least you’re assured of intelligent company,” Tusker put in. She thrust only her head and hand through the tent flap as she offered me a glass. “Champagne. It’s tradition.”
She vanished and I sipped at the champagne. It was marvelously cold, and when I joined them at the fireside for dinner, I told her so.
“It’s the wicker,” she said, nodding toward the narrow woven bottle covers. “We just put the bottles into them and sink the whole mess into a river or stream. Keeps the bubbly nice and cold. Let’s pop another cork, shall we?”
In fact, we popped three more and in the end only Tusker and Ryder and I were left at the fireside, each with our own bottle.
“Glad to see you ate a good dinner,” Tusker said, hiccupping gently. “Ryder thought you might have been upset at killing that lion. I walked over to see the body. The vultures had made a start but he was a big brute.”
“It had to be done,” I said faintly. I took another deep swig from the bottle and the bubbles tickled my nose.
“You did well,” Ryder said softly. He was sitting opposite me, the fire flickering between us. His eyes were warm.
“I must admit, Delilah, I did worry you might lack bottom,” Tusker put in. “I thought you might turn and run or at least make Ryder shoot the bloody thing. Glad to see you’re made of sterner stuff.”
“So I’ve been tested and found not wanting?” I said lightly.
“Something like that,” Tusker replied. Ryder said nothing, but his expression was unlike any I had seen on his face before. There was something marginally softer there, something almost vulnerable. “Women out here fall into two camps,” Tusker went on. “Those who are worth everything and those who are worth nothing. There is no in-between. And those who are worth everything are rare as hen’s teeth. You’ve got bottom,” she said, lifting her bottle.
I sipped again. Ryder was still watching me.
“I don’t know how much bottom I have,” I said slowly. “I didn’t want to pull that trigger. I still don’t want to.”
“That’s what makes you worth something,” Ryder said, his voice barely audible over the crackling of the flames. “You didn’t want to, and you did it anyway because it was a thing that had to be done.”
“I should have left it to you.”
“You couldn’t have. It was your battle, not mine. The lion made sure of that when he killed one of your Kikuyu.”
“They’re not my Kikuyu,” I returned, my voice sharper than it needed to be. Tusker upended her bottle, sucking the last of her champagne.
“The minute you set foot on Fairlight they became yours,” Ryder countered. “Whether you like it or not, they’re your responsibility. And you know it, or at least your bones and your blood do. Otherwise you never would have taken that lion yourself. You protected your own people because that’s what we do out here. You’re becoming one of us.”
“One of you?” I echoed. “Your sense of humour is better than I thought because that’s a damn good joke. I’m not one of you. I’ll never be one of you.”
“Of course you will,” Tusker put in, hiccupping again. “Just takes a bit of time, that’s all. By this time next year—”
“This time next year I won’t be here. I’m not staying. I was never supposed to stay. I’m here to serve out a sentence and nothing more. As soon as I make parole as far as my family is concerned, I’m taking the first steamer out of Mombasa.”
Tusker snorted. “You’ve already got a taste for Africa, child. You won’t be satisfied with anything less. Europe, America, even the Orient. They’re all pallid and bloodless, full of people who’ve had all the fire and spirit leached out of them. Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” I said coolly. “I want to wear silk shoes without getting them bloody. I want to eat without swallowing as much red dirt as I do food. I want to go to bed without worrying about ants or scorpions or snakes trying to have their way with me. And I want to be in a place where children don’t get chewed up just because somebody turned their back.”
Ryder said nothing as I spoke. He just took another long drag off of his bottle.
“Well, children, I’m turning in,” Tusker said, rising unsteadily to her feet. We said good-night to her and she lurched off toward the car.
“Will she be all right?”
Ryder gave me a