Love's Golden Spell

by William Maltese

  “For all I know, he was right,” Christopher said. “It wasn’t anyone’s confession that had me looking to see where Captain Sylo had got himself off to.”

  “Then what?” Captain Frazier asked. Janet was as curious, too. She might be willing even to believe in incidents of E.S.P. and mental telepathy, especially between two people as closely in tune as she and Christopher, but she didn’t think any of her mental calls for help had brought Christopher running this time.

  “I was one of the first into the storage room,” Christopher said. “Actually, it was a cave. They had all of their booty laid out for transport.” Captain Frazier didn’t see how that had tipped Sylo’s hand. “Mainly tusks,” Christopher continued. “About sixty of them. But there were several rhino horns, too, including a couple of distinctively long and large ones.”

  “Melissa’s!” Janet said, immediately making the connection. “They were Melissa’s weren’t they?”

  “Who’s Melissa?” Captain Frazier asked, puzzled.

  “Melissa was a rhino that grazed around here until a few days ago,” Christopher explained. “She had a pair of horns that were unique in this day and age. She and her calf were poisoned by poachers.”

  The captain still needed more information, and Janet obliged. “Christopher scared off the poachers before they got her horns.” That was the same day she had found the yellow stone in the stream, but she had no desire to think about that now. “Christopher took the horns to Craig for safekeeping.”

  “Sylo told us he shipped them off to Salisbury,” Christopher said.

  It all clicked for Captain Frazier then. “And they weren’t in Salisbury,” he verified. “They were in the cave with the contraband.”

  “So they either got there before Sylo shipped them to Salisbury or afterward,” Christopher said. “I was most interested in hearing Captain Sylo’s opinion on that. Suspiciously, he was nowhere to be found.”

  “You figured he’d come back here instead of head across country?” Captain Frazier asked.

  “There was a plane here,” Christopher reminded him. “When you want to get far fast, you don’t drive the distance if you have access to an airplane. If he was guilty and making a break for it, this was where he’d come. I didn’t waste time trying to explain all of that to Major Jenkins, either. I headed back here like a shot. Rather than comb the whole camp and tip my hand, or miss him, I staked myself out in the plane.”

  “Lucky for us you did,” Captain Frazier congratulated him. Janet readily agreed.

  “I was a little taken aback when he ushered Janet aboard,” Christopher confessed. “Especially when I suspected he had a gun under that rather conspicuously draped jacket. I didn’t want bullets to go flying indiscriminately. We had quite a little tussle,” he said, gingerly fingering his bruised face. “But Janet ended up saving the day,” Christopher added, looking at her with loving pride.

  “You both handled things well, very well indeed,” Captain Frazier assured them magnanimously. Christopher and Janet’s fast action meant the captain’s military record would look a lot different than it would have if Craig had kidnapped Janet and flown into the wild blue yonder.

  “And I see a medal of commendation in your immediate future, Captain Frazier,” Christopher commented shrewdly, but with a smile.

  The captain nodded complacently as a soldier yelled something from the plane and double-timed it to his superior. Frazier came to his feet. “I have to be on my way,” he said.

  “Before you go, could you arrange for someone to give Janet and me a lift back to the hotel?” Christopher asked, getting up. “I could use a shower. How about you, Janet?”

  She knew to what he was referring, and she blushed bright red. Fortunately it all went completely over the captain’s head. “I’ll have Private Choma drive you,” Captain Frazier said obligingly. He walked toward the plane in order to single the private out of the group of curious onlookers.

  “What you need is a good long soak in a tub full of hot water,” Janet said when the captain was out of earshot. “Not a strenuous workout in the shower.”

  “You’re right,” Christopher agreed. “Besides, the tub is plenty big enough for two, isn’t it?”

  “You’re incorrigible!” she said, shaking her head. She took his proffered hands, and he pulled her to her feet, groaning with the pressure of her weight on his injured shoulder as she came up against him. “Doesn’t sound to me as if you’re up to much of anything,” Janet said with a wide smile.

