Alana (34 page)

After she read his words, she looked deeply into his eyes. “You are my friend, Chaco. But you have been away from your people for too long.”

You are safe with your husband,
he signed.
But I must wait to learn if Crystal is safe also. She saved me and helped me when I needed it. I cannot leave this life until I know she is safe, too.

Emotions welled within Alana. Only in this moment did she realize the depth of Chaco’s devotion to Crystal. This knowledge made her aware, too, of the sacrifice he had been enduring since they’d arrived in Cape Town.

We must learn who is responsible for Rafe’s death,
he signed, his hands moving very slowly in emphasis to the words.

“Will we ever learn?” she whispered.

Yes! I must!

Alana’s eyes locked with Chaco’s, and she saw yet another emotion within their ebony depths. Intuitively, she realized that Chaco blamed himself for what had happened to Rafe.

“It was not your fault!”

I failed in my duty. I let those men capture you. Rafe died because of me.

“No! He died because of Ledoque and James Allison.”

When you, Crystal, and Rafe are avenged, I shall return to my home.
With that, Chaco’s face turned into an expressionless mask that forbade any further argument.

One evening after a particularly boring dinner party, Alana had not been able to contain her anger any longer at the way the other guests had spoken down to her. She and Edward lived quietly, disturbing no one, but the gossips insisted on circulating rumors about the American woman who had seduced Edward Parkins into marriage for his money.

“If it were not for you, dear Edward, I would have poured my champagne down Estelle Richmond’s skinny chest!” Alana exclaimed once they were safely inside their carriage.

Surprisingly, Edward laughed. “Why didn’t you? I would have loved to see her expression. That old dowager has been a thorn in my side since she arrived here with her pompous, emasculated husband.”

Alana joined in his laughter for only a moment. “I would never do anything to shame you,” she whispered. Then she leaned against him and tenderly kissed his cheek.

“I love you, Edward,” she said.

Edward turned to her. “You have made me very happy, Alana, and I pray daily that I have done the same for you.”

“You have, dearest one. You have shown me that life can be good and that I can look to the future without fear. We will have a long, wonderful life together,” she stated.

When they arrived home, they went directly to their bedroom and, still feeling the warm glow that had suffused them in the carriage, they undressed and made slow, sweet love.

Later, as they lay within each other’s arms in the bedroom, the light from the full moon filtering softly through the window, Edward turned to Alana.

“I only wish that one day you will carry my child,” he said in an emotional voice.

Although this was the first time Edward spoke of children, it was not a new thought for Alana. She had wondered why she had not become pregnant with Edward, just as she had been thankful she had not conceived the first time she had loved Rafe.

As the months had passed, she had become increasingly worried that she might be barren. She had even visited Edward’s doctor, making him promise not to tell Edward.

After his examination, the doctor had said he could detect no reason for her not to conceive. But, he’d added, experience had taught him that not every woman conceived easily. She should not worry about it, and one day she would carry her husband’s children.

Alana now smiled up at Edward. “I too pray that I will one day carry your seed,” she whispered. “It would make me so happy to be the mother of your son.”

“Or daughter,” Edward added. “Soon, I hope.”

Alana sat up then, and her hand traveled down his length. She stroked him with her fingers and felt him respond. “You don’t seem to be growing, ah–older. In fact,” she said in a husky voice, “you become stronger and younger each day.” Edward laughed again, and then looked at her seriously. “You are a wonderful woman, Alana. You are a magnificent lover, an excellent wife, and possibly the best friend I have ever had. I am not getting younger with each day. In three years, I will have lived a half century.”

“And you shall live another half century,” Alana declared, “for I will make sure that when I am old, you are still holding me and loving me!”

Edward’s smile was bittersweet. “Dear, sweet Alana, if I were to die tomorrow, I would do so happily, having known and loved you so completely.”

“No more,” Alana pleaded, tears rising to her eyes for no other reason than the talk of things she would never allow herself to think.

