The Golden Leopard (24 page)

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.”

“And then you’ll be gone.”

“Make no mistake about that. Fair warning this time. I shall leave, and I’ll never come back. It’s possible, although I don’t know how to go about it, to counterfeit evidence sufficient to have me declared legally dead. Failing that, you can devise whatever story you like to account for my absence.”

“Such as, ‘I’m a fool who married a scoundrel’?”

“I never said you had to tell the truth.”

He thought—he was nearly sure—that she laughed. There was a small sound, anyway, and the air in the room did not feel so heavy as before.

“If we married,” she said, “who would stand witness for you? Shivaji?”

Was she actually considering it? His heartbeat speeded up. “I doubt he’d be permitted in the church. But you’re really asking if he’ll interfere, and the answer is, I don’t know. He might consent, if your help is conditional on the marriage. Is it?”

“No. You have heard my conditions. A marriage would be solely for my own purposes. If I could think of any.”

“Might I suggest nostalgia?”

The sound came again, the one he’d hoped for. The almost-laugh.

It would suffice.

There was a time, he had learned, for diplomacy. For careful maneuvering. On occasion, even a time for retreat. But sometimes, when the blood was up and the foe obdurate, only a direct charge would carry the day.

Instantly he was across the room. Drawing Jessica to her feet, he moved his hands to her waist and paused, testing her response. No struggle. Not the slightest protest. Thank God. He wasn’t sure he’d have been able to release her.

Nor was she stiff and resistant, no, she was leaning into him, head lifted, so he kissed her. And felt her fingers tangle in his hair, so he deepened the kiss. And heard her make a purring invitation low in her throat, so he swept her in his arms and carried her, as he had done before, silently up the, dark stairs and along the passageway to her bedchamber.

It never lasted long. She would wake soon, he knew, those glorious lashes fluttering, her eyes shining with wonder. Jessica making love was every man’s carnal fantasy. Jessica in the aftermath of love made a man think of unfamiliar words like
cherish.
And
forever.

His smile fading, he rose and went to the bay window beside the bed. Pale light teased at the edges of the curtains. He made an opening with his finger and looked across the walled garden to the slate roofs of the mews, not expecting to see the Others and not seeing them.

A bird announced the dawn. Another acknowledged the message.

And then, a sound from the bed. A yawn, and a small sigh of pleasurable lassitude. Letting go the curtain, he turned to the bed and enjoyed the ballet of Jessica emerging from slumber.

“You’ll have to marry me now,” he said.

“Why?” She stretched, moving against the counterpane like a swimmer. “I didn’t, before.”

“I didn’t ask you before. And during that time I took care, against your exuberance and every demand of nature, to make sure there would be no unwanted consequences. Tonight I was off guard, and you were unusually—”

“I know.” She sat up, pushing her disheveled hair behind her ears. “Exuberant.”

“Undeniably. But above all things, utterly splendid.”

The shadow that had crept into her eyes vanished. “You always drive me mad,” she said. “And you needn’t worry, because it isn’t the proper time of the month for . . . consequences.”

“Well, there’s many a man heard that song, followed nine months later by the wail of an infant. I’m sure you think it’s true,” he added quickly when she frowned. “But contraception by tracing a woman’s fertility cycle is notoriously unreliable.”

The frown deepened. “You know this from experience?”

“I presume you’re asking about little Durans scattered across the subcontinent, and the answer is, there are none I am aware of. I do take care, Jessica. And I’m not nearly so debauched as I should like to be.”

“But then, who
could
be that debauched?” The humor returned to her eyes, although her lips were stern. “I’m surprised you are still here. Will someone come storming in to carry you off?”

“I trust not. If the watchers are alert, they will have seen me at
the window.” He sat on the edge of the bed, not far from that provocative garter. “I didn’t want you to wake up and find me gone. My departures seem to nettle you. But remaining may have compromised your reputation, unless there is a secret way out in broad daylight.”

