Every Whispered Word (30 page)

“Perhaps,” Camelia allowed, still staring at the rock painting. She raised her hand to trace her fingers around the figure of the lion. “Or perhaps they are a series of challenges—a test to see if I am truly worthy to be the one who finally discovers the Tomb of Kings.”

Zareb regarded her in silence. Of course she would interpret it that way. Lord Stamford's blood coursed through her veins, and her father had never been one to walk away from a challenge.

Even when that challenge had been a lonely, fragile ten-year-old girl who had begged her father not to send her back to England.

“What's that sound?” Camelia wondered, shifting her gaze in the direction of the dig site.

“It sounds like cheering,” Zareb mused.

Camelia rose from the ground and shielded her eyes against the sun. “Is that Oliver dancing?”

“Yes—with Senwe and Badrani.” Zareb smiled. “I believe they are celebrating because Mr. Kent's pump is finally working. Listen—you can hear the noise it makes.”

Camelia tilted her head to one side and listened to the steady, rhythmic chuffing of Simon's pump. “He did it!” she cried, elated. “I knew he would!”

“Shall we go over and see?”

She ran a few steps, then stopped suddenly. “You go, Zareb. I still have much to do here.”

“Are you sure, Tisha?”

She seated herself back down upon the ground in front of the rock and opened her father's journal once more. “I'm sure. You can tell me about how well it works later.”

He regarded her uncertainly, torn between his desire to watch over her, and the knowledge that at that moment she needed to be alone.

“Very well. You stay with Tisha,” he instructed Oscar, who had climbed down from Camelia's shoulder and was about to climb up Zareb. “Make sure to fetch me quickly if she needs me.”

Oscar obediently settled himself on a rock nearby.

Zareb turned and began to make his way back to the dig site, where Oliver appeared to be trying to teach Badrani and Senwe the steps to some kind of Scottish dance. The two Khoikhoi men doubled over with laughter as they mimicked Oliver's odd, jerky movements, much to the amusement of the other native workers.

Zareb decided he would check on the performance of the pump, to see for himself that it was truly working. Then he would return to Camelia and escort her back to the campsite. The wind's warning had been clear.

Danger was coming, and it was moving closer.

H
onestly, Oscar, look at the mess you are making,” scolded Camelia. “Do you have to eat those oatcakes on my desk?”

Oscar crammed the rest of the biscuits into his mouth, causing a shower of dry crumbs to rain over her books and papers.

“Where on earth did you get these from, anyway?” she muttered as she picked up her father's journal and shook the crumbs onto the ground. “I don't remember packing oatcakes in my trunks.”

Oscar picked up one of Harriet's dropped feathers and held it over his brow.

“If you're getting them from Oliver, then I'll thank you to eat them in his tent,” Camelia instructed sternly. “Come on, Harriet, see if you can clean up some of these crumbs.”

She held a morsel of biscuit out to the bird, enticing her to abandon her perch on the back of Camelia's chair and start daintily pecking at the fragments on the desk.

“From now on we're going to have a strict no-eating rule in my tent. I can't have you making such a mess when I'm trying to work.”

Oscar regarded her mournfully.

“Rupert never eats in my tent.” Camelia glanced at the snake, who was lying curled up in the center of her cot. “He goes out and catches a nice little lizard or a fat mouse, then comes back here to curl up and digest it. He never makes any mess whatsoever.”

“I didn't realize snakes were so tidy,” drawled a low, faintly amused voice.

Camelia gasped and turned to see Simon standing at the entrance to her tent.

“I'll have to let my younger brother Byron know about that,” he reflected. “He can add that to the list of attributes he is compiling for my parents on why a snake would make him a marvelous pet.” He raised an enquiring brow. “May I come in, Camelia? Or are you determined to keep avoiding me?”

“I haven't been avoiding you,” she returned innocently, turning her attention to straightening up the books and papers on her desk. “I've just been very busy.”

“So Zareb keeps telling me. Even so, I would have thought that you might take time out of your busy schedule to see that I finally got the pump to work. I've been wrestling with it night and day for over a week now. For a while I was afraid it might not be able to handle the muddy water in your dig after all.”

Weariness edged his voice, causing her to stop tidying her desk and look at him.

