The Golden Leopard

by Lynn Kerstan

  “I’m afraid not,” Duran said, his voice mild. “I brought this all the way from India, never mind the effort to acquire it in the first place. The leopard stays with me.”

  Jessica’s hands, clamped behind her back, tingled from lack of blood. She could not bear this.

  “Jessica?” Gerald slithered in her direction, confident as a man about to toss loaded dice. They both knew the stakes. He didn’t trouble to remind her what they were. “Are we partners?”

  She hesitated. Loathed him to the killing point. Lifted a helpless gaze to Duran. “Give him what he wants,” she said.

  After that she scarcely breathed, heard little of what was said, moved like an automaton through the repacking of the leopard and the placing of the box and, almost as an afterthought, the list of potential customers, in Gerald’s blunt-fingered hands. His gleeful acceptance. His triumphant smile. His swaggering exit.

  Silence in the room until a short knock on the door by the steward signaled that Gerald had left the house. Then, turning, she threw herself into Duran’s arms. “Oh, but it was marvelous! He behaved just as you said. He practically jumped into the trap.”

  He chuckled, the rumble of it vibrating against her cheek. “You needn’t sound so surprised. And I might add, princess, that you have just given me a lesson in chicanery. It was your performance that convinced him. Indeed, you all but convinced me, even after I’d seen the painting and been sure the game was over.”

  Untangling herself, she stepped back and grinned at him, knowing she looked smug and meaning to. “Because it was twin to the real icon. You thought I had overreached myself, until you unpacked the statue and saw that it was identical as well. At the least, it’s good enough to pass all but an expert’s inspection.”

  “I should say. But how did you manage it? The Alanabad craftsman required four months to create a reproduction, and you produced a remarkable likeness in three days. How did you procure the gems? The gold? The artist?”

  “As for how, Shivaji brought your leopard for the sculptor to copy. The gems are paste, of course, save for the eyes, which were impossible to match. Those are stained glass. The gold is real, although there’s not much of it coating the lead, and the sculptor a talented forger. It was Helena who recruited him and procured the materials. I had not known it before, but she numbers a great many felons among her acquaintances. What is more, they will be pleased to testify that Gerald hired them to produce the replica.”

  “My God,” Duran said, astonishment etched on his face. “I handed you the bare outline of an ill-conceived plan, and you transformed it into something that might actually work.”

  “Do you think so? I’ve been too busy to consider the possible results, but honestly, I can’t conceive how providing Gerald with a model of the leopard will accomplish anything. He’ll decide that paying calls on collectors is too exerting, and that he can do better by converting the gems and gold to gaming stakes.”

  “It’s possible, certainly. And if he settles for that, he’ll quickly learn that he’s been gulled and we will have failed to entrap him. But he’s lazy, greedy, and ambitious for a big score. I think there’s a good chance he’ll take a shot at the larger prize. Should he find the real leopard, he’ll likely try to steal it, in which case we’ll take it off his hands and make sure he’s blamed for the theft. Or he’ll try to sell the copy he just left with, opening himself to charges of extortion. One way or another, he’ll not be roaming free and making trouble for very much longer.”

  “I defer to your expertise,” she said, the exhilaration of her success already beginning to dissipate. What did it matter that the latest model of the icon was immeasurably superior to the rough imitation Duran had been expecting, the one she could have better afforded to provide? Really, she ought not to have got carried away when Helena suggested an expensive alternative, but the opportunity to link Gerald directly with thieves and forgers was too good to pass up. Gerald had taken the bait, but if he failed to swallow the hook, she’d put herself back in debt, deeply in debt, for no reason.

  Oh, for Mariah, to be sure. But what was the use, if the scheme fell apart?

  A finger, callused at the tip, lifted her chin. “Second thoughts are serpents’ fangs, Jessie. Don’t let them bite you. If we fail to entrap Gerald this way, I’ll come up with another. He’ll be followed, by the way. We’ll know which collectors he visited and at which point he stopped making calls.”

