The Winter Rose (111 page)

I'm leaving Africa. I don't know where I'll go. Somewhere where I can work out how to live a leftover life.

I love you, Seamie, and I hate you. I'm torn apart. Please don't try
to find me. Forget me. Forget what happened between us on Mawenzi. Find
someone else and be happy.

I'm sorry.

Willa

Seamie put the letter down. He wanted to run after her. To take the
train to Mombasa and find her. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe she was
still there. Maybe he could find her. Talk to her.

But then lines from her letter came back to him--I can't see you
again. It hurts too much ...I love you ... and I hate you... and he knew
that she could never look at him again without anger, without sorrow.
He would be a living, breathing reminder, every minute of every day, of
what she'd had and what she'd lost. He didn't want to be that. Not to
her.

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Finnegan, are you all right?" It was the doctor again.

"Fine," he said quietly. "Thank you." He handed him his parcel. "Maybe one of your patients can use these."

Then he walked out of the hospital into the sunny streets of Nairobi,
his heart shattered. All around him, horses and carts trundled to and
fro. Men shouted. Children played. Women hurried in and out of shops.

Seamie didn't see them, didn't hear them. He saw only Willa. He saw
her as she had looked, exhausted and triumphant, on top of Mawenzi. He
felt her lips on his. Heard her tell him that she loved him.

"I'm sorry, too, Wills," he said silently to her. "Sorrier than
you'll ever know. But what could I have done? Tell me, what? Was I
supposed to stand there and watch you die? I love you, for God's sake. I
love you."

It was night on the African plains, the darkness hung heavily, and
yet Freddie Lytton felt that his future had never looked brighter. It
was as bright as the stars twinkling in the sky. As bright as the bold
orange flames of his campfire.

He lifted a flask to his lips, closed his eyes, and drank. He was
dizzy with exhaustion, a little bit drunk on whisky. He'd ridden too far
for one day. Stayed out in the sun too long. His skin was red, even
blistering in some places. He'd let himself burn on purpose. He thought
it would help his story. Make him look so crazed with fear for his
family that he'd completely forgotten about his own welfare.

He pressed a finger to the livid skin on his forearm and winced.
Well, it would all be worth it soon enough. Already he was free. Free of
India. Free of her bastard. Soon he would be rich as well. Wealthy
beyond his wildest dreams. Everything India's father and mother had left
to her--the houses, the money, even Charlotte's money--would come
directly to him now. It had taken him years to achieve this, but he'd
finally succeeded.

When he returned to London--after the inquest, the funerals, the
whole bloody charade was behind him--he would be free to remarry. To
choose any woman he liked. He would wait, of course, until the
prescribed period of mourning had elapsed. And then he would marry a
beauty, a sparkling social butterfly with an unimpeachable pedigree.
Someone who would look lovely on his arm as they came and went from
dinners and parties. And he would father sons with her. Heirs. His
heirs. Nothing would stop him now. Nothing. His new wealth, a new wife,
and the laurels he would soon earn from his masterful handling of the
African question, would take him where he'd always longed to be--Downing
Street.

"At last," he said aloud, his voice ragged from both his exertions and the whisky. "At last."

As if in response to his voice, another voice called from out of the
night. It wasn't speaking, though, this voice. It was keening.

Freddie's head snapped up. He sat still and rigid, certain, for just a
second, that it was India or Charlotte he was hearing. Still screaming.
Still sobbing. Just as they'd done when he'd rode away from them.
Leaving them in the pit. Leaving them to die.

But he knew that was absurd. It was just a trick played upon him by a
weary mind. He was miles away from the game pit now and what he'd heard
was only the high, shrill cry of a hyena. He'd heard the animals
before, on safari with Delamere and Hayes Sadler. He'd been told they
were afraid of man, afraid of his fire. They would skulk and skitter
around a campsite, never fully showing themselves, loping off--ugly and
misshapen--at a loud noise, a quick movement.

"Unearthly sort of racket, isn't it?" Delamere had said. "They sound like the dead to me. Come back to haunt us. I hate them."

Freddie did, too.

