Every Whispered Word (28 page)

Camelia lay beneath Simon, her heart pounding against the hard wall of his chest. Powerful emotions were sweeping through her, making her feel fragile and afraid. This was not what she had wanted, she told herself, but even as she thought it she knew it was a lie. For weeks now she had been haunted by the memory of Simon's caresses, the velvety press of his lips upon her mouth, the scorching heat of his hands upon her skin. It was wrong, of course. She understood that completely. He did not belong to her, any more than she belonged to him. Her heart and her life were in Africa, and his were back in London, where he could be happily locked away for weeks at a time in some stuffy, overcrowded laboratory, with no one to bother him with the mundane demands of meals or conversation or companionship. There was no room in his life for marriage and children, any more than there was room for such conventional trappings in hers. She realized all of this with painful clarity.

And still she did not stir.

“I should go,” she finally ventured quietly, not really wanting to go at all, but feeling she should say it all the same.

Simon raised his head and looked down at her. Tears were glittering in the pools of her eyes, and her gaze was filled with regret.

“It was not the stars, Camelia,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Not this time.”

She stared up at him, mesmerized by the gentle cadence of his voice, the tenderness of his hold upon her, the wonderful feel of his beautiful body pressing her into the thin mattress. “What is it, then?”

He reached down and captured a silvery tear with his fingertip as it leaked down her cheek. “I'm not sure.”

She closed her eyes, unable to look at him. She was losing part of herself to him, she realized, and she couldn't bear it. “I cannot leave Africa, Simon,” she whispered raggedly. “I cannot.”

Her tears began to fall faster, trickling down her sun-bronzed cheek and into the honeyed silk of her hair. It had cost her a great deal to admit that to him, Simon realized, feeling his heart clench. She was trying to be as honest with him as she could be. But whether she had spoken the words or not scarcely mattered. He already knew about her deep connection to this strange, wild place.

If he thought he could weaken that connection by trying to bind her closer to him, he was wrong.

“I would never ask you to leave, Camelia,” he said, gently stroking her hair. “But you must also understand that I cannot stay here. I have my own work, and my family, and the life I have built for myself in England and Scotland. I cannot abandon all of that to live in the middle of nowhere in Africa. This is your world and your life, not mine.”

She swallowed thickly, holding fast to him. “I understand.”

He looked down at her, unconvinced. “Do you?”

She nodded. “I should go,” she whispered.

“Stay with me, Camelia,” he urged, his voice tender and coaxing. He did not want her to leave. Not then. Not ever. “Just a little longer.”

She shook her head. She could not stay with him another instant. Her heart was slowly tearing into two, and she did not think she could bear it. “Let me go, Simon.” She moved to get up, but he did not shift to accommodate her. “Please.”

He had no choice. He rolled off of her and retrieved his trousers, keeping his back to her as he stepped into them and gave her a moment to dress herself.

Camelia fumbled with the hooks of her corset and the strings of her petticoats, struggling to get dressed as quickly as possible. When she was finally ready, she moved to the entrance of the tent.

Simon turned to say good night to her.

But she was already gone, leaving only the tent flap rustling slowly after her, and the faint scent of citrus and meadows floating upon the cool African night air.

         

This was not as it was meant to be.

Zareb frowned as he watched Camelia race from Simon's tent, her hair cascading down her back and her hands clutching her jacket closed over her half-buttoned blouse. Although it was too dark for him to see her face clearly, there was no mistaking the despair he felt emanating from her.

This was wrong.

He was getting old, he realized, feeling anger and frustration sweep through him. That was the only explanation for the fact that he had not foreseen the pain Kent had caused his beloved Tisha. He had not expected his powers to diminish with age, but then, he had never fully understood them. His mother had warned him that they might be weaker or stronger at different points in his life, depending on what was happening with him. That was one of the reasons he had chosen never to marry. The myriad demands of a wife and children would have sapped his strength and clouded his vision. And although it was sometimes a curse to be able to sense the forces around him, there were other times when it gave him indescribable pleasure. It was as if he were more fully connected with the powers of the heavens and the earth than even the greatest shamans who had come and gone before him.

But what was the purpose of having such abilities, he wondered angrily, when he seemed unable to prevent the suffering of the one who mattered most to him?

“Go to her,” he told Oscar, who was sitting on his shoulder eating a biscuit. “She needs you.”

Oscar jumped down and scurried toward Camelia's tent.

Zareb studied Simon's dark silhouette through the canvas veil of his tent in wary silence. Had he been wrong in thinking that this strange white man with his fiery hair and his wrinkled clothes would be the one to help fight the dark wind at Pumulani? And even if Kent was the one to battle the forces that Lord Stamford had unwittingly unleashed when he first began to break the ground there, what cost to Tisha did his presence demand?

