The Golden Leopard by Lynn Kerstan

hand. “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “It’s nothing. A headache. But sound makes it worse, and light. After a night’s sleep I shall be perfectly fine.”
    He wasn’t sure he believed her, but only a cad would make a point of it. “As you wish, princess. I’ll send Lady Mariah to—”
    “Don’t. Please. No one must know.”
    “Your maid, then, or whomever else you name. I will not leave you here alone, so make a choice.”
    She lowered her head, squeezing out the words one by one. “You, I suppose. Just long enough to help me with my gown.”
    Remembering how she used to command him, urgently, to disrobe her, he crossed to where she stood and began slipping the pearl-shaped buttons at her nape from their loops. His fingertips felt numb.
    Head bowed, she stood perfectly still when he reached inside her bodice to unloose the tapes attaching it to her waistband. In a whisper of satin, the skirt pooled at her feet.
    Next he removed the bodice, carefully tugging the puffy sleeves down her arms. Once, when his hand brushed her bare shoulder, she made a tiny sound of pain.
    His heart was pounding like the feet of elephants on a dry Deccan riverbed. The simplest touch hurt her. More than once, more than a score of times in the aftermath of battle, he had held a dying comrade in his arms. He had schooled himself to feel nothing. To feel was to lose control of himself, and what good was he then?
    Closing his mind to what he was doing, he stripped her with practiced efficiency. When an underslip of soft muslin had joined her skirt on the carpet, he untied the bow on her corset and unwrapped the laces from their hooks. She hadn’t used to wear a corset. The Jessica he remembered could never bear to be confined.
    She hadn’t played by the rules, either. Not so many years ago, defying every convention, she had leaped into an affair with a man far beneath her in birth, breeding, and fortune. He still wondered why.
    Obviously she had come to regret it. And rightly so.
    A short time later, clad only in stockings and a filmy shift, she placed her hand on his for support and stepped away from the mound of fabric ringing her ankles.
    His hand burned where she touched him, all too briefly, before she let go and moved slowly toward the bed. He felt the effort it cost her, that silent pilgrimage, and knew better than to offer assistance. The single candle carved her out in ivory against the long black shadow she cast on the wall.
    Helplessly, he watched her lower herself on the edge of the tall bed and begin to remove her stockings. That much intimacy, he understood, was forbidden him.
    So be it. But if she thought he’d walk away from her now, she was about to learn otherwise. Approaching her from the opposite side of the bed, he spoke in the softest tone he could produce. “I’m going to draw down the bedcovers and arrange the pillows for you. Then I’ll leave, but only for a short time.”
    She looked over her shoulder at him in alarm.
    “If you lock the door while I’m gone, I’ll direct your father to send for a physician. Probably I should do so in any case. But I mean to try something else first, and it will not require me to betray your secret.” That was a lie, but only a small one. “Is there anything I can bring you when I return?”
    For a time he thought she wasn’t going to answer. The bed readied and the pillows fluffed, he was on his way out when he heard a sound—one word—coming from the bed. She had accepted his intention to return.
    “Yes,” he said. “I’ll bring ice.”
    Next door, in the small parlor that linked the two bedchambers assigned to Lords Pageter and Duran, Arjuna was cleaning and oiling their guns. Duran gestured him to continue and proceeded quickly to the dressing room where Shivaji sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed and hands resting, palms upturned, on his knees.
    Only his lips moved when he spoke. “The lady has agreed to assist us?”
    Duran required a few