Every Whispered Word (17 page)

“And what do you want, Camelia?”

“I want to return to Africa and excavate my father's site.”

“Somehow I don't get the feeling that Elliott is entirely supportive of that plan.”

“I believe his feelings are mixed,” Camelia acknowledged. “Elliott came to South Africa right after he graduated from Oxford, because he wanted to work with my father. He was only twenty-one at the time, and he was filled with the energy and idealism of his youth. My father took him under his wing, teaching him everything he knew about archaeology. But as Elliott got older, I think he became rather disappointed that my father had not managed to lead him to a single spectacular find.”

“In other words, he had thought the field of archaeology would be more lucrative than it turned out to be.”

“Elliott is much more interested in being recognized for his achievements than in money,” countered Camelia, anxious to defend him. “When his father died two years ago, he inherited his title and his holdings here in England, which are not insignificant. But Elliott wants to be known for his own accomplishments, and rightly so. That is why he has turned his attention to establishing his own business here in London.”

“And he wants you to give up your excavation and stay here in London with him.”

“He is concerned for my welfare,” Camelia explained. “He is afraid that I am wasting my time and my money on a site that has already been exhausted. But that doesn't mean he hasn't been supportive of me. Elliott and I have been dear friends since I was a young girl. He went to Africa against the wishes of his family because he admired my father and his work, and over the years they became exceptionally close—like father and son, really. Other than Zareb, Elliott is the nearest thing I have to family. He will always try to help me, to whatever extent he can. That's why he wants to marry me.” She took a sip of her brandy and sighed. “Elliott cares deeply about me, but on some level he also feels responsible for me, especially now that my father is dead. I think he believes my father wanted him to take care of me, and so he is willing to marry me, even though he knows I would make him an absolutely terrible wife.”

Was she really so naïve that she didn't understand Wickham's desire to marry her? Simon wondered. As he studied her sitting curled up in his chair with her bare feet tucked up beneath her, sipping her brandy, Simon decided that perhaps she was. Camelia was an intelligent, independent woman of twenty-eight, but Simon sensed that her experience with men was extremely limited. She didn't seem to be aware of her extraordinary beauty, as well the easy, unaffected sensuality that permeated her every movement. On some level Wickham probably even appreciated Camelia's keen intelligence and her devotion to her father's work, even though he must have found it frustrating when she didn't agree to abandon the dig once he had decided the excavation was a failure. Camelia was as fine and rare as any artifact Elliott could ever have hoped to find, Simon decided. His lordship probably saw her as the ultimate prize for all those years he spent scrabbling about the dirt in Africa.

At least Wickham had enough brains to understand how special Camelia was, even if he couldn't grasp the fact that she was destined to be far more than some preening viscount's wife.

“He won't be happy when he finds out about what happened at your house this evening,” Simon reflected. “I presume you didn't tell him about your little encounter with those two thugs in the alley?”

She shook her head. “It's actually better for Elliott not to know certain things, I find. He tends to get agitated, which doesn't help matters much.”

“Once he realizes you aren't at your house, it won't take much for him to track you down here. Somehow I doubt he'll think your staying here with me is a particularly appealing situation.”

“He'll be fine with it once I make him understand.”

“Understand what? That someone has threatened to kill you if you return to your dig? Don't you think he will do everything he can to convince you not to return there?”

“I will not be frightened away from Pumulani,” Camelia returned emphatically. “It was my father's dream to see that land properly excavated, and its relics carefully documented and placed in a museum for safekeeping. I have sworn to him in my heart that I will see his dream completed. I will not stop until I have done so.”

Her sage-colored eyes were sparkling with a mixture of defiance and determination. They actually grew a little darker when she was angry, Simon realized, taking on the shifting greens of a forest.

“The excavation of Pumulani isn't really about you, is it, Camelia?” he observed quietly. “It's about securing your father's legacy.”

“My father's legacy is already secure.” Her voice was proud, but there was a thread of defensiveness in it that told him she was well aware the archaeological world did not share her conviction. “He was a brilliant man and an outstanding archaeologist, who chose to go against the accepted conventions of his field and work on a continent where no others in his discipline had either his vision or his courage. During his years in South Africa he found countless important artifacts, rock paintings, and graves, all of which pointed to the highly intelligent, skilled, and resourceful tribes who have lived there since ancient times. He did not search the earth in the hope of finding fame or adoration, although the respect and support of his peers would certainly have been welcome. Nor did he devote his life to Africa because he hoped to make a fortune. My father was an explorer. For him, the journey itself was the reward. I want to continue that journey.”

“For how long?”

“For the rest of my life.”

“I'm not sure my pump will last quite that long,” he joked. His expression grew more serious as he added, “I thought you said you were on the cusp of an important discovery at Pumulani.”

“I am. But whatever I find will take years to be excavated, and when I'm finished I'll find another place in Africa to explore. Archaeology is in my blood, Simon, just as it was in my father's blood. I went on my first dig when I was ten. From the moment I had a bucket in one hand and a small pick in the other, I knew it was the only thing I wanted to do.”

“I take it then your mother shared your father's passion for exploring Africa.”

She sighed. “Unfortunately, my mother didn't know anything about Africa. She saw it as a hot, dirty, uncivilized place that would steal her husband for months at a time. My mother was the daughter of a viscount, and she had been raised to be a very proper, appropriately fragile English lady. I think sometimes she couldn't help but be disappointed in me, because she could see I was much more like my father than like her.”

“If she despised Africa so much, then why did she let you go there?”

“She didn't. She died when I was ten, and my father returned to London, not quite sure what to do with me. I begged him to take me with him back to Africa. And he did.”

“That must have been incredibly difficult for you. Leaving your home and everything you knew and going to a strange country.”

