by Emma Castle
“Thank you,” he said softly as she finished the second cuff.
“You’re welcome.” She tried to focus on the shirt. “I think that blue works nicely.” She turned to the clerk. “Can he wear this out of the store?”
“Yes, of course.” The young man tore his eyes away from Thorne. “Let me ring everything up. Just meet me at the counter.”
Eden helped him secure the last two buttons, leaving open the one at the base of his throat, before they headed to the counter.
“We got all the basics. We should be okay for anything Cameron throws at you.”
“He’s going to throw things at me?” Thorne’s rumbling query was full of sudden distrust.
“No! That’s not what I meant. It’s an expression. It just means that no matter what Cameron plans to do, I think we’ve got the right clothing for it.”
“Oh. I see.” He smiled. “And maybe I should throw things back?”
“Yes. Wait—what? No, no throwing anything, okay?”
Thorne curled an arm around her waist and leaned down to kiss the crown of her hair as he chuckled. She relaxed a little as she realized he was teasing her.
The private car that Cameron had hired arrived and was ready to take them to the estate. It was an hour-long drive, and Eden did her best to teach Thorne about how to behave around his uncle, such as calling him “my lord” unless otherwise instructed. She’d had to google a bit of this herself in order to explain it to him. For her part, Eden was going to do her best to remind Cameron that even though Thorne cleaned up well, he was still getting used to how to use a fork properly.
Thorne listened to her instructions with quiet reserve, but when she was done, his attention drifted back to the rolling green hills and pastures of the English countryside.
“Not many trees” was the only thing he said about it. He was right. Compared to the jungle, this had few trees.
A light rain settled in, and the distant shapes of sheep and cattle loomed out at them from the misty landscape. Stone walls built waist-high separated the endless emerald fields, which were divided further by small patches of forest. As they passed close to a pair of horses grazing, Thorne’s gaze was riveted on the beautiful beasts, as if struck by a memory. He leaned closer to the window before they sped past down a country road.
“Here we are,” the driver finally announced.
The car turned down an obscured gravel path lined by poplar trees. After another few minutes, the trees gave way to a pair of iron gates and stone pillars. The name Somerset was written across the center of the gates in gold letters. Well beyond, a grand manor house could be seen through the clearing mist, like a home that had been taken into a fairy realm a century ago and only now was emerging back into the modern age.
The Somerset estate was an eighteenth-century red brick home with the corners capped by large gray stones. Stately windows patterned the two-story walls, and wild ivy grew around the main doorway. The abundance of green rippling leaves made the entrance look even more like the entrance to another world. Rounded topiaries decorated a garden to the right of the house, and the base was lined with an explosion of colorful flowers.
The car stopped, and the front door opened. A dark-haired man in a bespoke dark-blue suit and a lovely woman in an emerald green knee-length dress stepped outside to meet them. This had to be Cameron and his wife, Isabelle. Cameron looked so much like Thorne it was startling. The dark hair, the intense blue eyes. If Cameron hadn’t been in his forties, it would have been easy to mistake him for Thorne’s brother.
“My God,” Cameron murmured as he came down the steps to greet them. He held out a hand to Thorne and shook it. “You look . . . I didn’t think . . . Can it actually . . . ?”
Thorne nodded respectfully. “Hello, Lord Somerset.”
Cameron stiffened. “Good Lord, don’t call me that. If you are who I hope you are, then you are Lord Somerset, or soon will be.”
Eden rushed up to join them. “My lord.” She shook Cameron’s hand. “I’m so glad you could see us.”
“It seems you’ve had quite the adventure to get here.” Cameron looked back behind him. “Isabelle, come my love.”
Isabelle was still at the top of the stairs, her mouth covered with her hand and her eyes shimmering with tears.
“This is my wife, Isabelle.”
Isabelle seemed to get ahold of herself but then rushed down the stairs and threw her arms around Thorne, hugging him.
