The Winter Rose (99 page)

As Freddie saw it, the problem wasn't that the British government had
put too much money into Africa, but that they hadn't put enough in.
Whatever was invested would be returned a hundredfold. He knew that his
task, once he returned home, was to convince his peers in the Commons,
Lord Elgin, and the PM himself, of Africa's potential.

He intended to ask the government to enlarge the Uganda railway, to
add routes north and south off the main line. He would also ask for old
roads to be improved and new ones to be laid. For dams and water lines
to be built. For telegraph lines to be extended. And to accomplish all
this, he would ask for funds. Four million to start.

He knew he would have to make a damned good case in the Commons for
money like that, especially when feeling against further expenditure on
the railway was high, but he'd already begun. He was writing glowing
articles on BEA, its bounty and its beauty, for The Times, and sending
back detailed reports, packed with figures, tables, and photographs, to
Elgin. By the time he returned home, he hoped to have swayed both the
public and their elected representatives to his cause. With the pump
thus primed, he would go before the Commons and make his case. And then
it would be his name that was regularly seen in the headlines, not Joe
Bristow's.

How he would relish that, turning the tables on Bristow. As far as he
was concerned, Joe and his tedious demands for clinics and schools in
East London could go to hell. Educating the working class was nothing
but a waste of good servants. England's future lay with her colonies,
not in her slums.

Joshua snorted and stamped. Freddie patted the animal's neck. He'd
returned from safari several days ago and had been closeted inside Ash
McGregor's study ever since, writing articles, reports, and speeches,
and was now glad of an afternoon's ride. He needed a bit of air. Needed
to clear his head. And he needed to find out what the hell was going on
with India.

Something was, he was certain of it. She was not herself. Normally
she had the stamina of a dray horse. She had to--being a political wife
took an ungodly amount of energy. But suddenly it seemed that all her
energy had deserted her. She looked pale and agitated. Her eyes were
red-rimmed, as if she'd been weeping.

Freddie had wished to speak to her when he'd first arrived at the
McGregors', but he hadn't been able to because she wasn't there. She'd
gone out riding, Elspeth McGregor told him, as she had almost every
morning, and tended to stay out for hours. He'd asked Mrs. McGregor to
send her into the study when she returned.

He'd been reading various documents--among them a dispatch from Nairobi--when he heard a knock on the study door. It was India.

"Elspeth told me you wanted to see me," she'd said, walking into the room.

"Mmm," he said. "I've news. We have to..." He had looked up at her
and he'd stopped speaking, surprised by her appearance. Her eyes were
dull; there were dark shadows under them. Her face was shockingly pale.

"Are you ill?" he'd asked.

"No."

"You don't look well."

"I am perfectly fine."

He'd frowned. "Can't you put some rouge on?"

"Surely you haven't called me in here to discuss my toilette."

"No, I haven't. I wanted to tell you that you have to pack. You and Charlotte are going to Nairobi with me in a week."

"Nairobi? Why? I thought we were going to Mount Kenya for a fortnight."

"We are. But we're going to Nairobi first. That idiot Meade
completely forgot that the Colonists' Association is throwing a dinner
for me. Can't say no. They'd be frightfully offended."

"I will go, but Charlotte stays here. She's still under the weather."

"I'm sure she's fine. You mollycoddle her. Even Delamere says so."

"She's not going."

Freddie had returned his gaze to his papers. He raised his eyes once
more to hers, irritated by the unusual note of defiance in her voice.
"She will. It won't look good if she doesn't."

"It won't look good if she ends up in the hospital. If you drag an
ailing child on a two-day journey into that dust-ridden cow town simply
for a planters' dinner and she becomes seriously ill as a result, you
will look to the world like the heartless man that you are."

Freddie considered this. "All right," he finally said. "You and I are going, however."

"Very well," India said. She headed for the doorway.

"Where are you going? Do you not need to pack?"

"Mary will see to the packing. I'm going out for a ride. I need air. It's stifling in here."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know. Perhaps toward the mountain."

Freddie watched her go. Her clothes looked downright baggy on her.
Had she not been eating? He tapped the end of his pen against his teeth
and thought, There is something wrong. Very wrong. I wonder what it
could be.

