The Shadow and the Star (38 page)

He left her sleeping peacefully and retreated to the vast, cold night. Walking the grounds while the household slept, he felt himself remote from all their contented warmth, a stranger still after all these years, a black ghost in the silent moonlight.

"I have a card case for Mano." Lady Kai bounced Tommy on her lap while he cooed "Ah-ah-ah" with each bump, an occupation which he appeared to find exceedingly agreeable. She consulted her list with her free hand. "I bought it in London, so it's very smart—not that he will care anything for that. Last year I gave him a shaving mug and mirror, and he liked it very well."

Leda thought of the necklace he'd bought for Lady Kai, a whole brilliant cascade of diamonds.

"Will you give him something?" Lady Kai looked up at her. "Perhaps you should consider it—he's bound to have a gift for you."

"Oh, no. I shouldn't think so." Leda bent her head over the openwork mesh mittens that she was knitting for Lady Tess. "I am his secretary."

"Well, he will. I would be surprised if he hasn't brought everyone something back with him from home; perhaps even something he made himself. He does the loveliest woodwork, if you like the Japanese style. Our old butler taught him. I really prefer more intricate carving, myself. It seems more artistic. But Mano's things are very pretty, even if they're plain. He never puts birds or flowers or anything like that on them."

Leda knitted a row in silence. She had several gifts in the making, one for each of the Ashlands, for she wished very much to show her gratitude for the manner in which she had been befriended. Beyond that, Lady Tess had asked her to hide in her room the surprise packages that her ladyship was accumulating for her family. The pile of tinsel paper and boxes growing beneath her bed made Leda feel quite festive and part of the fun.

She had thought of giving something to Mr. Gerard, but had not dared. She laid down the knitting in her lap and caught a loop of the silver yarn around her forefinger, tugging at it, twisting it round and round. "What do you suppose he might like?"

"For a gift? Here, Tittletumps, down you go. No, you must not eat Auntie Kai's skirt. Take this spoon, darling. Let me think. There really isn't time to get anything beyond the village, is there? You might have ordered a fountain pen, if we had thought of it earlier. Perhaps you could put his initials on some hankies."

Somehow, Lady Kai's suggestions made Leda feel rather melancholy. A shaving mug, a card case, a fountain pen, handkerchiefs.

Her heart ached for him.

She remembered his face in the half-light of a street lamp outside her window, the brief pressure of his hand as he pushed a small roll of cloth into her palm. She still kept the five-yen coin, the symbol of friendship, on a thin ribbon beneath her blouse.

He had not apologized for his ungoverned conduct, nor even spoken to her since. He avoided her, she was quite sure.

Perhaps, because she was half-French, he did not feel he must apologize. Perhaps she had given him a disgust of her upbringing on that day with the cherry brandy. Perhaps they were friends no longer.

The thought made her feel more dismal still.

"Yes. Of course." She allowed the silk yarn to unwind from her finger, caught up a stitch that she had dropped, and sighed. "Perhaps I'll embroider some handkerchiefs."

It was the jaguar that made Samuel a hero for the second
time in his life. How the animal got free of her cage and fenced run, a frantic Mr. Sydney never determined, but she and her cubs were loose when Kai bundled Tommy up, put him in a perambulator scrubbed out of the attics, and took him for a stroll alongside the reflecting pool.

All the younger set of houseguests had gone, too, dressed in fur-trimmed capes and pelisses, taking advantage of the unseasonably sunny weather. Kai was hardly alone and unprotected when the confrontation occurred, although Samuel thought it might have been better if she had been. Kai had common sense, but the Goldborough girls apparently didn't: at first sight of the animal crouched, tail switching, under the neat shadow of a boxwood at the edge of the lawn, they took screaming fright and dashed behind the men, their flaring skirts making exciting targets as they went. Samuel himself had the youngest one hanging onto his shoulders from behind while the jaguar lay yellow-eyed and tense, uneasy in her freedom, staring balefully at the startled group.

At first the cat made no move. But as the girls continued their half-laughing shrieks and peeked around their shields, the jaguar cuffed one of her tumbling cubs, pushing it behind her, never leaving the crouch, never taking her eyes from the human intruders. She laid back her ears and curled her lips, showing fangs. One claw lifted, open in razor warning. The hands on Samuel's shoulders tightened sharply. The girls grew suddenly silent. Just as Robert said, "Don't move," the oldest Goldborough let go of him and broke away, bolting back toward the house.

The dash of motion broke the cat's tense spell. The jaguar rushed forward a few yards and paused, glancing back toward its cubs. But the incomplete charge sent the other girls into panic. The group splintered in all directions-one girl ran toward the steps in the garden wall, Robert shouted and sprinted after her; the other let go of Samuel, turned, and tripped, flinging herself full-length on the grass. The nervous cat reacted instantly to the confusion, racing after the running girl; then turning and propelling itself after Robert, then surging toward Kai and Tommy in a wild zigzag.

