Shilo's Secret

               CHAPTER 1

     He took the silk scarf from around her neck as he kissed her, reveling in its soft smoothness against the skin of his neatly manicured hands.  He could feel the passion rising in him as he anticipated what was going to happen next. He pushed her with his body against the rough stone wall at the back of the tavern, crushing her to him, moulding her to his body as he manipulated the scarf in his hands. He tied the two ends together so it formed a loop, and he slowly manoevred it back over her head, momentarily drawing back from her as it passed over her face between them, downwards, until it was once again around her neck. He kissed her ardently again, as one hand moved to the outline of her breast and the other to the nape of her neck, where it found the looped scarf. He thrust his hand through the loop, and then twisted it, so tightening the scarf around her unsuspecting throat. She gasped, but his fervent passion made her pause as he twisted it again, tightening it even further so that no air could pass in or out. She struggled, but his body had her pinned against the rough wall. It only took a minute before the struggling stopped - before she went limp in his arms - and he let her slide to the floor.

Then he backed away slowly – please
d with his handiwork, and walked nonchalantly back down the alley into the darkened main street.

                                                       *

   The silver Jaguar glided to a halt outside the shining automatic doors of Heathrow’s Terminal 1. The chauffeur briskly paced around the purring vehicle and opened the rear door. Shilo stepped into the chilly November afternoon, her auburn hair lifting in the late autumn wind. She pulled her calf-length fur coat around her lithe form as the icy air, thick with the moisture of the recent rain, penetrated her cream cashmere sweater. She turned and waited for Michaela and Aunt Dorianne to alight, and then the three women strode into the building followed by three porters with trolleys laden to capacity with their matching Luis Vuitton suitcases and bags, and Forbes with hand luggage in each hand and under each arm.

   The airport was a throng of cosmopolitan travelers and weary tourists, but everyone seemed to notice this petite, yet confident woman, and heads turned and questions were whispered. Her hair was a cascade of auburn curls, which hung to the middle of her back, and bounced as she strode across the concourse, the high heels of her knee-high leather boots tapping rhythmically on the well-trampled tiles. They would have wondered if she were a member of the aristocracy, even royalty, a supermodel or a film star. Was it Nicole Kidman? It looked like her. She just had this air about her - a sense of self-importance, of being someone famous. She had a face that you knew you had seen before but did not know where… and she was strikingly beautiful.

   The three ladies were ushered briskly through customs and stashed away in the plush First Class lounge to await boarding. There Shilo then lolled on a comfortable couch in her indolence, a Vogue magazine open on her lap, playing a game on her iPhone. Michaela and Dorianne sat sedately at a low coffee table sipping chai lattes.

   Africa! Why had her parents chosen, of all the exotic and secretive places in the world, that God-forsaken place! Being a member of the wealthy jet set, Shilo would much have preferred the Bahamas, Rio, Majorca, even bloody California or Hong Kong… anywhere except South Africa. Her sister, Michaela, was the reason behind this hastily planned and clandestine sojourn to the African continent. Underneath her layers of winter clothes she sported a conspicuous bump – evidence of one of her meaningless but frequent affairs with members of their peer group. As soon as their mother had found out that Michaela was pregnant (God alone knows how Michaela thought she would not eventually find out!) her mind had been thrust into overdrive. Michaela had to discreetly disappear, have the baby somewhere where the great Delucci name would not be known, get the baby adopted (those plans had already been made!), and then reappear in England as if nothing had happened. South Africa was the perfect place for this … It was off the beaten track of the jet-setting British aristocracy, away from the prying eyes and the scandalous rumours of the eager European paparazzi that preyed on their every move in England and on the Continent. The Deluccis did not want a scandal, and certainly could not afford one, especially after their names had been splashed across national newspapers and they had graced the cover of
The National Enquirer
. Why? Shilo’s oldest brother, Harold, had been involved in an awful accident the previous year in which a girl had been killed – and he had been declared legally drunk. It was only their numerous connections and a great deal of money that had kept him out of jail – but the aftermath had done a lot of damage to their precious family reputation. Imagine the headlines if they got wind of this news? The oldest daughter of multi-millionaire, Henri Delucci, and Lady Carina (who was related through marriage to the House of Windsor), pregnant out of wedlock. They would have a field day at the family’s expense. Henri Delucci was a distant descendant of royal Spanish stock and owned an international import and export company with branches all over the globe. A scandal like this would definitely not be good for business either.

   Shilo gazed at her sister. She wondered who the father of this unwanted child might be. Giles Cartwright, her longstanding beau, maybe? … No, probably not. She was not sleeping with him. Shilo had a suspicion that she was pretending to “save herself for marriage” with Giles. What about that American interior decorator she had found so attractive? He had cruised in, refurbished the entire west wing and the villa in Spain, making a marvelous impression on everyone, especially Michaela, and then had cruised out. It could have been any one of their crowd … James Millburn, Cameron Morningside … even Thomas Cunningham or Errol Jameson. When they all got together at a club with their designer cocktails and their uppers or smoked pot or a joint or two, anything could happen. None of them could be ruled out completely as a possibility. But Michaela was not saying a word.

   Michaela was so different from Shilo. Tall, dark, almost Latino looking, like her father. And then Shilo, small with her hair the colour of autumn leaves, and an English-rose complexion like her mother. Aunt Dorianne and Shilo had been ordered along on this shady journey so that no one would question Michaela’s sudden disappearance from society. “Dorianne has taken the girls on a holiday to South Africa” would be far more acceptable and less suspicious than “Michaela has gone away for a while.”

