The man at Kambala (17 page)

`Then you should be. It's different for a woman.'

`I don't see why it should be. People will think what
they want to think regardless of what we do or don't do.' Laughing, she put her arm through his as he pushed open the door. 'Is this circumspect enough?'

The group standing a few paces away looked round as one as they entered, and Sara felt the laughter die suddenly on her lips as her eyes met those of the tall man in the white dinner jacket whose mouth had taken on a hard line. Beside her she felt Don stiffen a little, then relax, heard his voice saying lightly, 'Quite a surprise, Steve. We weren't expecting you for another week or so.'

`No.' The reply was cool. 'Bruce Madden decided to relieve me. He thought the air up there might do him good after his spell in dock.'

`When did you get in?'

`About an hour or so ago.' It was Diane who answered for him, composed and striking in emerald green. Her hand was on Steve's arm possessively. 'We decided to come over and join the party. After all, it's Steve's first chance to see a bit of life in weeks.'

F
or someone who only this afternoon condemned this whole place as a funeral parlour you changed your mind pretty quickly,' remarked her brother satirically, and received a totally unperturbed smile.

`It's the people who make a place, darling, as I'm sure you'll agree. We were wondering where you and Sara had got to.'

`We went out to get a breath of air,' put in Sara, feeling that it was time she said something.

`Without a wrap?' Steve's eyes slid over her bare shoulders, came back to her face and rested there inexorably. 'You're asking for a chill running around like

that after dark. You should have more sense, Don.'

I
know. I realized that a moment ago.' Don looked down at her, mouth wry. 'How about a drink to chase away any
goose pimples
?'

`I . . .' she began, then she caught Steve's glance again and her chin lifted. `A good idea,' she said brightly. `Why don't we all have a drink to welcome Steve back to the civilized world?'

The six of them made quite a crowd in the bar. Sara sipped gingerly at the gin and orange she had asked for, finding the mix too strong for her taste yet reluctant to admit it with Steve watching her the way he was. She hardly knew whether to be relieved or sorry when he suggested that they go and dance, knowing full well what was coming once he got her alone.

He and Don were much of a height, she found, when they were on the floor; with both of them her eyes came exactly level with the second shirt button. But there the similarity ended. Whereas Don held her close with his breath stirring her hair, Steve's hands were hard at her back and there were several inches of space between them. His mouth was compressed, the grey eyes like granite.

`Quite a girl, aren't you?' he said. `From duckling to swan a
ll in a week !
'

`Ten days, actually; she murmured, and felt his fingers dig painfully into the centre of her back.

`Don't tempt providence. The way I feel at the moment I could do something drastic to you!'

Safe on a crowded dance floor, she dug up her most innocent smile. `Would I enjoy it?'

He drew in a harsh breath. `Cut it out. You might

have learned a great deal while you've been staying with the Milsons, but that dress doesn't make you too old to spank.'

`That would be a new kind of floor show.' Recklessly she went on, 'What do you think of my dress? Quite an improvement on trousers, don't you think?'

The music stopped. Steve took her firmly by the shoulders and pressed her ahead of him through the other dancers and out into the foyer, then from there to the door through which she and Don had entered a short time ago. The terrace was still empty. With the door closed behind him, Steve regarded her unsmilingly.

`Now try being funny.'

Recalling the last time he had cornered her like this, Sara thought that she had never felt less like being funny in her life. Yet she wasn't afraid of him — not unless fear came in different guises. What exactly her emotions did consist of at this moment she wasn't wholly certain. All she did know was that nothing had changed since she had last seen him, that he still looked on her as a bit of a kid he could bully around when he felt like it.

`I still don't have a wrap,' she pointed out coolly.

He took off his jacket and slung it about her shoulders, holding on to the lapels so that s
he was forced to face up to him.
So now we get down to brass tacks,' he said grimly. 'Just what is going on between you and Don?'

She met his gaze stonily. 'Why don't you ask him?'

`I'm asking you!'

`Would you believe me if I told you nothing at all?'

`Would I hell !'

`Then I won't.' Despite herself she could feel her control slipping. Steve was so unpredictable; there was no telling just what he might do if pressed too far. 'But whatever it is it's just between the two of us'

`Not when it involves Jill. Does it amuse you to show her how easily you can take Don from her?'

`No,' she denied heatedly. 'It doesn't amuse me at all. Can I help it that he happens to prefer me to your sister?'

`You can help encouraging him. On the face of it I'd say you'd been doing quite a bit of that.'

`On the face of it you'd probably say a whole lot of things without once hitting on the right version,' she came back with more spirit than organized thought. 'It wouldn't have occurred to you, I suppose, that I might have found myself in love with Don after all?'

There was a long pause before he answered that one, and when he did his voice had an odd note. `No, it wouldn't. It wouldn't have occurred to me that you'd even know what love was about. I think you might be going through the same phase you went through with me.'

She stared at him, going first cold and then hot. `You?'

`Yes.' His smile was mirthless. 'I was the first man you'd come into contact with apart from the station staff in over a year, and you were at an age when you were starting to need a little more than the reserve could offer. You enjoyed fighting with me, Sara. You

even enjoyed losing to a certain extent. I represented the one thing lacking in your relationship with your father and Ted — sexual excitement. And there's no need to look like that. It's a perfectly natural emotion. Only don't confuse it with love.'

`I don't.' She was fighting now to save her pride, or the remnants of it. 'You're saying that I'm only attracted to Don because he's an extension of what I saw — if that's the right word — in you. Well, you know best how I feel, or felt about you, of course, but it doesn't have to follow that I haven't progressed since then. If there's one advantage Don does have over you it's in his integrity. He's never once kissed me against my will!'

