I had one of the grooms ready Messenger Boy for me—thinking not just that he would make a magnificent impression on the prince, but also that it was a fitting opportunity to show Mansfield that I meant to keep handling our animals as before. It was probably obstinate of me, but I imagined I could easily explain how David had insisted on seeing Messenger Boy to his fullest advantage.
When that day was over, though, and the last vestiges of the entourage had trickled away, Mansfield let me know how unhappy I’d made him. “You’re deliberately trying to put this child at risk, Beryl, and embarrassing me besides. They’re famous playboys, both of them, and no one could have missed your flirtation.”
“Don’t be silly. I was only being friendly, and everyone knows I’m married.”
“Marriage hasn’t exactly kept you out of trouble before.”
I felt slapped. “If you’re angry about the horse, say that. Don’t try to rub my nose in the past.”
“You are being wilful about the riding, no doubt—but you also seem to have no idea of how you’re prompting gossip.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“My mother reads every word of the society columns, Beryl. I would die if even a whisper of scandal made its way home. You know how difficult she is.”
“Then why bow and scrape to mollify her?”
“Why deliberately fuel gossip and speculation?” He bit down hard on his lower lip, as he often did when he was angry. “I think we should go back to England until the baby is born,” he went on. “It’s a much safer place to be for many reasons.”
“Why travel so far?” I bristled. “What would I do there?”
“Take care of yourself, for a start. Be my wife.”
“Are you doubting that I love you on top of everything else?”
“You do care, I think…as much as you can. But sometimes I wonder if you’re still waiting for Finch Hatton.”
“Denys? Why are you saying all of this now?”
“I don’t know. It almost seems as if we’ve been playing a kind of game lately.” He looked at me closely. “Have we, Beryl?”
“Of course not,” I said firmly. But later, as I tried to sleep, I felt a surge of guilt and awareness. I wasn’t trying to toy with Mansfield exactly, but I had been flirting with the princes. In a way, I couldn’t help myself. It felt marvellous to smile and make Harry smile, too, or to walk off in a particular way and know that David’s eyes were on me. It was childish, and also futile, but for those moments, I could believe I was free-spirited and alluring again, as if I still had some measure of control in the world.
How had Mansfield and I come to a standoff so quickly? I wondered. We’d started off well, committed to being staunch allies and friends. It hadn’t been perfect, but now this pregnancy was pressing us into separate corners. I had absolutely no desire to go to England to placate him, but what was the alternative? If things fell apart between us now, I’d be alone with a child to care for. I could also possibly lose the farm…and that seemed out of the question. Like it or not, I would have to bend.
The safari was set to depart, and Karen was throwing a royal dinner Denys had helped her secure—no doubt a peacekeeping concession. She couldn’t go to Government House because of social protocol, but the princes could very well come to her. She made it worth their while, too, serving an incomparable meal with so many courses and small delicacies I quickly lost count. There was ham poached in champagne with tiny jewel-like strawberries and tart, plump pomegranate seeds, a mushroom croustade with truffles and cream. When Karen’s cook, Kamante, came in bearing the dessert, a fat and perfectly browned rum baba, I thought he might float away with pride.
I watched Karen closely, too, certain she must be feeling this evening as one of her finest moments, but under the powder and jet-black kohl, her eyes were lined and exhausted looking. The safari plan had evolved, and Blix was now going along, too, as Denys’s right-hand man. One safari had turned into several, beginning with a foray into Uganda, with other later trips into Tanganyika—and Cockie had been invited to go along as Blix’s wife, and also safari hostess, making sure the water was hot for baths at the end of the day, and that Dr. Turvy had wired in prescriptions for plenty of gin. Karen was left in the lurch, and she was livid about it, I soon learned.
The culmination of the evening was a Kikuyu ngoma, the largest of these I had ever seen. Several thousand dancers gathered from tribes all over the area, their chiefs joining forces to give the princes a picture they’d never forget. The central bonfire licked up at the sky. Several smaller blazes encircled it, like brilliant spokes around a gleaming hub. The drum music rose and fell in great rippling crescendos, while male and female dancers flung themselves rhythmically in moves too ancient and complex ever to chart.