Czytaj książkę: «Far in the Wilds»

Chapter One

Kenya, 1918

“It will be a cold day in hell before I put on an evening suit and prance around at the club like some sort of performing monkey,” Ryder White growled, tossing back a measure of neat gin in one go. “I don’t care if it is the first Christmas after armistice.”

His hostess gave him a disapproving scowl. “Just because you’re in a foul mood doesn’t mean you can drink all of my gin. Hand over the bottle.”

Ryder did as he was told and Sybil Balfour, known to friends and enemies alike as Tusker, emptied the rest of the liquor into her glass. “Besides, I wasn’t thinking of you. It would do Jude some good to get away from the farm. She’s been brooding too much.”

Ryder smiled in spite of himself. “Then why don’t you take her into Nairobi? You could both find some entertaining company.”

Sybil rolled her eyes. “Ass.” But the word was said affectionately. “I’ve no need of that sort of entertainment anymore, although I do have one or two pleasant memories tucked away against a rainy day.”

Her eyes were misty with unseemly recollections. Ryder held up a callused hand. “I beg you not to elaborate.”

Sybil snorted. “I am affronted. When have I ever kissed and told? Although I could share stories about Rex Farraday that would curl your hair, boy.”

Ryder lifted his brows. “The man who would be king? You don’t say.”

Sybil took a deep draught of gin. “Oh, his wife has him on a short lead, but he likes to sniff the grass in other pastures. Of course, if we’re keeping score, I’d say Helen has Rex trumped by about two dozen. The way she carries on—”

“Helen’s bored. At least Rex has politics to keep him busy,” Ryder remarked, studying the worn toes of his boots. Like everything of Ryder’s they were expensive and had seen better days.

“And you kill things to keep busy,” Sybil finished brightly.

“And I kill things,” he agreed.

“I would have thought you’d lost your taste for that in the war.” Sybil drank off another deep swallow of gin, but her gaze was shrewd. Anyone watching less intently would have missed the flicker of pain that stirred in his eyes.

He shrugged with deliberate nonchalance. “You forget I was a flyer. I didn’t kill too many up close.”

“It still takes a toll,” she countered. “And then there are those on your own side who didn’t come back.”

His hand tightened on the glass. “Don’t remind me, will you?”

She gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Do you expect me to believe you don’t remember them anyway? Every day?”

“And we’re back to Jude,” he said softly.

“She hasn’t been the same since Stephen went missing. It’s as if a part of her walked out into the bush along with him and never came back.”

“She was his wife. She has a right to count her losses.”

“Not if he isn’t really lost.”

Ryder’s voice was gentle. “He was missing in action and presumed dead, Tusker. You can’t keep thinking he’s going to come walking out of the bush one day like nothing happened.”

“What if he did? He wouldn’t recognize her anymore. She’s fretting herself to skin and bones. God knows, I don’t want her to forget him, but she can’t waste away to dust either.”

A moment of silence stretched between them, taut and expectant. “You’re right,” Ryder said finally. “He would have hated to see her like this. She deserves better.”

Sybil, ruthless as any predator, smelled her advantage and seized it. “And don’t you think as Stephen’s best friend, as her best friend, you owe it to her to see she gets it?”

A slow smile spread across Ryder’s sun-warmed features. He looked out over the savannah. Far in the distance, a giraffe stretched out to wrap a nimble tongue around a branch of acacia.

“You win. What do I have to do?”

“Take her into Nairobi for the Christmas party at the club,” Sybil replied promptly. “I’ve taken your evening suit out of mothballs and sponged it. It smells frightful, but at least you will look presentable enough. I’ve also arranged for rooms at the Norfolk for you both.”

“What about leaving you at Christmas? Won’t you be lonesome?”

“I will not,” she replied roundly. “I have a mare in foal and I have no intention of being gone when she drops. You and Jude are free to go off and play. And you ought to think about getting a haircut. I don’t mind it that long, but you might make the civilized folk nervous.”

Ryder grinned. “Is that all?”

“I’ve signed you both up for the decorating committee at the club. Mind you don’t catch anyone unsuitable under the mistletoe.”

Ryder propped one booted foot on the toe of the other. “I should think you’d know by now—I specialize in unsuitable.”

* * *

Ryder was not surprised that Jude resisted; he was even less surprised when Sybil prevailed.

“What did she bribe you with?” Jude asked as she chucked her hold-all into the back of Ryder’s truck. “I know you wouldn’t do this willingly.”

Ryder slammed the door and set off with a crash of gears. “I had a little business in Nairobi. Two birds with one stone,” he said lightly.

Jude laughed, an oddly creaky sound, as if she hadn’t done it for a very long time. “Idiot,” she said affectionately. “She’s worried about you. That last bout of blackwater fever was nearly fatal. She wants you to have some fun before you’re six feet under,” she finished on a teasing note.

Ryder said nothing. He had learned long ago that most women wanted more than anything else a man who could listen. And Ryder could listen with the best of them.

“We’re both idiots,” Jude said finally. “She worries about your health and she worries that I think too much about Stephen. I must be losing my touch if I didn’t see through her right off.”

“She still thinks Stephen is coming home,” Ryder told her.

“So did I,” Jude admitted. “It’s just that I always believed he would turn up when the war was over. So long as the fighting was still going on, I could pretend he was lost somewhere, that he couldn’t find his way home to me. But now the war’s done, I can’t pretend anymore. I have to accept he’s gone.”

“Tusker hasn’t. Can you?”

Jude reached into her pocket and took out a cigarette, lighting it slowly. She blew the smoke out in a single gust of regret. “I don’t know.” She was silent a minute, then turned to his profile. “It’s frightful to think of how happy we all were when we got married. And now look at us. You and I are all that’s left of the shipwreck, survivors clinging to the mast.”

Ryder’s hands tightened on the wheel, thin lines of white crossing his knuckles.

“Do you think about her? About Eliza?” Jude asked.

“I sleep better when I don’t.”

She laughed again. “Can you accept she’s gone? Have you made your peace with it?”

He flicked her a glance. “What do you think?”

“I think Eliza is the reason you’re shooting and sleeping your way across Africa.”

Ryder stomped hard on the brakes, sending up a shower of dark red dust. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Jude. We’re not kids anymore, but I will still haul you out by your hair and leave you tied to a thorn bush.”

Jude lit a second cigarette and handed it over. “Peace offering?”

Ryder took a deep pull of smoke and jammed the vehicle into gear.

“Why is it that you are the one person who can always get under my skin?” he asked, half to himself.

“Because we’re the same,” she replied. “We couldn’t be more alike if we’d hatched from the same egg.”