Kai lost her nerve and snatched Tommy from his perambulator. The awkwardness of the motion, the flash of skirt and trailing blanket: Samuel saw the creature rivet on that target, bounding across the lawn, a dark, powerful beauty gathering speed. He moved, cutting across the cat's line of attack. The jaguar homed in on his action, angling on its haunches to make the turn—he backed and accelerated sideways to draw it to him. In three bounds the animal was there, launching into a flying strike, pure force to be directed. Samuel went into a roll. One claw caught his coat and ripped it open as the cat somersaulted over his shoulder. He came upright to the sound of a great splash and the splatter of water across the pavement and his trousers.

The jaguar's dark head emerged from the sparkling, shattered surface of the pool. She blinked and paddled, transformed abruptly from a snarling menace to a wet and bewildered animal with ears and fur pasted down to her skull. She began frantic attempts to rejoin her cubs, thrusting her front paws up onto the edge of slick marble, unable to get a foothold in the depth of the pool to heave herself free.

"Good God." Haye was the first to find words. "I say, are you all right, Gerard?"

"He's bleeding!" Kai suddenly came to life. "Go and get Mr. Sydney, Robert, and some footmen to capture that animal! Lord Haye—" She pushed Tommy into his arms.

"Do take him back to the house quickly, in case she should manage to get out of the pool. Miss Sophie—Cecilia—do you need salts? Don't swoon, if you please—go with Lord Haye back inside—and call Mother; she will know what is to be done."

Samuel pressed his hand over his arm, feeling the stinging throb now, and wet blood from the slash. "We'll need a net, or blankets."

"Certainly they will." Kai turned on him. "
You
will not. You will come in with me and have that dressed, before it can become infected. A cat scratch always will. Mr. Curzon, you shall stay here and make sure that she doesn't climb out before they can trap her. I'm sure that you will—anyone ready to travel out to Samarkand must be wildly intrepid."

"Certainly, ma'am." Curzon slapped his walking stick in his open palm. "She won't like this across her nose, if she tries to escape."

"Well, she is only frightened, so don't be too rough. There now—here is Robert back already to the rescue. Mano, come with me, and leave them to it. Don't let them forget to gather the cubs, Mr. Curzon."

Samuel allowed her to bear him away into the house. She took him up to the empty nursery, where there were clean cloths and cotton wool and rubbing alcohol, and stripped off her gloves. Without the slightest hesitation, she demanded that he remove his bloodstained coat and shirt.

As he sat bare-chested in the low window seat, she knelt before him and dabbed at the set of deep gashes. The burn of the alcohol went through him like a rush of flame; he took air deep into his lungs, not making a sound. When she had the bleeding slowed and the wounds cleaned to her satisfaction, she bound his arm and tied it off. She didn't speak the whole time. When she finished, she sat back, closed her eyes, and let out a long, shuddery breath.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Mano. Thank you."

They were alone in the nursery. From far below the closed window, the shouts and splashes of the capture broke the peace of the silent room.

He thought:
Now
.

Speak now.

"You're not hurt?" he asked absurdly.

"Of course not." She rolled her eyes and smiled. "Silly. Only you would ask that." She had not stopped to take off her cheerful red pelisse before. The white fur trim brushed his hand as she unbuttoned it now and tossed it aside.

He tried to think of some compliment, some way to begin what he had to say.

"Mano—" She put both of her hands over his suddenly. "Sometimes I forget—" She stopped. "No… it isn't that
I forget
, because I don't, but that I forget to say it out loud. I love you. You are the dearest and best friend anyone could ever have. You're always here when we need you."

He thought he should take her hands in his. He thought he should do a hundred things.

"I love you too, Kai," he said at last. And watched her with his heart taut in his chest.

"Not that I deserve it, I'm sure!" She leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

He ought to have turned; he could have turned; she was only a breath away. But the paralysis came on him. He felt the brief warmth of her face against his. only an instant, and the chance was gone. She squeezed his hands and pushed herself to her feet.

"Come down as soon as you've changed. I want you to be there when I puff you off to everyone as the bravest thing this side of China." She swept up her pelisse and started for the door.

"Kai."

She looked back, with the fur-lined cape tossed over her shoulder.

He felt powerless. "You're sure you're all right?"

"Mano, you are the sweetest idiot. It's you who're hurt. Do try to remember, and look heroically pale and grim for the fawning masses."

Leda and Lady Tess had seen most of the incident from the library window, drawn there in haste by the shrieks of the Goldborough girls. Afterward, the young ladies were inclined to install Mr. Gerard as a hero. The gentlemen who had been present, although sporting with their compliments, were a bit less impressed. Leda heard Mr. Curzon confide to Lord Haye that it had been a damned lucky thing that Gerard hadn't had his throat ripped open, attempting such a trick.

Leda knew better. She knew Mr. Gerard. From her first-floor vantage point she'd seen that decoy and roll, precise to the inch, timed to steer the cat's leap inevitably into the reflecting pool.