Moonflower Madness (28 page)

As Zachary remained silent, she realised that he wasn't going to embarrass Charles by telling him he had walked in on their wedding night. He was going to wait until the morning before he broke the news of their marriage to him. She understood his reasons; he didn't want Charles insisting on returning to Peng in the dark, especially when he was so handicapped by his injured arm; neither did he want to cause her the embarrassment of having Charles know that they had been on the point of making love.

‘Have you eaten?' Charles was saying, looking towards the camp-fire, surprised at seeing no cooking pots.

‘No.'

Zachary's voice was so tersely abrupt that Gianetta found it unbelievable that Charles was not taking offence at it. She shivered, the night air striking chillily through her damp clothes and saturated under-garments.

‘You need to change into dry clothes,' Zachary said to her, as tersely as he had spoken to Charles.

Gianetta looked across at him, trying to catch his eye, hoping to exchange an intimate, complicit smile with him. His eyes studiously avoided hers. Unhappily resigning herself to the fact that Zachary wasn't going to betray their relationship by so much as the flicker of an eyelid, she turned away and walked over to the rim of the firelight where her carpet-bag lay.

‘I'd like to speak to Gianetta tonight,' she heard Charles say to Zachary.

She pulled her skirt and a blouse from her carpet-bag.

‘Leave it until the morning,' Zachary replied, his voice still tight-edged. ‘There'll be lots of talking then.'

Bleakly she set off once again for the discreet cover of the trees, vividly aware of how joyously she had run towards them only a short half hour ago.

As she stripped off her wet clothing and clambered gratefully into her serviceably thick skirt and modestly highnecked blouse, she began to chide herself for what she was now beginning to see as her excessive reaction to Charles'arrival. Zachary could have behaved in no other way, not if he was to ensure that Charles did not feel agonizingly uncomfortable. It was good manners which were dictating his behaviour, and her own manners, when Charles had greeted her so warmly, had left a lot to be desired.

She fastened her blouse buttons, ashamed of the childish resentment she had felt towards him. She and Zachary were going to spend the rest of their lives together. One lost night was of no importance. Far more important was loving behaviour towards a friend.

Much comforted, she walked back towards the fire. Cooking pots had been unpacked and two pans of water were beginning to boil, one for rice and one for the hot drink she was now very much looking forward to.

‘Serena sends you all her love,' Charles said, sitting cross-legged, Indian-fashion, by the fire. ‘It's been arranged that she and Henry Plaxtol are to marry in Shanghai before travelling on to England. That way, Sir Arthur and her mother will be able to be present at the wedding without too much inconvenience.'

‘When is it to be?' Gianetta asked, wishing that, without separating from Zachary, she could be at the wedding and be Serena's matron-of-honour.

‘Pretty soon. When I left Chung King, Serena and her mother were ready to leave and were only waiting for Sir Arthur to return from a visit to some Viceroy or other, before doing so.'

Gianetta found it interesting that no-one had told Charles of the real reason for her uncle's absence from Chung King. Her aunt, of course, would not have told him, but she was certain that Serena would have done so had she known. The corner of her mouth crooked into an amused smile. Presumably her uncle had kept his intentions to himself so as not to look foolish if unsuccessful.

Her smile faded as another thought struck her. ‘I hope Serena didn't suffer on my account when it was discovered I had gone,' she added anxiously. ‘My uncle and aunt didn't think she had aided and abetted me, did they?'

Charles looked a little nonplussed. ‘I don't think they did. To tell the truth, Gianetta, I spent very little time with your family. I simply got my arm patched up, and though I talked to Serena, we didn't discuss what your uncle's and aunt's reactions had been to your leaving. She simply told me your reasons for doing so and I immediately left by boat for Peng.'

She hugged her skirted knees, staring into the fire, not seeing the loving, meaningful look he gave her. If her uncle and aunt had permitted Serena to meet with Charles and to talk to him alone, then they quite obviously did not believe she had known of the escapade in advance and had failed to tell them of it.

