The Ashford Affair (39 page)

“Thanks.” Amenities concluded, she tipped her chair back and said, “What’s up?”

“Paul wants to see you. Can you come now?” The question was pure formality; Joan knew as well as Clemmie that there was no saying no.

Clemmie rolled her eyes at her corkboard. “I’ll be right there.”

It was classic Paul. Rather than simply call his associates with assignments or, heaven forbid, e-mail them, he liked to summon them into his office. Because, really, walking up and down that flight of stairs was the best use of her time. Once, it had been to ask what she thought of the color of his new tie. She’d gone running from a conference call for that. One of these days, someone was going to bludgeon Paul to death with a yellow legal pad.

All the same, there was something rather comforting about his pettiness. The world might have gone mad in every other aspect of her life, but here it was still turning on its normal, sadistic axis.

Clemmie grabbed up a yellow legal pad. This was good. Paul would pile ridiculous quantities of work on her and she could go back to being stressed out about normal things, things she could do something about. That was just what she needed, a few all-nighters in the office with the crumbs from last night’s takeout scattered under the desk and a confusion of half-empty white paper cups spilling curdled coffee onto her files.

As an afterthought, she asked, “Should I bring the PharmaNet files?”

“No.” Joan’s voice sounded strangely subdued. “Just bring yourself.”

TWENTY-TWO

Kenya, 1927

Out in the bush, an animal called. Addie had no idea what it was, but it sounded close. And hungry.

Stepping out of her tent, she looked about for the others. There were servants everywhere, a ridiculous number of servants for six people, and Budgie, their safari leader, cleaning his rifle by the fire, but that was all. Thank goodness for that. The atmosphere in the camp had gone from bad to worse, tensions degenerating dangerously close to open hostilities.

Vaughn seemed to take active delight in taunting Raoul de Fontaine, who, in turn, clung close to Bea, who retaliated by flirting with Vaughn. They’d come close to blows the night before. De Fontaine was incensed, Frederick withdrawn, Vaughn insufferable, Addie miserable. Of the lot of them, Bea was the only one in high spirits, fueled, Addie was quite sure, from the little porcelain snuffbox that Vaughn kept constantly in his pocket. Even that, Addie was quite sure, was a front. She’d seen Bea watching Frederick out of the corners of her eyes. Watching Frederick—and Addie.

It was no use trying to speak to Bea about it, though. She’d very effectively avoided all private communication, responding, when cornered, with a breezy
Do try to enjoy yourself, darling,
that did nothing to alleviate any of Addie’s concerns.

Shivering, Addie pulled her wrap closer around her. The nights were cold once the sun fell. It fell quickly here. Too quickly. Out in the dark …

According to Val Vaughn, all it took was a couple of hours for the animals to entirely devour a body. It boggled Addie’s mind that the vestiges of the human form could be so completely eliminated, from something to nothing, in the time it would take them to have tea. She would have thought that Vaughn was exaggerating for effect but for the fact that Budgie, their guide, had backed him up.

One of the bearers whistled, long and low. He turned and called to Budgie, “Sigilisi!” followed by a spate of Swahili too rapid for Addie to follow, for all her lessons. Her smattering of kitchen Swahili was little use here in the wilderness.

“What is it?” she asked, moving to join Budgie on the edge of the fire. She felt safer next to Budgie. He might have had a drink in his hand, but his gun was well within reach, his ammunition in the two large pockets on either side of his vest. Hard and soft, he’d told her. Hard for big game, soft for lions, leopards, and other things that snarled in the night. “What did he say?”

Budgie obligingly made room for her on the packing crate that doubled as a chair. “He said that Simba is hungry tonight.” The sun was barely down, but Budgie’s breath already smelled strongly of gin. He claimed it was the only way to keep his malaria at bay. “It’s a lion. There it is again. Do you hear it?”

“No,” said Addie. For her, all of the sounds of the bush melded into one threatening murmur, the cries of the animals, the rustle of the leaves in the wind, the slithering of snakes in the long, dry grass. She hated snakes.

“You have to know how to listen for it.” Budgie took a swig from the flask he kept at his belt. He offered the flask to Addie, who shook her head in refusal. Neat gin wasn’t her tipple of choice. “He’s quite close.”