“No more,” Edward agreed, seeing the distress on her face.

But his words did not ease her sudden fear of losing him. “Hold me, Edward. Love me,” she pleaded.

Two days later, Alana accompanied Edward to the Maklin-Parkins warehouses for the company’s annual inventory, a process in which Edward had made a habit of participating. Alana was with him because he enjoyed explaining to her the intricacies of his businesses as well as teaching her the way they did everything at Maklin-Parkins.

Three hours into the day, Alana and Edward were standing at the head of a long aisle. Four workers climbed over wooden crates stacked thirty feet into the air, calling out the contents of the crates to the clerks below.

Suddenly, one man slipped as the crate he was inspecting shifted. Shouting, he lost his balance and fell. Luckily, he didn’t fall to the ground; rather, he ended up wedged between two large crates twenty feet up.

Before anyone else could act, Edward rushed to the ladder and climbed up to the injured man. Alana watched, her heart beating loudly in fear for both of them.

Edward worked the man’s leg free. “Broken,” he called down to the others. With his back on one crate and his legs braced on the other, Edward lifted the man and started to lay him on the top of the nearest crate. When he moved, a loud crack sounded in the air.

Everyone looked up at the sound. The unstable crate had again shifted and was starting to topple. Too horrified to look away, Alana watched as Edward gathered his strength and pushed the injured man to safety.

Edward himself was not able to move out of the path of the falling crate in time. It struck him full in the chest, knocking him twenty feet to the ground.

Alana’s scream tore through the warehouse. As the stunned workers stared, Alana raced to his crumpled form and drew him in her arms.

Holding him tightly to her chest, she saw that Edward’s eyes were open. “I love you, Alana,” he said in a barely audible voice. Then his eyes turned empty.

