A Terrible Beauty (8 page)

“Do you not recall the first time I hunted with a spear? You refused to join me and went for a trek instead, did you not? The Masai circle their prey and send one warrior toward it, to provoke the beast. He has faith that his compatriots will strike before the animal attacks him. The young man next to me had not the stomach for it, and dropped his spear, terrified. It struck me before hitting the ground.”

Colin nodded, but did not speak. He studied the man claiming to be his long-lost friend and blew out a sigh. “I … I do not know what to say.”

“Is that what you remember happening?” I asked.

“As he said, I was not there, but his story is identical to the one I heard when I returned to camp.”

“If what you say is true, you must have a spectacular story to share with us,” I said, raising an eyebrow as I spoke. This brought a grin to the newcomer's face.

“Forgive me. I know levity is inappropriate, but you have not changed a bit,” he said. “I realize many explanations are in order, but first I must beg you to allow me to recount what brought me here, now. I swear, Kallista—how many years I have waited to call you that name to your face; what a fool I was not to have done so on our wedding day—I never meant to disturb your domestic bliss. I have come to terms with your new life, but my feelings on the subject do not merit discussion at present.”

“I cannot say I agree with that, sir,” Margaret said.

“I assure you we will come to the topic eventually,” he said. “For now, though, I must explain to you why I am here and why there is a dead man in the Mycenaean bedroom. I do love that you've done all the rooms up with appropriate antiquities, Kallista, although I am a bit sad to see you've flung out all the chintz furniture. My mother selected the fabric for me.” He pointed to a painting on the wall. “I could not be more delighted to see Renoir's portrait of you. I always wondered how it had turned out and am glad you hung it here. Did you know I asked him to paint it from a photograph taken of you on our wedding day? I stopped at his studio en route to that fateful safari.”

Colin cleared his throat. “It would, perhaps, be best if you got on with it, Ashton.”

“Quite right as always, old boy. I have been working on an archaeological dig not far from here for the past three years. You are familiar with it, I understand? Ancient Thera?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have visited more times than I can count.” Fira, the modern capital of the island, built centuries later than its ancient counterpart, was more of a village than a city, although its small museum and a handful of municipal buildings gave it a gravity that surpassed that of Oia, the largest town on the island. Ancient Thera occupied the top of a mountain plateau, a long and dusty ride from Fira.

“I am well aware of that fact,” he said, smiling. “I endeavored to make myself scarce whenever you came to explore the site. Professor Hiller von Gaertringen, the eminent archaeologist, was kind enough to offer me a position on his staff after receiving the recommendation of a dear friend of mine, Fritz Reiner, whom you will see soon enough. Last night, a terrible storm hit our camp, and one of my colleagues, Gerhard Bohn, fell outside his tent and slid partway down the mountain. You know how steep the slopes are.”

“I do,” I said.

Colonists from Sparta founded the ancient town of Thera in the eighth century B.C., almost a thousand years after a catastrophic volcanic eruption destroyed the civilization previously occupying the island. They chose as their location the plateau high atop Mesa Vouno, towering above the beaches on the eastern side of the island and the cliffs to the west. One reached it by means of the most wicked road I had ever seen, turning back and forth on itself sharply for two miles up the side of the mountain. The archaeologists had built a small camp at the end of the road on a flat section of land. The ancient city was a pleasant—if steep—hike the remainder of the way up the hill.

“I know it as well,” Colin said. “Surely Bohn's tent wasn't near the edge.”

“No, not at all. I do not know what led him to go outside during the storm. All I can say with certainty is that when I went to find him so we might all have a drink, he was gone. A quick search of the camp turned up nothing, so I started to look further afield. There is a beauty in storms, and all of us had stood watching the lightning longer than we ought when it first began. I surmised Bohn went back outside and wandered a greater distance than he realized, captivated by the dramatic weather, and slipped. The rain had made the rocks slick. I found him, unconscious, not far from our camp.”