As he looked into the darkness, a pair of shining green eyes stared
back at him. They were joined by another pair, and then two more. He
heard the horses whinny and kick at the ground. They were tied nearby.
He clapped his hands at the hyenas. Two of the animals shot off. Two
remained.

"Go!" he shouted at them.

But they didn't budge. One blinked its green eyes. The other let loose an awful, yipping laugh.

"Filthy little sods," he muttered.

For a split second he imagined that the eyes looking at him were India's eyes. Charlotte's eyes.

"Go to hell! All of you!" he shouted at the darkness. He heard scrabbling, yipping, and then the night was quiet again.

He passed a shaky hand over his face. "Get a grip, old man," he said. "You've been out in the bush too long."

He tried to steer his mind away from the day's events. He tried to
imagine himself back home in London. At the Reform Club. Westminster.
Ascot. But all he could see was India. Not as she looked when he'd left
her to die, but as a child. At Blackwood. When she'd seen the bruises on
his body and cried for them. She was still the only one who had ever
done that--cried for him. She'd been kind to him once. She'd loved him
once. And he had killed her. And her child.

He'd murdered a child. An innocent child.

Hugh Mullins had gotten in his way. Wish, too. Gemma Dean had
thwarted him. And India, the bitch, had been ready to go to the police
with his music box. She deserved what she'd gotten. They all did. But
Charlotte didn't.

An image of the girl came to him now. She was at the bottom of the
game pit. Dead. Vultures were in there with her, picking her bones
clean. Her gray eyes--India's eyes--were black and unseeing.

"Stop it! Stop it!" he shouted, jumping to his feet.

Yips, snorts, and guttural laughs came back at him. He didn't hear
them. He was too busy telling himself that what was done, was done. They
were dead by now. It was over. He would never do it again. He would
never have to. He took another sip of whisky, lifting the flask with
shaking hands.

As he lowered it again, the face of his ancestor came to him. Richard
Lytton. Woulds't be king? the Red Earl asked him. Rip out thine own
heart.

"I thought I had," he whispered. "Long ago. Years ago. I thought it was gone. All gone. Nothing left."

He heard laughter again. The earl's? The hyena's? His own? He didn't
know. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. This lunacy, this
attack of nerves, had to stop. He told himself that he was tired, that
was all. And he realized that he was hungry. He hadn't eaten for hours.
He decided that he would have a meal. Get some sleep. These were only
night terrors. Things would look fine again in the morning.

Earlier in the evening he'd gathered branches that had fallen from
some nearby flame trees. He fed a few to the fire now, building it up.
Its light heartened him. He sat down again, dug in his saddlebag--it was
near him on the ground--and fished out a hunk of hard cheese, a square
of gingerbread, and a handful of dried figs. As he was cutting off a
bite of cheese with a clasp knife, the blade slipped and sliced into his
finger.

"Blast!" he said, sucking on the wound.

The pain sobered him slightly. He would have to dress the wound. He
knew better than to ignore it. Leave a sliced finger unattended in a
place like Africa, and the next thing you knew some damned bush doctor
was cutting off your arm.

He dug into his saddlebag again, with his good hand, until he found
what he was after, a small bottle of carbolic. He poured it over his
finger. As he did, the hyenas started up again, barking and laughing.

He suddenly remembered something else that Delamere had told him
about hyenas--that they could smell blood from a distance. A glance
assured him that his rifle was within easy reach. Just in case. He
finished with the carbolic, capped the bottle, and bound his finger with
a clean handkerchief.

The noise from the bush grew louder. More manic.

Uneasy now, Freddie put the carbolic back into his saddlebag. He was
just reaching for his rifle when something came hurtling out of the
darkness at him. It smashed into him, snarling and snapping, and knocked
him onto his back. Freddie could smell the low stink of the creature,
feel its wet, rotten breath on his face as he fended it off, hammering
at it with his fists, kicking at it.

He felt his boot connect with something hard--the animal's flank, he
thought. He heard shrieks and yowls and then it was gone. He rolled onto
his side, panting and shaking. He lunged for his rifle, but it was too
late. The pack was on him. He curled into a ball, trying to protect his
vitals, but it was no use. He felt teeth sink into his back, his
shoulder. He screamed and lashed out with his legs. He felt more teeth.
In his ankle. His thigh. Fangs flashed before his eyes and a pair of
jaws closed on his throat.