Thorne froze, not sure how to react as Isabelle’s body shook with silent sobs. Then Thorne gently embraced her back.
“Why do you weep?” he asked when she finally let go.
Eden watched all this with a lump in her throat.
“I’m so sorry,” Isabelle apologized. Cameron gently put an arm around her shoulder. “It’s just . . . It’s really you, isn’t it? Seeing you all grown up . . . I used to read you bedtime stories when your parents were out late. Do you remember?”
Thorne was silent a long moment. “I wish I could. I wish . . .” He said nothing more.
“Perhaps we should all go inside,” Cameron suggested.
“Yes, I’ll have some tea brewed.” Isabelle wiped her tears away and held out a hand to Eden. “Come with me, Ms. Matthews. Let’s leave the men alone for a bit.”
“Why don’t you come inside?” Cameron volunteered, and then he headed into the house. Thorne followed him, his mind searching for memories of this place, Cameron, and Isabelle. But he had not missed the fact that now that they were alone, his uncle’s warmth had cooled just a little.
“You’ll have to forgive my wife. She’s more convinced about you than I am, but Isabelle always had more faith in the universe. But I believe in what I can see, what I can verify. I’m a man of facts, and frankly the story that Ms. Matthews told us . . . Well, it’s hard for a man like me to believe it.”
Cameron paused inside a large room with white columns along one wall. The ceiling was the color of a clear sky, and the walls were a soft yellow that reminded Thorne of mangoes, though a little paler. There were two white couches covered in fabrics that Eden had called silk and linen. She had made a point last night to tell him all about the odd furniture in their hotel room and the various fabrics, which he now knew were not animal skins at all.
Cameron waved at a couch. “Would you care to sit?”
“I like to stand. I’m not used to being so . . .” He struggled for the right word. “Still.”
“Yes, looking at you, I can believe that. You look as though you never stop moving.” Cameron chuckled. “Now, let us get down to business. Eden said you have agreed to a DNA test. I have the kits right here.” He picked up two small white boxes and pulled out a white stick with a fluffy white end. He opened his own mouth and rubbed the fluffy end on the inside of his cheek and then put the stick in a clear tube, marking it with a black pen. He then took a second stick and handed it to Thorne. Thorne accepted the stick and opened his mouth.
“Scrape the inside of your cheek. Not too hard, but enough that you feel it,” Cameron instructed.
Thorne did as Cameron said, and then he handed the stick back to him.
“Thank you,” Cameron said, his tone subdued. “It’s not that I don’t want to believe you, but we’ve had many imposters over the years, and neither Isabelle nor I can live with another disappointment.”
“Eden told me that men and women have tried to trick you. To take money from you. I want no money. I do this for Eden. If I am to be with her, I must be the man I was supposed to be, not the one from the jungle.”
“I see,” Cameron said, but Thorne could tell quite clearly that his uncle was more than a little confused. Yet Thorne had no other way to explain things.
“Well, tell me about the jungle. About the gorillas who raised you. Your friend wouldn’t happen to be exaggerating about that part, would she?” Cameron leaned against the mantel, and Thorne walked about the room, studying it as he began to speak.
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“Is it true?” Cameron asked more bluntly.
Thorne nodded. “My mother, Keza, is a gorilla. She raised me alongside her own son, Akika. He is my brother.” Thorne smiled a little as he glanced at Cameron. “I am also an uncle. To Akika’s son.”
“You’re an uncle . . . to a gorilla?”
“Yes.”
“I see . . .” Cameron sounded disbelieving, but Thorne had been warned by Eden that this would be the case.
“And you lived with them all this time?”
“Keza rescued me. I remained with her until I was ready to be on my own.”
“But didn’t you know you were . . . different?” Cameron asked.
“Yes. As I grew older, I could see I was not as they were. As I became older, some of the others were nervous around me.”
It was one of Thorne’s harshest memories—the day he had left the band and struck out on his own. He could return to visit, but he could never stay very long. He was too different.