“So you brought him here?” I asked.

He ran his long fingers through his sandy hair with a movement so similar to the one I had seen Colin make countless times that I sat up straighter, taken aback. They had been friends since their earliest school days, but I had not expected them to share mannerisms.

“I did. I knew it would be safe in the storm, and I wanted to summon the doctor in Oia, as there is neither an English- nor German-speaking one in Fira. Bohn was in no shape to be carried as far as that, but I had hoped…” His voice trailed.

“The doctor did not arrive in time?” I asked.

“It took me ages to reach Oia on horseback in the storm—I hope you do not mind I borrowed one of your steeds; it was faster than our donkeys—and longer still for the two of us to return here. We were too late.”

“I am very sorry for your loss,” I said, almost automatically.

Colin had taken to pacing again. “You have been here, on this island, for multiple archaeological seasons, yet you never once came to us?”

“What would be the point?” the man said, turning his empty glass in his hand. “Look at the chaos my appearance has already caused. I had hoped to avoid any such disruption.”

No one spoke for several minutes until finally Margaret heaved a sigh. “All right, I will ask what no one else will. Aren't you supposed to be dead, Lord Ashton? And if, as current appearances suggest, you are not, what on earth happened in Africa, and why didn't you come back sooner?”

“These Americans, Hargreaves, truly I don't know what to make of them.” He poured himself another whisky. “I realize it is far too early in the day for such a quantity of spirits, but the occasion does merit them.”

Jeremy took the decanter from him and refilled his own glass. “Right, Ashton, that's enough blundering about. Answer Margaret's questions.”

“I apologize, Mrs. Michaels, for not attacking the subject more directly. I fell ill in Africa, as you all know, due to poison added to my champagne on the night that should have been the most triumphant of my life.”

“After you got your elephant,” I said.

“Yes.” He stood taller, pride brightening your face. “Hargreaves must have told you. I only wish I could have delivered the news to you myself.”

“Colin did inform me, but I have also been subjected to the poor beast, stuffed and mounted in Ashton Hall.”

“You do not approve?” he asked.

“I have always deplored hunting.” I met his surprised stare.

He raised his eyebrows and turned to Colin. “At any rate, Hargreaves, I am most grateful for the care you took of me when I collapsed. You could not have known then that the poison administered caused a coma so deep it is often—as it was in my case—mistaken for death. You remember Kimathi, our guide?”

“Of course,” Colin said.

“He saw what happened, and when you thought I was dead and placed me in the coffin, he was waiting to switch my body with that of one of his fellow tribesmen. My would-be murderer, Andrew Palmer, returned after the others had left camp, to ensure I had succumbed to his poison, and Kimathi feared he would come back again to finish the job. So he carried me to the tribe of his sister's husband, and they cared for me during the long months it took me to recover. After that, my health was not good for some time, and I twice fell ill with fever. When, eventually, I regained the strength to travel, I had a great distance to cover before I reached even the most remote signs of civilization.”

“Bloody hell.” Colin dropped his face into his hands. “How could I have made such an error? I swear, Ashton, I was certain—”

“Do not abuse yourself,” he said. “You had no way of knowing. Even Kimathi feared the poison had killed me, and he was acquainted with its use and symptoms.”

“So you walked across Africa, Lord Ashton?” Margaret asked, crossing her arms. “How industrious of you.”

“I cannot fault you for your doubt, Mrs. Michaels,” he said. “It is an incredible narrative. Truth, as they say—”

“Yes, yes, stranger than fiction,” Margaret said. “Do continue.”

“Kimathi stayed with me until we came upon a party of German archaeologists who were returning from a dig in the Sudan. They took me to Cairo, where everyone believed me to be dead, leaving me in the unfortunate circumstance of being unable to access any funds. Reiner, with whom I had grown close during the journey, saw me some weeks later, desperate and on the verge of illness. He took me home with him. After a few months in Munich, I had regained nearly all of my strength, and set off for London.”