India had always been a terrible liar. Utterly incapable of speaking
untruths. Oh, she'd mastered the white lies. She'd learned how to
compliment an ugly dress, smile at beastly children, pretend to be
fascinated by crashing bores--she'd had to; he'd never have survived in
politics otherwise--but she'd never learned how to hide her heart. Not
even from him.

She was hiding something now, though. He was certain of it. He would
find out what. People would do almost anything to keep their secrets
hidden. She certainly had. She'd gone as far as marrying him to keep the
world from finding out that Charlotte was Sid Malone's bastard.

He'd stood and looked out one of the study's windows. A few minutes
later he'd seen India on a brown mare, galloping away. He hardly
considered himself a navigator, but he knew the rudiments and he knew
that the mountain lay north and that she was riding west.

There was a knock behind him. He turned. Elspeth McGregor had stepped into the room.

"Would you like some tea, Lord Frederick?" she'd asked. "Or coffee, perhaps?"

Freddie had smiled his golden smile. "You've caught me idling, Mrs.
McGregor," he'd said charmingly. She'd laughed, flushing slightly. "The
view's dashed distracting," he'd said. "Can't keep my eyes off it."

"It is something to see," Mrs. McGregor had agreed.

"I'm very curious about this lovely place. I know the mountain's to
the north and Nairobi's south, but what's to the east of us?"

"Ukamba Province," Mrs. McGregor had replied. "And the northern hills of the Luitbold range."

"I see. And to the west?"

"Well, there's Roos's place directly west of us. He's a coffee
planter, but not a terribly good one I'm afraid. Past him, there's
Maggie Carr's farm. She is a good planter. She has Sid Baxter working
for her. He's the one who saved Charlotte. Lady India's been out there
to visit. More than once. To tell him thank you."

"Has she?"

"Oh, yes. Loves the ride, she says. Who wouldn't? The landscape is so
beautiful, and it gets even more dramatic the farther west you go.
Beyond Maggie's place is the forest preserve, you see, for the Kikuyu,
and beyond that's Lake Naivasha."

"Sounds glorious! You've been ever so helpful, Mrs. McGregor. Truly.
We shall have to make a trip to the lake, Lady India and I, if time
permits. There is simply too much to see in Africa and too little time
in which to see it." He'd smiled again.

"Coffee then, Lord Frederick?"

"That would be lovely. Thank you."

"Cream and sugar?"

"No, thank you. I take it black and bitter. Like my heart."

"Oh, Lord Frederick!" Mrs. McGregor had said, giggling and flapping a
hand at him. As soon as she'd closed the door behind herself, Freddie's
fake smile had dropped away.

Baxter. Sid Baxter... Why did the name sound familiar? he'd wondered.
He was sure he'd never known a Sid Baxter in all his life. And yet it
had nagged at him, just as it had done when he'd first heard it on
safari. Baxter. He'd told himself that he was being foolish, that there
was nothing in it. He'd sat down to work again, forgetting about Sid
Baxter, but he hadn't been able to put India's strange, unhealthy
appearance from his mind for days.

And then, just this morning, days after as he'd watched India--still
pale, still thin--barely touch her breakfast, it hit him. She was
expecting a baby. That explained her appearance, her lethargy, her lack
of appetite. She was pregnant ...and she was riding hard every ning to
try to undo the pregnancy. She had probably lied to Elspeth McGregor
about visiting the Carr farm. She was probably out galloping on the
plains hoping to jostle things loose. She must have left whatever it was
she usually relied upon to end pregnancies in London. She wouldn't have
risked packing it in case someone discovered it while unpacking her
trunks--Mary perhaps, or a maid in the governor's household.

As he'd watched India pick at her food earlier, Freddie decided that
he would take a ride west himself. He'd let India go alone, as she did
every morning, and after she had returned, he would ride out himself. He
was riding west now, just as he'd seen India do. He would visit
Margaret Carr. Pay her a friendly social call. She was a planter, wasn't
she? And he was here to cement relations between the settlers of
British East Africa and the British government. He had every reason for
making her acquaintance. He would ask to see her holding, flatter her
with questions about coffee and how it was planted, grown,
harvested--all of that. If Sid Baxter was around, he would thank him for
finding Charlotte, and then he would casually ask both Baxter and Mrs.
Carr about India's visits. And God help her if she had not made any.