His blood splashed onto the golden grass; it pattered down onto the
dark red earth. Nature, in its way, was merciful. The slashing teeth did
their work quickly. But Freddie was still alive, still conscious, when a
large hyena, a female, unable to frighten her pack mates away from his
throat and his belly, howled with frustration and tore into his chest,
cracking through bone with her powerful jaws, shredding fiesh with her
long, lethal claws.

He could only writhe and scream silently, for his throat was gone
now, as the great beast raised her bloody head above the fray, then
plunged again. And again. Until she had feasted. Until she was sated.

Until she had ripped out his heart.

Sid kicked out the last remaining embers of his campfire over the
riverbank into the water. He'd already tucked his bedroll behind his
saddle and wolfed down a hasty breakfast. It was not quite light yet,
but he wanted to get going. He had to find India and Charlotte. Two full
days had elapsed since they'd left the Wiltons' house. Dawn was about
to break on the third.

He'd tracked them to this river last night, and then the trail had
gone cold. Perhaps it had rained here since they'd come through. Or
perhaps the winds had blown strongly. Whatever the reason, he could no
longer see the swath the three riders had cut through the grass, could
no longer find any tracks.

Yet he would not give up. They had followed a westerly direction so
far, barely veering. He would gamble that they'd held the route. As he
rode away from the river he took visual notes of the landscape,
remembering a large boulder, a cluster of trees, the way the river
curved, making a map in his head in case he came back this way.

He spent the entire morning searching fruitlessly, tacking across the
plains as a sailor might across becalmed seas, desperate to catch sight
of a hoofprint, broken brush, anything. Just before noon, he spotted
something. He crested a hill and saw movement in the grass. His stomach
clenched with fear. He knew what it was before he'd even raised his
field glasses-- vultures, at least twenty of them, their black feathers
rusty with red dust. They were pecking and squabbling. Feasting in the
sun.

He spurred his horse on and then he prayed. Like he hadn't since he
was a boy. He prayed for the strength to endure whatever it was he would
find.

He heard the flies first. Their buzzing grew louder the closer he got
to the kill. Then the smell hit him--blood and organs, baking fiesh.
The vultures squawked and brawled as he drew near, angered by his
presence. He spotted their prize--it was a black pony. He saw the bite
marks across its neck. Smaller than a lion's. Hyenas, he thought, and
fear turned his heart to dust.

"Charlotte!" he cried.

He jumped down from his horse and thrashed his way through the
bloodied grass, knowing what he would see next--her small, fragile body,
bloodied and broken. She wouldn't have stood a chance against them.

But it wasn't Charlotte's body he found. It was Freddie's. The
vultures hadn't quite finished with his face. One of his eyes stared
blindly at the sky.

Sid cupped his hands around his mouth. "India!" he shouted, spinning
around in a circle. "Charlotte!" He got no reply. He did it again and
again. Still nothing.

He got back on his horse and rode out from the kill in widening
circles, his eyes scanning the grass for bodies, blood, anything.

Where were they? Bodies didn't just disappear. Hyenas tore them to
pieces. They dragged them, shook them. There were always traces--
flattened grass, smears of blood, scraps of clothing. How could there be
nothing?

"Where are they, Lytton?" he yelled, an edge of hysteria in his
voice. "You bastard! You fucking bastard! Where the hell are they?"

He finally found a second horse, dead, about twenty yards away from
the pony, and then he saw a third--alive and standing in some tall
brush, on top of another hill, about a hundred yards away. It took him
the better part of an hour to cajole the frightened animal to him, but
he finally did, with soft words and oats, tying its reins to the saddle
of his own horse. He rode in circles again and again, but he found
nothing.

"Where are you?" he shouted, his desperation growing.

And then he saw it, grass broken and flattened by riders. He was back
on his horse in seconds, following the trail. He rode for hours and
hours, calling out as he rode, looking for more signs, but just before
noon the trail ended, and still he had nothing. No trace of them.