African Enchantment (16 page)

It seemed to her in the following hours that death was going to be her only reward for her foolhardiness. The heat was stunning. She had not even had the forethought to bring water with her and it was obvious that her horse could not continue to gallop indefinitely. Soon she was forced to reduce the animal to a canter and then, as perspiration streamed down both animal and rider, to a walk. Far ahead she could see the shining white of the sails. A stubborn obstinacy drove her on. They would anchor through the night and if she had to walk on her bare feet she would join up with them.

The day was the longest of her life. It stretched out interminably: heat and flies, dirt and exhaustion. When the desert night fell she was filled with fresh fears: fears of the animals that haunted the river banks. Occasionally she heard the slither of crocodiles and sounds of other beasts she could not identify. She touched the stock of her gun for reassurance. If the boats did not anchor through the night then she was lost. Without water her horse would not have the strength to return to Khartoum. She would die alone in the desert as she had so nearly done before.

When the white gleam pierced the darkness she almost sobbed with relief. Urging her horse to further effort she cantered towards the lamp-lit boat. At the sound of her approach confusion broke out. Within seconds a rifle shot missed her by inches and her horse shied in fear. Her cry brought even more shouts from the anchored vessels.

‘It's a rider, not an animal!' she heard Dr Walther shouting.

‘It's a woman!' Raoul's voice shouted savagely and then she saw his familiar figure vault over the side of the boat and splash through the water and reeds. Semi-conscious with relief she slipped from the back of her lathered horse and was immediately seized by the shoulders so hard that she cried out in pain.

‘You little fool! You could have died out there!'

‘I nearly did,' she said with an exhausted sob.

‘It would have served you damned right!' His eyes blazed into hers. ‘ If you're trying to wreck my expedition, you've failed miserably.'

‘Wreck it?' Harriet gazed up at his furious face dazedly.

‘Crale is continuing south and not returning to Khartoum with you!'

‘But …' Her words were silenced as his fingers dug brutally into her shoulders.

‘We are not going to be delayed or lose a member of our party by having you escorted back to safety. You have achieved more than you bargained for, Miss Latimer! You chose to join us. Now you will stay with us.'

Harriet wanted to laugh aloud. She had gained her objective and as far as she cared Raoul Beauvais could labour under whatever delusions he desired.

He shook her viciously. ‘You will also discontinue your liaison with Crale until the expedition is over. There is no place for lovemaking on a scientific expedition.'

‘Does that apply to the expeditionary leader as well?' she spat viciously, struggling to free herself from his brutal gasp.

‘As far as you are concerned, Miss Latimer, utterly.' He let go of her so suddenly that she almost fell.

‘My goodness! What on earth …?' A bewildered Dr Walther had struggled through the reeds and up the bank to join them.

‘Miss Latimer will be accompanying us after all,' Raoul said tersely, turning on his heel and striding into the water to the boat without making the least effort to assist her.

‘My dear Miss Latimer …' The little doctor's comforting arm was around her. In the darkness Harriet could hear Sebastian Crale's voice raised, first in disbelief and then anger as Raoul informed him of her arrival and then forbade the continuance of any liaison between them. Dr Walther helped her through the reeds and knee-high water and Raoul's voice was heard saying tightly,

‘You will do as I say, Crale. You will not delay the expedition by returning Miss Latimer to Khartoum.'

The concerned face of the priest leant over the rails as he stretched out helping hands. Gratefully she took hold of them and then her feet touched the planks of the deck and Sebastian was at her side. She was too tired to face a further explanation as to her conduct. Sebastian would doubtless misconstrue her motives, just as Raoul had.

‘I'm tired and thirsty, Sebastian. I have no wish to talk to anyone this evening.'

Dimly she was aware of everyone's concern. Dr Walther's arm never left her shoulders as he ushered her below decks and into a cabin that was obviously his own. The young Anglican priest squeezed in beside him with lime juice and biscuits. The bespectacled man she had not yet been introduced to brought her a fever powder. Sebastian hovered in the doorway, voluble in his anxiety. Only Raoul was absent. As the gentlemen excused themselves, Harriet was aware of another pair of eyes watching her. This time there was no friendliness or concern in them: only open hostility.