“Losing my mother was agonizing. Going to live with my father was easy. As far as I was concerned, it didn't really matter where he took me, as long as we were together.”

Simon was silent a moment, contemplating this. “And when did Zareb come into your life?”

“Zareb had been my father's friend for years before I went to Africa. On the day we arrived by ship in Cape Town, Zareb was there to meet us. He reached out and laid his hand against my cheek, and murmured a few words I didn't understand. Then he bent down, looked straight into my eyes, and told me he would always protect me.” She laughed. “I must admit, at the time I was a little in awe of him, with his extraordinary robes and his warm, dark skin, and his intense way of looking at me. I had never met anyone like him in England. But Zareb was true to his word. He stayed by my side and watched over me more closely than my mother or father ever had, or even any governess I had ever known. He used to tell me the spirits had brought me to him as a gift, and that was why he had to take special care of me. I think that was his way of making me feel that I belonged in Africa. At that point, I only knew I desperately wanted to be with my father.”

As she sat there loosely wrapped in her quilt, with her hair spilling in a honeyed tangle over her shoulders, Simon could well imagine the frightened yet determined little girl she had once been. Her father loved Africa, and she loved her father and wanted to be with him, especially after her mother died. Now that Lord Stamford was also dead, Camelia was determined to continue his work. Not just because she wanted to secure his legacy, as Simon had thought, although that was certainly part of it.

Camelia needed to continue her father's excavation at Pumulani because that made her feel closer to the man she had so adored.

“If you are determined to spend the rest of your life digging up Africa, where does that leave poor Wickham?”

“Elliott doesn't really want to marry me,” Camelia assured him. “He feels an obligation to look after me because we have been so close for so many years, and because he loved my father. What he really wants is to marry his perception of what he thinks I could be, if only he could get me to settle down and be more like other women.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Yes—he just doesn't realize it yet. But I think he is coming to understand it a little better now that he sees how poorly I seem to fit in here in London. He was quite annoyed with me for the way I spoke to Lord Bagley earlier this evening. I honestly don't think I would make anyone a terribly good wife anyway,” she continued irreverently, not sounding terribly bothered by this fact. “I know nothing of running a household, or entertaining, or raising children, and I'm absolutely hopeless at holding my tongue if someone says or does something I find insulting or offensive. I can't stay trapped in a house more than a month or two—I have to be out in the open, working. Then of course there is the matter of Zareb and my animals, who will always stay with me.” Amusement lit her gaze as she finished, “Not many men would look at all of that and think I made a very appealing package!”

She was absolutely right, Simon reflected. Most men wouldn't think a headstrong young woman who spent her life digging up bones in Africa while traipsing around with her exotic animals would make a particularly appealing wife. But that was what made her so thoroughly fascinating. Camelia was living her life entirely on her terms, with her own goals and standards. She had no interest in what others thought of her, except as it applied to her achievements in the field of archaeology. And she was utterly dedicated to honoring the work of her late father, by pursuing his dream to its very end, regardless of the sacrifices and risks involved in doing so.

He took another swallow of his brandy, moved and bewitched by her. Why the hell couldn't Wickham just appreciate her for what she was, instead of trying to turn her into something she could never be?

“I suppose I should leave you to your work,” Camelia said, rising from her chair. “After all, the sooner you can get your pump built, the sooner we can leave for South Africa.”

Simon stood. She was right—he really ought to get back to his work. Yet somehow the thought of remaining cloistered in his study, poring over his notes and drawings until early morning, no longer appealed to him.

“You miss it terribly, don't you?” he asked as he walked with Camelia to the door.

“I'm very anxious to return to my work.”

“I didn't mean your dig. I meant South Africa.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“What is it like there?”

“It's like . . . paradise,” she returned simply. “It is a place of absolute contrasts, but the contrasts are magnificent. The cape is surrounded by the bluest, clearest, warmest strip of ocean you could ever hope to see—when the sun pours down upon it from the sky, you think that thousands of stars have fallen from heaven and are dancing on the waves. Around Cape Town there are trees and plants in every variation of green you could imagine, bearing the sweetest fruit you have ever tasted. And as you walk, a softness caresses your cheek and ruffles your hair, so gentle at first you may not notice it, until finally you realize it is the clean breeze off the ocean brushing against your skin. And then, as you travel inland, the land becomes hotter, drier, and more forbidding, but also more magnificent. The land flows around you like an endless sea of gold and green, dotted with resilient bushes and tufts of grass that care little that they may not taste rain for months at a time. There are ancient, towering mountains that stretch into the sky and try to touch the sun each morning, then turn into awesome jagged black peaks as the sky darkens and the moon rises at night. And when you stand under that brilliant pearl moon, all alone, and listen to the sound of your heart and your breath as the land settles into sleep, there is nowhere on earth where you could possibly find greater beauty.”

The quilt she held around herself had fallen slightly, as if she were imagining the warm caress of that African breeze against her skin. And there was a moment of perfect stillness between them, as she stared earnestly into his gaze and tried to get him to feel what it was like to stand beneath an African moon.

Simon stared down at her, overwhelmed. He had never stood beneath an African moon, but he was quite certain it could not possibly compare to the extraordinary beauty of Camelia standing before him. She was an enchantress, he decided, even though his resolutely scientific mind knew there was no such thing. She had to be, because somehow she had woven a spell around him, powerful and exquisite and absolute, until he no longer remembered precisely who he was. All the tangled memories of his past and the relentlessly logical demands of his future suddenly melted away, until there was only that moment, with Camelia standing before him in her simple nightgown and faded quilt, her eyes sparkling with the memory of a world she loved and missed to the depths of her being.