The Golden Leopard (22 page)

“I don’t want to put his back up,” Jessica said. “Not yet.”

“Then wait for him in the
Sala Dei Medici
. He must pass through when he leaves, which will be in a short time. I am told he is losing heavily.”

Helena was already there, wearing her smoky glasses and seated on a brocade sofa next to Beata’s companion. Jessica thought of joining them, but chose instead an isolated chair in a dim corner where she could think. Having got this far, with Gerald all but wriggling in her net, she still hadn’t the least idea what to do with him.

She was no closer to a solution an hour later, when male voices punctuated with laughter signaled that the game had broken up. Men filtered into the parlor, most pausing to speak with Beata, who held court on an ornate chair placed where the light was most flattering. Opulent and sensual in scarlet Luccha velvet, she might have emerged from a Caravaggio painting.

Jessica was watching a skinny gallant kiss Beata’s hand when Gerald’s drawling voice sounded beside her.

“Ah, sister. I had thought you still at High Tor. Isn’t that what you told me, Duran?”

Duran!

With Gerald.

Serpent and toad.

Her toes curled in her slippers, as if that could keep her anchored to the floor.

Duran approached her and bowed. “It is the nature of ladies to change their minds,” he said, paling slightly when she glared at him. “How fortunate for us that she did.”

“Why would you think so?” she inquired, rising. “What have I to do with either of you?”

“Oh, oh, I know her in this mood,” Gerald said, wagging his finger. “Even Wellington would call a retreat.”

Jessica arched a brow. He was drunk, and displeased, and playacting good humor. It wasn’t difficult to guess why. “Lost a great deal, have you? I hope, Duran, that you don’t expect him to pay.”

“Of course I do.” Duran turned his beguiling smile on Gerald. “Gaming debts are the first responsibility of a gentleman. But naturally, he must be given time to secure the funds from his banker.”

“Yesh, yesh. No hurry, what? Besides, tomorrow night I could win it all back.”

“To be sure. The money, after all, is only a means of keeping score. It’s the action we crave.”

“Children at their games,” Jessica said. “If ever you sober up and have a spare moment, Gerald, I have a business proposition for you. Perhaps not exactly what you wish for, but you did express interest in a partnership of sorts. If you still wish to discuss it, make an appointment with my secretary.”

“P-partners don’t make appointments,” he said, bristling.

“I beg your pardon.” She was trying to reel him in, not drive him away. “It’s only that I am scheduled to meet with a number of clients, and Helena keeps my calendar. She’s over there, if you care to speak with her.”

“I’ll give it some thought. Or maybe I’ll drop in on you whenever it suits me. Don’t forget, Jessica. I’m family. Mariah wouldn’t be happy if you put me off.”

Before she could parry that open threat, Duran had taken Gerald by the elbow and was steering him across the parlor and out the door. She waited a few moments to be sure they were gone, and then she hurried in the opposite direction, to a quiet ladies’ retiring room in a part of the house reserved for secretive meetings. At this time of year, with most important people gone from London, no one was likely to be there.

In the stuffy room she sat on a low ottoman, her face buried in her hands, and fought tears that wanted, of their own volition, to be cried. For her part, she wanted nothing to do with them or the wave of loneliness that had swept over her the moment she saw Duran in company with her greatest enemy.

There was no sense to it. She had lived all but a few weeks of her life without him. And yet, God help her, that brief interval was the only time she had ever felt truly alive. The only time she had not consciously played a role to gain favor.

She wore disguises all the time now, but they never seemed to be the appropriate disguises. Her friends, most of them, would like her a great deal better were she more conservative, more pliable, more
normal.
Her family, most of them, would see her properly married and in all things dutiful. Her clients, most of them, wanted her to be, on their behalf, greedy and ruthless.

But Duran—irresponsible, unreliable Duran—accepted all her moods. Never sought to change her. Because she was sufficiently useful as she was, she supposed. Why bother to change a woman he didn’t mean to keep?

But in his company, she never felt inadequate, or guilty, or lonely. That was something, wasn’t it?

No. It was nothing at all, if he didn’t want her.

She dampened a cloth, mopped her face with it, and straightened her skirts. He had cut up her peace, but the fault was hers for permitting it. She kept bidding him good-bye—after he’d already gone, of course—and the rascal kept popping up again. The obvious solution was to ignore him altogether.

But when she opened the door, there he was, filling the space with a hand propped against each side of the casing, blocking her way.

Impossible to ignore.

“I wish you would cease accosting me in doorways,” she said, giving him her best schoolmistress glower. “If you force me to call for assistance, Beata’s large footmen will throw you out on your ear.”

“I’ve called for their assistance myself, as a matter of fact. It required a pair of them to wrestle Talbot into a hackney.” He took a step back. “I confess to being astonished that you mean to take him into partnership.”

“Take? He is coercing me. If I pretend to go along, I may be able to dictate the terms, or at least keep him under control.”

“What do you want to happen, Jessica? You know that I am looking for something to exchange for your assistance. Perhaps I can help.”