Addie instinctively pulled her legs close to the crate. “Is it dangerous?”

Budgie smiled a gap-toothed smile. “It’s always dangerous. Otherwise, why would we be here?” He peered at her through rheumy eyes. “Out here, one sees all sorts of strange things. The Nandi people tell of a creature like nothing you can imagine. He’s part man, part bird, but nothing like either. He feasts on brains from the cracked skulls of the animals he kills, and those unlucky enough to stumble upon him say that his mouth shines red in the dark like a lamp made of infernal fire.”

Sparks crackled on the fire and Addie involuntarily flinched. “That sounds unpleasant,” she said. “What do they call it?”

Budgie refreshed himself from his flask. “When they speak of him, they call him the chemosit—although few have lived to tell the tale.”

“Not that old yarn.” Dry grass crunched underfoot as Frederick joined them, a pair of scuffed boots next to her crate, scuffed boots and khaki breeches and the buckle of an old brown belt.

“That yarn is older than either of us,” said Budgie, tipping back on the crate. “There are more things in heaven and earth and all that.”

“It’s sheer bunk,” Frederick said unkindly. “Nothing more than nonsense to frighten children.”

“Would you say the same to the Loch Ness monster?” inquired Budgie, shamelessly enjoying himself.

“I’ll let you know if I meet him,” said Frederick.

“You do that.” Budgie heaved himself off the crate, neatly snagging his gun. “I’d best go and chivvy the troops. It’s well past time for cocktails.”

“Funny,” muttered Frederick, just over Addie’s head. “I could have sworn he’d started already. Or was that just his cologne?”

Addie looked up at him. “There’s no call to be unkind to poor Budgie.”

“Poor Budgie, my ass,” said Frederick ungraciously. “You do realize that he uses that ridiculous chemosit story to frighten women into his bed. It works, too, half the time.”

“Budgie?” Addie couldn’t help laughing. Fifty if he was a day, with a paunch and sagging jowls, Budgie was more an amiable alcoholic uncle than a Casanova. “He’s no Val Vaughn.”

“You’d be surprised.” But Frederick’s grumpy expression lightened. This was always the hardest, looking away from the tenderness in his eyes. Why couldn’t he be the cad she had once believed him to be? Why did he have to be so damnably—Frederick? “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” she said. “You are.”

He held out a hand to her, and, against her better judgment, she took it, letting him help her off the crate. This was what her days had become, a dozen small tests and trials. It was exhausting her, trying to keep away from him.

Frederick held on to her hand for just a moment too long. When he spoke, his words echoed her thoughts. “We can’t go on like this.”

Addie clasped her hands together, knuckles white. “I know.”

On the other side of camp, there was the familiar bump and snick of a record being placed on the gramophone. The familiar strains of Mozart’s clarinet concerto in A blasted out into the wilderness, Budgie’s favorite record, playing night after night, again and again. There was a scratch on the record, making it skip every few bars, but Budgie played it anyway, again and again, around and around.

Frederick swore savagely. “I wish someone would smash the bloody thing and have done with it already. I’ll do it, if no one else will.”

“Don’t.” She wasn’t talking about the record.

Frederick lowered his head, breathing in deeply through his nose. “It’s damnable, the whole situation. Damnable.”

“It will be over soon,” said Addie in a low voice. “I leave in two weeks. If we live through this hideous safari.”

She tried to make a joke of it, but the words felt flat.

Out in the wilderness, a hyena howled with wild laughter, sending chills down Addie’s spine.

Frederick dug his fingers into his temples. “This is ridiculous.” He looked down at her, his eyes intent on her face. “You can’t go back to England. That farm—it’s as much yours as mine. You’ve learned more about coffee than I’ll ever know.”

It was true, she’d never been happier than on the farm. She loved the daily challenge of it, the books, the machinery, the songs the women sang as they hacked at the weeds with their pangas. The idea of going back to England—away from Frederick—was impossibly dreary.

But the alternative was worse. The past few weeks had made that more than clear. It had been sheer hell seeing Frederick go into the tent he shared with Bea every night. Somehow, at Ashford, it had been easier to pretend. Frederick kept his own room there, next to Bea’s, yes, but separate. Here Addie was constantly reminded, night after night, that he belonged to Bea. She couldn’t go on like this.

