Heart of Light (34 page)

“There are snakes in the forest ahead,” Kitwana said. “They will drop from the trees and they have venom such that one dies in seconds from the bite.”

Nigel cast a look toward the forest. “Then I daresay this rocky place is probably the best. No trees, no place for snakes to hide even, like grass or . . . or dead leaves.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Peter said. “What snakes are these that they infect only this particular forest?”

“They're snakes that prefer this climate,” Kitwana replied, impassive.

Peter opened his mouth, closed it, then glared at Kitwana and the carriers, some of whom were sitting on the trunks, others standing but in a sagging position of repose that clearly meant they would go no farther.

“This is the most ridiculous . . .” Peter frowned, his eyebrows low over his eyes. “We're allowing a carrier to order us around. Have you so lost track of who hired whom?”

He brought his hands to his hips and looked around, his body tense, his lips pressed together, his whole expression and posture indicating that he was ready to fight.

Though whom he meant to fight—Kitwana, the carriers or Nigel—Emily did not know. But she knew that if Peter continued arguing with Nigel, then Peter would blurt out something about Nigel's relationship with Nassira and his failed marriage with Emily. It was just the sort of thing men blurted out when they disagreed and tempers got high enough. And Emily could not yet allow it to happen. Not before she had secured Peter. She surged forward and grabbed at Peter's arm. “Peter,” she said, and seeing Nigel's eyes widen, amended, “Mr. Farewell. No place to stop for the night can be as dangerous as arguments amid our party.”

Peter looked displeased. He started to shake Emily's hand away from his arm. Then he sighed and took his hand to his face, rubbing it like a man trying to remove cobwebs from his eyes. “I see.” He looked at Emily, then glowered at the rest of the party. “I see that I cannot stand against everyone else.” He shrugged and walked away to the edge of the rocky area. Some bushes grew there, sparse and hesitant. He looked at the sky, then down at the hilly but lower-lying terrain, as if—Emily thought—he were studying an escape route.

Around Emily, tents started going up, Kitwana directing the carriers with no more than a gesture and, now and then, the occasional shouted word. She did not understand the words, but the carriers seemed to understand and obey.

Nigel's lady-love had gathered wood and—lighting the fire with a magic spark—started her daily attempts to burn the water for tea. Nigel, of course, stood behind her, as if her every gesture, her smallest motion, were a marvel to be studied and contemplated.

Peter paced around the area, looking like a caged lion. He removed his coat and patted it down for his cigarettes. He found one, dropped it, picked it up, put it between his lips and patted the coat down for his cigarette lighter, which he then dropped, too. He pushed his lips outward, in peevish annoyance, as he lit his cigarette and put his lighter back in his pocket. Puffing clouds of smoke into the air, he still looked trapped as his green eyes spied this way and that, like a beast looking for a way out amid the approaching hunters.

He stared at Nigel, who stood by Nassira, apparently engrossed in watching her search for tea in the provisions trunk, and frowned. He looked at Kitwana and frowned in an even more menacing way, puffing clouds of smoke into the air. He stomped his foot, looked at Emily and raised his eyebrows, as though attempting to establish a connection, or to send a message with his gaze.

She approached him and he nodded to her.

“Dam—” he said, and puffed smoke. “Awful place to camp. We're out in the open. We're going to be besieged by natives by the end of tonight. We're—”

Emily didn't say anything. She looked away from him. On the one hand, Peter did seem to know what he was doing, to understand Africa. On the other hand, the carriers were supposed to know Africa, too, personally as well as professionally. That was one of the reasons to hire them.

Emily looked toward Kitwana, who stood over the carriers while they put up her tent, stretching the white fabric over the armature. She found him looking at her, his eyes curiously widened, like a man shocked by some revelation. She felt herself blush and didn't know why.

Peter stomped again, as though remembering Emily's not seconding his opinions reawakened his anger. He flicked his cigarette a few steps away and strode forward to step on it. “I have half a mind to just go and spend the night elsewhere by myself, so I can swoop in and save you all before you are massacred.”

“I think,” Kitwana said, looking away from Emily, as if Peter's words had called him, “you should stay where you are. The last thing we need is your
swooping
in. And leave the massacres be. Because you never know who might be massacred.”

Peter looked at Kitwana with wide-eyed shock. Of course, Kitwana had spoken freely, as no servant would dare speak to his employer in England. But Peter Farewell was looking at the carrier leader with a different kind of shock. Again, Emily felt as though Kitwana had spoken in code, a kind of code no one else save Peter Farewell could hope to understand.

Was Emily imagining things? Had her nervous eagerness somehow gotten in her mind and twisted her perceptions around?

“Well,” Peter said. “Well, you have a lot—” He blinked at Kitwana myopically, as though the African were something strange, or very far away—a look Emily had seen on people attempting to discern another's aura of magical power. “A lot of magical power. Very strange power, certainly, for someone . . .” he puffed a cloud of smoke, “in your position.”

Kitwana pounded a tent stake into the ground and looked up, his eyes intent and alert. “A lot of us have power we shouldn't have in our positions.”

Peter threw the half-smoked cigarette onto the ground and stepped on it. He turned to Emily. “They say if you should go on a trip with friends, be prepared to lose them,” he drawled. “Apparently, you can lose employees, too.”

“I believe,” Kitwana said, “they don't mean by that saying that one should devour them.”

