Yesterday's Promise (4 page)

The ship, now three weeks into its voyage from London, had come up against an uncommon storm for the season of seagoing travel. Shadows lengthened across the dark, mountainous swells as the ship rolled and pitched, its aged timbers creaking and moaning in harmony with the howling wind.

The lantern above his desk seemed to sway its own cadence in some macabre waltz. His focus shifted from his uncle's unexplained death to the two objects—now starting to slide across his desk. As they neared the precipice, he fetched them back.

Two objects, both important, both reaching a generation into the
past: a portion of Henry's diary, and the map Henry had drawn to what he said was a gold deposit in the Zambezi River region. The map, once smiled upon as Henry's Folly, was now seen differently—as a golden light shining on a path to another famous rand, like the first great gold discovery at the Witwatersrand in 1886. The British had shortened the name to The Rand, and so the big gold owners were now called randlords. Rogan drew the map toward him. As his fingers touched the heavy paper with pencil lettering, now beginning to fade on the yellowing sheet, his mind stepped back into that night at Rookswood when he'd located the treasure map he'd been searching for since boyhood…

It happened toward the end of a summer at Rookswood Estate. Rogan had been attending geology studies at the university in London and was at the top of his class. Upon returning to Grimston Way, he found the vicar's niece, Evy Varley, grown up…and very much to his liking.

He encountered her one afternoon at the summer fete while he and Lady Patricia Bancroft were out riding past St. Graves Parish. Evy and Derwent Brown, son of the vicar, were putting up a booth on the village green, with Evy doing most of the hammering. The sight had amused him, and ignoring Patricia's peevish protests, he had ridden up. The fete, which he'd had practically no interest in, was a benefit sale to help the vicar with his orchard. Rogan decided right then to attend the village event in order to admire Evy. Her green-flecked amber eyes and tawny hair were enough to catch any young man's fancy.

He had to admit, though, that it was not just her appearance that captured his interest. He knew many lovely girls in London, some of them daughters of lords and earls, but their beauty alone was not enough. The other girls he could always catch, but they soon bored him with their self-centered ways and shallowness, Patricia Bancroft included. Evy Varley had intelligence and wit, and she had not fallen adoringly at his feet the way the others had done. They were only interested
in the title that soon would be his, upon his father's passing: Sir Rogan Chantry of Rookswood Estate.

What had started out as a game to add Evy to all the others had proven disturbing. From the time he had first met her, she made it quite clear that she was not impressed with his aristocratic station in life. In fact, there were times when she made him feel humble, and he found that he liked that about her. And Evy was confident in her Christian beliefs. He rarely, if ever, saw her compromise on any issue. And unlike his sister, Arcilla, with her beautiful clothes and flirtatious ways, Evy could stand her own in any group, regardless of whether or not her dress was the prettiest. She always showed a confident self-possession about her, whether she was in the company of common villagers or those with titles who often visited Rookswood. Somehow Rogan knew that it had something to do with her strong faith, perhaps because she believed Christ possessed her.

The fete was held the next day, and after attending, Rogan had ridden his horse back to Rookswood with Evy on his mind. Patricia had left early in the morning to return to Heathfriar, her ancestral home. When he came through the front door, he found Heyden van Buren standing in the Great Hall. Rogan had never seen the young man before, and he had the audacity to show up uninvited by anyone in the family.

“This is Heyden van Buren from the Transvaal,” his father, Sir Lyle Chantry, had said. “Heyden, this is my youngest son, Rogan. Heyden is in London on business. He's a secretary to one of the men in the Boer government of Paul Kruger.”

“Seeing I'm in England traveling with our Boer president, your father's kind hospitality has proven quite acceptable.”

Rogan disliked Heyden from the beginning, though he could not say why. He claimed to be an Afrikaner—a descendant of the Dutch settlers in South Africa. He said his family had come to South Africa from Holland during the 1600s, when the Spanish Inquisition raged in the Netherlands against the Protestants. He boasted a good deal about the
stalwart Dutch and their Boer Republic, and it did not take long for Rogan to understand that Heyden gazed at his world with the zealous perspective of Boer politics.

Rogan, a steely eyed English lad, found Heyden's boasting irritating, for he himself supported a far-flung British Empire from London to Calcutta, from Egypt to Capetown and beyond.

Heyden's fair appearance was burnt brown by the African sun. His smile was amiable, his accent not unlike Uncle Julien's, but his frozen pale blue eyes convinced Rogan he could not be trusted. Later, when Rogan asked his father why he allowed Heyden to stay at Rookswood, his father raised his brows.

“Out of social courtesy. He'll soon be leaving.”

“I'll be content when he does. His ruddy Boer bragging wears on my patience. He's no blood of ours, is he?”

“No, but he's affiliated with Sir Julien through his late former ward, a young woman. I must say, though, with all his feverish discussion of possible war between us and the Boers, it shouldn't bode well for him in Julien's estimation.”

“Nor mine. For an uninvited guest to allow himself to become so predisposed about Boer rights shows him a bit moldy of manners.”

“Julien sent a wire saying not to receive him, that he was trouble, but that was after I had asked him to stay. One night won't matter that much.”

“A night that tries my patriotism,” Rogan said dryly.

“Do not forget your social duty, son. I am the squire of this fine village, and someday you will inherit not only my title but my role here. And Heyden has come all the way from London.”

“I wonder why?”

His father shrugged, then turned back to his books and the research paper he was writing on the history of Grimston Way and its lengthy line of squires.

“Did Heyden learn of us through Julien?”

“Yes, though Julien shares your apparent impatience with him.”