Neither could he.

She could feel it in the air, like an impending storm, something ready to break.

Addie’s throat was tight. “Mbugwa is an excellent headman. I’m sure you’ll manage without me.”

Frederick caught her by the shoulder. “What about the girls? They’ll miss you. They need you.” His voice dropped. “I need you.”

Addie’s nails bit into her palms. “I can’t stay. You know that.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“I mean I can’t.” Addie’s voice rose dangerously. She was sick of being strong, sick of pretending, sick of having to watch him with Bea, always on the outside of the tent. “I can’t do this, do you hear me? I can’t. It’s enough.”

“You belong here.” Frederick’s voice crackled with impatience. “With me.”

“With you—and Bea?”

She saw him flinch, knew the shot had hit home. “To hell with Bea!”

“You married her,” said Addie wearily. “There’s no way around it.”

“I’d unmarry her in a second.” Frederick straightened, his eyes brightening. “If I were to divorce her…”

“Not for me,” Addie said quickly. How could she do that to Bea—to the girls? She couldn’t forget the girls. “I’m not going to be the cause of your divorce.”

Frederick’s eyes were unnaturally bright. “You don’t need to be—there’s Val Vaughn; there’s Raoul de Fontaine. I could name half a dozen others. Think of it. We could be together.”

It was so painfully tempting. Together. Working on the farm together, playing with the girls together, slipping out into the gardens together at night, with the heady scent of exotic flowers thick around him. Not having to sneak or skulk.

But there were other, older loyalties to contend with, the shade of a little girl in a white nightdress teaching her to ride, protecting her from Aunt Vera.

“Would you really do that to her? Drag her through the courts again? It was bad enough the last time.”

“You’re so concerned with her happiness; what about ours?” Frederick caught her hands, and it was all she could do not to fold herself against him, to lean into him, to agree to anything he wanted. “No one told her to go running off with Val Vaughn or Raoul. She made her own choices.”

“Not entirely.” Addie hated to say it, but she had to. “You can’t say you played no part. Last time, you were the one. If you hadn’t—well, you know—she might still be with Marcus.”

“Or she might have gone off with someone else,” said Frederick quickly. “She was ripe for it. I just happened to be there.”

“You were there and you acted on it.”

“Is that what this is? I’m to be punished for the rest of my life for the sake of a few months’ indiscretion?” Frederick dropped her hands and stepped away, his face dark with frustration. “That’s not justice; that’s revenge. Are you angry at me for being such a fool before? If you are, it’s your right, but don’t cast it in moral terms.”

“It’s not like that!” She hated that they were fighting; she hated all of this. “You can’t have it both ways. Either neither of you is at fault or you both are.”

“Addie—” He held out a hand to her, but she wrenched away.

“Oh, what does it matter? Either way, there’s nothing any of us can do about it. Not without making an even bigger muddle of it.” She pressed her eyes together, fighting against the stinging. “We’ve made our beds.”

“You mean I made them,” said Frederick, his voice low and savage.

“We all did.” She blinked back tears. “You can’t exonerate me either. And I’ve only made it worse by staying on.”

“I won’t have you blaming yourself. It’s rotten luck. Rotten luck and stupidity.
My
stupidity. If I could turn back the clock—”

“But you can’t. And how do you know you wouldn’t want to turn back the clock five years after me? You might feel just the same way. You might resent me as you do Bea.”

“Never.” He spoke without a moment’s hesitation. Addie looked up at him to find him looking at her, looking at her as though memorizing her every feature. His voice dropped. “This is different. This is— I don’t want anyone but you. Ever.”

It would have been easier to argue with him if she hadn’t felt the same way. It had never been like this with David. She couldn’t marry David; she knew that now. Perhaps, someday, there might be someone else.… But he wouldn’t be Frederick. It was a hideous, hideous thought.

Frederick voiced the thought she hadn’t dared to think. “If there were no Bea—”

In Budgie’s tent, the record hiccupped and the clarinets squawked. Addie could already hear other voices, closer to camp now, Bea’s husky alto, Vaughn’s drawl.

“It must be nearly supper time,” said Addie in a small, tight voice. She started to hold out a hand and then thought better of it. “Are you coming?”