Peter narrowed his eyes at him. “You make no sense. Devour? What do you speak of? I believe your lack of knowledge of English betrays you.”

Emily nodded. The conversation between Kitwana and Peter seemed like a cipher to her, a mystery language strangely spoken.

She looked toward Peter and offered her arm. “Will you take a turn with me, Mr. Farewell?” she said. “Before the night falls?”

“You've not walked enough for a day?” Peter asked, but smiled and visibly relaxed. He allowed her to support her hand on his arm. “We'll stay well away from those famous trees where the dangerous snakes wait for the once-a-year traveler to walk under them.”

Emily smiled, not sure it was the joke Peter thought it was. After all, would not the African know about local wildlife?

She noticed Kitwana's worried look as she left. But Nigel, talking to the native girl, didn't even notice her departure.

A STEP IN THE DARK

Dinner was a strange affair. Since the Europeans and
the natives ate apart, Emily and Nigel could not escape some conversation with each other. Their need to speak to one another was made more urgent by Peter's not speaking at all.

Farewell obviously had something on his mind, some weighty subject that stopped him midsentence and made his thoughts revolve upon a soundless round. Emily thought she knew what preyed on his emotions so. From the touches of her hand on his arm, from the sound of his voice when he looked at her, even from Peter's argument with Kitwana, she was sure Peter wanted her. But he was an honorable man, well brought up in the British honor code. He would think that his love for her was impossible, disgraceful. Look how he stole furtive glances at her—glances so full of meaning and longing and frustrated desire. His anger, his silence, his lashing out at everyone—even Kitwana—were all the obvious offspring of what he thought must be his honorable self-denial. And Kitwana, too, rising to Peter's bait. But she wouldn't think about that. She had come to think of the African as an equal. Indeed, in many cases as admirable. Or at least he seemed ever ready to aid and assist her. But she would prefer to throw in her lot with someone who might understand her.

She caught one of Peter's glances and smiled at him while lowering her eyelids in a half-demure, half-tempting expression. He looked confused. It was time she took things into her own hands. She felt confident and strong. A quick, guilty glance at Nigel assured her that her legal husband, too, looked quietly sure of himself. Did his lover and admission of their relationship give him that quiet confidence?

She looked at Peter and their gazes met. His deep, oceanic eyes seemed to draw her in, to pull her toward horizons as yet undiscovered. Somehow—here, in the middle of the jungle, where they hadn't properly bathed in days—Peter Farewell smelled good. It was a strange smell, clean and somehow natural—the smell of a creature living naturally and cleanly. Not the smell of sweaty, tired humans. It marked him as a man apart, somehow superior to them all. Looking at him made her heart race and a pleasant heat spread over her body. She wanted to see him out of his well-tailored clothes. She wanted to run her hands along his golden skin.

She wanted to see if she could shatter Peter Farewell's look of sardonic, well-bred superiority. She had never wanted a man that way, not even when she'd expected Nigel to be her husband forever. The sight of Peter fascinated her in a way she could not fully understand. She imagined that if she touched his skin, it would feel oddly smooth and cold. She was sure he desired her, yet he seemed like a distant, unattainable man, as if he could never fully belong to her or to any other woman. As if he did not even inhabit the same world.

She could barely keep the sensuous smile that twisted her lips from translating to words or to a touch on his arm. And all the while Peter looked at her with that longing, that strange calculating expression, his attraction no longer a secret.

It did not surprise her at all that he chose to retire early, after eating the tough and gristly piece of antelope that Nassira had put on his plate.

Peter set his plate aside and stood with unconscious grace, like a bird spreading its wings. “I will retire now,” he said. He stretched his arms over his head, not quite a yawn, but a motion that implied both tiredness and sensuality, like a tiger stretching before springing. “It's been an exhausting day, and who knows what trials expect us in the night.”

He smiled at Nigel. “Good night,” he said. “And a very good night, Mrs. Oldhall.”

Emily smiled at him, showing him she understood his invitation. Or perhaps he meant to come into her tent. But no, she would not stand for that. Never. If he came to her tent, it would make her feel like a kept woman, a helpless creature, at his mercy. She had decided to take her life into her own hands, and she would. She would visit Peter Farewell before he could come to her. As Peter retreated into the tent, she watched his broad shoulders disappear. There was a man—not Nigel's slim tallness, nor the graceful, well-bred aloofness of a properly educated English male.

Oh, Peter was of good breeding, no doubt about it, from as proud an ancestry as any man could hope to have. But his nobility was of a different kind from Nigel's. It was the nobility of the feudal lord who would be expected to defend his lands and his people by the strength of his arms. The idea of laying with him, of being his, made Emily shiver.

“Listen, Emily,” Nigel said.

She turned toward him, surprised that he was still there and hadn't disappeared. “Yes?”

“The other night,” he said, “when I went into the jungle. When I . . . When I . . .”

What was he trying to tell her? Was he truly going to confess to her that he wanted another? That he loved another? That their marriage had been a mistake? Emily didn't want to hear it. She did not know why, since she'd long ago stopped caring for Nigel. She was sure he meant nothing at all to her. And yet the thought of his telling her plainly that he didn't love her and never had made her heart feel like it had been turned into ice—cold and brittle and bound to break at a touch. She did not want to hear how much he loved Nassira, or what qualities had bound him to the regal African girl. Whatever those were, they certainly had nothing to do with Nassira's cooking skills.