   Why Africa though? Carina Delucci had been at Oxford with a Philip Ogilvy – in fact Shilo had a suspicion that they had had a fleeting affair while Henri Delucci was in New York in the summer of 1979. Philip, a son of a wealthy gold mine owner, had boasted of a private and exclusive game farm he had in South Africa – there was some open invitation made all those years ago … and then suddenly, out of the blue, Carina Delucci had looked him up and taken him up on his offer.

   Shilo considered one advantage of this little unplanned vacation to the wilds of Southern Africa: Viscount Lambert-Carr. The parents on both sides had been encouraging her relationship with him to the extent where she and Charles were getting decidedly sick of each other. Even the society pages and The Sun had picked up the faint hint of wedding bells. They were thrust together at balls and luncheons, the garden party at Buckingham Palace and on boating trips, on shooting weekends at the country house and at evenings at the theatre. They had always been friends, since childhood in fact … but the arrangement had had disastrous effects on their relationship. This trip would serve to loosen those ties, give them both a break and some breathing space, and time to stand back and reflect, view the entire setup from a distance and relieve the claustrophobic feeling Shilo had begun to have of late. When she returned early in the New Year, things might have changed.  She was not specifically attracted to him. In fact she had not yet envisaged what her ideal man should be like – she just knew it was definitely not like Charles Lambert-Carr. Besides, she was in much need of a suntan, and South Africa in summer would be the ideal place for that too.

                                                             *

   After a tedious night time flight in first class, and an irritating delay in Harare, where they had worked on some mysterious electrical problem, they finally landed at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg and stepped off the airplane into the blazing summer sunshine. The air was torrid and still, and hit them like a hot tidal wave as they left the controlled, air-conditioned cabin of the Boeing 747. It was a stark contrast to the icy climes they had left behind some thirteen hours before.

   Shilo, who was expecting a third world airport with a shack for a terminal, and perhaps a few poverty–stricken beggar children and a stray lion or monkey or two lurking in the jungle shadows that she thought might have flanked the runway, was pleasantly surprised. Africa appeared civilised! Gigantic terminals rose out of the shimmering haze; runways stretched in every direction; huge aeroplanes, boasting exotic tails, were taking off, landing, taxiing and being loaded and offloaded all around them; and the huge glass walls of the arrival hall reflected the azure blue and completely cloudless sky.

   Inside the lofty arrival hall, Stratt Ogilvy stood holding a placard with “DELUCCI” written on it in his masculine scrawl. He was a tall, well-built, blond man with a deep ingrained tan from years of exposure to the harsh African sun. He was dressed in faded blue jeans and a white tee shirt with the Malabane Lodge logo on the left side. His hair, thick but sun bleached, was ruffled and was probably once a short, neat style, but he was long overdue a haircut and curls had begun to appear at the ends.

   Stratt was not sure whom to expect. His father had told him that there were three women from England called Delucci arriving on the 8.30am British Airways flight from London … and that flight was four hours late. It was an aunt and two nieces, he had been told, and so when the three Grande Dames arrived in all their grandeur before him claiming the name Delucci, he was slightly taken aback. He had thought the nieces would be little girls and the aunt an elderly, gray-haired lady, not the three glamorous women who faced him and could have easily just stepped out of the glossy pages of a fashion magazine. They were all perfectly groomed from their carefully outlined lips and made-up eyes, to their lacquered hair, designer clothes and unscuffed, patent leather court shoes. They did not look in the least exhausted by the apparently disastrous flight with delays. Were these really the new guests who would spend three months at the lodge with their nine spanking new designer suitcases bulging with what he presumed were more designer clothes, as well as several assorted items of Louis Vuitton hand luggage?

    He wanted to burst out laughing: Where did they think they were going? Some five-star resort in Palm Springs or on the French Riviera? The redhead even had a fur coat hanging over her arm! They were going into the African bush, and he hoped that somewhere in that pile of luggage, there was plenty of sunscreen for their pale English rose skins and some flat walking shoes and bush clothes.

   To Shilo, this man looked like something wild – like a Tarzan “wannabe”, a wild man in civilian clothes. And momentarily she was repulsed by his muscular dominance. The material of his shirt stretched tightly over his hulking form. He seemed so hairy – his arms, his chest – and so dark. He was so totally unrefined and his hair was unruly, so unlike any man she mingled with in her elitist circles: Men who were lithe and sinewy from sports like polo, racquet ball and lawn tennis, but who were also lean and well-groomed with cropped hair, fair skins and manicured nails and dressed in sports jackets and smart trousers… and polished shoes. Her eyes dropped to his shoes, if you could call them that. They were rough, scuffed, dusty boots that any decent, respectable, clean-living person would be ashamed to wear – especially in public.

“So you must be the Deluccis,” he said in a strange accent, which sounded similar to the Australian twang that the British thought was so common and unrefined. “And I take it, this is all your luggage?” He smiled cynically and then added with a hint of sarcasm: “This is obviously your first time in Africa?”

   Shilo wanted to instantly react in her usual arrogant way. She sensed he was making fun of them – but a withering look from Aunt Dorianne made her control the urge. They were above a man of this calibre. He was definitely working class.

“Just get our luggage to the car, my man,” she said in her Oxford twang.

Again Stratt smiled: “Yes, your ladyship!” he replied with a sweeping bow and a twinkle in his eye.

   The transport, which was parked in the multi-storey park house and which seemed miles away across hot tarmac and up banks of escalators, was not the expected limousine. It was a cream coloured Land Rover with the lodge logo emblazoned on the sides.

“How far is it to the hotel?” Dorianne asked politely.