Zareb watched as Simon stripped the covering off the steam pump in his tent, then lifted a tool and began to make some adjustment to the machine. At least he seemed intent upon providing Camelia with the means to clear the site of water.

That was good.

He shook his head, confused by the swirl of good and dark powers churning around him. Sometimes it was not easy to make sense of the forces. Perhaps, he reflected reluctantly, his advancing age was responsible for that as well.

He retreated into the darkness once more, tired and confused as he sought out the sanctuary of his own tent.

And wholly unaware that he had not been the only one crouched in the shadows, watching as Camelia fled half dressed into the night.

T
here's good news and there's nae so good news,” Oliver reported soberly.

Simon clenched his jaw and gave the screw he was tightening one final turn, completely stripping it in the process.

“For God's sake,” he muttered, “that's the fifth bloody screw I've ruined trying to put this bloody thing together!” He sat up, cracking his head against the edge of his pump in the process. “Christ!”

Oliver frowned. “That's enough o' yer blasphemy, lad, or I'll be scourin' yer tongue with a good chunk o' Eunice's soap!”

“It can't taste worse than that stringy dried meat we ate for breakfast,” Simon returned irritably, rubbing his head.

“That was biltong,” Zareb informed him, insulted. “Spiced and wind-dried antelope meat. Very good for your strength.”

“It's taking all of my strength just to digest it,” Simon muttered. “I feel like I've eaten an old boot. What's the good news?”

Oliver's expression brightened. “The good news is, I've asked around an' everyone agrees the rainy season is well over. Nae but bone dry days from here to next October.”

“Wonderful,” Simon drawled. “At least we don't have to worry about any more water filling this mud-choked hole.” He rooted around in his box of tools, impatiently searching for another screw. “What's the bad news?”

“Well, lad, I'm afraid I've come into a wee bit o' a snag when it comes to the firewood ye asked me to get for ye.”

“What sort of a snag?”

“There is none.”

Simon looked up, incredulous. “What do you mean, there is none?”

“Take a look around ye, lad.” Oliver gestured with his scrawny arms. “There's a wee bit o' grass an' plenty o' bushes, but there's nae trees—unless ye count those wee shoots that'll nae be ready for fellin' for at least another few years.”

Oliver was right, Simon realized, amazed. Other than a few green saplings and some scrubby looking bushes, there were no trees within sight. He looked at Zareb in confusion. “Where are all the trees, Zareb?”

“There were trees, once, a long time ago,” Zareb answered. “But the tribes who lived here cut them down to make their huts and their fires.”

“Then the Boers came,” added Senwe, “and they took down even more trees, so the land would be clear for farming.”

“Then the diggers came,” Badrani continued, “to search for diamonds along the Vaal and Orange Rivers, and they felled trees for their huts and their fires.”

Zareb nodded. “Then the lumber haulers came, and cut the trees that were left so they could drive them to the mines and sell them to the diggers.”

“Then the rains came,” began Senwe, “and the—”

“I understand—there are no trees left.” Simon rubbed his temples, trying to fight the throbbing in his skull that had been plaguing him all morning. “Then what were the men burning in all those fires last night?”

“Dried dung.”

He regarded Badrani in disbelief. “Dung? As in animal excrement?”

Senwe nodded. “Exactly.”

“And that's what I'm supposed to burn to make my pump work?”

“We cannot say what you're supposed to burn in your pump,” Zareb returned. “All we can tell you is that we do not have any wood. We have dried bullock's dung.”

“And how well does bullock's dung burn?”

“The fire is low and rather smoky,” Badrani admitted.

“And unfortunately, if the dung is not well dried, it can sometimes smell unpleasant,” Senwe added.

Wonderful,
thought Simon sourly.
This day really couldn't get any better.

“Fine, then. Oliver, Senwe, and Badrani, please bring me as much bullock's dung as you can manage, and let's get started on building a fire. Have some of the others help you carry it, if necessary. I need the fire to be really hot to heat the boiler properly. It will probably take a few days for the pump to clear out the water, so we'll go through a lot of it.”

“Yes, Mr. Kent.” Senwe bowed.

“Dinna fash yerself, lad,” Oliver said, sensing Simon's frustration. “We'll bring ye the very best dung we can find.”

“I'm not fashed,” Simon assured him. “I'm just anxious to get this pump working.”

“Well, then, why are ye wastin' yer time talkin'?” Oliver scolded. “Get back to work.”

Simon watched as the old Scotsman cheerfully headed off with his new African friends. Dried dung. He shook his head in disbelief. Then he wiped away the sweat trickling down his brow with his grimy sleeve and lowered himself back down onto the ground, preparing to work once more.

He had been unable to sleep after Camelia left his tent, and so he had spent the rest of the night trying to assemble his pump. Unfortunately, the task was proving to be much more difficult than he had anticipated. Three weeks of damp salt air during the voyage had corroded some of the parts, and several blades of the wheel were dented. Simon supposed that must have happened at some point during the journey there. It had taken him hours to repair the damage, and he was not sure that he had straightened the dented pieces sufficiently so their movement would not be compromised.