Dark shadows circled his eyes, and his brow seemed more deeply lined than before. His hair was a wild tangle of sun-streaked red-gold, which must have been of endless fascination to the native workers, as it now resembled the color of fire even more than it had on the night they arrived. The African sun had bronzed his skin, but Camelia could see by the redness on his nose and cheeks that he had spent too much time beneath its harsh rays. Several days of beard growth grizzled his jaw and there was an unmistakable gauntness to his cheeks, suggesting he had not bothered to take the time to shave or eat. He wore his usual outfit of a wrinkled white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, exposing a bandage wrapped around his left forearm. His trousers were heavily creased but clean, indicating he had taken the time to wash and change before he came to see her.

“I'm sorry,” she apologized, feeling contrite. “When I heard the pump finally working and everyone cheering, I wanted to rush over and see for myself. I was so relieved and excited and happy—I wanted to cheer, too. I think if I had come over, I would even have tried that ridiculous dance Oliver was teaching to Badrani and Senwe.”

Simon regarded her curiously. “Then why didn't you?”

She turned away. “I suppose because I didn't know how to face you.”

“I would think you would have faced me the same way you did after the first time we were together in my study in London,” he pointed out. “You didn't seem to have any trouble facing me then.”

“You were the one who avoided me in London,” Camelia argued. “You locked yourself in your dining room and didn't come out for a week.”

He raised his brow in surprise. “Is that what you think I was doing? Avoiding you?”

“Weren't you?”

“I was working on my pump. When I am working on an invention I completely immerse myself in it, to the exclusion of everything else, including eating, sleeping, and interacting with the rest of the human race. It is one of the things my family is constantly trying to tell me isn't normal.” He ruefully shook his head. “I suppose it isn't really normal—it's just normal for me. Just as living in a tent in the middle of the African plains digging around for some mythical ancient tomb is normal for you.”

Camelia regarded him uncertainly.

“We can't change what has happened between us, Camelia.” His voice was low and heavy with resignation. “And even if we could, as ungentlemanly as this may seem of me, I wouldn't. The only thing we have the power to control is how we react to it. And I, for one, am not going to let this—” he paused, searching for the right word, “
force,
” he supplied awkwardly, “that seems to ignite between us whenever we are together, compromise your work here. I told you I would build you a pump and train your men to work it. I intend to fulfill that commitment to you—regardless of whether you choose to avoid me for the rest of my stay here or not. That's all I came here to say.” He lifted the tent flap to leave.

“Wait.”

He stopped and regarded her expectantly.

“What happened to your arm?”

“I cut it on one of the pump's blades,” he told her, shrugging. “It's nothing.”

“Did you have Zareb look at it?”

“Zareb very kindly offered to smear it with dung and antelope fat. I declined his offer.”

“What about Oliver?”

“Oliver decided I needed to be bled. After I ordered him to put his dirk away, he asked Zareb if he knew where they might find some good thirsty leeches. Zareb offered to find maggots instead, which he said would suck the blood out of me just as well as any English leeches might. At that point I left to bandage it myself.”

“Let me look at it.”

“It's just a scratch, Camelia.”

“Even a scratch can be deadly here, if it isn't cared for properly. Sit down and let me look at it.”

Simon sighed and reluctantly seated himself in the chair.

“Did you wash it, at least?” she asked as she carefully unbound the linen strip.

“Yes.”

“You'd never know it.” She frowned as she looked at the exposed wound. “It looks filthy.”

“I was in a hurry.”

“It needs to be cleaned again, and I think it's going to require a few stitches to hold it closed,” she decided. “Otherwise it will just keep pulling open, and it's liable to become inflamed.”

“I'm not letting Zareb or Oliver come near me: Oliver is liable to slit my other arm open while Zareb covers me in maggots. I prefer to take my chances with the possibility of inflammation.”

“I will do it.”

He regarded her incredulously. “You know how to stitch a wound closed?”

“Yes. Does that surprise you?”

“No more than everything else I have come to know about you, I suppose,” he reflected, shrugging.

“My father insisted that I learn how to tend to wounds when I was fifteen. He was like you—a bit squeamish.”

“I'm not squeamish,” Simon protested, insulted.

“Well, he didn't trust the natives' methods for healing,” Camelia amended as she poured some water from a metal pitcher into her washbasin. “So once when we were staying at our house in Cape Town, he had a doctor come over to give me lessons on how to tend to wounds, sprains, burns, and the like.” She dropped a small washcloth into the basin and retrieved a piece of soap. “He thought it would be helpful for me to know about basic wound care when we were living on an excavation site.” She went over the large trunk at the foot of her cot and began searching through it for her medicine chest.