  “We’ll see,” Christopher said. Their peals of merry laughter reached the soldiers gathered in a solemn group several hundred yards away.

  And Janet thought how perfect things would be if it weren’t for a yellow stone still in her hotel dresser.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “IT’S A DIAMOND, isn’t it?” she said.

  Christopher looked up from the stone she had placed before him on his desk at Lionspride. Surprisingly, he didn’t touch it but left it where it was: a miniature sun, collecting light from the desk lamp and holding it. Her engagement ring was more actively on fire, flashing sparks from its faceted surface.

  “What do you think?” Christopher parried noncommittally, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest. His hair and eyes, like the stones, trapped the light.

  “It is a diamond,” she said. It had been obvious from the moment she’d seen it reflecting sunlight through the water of the stream.

  He leaned forward and touched the stone for the first time. He moved it this way and that with his forefinger and finally lifted it for a closer examination. “Yes,” he verified, “a diamond. A yellow fancy, approximately one-hundred-and-fifty carats. Its two readily noticeable flaws will still leave a seventy-carat cut gemstone, and there’s a good chance the right cutter can salvage even more.”

  “You don’t seem surprised I have it,” Janet said. She was sure he hadn’t known.

  “I’m always surprised to see a diamond of this color and size,” he said. “It’s just that it does explain the air of impending disaster you’ve been carrying around with you since our return to Lionspride. You found this on the Great Zimbabwe reserve, didn’t you?”

  “If I did, what then?” she asked, so afraid that he wouldn’t have the right answers yet again.

  “If so, there must be compromises,” Christopher said, putting the stone back on the blotter. “We talked about compromises once, didn’t we?”

  “We could forget I found it,” Janet said.

  “Flush it down the toilet, you mean?” Christopher suggested wryly. “Send it out to sea with the fish? I don’t think so. You don’t, either. Nothing is washed away by pretending the problem doesn’t exist. We’ll face this squarely, as we would have faced a large gold discovery at Great Zimbabwe. Besides, it’s a rare find you have here, Janet. Compare what Donald Geiger dropped on the desk to the final product on your finger. Now imagine a faceted stone at least twice that size. The two yellow fancies will make quite a pair—big and little, mother and daughter.”

  Melissa and Suzy were mother and daughter—big and little, both dead. Killed by poison. This stone could kill all Janet wanted out of life—such a deceptively beautiful death weapon.

  “Do whatever you must,” Janet said. “I’m glad it’s out in the open.”

  “Yes,” Christopher agreed. “There shouldn’t be secrets between two people as much in love as we are. Whatever the problem, it should be worked out together. You see that.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Behold the acid test the gold wouldn’t give us!” Janet said sadly. She couldn’t keep the fear out of her voice. She had come so close to keeping the secret, but she had spent too much of the past sixteen years living in fantasies to do so any longer. She had to start dealing with realities.

  “This won’t make any difference to the way I feel about you, or to the way you feel about me,” he assured her. “Except that I love you more, because I know the effort it took for you to bring t
his forward.” He thought he understood, but he didn’t. Wildlife preservation remained a vital part of her life. Love didn’t cancel out that importance. Maybe true love was supposed to, and that’s what pained her, because she couldn’t stand by docilely and accept the dissolution of the Great Zimbabwe Reserve just because of her feelings for Christopher.

  “Anyway, the Great Zimbabwe Reserve doesn’t stand much chance of surviving with or without interference from my company,” he said, reading her thoughts. He was preparing the way for her surrender, she knew, giving her the rationalizations that would make it all right. Janet had to be careful, because she so badly wanted to be won over. “Look at its history,” he continued. “It was once nineteen-thousand square kilometers but was carved up by land reform and converted, piece by piece, to farms and ranches. It’s no longer large enough to support the big cats. It’s no longer large enough to support the elephants. The cats are long gone, and Dr. Nhari’s team is transferring the last of the elephants to Wankie. So we’re not talking about a major animal sanctuary, are we? The irrigation potential of Lake Kyle has a lot of covetous eyes looking at what’s left of the reserve, and who do you think will win the final struggle between animals and agriculture? Past victories point to the likely winner, don’t you agree?”

