The Golden Leopard by Lynn Kerstan

know him?”
    “When the ship reprovisioned at Cape Town, the colonel was among the new passengers who came aboard.” The lines at his temples crinkled with amusement. “As I understand it, he narrowly escaped being leg-shackled to you. The poor frightened fellow ran all the way to Africa.”
    “Only so far as Africa? I must be losing my touch.” She produced a chilly smile. “ You ran all the way to India.”
    “And even there I could not escape you,” he said after a moment. “But I was joking about Pageter. He told me your mother had been promoting a match that neither of you wished, although he much admired you. I believe he was in love with someone else at the time, but the lady was not in a position to return his affections. He left to avoid causing her pain.”
    “A common excuse, I believe, when a man does not wish to marry a woman he has dallied with.”
    “Ah. Now you are talking about me, Jessie. About us. Are you certain that you wish to?”
    “What I wish, of course, is to be rid of you.” It was true. Her pulse raced. Her throat was dry. All the familiar, unwanted symptoms of exposure to Hugo Duran. “You have made use of a perfectly nice man to insinuate yourself into this house, where you bribed my father to make you welcome. Your purpose cannot be honorable.”
    “That is not a word, I agree, generally linked to my name. But perhaps you should reserve judgment until you have heard what my purpose is.” He hadn’t moved, that she’d noticed, nor had she, but he seemed a great deal closer. “Is it so much to ask, a few minutes of your time and a chance to explain?”
    She studied the ground. With Duran, nothing was that simple. To give him the slightest opening was to invite an invasion. She had made herself vulnerable to him once, and he had hurt her. But she took responsibility for that. She had not meant to care for him, or even known that she did, until he left her. It had been a devastating surprise.
    And in all fairness, how could he have known her feelings, if she did not?
    “Humility does not suit you,” she said finally. “You do not ask, however soft your voice. You demand. And if that fails, you deceive. But pray get on with it, sir, so that I may decline to do whatever it is you want of me.”
    “Well, I would,” he said in a friendly voice, “but your father expects me to join him for a trial of his new gun. Shall we speak after supper? And in the meantime, my dear, see if you can do something about that grudge you are carrying.”
    Pride stiffened her back. “I have no idea what you mean.”
    “No?” He looked sorrowful. “You never used to lie.”
    “I had a good teacher.”
    “Then I have more to regret than I had thought.” He stepped away and bowed. “Tonight, Jessica. Do not fail me.”

Chapter 6
     
    The day was already turning hot. Duran, on his way to the shooting ground, longed to strip off his jacket, but Sothingdon observed strictest propriety in matters of sport. Rigid formality would surround even this late-morning exercise.
    He had been told that only the younger men—those on the morning side of sixty, he supposed—would take part in the target shooting. By his standards, that made what he intended to do a trifle less reprehensible.
    John Pageter, waving a greeting, fell in step with him not far from the house.
    “Prepare yourself,” Duran said. “I feel a bout of exceptional accuracy coming on.”
    “This would be the time for it,” Pageter agreed, his freckled face serene under the wide-brimmed hat he wore. “I shall try not to appear smug when I rake in your winnings. Will you lose most of it back tonight at the whist table?”
    “I won’t be there. Which reminds me. When I vanish after dinner, devise some excuse for me.”
    A lifted brow was Pageter’s only response.
    Duran regarded him for a moment before returning his gaze to the path. A man of few questions, Colonel Lord Pageter, and even fewer answers. After several months on ship