to be in love. He had been a brigadier in the South African security police, another powerful ruthless one who could match her spirit and control her wilder emotional excesses.
She had lived as man and wife with Lothar De La Rey in the Johannesburg flat for six marvellously stormy months. When he had ended it suddenly and without warning, she had been shattered. Now she realized that it had been shallow infatuation, nothing to compare even remotely with what she had found in Ramsey Machado. 'I understand completely, Ramsey darling, and you can trust me. I won't ask any more silly questions.' 'I have trusted you with my life already,' he said. 'You were the first person I called upon for help.' 'I'm proud of that. Because you are Spanish and because you are my lover and the father of my baby, I feel myself to be in a large part Spanish as well. I want to help you any way I am able.' 'Yes,' he nodded. 'I understand that. I have thought about the baby.' He reached out and touched her stomach, and his hand felt cool and hard. 'I want my son to be born in Spain, so that he, too, will be a Spaniard and his claim to the title will be secured.' She was startled. She had taken it for granted that she would have her baby here in London. The gynaecologist had already made a tentative reservation at the maternity home.
'Will you do that for me, Bella? Will you make my son a full Spaniard? he asked, and she hesitated not a moment longer.
'Yes, of course, my darling. I will do whatever you wish.' She leant over him and kissed him. Then she snuggled down on the pillow beside him, careful not to jostle his injuries. 'If that is -what you want, then we will have to start making arrangements,' she suggested.
'I have already done so,' he confessed. 'There is an excellent private clinic just outside Mdlaga. I have a friend at the bank's head office in MAlaga who will find us a flat and a maid. I have arranged a transfer to the head office, so that I will be with you when the baby is born.' 'It sounds so exciting,' she agreed. 'And if you get to choose where the baby is to be born, then I choose where we marry when we eventually can.
That's fair, isn't it?' He smiled. 'Yes, that is fair.' 'I want to be married at Weltevreden. There is an old slave church on the estate, built a hundred and fifty years ago. My grandmother, Nana, had it completely restored and renovated for my brother Garry's wedding. It's exquisite, and Nana filled it with flowers for Garry and Holly. I will have arurn lilies. Some people believe that they are unlucky, but they are my favourite flowers and I'm not superstitious, or not much anyway...' Patiently he let her ramble on, occasionally murmuring encouragement, awaiting the precise moment for his next revelation, and she gave him the opening.
'But we are cutting things a little fine, Ramsey darling. Nana will want at least six weeks to make all the arrangements, and by then I am going to be the size of a house. They'll play the 'Baby Elephant Walk' as I come down the aisle.' 'No, Bella,' he contradicted her. 'At your wedding, you will be slim and beautiful - because you will no longer be pregnant.' She sat bolt upright on the bed. 'What are you trying to tell me, Ramsey.
Something has happened, hasn't it?' 'Yes. You are right. There is bad news, I'm afraid. I have heard from Natalie. She's still in Florida. She is being obstinate, and there are legal delays.' 'Oh, Ramsey!' 'I am as unhappy as you are about it. If there was anything I could do, believe me, I would do it.' 'I hate her,' she whispered.
'Yes, sometimes I feel that way. But truly it is not a disaster, only an inconvenience at the most. We will still be married, and you will still have your little slave church and your arum lilies. It is just that our son will be born before that happens.' 'Promise me, Ramsey, swear it to me - that we will be married as soon as you are free.' 'I swear it to you.' She settled down beside him, cradling her head on his good shoulder, hiding her face so that he could not guess how disappointed she truly was.
'I hate her, but I love you,' she said, and Ramsey gave a grim little smile of satisfaction that she could not see.
He was confined to the flat by his wound for another week, and there was time to talk. She told Ramsey about Michael, and was flattered by the interest he showed in her brother.
She expanded on Michael's virtues, and on their special relationship. Ramsey listened and drew her out gently. He was so easy to talk to. She looked upon him as an extension of herself. She found herself going on to tell him about the rest of her family, about what lay behind the public mask that they as a group presented to the world; about their secrets and their weaknesses and their scandals, about Shasa and Tara's divorce. She even told him about the dark suspicion that Nana had once given birth to a bastard son in the wild southern deserts of Africa.
'Of course, nobody has ever proved it. I don't think anybody would dare.
