Night of the Condor (17 page)

She sighed, turning on to her side, and as she did so, became aware of movement in the tent, not from the bed next to her where June slept the sleep of the just, but from the other corner.

Watching through her lashes, she saw Consuelo sit up cautiously, pushing back the shrouding netting, and reach for her boots.

Motionless, Leigh saw the other girl rise, pulling on a robe, and move like a ghost through the crowded tent. Saw her fumble with the flap, and vanish silently into the moonlight.

To Rourke, she thought. To lie in his arms, and know all the passion, all the tenderness that I knew last night.

She took a corner of the coarse pillow and stuffed it into her mouth to stifle the sob welling up inside her. And all the desolate, icy loneliness of the high
sierras
seemed to invade her very soul as she lay in the darkness, and mourned for the love which had never been hers.

The Indian woman lying on the straw mat gave a jerk and a shudder, her eyes rolling mutely. Her hands closed on Leigh's wrists with such force that Leigh had to bite back a yelp of pain.

I'm here to provide reassurance, she reminded herself breathlessly, not to start a general panic, although there was enough to panic about.

People who complained about the British National Health Service should be here in the foetid darkness of this stone house, little better than a cave, watching the Quechua woman struggling to bring another life into the world, a situation complicated by the fact that the baby had turned at the last moment and was a breech presentation.

Leigh looked at June Muirhead's calm, composed face, and felt comforted. In the week since she had been at Atayahuanco, she had accompanied June on her rounds each morning, as another pair of hands to obey instructions and pass things, but this was the first emergency she had been faced with, although June had been keeping a close eye on the heavily pregnant woman each day.

'It's lucky we were here,' June remarked prosaically, catching Leigh's eye, and Leigh grinned weakly, wishing she could ease her aching back, or at least push her sweat-soaked hair back from her face. I'll have to tie it back as June does, she thought.

Some of the other women were crouching in the doorway, watching impassively, and incidentally blocking what little natural light filtered into the cramped room, but June made no move to send them away, as Leigh had half expected.

'She needs them there,' she had explained briefly, and that was that.

'Now then,' June said suddenly. The Quechua woman's face contorted, her mouth opening in a silent scream, as June worked furiously, then sat back on her heels smiling as a faint, quavering wail was heard.

'A boy,' June remarked. 'And a fighter, as he'll need to be, poor kid.' She tied off the umbilical cord, cut it, then passed the naked, squirming baby to his mother.

A stronger, more insistent cry came from a straw basket in the corner, and June glanced ruefully in its direction. 'Big sister has woken up,' she said. 'Leigh, take her outside will you, honey, and see if you can keep her quiet. We'll have to try her on some kind of formula later, as I doubt whether Mama has enough milk for two.' She sighed, then added gently, 'Go on, you could do with a rest. I'll clear up here.'

It was bakingly hot outside. Leigh sat down in the dust, leaning back against one of the stone doorposts, the baby cradled in her lap. The mere fact of being picked up seemed to have soothed her to sleep again, Leigh thought, softly brushing away the insistent flies trying to alight on the child's crusted eyelids. It was such an uphill struggle for these children from the moment of birth, and hardly any wonder, as June had told her, that few of them survived those first years.

She closed her eyes against the glare of the sun. Every stitch of clothing she had on was sticking to her. A bath, she thought longingly, or a cool shower.

'So here you are,' a peevish voice said 'What the hell are you doing?'

'Baby-sitting,' Leigh answered briefly, with an inward groan. She hadn't expected Evan to track her here. Usually he kept as far away from the Quechua settlement as possible.

'Dear God,' he muttered, looking down at the sleeping baby, his face twisted in distaste. 'Doesn't it ever occur to you that you might catch some foul thing from these people?'

'Perhaps I share June's natural immunity,' she said drily. 'I suggest you keep your distance, however.'

'I intend to,' he returned impatiently. 'How much longer are you going on with this charade? I don't know who you're trying to impress with your imitation of Florence Nightingale's right-hand woman, but it gives me no pleasure to see you squatting in the dust like a peasant. You were always so cool and elegant, Leigh. That's the image of you I cherished. What's happened to you?'

'I've changed, Evan.' She settled the baby more comfortably, and looked up at him gravely. 'People do.'

'Not that much,' he insisted almost feverishly. 'Leigh, you don't have to prove anything to me—you know that. You're Justin Frazier's daughter, for God's sake. All you have to do is tell Fergus Willard you've seen enough, and you'll get the VIP treatment out of here—we both will.'

She sighed. 'Evan, how many times must I tell you? I'm not ready to leave yet. But I'm not stopping you doing anything you want.'

'You think I could go, and leave you here?' He sounded almost self-righteous, and she had to bite back a smile. He went on, a martyred note creeping in. 'Oh, I know you're not in love with me any more— you've made that more than clear, but you came here to be with me—to take me out of here, and I'm counting on you, Leigh.'

