twigs and leaves directly into the brightly lit passageway.

  Duran was standing with his back to her, facing an open door through which several gentlemen had emerged. They stood in a semicircle across from him, but with Duran blocking her view, she could identify only one of them.

  The Beast. There was no mistaking Jermyn Keynes, Duke of Tallant, with his heavy black hair, harsh face, and the strange, nearly colorless eyes that always reminded her of someone, although she could never think who it was. Like any female of sense, she kept her distance from the Beast, who seemed to relish his nickname and did everything possible to live up to it.

  “Is Garvey correct, for perhaps the first time in his life?” the duke was saying. “Ought we to hang you?”

  “Leaving aside my personal bias on the subject, I presume?” Duran sounded unperturbed. “In fact, I’m ineligible for the honor, Your Grace. Assuming that a death sentence in England requires me to have broken any laws.”

  The duke regarded him speculatively. “You know who I am?”

  “It was a guess. I am acquainted with someone who looks very much like you.”

  “Ah. My baby brother, I daresay. How fortunate. I’ve been trying to locate him these past several years. I don’t suppose you know where he is?”

  “Oh, still in India, I expect. Our paths rarely crossed. I can, however, tell you this much. He won’t be found unless he wishes to be.”

  “So I have discovered,” said the duke with a heavy sigh. “From the reports, he is in the north and the south, the east and the west, all at the same time. But if you think of something useful, let me know. He has been too long from his family, and there is a large reward for anyone who helps me bring him home.”

  Jessica reckoned that Duran, the master liar, would recognize that for the codswallop it was. Apparently he did, because he responded with a bow half an inch beyond insolence. In response, Tallant’s jaw tightened. Like two cocks facing off, she thought, although neither man would issue a challenge without a better excuse than instant and mutual dislike.

  From behind the cluster of men, light spilled through the open door into the passageway. Other men—she glimpsed heads and shoulders—were still in the room. It looked as if a meeting had just broken up. She inched closer, trying to identify the gentlemen standing to the right and left of the duke. One had a gloved hand clasped around the forearm of the man named Garvey who had fired the opening salvo.

  “Why are you holding me?” Garvey demanded, struggling. “He’s the one bankrupting the lot of us.”

  “Hardly,” came a gentle voice from beside him. “Only the greedy have taken significant losses. When the drink has worn off, you will recall that I have promised to cover the loans you are unable to repay.”

  Just then Duran shifted his position, and she could finally see the slender gentleman with the light brown hair and unremarkable face. He might have passed for a bank clerk, save for the exceptional tailoring of his clothes and the sharp intelligence in his kind hazel eyes. Lord Gretton. She knew him slightly. Everyone in Society did. An intimate of the king, he was—in spite of his refusal to accept a position of power—among the most influential men in the country. She wondered why he had elected to champion a nobody like Hugo Duran.

  “All well and good,” Garvey sputtered. “Not that you can afford to let any one of us sink. Investments would dry up altogether. But this fellow has to pay. We’ll make an example of him, what?”

  “Only if he’s implicated,” Gretton said in a soothing tone. “And who better to ferret out the malefactors than the very man who has just agreed to make the long journey to India on our behalf. Surely you do not question his integrity and good judgment? No, I shouldn’t think so. And having given him our trust, Mr. Garvey, we mustn’t anticipate the conclusions he will draw before he has drawn them.”

  “Your confidence flatters me,” came a beautiful voice. “I shall do all in my power to earn it. As for this gentleman, we ought not detain him at present. I’m sure he has other plans for the evening.”

  Into the light, into Jessica’s view, stepped Derek Leighton, Earl of Varden. The Archangel, he was generally called, although unlike the Beast, he loathed the nickname he’d been given by the Prince Regent, now the king. It suited him, though, with his pale gold hair and extraordinary good looks. Like nearly every other unmarried female in the kingdom, she might well have tumbled in love with him, except that by the time they were introduced, she’d already . . . that is, she had resolved never to fall in love.

  What an odd assortment of men this was—the king’s right hand and the blustering Mr. Garvey, the Archangel and the Beast. Why had they been meeting secretly at Beata’s house? It had to be important if the Archangel was going out to India to conduct
an investigation, but surely treason was not a matter for private inquiries.

