Moonflower Madness (14 page)

‘Goodnight,' she said, suddenly aware that she hadn't been so carelessly happy for years, not since her parents had been alive and she had lived on the shores of Lake Garda.

‘Goodnight,' he said gruffly, turning on his heel, his broad shoulders infinitely reassuring.

Next morning she woke to a flushed rose sky. There was no sign of Zachary Cartwright, Gianetta climbed out of her sleeping-bag stiffly, stretching with pleasure. To the far north were pale tawny mountains. Presumably this was a mountain-range they would have to cross before reaching Kansu. By the time they reached it, she would need far warmer clothes than the ones she had brought with her. She wondered if she would be able to buy a quilted Chinese coat in the next town they came to.

She brushed her hair and then walked across to the bush on which she had spread her linen trousers. They were still horrendously damp.

‘Problems?' Zachary Cartwright's now familiar voice said from behind her.

She turned quickly. ‘No,' she said swiftly, and then as she saw unconcealed disbelief in his eyes she added reluctantly, ‘Yes. I washed my trousers last night and they are still damp.'

He frowned. ‘Surely your skirt is perfectly adequate for travelling in?'

‘Not for riding in a
miao-tse
saddle, it isn't.'

His frown deepened. He looked just as forbidding as he had done the first evening they had met, and she wondered if she had imagined the suspicion of a smile that had touched his mouth the previous evening.

‘Then you'll have to wear a pair of mine,' he said, as if his solution was the most obvious in the world.

She stared at him. ‘I beg your pardon? I don't think I heard you correctly.'

‘You'll have to wear a pair of mine,' he said, not bothering to hide his irritation. ‘I'll ask Tien Tang to get a pair from my saddle-bag and bring them over to you.'

It was the first time she had heard any of the Chinese mentioned by name and she made a mental note of it before saying, with stiff politeness, ‘I don't think that would suit at all, Mr Cartwright.'

‘It's going to have to suit,' he said with disconcerting brusqueness. ‘Breakfast is ready and waiting, and I intend leaving in just over half an hour.'

Zachary was wearing his white linen shirt again. It was open to the waist. With his dove-grey breeches fitting snugly about his narrow hips, and his knee-high, black velvet-cuffed boots, he lacked only gold earrings to make him the perfect storybook pirate.

She opened her mouth to protest again and then decided against it. The last thing she needed to do at the moment was to start causing difficulties. Zachary Cartwright still hadn't actually agreed to allow her to accompany him and, if she began creating inconveniences at the outset, he never would.

With the conversation at an end he swung on his heel, walking back to the crackling camp-fire where breakfast was waiting. She saw him speak to one of the Chinese and minutes later she was being presented with a broad leather belt and a pair of surprisingly fresh-smelling corduroy breeches.

Once again she felt the linen trousers spread on the bush. They were far too damp to wear. Accepting defeat and knowing that she had no other choice, Gianetta walked briskly away down the river-bank until she came to the bend where she had bathed the previous night. There she carried out all her ablutions, slipping reluctantly out of her ankle-length skirt and easing herself into Zachary Cartwright's breeches.

It was the strangest feeling she had ever experienced. The Chinese trousers had been light, and had felt almost feminine. There was nothing feminine about the breeches she was now wearing. They felt rough against her skin, were far too long, and though Zachary Cartwright was pleasingly narrow-waisted, his waist was nowhere near as slender as hers. With an exclamation of irritation, she rolled the legs up until they were at an acceptable height and gathered the waist in with the belt. There wasn't an eye-hole far enough along the length of the belt and with increasing bad-temper she stalked back to camp, holding the belt in place, searching in her carpet-bag for a pair of nail-scissors.

‘What the devil do you think you are doing?' an outraged voice demanded as she struggled to pierce an eye-hole in the thick leather.

She didn't pause in her efforts. ‘It should be obvious, even to you, Mr Cartwright, that I can't wear your clothes without certain adjustments having to be made.'

With savage satisfaction she skewered the scissors through the leather.

He stifled a noise that was almost agonized.

