The Smouldering Flame

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 (#u81e7cfe7-6cb9-56e2-8782-5478caf910da)

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.’