It was then he had begun to truly hear the whispers in his head, the calling of the cave. He discovered the cave a few years after he left his family. Once he had set foot inside, visions had flooded his head. He’d fallen to his knees, his body shaking as he tried to understand what he was seeing.
Visions of homes built of wood, how to use shale rocks to cut the wood, how to create ladders, doors, and windows. He could see people much like himself, working and living in the jungle.
All his life he’d wanted to belong, and now he was here in this grand English manor house where he had been born, and he felt no more at home here than he did in the jungle.
Cameron watched him intently, but Thorne now noticed the mantel that the man was leaning against. The fine hairs on his neck and arms rose. A flash of an old memory came back to him. That of a man, his father, touching the underside of that place and . . .
Thorne crossed the room and stood right in front of Cameron. He reached out toward the mantel, and Cameron moved out of his way as Thorne felt around the lip. He found a small uneven indentation and pressed on it. There was a soft hiss, and then the wall next to the fireplace creaked open, revealing a secret door.
Thorne could see it so clearly in his head, his father turning to him, smiling, and saying something to him . . .
“Avalon.”
Cameron gasped, pulling Thorne out of his memories. “What did you say?”
“Avalon?” He didn’t know what it meant, only that his father had opened the secret door and said that word when he did. Cameron’s face drained of color, and he leaned on the mantel as though he needed it for support. Thorne offered a hand to help, but Cameron shook his head fiercely and waved Thorne away.
“There was only one other person who knew that secret door and the word we associated with it.” Cameron’s eyes widened as he stared at Thorne. “That man was your father. Not even Isabelle knows about the secret library this door leads to. Jacob and I called it Avalon, because we discovered it as boys while we were obsessed with stories of King Arthur.”
“King Arthur?” Thorne asked.
“That is a long story for a rainy day,” Cameron said. “The point is, there is no way an imposter could know about this door or that word. Which means . . . you are Thorne. My nephew.” Cameron’s once calm voice grew rough with emotion. “My boy, you’ve come home.” Cameron pulled Thorne into a fierce embrace.
Thorne felt changed somehow by this event. Like a static charge from a coming storm had been building in the air ever since he’d set foot on English soil, and now the feeling had eased. Could a person’s heart recognize his home even after all this time, even when his mind could not? For the first time since he’d left the jungle, Thorne felt a call, much like the whispering cave in Uganda. The secret room whispered to him too. Both were home to him, both welcomed him.
“My God,” Cameron said. “You don’t know what it does to a person to live so long on hope and to feel that hope dying bit by bit every day. It’s like I’ve been holding a candle in a hurricane, desperate to keep the flame burning. But you . . . you’re here, you’re alive.” He was smiling again, his eyes overbright. “You are a wildfire, my boy, a hope that won’t die.”
Thorne’s throat tightened. He didn’t understand all that his uncle had said, but he could understand the emotion in his uncle’s voice.
“Avalon told me more about you than any cheek swab ever could.” Cameron patted Thorne’s back. “I think we need a bit of tea. Let’s find the ladies.”
Eden was in a lovely sitting room drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea with Isabelle when Thorne and Cameron entered.
“Did you finish the cheek swabs?” Isabelle asked.
“We did them, but I have all the proof I need already. We’ll still have to run the tests to satisfy the courts once we petition to have him declared living, but I’m convinced he is Jacob’s son.” Cameron shot Thorne a warm smile before meeting his wife’s stunned gaze.
“They weren’t needed?”
“No. Thorne provided me with clear and undeniable evidence that he is Jacob’s son.”
“That’s wonderful!” Isabelle exclaimed. She leapt out of her chair to embrace Thorne as she had on the front steps. When she released him, she looked between them curiously. “What sort of evidence?”
“It was something Jacob and I knew together as boys. He must have shown it to Thorne. No one else could have possibly known about it.”