‘There,' she said, smiling up at him with malicious pleasure as she buckled the belt securely around her waist. ‘That's better.'

Zachary Cartwright looked as if he thought it anything but better and she felt a surge of satisfaction. Odds were again even and she was damned if she would ever let them be anything else.

It was almost two hours before Zachary Cartwright could bring himself to even speak to her again. When he did so it was to say tersely, ‘The moment a situation arises in which you can be escorted back to Chung King, I shall make arrangements for you to return there.'

She didn't bother to reply. It was highly unlikely that any such arrangements could be made. They were heading further and further into the remotest depths of Asia, and the chances of their meeting up with other Europeans, let alone Europeans who were heading towards Chung King, were so unlikely as to be not worth troubling about.

A little later, as Ben walked steadily on beside Zachary Cartwright's disdainful-looking pony, she said, ‘Tell me about the Moonflower. How did it get such a romantic name? What is so special about it?'

The Kialing was entering another narrow gorge, though this time with room enough on the banks for them to continue alongside it. Disturbed by their presence, a hoopoe shot out of a tree, the sun glinting on its camellia-rose plumage and brilliant barred wings.

He said, ‘It gets its name because it flowers at night, under the light of a full moon. And it does so for only one night in the year. Before the sun rises, the fragile petals wither and it is another year, and another moonlight night, before it flowers again.'

Gianetta gave a reverent sigh of pleasure, ‘And how do you know this? Who first discovered the Moonflower?'

‘No-one has discovered it as yet in China. A species has been discovered in the Amazon basin. From reports received at Kew, the Amazon Moonflower is a member of the Cactus family and it flowers in a pale, delicate spray of milk-white petals.'

‘I thought it was blue?' she said bewilderedly.

‘The one I hope to find in Kansu
is
blue. There is a painting of it in an eighteeth century book of Chinese flowers. Its flowering habits are given as being exactly the same as those of the Moonflower found in Brazil. Despite the difference in climatic zones, I'm certain a Chinese version exists. Chinese flower painters don't paint from imagination now and they didn't do so in the eighteenth century. The plant is described as being native to the Min Shan region of Kansu, and that is where I hope to find it.'

‘There must be lots of other beautiful plants that the western world is ignorant of,' Gianetta said dreamily as Ben stepped fetlock-deep through a sea of scarlet-headed poppies. ‘Plants in the still unexplored regions of the Amazon and in the wilds of Upper Burmah and the desolation of Tibet …'

‘I intend to mount an expedition to Tibet at the beginning of next year,' he said in a moment of such rare candour that Gianetta nearly fell from Ben's back in surprise. ‘The Royal Horticultural Society believes that many Tibetan plants could be successfully grown in England.'

The near impossible had happened again. Despite his bad temper and brooding rudeness, they were on the verge of easy-going camaraderie, just as they had fleetingly been the previous evening.

Zachary reined and looked around. The gorge had widened and was fast diminishing and the meadows now spreading out at their feet were thick with flowers.

‘I think a little field-work is called for,' he said, swinging himself easily from the saddle. ‘You know the correct way to take cuttings, don't you?'

Grateful for the crash course that Charles had given her, Gianetta nodded.

Zachary handed her a trowel, a pocket-knife and a small collecting-box japanned green on black, with a snap lid like that of a snuff-box.

‘In case you find anything of interest, I have to be able to locate it again. Never be mean with your location notes; they can be invaluable,' he said, also handing her a notebook and pencil.

Once out of the saddle she stuffed the notebook, pencil and pocket-knife into the pockets of her breeches, appreciating their usefulness for the first time. Then, as he was now giving instructions to the Chinese and as she was sure he would not want her dogging his footsteps, she set off alone through the deep grass, stopping every few yards to secure flowers that to her inexperienced eye looked rare and priceless.

The heat of the sun was pleasant on her back. Butterflies with azure wings darted amongst purple delphiniums and lilac and cream aquilegia; wax-white orchids grew as thick as daisies in an English field. Occasionally she paused in her task, gazing northwards to the misty tops of the mountains, wondering how she had survived the claustrophobic, circumscribed years in Lincolnshire and the frustrating months cooped up behind the Residency's walls.

