Moonflower Madness (27 page)

‘Bucephalus!' he called exasperatedly into the darkness, ‘Come here, you damned nuisance.'

Taking his time about doing so, Bucephalus eventually came. As Zachary led him towards the firelight and Ben he felt the ground tremble beneath his feet. He halted abruptly, listening hard. Faintly but distinctly there came the sound of galloping hooves. They were approaching fast. Too fast to signal the arrival of a casual traveller who would gallop past their camp-fire without stopping or disturbing them. Too fast to be the hoofbeats of a Chinese mule or pony. Whoever was approaching was European. And he was approaching intentionally.

With frustration and apprehension almost swamping him, he hobbled Bucephalus and then stood waiting, his thumbs hooked into his broad leather belt. Even before horse and rider pounded into view he knew the rider's identity. Knowing that his wedding-night was going to have to be indefinitely postponed, regretting with every fibre of his body his decision not to make love to Gianetta in the pagoda but to return to the banks of the Kialing, he awaited Charles's arrival, a pulse throbbing at the corner of his tightly clenched jaw.

Charles knew enough of Zachary's travelling habits to know that he would be hugging the Kialing's banks and camping beside them for as long as was possible. In the inn at Peng, Zachary's head-bearer had told him that they were under instructions to catch up with Zachary late the next day and that he and the English lady had only departed an hour or so earlier. Assuming that Zachary had asked them to stay behind at the inn in order that they could carry out the changing of drying papers in the relative comfort, he had thought nothing odd about the arrangement. In happy ignorance of Zachary and Gianetta's marriage he had cantered out of Peng, optimistic that he would be able to catch up with them by nightfall.

Despite being handicapped by his injured arm, which was tightly bound in a Chinese splint and a sling, he had made good progress. When darkness fell, however, his quarry was still not in sight and he had been on the verge of reining in and making camp alone when he had seen the gleam of their camp fire. Digging his spurs in his horse's flanks he galloped down towards it, almost running Zachary down as he did so.

‘Good God, Zac!' he expostulated as he brought his horse around. ‘Why the devil didn't you call out?'

‘What the hell are you doing here?' Zachary rasped, ignoring the question, feeling as if there were bands of steel around his chest.

Charles grinned and slid from his horse's back. ‘I've come for Gianetta. I decided in Chung King that I'd been an absolute ass to return there without her – and that I'd also been an ass to listen to your words of advice on the subject.'

Despite Charles clapping him affectionately on the back with his good hand, Zachary remained immobile, his thumbs still hooked in his belt.

‘What advice?' he asked, his voice so tightly charged that Charles laughed.

‘Don't lose your rag. What you said was sense and I appreciated it. But when I reached Chung King I had a long conversation with Serena and I knew then, without any doubt whatsoever, that your assumption was wrong.'

‘What assumption?'

‘That Gianetta was mercenarily trying to compromise me into marriage.' He walked across to the fire, warming his uninjured hand at it. ‘I knew of course, right from the evening when you so precipitately walked in on our … er … conversation,' he threw Zachary a sheepish grin, ‘that she was eager to marry me, but I don't have such a high opinion of myself that I found it perfectly natural that she should do so. As you so succinctly pointed out, she barely knew me; and her following me from Chung King and declaring herself in the way she did, was all rather suspect.'

Zachary stared at him, the bands around his chest tightening with every second that passed.

‘Just how did she declare herself?' he asked, his voice taut. ‘You never did tell me what led up to the little love scene I disturbed.'

Charles cleared his throat. He wasn't a liar by nature, but he had been mortified at Zac thinking badly of him and now that Serena had told him the truth of Gianetta's feelings for him he saw no reason why he shouldn't elaborate the scene a little and reinstate himself in Zac's eyes.

‘She told me she had fallen in love with me at first sight,' he said, trying to sound modest about it. It was, after all, what Serena had told him had happened and he didn't see what harm could come from putting words Gianetta had been too shy to speak, into her mouth.