Her very thought. Or it had been, during the intervals of madness when she’d talked herself into imagining she could trust him. No more. Not again. “Indeed you can,” she said. “Go away, far away, and take him with you. That would solve any number of problems.”

“Except mine.”

“True,” she said sweetly. “One cannot have everything.”

“No. I have realized that. You intended to decline my proposal, I am sure, but I expected you to do it in person.”

“I meant to. But there was the small matter of you not being there.”

“That was unfortunate and, I assure you, beyond my control. Still, I left you my direction. You might have got in touch with me. Sent a message.”

“You left me nothing. I returned from an errand, and you were gone.”

He frowned. Paused. “I slipped a note under your door,” he finally said. “And the first time we stopped to change horses, I dispatched a letter from the posthouse.”

“Did you? But why do I ask? The Disappearing Note that Would Explain All. The Letter Gone Missing. You have been reading Minerva novels, Duran. And even if I believed you, I wouldn’t care. You left, and I want you to stay away. Surely that is clear enough.”

“Even if I can render Talbot harmless? In case you failed to notice, I’ve already made a start.”

“By putting him in your debt? You and half of London can claim that achievement. But what’s the use of it? He can’t be thrown into prison, and his family connections prevent him from being hounded to the Continent by his creditors. Never mind that the family would be pleased to see the last of him.”

“I
could hound him,” Duran said. “I can be persuaded. Would you like to try? Not here, of course, if you don’t wish to be seen in my company.” His gaze became intense. “Remember how I used to come to you, Jessica? Unlatch the window tonight.”

Her heart pounded in response, like a hopeful girl’s.

Like a
stupid
girl’s.

“Don’t be absurd,” she said. “Besides, you told me that you are watched wherever you go. Will your valet permit you to stay out so late?”

“I don’t know. But at this point, with nothing going well, he might extend my leash. I’ll go ask him, Jessie. You go open your window. And, if you can, your mind.”

“Insults are always so effective when trying to win someone over, don’t you think?” she said, moving past him and down the passageway.

He soon caught up with her, and when she glanced over, looked entirely unrepentant. “I learned the technique from you,” he said. “You insult me constantly, and behold, I am your slave.”

Against every instinct of self-preservation, she felt a laugh rise to her throat.
Please, no.
Nothing, not even his skill as a lover, was more dangerous than his gift for making her laugh.

They had come to a crossing of two passageways. Jessica started to turn to the right, wondering if Duran meant to follow her back to the salons, wondering if she wanted him to. But before she could complete the turn, a chubby man with side-whiskers barged out of a room a few yards ahead, staggered a little way in their direction, and halted.

Eyes narrowing, head jutted out like a chicken’s, he stared at Duran as if trying to place him. Then his face tightened. “You!” he bawled. “I know you. Know what you did.”

Jessica glanced at Duran, but his expression was infuriatingly neutral.

The man jabbed a finger toward him. “Saw you yesterday as well, damned if I didn’t, sneaking around Leadenhall, making mischief. Treason, that’s what. We—”

She lost what he said next because Duran swung around in front of her, seized her arm, and thrust her to the left. Understanding, she darted into the unlit passageway and pressed herself against the wall.

As always, the stratagems required to preserve her reputation were forcing her to miss out on something she very much wanted to witness.
Treason,
of all things. What had Duran been up to? But she could see nothing, and sounds failed to make the turn without becoming distorted.

The man, whom she hadn’t recognized, was still shouting something about theft, treason, and hanging Duran from the highest tree. And for all she knew, Duran had done everything he was being accused of, although the charges stretched from training the enemy and supplying heathens with guns all the way to plucking food from his children’s mouths. That last was unlikely, but there was little else she would put past him.

Other voices filtered to her ears. She edged deeper into the shadows, but the shouting had ceased and the more restrained speech of the newcomers was barely audible. What was going on there? Looking around, she saw a door not far from where she was standing and realized where in the villa she had come to. She knew of a perfect vantage point, so long as the gentlemen stayed where they were.

The door opened to a courtyard, one of Beata’s Mediterranean fancies, with a fountain at the center and, curled around it, a labyrinth maze marked out with knee-high box hedges and ornamental trees. Tonight the fountain was still, and no torches or lanterns had been lit. She slipped outside and paused a moment to get her bearings.

Scents of lemon and orange, lavender and laurel and roses, hovered in the warm air. She looked to her right where a line of windows, some with their top casements lowered to admit the evening air, marked the passageway where the whiskered man had been throwing his tantrum. Holding to the shadows, she stole toward the likeliest of the windows, searching for a good spot to see without being seen. Finally she settled on a fat potted shrub and crouched behind it, peering through the twigs and leaves directly into the brightly lit passageway.

Duran was standing with his back to her, facing an open door through which several gentlemen had emerged. They stood in a semicircle across from him, but with Duran blocking her view, she could identify only one of them.

The Beast. There was no mistaking Jermyn Keynes, Duke of Tallant, with his heavy black hair, harsh face, and the strange, nearly colorless eyes that always reminded her of someone, although she could never think who it was. Like any female of sense, she kept her distance from the Beast, who seemed to relish his nickname and did everything possible to live up to it.