“No!” Alana screamed, piercingly. When the clerks tried to help her up, Alana refused to let anyone touch her or take Edward from her. A half hour later, Chaco picked up Edward’s limp, broken body and took it and Alana home.

~~~~~

Five hundred miles inland, on the border between the Boers’ Orange Free State and the Transvaal, was the Bristol mine–the most secret and dangerous diamond mine in South Africa.

This mine was not located in the purplish earth area where so many of the diamond fields lay. No, this special mine followed the advice of a new, young mining engineer who had come over from England two years before.

Instead of surface mining, which had been the only technique used until then, the engineer had set up a shaft mine, similar to those used for gold. After going down a hundred feet, he had discovered a higher quality of diamond than had previously been found. Three hundred feet deeper, they had found the diamond pipe–a vein of high-quality stones.

Because of the precarious nature of the mineshaft and the dangers inherent in this type of mining, workers had been almost impossible to get.

The owners had turned to the colonial judicial system and had offered monetary reimbursement for each prisoner sent to the mine to work out his sentence. Only one man in three survived a year. Only one man in five survived the second year. No one ever left the Bristol mine.

One of those men in his second year was a tall man with black and silver hair and piercing green eyes that were never still. He rarely spoke after the first three months of his imprisonment, when he had tried in vain to explain that he was not who his papers said he was.

No one had listened to him, and Rafe Montgomery realized no one would. As far as they were concerned, he was Frank Tremain, the American smuggler with whom he had ridden in the prison wagon when he’d first arrived at the Bristol.

And, so, Rafe had stopped trying to convince anyone of his true identity, and only thought about escape.

Four months after reaching South Africa, he had attempted his first escape. The guards had caught him almost immediately and beat him senseless. It had taken two weeks for him to be able to work again; a full month had passed before the pain had gone.

While he was healing, he’d heard rumors of an escape at the Germiston mine. Three men had reached freedom; two had not. Of the two, was an American. That was how Rafe had learned of Frank Tremain’s death.

From that point on, Rafe watched everyone, while he worked out a way to escape that did not end in death. He noted that a shipment of diamonds had gone out three weeks ago, and he learned that another was due to out in five weeks. He watched men die in mine explosions and cave-ins. Mishaps occurred weekly because of the shoddy mining methods employed hundreds of feet below the surface.

He had learned how to survive and to grow strong. He had seen numerous escape attempts and had watched men die long before they could reach the freedom of the wild country not a thousand feet from the mineshaft.

Rafe was also the last white prisoner left alive. The rest of the workers were black, and most were innocent of any crime. Greedy magistrates had found the defenseless natives guilty in order to receive bonuses from the mining company.

Above all, Rafe kept himself strong and his spirit and willpower alive, for he knew that one day he would escape, and when he did, he would find Alana.

Eighteen months after he had arrived at the Bristol mine, he had formed a plan of escape. It would be hard, but Rafe was determined to get away from the Bristol mine alive. His hatred of Allison was not what kept Rafe going; rather, the memory and vision of Alana had been his only reason for staying alive.

“
Your
Grace,” said the butler, who had used Alana’s title from the day she had married Edward.

Alana looked up in the darkened library. Her tired eyes held no hint of interest. “Yes?”

“You have a caller, Madame,” he informed her.

“I am not seeing anyone.”

“Please, your Grace, I informed the woman of your wishes, but she is very insistent. She demands to see you. She is creating a scene.”

Alana sighed. “Very well, Haines,” she said. “Show her in.”

When the butler left, Alana closed her eyes again. In the two weeks since Edward’s death, she had locked herself in the house, hidden from the world, refusing to see any callers–not that there had been many. She had not even attended the reading of Edward’s will, but had asked Matthew Conklin, Edward’s attorney, to read the will to her in private.

When he had finished, she had stared at him in shock. Edward had left Alana most of his great fortune, all of his vast properties, and especially Maklin-Parkins. He had also given her one other thing. “But why?” she had asked.

“Edward loved you very much. When he rewrote his will shortly after your marriage, he wanted my assurance that I would not speak of it to you. Only upon his death were you to learn the contents of his will, for he feared you would make him change it.”

“But what of his family in England?” Alana had asked. Edward had never spoken of them, and she had, for some reason, never asked.

“His brother died five years ago. He was Edward’s only living relative.”

“But isn’t his request unusual?”