He thought back to his last conversation with her. He had told her that he was engaged to be married but that, for her sake, he would break his engagement off. She had been horrified at the suggestion and had told him that she didn't love him, that her only reason for following him from Chung King had been to find blue Moonflowers.

Serena had stared at him as if he had been a madman when he had recounted the conversation to her. With her bags all packed and ready to leave for England as Henry Plaxtol's bride, she had said quite categorically that Gianetta had behaved as she had because she believed that he, Charles, had fallen in love with her.

‘Why else would she have ridden after you?' she had asked, wide-eyed. ‘And now, because she doesn't want to cause your fiancé unhappiness and because she doesn't want to face Papa's wrath, she is obliged to remain with Mr Cartwright's expedition. Someone must rescue her from such an impossible situation, and the only person who can do so is yourself.'

‘That was the real reason she followed us from Chung King,' Charles continued, blithely unaware of the effect his words were having. ‘You were quite right in assuming that she wanted to marry me, but your assumptions about her reasons were wrong. They weren't mercenary. Serena was absolutely adamant that there isn't a less mercenary or calculating girl alive than Gianetta. And I know now that I will never be happy with anyone else. I have written to my fiancé, asking her to free me. And I am going to ask Gianetta to marry me.'

‘Are you, by God!'

Pain sliced through him. All along, deep down, he had known he had been living in a dream-world. Now he had no more doubts. She had married him because she had wanted a husband; any husband. Her first choice had been Charles, rich and handsome and titled. And when he had warned Charles off, and when Charles had returned injured to Chung King, she had transferred her attentions to him.

Again he wondered about the depth of collusion between herself and Sir Arthur. Whatever it had been, he had most certainly been gulled. And if Charles had not returned at such a crucial moment, he might have lived the rest of his life with her and never have known.

His fists clenched, the knuckles white. God help him, but he wished he had done so. He wouldn't now be suffering this terrible fury and desolation. He wouldn't now be facing a future without her.

‘Where is Gianetta?' Charles asked, looking around curiously.

‘She's swimming.'

As Charles looked in the direction of the silky-black Kialing, he kicked the two bedding rolls into a heap. The less Charles knew about his true intentions where Gianetta was concerned, the better it would be.

‘Your horse needs rubbing down,' he said tersely. ‘There are no Chinese so you'll have to see to it yourself. I'll go and tell Gianetta that you're here.'

Before Charles could make any protestation he turned on his heel, striding away from the fire and into the darkness. It was an action he found profoundly symbolic. The passion and joy that had so suddenly entered his life had been extinguished in two carelessly spoken sentences. There was no way, now, that his marriage would be consummated. On the grounds that it had not been so, Gianetta would eventually be free to accept Charles's proposal of marriage. Marriage to Charles was, after all, what she had wanted all along. He had only been consolation prize.

Grimly he entered the outcrop of trees reaching down to the bank. He was going to need superhuman control if he was to live through the next few hours without revealing the tortured depth of his hurt, but he would not do so, he would be damned to hell before he would do so.

Gianetta was unsure how long she had been in the water, swimming a few leisurely strokes and then floating on her back, looking up at the moon and the stars. The Pleiades were heartachingly bright and she was able to locate Aldebaran and Venus. Dimly she became aware of voices and stopped swimming, apprehension flooding through her. Surely the Chinese hadn't misunderstood Zachary's instructions and ridden from Peng to join them? And if they had, why was Zachary not sending them speedily back the way they had come?

As the minutes ticked by and as Zachary failed to make an appearance, her concern grew. Perhaps she hadn't heard more than one voice. Perhaps she had only heard Zachary calling a still wayward Bucephalus.

She swam towards the narrow arc of shingle and when she was within her depth began to wade out, her lace-trimmed undergarments clinging to her like a second skin.

This time it was Zachary who surprised her as she waded for the shore. Though she wasn't naked, she might as well have been. Beneath her saturated cotton camisole her breasts were full and lush, her nipples dark and prominent.

