The Golden Leopard (42 page)

“He’s not overly fond of you, either.”

“No. But since I am of his kind, a wastrel and a gamester, I do not threaten his
amour propre.
Let this be, Jessica. I’ll tell you all about it afterward.”

“The censored version, I have no doubt.” Her eyes narrowed. “What are you going to say to him that you don’t want me to hear?”

That was too near the mark. He contrived a look of surprise, as if the thought of deceiving her was the furthest thing from his mind. “Why, nothing I can recall at the moment. You know the arrangements we’ve made and what we hope will come of them. I simply intend to point out that his situation is irreparable, his options few, and that a quiet departure is in his best interest. Have you anything to add?”

“A great deal. But never mind. I accept that you will do as you like, and that I ought to be grateful for your assistance.” A brief smile took the sting from her words. “I truly am, you know. It is unfair that by wedding me, you have become enmeshed in the Carville family squabbles.”

“My pleasure,” he said, smiling back. “Especially when it means drawing Aubrey’s cork.”

That earned the laugh he was aiming for, but the worry in her eyes returned all too quickly. “What if it doesn’t work, Duran? What if he refuses to leave the country? There is little we can do, really, to compel him. And if he does go, what’s to stop him from taking Mariah along?”

“Colonel Pageter. That’s who I’m counting on, at any rate. But we’ll have to see if he can ungird his honorable loins long enough to do what is required.”

“John?” she said in a strangled voice. “I
knew
there was something you weren’t telling me. What has he to do with this?”

“You noticed nothing today at the cottage?”

Her brow furrowed. “Only that Mariah is looking well. Mrs. Bellwood insists that she eat regularly, and she has been helping in the garden. But she remains terrified that Gerald will find her.”

“I meant, princess, between your sister and Pageter.”

“
Between
them? Well, nothing, of course. They scarcely spoke. Mariah pottered around setting the table, chopping vegetables, brewing tea, while John sat still as a washboard and stared at the wall. It was kind of him to escort me there. I thought at the time he was finding it an uncomfortable experience, but gentlemen often feel that way when surrounded by females.”

“I don’t.” He stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “But I can quite imagine the scene. What you witnessed, my dear, was a case of mutually unrequited love.”

Her mouth opened, closed, and dropped open again. “Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Mariah has been married since long before they met, and John would never dangle after a married woman.”

“Quite right. And he hasn’t. But that does not preclude falling in love, which he has. Mariah as well, I expect, although she has not confirmed it to me.”

“John
told
you he . . . Oh, my. That would explain why he kept coming around after I made it clear we would not suit.”

“I expect so. Courting you gave him an excuse to spend a little time in her company, until it became too difficult for them both. So he requested a posting to a faraway place. But instead of being a good lad and taking his lady with him, he left her to Gerald’s fists.”

“He couldn’t have known. None of us did, back then.”

Duran relented, to a degree. “If you say so. But he knows now. I think we can rely on him to keep Mariah safe, although it may require them to go into hiding for a time.”

“Together? My heavens. I find that difficult to imagine.”

“Oh, they’ll probably take up residence in separate pastures and gaze at each other over the fence of their rectitude like a pair of lovelorn sheep. I much prefer your direct approach, Jessie. Come to think of it, you never asked if I was married before hauling me to your bed.”

“Who else would have you?” she retorted, color flooding her cheeks. “Besides, I asked Lady Fielding. We were at her ball, remember?”

“I remember only you, princess. Only you.”

Her gaze caught his and held it for a long moment before her lashes fluttered down. He thought, then, that she would ask why he still intended to leave her, and had long since prepared a glib response for just this occasion.

But when she spoke again, it was to turn the subject. “When will you meet with him?”

“That depends, of course, on when he returns. Your father has agreed to invite him to stay the night, and I am hoping to snag him after supper. Which means,” he added, glancing at the mantelpiece clock, and from there to the canopied bed, “that we have several hours to ourselves. Any suggestions how to fill them?”

Her gaze followed his and speedily returned to his face. “Not in here, Duran. Not on that bed. Not with my mother watching.”

“Well,” he said, uncoiling from the chair, “we have to remain here, at least until the constable has come and gone. But I’m fairly sure I can make you forget where you are. And we don’t require the bed. There is plenty of furniture, or the carpet. Although . . . now that I think on it, I don’t believe I have ever taken you against a wall. Shall we begin with that?”

Her eyes, round as a kitten’s, fixed on him. She looked down to where his erection had begun to strain against his trousers. She shivered.