“Do you imagine I failed to consider that? When I left for High Tor, my secretary gave most of the servants a holiday, and only two or three have returned. She can call them together for instructions while you slip away.”

“Miss Pryce knows? And approves?”

“There’s no hiding anything from her, so I don’t bother to try. As for what she thinks, she either lets you know or she doesn’t. And about you, she didn’t. Why did that tiresome Mr. Garvey accuse you of treason?”

The abrupt change of subject caught him off guard. It shouldn’t have done, being one of his own favorite tactics, but he might have erred by using it on Jessica. She was a quick study.

And this was a question he preferred not to answer. As a diversion, he began to remove his shoes. “You heard it all,” he said, grinning at her over his shoulder. “My guess is frustration over bad investments and too much claret.”

Jessica, unsurprised by the evasion, watched him while considering what next to do. Her world and her life teetered on the thin, untrustworthy wire of his disreputable past, the larcenous inclinations of his present, and his mysterious plans for the future. The only sure way to regain her balance was to jump off that wire and walk away.

But she needed the man he was—morally flexible, criminally experienced, smarter and stronger than Gerald. She had overdue debts to pay, to those who had needed her help when she was too selfish to notice.

But did she have the courage?

She wasn’t sure. If she took this path, there would be no turning back. Her fledgling business, which had only just tasted success, had been built on her integrity and dedication to her clients. Once she had lied to those who trusted her, set herself to cheat at least one of them, the foundation would crumble.

She didn’t want to do this. Perhaps she wouldn’t. Probably she wouldn’t.

Selfish, selfish, selfish.

It wasn’t as if she’d be thrown on the streets to starve. Not an earl’s daughter, with a family who loved her in a begrudging way and would love her all the more if she conformed to their notions of propriety. Her father would be pleased to welcome her home, and Aubrey positively delirious at her failure. Jessica back in the fold where she belonged, behaving as she ought, taking orders from the men of the family who fed, clothed, and sheltered her.

Within a year, she would be dead of boredom.

Or perhaps none of it would come about. There was little point striking a deal with Duran if he had offended the powerful East India Company. The supposed threat from his valet was hogwash, she was sure, in spite of her new curiosity about Shivaji. But no one with a grain of sense made an enemy of the Beast. And if that model of chivalrous rectitude, the Archangel, uncovered evidence against Duran, then . . . Oh, nothing at all. By that time, Duran would be long gone.

Now that she thought on it, his entire scheme had begun to unravel the moment Garvey recognized him. He must have hoped to sell the icon without calling attention to himself, which would explain why he refused to advertise it and why he wanted to take to the road, using her as cover and keeping himself out of the way of the authorities.

Yes, a very good thing that Garvey had accosted them at Palazzo Neri. Without this piece of the puzzle, she might have convinced herself that Duran was speaking the truth. For a clear-sighted woman of business, she had a calamitous tendency to cling to illusions.

Returning her attention to the master illusionist, she saw that he had removed his shoes, his jacket, and was about to pull off his shirt. That much temptation was more than she was prepared to resist.

“I’m still waiting,” she said, realizing too late that it sounded like an invitation. “I mean, waiting for you to answer my question.”

“I was hoping to distract you.”

“Well, just stop it. Are you, in fact, a traitor?”

With a grimace, he lowered himself again on the edge of the bed, facing a little away from her. She could see a muscle working at his jaw.

“There was no treason. But I have offended the East India Company, and cost it money, and helped prevent incursions into parts of India that did not want it there. My only regret is failing to do more damage.”

Although he had always been careful to reveal nothing of himself, now and again a bit of information had slipped through his screen. One of those bits nibbled at her memory. “Didn’t you once tell me your father had worked for the Company?”

He gave a sharp crack of laughter. “Indeed he did. He quite literally gave his life to the job. Do I have to tell you about it?”

“Yes.” She thought again. “No. I apologize. It isn’t my place to ask about your family.”