The Golden Leopard (25 page)

“Your
place
?
Ask what you will, Jessica. I’m perfectly capable of refusing to answer.”

When he said nothing more, she presumed a refusal had been issued and immediately began casting about for a question he might attend to. There was so much she wanted to know. What was he hiding? Would she be sorry to learn the truth? Would he ever
tell
her the truth?

“One way or another,” he said, startling her, “you always strip me naked.”

And what did
that
mean? Another long silence, which she was afraid to break.

“Any other way would be better than this.” His voice made her think of ashes falling on snow. “But someone ought to hear the story, I expect. I will soon be gone, and it’s certain that no one else remembers. Or cares.”

He was on his feet then, in a spurt of the restless energy she understood all too well. In such a mood she never wished to be interrupted, so she banked pillows against the headboard and sat against them, waiting until he was ready to speak. It took less time than she’d expected.

“My father was a younger son of a family with little money, but they saw him decently educated and helped him secure a position with the Company in London. It took a dozen years to save enough to marry his childhood sweetheart, and shortly after their wedding, the Company required him to take a post in Calcutta. My mother miscarried their first child aboard the outbound trader and her second two years later. She was, I am told, never in good health after that. My birth didn’t help.”

He had been pacing, studying the floor, but at this point he glanced over at her. “The burdens on my father were considerable. Along with an ill and, I have to say, mentally distracted wife, he was cursed with a son bent on a career as a rogue. I appear to have fulfilled all his expectations.”

The pacing resumed. “There were plenty of servants, of course, even for Company functionaries, but what my mother needed was a steady routine in familiar surroundings. Instead, by Company directive, the family was moved from post to post, each more primitive and remote than the last, until we found ourselves deep in territory besieged by the Marathas. Soon after, the other employees at the station were recalled, leaving my parents to ‘hold the castle for the Company.’ Those were the words in the dispatch. I know, because I later tracked down a copy in the Calcutta offices.”

She couldn’t help herself. “Were you with them? And who precisely are the Marathas?”

“A loose confederacy of ill-tempered tribes who kept themselves busy acquiring territory belonging to others when they weren’t fighting among themselves. And no, by then I had been sent off, very much against my will, to acquire polish and self-discipline at a new school established by the Governor-General in Calcutta. Meantime, my father wrote again and again to his superiors, begging to be removed from the station. There was no commerce possible, no profit to be had, nothing for him to do there. But the Company was determined to maintain its foothold—one clerk and his unstable wife—in the area. And father obeyed, because after twenty-seven years, he was so near to qualifying for his pension. With four hundred pounds a year, they could return to England and settle in the Derbyshire cottage my mother had always longed for. He endured until his pension was only a year away, but when nearby villages were being torched and the few detachments of the Company army still in the vicinity gone on the run, he sent an urgent plea for help. It was refused. Not long after, the compound was burned to the ground. Only two bodies were discovered in the rubble. The servants must have fled in time, but my mother was too frail, and my father would not have abandoned her.”

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured under her breath, imagining more than she wished to know of what had happened.

“The point is, the Honorable East India Company was perfectly content to have them die. It was, I later discovered, an unofficial policy to assign hard duty to employees on the verge of retirement. The fearful ones, at any rate, or those without resources or influence. If they quit, or failed to survive, their pensions need never be paid. And this,” he said in a rough voice, “is why I made it my business to play havoc with theirs.”

“I have to know,” she said after a few moments. “What precisely did you do?”

“First, I prepared. Fifteen and wild as a lynx, I lied about my age and wormed my way into the Company army.”

The hard part must have been got through, Jessica thought, because he seemed more relaxed now. He stopped near the window long enough to crack the curtains and look outside, and when he began moving again, his pace was slower. “When I’d learned all I could about fighting in India, I resigned and carried my knowledge and experience elsewhere. The Marathas had long since had their teeth pulled, leaving the Company to devour, one by one, the small independent principalities of India. I hired myself to their rulers, supplying them weapons, training their armies, and if necessary, leading them into battle against Company troops. It rarely came to that. The Company generally preys on the weak and unprepared.”

Stopping at the foot of the bed, his hands clasped behind his back, he gazed at her with somber eyes. “I have done a great many things I don’t wish ever to speak of, and made enemies among influential people, and have nothing whatever to show for thirty-five years of existence. Even so, the Honorable Directors will do no more than bluster at me. A trial would make public what they are at pains to conceal, and there are others making more mischief with the Company than I ever did. You needn’t be concerned.”

“Well, you would say that, of course. I am not to worry my little head about matters reserved to men, which includes just about everything of interest or importance.”

As she watched, a glint of mischief appeared in his eyes, along with something else she recognized. And wanted.

“What an assertive, audacious, presumptuous creature you have become.” His head tilted to one side. “Are you
ever
submissive?”

“Heavens, no. Why should I be?”

“To get me to do what you wish me to do. I should rather like to see you play at being acquiescent. Or perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps you have been satisfied well enough already.”

