Today's Embrace (7 page)

“But Cousin Jakob's mission station is on the Zambezi, close to the gold mine.”

He walked over to her, bringing her into his arms. “I don't care for any of this, Evy. I'm convinced Heyden is there—and I must find him.”

She held to him as protectively as he did her. “All the more reason to stay away from the Black Diamond. If I didn't know better, I'd believe it cursed.”

“Maybe it is,” he said dryly. “But not in the way you mean it. I've thought for some time the diamond may have been stolen from a tribal god, maybe even the Umlimo. It was likely the reason Dumaka went to
Capetown to work for Julien. He hated him. He was looking for an opportunity to kill him, but he had to get the diamond first. That opportunity came unexpectedly when Katie and Henry took it to ride out to Rorke's Drift to find you. Dumaka did get the diamond back, but he had to be content with that and forget about revenge on Julien.

“Heyden must be dealt with. I'm not going to forget that he pushed you down the attic stairs and left you for dead. There's Uncle Henry, too. And Vicar Havering. Heyden must be brought to justice for what he's done.”

Her fingers tightened on his arms. “I wish you wouldn't. Rogan, let's forget the Black Diamond. Let's forget Heyden. We have our own reasons for going to Rhodesia: Cousin Jakob, and the gold mine.”

His dark eyes hardened. “He's in South Africa. That's exactly what I want. Better there than in quiet Grimston Way. I intend to hunt him down.” His eyes narrowed. “Things are different in the wilds of Africa. When I catch him there, I'll have it out with him once for all—and I won't be needing to worry about the local constable!”

She knew him too well to look surprised. He had always been independent. He had returned from Africa even more so, and sometimes hard in his thinking and manner, not that he'd ever been so with her. But his iron determination to
force
Heyden to pay frightened her. As she looked at him, noticing the hard line of his jaw, her concerns grew.

“I'm going with you, Rogan,” she insisted. “I won't stay here.” She threw her arms around his neck. “Darling, you've got to let me come. Don't you see? I simply must meet Dr. Jakob. You'll take me, won't you, Rogan, my love? Say you'll arrange matters so it works. Please, do.”

Her sudden emotion appeared to melt some of his resistance.

“The main thing, sweetheart, is that you regain your strength.” He scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom.

“I'm much stronger now. The doctor says so. And I don't need a crutch. I'll be all right, Rogan, you'll see. If I can't go with you, I shall be the most unhappy and disappointed woman in all Grimston Way!”

He smiled ruefully. “Well, we can't have that. All right, sweet, you win.”

Stunned at the sudden turn of events, she simply gazed into his energetic dark eyes. As she searched their depths, his brow lifted quizzically. “What do you see?”

He was still enigmatic sometimes, even a stranger. What had caused him to cooperate?

“You really mean it? You won't change your mind?”

“No, I won't change my mind. I thought I could talk you out of it, but I see how much it means to you. If I stood in your way now,” he said gravely, “I think it would do more harm to our relationship than any trial that may await us there. And be assured, Evy, trouble does await.”

She shivered. His embrace tightened. “At times I still don't think I know you,” she admitted.

His smile tried to tease her into withdrawing her sober remark. “Because I've decided not to contest you on this?”

“Yes, but I'm so happy you've agreed at last. The safari won't be too much for me. You'll see. I'm as anxious for Rhodesia as you are.”

“And you're willing to stay with Dr. Jakob while I trek north to the gold mine to check on things?”

“Yes, as long as you're not gone for five or six months.”

“Just try to keep me from you for that long. Two months, no longer, maybe less.”

“That seems reasonable.”

He smiled. “Then I'll see you safely delivered on his doorstep one way or another. On one condition.”

“Rogan!”

“One condition,” he repeated soberly. “That Dr. Jackson agrees you're up to the voyage, and the trek.”

She hesitated, then smiled. “We have a bargain.” She threw her arms around him. She lifted her face, her lips upturned for a kiss.

She wasn't disappointed.

Further surprises of newly married life visited Evy with the first promise of the chilling autumn. Excitement tugged at her heart, and uncertainty her stomach.

Wearing her new walking habit, she came quietly down the stairs on her way to the village. She paused. Rogan's voice came from the library on her right.

“Milner no doubt already knows,” Sir Lyle said in a disinterested tone.

Milner, she wrinkled her nose, who was he? Oh yes, the high commissioner at the Cape colony. What did the commissioner already know? Rogan sounded angry about whatever it was.

Evy came down the stairs and walked across the Great Hall to the library door. Sir Lyle was sitting behind his huge mahogany desk piled with books and a sheaf of paper, working on his laborious history of Rookswood. His hair was a light brown speckled with gray. He was tall and lean, and in Evy's opinion was nothing like his son in either appearance or personality.

Rogan turned from the window with white curtains and burgundy drapes and looked at his father. Rogan's rich brown eyes were as electric as a thunderstorm.

Sir Lyle frowned. “Not that Milner would admit knowing. Rhodes, as well. In public they'll pretend innocence and shock. But it's hard to
believe Jameson would plan on doing such a thing without Rhodes's knowledge.”

Rogan moved abruptly to his father's desk. “Milner wants to provoke a war with Kruger. I'd wager on it.”

“Now, now, son, I wouldn't go as far as that.”

