The Golden Leopard (34 page)

“But everyone knows we’re here,” Jessica said. “Our carriage and servants are in the courtyard.”

“Not any longer. They were ordered to take themselves out of sight and wait for you at the foot of the hill.” She glanced at them over her shoulder, smiling. “I’m the one sent them away. Uncle is already well into his first bottle of wine, and I have provided a special treat for the servants to have with their supper. By the time you are ready to go, they will have forgot your existence.”

“Allow me,” Duran said, taking the key and wrestling with the lock. “Why all the machinations?”

“Family history. It’s complicated. I’m not at all sure what to do if you find anything worth a great deal of money. Uncle will want you to sell it so he can continue with the restoration of the castle, but he is too ill for that. And the goods rightly belong to my cousin Robert, except that he is in debt. If his chiefest creditor discovers they exist, he’ll lay claim to them.”

“But you wish us to evaluate them anyway?” Jessica said. “To what purpose?”

“So I’ll know whether or not they are worth hiding. When Uncle dies, a great jackal will leap in to seize whatever he finds. I mean to deny him as much as I can.”

The great jackal was, Jessica expected, the Duke of Tallant. Miranda’s cousin was probably dead, her uncle nearly so, and her father a prisoner within his immobile body. So very much for this young woman to deal with alone. Jessica longed to help her, but how could she, overwhelmed with problems of her own?

With a screech of metal against metal and a gratifying click, the lock finally gave way.

“It’s a duplicate key I made for myself,” Miranda said as the door swung open. “I’m not much of a metalworker. And in all my hurry, I failed to bring a crowbar. Is there something else I should fetch while I’m at it?”

“Nails and a hammer,” said Duran, examining a stack of large wooden crates. “We’ll need to put these back together again.”

“Oh, I’ll see to that later. And there are a few tools in that box over there. You can start with the smaller parcels while I’m gone.”

Duran was all for ripping into them straightaway, one after the other, but Jessica pointed out that some were too light to contain the leopard, and others too small. Moreover, there were shipping dates inscribed on most of the boxes, and those in the back, covered with more than a year’s worth of dust, had been stored here long before the leopard was stolen. With a bit of sorting to start with, they could save themselves a good deal of time and effort.

Restless and disgruntled, Duran was forced to agree, and within a few minutes, about twenty parcels and boxes had been set apart for consideration. Then he was given leave to start ripping.

Not long after, she caught him examining a small case filled with bladed weapons, many of them boasting jewel-studded hilts.

“A khanjar,” he said, lifting one for her inspection. “And this is a khanjarli, with a double-edged blade. A jambiya, ceremonial, with rubies.”

“Put them back,” she said. “All of them.”

“You could smuggle one out under your skirts. I need a weapon, Jessica.”

“Perhaps. But I won’t help you steal one. Not from Miranda. She is helping us.”

“She doesn’t know they’re here, dammit. She won’t miss one inconsequential knife.”

“She will when I tell her.”

“Shit.” He returned the daggers, slammed the lid on the box, and kicked it in her direction. “You are the most self-willed, mule-headed female west of Bombay. Don’t let me near them again.”

Robert Paign must have educated himself since dispatching the items Old Holcombe had found insignificant. The contents of his more recent shipments were impressive enough that Duran paused now and again to show them to her and explain what they were. Particularly taken with a fourth-century stone head of a bodhisattva, he rewrapped it with care and restored it gingerly to its box.

“I lived in India all my life,” he said when she expressed her surprise. “I wasn’t drinking and wenching the entire time.”

“You needn’t be insulted. I had no idea you were interested in such things.”

“Great beauty has always interested me. You, of all beautiful creatures, should know that.”

“Oh,” she said, her cheeks burning. To cover her embarrassment, she turned back to a small box that had defied her efforts to open it and used a spanner to pry loose a strip of wood. The next came more easily, as did the third, and soon she was tugging out a thick padding of buckram stuffed with straw. Beneath it, wrapped in oilcloth and tied up with hemp twine, was a familiar shape. “Dear God,” she murmured.

Could it be?

Did she really want to find out?

Of a sudden, the planned journey with Duran became the sum of her ambitions. It guaranteed her nearly two more weeks in his arms. Two more weeks to tease him and be teased by him. A little more time, far too little, to love him.

She could put aside the box and move on to the next. He would never question it.

Her fingertips went on fire. A simple motion, another box placed atop this one . . . Besides, it might not even contain the leopard.

But she knew that it did. Sinking back onto her heels, she closed her eyes and demanded of herself the honesty she had only just demanded of him. “Duran,” she said unwillingly, “you had better look at this.”

After a glance at her face, he was immediately at her side, wrenching another panel from the box. She removed a torch from the wall sconce and held it closer as he fumbled with the oilcloth. At last he found a loose end and lifted it.

An ear. A sloping forehead. Two orange-gold eyes burning like coals over a feline muzzle.

“I don’t bloody believe this,” Duran muttered, burying his face in his hands. “I’d begun to imagine we’d find it here, but then I came to my senses. How can this have happened?”