Narinda turned swiftly, her ankle-length robes shimmering in the lamplight. Then the cabin door closed and Harriet was alone. She lay on the bunk and closed her eyes. She had achieved her objective: why then did she feel no elation? She was embarking on a voyage that no European woman had ever attempted before. Only weeks ago the prospect would have filled her heart with joy. Now it seemed as if she was capable of feeling only pain. She doubted that Narinda would be sleeping alone in a narrow bunk. Even now she would once again be with Raoul, enjoying his companionship, his rare smiles, his caresses. She clenched her hands into tight little fists. She had known what the situation would be and she had judged it preferable to a return to England. Raoul Beauvais and his Circassian would have to be endured.

It was not an easy task. Narinda made no secret of her close relationship with Raoul, spending long hours kneeling at his feet on the deck of the boat, as they sailed further and further southwards.

Sebastian had been convinced that she had hurried after them because she had undergone a change of heart and wanted to marry him after all. Her insistence that this was not so left him perplexed and almost as bad-tempered as Raoul.

Dr Walther remained permanently affable, bubbling with enthusiasm for their adventure, bringing Harriet a massive collection of plants and grasses to sketch. Reverend Lane asked to be called by his Christian name of Mark and seemed to combine a healthy dose of common sense among his dreams of exploration. The bespectacled young man was a Mr Wilfred Frome from Chichester, who had been sponsored on the expedition by the Royal Geographical Society of London.

The sailing boat, though considerably larger than the dhow on which they had journeyed to Khartoum, was a small area for seven people to live in, especially when so many were barely on speaking terms with one another. Narinda never deigned even to wish Harriet good day. Raoul and Sebastian spoke to each other only when necessary and their animosity made the other three male members of the party uncomfortable, especially as they had no idea as to its cause. The chill between Raoul and Harriet was obvious to all. It distressed the doctor, puzzled the reverend and bewildered Mr Frome. Sebastian was grateful for it. The Frenchman's reputation with women was notorious. It seemed to him that Harriet showed good sense in avoiding his company.

Day after day the mile-wide expanse of river rolled southwards through dry, hard scrubland with nothing to break the monotony but the whirring of countless insects and the slapping of the waves on the reeds.

At the end of the second week Dr Walther began to flag, complaining of sickness and headaches. Excusing himself, he went below to the small cabin he shared with Wilfred Frome and did not reappear when they anchored and sat down to their evening meal.

The little doctor was not of a complaining nature. Harriet felt the first sharp twinges of apprehension. As soon as the meal was finished she hurried to his cabin and knocked. A barely-recognisable voice forbade her to enter, asking her to summon Raoul. Harriet ignored the request and flung open the door. Dr Walther's kindly eyes were wild. He was shaking violently, the heat coming off his wet skin in waves.

Taking one look at him, Harriet turned and ran for Raoul. He was still at the table, leaning back in his cane chair as Narinda poured him coffee. Harriet ran up to him, grasping his arm in her anxiety. The Circassian girl's eyes flashed. Raoul stared at her in startled amazement. It was the first time she had so much as looked in his direction since he had taken her on board.

‘Dr Walther,' she gasped, her face pale. ‘I think he has malaria.'

‘There's nothing we can do,' he said tersely to Harriet after he had examined the doctor. ‘He'll either live or he'll die.'

Harriet stared up at the grim, forbidding face. ‘I think,' she said slowly, ‘that you are the coldest, most insensitive man I have ever met.'

A brief smile twisted his mouth. ‘You may think what you please, Miss Latimer. I don't give a blessed damn.'

He turned once more to the bunk and the convulsively shaking man.

‘What are you going to do?'

He turned, looking at her in surprise. ‘Nurse him,' he said simply.

Harriet felt a faint flush rise in her cheeks. She had assumed he had cared little for the doctor's health except in regard to how it affected his expedition. She had been wrong. She said awkwardly,

‘There is no need. I can do all that is necessary.'

Dr Walther's presence seemed already to have left them. The cabin was so small that her skirt brushed against his legs. Their eyes held and Harriet felt the flush in her cheeks deepen.

