Rare Breed. Connie Hall

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СКАЧАТЬ people were loyal to Hellstrom, including MacKay, it seemed.

      They passed the dining room, decorated in ornate antique French furniture. Guests huddled around a massive table laden with enough food to feed ten Zambian families for a week.

      The memory of the tour flashed back to her, and she knew the next room they passed would be the music room. It had been in this room where Hellstrom had approached her, and she had felt his attraction for her. Had she been imagining it? He hadn’t pursued her in any way since. Maybe she had read more into it than really had been there. She was good at reading animals. But men? They were a whole different species.

      A grand piano graced the music room’s center. A musician in a tux sat playing Bach now. Commander Kaweki’s balding head caught her eye, the chandelier light bouncing off his dark, shiny scalp. He stood behind the piano, speaking to Colette, his wife and another couple Wynne didn’t recognize.

      Colette had short curly ebony hair and wide, impish green eyes. Her smile lit up her face. A simple, yet elegant black gown covered her hourglass figure. Colette was originally from France, but had worked as a missionary in Lusaka, the capitol of Zambia, before Kaweki married her. The only time Wynne ever saw the commander smile was when he was with his wife. He appeared enthralled by what she was telling the other couple now and didn’t notice Wynne and Tungana move past the doorway.

      After they cleared the music room’s entrance, Wynne relaxed a little. She really didn’t want to explain to Kaweki what she was doing here until she’d had a chance to nose around.

      “You really don’t have to show me the way,” she said. “Just point me in the right direction. I can find it myself.”

      “Oh, no, no. BaK para would not like that.”

      BaK para meant “master” in the Pygmy language, a term of fear and obedience. Wynne frowned as she said, “You know, Tungana, you’re employed by Mr. Hellstrom. He’s not your master.”

      Tungana nodded, but still wouldn’t look at her.

      “How long have you been with Mr. Hellstrom?” She asked as they slipped past an African couple, strangers to Wynne.

      Tungana avoided all small talk by merely shrugging.

      At seeing Tungana reduced to servitude and away from his home, Wynne couldn’t help but think about the life he’d left behind. Pygmies had a wonderful nomadic lifestyle, centered on their love for the forest world and their family. She had visited the Belgian Congo once when she first arrived in Africa. She spent several days with the BaMbuti Pygmies and fell in love with their warmth and gentleness and the simplicity in which they lived. The sad thing was they had existed for millennia, even ancient Egyptians wrote of seeing Pygmies in the heart of Africa, but now their hunting and gathering way of life was quickly eroding. The destruction of rain forests and the overhunting of food sources were taking their toll. Nothing saddened her more than the slow extinction of a once proud, self-sustaining culture. Part of the beauty of Africa was its diversity and even that was disappearing.

      “Do you miss your family?” Wynne asked.

      Tungana nodded, an unmistakable sadness in his eyes. Then he seemed to realize that he’d actually answered her and slipped back into self-protective mode.

      The din of the party drifted away as he led her up a flight of stairs and into a deserted wing of the house. She recalled the area from the tour.

      He paused before a door. “Tungana draw you a bath. You like?” he asked, his words clipped.

      “I can manage alone. All I need is a hairbrush and a washcloth and towel.”

      “Brush in closet.” He opened the door to the room and waited for her to step inside.

      “Thank you. I can find my way back.”

      The bedroom was done in a Spanish motif. Red wall-paper complemented the rich mahogany furniture and fourposter bed. A woman’s photograph hung above the bed. Her hair was coal-black and worn in a French twist. Golden eyes, similar to Hellstrom’s, stared out from the photo. Her dark hair accentuated her pale skin. The photographer had captured an isolated, detached gleam in the woman’s eyes. They reminded Wynne of a doll’s eyes, inanimate and blank. Wynne didn’t remember the painting on the tour and said, “Who is that?”

      “BaK para’s mama.”

      “Oh.”

      Tungana walked to the closet and opened the door. A row of women’s dresses hung neatly in the closet.

      “Wow, does Hellstrom keep those for his female guests?” It looked like thousands of dollars worth of designer labels.

      “He best host.” Tungana nodded and seemed to be looking for one particular evening dress. He pulled out a slinky red gown and a pair of red heels.

      The gown might fit her, but it was a little more revealing than she would like. It was ankle length and low-cut with rhinestone spaghetti straps. The same red rhinestones formed starburst patterns randomly all over the dress.

      Tungana laid the evening dress on the bed. “For you?”

      “But I don’t—”

      “BaK para want you to wear.”

      Leave it to Hellstrom to anticipate every female guest’s need by supplying them with dresses. If it would bide her some time to search the house, she’d comply. “All right.” She nodded.

      Tungana left the room and closed the door behind him.

      She pressed her ear to the door and listened as the soft tread of his footsteps faded.

      She hurried into the bathroom. When she looked into the mirror, she didn’t recognize herself. A mud wrestler, after a fight, probably looked better than she did. She recalled MacKay’s comments about her cleaning up okay. Her female vanity wanted to show him just how well she cleaned up. But then she reminded herself, it didn’t matter what a woman looked like, he’d flirt with anything breathing and wearing a bra.

      She scrubbed the remnants of mud off her face, neck, arms and her boots. Then she untied her hair. She brushed the bits of mud out of it around her face. There wasn’t much she could do about the limpness. Her hair always had the texture of thick straw. It hung down her back, stick-straight.

      She quickly changed into the dress, wrapping her slingshot around her thigh and sliding her knife into it. The shoes actually fit her size nine feet, but the heels felt strange. It took a few strides to get used to them.

      She surveyed herself in the full-length mirror behind the bathroom door. Wide hazel eyes stared back at her from an oval tanned face. She didn’t like the pronounced dimple in her chin and her mouth seemed too wide, genetic gifts from her father that couldn’t be helped. But her tanned skin was clear and glowed from the scrubbing—so she wasn’t drop-dead beautiful and her cheeks weren’t sunken and she didn’t have sticks for arms and legs like Jacqueline. She was built of sturdier stuff. She’d like to see Jacqueline freeing a baby rhino from a mud bog.

      The thought brought a smile to her face as she decided she didn’t look half-bad in the dress. She had to go braless and a hint of her nipples showed through the lined silk. The dress actually clung to her curves in a flattering way, and the starbursts on the dress only made her body shimmer. Not bad. It was СКАЧАТЬ