  Some of her mental questions were answered when the other participants at the meeting began crowding into the passageway. They included three directors of the East India Company, and she recognized several prominent stakeholders and ship owners as well. Commerce, then, not politics. But what had Duran to do with John Company, or with them?

  More to the point, what did they think he had done to them?

  The group dispersed, with a protesting Garvey surrounded and shuffled off, leaving Duran alone in the passageway. He stood for a time, head lowered, before turning to the window and looking into the courtyard, directly at her.

  She rose, meaning to approach him, but he lifted a hand.

  “Go home and wait for me,” he said, so softly that she was reading his lips to make out the words. “I’ll come, if it is permitted. Will you admit me?”

  She looked at him helplessly. The no that should have been on her lips failed to arrive. How could she answer? Of late, she didn’t know from one minute to the next what she was likely to do.

  With a faint smile, he bowed and left her to make up her mind.

  Behind her, from the direction of the roof, a night bird called. Moments later it was answered, perhaps by its mate, and then silence fell again.

  On this hot summer night, she felt like a block of ice. Ice melting at a crossroads, like the one they had been standing in when Duran was accused of treason. She didn’t believe that, of course. He was a scoundrel, certainly, but a purely self-indulgent one. Duran would confine himself to lesser crimes—theft, larceny, selling purloined icons, dallying with foolish females. Exploiting them.

  So, why shouldn’t she exploit him in return? It would be for a good cause, after all, and she needn’t feel guilty, because they would be meeting on a level field—her expertise in exchange for his. She would help him dispose of his leopard, and he would rid her of her brother-in-law.

  How he would go about that, she had no idea. But he’d think of something. And she was reasonably sure she could find someone to buy the icon. All she had to do was fake its provenance, give her personal assurance of its legitimacy and value, and wave good-bye to her reputation and the business she’d created for herself.

  Blow a kiss of farewell to her independence, and to her honor.

  Only that.

  Dear God.

  Chapter 16

  They were probably using the roofs, Duran concluded after a while. A handful of times he’d made a sudden turn, lifted his head, and caught out a shadow next to a chimney pot. Or perhaps it was only the chimney pot he’d seen, or for that matter, the shadow of a chimney pot.

  He’d been watching the streets as well, as he always did, and with as little success. The Others could not be invisible, but they were certainly undetectable. Although . . . if they were on the roofs, as he suspected, how the devil were they getting across the intersections?

  Well, it didn’t signify. He had long since stopped questioning their existence, or their perpetual scrutiny. Here in the city he could feel their presence as surely as he felt Jessica’s longing for him. The Others were there, all right, blocking his escape, and she wanted him. Two dilemmas without resolution, unless he took a hand. A firm hand.

  Easy enough to say, for a man being tracked across a slumbering city by invisible assassins. Traveling on foot, naturally, being forbidden to climb aboard anything with four legs or wheels. Oh, yes, indeed. He was very much in control of things.

  The detached, bemused way he’d come to look at life, especially his own life, made it difficult to take his circumstances with the proper degree of seriousness. He’d been nearly killed so often that death seemed unlikely even when it stared him in the face. Nonetheless, he awoke most nights in a cold sweat, his pulse racing as if his body feared what his mind refused to accept. And then he would reflect that no one would miss him, which was not in the least comforting, and feel an aching loss for something that never defined itself. He knew only that it was something he had never possessed.

  Nearing the square where Sothingdon House held the prime location, he turned into an alleyway, passed the mews, and arrived at a wall about three feet taller than he. Springing up, he caught the top, pulled himself over, and dropped lightly to the ground.

  He was in the herb garden behind the kitchen. Scents hovered on the night air . . . rosemary, marjoram, and lavender. The kitchen windows glowed orange-gold from the light of a banked fire, and on the top floor, a single lamp still burned. In the distance, a dog barked.

  He felt, suddenly, as uncertain as a boy with his first woman. She had sealed the entrance against him, he was all but sure, and the pain of her rejection struck him even before he’d put it to the test. Briefly, he considered turning back. But then again, he owed her the satisfaction of turning him away.

  He mounted the three steps to a small terrace and crossed to the French window that had been, years earlier, his gate to paradise. Behind it, the curtains were closed. Heart pounding, he reached for the latch and gave it a twist.

