The Golden Leopard (38 page)

Little enough comfort for the long days and nights ahead, but it was all she had.

On the fourth evening, under a leaden sky, she moved on leaden feet around the deepest puddles in the courtyard of yet another posthouse, a small one on the road between Much Wenlock and Shrewsbury. It had been raining on and off all day, and a biting wind had sprung up late in the afternoon. Her summer cloak flapped behind her like wings.

She was expected at the White Stallion, thanks to the efficient Helena, as she had been expected at each posthouse since the itinerary changed. The innkeeper, a small man with side-whiskers and a bulbous nose, was waiting for her just inside.

“Lady Jessica,” he said with a gap-toothed smile. “You are most welcome. There are two letters for you, which we have placed in your bedchamber, and the other member of your party, who arrived earlier this afternoon, is waiting for you in the private parlor.”

“The other—?” Her heart jumped about in her chest. And then subsided. It had to be Helena, probably with bad news concerning Gerald. Or . . . might she have heard something of Duran? No. That was unthinkable. But what else would bring her all the way from London?

Jessica knew she wasn’t thinking clearly. The events of the last few weeks had left her sluggish and numb. They had also taught her three lessons she wished she had never learned. Whatever happened was immeasurably worse than what had preceded it. News was always bad. And pain was more tolerable if one walked directly into it.

Today’s pain was waiting for her down a short passageway and behind a closed parlor door, so she walked directly to that door and flung it open.

Her gaze shot to a merry fire dancing in the hearth, the first she’d seen for half a year. She blinked. An awareness, like the moment one almost remembered a dream just before it dissolved, tingled from her hair to her toes. She was afraid to look.

“What kept you, princess?” said a slurred voiced to her right. “The landlord cut me off after one bottle of claret. I don’t think he believed you would pay for it, let alone another.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said, struggling to lock her trembling knees into place. “No one with sense believes anything you say.”

“And I thought you’d be delighted to see me. It is perfectly safe to glance this direction, by the way. Feel free to do so at any time.”

She did, chin lifted in a show of indifference.

Long-limbed and indolent, he reclined with feline grace in a carved-wood captain’s chair. His hair was filthy, his shirt and pants in tatters, his face and hands bruised and scabbed. He was grinning.

“You won’t want to touch me, princess, until I’ve had a bath. But you might wish to come over here and pet my cat.”

Her gaze followed his gesture to the small table beside his chair. To the Golden Leopard, more regal than King George IV had ever been, its lucent eyes staring directly into her soul.

“You were supposed to be on a ship by now,” she said, turning back to Duran. “I thought that with the head start I gave you, you’d be clever enough to escape.”

“I did escape.” He looked offended. “So far as I know, Shivaji’s spaniels are still chasing their tails fifty miles south of here. I’d have caught up with you last night, but I went to the wrong posthouse. This one, though, I remembered from the list.” His teeth flashed. “The Stallion. Reminded me of . . . well, me.”

“This isn’t funny.” Relief, rage, and pure joy at seeing him again tumbled inside her like a team of acrobats. “If you were free and clear, why in heaven’s name did you return?”

“You know what they say, my dear. The cat always comes back.”

“Only if he’s lost his mind. Now that Shivaji has got his leopard, he will—” She could not bear to say it. “You know what he’s going to do.”

“Of course. He’ll march back to India and save Alanabad from the snake chaps. What else?”

“
Kill
you, you dolt. He is sworn to do it. You told me so. Leopard or no leopard, you are the walking dead. Nothing, but
nothing,
will change his mind.”

“I told you that?” He considered. “I must have wanted something from you at the time.”

“Yes. The chance to retrieve a fortune in gold and gemstones before gallivanting off to a tropical island.”

“I hadn’t considered a tropical island. Perhaps I ought to start gallivanting now, before Shivaji knows I’m here.”

Her alarm faded to uncertainty. He was too pleased with himself, in too ebullient a mood . . . not at all like a man worrying about his imminent demise. Perhaps she could safely be happy he was here.

“Would I be lounging about, waiting to surprise Shivaji, if I expected him to garrote me? Yes, he made plenty of threats and always kept me well guarded. He assumed I would steal the leopard if I found it, which I did. He did not imagine I’d get away with it, but I did. And it seems neither of you expected me to return with the leopard and put it in his hands. For that matter, neither did I. But here I am.”

She sank onto a footstool and gazed into his untroubled eyes. “Why, then?

“Why, for you, lady wife. We contracted for three weeks of marriage, and by my calculations, you still owe me seven days and eight hours. I lost track of the minutes last night under a hedgerow.”

She gave him the smile he expected, because she could do nothing else. But her pulse was beating erratically.

He still meant to leave her. Before she had even begun to hope he might stay, he made it clear he would not.
Do not importune me,
he was telling her.
My life will not be here, with you.

And why should it be? He did not, after all, love her.

“You shall have what you are owed,” she said. “In truth, I was more than a little piqued when you took French leave in the middle of our wedding trip.”

“I can’t help but notice that you continued on without me.”

“There were reasons, or so I believed at the time. But it appears that while I was busy keeping Shivaji from joining the search, you were even busier catching up with us. Have you eaten?”