“Dear,” Isabelle sighed. “You’re being overly cryptic.”
Cameron chuckled. “A secret door, my love. That’s all.”
“A secret door? And you’ve never told me?” Isabelle didn’t appear upset by this, but rather amused.
Cameron bowed and kissed his wife’s cheek. “A man must have some secrets, my dear.” He then turned to Eden and held out his hand. “Ms. Matthews, you have no idea what you’ve given me today. You’ve given me back something so precious I cannot even imagine how I could repay you for it, but I will move heaven and earth in the attempt.”
Eden shook her head. “No, I don’t want anything. I owe Thorne my life. If he hadn’t saved me from those men, I’d be dead in the jungle. The least I could do was reunite him with his family.”
Cameron cleared his throat, his face a ruddy color. “Right, well, I am still indebted to you, Ms. Matthews, so consider yourself owed a favor.”
Eden hesitated a moment. “Actually, there is something you could do, Lord Somerset. The men who killed those tourists weren’t simply poachers. Thorne and I believe that his jungle is in danger, and we need help to find whoever those men worked for, and stop them. I was planning to write an article and use my photos to publish in National Park magazine. I think Thorne’s story would be very powerful, and it could help us gain support in trying to find the men who attacked me and the others. I’m convinced they were hired by an Englishman, from what Swahili I picked up from the Ugandans in the group. They spoke about an Englishman with cold eyes like death. But it was clear they weren’t talking about a man currently with them, so it wasn’t the man they called Cash.”
“If they weren’t poachers, then who were they?”
“Why don’t we sit, and I’ll tell you everything we know.”
An hour later, when the last bit of tea had been drunk, Eden was satisfied that she had convinced Cameron of the truth and secured his support to help protect the Impenetrable Forest.
“I have an idea.” Cameron toyed with the handle of his teacup. “But it’s a rather risky endeavor.”
“I am not afraid.” Thorne had been quiet during most of the discussion, only speaking to add details that Eden had left out.
“Well,” Cameron continued, “what if when Ms. Matthews publishes her article about your rescue of her and the discovery of your identity, she includes some details about the caves and the treasure. It will go viral. Whoever is in charge of the men you encountered in the jungle is likely someone who has influence in London, based on what you’ve told me. He’ll have
to see the article, or at least hear about it. I have enough pull that I can make sure that the BBC will heavily cover the story. Unless this fellow is living under a rock, he will hear about you, Thorne. He might send someone to silence you if he thinks his secret about the cave and the gold and diamonds is threatened. We will be ready for him.”
“Do you expect danger?” Thorne queried, his tone quiet, but Eden heard the warning in his voice.
“I do, but we’ll be smart about it. I doubt he will act quickly. While the story builds attention, we have time to put protection in place. On a much happier side, I think we ought to have a rather big party here at the house, something that we can invite the news crews to and everyone we know. If this man has any influence and power at all, he’ll likely hear about this either from the BBC or from the old rumor mill after our party welcoming Thorne home.”
“It’s a good plan,” Eden agreed. They needed to do something to draw out the people behind the gold and diamond thefts. She also wanted to make sure that the Ugandan government was involved in the discussion too, because at some point, they needed to decide if the cave should be accessed for archeological preservation.
“Excellent. Why don’t we get you two settled in your rooms, and then we’ll talk more this evening over dinner. I’m sure you’re both exhausted.”
“Thank you.” Eden stood, and Thorne held out his hand to her. Eden panicked as she saw Cameron and Isabelle watching with wide eyes.
“My mate sleeps with me,” Thorne said to Cameron.
Oh God. She had warned Thorne not to mention the whole mate thing, that it was something his aunt and uncle would likely not understand. How was she going to explain this? No matter what she might try, it looked bad, like she was using Thorne to get close to Cameron and his wife for any number of reasons.
“Eden.” Thorne gently took her hand in his, but she tried to pull free.
