The Golden Leopard (5 page)

“Mr. Christie said that?” A thrill of pride tingled at her fingers and toes. For the briefest moment, she let herself enjoy it.

“He added that I should expect no more from you than a list of names. In his opinion, you know everyone in Society and nothing whatever about the profession you aspire to enter. More to the point, you are a female and therefore not to be taken seriously. He only indulges your hobby because of your connections.”

Trust Hugo Duran to slam her back to earth without mercy.

At the least, he was consistent. The goodwill of others, he had always said, should never be taken into account when making important decisions. But at the time, she had thought he was referring to himself, warning her not to rely on him.

She had since learned to rely only on herself, and credited him with teaching her to survive even the most crushing disappointments. In another thirty or forty years, she might be grateful for the lesson. Meantime, the ice at her spine had begun to melt. Her confidence was seeping away. He was still so beautiful, damn him, and she was still so weak.

“I can certainly provide you a list,” she said, pleased to hear an assured voice emerge from her clogged throat. “Put in writing a description of what you are looking for and post it to my secretary. Mr. Herbert will provide you her name and direction.”

“I shall call on you tomorrow,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Perhaps in time for breakfast. Do you remember how it used to be, Jessie? We could never have breakfast together.”

“But that, I believe, is commonplace when engaging in a clandestine affair. And you needn’t bother dropping by, for I shall not be at home.”

He closed the space between them, moving so near she felt his breath against her forehead when he spoke. “Don’t run away, Jessie. I promise you’ll not succeed.”

When she tried to dodge around him, his hand grasped her forearm with just enough pressure to keep her in place. She looked down at the long, white-gloved fingers curled below her elbow, shocked that he was touching her and astonished at what she saw.

His black coat sleeve had pulled back from his cuff, exposing a heavy gold bracelet coiled around his wrist. Not quite meeting at the center, the bracelet thickened on each side to form two knobs, each crowned with a large cabochon gem. An emerald and a ruby. Her gaze lifted to meet his eyes.

He looked amused. “Do you like it?”

“A charming bauble,” she replied, withdrawing her arm. He did not try to hold her. “But a most peculiar affectation, Duran, even for you. Unless you
wish
to be laughed at?”

“Oh, I think no one will laugh at me, princess. Certainly not to my face. And I cannot remove it, you know. Not even when I bathe.”

A flash of memory. Steam rising from the water. His lean body lounging in the copper tub while she rubbed lemony soap over his chest . . .

She shook her head, willing the vision gone. “I wish to leave now, Duran. Please step out of my way.”

He bowed and moved aside. “Don’t forget what I said, Jessie. When I call on you tomorrow, be there. Hear me out. And when you agree to help me, you may name your reward.”

There were more subtle signs as well, Duran had soon begun to notice. The hard calluses along the soles of Shivaji’s narrow feet. The power in his slender hands. The controlled, assured grace with which he moved.

“The draught will ease the pain in your head,” Shivaji said. “Shall I prepare it for you?”

Duran nodded assent and let his eyes drift shut. It had been a long night, the first he’d been permitted to spend outside the dingy rooms they had taken in Little Russell Street, and he had set himself to make the most of his unaccustomed freedom. Shivaji could not follow him into Christie’s, nor into White’s Club, where he’d gone after leaving the auction house.

The manager, remembering him, had advanced him a handful of markers on credit, and the few gamesters who had braved the thunderstorm were ripe for the plucking. He had come away with several hundred pounds that had to be hidden before Shivaji took them from him.

But where could he conceal a stash of banknotes in this sparsely furnished room? He wrenched open his eyes and looked around. There was a lumpy bed several inches shorter than his height, the shabby chair he was sitting on, a stand of drawers, a commode with a basin and shaving mirror, and not much else.

Shivaji slept on a pallet in the dressing room, where he kept the battered portmanteau and large wooden cabinet that seemed to be his only possessions. Once, when he was left alone for a few minutes, Duran had rifled through the cabinet, discovering scores of bottles and vials, packets of herbs and powders, mortar and pestle, and metal implements suitable for drawing teeth, lancing boils, and performing most any form of primitive surgery.

There were poisons, too, he had no doubt. A man under sentence of death could not help but notice potential means of dispatching him.

Escape was the ticket. Gathering and hoarding money. Making contact with people who might help him. Not many candidates for the position, once he ruled out anyone who had known him in India. His reputation there, not quite all of it earned, placed him square on the border between rakehell and traitor to his countrymen. He was, he supposed, a little of both.