Her bare feet were as near to the heat of the fire as she could bear them to be and she wriggled her toes in delicious comfort, relieved that Serena had not been accused of colluding with her.

Zachary had melted a chocolate bar into the pan of boiling water, and he now poured the contents into three tin mugs.

As he wordlessly handed her one she didn't again try and meet his eyes. She knew, now, the way he wanted her to behave, at least for that evening, and she had no intention of letting him down.

‘The news in Chung King is that the Americans are about to intervene in Manchuria and pull the Russians'chestnuts out of the fire for them,' Charles said, equally constrained.

Zachary's refusal to allow him to speak privately to Gianetta that evening was a damned nuisance. For an impatient moment he was tempted to do so irrespective of Zachary's wishes. He glanced across at his friend, and as he saw the tension in his powerful arm and shoulder muscles, he quickly changed his mind. For some strange reason, Zac's temper was being held on a very short leash, and he had no intention of provoking it unnecessarily.

‘Good,' Zachary said, staring into the leaping flames. ‘The sooner the Japanese and Russians finish fighting on Chinese soil, the better.'

No-one made any further comment. Gianetta's thoughts were a million miles away from Manchuria. Charles was not overly interested in the subject and had only mentioned it because, until he had spoken to Gianetta, there was nothing he really wished to talk about.

It was Zachary who brought the uncomfortable silence to an end.

‘I think we should be turning in,' he said, rising to his feet.

As he walked across to the bedding rolls, disengaging hers from his, Gianetta felt a pang of almost unbearable sadness. Why, oh why, had Charles decided to rejoin them? The last few hours had been so perfect and now, instead of sleeping in each other's arms, she and Zachary would be sleeping a very proper and very prim distance apart.

‘Goodnight, Gianetta,' Charles said, rising to his feet as she rose to hers. ‘I'd like to talk to you in the morning. Perhaps we could take a walk by the river before breakfast?'

His voice was oddly thick. Gianetta wondered if he had laced his hot chocolate with a dash of brandy, or if his arm was perhaps paining him.

‘Yes,' she said with tired politeness. ‘That would be nice, Charles.'

Zachary had already removed his bedding-roll to the far side of the fire, and she knew that he was not going to wish her a loving goodnight.

Seeking comfort from the thought that not doing so was costing him just as much pain as she herself was feeling, she wrapped her skirt around her legs and, not bothering to undress in any way, slid into her bedding-roll.

Neither Zachary or Charles spoke again, save to wish each other goodnight. The fire crackled, sending an occasional flurry of sparks skywards. Gianetta lay looking up at the stars, wondering if perhaps Charles would decide against accompanying them when he learned of their marriage; wondering if, by tomorrow evening, she and Zachary would again be alone together.

When she woke the sun had already risen and the sky was the colour of pale apricots. She lay for a moment, listening to the familiar sounds of the Kialing surging, southwards, of the early morning fire crackling and spitting. A deep smile of happiness curved her lips. This was the first day of her life as Mrs Zachary Cartwright. She pushed herself up on one arm, looking towards Zachary's sleeping-bag, hoping that they could perhaps exchange a few whispered words together before Charles awoke.

His sleeping-bag was empty and there was no sign of him. It was Charles who looked across at her.

‘Good-morning, sleepy-head,' he said with a grin. ‘I thought you were never going to wake up. Would you like some coffee?'

She nodded, trying not to be too disappointed that it was he, and not Zachary, who was greeting her.

‘Zachary's doing some early morning woodland plant-hunting,' Charles said as he poured coffee into her mug. ‘He didn't say so, but I get the feeling he hasn't been bagging quite as many specimens as he would like. He was extraordinarily uncommunicative about his catch last night and said barely two words to me this morning.'

Gianetta's disappointment deepened. She had been hoping Zachary had spoken to Charles about their marriage. That he hadn't yet done so was going to make her own conversation with Charles exceedingly difficult.

‘I don't think he's disappointed at the way things are going,' she said, accepting the mug from him. ‘We saw some wonderful irises the other day. Zachary said they were completely new to him. They were very small with grey-green leaves and with crowns of soft blue and sulphur yellow and falls of the most splendid deep purple.'