Freddie touched his heels to Joshua's flanks now. The restless animal
needed little encouragement, and horse and rider were soon streaking
across the plains. They arrived at the Carr plantation less than an hour
later and cantered up the drive to the bungalow. Freddie dismounted and
handed the reins to a Kikuyu boy who came out to meet him.

"See that he's walked and watered," he told the boy. "Where's Mrs. Carr?"

The boy, small and wide-eyed, didn't answer.

"Christ, why can't these bloody people speak English?" Freddie
muttered. "Where's Mrs. Carr?" he repeated loudly. "Where's the Msabu?"

The boy pointed past the bungalow.

Freddie looked where he was pointing and saw coffee fields in the
distance. He thought he saw movement in one of the fields about a half
mile away. Reaching into his saddlebag, he pulled out a pair of field
glasses and held them to his eyes. Kikuyu women, dressed in red, moved
slowly through the green coffee bushes. A flash of white among the red
caught his attention. He focused on it and realized he was looking at a
woman in a white shirt. She was small and broad and shouting to someone
across the field.

That's Margaret Carr, he thought. He shifted his head to the left
slightly and saw the person she was calling to. It was a white man. He
was bent over a coffee plant. His face was mostly hidden under the brim
of a bush hat. Baxter, he thought.

Freddie had just decided to walk out to them when Baxter
straightened. He turned toward Mrs. Carr, took off his hat to fan
himself, and shouted something back at her. As he did, Freddie caught a
full view of his face.

"Good God," he whispered. "It can't be. You're dead."

He lowered the glasses and squeezed his eyes shut.

"It's the heat," he said. "It's muddled my mind."

After a few seconds he raised the field glasses again. Baxter was
still facing him, still hatless. And Freddie was quite certain now that
the image he was seeing was not caused by the heat.

Baxter. Sid Baxter. The name had seemed familiar to him because it
was familiar. It was the name Sid Malone had used at Arden Street. Alvin
Donaldson had told him so.

Fury, white hot and blinding, rose in him. Now he knew why India
looked so upset and why she rode out from the McGregors' every bloody
morning. It wasn't to undo a pregnancy as he'd thought; she had
discovered that Sid Baxter was really Sid Malone. And she was carrying
on with him again, damn her.

At the thought of that, of India with Sid, Freddie's rage was
suddenly doused by fear. Freddie knew that she'd married him only
because she thought Sid was dead. But he wasn't. He was alive and very
well, from the looks of things. She'd chosen Sid over him once... what
if she did it again? The scandal of a divorce--not to mention the loss
of the Selwyn Jones fortune--would ruin him. If India left him, he would
never become prime minister.

Freddie took a deep breath. He must not give in to his emotion. Not
yet. Nobody could know that he'd been here or what he'd seen. He didn't
want to give India time to warn Malone or give Malone time to run.
Everything must proceed just as it had been. India must continue with
her morning rides, suspecting nothing, for Freddie needed a bit of time
himself. Time to send a messenger to Nairobi. Time to send a telegram to
Scotland Yard. By the time he and India arrived in Nairobi themselves,
for the colonists' dinner, the Yard would have wired back. Only a few
days.

"You! Boy!" he shouted at the child who was now leading his horse away.

The boy turned.

"Bring him back. Quickly! Give me the reins," he said, striding over to him.

He mounted and was off down Maggie Carr's drive again in seconds.
There was nothing to indicate he'd ever been at the farm except a bit of
red dust in the air, kicked up by Joshua's hooves. It would settle and
the half-wit boy would probably forget to tell anyone he'd been there.
Even if he did tell them, he wouldn't be able to give them a name.

He rode back to the McGregors' farm hard, urging Joshua on with his
crop. A million questions swirled in his head. He had no answers to
them. Not yet. But there would be plenty of time for answers later. When
Malone was in jail.