She stopped walking, smiling at him, expecting him to join her.

‘What took so long?' she asked lovingly. ‘Did Bucephalus refuse to be hobbled?'

The husky quality in her voice sent heat coursing along his veins and nerve-endings. Christ, but he wanted her! If Charles hadn't blundered in on them, if his blithely happy words hadn't faced him with harsh truth, then they could have been happy together. Despite all her past deceits and even her reason for marrying him, he knew in his blood and in his bones that they would have been blissfully happy together.

For a minute he was tempted nearly beyond endurance. He could tell Charles that he was not only married to Gianetta but that he intended to stay married to her. He could pretend that his conversation with Charles had never taken place. The blood pounded in his ears. If he did so, his deceit would be on nearly as grand a scale as hers.

He said tightly, ‘We have a visitor. Charles.'

The welcoming smile vanished from her face. She stared at him horrified, still knee-deep in the silky-black water.
‘Charles?'

There was no mistaking the disbelief in her voice. Whatever else she may have planned, she had not planned this particular reunion.

‘He's waiting for us by the camp-fire.' His voice was so oddly brittle that he barely recognised it as his own.

She began to walk slowly towards him, ripples eddying around her.

‘Then … we're not going to be alone?'

‘No.' He turned abruptly away from her, knowing that if he did not do so he would be lost.

‘Zachary! Wait for me!'

Her voice sounded utterly stricken, as if she was as devastated by Charles'arrival as he had been.

He didn't pause in his swift stride through the trees and onto the grass and the closed Globeflowers. He had made up his mind what he was going to do, and nothing was going to deflect him. A scene now, at night, would be too horrific to bear. He knew that when he had said everything that had to be said, he would need to leave immediately.

The morning would be soon enough for revelations, his as well as Charles'. And the long, barren, intervening night would just have to be endured.

As Zachary walked away from her, Gianetta stared after him in incredulity. She could understand his frustration and anger at Charles's untimely arrival, but she didn't understand why his entire attitude towards her should have changed so drastically. Surely he realised that she was just as disappointed as he was? Surely he realised that she needed loving commiseration from him, not chilly abruptness?

She shook the sand from her breeches and tugged them up over her wet underthings, before pulling on her blouse. She was now excessively uncomfortable and excessively cold. Leaving her boots where they were she began to run after him, her teeth chattering.

By the time she caught up with him they were too near the camp-fire, and Charles, for her to be able to have any private conversation with him.

‘Gianetta!' Charles strode quickly towards her, taking hold of her by the hand, kissing her warmly on the cheek. ‘I don't suppose you expected to see me again till you were back in London?'

Considering the friendship that had sprung up between them before he had left her to travel on to Chung King alone, his warm greeting was not overly excessive, but Gianetta couldn't help but be aware of Zachary's eyes on them and of his stony silence.

‘No,' she said, disengaging her hand from his.

At her coolness, he looked pathetically bewildered and she felt immediately ashamed of herself. It wasn't his fault that he had unknowingly gate-crashed her wedding night. At any other time, and in any other place, she would have been delighted at seeing him.

She forced a smile. ‘How on earth did you manage to catch up with us, riding with one arm in a splint?'

A boyish grin split his good-natured face. ‘I travelled by boat from Chung King to Peng.'

‘Did you call at the mission?' Zachary asked, standing several yards away from them.

Charles shook his head. ‘No, I didn't fancy being preached at. I disembarked at the landing-stage in the town and went straight to the nearest inn. Your men told me you had only left a few hours previously and that I would easily be able to catch up with you.'

It was obvious that Charles knew nothing of their wedding. Gianetta looked towards the bedding rolls and saw with a spasm of anguish that they been hurriedly kicked together into an insignificant pile.

She waited for Zachary to tell Charles about their marriage. Charles had obviously rejoined them with the intention of once again being part of their expedition to Kansu. How awkward was it going to be for the three of them travelling together, when two of them were man and wife?