The Smouldering Flame

‘I did. But it doesn’t matter about that right now.’ Joanna came towards him, touching the hand that held his robe in place. ‘You’re shivering, Shannon. You shouldn’t be out of bed.’

Shannon flinched away from her touch, and she felt a shaft of pain go through her. ‘I’m all right,’ he muttered abruptly. ‘But you shouldn’t be here. Why have you come? Does—does your father know you’re travelling alone?’

‘Yes. Oh, yes.’ Joanna spread her hands. ‘Shannon, please—go back to bed. We can’t talk like this.’

She glanced meaningly towards Jacob, and Shannon looked at the African. ‘What’s going on, Jacob?’ he demanded sharply. ‘Why were you arguing with—Miss Carne when I came on the scene?’

Jacob looked uneasy. ‘Miss Carne, she want to stay here. Miss Camilla say she stay at hospital,’ he related defensively.

Shannon’s jaw muscles tightened. ‘I see.’ He looked again at Joanna. ‘That’s quite a point.’

Joanna felt near to tears. ‘Oh, don’t you start, please,’ she begged. ‘Mr Steiner—Brad—he’s offered me the use of a camp bed, and I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I don’t even need Jacob to make me something to eat. I can cook. I’m not helpless.’

Shannon’s brow furrowed. ‘You’re hungry?’

‘A little.’

‘When did you last eat?’

‘Oh—this morning——’

‘This morning!’ Shannon sounded impatient, but his stamina was waning. His knuckles were white where they held on to the door, and Joanna risked another rebuff by saying:

‘Leave it to me, Shannon. Go back to bed. You’re ill. Let me handle this.’

Lines of strain were etched beside his mouth, but still he remained. ‘Miss Carne needs a bath and a change of clothes, Jacob,’ he ordered grimly. ‘While she’s attending to herself, you can prepare her a meal, is that understood?’

Jacob nodded, with ill grace. ‘Yes’m, Mr Carne.’

‘And if I hear of you behaving disrespectfully again, you’re fired, is that clear?’

‘Yes’m, Mr Carne.’

Shannon expelled his breath wearily. ‘Good.’ He released the door post and stood swaying unsteadily. ‘God—this damned disease! Why did it have to happen now?’

He staggered, and to Joanna’s astonishment, before she could do anything, Jacob had rushed past her and supported her brother back to his room. After the dressing down he had just received, Joanna would have expected Jacob to ignore his master’s weakness, maybe even enjoy it, but it was obvious from the way he behaved that he cared what happened to him. Her own shoulders sagged. What a day it had been, and it wasn’t over yet.

The bathroom Jacob showed her to had a bath and a shower, but Joanna decided to use the former. It was heaven to soak her limbs in the tepid, slightly brackish water which emitted from the taps, and afterwards she washed her hair and wound it up in a towel. She had clean clothes in her overnight case, but only one set, and she realised she would have to wash out the clothes she had just taken off so that they would be fit to wear the following day. However, Jacob came tapping at the bathroom door as she was rubbing her hair dry to tell her that her supper was waiting, and she decided to leave washing her clothes until later.

The meal that awaited her smelt very appetising. Jacob had served it on the formica-topped table in the kitchen, and he disappeared while she was eating so that she felt no self-consciousness. Tinned soup was followed by fried chicken and rice, and there was a bowl of fruit to finish. There was cheese, too, but it smelt rather strong, and Joanna had no desire to risk an upset stomach.

While she ate, a steady stream of insects flung themselves suicidally at the window panes, endeavouring to reach the light, and Joanna instinctively turned her back on them. The soft velvety wings and hairy legs sent a crawling sensation up her spine, and she prayed none of them would gain entrance without her knowledge.

A percolator was bubbling on the stove, and she was helping herself to a cup of coffee when Jacob came back. Summoning a smile, she said: ‘That was delicious, thank you.’

Jacob regarded her doubtfully for a few moments, and then he said: ‘You really Mr Carne’s sister, hmm?’

‘That’s right.’

He nodded, as though satisfied by her answer. ‘Mr Steiner’s boy came with the bed,’ he added. ‘We put it in living room, yes?’

‘That sounds fine.’ Joanna finished her coffee and put the cup down. ‘Er—is Mr Carne sleeping?’

Jacob raised his eyebrows. ‘Maybe, maybe not. Missus go see.’

