She was alone, he had gone silently and she had not even heard the click of the latch.
He had not waited to be dismissed, and Storm felt quite dizzy with anger. Now a whole parade of brilliant and biting insults came readily to her lips, and frustration spiced her anger.
She had to do something to vent it, and she looked around for something to break, and then remembered, just in time, that it was Sean Courtney's library, and everything in it was treasured. So instead, she racked her brain for its foulest oath. Bloody Hell! She stamped her foot, and it was entirely inadequate. Suddenly she remembered her father's favourite. The bastard, she added, rolling it thunderously around her tongue as Sean did, and immediately she felt better.
She said it again and her anger subsided, leaving an extraordinary new sensation.
There was a disturbing heat in that mysterious area between navel and knees. Flustered and alarmed, she hurried out into the garden. The short glowing tropical dusk gave the familiar lawns and trees an unreal stagelike appearance, and she found herself almost running over the spungy turf, as though to escape from her own sensations.
She stopped beside the lake, and her breathing was quick and shallow, not entirely from her exertions. She leaned on the railing of the bridge and in the rosy light of sunset her reflection was perfectly mirrored in the still pearly waters.
Now that the disturbing new sensation had passed, she found herself regretting that she had fled from it. Something like that was what she had hoped for when She found herself thinking again of that awkward and embarrassing episode in Monte Carlo; goaded on by Irene Leuchars, teased and tempted, she had been made to feel inadequate because she lacked the experience of men that Irene boasted of. Chiefly to spite Irene, and to defend herself against her jibes, she had slipped away from the Casino with the young Italian Count and made no protest when he parked the Bugatti among the pine trees on the highlevel road above Cap Ferrat.
She had hoped for something wild and beautiful, something to bring the moon crashing out of the sky and to make choirs of angels sing.
It had been quick, painful and messy, and neither she nor the Count had spoken to each other on the winding road down to Nice, except to mutter goodbye on the pavement outside the Negresco Hotel. She had not seen him again.
Why she thought of this now she could not understand, and she thrust the memory aside without effort. It was replaced almost instantly with a picture of a tall young man in a handsome uniform, of a cool mocking smile and calm penetrating gaze. Immediately she was aware of the warmth and glow in her lower belly again, and this time she did not attempt to fly from it, but continued leaning on the bridge, smiling at her darkening image in the water. You look like a smug old pussy cat, she whispered, and chuckled softly.
Sean Courtney rode like a Boer, with long stirrups, sitting well back in the saddle with legs thrust out straight in front of him and the reins held loosely in his left hand, the black quirt of hippo-hide dangling from its thong on his wrist so that the point touched the ground. His favourite mount was a big rawboned stallion of almost eighteen hands with a white blaze and an ugly unpredictable nature that only the General could fathom; but even he had to use an occasional light cut with the quirt to remind the beast of his social obligations.
Mark had an English seat, or, as the General put it, rode like a monkey on a broomstick, and he added darkly, After only a hundred miles or so perched up like that, your backside will be so hot you could cook your dinner on it.
We rode a thousand miles in two weeks when we were chasing General Leroux. They rode almost daily together, when even the huge rooms of Emoyeni became confining, and the General started to fret at the caging of his big body; then he would shout for the horses.
There were thousands of acres of open ground still backing the big urban estates, and then beyond that there were hundreds of miles of red dirt roads crisscrossing the sugarcane fields.
As they rode, the day's work was continued, with only the occasional interruption for a half mile of hard galloping to charge the blood, and then the General would rein in again and they would amble on over the gently undulating hills, knee to knee. Mark carried a small leather-bound notebook in his inside pocket to make notes of what he must write up on their return, but most of it he carried in his head.
The week before the departure to Cape Town had been filled with the implementation of details and of broad policies, the winding up of the domestic business of the provincial legislative council before beginning on the national business of Parliament, and, deep in this discussion, their daily ride had carried them further than they had ridden together before.
When at last the General reined in, they had reached the crest of a hill, and the view before them spread down to the sea, and away to the far silhouette of the great whalebacked mountain above Durban harbour. Directly below them, a fresh scar had been torn in the earth, like a bold knife stroke through the green carpet of vegetation, into the red fleshy earth.
The steel tracks of the permanent way had reached this far, and as they sat the fidgeting horses, the loco came buffing up to the railhead, pushing the track carrier ahead of it under its heavy load of steel.
Neither of them spoke, as the tracks were dumped with a faint clattering roar, and the tiny antlike figures of the tracklaying gang swarmed over them, manhandling them on to the orderly parallel rows of timber sleepers. The tap of the swinging hammers began then, a quick rhythmic beat as the fishplates were spiked into place. A mile a day, said Sean softly, and Mark saw from his expression that he was thinking once again of another railroad far to the north, and all that it betokened. Cecil Rhodes dreamed of a railway from Cairo to Cape Town and I believed once that it was a grand dream. He shook his beard heavily. God knows, perhaps we were both wrong. He turned the stallion's head away and they walked back down the hill in silence except for the jingle of harness and the clip of hooves. They were both thinking of Dirk Courtney, but it was another ten minutes before Sean spoke. Do you know the Bubezi Valley, beyond Chaka's Gate?
Yes, said Mark. Tell me, Sean ordered, and then went on, It is fifty years since I was last there. During the war with the old Zulu king Cetewayo, we chased the remains of his impis up there, and hunted them along the river. I was there only a few months ago. just before I came to you. Sean turned in the saddle, and his black brows came together sharply.
What were you doing there? he demanded harshly.
For an instant Mark was about to blurt out all his suspicions, of Dirk Courtney, of the fate that had overtaken the old man, of his pilgrimage to find the grave and to fathom the mystery beyond Chaka's Gate. Something warned him that to do so would be to alienate Sean Courtney completely.