“As for Mama,” he said, “voyeur that she is, I shall direct her attention where
it belongs.” With some effort, he wrestled the portrait from its hangings and dragged it to the farthest end of the room, where he stood it—Lady Sothingdon’s face to the wall—in the corner. “And now, princess, where would
you
like to be?”

She had risen, arms clutched around her waist, and was examining a stretch of bare wall near the fireplace. “It doesn’t look very comfortable.”

He approached her with deliberate intent, unbuttoning his trousers with one hand and his waistcoat with the other. “It’s not supposed to be comfortable. It’s supposed to be rock hard, like this”—he freed himself—”and urgent, also like this. It’s supposed to be me plundering you, with this. Are you ready?”

She was breathing heavily. She nodded.

“Then what are we waiting for?” He was directly in front of her now, his cock several inches closer than the rest of him, nearly touching her skirts. He placed his hands on her shoulders and began backing her up until she was pressed to the wall. Then he lifted her skirts, slipped his fingers through the slit in her drawers to make sure she was ready to receive him, and moved his hands to her waist.

“When I am inside you, wrap your legs around me and hang on. This is going to be a wild ride.”

“Hurry,” she begged.

“Always so impatient. Very well, then. Here we go.”

He raised her up, put one arm behind her back to secure her, and with his other, inserted himself just a little inside her. She moaned, gripped his shoulders, tried to wriggle down on him.

“You’ll get your turn later,” he advised, holding her still. “As many turns as we can survive. But this time is for me.”

With that, he brought her down until there was no part of his cock that wasn’t engulfed in tight, slick, glorious female flesh.

Her legs came up to enclose his hips. He let her back go against the wall, held her by the waist, and moved her up and down on him, up and down, feeling her squeezing him as she built to her first climax. He helped her, moving her faster and faster, making sure he pressed against her swelling nub. Then she began to come, and he cut off her cry of pleasure with a kiss.

Until she ceased rippling around him, he held her close, letting her enjoy every pulsing moment. Her head slid to his shoulder and rested there.

“Oh,” she murmured. “That was lovely. But you said it was to be for you.”

“Did you imagine I was finished?” He adjusted his position, bending his knees slightly and placing his hands firmly on her hips. “A different motion this time, I think. I will go up and down, while you go around and around. Will you like that?”

“I always like what you do to me . . . Yesssss. Oh, oh, oh. Yes. I do like that.”

He had started, and it was a longer time than he’d expected before his own urgency brought an end to the ride.

When he released her, she nearly fell asleep right there, slumped against the wall. Holding her upright with one arm, he found his own careful completion. Then he carried her to a chair and settled there until her body caught up with the passionate spirit that inhabited it.

He tried to empty his mind, but the voice in his head would not be stilled. This was the last day he would spend with Jessie. These were the last times he would make love with her. Perhaps tonight as well, but he couldn’t be sure. And then she would sleep, and he would leave, and they would never meet again.

He did not think it a likely outcome. Nothing short of a bullet in the head would free the Carvilles of Talbot, and he was starting to doubt his ability to fire the shot.

He had killed in battle, of course. He’d cut down dacoits who attacked him on the road. He had even fought a pair of duels, although neither ended fatally. Death was no stranger to anyone who had spent time in India.

But cold-blooded, premeditated murder? That was Shivaji’s province, the proper business of an assassin with ice water for blood and a stone where his heart ought to be.

Which left Gerald Talbot, a blight on the earth who ought to be planted under it. Duran, no candidate for a heavenly reward in any case, hadn’t the slightest moral qualm about killing him. He just didn’t think he could come to scratch unless there was at least the semblance of a fair fight. It surprised him, that tattered remnant of long-abandoned chivalric idealism, but there it was.

Perhaps Talbot would be rash enough to call him out. That would solve everything.

When supper was finally done, Duran nodded in Talbot’s direction and proceeded to the library, certain his unspoken message had been received. This confrontation was inevitable, and Talbot wanted it even more than he did.

Slopping over with wine and indignation, Talbot stumbled into the room and poked his brother-in-law on the chest with a forefinger. “About time,” he said, his breath stinking of onions and claret. “Where’s the slut?”

Duran clasped his hands behind his back to keep them from targeting Talbot’s jaw. “Which slut would you be referring to?”

“M’wife. Or Jessica. Either one. Both.”

It was going to be a difficult conversation. “What say we leave the ladies out of this? Because if you don’t, I shall stuff an inkpot down your gullet.”

“They don’t much matter anyway, females,” Talbot said, dropping onto a chair.

“No.”

“But that is the last time we will agree. You think me drunk, and in part I am, but the details are stored in m’brain box. You will pay for what you did.”