‘But—the dishes——’

‘Jacob see to dishes,’ he told her, in as amiable a tone as she had heard from him. ‘You want anything, you ask Jacob.’

Joanna shook her head. Obviously Shannon’s reproof had been taken to heart, but she guessed that when Camilla returned Jacob’s loyalties might well divide again.

Leaving the kitchen, she crossed the hall to the bathroom to collect her dirty clothes. But the bathroom was empty of her belongings and she looked round in dismay. Where had they gone? Surely Jacob hadn’t shifted them.

Crossing back to the kitchen, she hovered in the doorway, watching the houseboy as he loaded her dirty dishes into the sink. ‘Er—Jacob?’ she murmured tentatively. ‘Do you happen to know where the things are that I left in the bathroom?’

Jacob turned, his black hands incongruously covered with white soap suds. ‘Sure thing, missus. They washed. Jacob put them by your bed.’

Joanna shook her head. ‘I don’t understand …’

‘Jacob use washing machine and drier. While you have supper.’ He looked anxious. ‘Jacob do wrong?’

‘Oh, no.’ Joanna couldn’t prevent a smile from lifting the corner of her mouth. ‘I—well, thank you, Jacob. Thank you.’

She turned away and went along the hall to the living room. The room was in darkness, but she switched on the light and started at the tentlike erection of mosquito netting which had been rigged over the canvas bed. But sure enough, her clothes were there, somewhat creased perhaps, but freshly laundered. With a rueful smile, she left the room again, switching out the light as she went.

Shannon’s door was ajar, and through the crack she could see a lamp had been lighted beside his bed. She pushed the door a little wider, wincing as it squeaked a little, and looked in. At first she thought he was asleep, but he had heard her because he turned his head against the pillows, and said harshly: ‘You’d better come in.’

CHAPTER THREE

JOANNA closed the door behind her and leaned back against it for a moment. ‘How—how do you feel?’ she asked automatically.

‘Lousy!’ Shannon ran a hand across his forehead, brushing back the thick hair carelessly. ‘Joanna, what the hell are you doing here?’

Joanna straightened away from the door and approached the bed. ‘I came to see you,’ she answered simply.

‘For God’s sake, why?’ His eyes were dark amber in the shadowy light, his skin brown and oiled with sweat. ‘Joanna, I broke with—with the family ten years ago. There was no reason for you to come here—’

‘Yes, there was.’ She was standing beside the bed now, and she twisted her hands tightly together as she looked down at him. She had been an adolescent when he went away, and the things she had noticed about him then, were not the things she was noticing now. Since his departure, she had grown up, had known the touch of a man’s lips, the urgency of his caresses, and she could understand only too well why Camilla Langley regarded any woman as a threat where Shannon was concerned. He was disturbingly attractive, even in this weakened state, and Joanna went cold when she realised what she was thinking.

Stepping back from the bed, she hastened into speech: ‘Daddy—Daddy’s had a stroke,’ she got out jerkily. ‘A massive stroke, the doctors say, and he’s partially paralysed because of it.’

Shannon’s face registered no visible emotion, but it was several moments before he said: ‘What has that to do with me?’

Joanna took a deep breath, and as she warmed to her cause it was easier to forget her feelings of a few moments ago. ‘He wants to see you, Shannon. He wants to talk to you. He wants you to come back to England—’

‘No!’

‘Why not?’ There was desperate appeal in her voice. ‘Oh, Shannon, you don’t know what it’s been like. Mummy’s half out of her mind with worry, and the doctors say that if Daddy has a second stroke——’ She broke off, biting her lower lip. ‘You know what it would mean.’

‘It’s not my concern.’

Shannon was looking straight ahead, not at her, and his profile was hard and unyielding.

‘You don’t mean that!’ she exclaimed disbelievingly.

‘I do.’ His hands clenched on the sheet that covered him. ‘My life is here, in Africa, in gold mining. I have no interest in anything else.’

Joanna caught her breath. ‘I—I can’t—I won’t accept that.’

‘You’ll have to.’

Joanna forgot herself sufficiently to kneel on the floor beside the bed and take one of his hands between both of hers. But he wrenched his hand away, and ignominiously, she burst into tears. It had all been too much—the long complicated journey, the hostility which had awaited her here, at Kwyana, and now Shannon’s utter rejection. It was so disappointing, and she buried her face in her arms and allowed the sobs which welled up inside her to shake her whole body.