The lawyer had nodded his head. “But not without precedent. What it means,” the attorney went on, “is that Edward did not want his family lands and titles bestowed upon a stranger. Nor did he want you to spend your life grieving over him. He wanted to assure himself that you would marry again and have a family. He wants any child you bear, whether his or another’s, to be named heir to the title of Duke of Claymore. It is also the only way that you may keep your own title if you marry a man who is untitled or of lesser nobility than Edward.”

“But if I do not remarry?” she’d asked.

“Upon your death, the title would revert to whomever His Majesty proclaims.”

After Conklin had left, she had thought about Edward’s will, his love for her, and his wishes. But she knew deep within her that she would not remarry, for she could never allow herself to be hurt like this again.

“Alana,” came a familiar voice.

Alana’s thoughts fled as she opened her eyes and looked at her visitor. A gasp escaped her lips, and when she stood, her legs trembled.

“Crystal!” she whispered. An instant later, she was in Crystal’s arms. When she finally drew back, she searched her friend’s face. “Why–what–?”

Crystal didn’t smile at Alana’s surprise. But she did take her friend’s hands in hers. “I was so sorry to hear about Edward.”

Alana nodded her head.

“But,” Crystal said. Then she paused.

Alana stared at Crystal, waiting.

“Alana,” Crystal began again, “Rafe is still alive.”

Alana’s mouth opened but no sound emerged. Her eyes widened, and a wave of dizziness swept through her. Her head spun; the room suddenly turned upside down, and she collapsed on the floor.

When she opened her eyes again, she was lying on the leather couch, her feet propped up by a large cushion. She saw that Crystal was shouting at her maid and the butler, demanding to know why Alana was in such frail condition.

“She wouldn’t eat much, mum,” Eleanor had replied in a frightened voice.

Haines, in his usual dignified manner, stated that he had been powerless to force Her Grace to eat properly.

“Go! Have the cook prepare some broth!” Crystal ordered. Before anyone left, Alana spoke.

“It’s not their fault, Crystal. They tried to help me.”

“But they didn’t,” she snapped. “Go!” The two servants left quickly. Turning to Alana, Crystal fixed her with a hard, green-eyed stare. “I need you healthy if we’re to find Rafe.”

Crystal’s words brought out all of Alana’s old memories, the ones she thought she had put to rest. Even the mention of his name was enough to make her heart soar and her hopes come alive again. Fighting off another wave of dizziness, Alana tried to believe Crystal’s words.

“How can you be so certain he’s alive? The report was quite clear about his death.”

“Yes, it was,” Crystal said, her mouth forming a tight smile. “However, the man who died was not Rafe. Rafe went to a mine under the dead man’s name. Alana, he was not killed. Allison made that very clear to me. Rafe was to live and to suffer every single day.”

Alana stood. She stared at Crystal and took a deep breath. “If he’s alive, we will find him and set him free!” Alana exclaimed with determination that she had not felt since Edward’s death.

As if to emphasize Alana’s declaration, the library door opened and Chaco stepped in. He stared at Crystal for several long moments. Then an uncharacteristic joyous smile shaped his lips.

Midnight found Alana, Crystal, and Chaco in the study; the original trio was once again united.

Alana had told Crystal about Edward’s tragic death, speaking of it for the first time. When she had finished, Crystal had asked the question that had been on her mind since learning of Edward’s death.

“Could Allison have been behind Edward’s accident? He hated him terribly.”

Alana had stared wide-eyed at Crystal, but Chaco had shaken his head emphatically and then begun to sign.

He had explained that he had been spending his days at the warehouses and docks in an effort to learn the answer to that question. After two weeks of looking around and listening to all conversations, he believed it had truly been an accident.

“Thank God,” Alana had whispered. “I could not bear to have been responsible for his death.”

With Crystal’s mind eased of those thoughts, they had tried to think of a way to find out at which mine Rafe was imprisoned. Although they knew the name of the man who had sent Rafe there, they also knew the futility of trying to get the man to confess. Alana and Crystal had decided they would look for another way.

After dinner, they had gone into the study, where Alana had looked through Edward’s personal files. She had told Crystal about the report Edward had received of the escape at the Germiston mine. She needed the report to learn the name under which Rafe was listed.

At midnight, Alana discovered the report in a thin file box with her name neatly scripted on it in Edward’s precise handwriting.

Opening it, with Crystal peering over her shoulder, Alana withdrew several tied bundles of papers. Only then, almost two years after she had begun her search for Rafe, did Alana see the voluminous amount of correspondence that Edward had received in her behalf.

Alana experienced a feeling of vertigo at the realization of how much more Edward had done than she’d known.
He was so good to me,
she said silently.

There were letters from all his supervisory people in the far-flung reaches of the Maklin-Parkins empire. Mixed among them, Alana found the report of Edward’s touring mine super-visor, detailing the death of the unknown American. It also named the American smuggler, Frank Tremain, but it did not state at which mine he was serving his sentence.

“But we have the name,” Crystal said hopefully. “Now we can find the mine–although that may still not be enough to free Rafe.”

