The Golden Leopard (7 page)

“Did something unpleasant happen at the exhibition?” Mariah asked with surprising perception.

The image of Duran swam in and out of her vision. Jessica turned, resting her hips on the sideboard, and watched the servants carry in kettles of hot water. A maid followed, her arms filled with plush towels.

They appeared to float, silent images from a dream. A low sound, like the wings of insects, buzzed in her ears. Steam billowed over the copper tub in cloudy puffs that rose to the high ceiling, fogging the room and sifting through her in warm, damp waves.

She had fled Duran. She had run from him without dignity, or pride, or even a reason she could bear to acknowledge. Duran was in London, so she must be elsewhere, at a place he would not dare to come.

“Let me help you undress,” someone said.

Jessica realized that she was standing by the bed, gazing blankly at the counterpane. She looked up, startled to find the servants gone. The fog that had enveloped her was no more than a soft haze hovering over the steaming bathwater.

Mariah, standing behind her, began to unclasp the hooks and tapes on her carriage dress. “Are you feeling ill? A few minutes ago I asked you a question, and you wandered away as if you hadn’t heard me.”

Jessica stepped out of her skirt and fumbled at the buttons on her high-necked bodice. “I’m perfectly fine, although I believe I could fall asleep standing up. Perhaps I’ll do without the bath and go directly to bed.”

“That would be best, I expect. You might nod off in the tub and drown. Shall I inform the staff you are not to be disturbed?”

“Yes, please.” Jessica was not so weary that she failed to hear the tension in her sister’s voice. “What is it, Mariah? You are aching to tell me something.”

“It can wait until tomorrow.” Mariah came around her and pushed Jessica’s limp fingers from the buttons.

“Oh dear. Something unpleasant. Well, do get it over with, or I’ll not sleep a wink.”

“I saw the list, you see. Papa asked me to assign rooms to the guests, as if I’d any notion where to put them. Already I’ve gone wrong, placing Lord Inglewood on the second floor because I didn’t know about his arthritis. He has since been moved, of course, and so has Sir Ridgely, who wanted a view of Devil’s Tor.”

Jessica bit back a snappish demand that Mariah come to the point. On the rare occasions her sister spoke at all, she circled the topic like a fish flirting with a baited hook.

“The thing is,” Mariah said, undoing the last button and stepping away, “Colonel Lord Pageter is to be here.”

After so great a buildup, Jessica was both relieved and annoyed to hear such an inconsequential bit of news. “Indeed? I wasn’t aware he had returned to England. Where has he been all this time? Oh yes. Cape Town. I remember now. We went to Portsmouth to see him off. You said that he had no family to wave good-bye, so you dragged me along with you to do the honors, and we arrived an hour after the ship had sailed.”

Red spots blazed on Mariah’s white cheeks. “We should have been there. You were all but betrothed to him.”

“I was nothing of the sort. Mother did everything in her power to promote the match, but there was never the slightest chance I would marry him. As he very well knew, poor fellow, although he was far too polite to object when we were practically thrown at each other. The weeks he spent at High Tor must have been excruciating for him. Wherever he turned, there I was. Mother seated me next to him at table every single night and went so far as to put him in the bedchamber next to this one, hoping that lust would propel him through the adjoining door and between my legs.”

“Good heavens, Jessica.” Mariah spun her around and attacked the laces of her corset. “You mustn’t say such things!”

“Whyever not? You should understand, better than anyone, how ruthless Mother could be. Fortunately Pageter had no more interest in me than I in him, and he was too honorable to sell himself in exchange for a substantial marriage settlement. I always wondered why he continued to visit after I had refused him.” She stifled a yawn. “It was for the hunting, I suppose. He was a dedicated sportsman.”

“Papa liked him for it,” Mariah said, her voice muted.

“Oh, indeed. He had finally got a proper son-in-law in his sights, one who’d cheerfully tramp the moorlands with him, and I turned the chap away. If he’d known I would descend on High Tor this week, I would suspect him of making another try at arranging a match. Although surely Pageter is married by now. He struck me as the sort to want a cozy fireside and a nestful of children.”

Mariah tugged the corset away, folded it neatly, and crossed to a stand of drawers. “Have you never wanted that for yourself?”

“Not enough to relinquish my freedom.” Jessica sat on the edge of the bed to remove her stockings. “I don’t think of it, really. One cannot hope for everything. I prefer to set goals that can be achieved without relying on someone else. Males are notoriously undependable, you know. To subject myself to one of them in marriage would be intolerable.”

“Each case is different,” Mariah protested. “You cannot say that Mama was ever subjected to Papa.”

“Hardly.” Jessica wished that Mariah would go away and let her collapse into bed, but she could not bring herself to be as nasty as she felt at the moment. She
did
care for her sister, although the two of them had never been close. They were so very different in nature. When they were children, High Tor had been an armed camp—Jessica at war with her mother while the rest of the family did Lady Sothingdon’s bidding. Eventually Mariah had made an unhappy marriage because she was too weak to stand up for herself.