‘Oh, for the Lord’s sake, Joanna!’

His feet appeared on the floor beside her, and he wrenched his bathrobe from the foot of the bed, thrusting his arms into the sleeves and wrapping it around him before hauling her up into his arms. Her face was pressed between the lapels of the robe, against the curling dark hair which covered that area of his chest, and her mouth and nostrils were filled with the taste and the smell of him. He held her closely until her sobs subsided, and she felt a wonderful sense of security in his arms. But when she lifted her face to look at him, he pushed her almost roughly away and sank down weakly on to the side of the bed.

‘It’s no use, Joanna,’ he said harshly. ‘You’re wasting your time here. I will not be coming back to England.’

Joanna rubbed her wrists across her cheeks, and saw his eyes narrow as they alighted on the solitaire diamond which occupied the third finger of her left hand. Ignoring the query in his eyes, she exclaimed: ‘Why not? Don’t you care about us any more?’

Shannon lay back wearily against the pillows. ‘That’s a futile question. My feelings are not involved. When I left the estate, your father knew I would never come back.’

‘Unless he begged you to do so!’ protested Joanna desperately.

‘Is that what he’s doing?’ Shannon turned scornful eyes in her direction. ‘Sending you to plead his case?’

‘He couldn’t come himself!’ she cried. ‘Don’t you understand? He’ll never walk again! And if necessary, I’ll beg, Shannon. I’m not proud!’

‘Unfortunately, I am.’

‘Oh, Shannon, please! Don’t send me home alone!’

Joanna was extending an appealing hand towards him when after the briefest of warnings, Camilla Langley let herself into the room. Immediately, Joanna’s hand fell to her side and she turned away, self-consciously aware of the tear stains on her cheeks, and her still-damp hair tumbling untidily from the topknot in which she had secured it. Her purple jeans and matching denim shirt looked boyish beside Camilla’s voluptuous elegance, the other woman having shed her uniform in favour of a slim-fitting shift of yellow silk which moulded every inch of her curving body. Joanna wished she had brought a dress to wear, but her clothes still lay in the suitcase at the hotel in Menawi.

Ignoring the girl, Camilla approached the bed, frowning when she realised Shannon had been out of it. Taking his wrist between her fingers, she checked his pulse rate, and then cast an impatient look in Joanna’s direction.

‘I thought you would have more sense than to upset your brother, Miss Carne,’ she stated coldly. ‘I warned you that you should stay away from him until he was recovered.’

‘Oh, come on, Camilla!’ muttered Shannon irritably, before Joanna could reply. ‘I’m not an invalid. As a matter of fact, I intend going back to work in a couple of days.’

‘That would be very foolish!’ Camilla put her hands on her hips. ‘There’s nothing going on at the mine that requires your personal attention. I hear that Douglas Forbes is managing very well.’

‘Do you? Well, I’ll decide when I go back to work, thank you.’ Shannon levered himself up on his elbow. ‘If you’ve come to stick needles into me, let’s get it over with, shall we?’

Camilla compressed her lips. ‘When Miss Carne has left us,’ she said.

Shannon sighed and looked at Joanna. ‘Yes, Jo, you’d better leave us,’ he agreed heavily. ‘Go get some sleep. We’ll talk again in the morning.’ He paused. ‘Before you leave.’

His message was loud and clear, and a triumphant, pro-vocative smile curved Camilla’s lips. But Joanna chose not to listen. With a muffled exclamation, she crossed the room and let herself out of the door, not even trusting herself to tell him goodnight.

The living room was in darkness, and she switched on the light and went inside, closing the door behind her. Someone, she guessed it had been Jacob, had left her a glass of iced lime juice beside her bed, a cover protecting it from dust and insects. At the windows, the barrage of moths began again with the appearance of the light, and with a sigh she went and drew the blinds, too weary to pay them much attention.

As she undressed, she refused to think about tomorrow. Tiredness was taking its toll of her, and all she wanted was to crawl between the sheets and seek oblivion in sleep. Circumstances always seemed that much blacker at night, not least the knowledge of her awareness of Shannon. But when he had held her in his arms, she had wanted to stay there, and getting that reaction into perspective was not an easy thing to do.