Rogan avoided the Afrikaner after dinner, wishing to suspend debates over British policy. He went up to his room early in order to think about a way to convince the rectory girl to go riding with him while he was home. He had noticed she usually went for long walks from the bungalow to a little-used path into the private woods of Rookswood. There was a hill that he could see from his bedroom window. He would often see Evy go there toward sunset and, evidently, daydream. He decided to keep an eye out for the next time she left, then saddle his horse and follow.

He picked up a geology book and sprawled upon his divan to read. It must have been around 10:30 P.M. when he heard stealthy footsteps down the corridor. Rogan listened. He suspected it was the Boer. He waited, snapped his book shut, and got to his feet. A minute later he stepped from his room in time to see Heyden taking the stairs to the third floor.

Third floor?
Now why would he be going up there? That was a section of the house he should not be visiting. Henry's room was located up there.

Rogan followed. If it became necessary to forget his “social” manners, he'd toss him out on his ear.

Rogan walked past the nursery, where, as boys, he and Parnell had suffered the regiments of boring governesses and stuffy male tutors, and where Mrs. Grace Havering, the deceased vicar's wife, had come with her niece, Evy, to teach his sister, Arcilla.

He soon reached the steep steps leading up to Henry's old study and silently climbed toward a narrow corridor.

The door was open a crack, and a thin ribbon of light fell onto the corridor above the steps. Rogan's eyes narrowed. His uncle's study had been his secret room since childhood, and now this tiresome Boer was snooping around like a common thief. There could be but one reason. He must know about the Black Diamond—but not about Henry's map, Rogan hoped.

This room was usually locked. It was considered an unpleasant
place in the house, a room to be avoided by nearly everyone in Rookswood, except Rogan. Sir Lyle had never come to grips with his younger brother Henry's untimely death. It had been more than a heartbreak, and all these years it had remained a scandal on the Chantry name that his brother had taken his own life.

Sir Lyle had a key to the room, as did Rogan. He'd had the key since he was a boy. But as far as he knew, no one outside the household had a key, so how did Heyden unlock the door?

Rogan set his jaw and pushed the door open. Heyden was standing in the middle of the room. He didn't move or seem to hear him until Rogan stepped in and closed the door with a deliberate click.

Heyden turned with a smile.

“Oh, hullo. Hope you don't mind?”

Rogan did, and he was about to throw the man out, when Heyden spoke up again.

“I've heard all the old tales of ‘Henry's ghost,' and I suppose there's still enough boy in me to be intrigued.” Heyden chuckled. “Maybe I should have waited till the old grandfather struck twelve?”

“It's wise you didn't. I might have shot a prowler. How did you get in?”

“Lizzie, cute little maid. We got to talking about ghosts and whatnot. You know how it goes. One thing leads to another, and soon I asked to see the room. She promised to leave it unlocked. Bless her heart, she did. Hope it's all right, Cousin? I should hate to get the girl a scolding.”

So now he was a
cousin
, was he? A smooth talker, this Boer. Lizzie, the silly chatterbox, would easily fall for his feigned attentions, warming to the dashing stranger from South Africa who wished to see the famous Rookswood “ghost.”

“She told you where the room was?”

Heyden looked at him, still grinning in his own musings. “Yes. I wouldn't have known otherwise, now, would I?”

“No. Unless you've been here before.”

Heyden turned full circle, looking about the room as though it were a museum. “Not much chance of that, is there? This being my first trip to England. I'm not much older than you and Parnell. Strange, isn't it, how ghost stories get bandied about until a generation or so later the tale is chiseled in stone?” He looked at Rogan. “Makes for good family history and amusing gossip in the village, I suppose.”

“So does the tale of the Kimberly Black Diamond. You've heard that one, too, no doubt.”

Instead of showing embarrassment that Rogan's bluntness had caught him off guard, Heyden drew his golden brows together.

“The diamond. Ah yes, ah yes. There's hardly a soul who's worked for Sir Julien at Cape House these past years who hasn't heard of it. It was monumental news when it happened. I was just a child, but I remember how Henry Chantry stole the Black Diamond and ran off to London with it.” He looked at Rogan with apology.

Rogan folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the door, offering a faint smile. He saw mild surprise in Heyden's eyes, as though Heyden had expected outrage over the accusation about his uncle Henry.

“My uncle was a rascal. I've not much doubt Julien is right. Henry was involved with a beautiful woman at Cape House, and the two of them ran off with it. Diamonds are all in the family, you know,” he said, deliberately glib.

Heyden's smile vanished. “Yes. There was a beautiful woman. But they say it was Henry who brought the Kimberly Black to England. Strange that it's never shown up on the world markets, though, don't you think? I wonder where it could be. Did your uncle ever discuss it?”

Rogan measured him carefully. As if he would answer such a question! Heyden wouldn't get any information from him.

Rogan tried to surprise him.

“You think Henry was murdered in this room for the Black Diamond?”

Heyden's mouth slipped open. He stared at Rogan. “Murdered—
you cannot be serious! I surely would not dare say such a thing. Lizzie says he killed himself.”

“And we can count on everything Lizzie tells us.”

“Well, Sir Julien says the same. It's no secret in Capetown that Henry Chantry took his own life.”

“No, I don't suppose it is.”

Heyden gave him a sudden searching look. Rogan stared back evenly.

“The Kimberly Diamond was never returned to South Africa.”

“No, and through the years, I'd say just about everyone in the family has made their pilgrimage here to Rookswood to Henry's room hoping to find it tucked away in a cobwebbed corner. This appears to be your pilgrimage, van Buren. Am I assuming too much? But you'll also leave empty-handed because Henry left no clue as to where he hid it. It's likely not at Rookswood at all.”