  With a small click, the door cracked open.

  He was so startled that for a moment he stood with his hand still wrapped around the latch, unable to believe his good fortune. Then he pushed the curtain aside and entered the salon.

  “In the past hour,” Jessica said from the other side of the room, “I have locked and unlocked that window a dozen times.”

  “How fortunate that I arrived during one of the unlocked intervals.”

  “For you, perhaps.”

  Her voice was cool and self-possessed. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he traced the outlines of furniture and located her seated primly on a straight-backed chair near the door. “I hadn’t expected to be admitted,” he told her honestly. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t speak too soon. This will be a difficult negotiation.”

  “I see. Or rather, I can’t see. Will you mind if I ignite a lamp or two?”

  “Yes. I am susceptible to you, as you know, and prefer not to be distracted. Please be seated. There is a sofa to your right.”

  As far from her as he could be placed in this room, unless he was dangling from the curtain rods. When he was settled, the crisp, disembodied voice asserted itself once again.

  “You have asked for my assistance,” it said, “and I require yours. Perhaps we can come to terms. Here is what I propose. My brother-in-law has become a nuisance, and I wish him to be made ineffectual. How you manage that is your concern, but take care your methods do not reflect badly on my family. In return I shall put my experience, reputation, and all the resources at my disposal to help you sell your leopard.”

  That was plain enough, if misguided. “But I don’t wish to sell the replica,” he reminded her. “I am looking for the original.”

  “If you say so. I don’t really care. Simply outline your requirements, and I’ll tell you if I can meet them.”

  The clinical proposition had him somewhat disoriented. Alone with her, his thoughts arrowed to why he’d come here in the past, and what they’d done together. And once homed in on that irresistible target, his mind could accommodate little else.

  But it must. Conjuring Shivaji, a squelcher of desire if ever there was one, he spoke by rote. “To begin with, there is information we require from the East India Company, but they will not open their registers to me. If you have connections there, perhaps we can gain access. Also, we wish to learn of anyone who collects artifacts from India, or from any exotic country. Shivaji is convinced that the leopard was shipped from Madras to England. If someone who received a parcel in the relevant time period is also on your list of collectors . . .”

  He couldn’t go on. It was pointless, Shivaji’s quest. Unlikely the leopard ever left India. Impossible that it arrived here in one piece. For him, it existed only as a pretext to lure Jessica to him.

  “That is easily arranged,” she said when he failed to elaborate. “What else?”

 
; “Calls on potential holders of the icon and collectors who might be acquainted with other collectors. I have to mount an active search, Jessica. Shivaji expects it. Demands it. If you will draw up a list of candidates, we shall map out a route that can be covered within the allotted time.”

  “That can be done as well. But why would these collectors open their doors to you?”

  “Because you will have written to request an appointment and will be standing beside me when I knock for admittance.”

  “You expect me to travel with you?” For the first time, she sounded disconcerted. “The two of us?”

  “And Shivaji. Don’t forget him.” No reason to mention Arjuna and the Others.

  “I don’t think,” she said carefully, “that your valet would be an acceptable chaperon. Not for an extended trip, at any rate. I could bring Helena . . . but no. She’s a servant as well. I tend to forget that. Mariah, perhaps, although I doubt she’d agree. Or is it an essential part of your scheme, Duran, that I compromise myself altogether?”

  “I don’t want that. You could pass me off as an employee, I suppose, or an expert on artifacts. If you teach me the jargon, and if I wear a disguise and behave eccentrically, we can skate through this with little damage.” He took a deep breath. It might be worth a try. “Of course, there would be no question of impropriety if we were married.”

  The word dropped into the room like a boulder. It seemed to echo from the walls. Married. Married. Married.

  Silence.

  Then—”I thought you’d given up on that benighted notion,” she said.

  “I had given up on your accepting my proposal, yes. It was, when first I asked you, an impulse. I hadn’t thought it out. But when I said the words, they seemed perfectly right, and they still do. To be sure, I have no more to offer you now than I did then. Well, perhaps a little more. I will see that Talbot ceases to trouble you. And there is less time you need to put up with me. Only twenty days remain.”