The possibility of the failure of her mission was something she had not considered up till now. Until this evening she had felt convinced that once he knew the facts of the situation, Shannon could not fail to respond to them. He must remember what a proud and virile man their father had been, tall and upright, how he had loved walking and riding, physical pursuits of all kinds. To be deprived of everything in one cruel blow should arouse some compassion in his son. Shannon’s bitterness and rejection seemed out of all proportion after all these years, and she could hardly believe that the row they had had was wholly responsible for the way Shannon felt now.

She put on the cotton nightdress she had brought with her, its narrow straps showing white against her creamy shoulders. Releasing her hair from the pins, she allowed it to tumble about her shoulders in silky disorder, running combing fingers through its length, too tired to get out her brush and do it properly. She ached with weariness and even the narrow bed looked inviting. Before putting out the light, she folded back the netting and pulled down the sheet. The enormous cockroach which had been imprisoned by the cover ran wildly across the bed to escape her, and Joanna had to stifle the scream that rose in her throat.

Picking up a sandal, she knocked the revolting creature to the floor, and then quickly ground the sandal into it. The awful crunching sound it made caused a sickly bile to enter her mouth, but nothing would have induced her to call for assistance. Even so, the idea of getting between sheets where the beetle had lain filled her with distaste, and only the awareness of Camilla Langley’s presence prevented her from asking Jacob for fresh bedding. Nevertheless, she examined every inch of the bed before extinguishing the light, and even after she was lying between the sheets, her thoughts constantly summoned images of giant beetles and spiders invading this ground floor room, crawling over her as she slept. She thought with longing of her room back home, a large comfortable room, with a sloping roof and a window set beneath the eaves. It was similar to the room she and Philip would share at his home after they were married in June. His parents were due for retirement, and when she and Philip returned from their honeymoon, they intended to move into a comfortable bungalow they had bought near Keswick, leaving Philip to run the farm. Thinking of Philip was reassuring somehow. She had not thought a lot about him since coming to Africa, and not at all since her arrival in Kwyana. She wondered what Shannon would think of Philip, or indeed what Philip would think of her half-brother. They had never met. The Lawsons had bought their farm after Shannon had left home. And if he continued to refuse to come to England, they might never meet.

Eventually Joanna slept, exhaustion temporarily erasing her anxieties about her surroundings, and not even the rain which came drumming on the corrugated roof in the early morning aroused her.

When she did awaken it was broad daylight. Someone had unkindly opened the blinds, and the sunlight slatting across her eyes was distracting. She rolled over drowsily, and saw a man’s legs encased in close-fitting denims only inches away from her face.

Her eyes widened and travelled slowly upward over muscular thighs, a low buckled belt, to a denim shirt open almost to the waist, and finally reached Shannon’s darkly tanned features. His eyes were narrowed as he looked down at her, but he looked better this morning. His face was still pale beneath his tan, but some of the strain had disappeared from around his eyes. His scrutiny made Joanna aware that the sheet had worked its way down to her waist, and the upper part of her body was only thinly concealed beneath the cotton nightgown. She grasped the sheet and dragged it over her, and he moved away from the bed, walking indolently towards the windows.

‘Did you sleep well?’ he inquired, with controlled politeness, and Joanna rolled on to her back and nodded.

‘Eventually. Did you?’ She propped herself up on one elbow. ‘Ought you to be out of bed?’

Shannon leant against the window sill. ‘Are you aware of the time?’ he countered.

Joanna shook her head and reached for her watch. The hands indicated twenty minutes to ten and she gasped. ‘Is it really so late?’

‘Really,’ he acknowledged sardonically. ‘We rise early around here. I’m normally at the mine by seven.’

‘But you were ill,’ she protested, frowning. ‘Did—did Nurse Langley give you permission to get up?’

‘I don’t need permission,’ he retorted, straightening. ‘Now, do you want some breakfast? Jacob’s scrambled eggs are not unpalatable, and he makes a decent cup of coffee.’

‘I know. I had some last night.’ Joanna sat upright, holding the sheet firmly under her chin. ‘Shannon,’ she began, as the reasons for her being here began to assert themselves again. ‘Shannon, you didn’t mean——’

‘I’ll tell Jacob you’ll be ready to eat in twenty minutes,’ Shannon interrupted her, walking towards the door. ‘There’s a train leaving for Menawi at three o’clock this afternoon, and I expect you to be on it.’

The door slammed behind him, and Joanna hunched her shoulders dejectedly. He couldn’t mean it, she told herself vehemently, but she remained unconvinced.