“If it is Rafe, then we will find a way.”

After Chaco left them, Crystal and Alana continued to talk. Under Crystal’s gentle probing, Alana spoke of her feelings and emotions for Edward. She told Crystal about their life together and of the wonderful and gentle love they had shared.

“If it is Rafe, what do I tell him? That while he has been suffering in prison because of me, I have been leading a life of ease and luxury?”

“Do you think he will condemn you for what you’ve done?” Crystal asked.

“I don’t know. I thought him dead, but I never stopped loving him. Yet I shared another man’s name and bed.”

“He will have to accept and understand what happened,” Crystal ventured, unsure herself of how her brother would react when he learned of Alana’s marriage.

A moment later, Crystal laughed. “And what will happen when he learns his prim and proper sister is a whore? Poor Rafe,” she whispered.

Perhaps she spoke, so secure in her knowledge that Rafe was alive, made them realize that no matter what had happened, just the fact that he lived was reward enough for now. The future would have to take care of itself.

They spent another few minutes deciding whom to speak to tomorrow in the government offices, and then Alana reversed the roles they had been playing, gently questioning Crystal about what had happened to her in New York.

They finally went to bed shortly before three in the morning, and they were up again with the sun. By nine, they had entered the warren-like complex of government offices and buildings that surrounded the governor’s palace, which was the only truly official-looking government building, aside from the courts.

Going through the maze of government offices brought back the memories of those first months that Alana had spent searching for Rafe. She saw the same obnoxious clerks, bobbing their obsequious heads, who knew nothing about anything.

By eleven, Alana and Crystal had learned the name of the mine where Frank Tremain had been sent. At eleven thirty, after an audience with the head magistrate had been refused, and learning the governor was not expected back until that afternoon, Alana and Crystal had returned to Alana’s house.

After a light lunch, Alana had the carriage bring them to the colonial governor’s palace. When they entered the anteroom of the governor’s private office, they found themselves staring into the pinched features of the governor’s chief clerk.

“May I help you?” the small man inquired airily.

“I would like to see the governor,” Alana stated.

The man looked down at the large, leather-bound appointment book that rested in the center of his desk. “Do you have an appointment, Madame?” he asked in a lofty voice. “If not, I’m afraid it will be impossible. The governor is a very busy man.”

Alana smiled then. “Tell acting Governor White that the Duchess of Claymore wishes to speak to him immediately.” The man’s eyes widened, and an instant later, he disappeared into the governor’s office.

Crystal stared at Alana with both pride and amazement. “I never realized what a title could do,” she said.

“Edward taught me,” Alana replied.

The clerk reappeared a few moments later and asked the women to follow him. Once they were inside the large office, the acting governor dismissed the clerk and came from around his desk. He was in his late fifties, paunchy, with a large veined nose that indicated a life of too much drink. He carried about him an air of self-importance that Alana disliked, and it seemed to her that every time she saw him he appeared to be more entrenched in his temporary role. Yet Edward and the man had been friends, and she had never voiced her opinion of the acting governor aloud.

When he reached them, he took Alana’s hand in his and brought it to his lips. “A pleasure, Lady Parkins,” the governor said. Then he turned to Crystal and took her hand.

“Governor Samuel White, may I introduce Elizabeth Montgomery of San Francisco.”

“A pleasure,” the governor repeated.

After releasing Crystal’s hand, he escorted the ladies to two large, ornate chairs, and sat himself on a third. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit?”

“Samuel,” Alana began, using his name in a friendly way. “You were a good friend of Edward’s, and I must impinge on that friendship now.”

“By all means,” White replied.

“Do you remember when my husband made certain efforts to locate a man we thought imprisoned improperly?”

The governor nodded his head. “About two years ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. The man’s name is Rafael Montgomery.”

“Yes, quite,” White said a little too curtly.

“We know where he is now,” Alana stated, ignoring the governor’s tone.

The governor sat straighter in the chair; his eyes locked on Alana. “So now it all comes out, after Edward is safely in his grave.”

Alana’s blood raced angrily when she realized exactly what the governor had not said. Like the majority of the upper-class people in Cape Town, she saw that the governor also looked upon her as an interloper in their society.

Before Alana could reply, Crystal spoke. Her voice was calm and unemotional. “I am Rafael Montgomery’s sister. And I have learned that my brother is in the Bristol mine. He is listed under the name of Frank Tremain, and I demand his immediate release.”

“As do I!” Alana declared.

“And just who do you think you are?” the governor asked sarcastically.

Alana stared directly into his eyes. “The Duchess of Claymore.”

“By marriage.”

“Nevertheless, I am the duchess, and I have certain rights.”