“The scientific term,” she said, “is coincidence. So how do we explain to Miss Holcombe that we discovered a statue worth a fortune and intend to make off with it?”

“We’ll have to tell her the truth, I expect, or some of it. She doesn’t strike me as a gullible female. And we need her help to keep Shivaji in the dark.”

“I beg your pardon? The entire point of this journey was to find the leopard and give it him.”

“That would be
his
interpretation. My purpose was to assemble some money—except that you wouldn’t let me steal anything—and end up at a port about the time a ship was setting out for a country that Shivaji wouldn’t follow me to.”

“Should I be flattered that you dragged me along for the ride? And what of your promise to take care of Gerald?”

“I’d hoped to do all of it, Jessica. But you have seen the palace guard. I can’t take a pi—a moment in private without being followed. The time spent with you has been the only good part of this. It can continue to be. We’ll go on with the search as planned, and when the opportunity presents itself, I’ll strike a deal with Shivaji.” He patted the leopard’s head. “This gives me bargaining power.”

“I don’t see how. It belongs to Old Holcombe now.”

“It belongs to a dead man. More properly, to Alanabad.” His strong white teeth glinted when he smiled. “But practically speaking, it belongs to me.”

“What belongs to you?” said Miranda from the doorway, a torch in one hand and a crowbar in the other.

After a tense silence Duran rose, took the torch, and escorted her to a wooden box. “Please be seated, Miss Holcombe. And if you will, indulge us for a time. I’m afraid we have not been entirely straightforward with you.”

“I rather thought you hadn’t,” she said with perfect equanimity. “Do you mean to be so now?”

“To the extent possible. Some of the story is not mine to reveal, and some of it we don’t as yet know. I shall tell you what I can. Will that suffice?”

“How can I say?” She smiled at Jessica. “Is he trustworthy?”

“Sometimes.” Jessica could not bring herself to deceive her. “But he does not wish you ill.”

“Are you forming an alliance?” said Duran, slumped against the stone-block wall with his arms folded. “I am outnumbered and most likely outwitted. Miss Holcombe, we came here in search of a particular artifact, and as you surmised, we have found it. I am sorry to tell you that it was stolen from a small principality in the Deccan, probably by your cousin.”

“I am not greatly surprised to hear it. Robert never troubled with niceties of ownership. Is there some doubt?”

“Very little. The thief adopted the name of a dead man to join a hunting party, disappeared at the same time as the icon got pinched, and was subsequently located in Madras. He had, it seemed, succumbed to a fever. He carried no identification. Just recently we connected him with your relation, partly by another name he had adopted—Paign Goudhurst—and also by the webbing of his fingers.”

“Yes. It is common in the family.” Miranda lifted her mittened hands. “When was he . . . discovered?”

“About fourteen months ago,” Duran said. “He would have dispatched the parcel around that time.”

“Shipments used to be delivered here every two or three months, but there has been nothing since January. Uncle wanted to open the last parcel, but because it was addressed to Robert, I sent it down here with the others. We have never known, I’m afraid, where he was or how to contact him. Do you mean to return the icon to its owner?”

“Would you permit us to take it?”

“I don’t see why not. It doesn’t belong to me, nor would my family be permitted to keep it in any case. May I see it?”

Duran gave Jessica the torch, made an opening in the box wide enough to remove the leopard, and brought it to Miranda.

She shook her head when he held it out for her to take. “It is quite beautiful, in a frightening sort of way. Has it religious significance?”

Duran hunkered down in front of her, the leopard balanced on his open palms. “None I know of. It carries with it centuries of tradition, or so I’m told, and is a symbol of continuity and strength. But of late it has become a pawn in a political game, and rivals for the throne are desperate to get their hands on it. Which means,” he said, his voice cool and emphatic, “that whoever possesses the leopard is, by that fact, the object of a search by men who will kill to retrieve it.”

“Here?” Miranda’s cool gaze lifted to his face. “In England? The men who are traveling with you?”

“Those, yes, and perhaps others as well. We have not encountered the enemies of the ruling nizam, but they know we are searching in England for the leopard. It is possible some were dispatched here. And there could be, as well, spies among the servants of the nizam. I don’t mean to frighten you, Miss Holcombe. But it’s important that no one becomes aware the leopard was ever here.”

“Who would I tell?” she replied, smiling. “And who would believe such a story?”

“Do
you
believe it?” Jessica asked, remembering when she’d thought Duran was making it all up. Now she thought he was making up only some of it. She just couldn’t distinguish the true bits from the false.

“I suppose so,” Miranda said at length. “The world is filled with things that couldn’t possibly happen, or shouldn’t. It is not for me to say what is real and what is not.” She looked back at Duran. “If you take the icon with you now, will you not be in danger?”

“I’m getting used to it,” he said with a wry grin. “But I want to protect Jessica, if I can. Here is the difficulty. The leopard must not be left in your custody, nor can we simply walk out of here with it.”

“A dilemma, to be sure. Might I suggest a solution? How if I conceal the icon outside the castle, where you can return for it at a better time?”