“That was extremely pragmatic of him.”

“My father could be very pragmatic when he wanted to be.” She opened her medicine chest and extracted a needle, thread, some clean strips of linen, and a jar of liniment. “Except when it came to his work. Then he refused to be daunted by whatever obstacles came his way—even when everyone else insisted he should just give up.”

“Sometimes it's easier not to give up.”

She regarded him in surprise. “Why do you say that?”

“Giving up means you have to turn your time and energy to something else. If you are giving up on a relatively small project, that is not too difficult. But if you are giving up on the pursuit of something that has been a lifelong obsession, admitting defeat and moving on is far more difficult.”

“My father was not wrong to devote so much of his life to his search for the Tomb of Kings. Some of the most important discoveries in the world have been the result of years and years of hard work and unwavering determination. You know that.”

“There have also been countless cases of individuals who have searched for something their entire lives and never found it.”

“The Tomb of Kings exists, Simon. I'm certain of it.”

“I'm not suggesting it doesn't.”

“And I won't stop looking until I have found it.”

He regarded her steadily. “I know.”

She turned away, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. “You should probably lie down on my cot while I do this,” she said, placing all of her supplies on the small table beside her cot.

“I'm fine in this chair. I promise you I won't faint.”

“I was thinking of me.”

“If you're going to faint, then you should have the cot,” he offered gallantly.

“I can assure you I'm not going to faint,” Camelia retorted, moving Rupert to the pile of soft clothes in her trunk. “Stitching your arm will take a few minutes, and it will be easier for me to do it if I can sit on that chair while you lie on the cot.”

He sighed. “Very well.” He went over to the cot and stretched out upon it. The bed creaked in protest beneath his heavy frame.

“You've given yourself quite a nasty gash,” Camelia mused as she gently sponged the wound clean. “We'll have to be careful to keep it clean and change the dressings often, so it doesn't fester.”

Simon raised himself onto his other elbow so he could see the wound himself. “It doesn't look that bad to me, Camelia. I don't think you need to stitch it. Just put a clean bandage on it and I'll be off.”

“If you develop a fever, Zareb will put you in your tent and burn fires around you,” Camelia warned sternly. “And then he will fill your arm with maggots when you aren't looking.”

“I suppose if it's a choice between you brandishing a sharp needle and a horde of hungry maggots, then by all means, stitch away.” He lay back against her cot and closed his eyes, resigned to his fate.

“You shouldn't dismiss the maggots so quickly,” Camelia reflected as she threaded her needle. “They have been known to be of benefit in healing for centuries. Wounded soldiers who had maggots infesting their wounds had a greater chance of survival than those who didn't. By eating the dead tissue, the maggots helped to keep the wounds clean.”

Simon scowled at her. “Is this your idea of making idle conversation while you jam a needle into me?”

“I haven't touched you with the needle yet.”

“If you keep talking about maggots, you won't get the chance.”

“Fine. I just thought you might find it interesting, given that you are a scientist.”

“There are lots of things I find interesting. Hearing about maggots eating dead tissue from festering open wounds is not one of them.”

“There, you see?” Her expression was triumphant. “I was right—you
are
squeamish.”

“I'm only asking that we find something a little more uplifting to talk about while you stitch me up,” Simon argued. “Is that too much to ask?”

“Not at all. Now please lie back, before you put weight on your arm and cause it to start bleeding again.”

Simon reluctantly lay back against the cot once more and closed his eyes.

Camelia studied the gash in silence, determining how best to stitch it together. The wound was deep but fairly straight, which was good. She thought she should make a series of small stitches, leaving just enough room between each for any further blood to seep through. . . .

“What are you waiting for?” he demanded irritably, sitting up.

“I'm trying to decide how I'm going to close it.”

“I don't require anything fancy, you know. It isn't a quilt you're working on.”

“I've never worked on a quilt, so I don't have any fancy stitches,” she returned archly. “The gash has to be closed properly or it won't heal nicely. You don't want to have an ugly scar, do you?”

“I don't really care what it looks like. I would just like you to get this done before it's time for me to be buried in a tomb.”