  “That might be helpful,” she said, unable to imagine how. “Who is following him?”

  “Shivaji delegated one or two of his squad. He has become singularly cooperative since your secretary began providing information he had not even thought to request. I suspect she even talked him into permitting the marriage. He was certainly opposed to it until she came on the scene.”

  Jessica kept a polite expression on her face. An odd pairing indeed, Helena and Shivaji. Is he a thief? she had asked her secretary. Could he be an assassin? Or is he merely a valet? But Helena refused to discuss Shivaji, the way she invariably refused to discuss anything not strictly connected to business.

  The mad rush of the past three days suddenly caught up with her. She felt her knees shaking. The light grew dim. Next she knew, Duran was sitting beside her on a sofa, her head against his shoulder, his arm wrapped protectively around her. She looked up at him, at the concerned look on his face, and mustered a smile. “It isn’t a headache,” she assured him. The arm relaxed a trifle. “I’m only tired. Will you stay the night?”

  Color tinged his cheekbones. “Shivaji, I’m sorry to say, has turned out to be something of a prude. The negotiation for a private room together on our journey was successful, which is the important thing. But until we are married, I must retire to my chaste and too-short bed.”

  “Not to mention that you’ve an early appointment with Devonshire.” Disappointment brought an edge to her voice. “Is there some problem with the legal arrangements?”

  “He sent a message to that effect. I don’t know what snags are holding things up, but the duke’s solicitors expect to have them ironed out before our meeting. And you needn’t worry, princess. I’ll sign whatever they put in front of me.”

  “Then you’d better run along, hadn’t you? Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.”

  “Yes.” His lips brushed her forehead before he stood. “Our wedding day.”

  Chapter 19

  Not to every man does it fall the honor, on the morning of his wedding day, of receiving a lecture about his marital responsibilities from a duke.

  A redundant lecture, Duran was thinking, since he’d heard most of it at their previous meeting two days earlier. But he didn’t mind. He quite liked the tall, terribly earnest Duke of Devonshire, if only because the fellow was so intent on protecting Jessica’s interests.

  This time, however, His Grace’s eyes were flashing with restrained anger, and Duran had yet to twig a reason for it. If anything, he had expected to be basking in ducal approval. By Jessica’s instructions, the original contract presented to him had contained a provision according him one-quarter of the income from his wife’s business interests. He still wondered why she had insisted on that. In any case, he had flatly refused to sign a contract that gave him so much as a penny rightfully belonging to her, and had assumed today’s meeting to be a formality. He would accept the revised contract prepared by the lawyers, and Jessica would know nothing of the alteration until after the marriage.

  But it wasn’t a simple matter after all, he had just been informed. Husbands possessed an overabundance of legal rights, and doing away with them required twists and turns only a duke’s expensive solicitors could navigate. Moreover, those same solicitors had suddenly paddled into rough water, although what that meant, His Grace had not got around to saying. All would be made clear when they arrived. In the meantime, Duran was being reminded that if ever he did the slightest disservice to his wife, the Duke of Devonshire would twist his guts into guitar strings.

  Yes,
he very much approved of the duke, and hoped that he would continue to protect Jessie from bounders like her short-term husband.

  The stiff-necked butler appeared, the duke followed him out, and Duran was left alone with a cup of cold coffee and his thoughts. Primarily they concerned being late to the church. St. Giles had been selected because getting there would require only a short walk from Little Russell Street, and he hadn’t wanted to stand disheveled and sweaty at the altar.

  So much for careful planning. Thanks to the mysterious problem uncovered by the lawyers, he’d been compelled to tramp all the way to Piccadilly and Devonshire House, and soon would be required to tramp back again. He hadn’t yet figured out how to explain to His Grace, whom Jessica had asked to stand as groomsman, that he was not permitted to accept a lift in the ducal carriage.