‘When are you going to marry Crale?' he asked, not taking his disturbing gaze from her.

‘I am not,' she said with all the dignity she could muster.

His brows flew together. He tilted her chin with his finger, staring at her challengingly.

‘Why? Did his mama disapprove?'

‘No doubt she would have done if I had accepted the proposal,' Harriet said stiffly, her heart beginning to race.

His frown deepened. She was so near his body that the scent of her sent his blood coursing through his veins.

‘You refused him? Why?'

If she moved the barest inch, her body would be pressed close against his. She strove to retain the cool indifference she had displayed for so long.

‘I have no wish to marry,' she said through parched lips.

‘Of course not.' His smile was mocking. ‘You don't like to be touched, Miss Latimer, do you? I had forgotten how vehemently you requested that I should not do so when you had Lady Crale for a witness.' His eyes moved to her lips. ‘Lady Crale is no longer with us, Miss Latimer.' And before she could cry out in protest, he caught her to him, kissing her fiercely and expertly, unaware of the slim, robed figure that slipped away into the shadows.

Vainly Harriet struggled, but he did not release her until he chose to do so. When he did, his eyes were cold. ‘Once I believed such kisses came from your heart, Miss Latimer. I was deceived, for you do not possess one. Sebastian Crale is fortunate in his disappointment.'

‘You are insolent,' she hissed and slapped his face with all the strength she could muster. He laughed mirthlessly.

‘And you are self-seeking. Your only desire is the glory of discovering the Nile's source. For that end you used both me and Crale. You will use me no longer, Miss Latimer.'

She cried out in protest, but he seized hold of her shoulders and propelled her through the cabin door. ‘Send Narinda to me,' he ordered curtly. ‘I need water and laudanum.'

Harriet found that she was shaking as much as the stricken doctor. How dare he accuse her of being self-seeking? She was doing nothing more than anyone else taking part in the expedition. He was arrogant, cruel and grossly unfair. Her lips felt burned and bruised by his kisses. She had spent the past weeks convincing herself that she had been suffering from a schoolgirl infatuation that was now under control. In one crushing embrace he had destroyed that illusion for ever. Her feelings for him were too intense ever to be under her control.

‘Mr Beauvais wishes water and laudanum taken to Dr Walther's cabin,' she said, approaching Narinda where she sat sewing one of Raoul's exquisitely lace-edged shirts.

Narinda raised her eyes from her work and looked at Harriet with such venom that Harriet instinctively stepped backwards.

‘You shall not have him,' she said, rising to her feet in a fluid feline movement. ‘You shall never have him!' and she moved swiftly away to carry out Raoul's bidding, leaving Harriet shocked and shaken and ashamed of the intensity of her feelings.

‘From now on we anchor in midstream of an evening,' Raoul said when he finally emerged from Dr Walther's cabin. ‘Perhaps in the centre of the river the mosquitoes will not be so dense.'

‘How is Dr Walther?' Sebastian asked, his grey eyes betraying an almost frightened anxiety.

‘Sick,' Raoul replied tersely.

Narinda glided to his side, whispering to him in Arabic, her hand resting lightly on his arm, her eyes triumphant as they met Harriet's.

Harriet turned her head away. How did the girl know of her feelings for Raoul? In what way had she betrayed herself?

She said, ‘I will nurse Dr Walther through the night,' and without waiting for permission, walked swiftly away, her skirt whipping around her ankles.

The little Circassian had soon left the sick man when Raoul was no longer there. Her behaviour when Raoul was present was markedly different from her behaviour when he was absent. Her berating of the native boys when Raoul was not in earshot amused both Sebastian and Mr Frome. It saddened Mark Lane who thought she should show more Christian charity and angered Harriet. The girl was a shrew with no regard for the feelings of others. How could Raoul be so deceived by her? Her soft words were capable of turning within seconds to tart reprimands. Harriet sponged Dr Walther's fevered brow. Presumably Raoul knew nothing of that side of Narinda's nature, and if he did know, was uncaring.

Daily Dr Walther's condition worsened and daily the air became more humid, the banks greener, the flies more prolific.