There were two or three men he recalled from his previous visit to England, but the last time he’d seen them, he was collecting the gaming debts they owed. They were unlikely to remember him with any great fondness.

That left John Pageter, a decent, straitlaced military fellow who had boarded the
Bombay Caravan
in
Cape Town. Pageter had been reasonably good company on the voyage, despite his refusal to gamble or procure for his shipmate the occasional bottle of brandy. But any man could be corrupted. Duran had only to find Pageter’s weakness and exploit it.

His thumbs pricking, he looked up to see that Shivaji had returned with a half-filled glass, which Duran accepted with a shaky hand.

“What the blazes
is
this?” He lifted the glass to the light and examined the black globules swirling in a thick, fir-green liquid. It smelled like a rotting carcass.

“Some things are better left unknown. But if you have the mettle to swallow it, your head will be clear before morning.”

Remembering that he was to pay an early call on Jessica, Duran gulped the vile-tasting brew and sagged against the chair with his head thrown back, trying to keep himself from expelling it again.

Shivaji lowered himself cross-legged to the floor. “Did you conclude your business with the proprietor of the auction house?”

The pretense that any of it mattered was wearying, but Duran recognized an inquisition coming on. “I made his acquaintance, yes, but he was preoccupied with the exhibition. Not that it signified. I’ve a new plan now, much better than the first.”

“Indeed?” It didn’t sound like a question. “If the plan requires your presence in the gentlemen’s club where you spent so many hours, then you must abandon it. In future, no such distractions will be permitted.”

Disappointing, but not unexpected. “If you say so. But all the best contacts are to be found in the clubs. I made the acquaintance of one tonight, a chap named Sir Gerald Talbot who dabbles in the buying and selling of antiquities. He could be useful. But never mind. I quite understand that you don’t like me wandering out of your sight.”

“My concern is for the misuse of time, that is all. You are unfailingly under scrutiny.”

“Ah, yes, the
Others.
But I’ve concluded you are making them up. A gaggle of Hindus could hardly skulk around London unnoticed, and I’ve been watching out for them.”

“Were you to observe them, they would have failed in their duty.”

“Which would be . . . ?”

“When first you asked if I alone was set to guard you, I replied simply that there were others. Their title is difficult to translate. ‘The ones who serve unto the end’ comes near to the meaning. Their leader is my eldest son.”

Duran felt his mouth drop open. On the ship, whenever Shivaji expressed a wish to practice his English, they had discussed history and philosophy. But those occasions had been rare, and Duran’s attempts to winkle information from his captor were always smoothly deflected. Never once had a personal word passed between them.

“That surprises you?” A smile ghosted over Shivaji’s lips. “I have eight sons. When they come of age, all will take up the profession of their ancestors.”

“Eight little assassins-in-training.” Sometimes, even when sober, Duran felt as if he were slogging through a grotesque dream. “And what exactly must they do to earn the right to wear one of those charming earbobs? If you keep reproducing ambitious sons at such a rate, the streets will be littered with corpses.”

In the silence following that pronouncement, Duran wished he had conducted himself with the humble, disarming manner he kept meaning to adopt.

When the chief assassin spoke again, his voice was unperturbed. “Only the head of the family wears the Iron Dagger, Duran-Sahib. It is a responsibility conferred in trust and accepted with an oath inscribed in blood. My family has served the rulers of Alanabad for seventeen generations, and I am bound in honor to obey the nizam’s commands. When Arjuna takes my place, he will do the same. And like me, he will seek every means to make a killing unnecessary. We take no pleasure in it.”

“Well, that’s comforting, to be sure. I’d hate to think of you gloating when I’m laid out at your feet. When will that be, by the way?”

“When the time allotted you by the nizam has run out. Or before then, if you pursue your own interests instead of the duty laid upon you by the gods.”

“Has there ever lived a man who did not pursue his own interests?” Duran sat forward on his chair, elbows propped on his knees and chin cupped in his hands. “The dance grows tiresome, Shivaji. Shall we, just this once, speak directly to the point? You know the leopard cannot be found. Certainly not by me. So why are you playing along with this charade? Hell, you practically instigated it. The nizam wasn’t buying my story, not for a minute, but you kept working at him until he came around.”

Shivaji’s calm gaze never altered. “I have not the power to—how did you say it?—work him around. I merely suggested that he make use of you. You were lying, yes, but there flowed a truth beneath your words. In this mission, there are blessings to be had. It is even possible that some of those blessings will fall upon you.”