Jessica had no intention of being sucked back into the family quagmire. Escaping had been hard enough. They all had to pay for the choices they had made, didn’t they? And she had troubles enough of her own.

She heard the door open and looked up in time to see Mariah vanish into the passageway. Another quietly desperate retreat, like all the others she had made. The door closed gently, the latch falling into place with scarcely a sound.

Rather sure she had just failed her sister in some unnameable way, Jessica crawled up the bed until her head reached the pillow and let herself drop like a stone.

She wandered back to the writing table and picked up her secretary’s letter. It began with an apology. Helena had caught a summer cold and would not join her until it had passed. Jessica was sorry to hear it. She had counted on leaving High Tor as soon as Helena arrived with the bank drafts, intending to deliver at least one of them in person. Lady Erskine was in need of the money, and Jessica had planned to evaluate the contents of her home and help her choose what she could bear to part with for a future sale. The remote Northumberland estate would be an excellent place to reside for a few weeks. Like Oscar, she required a safe place to go to ground.

The thought of it filled her with self-loathing. Above all things she hated weakness, most especially in herself. She feared it, too. People who thought they knew her would be amazed to discover how constantly, how profoundly, she lived in fear of what she might do. Of what she had done. Of what she might become.

She stomped her feet, one after the other—her way of exorcizing her demons. One, two. One, two. One, two! Oscar rumbled a growl and dove under the bed.

No one—not even a cat—could bear her company for very long.

She drew a few steadying breaths and returned to Helena’s letter. The auction was described with just the sort of particulars her secretary knew she would relish. She read the long middle section twice, imagining Lord Stevesbury’s inflated sense of self-importance as he beat out the Duke of Devonshire for not one but
four
valuable pieces. They were not nearly so valuable as the price he paid for them, but he would boast of his success for a good long time. She must remember to praise him for his excellent taste when next they met.

Lady Fitzmorris had bought the blue-eyed figurine, bringing along her son-in-law to do the bidding for her. Jessica checked the list to see what she had paid. Oh my. It more than made up for the trouble the woman had tried to create at the reception.

By Helena’s report, Mr. Christie was delighted with the results of the sale, although he was taking great pains to claim all the credit for Jessica’s ideas. He very well
ought
to be pleased, considering the money he had made and the attention she had brought to his auction house. Most of the guests had never thought of setting foot there until Lady Jessica made Christie’s a fashionable place to be.

She skimmed several anecdotes, knowing that Helena, with her acerbic wit, would tell the stories far better in person. Then she came to a long postscript at the end of the letter.

“A gentleman, Lord Duran, was inquiring for you at the auction. I gathered he had applied first at Sothingdon House, which was confirmed by Phillips when I returned home. Naturally we did not provide Lord Duran with your direction, as you had told us it was to be kept private. But the gentleman, who is newly returned from India, claims to have made your acquaintance several years ago and appears most anxious to speak with you on a matter of some urgency. Should you wish to make an exception for him, please let me know by return post. He has called twice this very day, and I must tell you, Jessica, that he is a difficult man to fend off.”

Didn’t she know it!

Jessica spent the next three hours writing letters, one to Helena with strict instructions to have Duran turned away whenever he called, and the others to clients who would wish to know the price their merchandise had fetched. She’d have taken pleasure dispatching so much excellent news, had not Duran felt all but present in the room. She had put distance between them, but she could not stop thinking about him.

She dropped hot wax onto each of her letters and stamped it with her seal, using exceptional vigor. Take
that!
she thought. And
that!
Every one of those letters declared her independence. She had worked exceptionally hard for nearly six years to build her reputation, endured criticism and sometimes downright ostracism from the high sticklers, and finally made a glorious success.

Never mind what she had given up in the process. She had made her choices, and it was too late to second-guess them now.

Oscar had emerged from beneath the bed to twine about her ankles, which he only did if he was hungry. When she tried to pet him, wanting to touch something warm and alive, he jerked away, the fur along his spine standing straight up in an unmistakable sign of rejection.

“Come along, wretch,” she said, gathering her letters and heading for the passageway. “When I’ve got Father to frank these, we’ll go to the kitchen and find you something to eat.”

Oscar trotted alongside her, tail high with anticipation, until she came to a halt at the top of the main staircase that curved down to the entrance hall. Male voices, several of them, echoed from the high walls and domed ceiling.

She nearly turned back, but what was the use? There would be no escaping them so long as she remained at High Tor. She still wore her plain brown walking dress and half boots, and her hair was coming loose from its pins, but none of her father’s grouse-hunting friends cared anything for that. The men invited to Sothingdon’s famous shooting parties came precisely because there would be no females demanding their attention and requiring them to be on good behavior. She often thought that she could arrive at the dinner table wearing only her chemise without attracting the slightest notice.