“When was this?” Colin asked.

“Late in the spring of 1891,” he said. “It might, perhaps, be preferable if I continued the story without your friends present.”

“Absolutely not,” Margaret said. “If you think I will leave Emily even for a moment—”

“It is quite all right,” I said. “There is nothing Margaret and Jeremy cannot hear.”

“Reiner and I came to Berkeley Square, where we saw you, Hargreaves, leaving the house. I shall never forget the scene. Kallista was wearing a pale blue dress and you kissed her on the threshold.” I felt my face turn what must have been a shocking shade of vermilion as he spoke.

“I assure you—” Colin began.

He raised a hand to stop him. “At the time, I was livid; you can imagine. But that was long ago, and I have since recovered from the blow. You both thought I was dead, and it had been nearly three years, long enough for Kallista to be out of mourning. Though you will forgive me, my love, for having wished you might not have been ready to start afresh quite so soon.”

I rose from my seat. “Sir, I cannot apologize for any of my actions. I have behaved honorably, and had no reason to think you were alive.”

“We both know that is not quite true,” he said. “I understand you—with the assistance of Mrs. Michaels and some other friends—undertook the investigation of my death, and that during the course of it, did entertain the notion that I might still be alive.”

“We did,” I said, “but our hopes were based on deliberately misleading and erroneous information.”

“And I told her I saw you die.” Colin's voice was soft.

“And she trusted you, as she should have,” he said. “I blame neither of you. You acted as anyone would have given the information at hand.”

“Lord Ashton—if that is truly who you are—would you satisfy me on one more count?” Margaret asked. “I understand your anger at what you claim to have seen at Berkeley Square, but why did you not come forward and confront your friend?”

“At first, my rage was too great. Then I felt humiliated and wanted to slink off into nothingness. My best friend and my wife, together? Can you imagine what that sort of betrayal feels like, even if one knows it is not really a betrayal? I watched the two of you—forgive me—from a distance over the following months, and I could see the love you shared. After all the pain I had already caused Kallista by leaving her a widow so soon after our marriage, how could I intervene and take away the happy life she had cobbled together from the despair she must have felt when she thought I had died?”

Truly, I felt horrible. The awful guilt that had haunted me after Philip's death—if I may still call it that—crept back, twisting itself around my insides. I hadn't grieved when I heard the news. I had hardly known the man, and despite his claims of loving me, he hadn't bothered to stay with me for long—he had left for Africa almost as soon as we returned from our wedding trip. Relief rather than despair had filled me when he died, because I had no idea what life with him would have been like. His death brought me a freedom unlike anything I could have imagined, and relishing that freedom came with a strong measure of torment.

But I had come to terms with all these emotions years ago. How could they return now?

 

Philip

London, 1891

Ashton's first urge was to knock Hargreaves soundly in the jaw and send him sprawling to the ground, but remembering something about discretion and valor, he resisted the urge. Hargreaves had never seemed the sort of man to take advantage of a lady, but what else could he think had occurred? Then he saw Kallista reach up and touch his friend's lips, ever so gently, with her delicate little hand.

This sent Ashton back into a rage. He'd never have expected Kallista would have engaged in such wildly inappropriate behavior, especially in public.

“This is what I come home to?” He turned to Reiner, his face blotched red. “He is—was—my best friend!”

Reiner, nodding, took Ashton firmly by the arm and led him back across the square, away from the house. “There is, I do not doubt, much about this situation we cannot at present understand. Is there no one other than Hargreaves and your wife to whom we can turn for an explanation?”

“I would not have myself further humiliated,” Ashton said. “I cannot stay here.”

“Shall we go to your sister?”

“So she can learn that the life she thinks is now hers, a life in which her son, my nephew, has already inherited my title and estate, is no longer to be? I am not convinced anyone from my past will welcome my return.” He bit his lip. “There is nothing for me here. Not anymore.”