It was just one more thing to challenge his already dark mood.

“Everything going all right, Kent?”

Simon squinted up into the sun to see Elliott standing above him. Wickham was dressed in a handsomely tailored suit, with cream-colored trousers, an amazingly crisp shirt, a perfectly knotted tie, and an ivory-and-gray-checked coat. A stylishly broad-brimmed straw hat completed his debonair attire. He looked as if he were about to attend some sort of picnic or lawn party, Simon mused, instead of working on a mud-filled dig in the middle of South Africa.

“Good afternoon, Wickham,” he said pleasantly. “I trust you had a good sleep last night?”

“I slept fine. And you?”

“Like a baby,” Simon lied.

“How is your pump coming?” Elliott asked, studying the machine Simon was putting together. “It seems like you have been working on it a long time.” He raised a querying brow. “Is everything all right?”

“It's coming along perfectly. I should have it up and running in another few hours.”

“That's good to hear. I know Camelia is most anxious to continue with her excavation. The sooner we can get the water out, the sooner we can start to dig again.”

“You seem uncharacteristically eager to get going, Wickham. I've always had the distinct feeling that you weren't particularly supportive of Camelia continuing with her work here.”

“I'm not supportive of Camelia bankrupting herself while she chases her father's dream,” Elliott returned. “So the sooner we get the water out and the natives can continue digging, the sooner Camelia will realize there is nothing more here for her to find.”

Simon regarded him curiously. “How can you be so sure there is nothing here?”

“This dig was my entire life for nearly fifteen years. Camelia was barely more than a child when I came to help her father. For years I was utterly convinced of the existence of the Tomb of Kings, mostly because Lord Stamford believed in it so passionately. But as the years went by and we didn't find it, I gradually began to question the probability that the tomb ever existed. At the time of Stamford's death, I had already made the decision that I was not going to waste any more of my life chasing what I now believe is nothing more than a Kaffir fairy tale.”

“Most fairy tales are built around some kernel of truth,” Simon observed. “That is part of the reason why they endure.”

“You are talking about a people who have stories for everything, including how the sun and the moon came to rule the sky. They are childish myths, nothing more.”

Simon shrugged. “It is not so unreasonable to believe that a tribe had a special place for burying its kings.”

“If it did, it is not going to be anything more than a pile of disintegrating bones and a few broken shells. As fascinating as that might be to Camelia, it will not be enough for her to raise sufficient funds to keep paying these natives and keep the dig going. She should just sell the land for whatever she can get for it and go home.”

“Camelia believes she is home.”

“This piece of godforsaken land in the middle of nowhere is not her home,” Elliott argued. “It is her folly—just as it was her father's.”

“If you are so convinced that the site has no value, then why are you here again?”

“Because Camelia needs me—whether she realizes it or not. I am the only one who can help her come to terms with the fact that there is nothing more here for her to find. She needs to understand that before she completely goes through what little assets her father left to her, and finds herself destitute.”

“And what do you expect her to do, once you have helped her come to that realization?”

“There are lots of things she could do,” Elliott assured him. “London is full of committees of women who are raising funds for various charities, museums, and the arts. A woman of Camelia's intelligence and determination should have no trouble finding ways to occupy her time.”

“But she doesn't like London, Wickham. Surely you must realize that.”

“She doesn't really know London,” Elliott argued. “She went there solely to secure a pump and raise more funds to enable her to continue with her dig, not with any thought of actually making friends and enjoying the city. Once she and I are married, she will come to enjoy it. And if she finds the city too overwhelming, she can always stay at my estate in the countryside.”

“I see you've thought this out.”

“Yes.” Elliott regarded Simon intently. “I have.”

He brushed a speck of dust off the front of his immaculate jacket and adjusted his hat. “I'll leave you to it, then, Kent. The sooner you can get your pump running, the sooner we can get Camelia to realize there's nothing here. Then we can all stop wasting our time and go home.”

Simon watched as he walked away, then picked up a wrench and set to work adjusting the tension of a bolt. Wickham really didn't understand her at all, he realized.

I cannot leave Africa,
Camelia had told him the previous night. And as Simon had looked down into her pain-filled eyes, he had known with utter clarity that she was speaking the truth. Camelia may have been wrong about the Tomb of Kings, but it was not the tomb that held her there. On some level he couldn't understand, the heat and beauty and rawness of Africa flowed through her. It was what gave her energy and life, and filled her with purpose. And deep within, she understood herself well enough to realize she could never be happy anywhere else.

Elliott was a fool if he couldn't see it.

But Simon was an even greater fool, for losing his soul to a woman who would never choose him over the place she loved more than anything.