'I'm sorry,' she said quietly, after a pause. 'You're entitled to feel let down, Evan. I—I can't offer any excuse, except that maybe I know myself a little better now. The girl you knew in England was only half a person.'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' he muttered angrily. 'The altitude must have got to you— turned your brain. But if you wanted to break our engagement, you didn't have to do your dramatic trek across the
puna
. A letter would have done just as well.' He gave her a fulminating look and turned away, plunging down the steep track back towards the camp.

'Boyfriend trouble?' asked June pleasantly from the doorway.

'Ex-boyfriend trouble.' Leigh surrendered the baby into her arms.

'Hm,' June said thoughtfully. 'I can't say I'm heartbroken to hear it. He's been a pain ever since he got here, bragging about his connections, throwing his future father-in-law's name at Fergus, every time he was asked to do some simple thing. And then— —' She paused abruptly.

'Yes?' Leigh prompted.

June shrugged, looking deeply uncomfortable. 'Well—disappearing like that, without a word to anyone.'

Leigh had the strongest impression that wasn't what June had started out to say.

She said slowly, 'Yes, that was stupid, but it was partly my fault—a private joke we had going about him seeking lost treasure to make his fortune.' She shrugged. 'I never dreamed he'd take it so seriously.' She stiffened. 'June, you've got that look on your face!'

'What look is that?' June asked weakly.

Leigh sighed. The look everyone gets when Evan's walkabout is mentioned. As if you're all in on some big secret, except me.'

'You're imagining things,' June's tone held its usual robustness. 'When you pull a stunt like that, naturally there are going to be all kinds of rumours, but if Evan told you he was looking for Inca gold, then maybe that's what he was doing.'

Leigh's eyes were fixed on her face. 'But you don't think so?'

June shrugged. 'Honey, I just don't know. But there's more than one sort of treasure round here— if you know where to look.' She paused. 'Why don't you have a chat with Rourke?'

Leigh gave a strained smile. 'Perhaps I will.'

Was it possible, she wondered, that June hadn't noticed that Rourke had addressed barely two words to her all the time she had been at Atayahuanco? Only the previous night, he had arrived late at the supper table. There had been a seat beside her which he had ignored, making room for himself farther down the table, at the opposite side. She had been choked with misery, convinced that everyone had noticed and drawn their own conclusions, but when she looked up from her plate, there were no awkward silences, no pitying looks. Everyone was carrying on with their own lives, and her neighbour was offering her more potatoes. Perhaps they had assumed it was part of the general aloofness he showed to everyone—except presumably Consuelo. He seemed to prefer to spend his moments of relaxation in her company, and Leigh was growing accustomed to the pain of seeing the girl creep out of the tent each night.

It hadn't taken her long to appreciate the admiration and respect in which Rourke was held by his colleagues. He worked untiringly, and no task was too menial for his attention, even though his function on the project was primarily an archaeological one.

And wasn't that why she had been breaking her back ever since she got here, she thought wryly, accepting everything that came her way without complaint, in the hopes of winning perhaps one word of grudging respect from him before they parted for ever.

Or that was how it had begun, at least. Now, to her own surprise, she was caught up in the project on her own account, her interest captured by the small, patient advances June and the rest of the medical team were making; her imagination fired by the Inca and pre-Inca finds being turned up on the dig nearly every day.

She was beginning to understand too why the others on the project had been so wary at first, and June's caustic remarks had confirmed her suspicions.

The name 'Frazier' must have been a dirty word, she thought, grimacing slightly.

'Something wrong?' asked June, as they began to walk back to the camp.

Leigh wriggled her shoulders inside her shirt. 'Just hot—and beginning to crawl, I think.'

June laughed. 'Look, why don't you reward yourself with a visit to what passes for a bathing-pool round here?'

Leigh's eyes widened. 'Is there such a thing?'

'Sure there is. I thought Consuelo had mentioned it to you. She was off there the other day, and I suggested she take you along. You walk upstream, a couple of hundred yards to where the stream deepens. I usually do some laundry at the same time, and hang the stuff on the bushes to dry. Go on, spoil yourself!'

'I think I will.' Leigh wasn't in the least surprised that Consuelo had said nothing. The Peruvian girl made little effort to conceal her hostility. Perhaps her intuition had picked up that Leigh and Rourke had been more than companions on a journey—or maybe Rourke had made a lover's confession, although he had said he didn't kiss and tell, Leigh thought miserably.

'Grab a towel, and get going,' June advised. 'I'll keep the rest of the world at bay for you.'

The pool wasn't difficult to find, and was sufficiently sheltered by bushes and stunted trees to provide some privacy. The stream bed had been hollowed out here, probably by some past flood, to provide a chest-deep bath where the current ran sluggishly.

Mindful of June's advice, Leigh stripped and rinsed out her clothes first, hanging them to dry before lowering herself carefully into the water. She would have loved to have swum, immersing herself totally, but the constant warnings of Jim Holloway and the rest of the medical team about the ever-present danger of dysentery made her wary. So she splashed about gently, enjoying the sensation of the lapping coolness against her overheated flesh, cupping handfuls of water and pouring them over her shoulders and breasts.