  A thrum of excitement vibrated under his skin. She was going to have him, in spite of everything. She would wed him, never mind his wilted collar and dusty shoes and the small deception about the settlement provision, which would make her angry when she discovered it. Jessie. His bride. His ferocious, glorious bride. This was by a long shot the best day of his life.

  He was drifting into a fantasy about his wedding night when Devonshire returned, a scowl on his face, his hands full of papers.

  Rising, Duran felt the air in the room go cold. This was not going to be good.

  “I believe I now understand,” said the duke in a stony voice. “It was only because my solicitors are both meticulous and well-connected that this situation was discovered in time. Unfortunately, they have not yet succeeded in finding a loophole in the law that prevents you from later claiming what cannot go into effect until a great many contingencies are met. Nor can they, or I, figure how you came to know of it. Unless Sothingdon confided in you. Excepting the solicitor who drew up the will, he was the only one aware of the clause. Come to think of it, Jessica mentioned that you had bribed yourself into his favor with one of Manton’s expensive guns.”

  With some effort, Duran found his voice. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace, but I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about.”

  The troubled brown eyes regarded him sternly. “Must we play out this charade? Very well, then.” Riffling through the papers, he selected one and passed it over. “You need only examine the last paragraph.”

  He did, reading it twice through before turning the paper facedown on the table in front of him, as if that could make it disappear. Every good thing he had been feeling drained out of him, leaving him hopelessly muddled. “I must speak with Jessica,” he said after a long time. “May I take this paper with me?”

  The duke tossed the sheaf of papers he was still holding onto the table. “This is the unsigned revision of the marriage contract. Take it as well. But know this, sir. Until Jessica assures me she understands and accepts every single word, I shall block this marriage.”

  The ceremony was scheduled for ten o’clock, and it was well past that. Jessica, fidgeting next to Helena in a front pew, told herself bracingly that it was something about the marriage contract making Duran late. Or traffic between Devonshire House and St. Giles in the Fields. After all, Hart hadn’t arrived either, and until he did, she needn’t worry she’d been jilted.

  The wide grosgrain ribbons of her bonnet scratched at her chin and throat. If ever she had imagined her own wedding day, she would definitely have imagined herself wearing something else. But they were to leave on their journey directly after the wedding, so Helena had selected for her a blue carriage gown with long sleeves and a high neck to protect her against dust from the road, along with kid-leather half boots and a hat that had been chafing at her since first she put it on. Overheated and agitated, she squirmed on the seat until Helena put a restraining hand over hers and gave it a squeeze.

  Nothing ever ruffled Helena. Never a hair out of place on Helena, nary a ripple in her calm disposition. Jessica found that exceedingly annoying.

  The vicar popped his head out of the vestry, looked around, and disappeared again. He had been doing that regularly, agitated because there was another wedding scheduled for eleven o’clock.

  After a few more minutes, someone came into the church. Heart thumping, she turned to see Hart striding alone down the aisle, a severe expression on his face. She waited for him to stop and speak to her, but he only shrugged and folded himself into a pew across the aisle.

  She felt suddenly furious. And mortified. She could leave now and never see or hear or think of Duran ever ever again. That’s what she ought to do. But she continued to sit there, watching dust motes dance in the blades of light slicing across the nave while ice crystalized in her veins.

  The vicar’s head emerged again, followed by the vicar himself. Pudgy as a cherub, he crossed to the gate in the communion rail, to a certainty on his way to inform her that time was up. She wouldn’t argue the point. He had done her a favor by agreeing to conduct the last-minute ceremony, and being a kind man, he would regret having to call it off. She was already stepping out of the pew when he advised her that Lord Duran wished to speak privately with her in the vestry.

  He was waiting for her beside a round table, his collar limp, his hair disordered, his black coat askew over a white brocade waistcoat. He looked, inexplicably, as if he’d been running.