Nana is a formidable force.' She laughed. 'And that is understating the fact. However, there was definitely some very fishy business back there in the nineteen twenties.' In the end, Ramsey brought the conversation back to Michael. 'If he's here in London, why haven't you introduced us? Arc you ashamed of me?' 'Oh, may I? May I bring him round here, Ramsey? rve told him a little about you, about us. I know he'd love to meet you, and I'm sure you will like him. He's the only truly sweet and good Courtney. The rest of us... P She rolled her eyes comically.
Michael arrived with a bottle of his father's burgundy under his arm. 'I thought of bringing flowers,' he explained, 'but then I decided to get something useful instead.' He and Ramsey scrutinized each other carefully as they shook hands. Isabella watched them anxiously, willing them to like each other.
'How are your ribs?' Michael asked. Isabella had told him that Ramsey had taken a toss from his horse and broken three ribs.
'Your sister is holding me prisoner. There is nothing wrong with me nothing that a glass of that excellent burgundy won't cure.' Ramsey displayed that rare warmth and special charm of his which were irresistible. Isabella felt quite giddy with relief. Her two most favourite and important people were going to like each other.
She took the burgundy through to the kitchen to find a corkscrew. When she returned with the open bottle and two glasses, Michael was settled in the chair beside the bed and they were already engrossed in conversation. 'We get the airmail edition of your paper, the Golden City Mail, at the bank,' Ramsey was telling him. 'I particularly like your financial and economic coverage.'
'Ah, you are in banking,' Michael nodded. 'Bella didn't tell me that.' 'Merchant banking. We specialize in sub-Saharan Africa.'And they were away at a conversational gallop. Bella kicked off her flat shoes, rolled up the bottoms of her blue jeans and perched up on the bed beside Ramsey. Although she took no part in the conversation, she listened avidly.
She had no idea that Ramsey had such a grasp of African facts and realities, such a deep knowledge of the personalities and places and events which made up the rich and fascinating mosaic of her native land. Compared to this discussion, all her previous conversations with him had been shallow and trivial. Listening to the two of them, she learnt new facts and heard ideas expressed that were totally fresh to her.
Michael was obviously as impressed as she was. His pleasure at finding a challenging and stirhulating intellect on which to try out his own interpretations and beliefs was evident.
It was after midnight; the original bottle of wine and another that Isabella had dug out of her tiny stock in the kitchen were empty. The bedroom was thick with the smoke of Michael's Camels before she looked at her watch and exclaimed: 'You were invited for one drink, Mickey, and Ramsey is an invalid. Away with you, now.' She went to fetch his overcoat.
While she helped him into it, Ramsey said softly from the bed: 'If you are doing a series on the political exiles, it wouldn't be complete without one on Raleigh Tabaka.' Mickey laughed ruefully. 'I'd give my chance of salvation for a crack at Tabaka, the mystery man. It just ain't possible, as old Rudyard put it, 'if you know the track of the morning mist, then you know where his pickets are'.' 'I've met him in the line of duty at the bank. We keep tabs on all the players. I might be able to arrange for you to meet him,' Ramsey told him, and Michael froze and stared at him with one arm in the sleeve of his coat.
-
'I've been trying to get hold of him for five years,' he said. 'If you could...' 'Call me tomorrow, around lunchtime,'Ramsey told him. 'I'll see what I can do.' At the door Michael kissed Isabella. 'I take it that you are not coming home tonight?' 'This is home.' She hugged him. 'My temporary residence at Cadogan Square was just to impress you, but I don't have to do that any longer.' 'He's a knockout, your Ramsey,' Michael said, and she felt a sudden shocking stab of jealousy, as though another woman had challenged her for Ramsey's affection. She tried to suppress it. It was the only ugly feeling she had ever harboured towards Mickey, but the pain persisted as she went back to the bedroom and deepened again as Ramsey said: 'I like him. Your brother is one of the superior beings - they are rare enough.' She felt ashamed of her unkind feelings towards Mickey. How could she harbour the slightest doubt that Ramsey was a man, a natural man. She knew that he liked Michael only for his charm and fine intellect, and because he was her brother - and yet, and yet that dirty sneaking feeling persisted.
She stooped over the bed and kissed Ramsey with a passion that surprised even her. After the first moment of shock, his mouth opened and their tongues slithered and rolled around each other, slippery as mating eels.
She broke away at last and looked up at him. 'You swan around Europe for weeks on end, leaving me pining, and when you do come home you lie around in bed, hogging food and sleeping,' she accused him in a husky voice, tight with her need of him. 'And never a thought for the maid