“What more do you need? He's in with the diamond bugs. Money rules both kings and paupers.”

“I didn't know I raised a cynic.”

“Oh, come. The gold and diamond moguls are quietly putting the pressure on both Milner and the secretary of the colonies to deal with the Boer problem once for all. Milner is sure England will win this war. The Boers are fierce fighters and stubborn. They won't be beaten easily. But in the end, Father, as in the Civil War in America, the Confederacy could never have won regardless of how well they fought. They lacked factories and the ability to make weapons and feed their armies. Once their farmlands were burned or decimated, they would be left to starvation. The Union took the war to the backyard of the Confederates. That made the difference between victory and defeat. Do you think our government doesn't know that? The Boers will be fighting on their own farmland.”

“You're right, there. I suspect Chamberlain would agree with you.”

“The gold and diamond boys have always wanted the Transvaal. Provoking Kruger is a ploy. They want him to react by issuing an ultimatum!”

Sir Lyle waved an airy hand. “No use getting upset, son. You can't change politics.” And he went back to his writing. “Did you know,” he commented a moment later, “that your great-great-uncle rode with the Norman Bohemond against the Seljuk Turks in the First Crusade? Most interesting.”

Rogan looked down at him. Then in an act of frustration he turned. “I'm going to Pall Mall,” he stated and strode from the library.

Evy stepped quickly past the door before Rogan came out into the hall, apparently not noticing her.

Now, what was all that about? But she was late for the village and
wanted to avoid any delay. She watched him dash up the stairway and out of sight, then she hurried out the front door.

Rogan threw open the door to the sitting room. “Evy?”

He heard horse hoofs through the window and crossed the room to look outside. Evy was astride the golden mare he'd bought her from a horse-breeding farm in Dublin. The white mane of the horse flew majestically as Evy rode at a gallop down the lane toward Rookswood gate.
Where is she going?
He dropped the curtain and went into the bedroom to collect the information he intended to bring to Pall Mall to show the foreign secretary. He frowned as he read again the wire from Peter Bartley, his brother-in-law.

Wait till his father's old crony in Parliament hears this!

Peter believed that Sir Julien and Cecil Rhodes's right-hand man, Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, were planning to lead armed soldiers, up to six hundred hardened fighting men, to aid the Uitlanders in Pretoria, the capital of the Boer Transvaal, where President Kruger himself had his house and where the
Volksraad
, the Boer Transvaal Parliament, was located.

The Uitlanders were feared by the Boers, who naturally saw their growing influx over the recent years as a threat to their majority rule. The Uitlanders were not allowed to vote for members of the Volksraad until they had lived in the Transvaal for a number of years. That law, however, seemed fair enough to Rogan. Though he did not have strong feelings about the Boers, he did not want a pitched battle with them. Fighting at this time would also interfere with his plan for another expedition based on Henry's map as well as his search for Heyden. The vessel he had booked passage on was set to depart for the Cape in two weeks. He intended to allow nothing to hinder his boarding of that ship.

He drew his brows together as Evy came to mind. The decisions he made since marriage must now take into account what was best for her.
In some ways, even before the marriage, he had taken her into consideration, but he now felt a frustrating pull in two directions.

He deliberately turned his thoughts back to a troubling message that Arcilla had sent by wire that morning. The Uitlanders were suddenly stirring up trouble in Pretoria, accusing the Boers of mistreatment of British subjects and calling for London to intervene, with military might, if necessary, to protect them and their rights. Arcilla had written that Peter hinted the plot was “cooked up” by the gold and diamond moguls in order for Jameson and others in the BSA to secretly ride into Pretoria. Jameson had been assured by the leaders of the Uitlanders that they would rise up in rebellion, and together they would overthrow the Boers just as they had overthrown Lobengula and taken Bulawayo.

It was insane. Did Rhodes know about it? And what about Milner and Secretary Chamberlain?

Rogan thought of his father. Sir Lyle had many important friends in Parliament. He even knew Milner and Chamberlain, and when in London, he visited Chamberlain at his country house. Even so, after reading Arcilla's letter, Sir Lyle had merely waved a hand.

“You take our dear little Arcilla's word for anything of this magnitude?”

“Yes, and for the reason you just mentioned.”

His father had looked at him with puzzled gray eyes.

“Arcilla would never come up with anything this shrewd on her own. This smells of Julien and Doc Jameson to me.”

His father considered, then nodded. “Maybe so. Still, son, there is nothing I can do.”

“Father, you can go straight to the Parliament.”

“And bring down the wrath of the government on my head? I've my work here to do.” And he patted his desk. “Here, I shall stay.”

“Then I'll go.”

“The one thing that worries me is Arcilla. If Julien discovers she sent that wire to you—”

Rogan frowned to himself, remembering his father's warning. He
placed his sister's letter inside his jacket pocket and snatched his hat from the peg. His mind was made up. Arcilla was already at odds with Julien over Peter's career. There had also been that scandal in Capetown over Arcilla's foolish behavior. Julien had browbeaten her over that fiasco.

Maybe he should contact Peter about this first.

But could he rely on Peter to tell him the truth about a plot to invade the Transvaal? He could trust his brother-in-law about Arcilla, but little else. Peter, as yet, was astride two horses, struggling to keep them in rein.