  “You are late,” she said, trying not to sound shrewish.

  “And you probably thought I never meant to come,” he replied, raising somber eyes to her face. “Little ever goes right for us, does it?”

  “Not easily, at any rate. What has gone wrong this time?”

  “For you, nothing. You may even find it excellent news.” He took the top sheet from a small stack on the table and held it out. “This will explain nearly everything, and I shall tell you the rest. The part, at least, that I am permitted to divulge.”

  The distance from where she stood to his hand seemed a long way. Before she got there, she could tell by the quality of the paper and the meticulous handwriting that he was giving her a legal document. A glance verified that it was a will, and she recognized the first several lines. She’d heard them eight years earlier, shortly after her mother’s death.

  The section that related to the second daughter, consisting of two clauses, had been transcribed at the top. She was to receive a few pieces of jewelry—the ones she’d recently pawned—that her grandmother had wished her to have, and fifty pounds to purchase a black gown and gloves in the event she felt inclined to mourn her mother’s passing. Everyone had recognized that for the slap in the face it was. There was nothing else for Jessica. The considerable legacy that Lady Sothingdon had inherited from her own mother was distributed among her two obedient children, her demonic companion, and the artisans who had produced the garish monument she’d designed for her tomb.

  “Well?” said Duran.

  “I’m still reading.” The next section, set apart, introduced a codicil that was not to be disclosed, save to Lord Sothingdon, until the occasion of Jessica Carville’s marriage or her thirtieth birthday, whichever occurred beforehand.

  And then the provision itself, a bequest to Jessica on the condition she was married before her thirtieth year to a man who met with the approval of the deceased’s spouse, should he still survive, and his heir, the present Aubrey, Lord Buckfast. Should those requirements go unmet, the bequest would revert to her son, Aubrey. The amount, to be held in trust and invested, was twenty thousand pounds.

  Stunned, Jessica continued to stare at the paper, a rush of pleasure sweeping through her. Although she had always pretended otherwise, she’d been heartsick when Lady Sothingdon made a public display of disinheriting her. But at the end, her mother had changed her mind. Or had a change of heart.

  Or remained intent on controlling her, even from beyond the grave. Yes, that was more likely. The pleasure swept out again, leaving her empty.

  She turned back to Duran. “I didn’t know of this. But I can’t see that it creates a problem. And there’s another wedding to
take place at eleven o’clock, so the vicar is somewhat anxious that we get on with ours.”

  “No, Jessica. We cannot marry. I should never have suggested it in the first place. But I was concerned for my own interests and persuaded myself that you had a little to gain, perhaps, from the marriage, and nothing whatever to lose. This changes everything.”

  He meant it. She had never seen such a look of conviction in his eyes. “But how? Papa was annoyed that you failed to take proper leave of the shooting party, and Aubrey will not be impressed by your background and lack of fortune. Nonetheless, they both wish above all things for me to take a husband. They can be brought around.”

  “Your father, perhaps. Not your brother.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know him.”

  “I’m afraid I do. The day I left High Tor, we quarreled. I lost my temper and struck him. He elected not to tell anyone?”

  “As a matter of fact, or so I heard from Mariah, he accused you of striking him. But there was some confusion about what actually occurred, and everyone but Aubrey seemed to think you’d departed for London well before the accident.” She studied his face. “Why did you quarrel?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The point is, he will never give his approval to this marriage, which means it cannot take place. It was bad enough I hadn’t a groat to settle on you. Then I couldn’t pay for a Special License, so the duke gave me the money. I had to convince Shivaji to provide a wedding ring. It’s as well you won’t be wearing it, for the one he produced is no more worthy of you than I am. Under no circumstances, Jessie, will I come between you and financial security for the rest of your life.”

  “Except that you’re not. It has never been my intention to marry, and if we had not entered into this arrangement, I’d have assuredly got to my thirtieth birthday without satisfying the conditions of the will. The money changes nothing.”