Wrapping the sheet around her, she carried her clothes to the bathroom, and showered and cleaned her teeth before getting dressed. Then she went back to the living room, pushed her nightdress and the clothes Jacob had washed for her into her overnight case, and brushed her hair. It hung thick and straight about her shoulders, and she left it that way, even though it was really too heavy to wear loose in this climate.

Jacob was in the kitchen when she appeared, and he greeted her cheerfully as he set a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of her. It was not what she was used to, but she hadn’t the heart to disillusion him, and made a gallant effort to enjoy it. The coffee helped it down, and she drank several cups.

‘Jacob go and clear away bed,’ he announced, once he was sure she had everything she needed, but Joanna stopped him.

‘Not yet, Jacob,’ she said, putting down her fork. ‘By the way, there—there was a bug in my bed last night.’

Jacob’s horror was not pretended, she was sure of it. ‘There no bugs in those sheets when Mr Steiner’s boy and me make bed!’ he insisted indignantly. ‘Why you not call Jacob and have him change sheets?’

Joanna shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to—bother anyone last night. But if I happen to stay tonight, do you think I could have some fresh bedding?’

‘You won’t be staying tonight,’ retorted Shannon’s deep voice from the doorway, and she turned to stare resentfully at him.

‘You can’t force me to leave today!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why should I? I’ve only just got here. Why shouldn’t I stay and see something of the place?’

‘Kwyana is not a holiday resort!’ replied Shannon cuttingly. His eyes lifted to the houseboy. ‘You can strip down the camper, Jacob, and take it back to Mr Steiner’s boy. We won’t be needing it again.’

Joanna’s breath caught in the back of her throat, and she pushed back her chair and got unsteadily to her feet. ‘You—you pig!’ she burst out tremulously. ‘You won’t even consider what I told you, will you?’

Jacob was listening to their exchange with wide troubled eyes, but Shannon snapped his fingers angrily at him. ‘What are you hanging about for?’ he demanded, and mumbling an apology the boy left them alone.

Joanna pushed her plate aside, the eggs barely half eaten, staring down at the table through a mist of tears. So that was that. Shannon was forcing her to leave, and she felt more devastated now than she had when she had first learned of her father’s stroke. But why should she care? she asked herself angrily. Her father would be disappointed, but it was not the end of the world. So why did she feel so shattered by it all?

Shannon uttered an oath suddenly, and came to stand wearily at the other side of the table, supporting himself with his palms against its cool surface, staring at her half angrily. ‘God, Joanna, it’s no use you staying here, hoping I’ll change my mind!’

Joanna stole a look at him. His brow was beaded with sweat even though the room was comparatively cool, and she realised with an anxious pang that he was still suffering the after-effects of his illness.

‘It—it doesn’t occur to you that I might like being here, that I might like being with you, does it?’ she asked quietly.

Shannon straightened, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. ‘No.’

‘Why not? Shannon, we haven’t seen one another for ten years! I—I’ve missed you. I missed you terribly when you first went away, and then never hearing from you—never really knowing what you were doing. Surely it’s not unreasonable that I should want to talk to you, should want to hear what’s been happening to you?’ She traced the pattern of the formica with a fingernail. ‘I can’t believe you don’t have any feelings about us!’

Shannon wiped the sweat from his forehead, and then raked a hand through his hair in a defeated gesture. ‘Why did he send you!’ he muttered, half to himself.

Joanna’s eyes widened. ‘Who else could have come? Mummy’s nerves are in a dreadful state. There was no one else. I—I had to try.’

Shannon turned away, his facial muscles tightening. ‘Well, I suppose I can’t blame you for that.’

Joanna sighed, and risking a rebuff she went round the table to him, sliding her arm through his. He stiffened and would have drawn away, the muscles of his arm taut against her skin. But she held on to him, aware as she did so that she was risking more than his anger. ‘What’s happened, Shannon?’ she asked, rushing into speech. ‘Why are you being like this? Can’t you forget the past as Daddy has done?’

Shannon looked down at her, and the torment in his eyes sent a forbidden shiver up her spine. When he looked at her like that it was very hard to hang on to her identity. ‘Do you think he has?’ he demanded huskily. ‘Forgotten the past, I mean? I don’t. I think he hates me just as much as he ever did, only now there’s very little he can do about it! Except send you here—with that ring on your finger!’