  His arguments were valid, but were they valid enough for her to accept them without compromising her ideals? “There are more and more people like Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Nhari who are beginning to speak out for wildlife preservation,” Janet reminded him.

  “One diamond doesn’t make a diamond field, right?” he said. “Maybe we should find out more before imagining a problem where one might not exist. We nearly had a serious problem over the question of gold, didn’t we? And there was no gold.”

  But Janet couldn’t shake off her pessimism. “And if there are more diamonds?” she asked. She expected the worst, because there had been no major gold discovery to complicate her life. She wouldn’t luck out twice.

  “We’ll confront that problem and deal with it,” Christopher answered confidently.

  “Yes, of course, you’re right,” she agreed; hoping the problem could be solved. She left him with the diamond and went back to her room. She lay on her bed. He wouldn’t come to her. He wouldn’t use his body to seduce her into his way of thinking, and that was admirable. But she wondered what he would do. He needed to use every persuasive weapon in his arsenal or he would lose her, and she didn’t want to be lost. She wanted him to take her in his arms, pull her against the comforting hardness of his chest and promise her everything would be all right. She wanted reassurance that she was his and he was hers for time and all eternity—that there was nothing powerful enough to break the bond between them. She wanted to believe, really believe that somehow there was merit in sacrificing the Great Zimbabwe Reserve, where there had been none whatsoever in dissolving the dream her father had once had for Lackland.

  During the next few weeks, Christopher became more and more preoccupied with telephone conversations and meetings behind closed doors. A good deal of his activity concerned the ongoing efforts to pinpoint the mother source of Janet’s diamond find on the Great Zimbabwe Reserve. She didn’t press for progress reports, and Christopher didn’t volunteer them. For Janet, no news was good news, because she foresaw no suitable solution to their dilemma.

  He continued to avoid her bedroom. She missed him beside her, but she needed a clear head to analyze things objectively, and Christopher’s lovemaking would cloud the real issue. Blessed irrationality might be welcome for a time, but Janet knew she would regret it later. There was wisdom in keeping each other at arm’s length for the moment, even with her fading hopes for a return to their previous closeness.

  There were ways to get the information he didn’t give her. She could have scanned the financial pages of the newspaper for hints of things in the works, on which newspapermen were always quick to speculate. But she didn’t bother with the newspapers. She didn’t watch television or listen to the radio She didn’t go into Johannesburg. Lionspride was its own isolated and self-contained world, a connoisseur’s paradise. There was fine food, fine wine, elegant domestic employees to serve both. There was a sauna, steam room and Jacuzzi that did wonders for the aches and pains obtained during long hours of horseback riding. Most importantly, there was Christopher.

  By mutual consent, all planning for their wedding was put on hold. Ann Tiompkin, a social secretary originally brought in from Johannesburg to help Janet coordinate the arrangements, was told her services would not be needed so soon, after all. Christopher explained that business matters had momentarily made definite plans impossible. Ann was sufficiently compensated for her inconvenience to accept the delay in the best of humor.

  Janet’s well-being fluctuated. Her leisurely weeks at Lionspride recalled the idyllic days she had spent there in her childhood, especially whenever Christopher realized he was neglecting her and showed up at the pool to join her in the water and in the sun. Sometimes he would be at the stables, his horse saddled and ready to join hers on one of her frequent rides. Often enough, it seemed so perfect. But it was as flawed as the largest diamond could be flawed, and thus could be valueless.

  It might have been better for Janet to face the impossibility of the situation and call it quits. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have anything to go back to, because she had her life in the States. She had her job. She detected a good deal of curiosity on the other end of the transatlantic telephone line whenever she called to give her latest excuses for staying on in South Africa, but she was never threatened with dismissal by her supervisors. There were enough of her television shows shot and in the can for the start of the new season. She had plenty of time before her job would be in jeopardy. Jokingly, Roger continued to ask how she wanted the Great Zimbabwe tapes edited— “As the original hatchet job, or with more consideration for your husband?” She and Christopher weren’t married yet, she would painfully remind him. “When is he going to make an honest woman of you?” he would respond predictably. She promised he would be the first to know.