“I was, before. But this is now, and you are not mistaken. Even so, I do not care to play this sort of game. I have no talent for it.”

“Unfortunate. I expect that with a little practice, you’d be quite adept at satisfying all my needs.”

“I could . . . try.” She was having to force out the words. But resistant as she felt to what he proposed, she was also beginning to find it a little exciting. More than a little. “What shall I do?”

“Can’t you guess? Really, these matters are better managed in a harem, where a man chooses from among many women the one to suit his mood.” He lowered himself onto the chair at the bottom of the bed, his legs stretched out before him, his long-fingered hands relaxed on the armrests. “Tell me why I should select you.”

“Because I’m the only one here?”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “My choices are limited, certainly. In fact, they are two. Shall I take my leave, or shall I have you? Do you want me to have you, Jessica?”

Her attention went to the sweet throbbing between her legs, where he had been. Where she needed to feel him again. “Y-yes.”

“Show me how much you want me, then. Persuade me that I want you.”

As if he could doubt it. When passion seized her, every speck of restraint flew out the window. In his arms she could withhold nothing of herself and feared what she might reveal to him. Or to herself. This masquerade, she now understood, gave them both a safe place to hide. The games he proposed, the masks they wore, allowed them to indulge their desires without restraint, without deceit, without regret. It was his gift to her.

“I don’t know how,” she said in a deferential tone that made him smile. “What is it you wish me to do?”

“Well, I should like you a lot better, I believe, if your body was exposed to me. Slowly, a little at a time. And with a bit of style, if you can manage it. I have exotic tastes.”

She hesitated. Before, he had always insisted on removing her clothes. It was a ceremony between them. A dance.

“Do you mean to deny me?” He looked arrogant. Surprised at her reluctance.

“I didn’t think you favored compliant women.”

“I’ve had the other kind. I had one of them only a few minutes ago. It was satisfactory, yes, but now my palate is for something softer, sweeter, more . . . obedient.”

He was so damnably self-assured, a tawny-haired sultan who had only to express a wish to have it granted. Perhaps for him it wasn’t a game after all. Or perhaps he simply played it very well. Her mouth felt dry. “I’ll require help,” she said, remembering the tapes and hooks and ties she could not reach.

“Then you must earn it. Not by talking, though. Not by delaying. Show me what I want to see.”

The lazy voice with its undercurrent of command sent tingles of nervous anticipation racing over her skin. She had never before been with him in the daytime. Been naked to him in daylight. What if she didn’t please him? Suddenly apprehensive, she reached down, lifted her skirt and petticoats, exposed one silk-stockinged leg.

Remembered that she was no longer wearing her drawers. She glanced over her shoulder, saw them on the carpet beside the bed. He had stripped them off with one hand, using his other to insert himself.

She fumbled with the garter, tugged it over her knee, knew she was the least graceful, least enticing female on the planet. But he didn’t complain, so she rolled the stocking down her leg, aware of the moisture pooling between her thighs, wondering if he could see it.

“Come here,” he said. “Put your foot—no, the other one—on my knee. I wish a close view of what you have to show me. Yes, there. But your thighs are together, Jessica. They should never be together when you are with me.”

With a gesture, he directed her to widen them, and how far. She felt his gaze like a solid object against her opening. “May I see you as well?”

“No. You may only feel me, and only when I decide you are ready. The other stocking now.”

When she’d slipped it off, he took it from her and drew her leg up over his so that she had to hop closer to him, between his legs, to regain her balance.

“You may put your hands on my shoulders,” he said, “while I untie your laces. If we do this right, I’ll be able to suck your nipples at the same time. Would you like that?”

Her expression must have answered the question, because he chuckled softly as he reached under her skirts and detached her petticoats. Then he undid the tapes that held skirt to bodice. Her lower body was tangled in swathes of muslin, lace, and sarcenet.

“What’s this? No corset?”

“I don’t like them,” she said. “I wear one only when I go out in company.”

“Good. I don’t like them either. Well, your breasts will have to wait, then. Remove everything else you are wearing, please.”

He didn’t object when she withdrew her leg, and shortly, she stood bare and flushed with excitement before him.

“Come onto my lap now, and put your legs over the chair arm. No, no. They’re closed again. Remember what I told you about that. Now settle your back against my arm. Are you comfortable?”

She was, sideways across him, his erection pulsing against her backside. But his shirt and trousers felt abrasive against her oversensitized skin. She knew better than to object, though, so she nodded and was rewarded with a kiss.

“Is there any place on your body I cannot touch?” he said, his tongue moving to her ear and dipping inside. “Tell me I can have all of you, any way I wish, for as long as it pleases me.”

“You . . . you can.” Her breathing was becoming short and shallow. “Everything. But hurry.”

“Oh, no. Hurry is the very last thing I am going to do. Your nipples are already hard, and I haven’t gone near them. I wager, Jessica, that I could make you come without touching you at all.”