‘That's interesting,' Charles said, sitting down near the fire again, his arms hugging his knees. ‘I would have thought it a bit late in the year for them. I saw some marvellous peonies from the deck of the boat and there were cascades of blush-tinted
Stellera
almost everywhere I looked.'

He paused a little awkwardly and then said, ‘When you've finished your coffee, could we go for our walk? I don't know when Zachary plans on returning, but there is something I would like to say to you before he does.'

Without being unmannerly, Gianetta didn't see how she could possibly refuse. No doubt he was wanting to know whether she thought Zachary was pleased at his rejoining them or whether his uncommunicativeness was because, bearing in mind Charles'injury and the way it would impede their progress, he wasn't pleased.

‘Yes,' she said, sipping at her coffee. ‘Just give me a minute or two to brush my hair and find my boots.'

As she walked barefoot to the narrow arc of shingle, she wished fervently that Zachary would return. The longer she and Charles were together, with Charles ignorant of her marriage, the more deceitful she was beginning to feel.

Her boots were easily found and she brushed the shingle from them and pulled them on. Presumably Zachary had refrained from telling Charles earlier because she was still asleep and he wanted her to be with him when he broke the news. Wishing that he hadn't been so thoughtful, wishing that, knowing of their marriage, Charles had made the decision to return to Chung King, she walked back towards him.

‘Can you feel the difference in the air now that we are further north?' he said to her. ‘It's wonderful. I can almost smell the cleanness of snow in it.'

His good humour was infectious and she said with a grin, ‘I shall have to acquire some far warmer clothes if I'm going to be faced with snow.'

‘And not only snow,' he said, as they began to walk away from the camp-fire. ‘I've read that the autumn winds in Kansu can be horrendous. They blow in straight from Tibet with only the Min-Shan range offering protection from them.'

‘If you are trying to put me off, you are failing,' she said in amusement. ‘We shall be in Kansu and have left it behind long before autumn approaches.'

A slight flush of colour touched his handsome, good-natured face and she realised with a stab of shock that she had guessed his motives exactly. He
was
trying to dissuade her from travelling further north.

They had reached the banks of the Kialing and he stopped walking, saying awkwardly, ‘I had a long talk with Serena while I was at the Residency, having my arm patched up.'

‘Yes?' She felt a slight frisson of apprehension. He had told her the previous night that he had talked with Serena but he had given no indication then that it might be best if she gave up her dream of travelling to Kansu. ‘What's the matter, Charles? Have you something to tell me that couldn't be said in front of Zachary?'

He turned towards her, his wide-set eyes and curly hair reminding her of a picture she had seen of a Medici princeling. Like Zachary, he was a man more given to action than small talk, and he was obviously finding what he was about to say very difficult.

‘She told me your true reason for riding after Zachary and myself.'

As she stared at him, bewildered, he took hold of her hands, drawing her towards him.

‘There's no need to feel embarrassed or shy, Gianetta,' he said tenderly. ‘You were quite right in assuming that I had fallen in love with you. The only problem was, you realised it long before I did. When we parted and when I travelled on to Chung King alone, I knew almost instantly that I had made the biggest mistake of my life …'

Her bewilderment deepened into horror. ‘Charles … Please … You hadn't made a mistake,' she said, desperately trying to interrupt him. ‘I …'

‘I should have known I was ruining all my chances with you when I mentioned that I was engaged, but …'

‘Your engagement had nothing to do with what was said between us before we parted,' she said urgently. ‘Please believe me, Charles, I …'

He was smiling down at her lovingly, her hands still clasped in his. ‘I'm not engaged any longer, Gianetta, and I don't want you feeling any guilt over my breaking off my engagement. Not to have done so would have been grossly dishonourable. It's you I love, Gianetta. It's you I want to marry.'

As he looked down at her, sincerity darkening his eyes, her horror was total.

‘Will you marry me, Gianetta?' he asked, confident of her reply. ‘Will you marry me in Chung King?'