When her collecting-box was full to overflowing, and she couldn't possibly carry any more specimens, Gianetta walked leisurely back to where the ponies and mules were loosely tethered. The baggage-mules had been unpacked and the collapsible chairs and table erected. She hoped it was Zachary Cartwright's intention to make camp there. A short day's travelling would be welcome after the last three, long, arduous days.

When at last he joined her, the Chinese at his heels, Zachary said with deep satisfaction, ‘There's quite a remarkable range of specimens in this area. It's going to be a long evening writing them up and pressing them.'

Perspiration beaded his forehead, and there was a streak of dirt on his cheek. She grinned, wondering if she looked equally disreputable.

‘I've got a huge collection myself but I've no idea what they are.'

‘Let's have a look,' he said, squatting on his heels by the side of her canvas-chair, wiping perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand.

She opened her collecting-box, handing him first one carefully culled specimen and then another.

‘A Chinese daisy,' he said disparagingly, ‘and barbery. Both of them practically weeds. And Oxytropis and
Viola Patrinii
. Nothing there to set the world on fire, pretty though they are.'

‘Haven't I found anything of worth?' she asked, deeply disappointed. ‘Aren't any of the other plants I've found rare?'

He looked over her motley collection. ‘I'm afraid not,' he said, and he flashed her exactly the same kind of grin he had flashed at Charles shortly before he had said goodbye to him.

The world seemed to rock on its axis. Her breath hurt in her chest and her heart began to slam in sharp, slamming strokes that she could feel even in her finger-tips.

Unaware of how deeply he had disconcerted her he rose to his feet, walking across to where the Chinese were busy setting up one of the flower presses.

Gianetta remained immobile. What had happened to her? Surely not even Zachary Cartwright was so moody and uncongenial that a grin from him was enough to shock in so disturbing a manner? And yet obviously it was. She wondered if his affability would last and determined that if it did so, her reaction to such pleasantness would be far less dramatic.

When a fire had been lit and a meal was under way, she said to him tentatively, ‘Would you like me to sketch today's plants for you?'

He nodded. ‘You can begin now. I'm going to walk back to the mouth of the gorge before it gets too dark to see clearly. I don't think I missed anything when we rode though it, but you can never be sure.'

It was bliss sitting in the late afternoon sunlight, sketching not

only for enjoyment but for a purpose, Ben companionably close

by, the shining waters of the Kialing at her feet. She hummed a Schubert melody as she painstakingly drew stem and petal and leaf and calyx.

It was early evening when Zachary returned, his collecting-box full, and it wasn't until after they had eaten that he looked at the sketches in his field-book.

He studied each one for a long time. Her touch was strong, yet delicate. Each line was clean and definite and almost frighteningly effective; she had managed to suggest not only shape, but bulk and texture, by pure drawing with the minimum of fuss.

‘They're good,' he said briefly, ‘But then you know that, don't you?'

She nodded, and at her lack of false modesty his mouth tugged into an amused smile.

Once again she felt a dizzying sensation deep within her chest. Once again her heart began to slam in short, sharp strokes.

This time she was left in no doubt as to the nature of her response to him. Horror flooded through her and then hard on its heels came incredulity.

She had fallen in love with Zachary Cartwright. She had fallen in love with a man who had accused her of trying to compromise him into marrying her; a man who had made no secret of the fact that he entertained not the slightest
tendresse
for her; a man with whom it had been her intention to travel hundreds of miles, unchaperoned.

The enormity of her realization appalled her. She couldn't understand how it had happened, or when it had happened. Nor, now that it
had
happened, what she was to do about it.

It was clearly futile to hope for reciprocation. On the first evening they had met, Zachary had shown quite clearly that it was Serena who attracted him, not herself. Charles had confirmed that it was so, and a man attracted by Serena's delicate blonde beauty and calm nature was highly unlikely to ever be drawn to someone of her own adventurous temperament and dark, Latin looks.