Steve's lip curled deliberately and cruelly. 'Neither have I. You knew exactly what would happen that time — in fact you angled for it. If I'd chosen to I could have done anything I wanted with you at that moment.' He caught the hand which lifted involuntarily from her side, clasping it painfully in his own. 'It's a simple fact of life, kitten. Nothing to get worked up about. I just want you to realize that I have my own code of ethics, no matter what else you may have been thinking.'

Trembling, she tore herself free. 'One thing I have realized is that you're the most insufferably arrogant man I've ever met anywhere,' she spat at him. Don is worth three of you!'

`Is he?' There was a dangerous gleam in the grey eyes, a sudden tautening of the strong jawline. 'If that's your opinion it would seem that I've nothing to lose.'

His mouth and hands were brutal, without ten—

derness yet commanding a response. Sara made no attempt to fight him. She wasn't capable. She had asked for this too. He knew it and she knew it. When he finally let her go she couldn't look at him.

`I hate you,' she whispered quickly.

It was a moment before he said roughly, 'If it's any consolation I'm not over-enthusiastic about myself at the moment. One of these days you'll really make me hurt you, Sara, and then we'll both be sorry. Just accept that you're not going to get the better of me and stop trying, will you? I've had about as much as I can take. If Don is what you want then you have him.' He picked up his jacket which had fallen to the floor. 'Let's get back indoors.'

The others were still in the bar, and didn't appear to think they had been gone any undue length of time, although Sara thought that Diane gave her a rather narrow glance. She got through the rest of the evening somehow, dancing with Don, and once with Barry, but avoiding even an exchange of glances with Steve. Not that it was difficult. He had made his point and that was all he cared about. That was all he would ever care about where she was concerned. She put up a good pretence of not caring overmuch herself, laughing and sparkling as though she hadn't a problem in the world. It was only later in the privacy of her room that she could at last relax the pose and numbly acknowledge the fact that Steve had been right about one thing. She hadn't known what love was about. That was something she was only just beginning to learn, and it hurt like nothing had ever hurt before.

The weekend passed uneventfully. Sara had been hoping for a letter from her father on the Monday, but there was not
hing in the main post, only a no
te from Ted brought in on the morning plane and delivered by hand from the Department offices.

Things had been pretty quiet since their departure, he said. Both Kiki and Mimi had missed her and fretted a little, but the monkey was as mischievous as ever, as no doubt Steve would have already informed her (Steve, thought Sara dryly, had had other things on his mind). Bruce Madden seemed fairly well recovered from the after-effects of his malaria, and welcomed the chance offered of spending the next week or so at Kambala before taking up a new post further north at Murchison Falls — a step up the ladder for him. For the rest, would she tell Steve that one of the patrols had turned up another gang of poachers over the weekend, and that there was a strong possibility of getting a lead on the organizers this time.

Steve received the news with the interest of one to whom the whole subject was of paramount importance, expressing the hope that with a bit of luck at least one illegal trading channel would shortly be shut off. Listening to him, Sara wondered how anyone as deeply involved as he was with the affairs of the Department could even contemplate giving it all up in favour of the kind of life led by the Masons. So far nothing else had been said regarding the acquisition of the neighbouring farm, but the place was still on the market. Not that Steve would be content to leave the running of the place to a manager. Whatever he took on would receive his undivided attention.

Don took her out for a drive that afternoon, heading west along surfaced roads between the farms and plantations of Kikuyu country. The whole district seemed to be out on foot; they passed an unending procession of women carrying huge bulky burdens with the ease and poise of long custom, old men leading some domestic 'animal on a string, children, cattle, goats. This was the road which led eventually to Kambala, a hundred and ninety miles away, the road Sara hadn't travelled since the time over three years ago when her father had driven her overland to the station in order to show her the changing aspects as civilization was left behind. Perhaps they could return this way again when he came home next week, she thought with a pang of nostalgia for times past and gone. It would be nice to try and recapture some of the excitement and enthusiasm of her sixteen-year-old self.

`Why did you go in for fanning, Don?' she asked at one point when they had paused to allow a meandering herd of goats go by.

`I didn't,' he replied. 'It was a proviso in my father's will that we continued to work the farm and live there for at least nine months of every year — or that one of us did.'

`Then it wouldn't have altered anything if Diane had gone to live somewhere else when you got married?'

`No.' He gave her a glance. 'Does it bother you that I've been married?'

Sara kept her expression unrevealing. 'Not at all. I just wonder 'sometimes wh
at she was like, that's all.' `D
ark,' he said. 'Small, dark and vivacious. She was

twenty to my twenty-four when we met, and we had just over a year together before she left me.'

`I suppose,' Sara said carefully, 'that she liked a fairly lively time at that age?'

`She was a very lively person, and popular. Trouble was that she was jealous to death of Diane, couldn't bear her to get the attention at our gatherings. The man she eventually ran off with was one Diane thought quite a bit of herself. I often wonder if she did it because she really loved him, or just to prove to herself that she could take him from Di.'

`Did she marry him?'

`I suppose so. I never bothered to find out. When the divorce was finalized she was living in Kampala.' Don put the car into gear and moved forward as the road ahead cleared, added steadily, 'And whatever Freudian notions are tumbling around under that urchin cut of yours I still deny encouraging Jill to fall for me. She may have a certain look of Caro, but I got over that a long time ago.'