  She contemplated a return to her old life, but she knew what kept her at Lionspride. It was a faint, die-hard glimmer of hope that there was a solution somewhere. Christopher talked of compromises, and maybe there was one…maybe.

  The visitors to Lionspride became more numerous, more frequent and more varied. Donald Geiger was often there. Janet usually saw him coming to or from the library, where Christopher stayed closeted for long hours at a time. Janet got no news out of Donald, although he was her most logical information source after Christopher. She knew none of the other men who came in and out of the house. Some wore expensive business suits; some wore soiled blue jeans. A few wore the military uniforms of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Some had manicured fingernails; some had nails encrusted with dirt and grime. Some nodded to her and offered polite greetings with the aplomb of men comfortable with women; some were embarrassed and unable to manage anything but tongue-tied grunts in passing.

  At first, Janet looked over each man closely. One of them might provide the solution to hers and Christopher’s problem. Later, she realized all of them were probably there to discuss potential profits for Van Hoon Afrikaner Minerals, and she began to pay less attention. She returned to her swimming and her riding. She spent long hours reading: Moby Dick, War and Peace. She re-read Gone with the Wind. She grew despondent with Anna Karenina, whose problems were only solvable by suicide beneath a speeding train. She exulted in the victory of Jenny Mowry over all her trials and tribulations in From This Beloved Hour.

  There were more horseback rides—more returns to find cars filling the driveway. More of Christopher’s conferences from which she was excluded.

  But one afternoon Ashanti announced the moment she came through the door, “Mr. Van Hoon would like to see you in the library.”

  She didn’t know how to handle this news. Christopher never included her in his business meetings. She stalled for time. “He might p
refer that I change out of my riding clothes,” she said.

  “You’re to go right in,” Ashanti contradicted her.

  “He is in a meeting, isn’t he?” she asked. This could mean something she didn’t want to hear—some decision reached about diamonds on the Great Zimbabwe Reserve, a decision that affected her last chance for happiness with Christopher.

  “You are to join him nevertheless,” Ashanti confirmed, “immediately upon your return. Mr. Van Hoon was quite specific.”

  Janet surrendered to the inevitable. At the library door, she knocked. Sliding the doors to one side, she stepped inside.

  “Janet… good!” Christopher greeted her, apparently delighted to see her. He was obviously confident, but she doubted he had good news.

  “You wanted to see me immediately?” she asked. It was her way of excusing her riding clothes.

  “Yes, indeed!” Christopher affirmed, introducing the various people in the room. Janet had difficulty catching all the names and titles, but there was a cross section from both the South African and Zimbabwe governments. “Come on over here and sit down,” Christopher invited, motioning to a wing chair close to where he stood. Self-conscious, Janet crossed the expensive Persian carpet and took the seat. “Janet has been most anxious,” Christopher said to the others in the room. The men nodded their understanding. But they didn’t understand, she thought. Christopher stepped up to the presentation easel set up in front of his desk. Displayed was a large map of the Great Zimbabwe Reserve. A blue outline designated the reserve boundaries as they had existed a few days before. A substantially smaller area, clinging precariously to a section of one sideline, was outlined in red. Janet braced herself for whatever was to follow.

  “First, the diamond field looks like an extensive one,” Christopher continued. The Zimbabwe representatives murmured appreciative agreement of Janet’s worst fears. “Thanks to you, Janet,” Christopher said, “we were able to stake out the claim before word got out confusing matters.” There were more nods and grunts of approval. Bully for Van Hoon Afrikaner Minerals! Janet’s attention remained riveted on the map on the easel. “We’ve optioned all this area in blue,” Christopher informed her, his finger designating the area, “with the full approval and cooperation of the Zimbabwe government.”