At the change of subject, he blinked. “Miss Holcombe left a packet of nuts, dried fruit, and biscuits alongside the box with the leopard. She rightly guessed I’d soon be paying a call at the icehouse. Oh, and she left me a pistol as well. If Shivaji shows signs of doing me in, I shall promptly shoot him.”

“That is comforting, to be sure. Not that I think you could hit a hay wagon in your present state.” She rose, pleased to find that her legs had stopped shaking. “I’ll see to a bath for you, and a hot meal. Do you wish me to fetch Shivaji?”

“By all means. And if you don’t mind, leave us in private for a short time. I’m hoping to negotiate a favor or two in exchange for the leopard.”

“Indeed? What’s to stop him from simply taking it from you?”

“An overwrought sense of duty and a healthy respect for karma. To be mean-spirited when a gift is put in one’s hands can never lead to good. It is my karma to take advantage of that.”

“What is karma?”

“I’ve never been altogether sure. Perhaps it’s akin to the Pool of Bathsheba, where an angel comes down and stirs the soup. Or something along that line.” He poured the last of the claret into his glass and took a deep swallow. “Fortification. Now that is something I
do
understand.”

Hugo Duran, drunken, prevaricating, overconfident lunatic. And she, madly in love with him. An angel ought to come down and knock some sense into the both of them.

She went off to find Shivaji.

Duran’s grinning pose vanished
the moment he heard the door click shut.

He’d given a damn good performance. Just about anyone else would have believed it. In fact, he rather thought Jessica had done, at least for the moment. But in a short time she’d start picking at what he’d said, and comparing that to other things he’d said and done, taking it all apart the way she could fillet him with her tongue. And then she’d realize he’d been lying to her. Again.

What he required was someone to back up his story. The most unlikely of allies. The man who had opened the door so silently and closed it with such stealth that he was in the room before Duran looked over and saw him.

Straight as a lance, his empty hands relaxed at his sides, Shivaji gazed back at him with the same unruffled, mildly disapproving look that never failed to scratch at his nerves.

To demonstrate that he possessed no nerves, Duran drained the wineglass, set it down, and folded his arms across his stomach. Let Shivaji make the first move.

He wished he really did have a gun.

“I am glad of the leopard.” As always, Shivaji spoke softly. “But nothing has changed.”

“I didn’t expect it had. Nevertheless, there is time remaining on my lease, and I must insist on claiming it. You will not begrudge me a few more days.”

“For self-indulgence?”

“Some of that. As much as I can squeeze in. But—and you will appreciate this—I have made a promise, and it is my duty to keep it. This matter concerns my wife’s brother-in-law, a menace who must be exterminated. I, being for all practical purposes dead, am just the man for the job.”

“I am to permit you to live long enough to kill another?”

“Unless you’d like to do it yourself.” A pause. “No? I didn’t think so.”

“I am not called for him.”

“But
I
am. You may fancy yourself the Lord of Death, but we mortals have got rather good at slaughtering one another as well. I may fail, of course. Time is limited and my quarry is the devil knows where. But I’ve earned the chance to try.”

“You did only as the gods directed you. The leopard is restored to its rightful place, or soon will be. If you are to be rewarded, the prize is not mine to give.”

This wasn’t going well. But he hadn’t expected it to. Duran felt every cut and scrape on his body, the ache of overstrained muscles, and the beginning of a headache from the bottle of wine he’d guzzled. Somewhere under all that, curled like a serpent, was a fear so acute he couldn’t begin to address it.

“Never mind me and my god-directed fate,” he said. “I ask nothing for myself. This is for Jessica. And make no mistake about it. If not for her, your precious leopard would be a brick of gold in my satchel and a pouchful of gemstones in my pocket. I had got free of you and your associates, and you were not going to catch me.”

“Perhaps. You believe, then, that it is your dharma to kill this brother-in-law?”

“Dharma, karma, angels in the bathtub. If I ever had a philosophy, I’ve long since forgot what it was. You owe me time, and I want it. I intend to use it to honor a debt. And there’s something else I want. Jessica is not to know how this little adventure is to end.”

“If that was your wish, you should not have told her that it ends very soon, and how. She is under no misapprehension about your fate.”

“I’ve told her so many contradictory versions of the story that she no longer knows what to believe. Not unreasonably, she has ceased to trust me. But she will credit your word, so I want you to convince her that with the leopard’s return, my death sentence has been commuted.”

“But that is not the truth.”

“Oh, right. I’d forgot. You steer by a skewed compass. Lying is prohibited, but it is acceptable, even commendable, to slit my throat.”

The brown eyes clouded. “It need not be that way. There are swift poisons. Philters that will draw you into a peaceful sleep.”

“I am to have a choice? How nice. Why don’t you draw me up a menu of execution techniques, and I’ll let you know which of them I fancy.”

Shivaji, not unexpectedly, said nothing.

“You continue to miss the point,” Duran said, frustration edging his voice. “Have I asked you to spare me? Pleaded for my life?” He patted the leopard. “Eight days is little enough in exchange for this, don’t you think? And because it is Jessica who led me to return it, can you not grant her, for that short time, a little peace of mind? Is there no mercy in your philosophy? No kindness?”