Yesterday's Promise Read Free Page B

Woods as the vicar drove by in a hurry to get home in the rain. The horse bolted just as I had hoped. A clap of thunder and a flash of lightning were an added stroke of luck
.
    The letter read like a confessional. Yes, Henry had assisted Katie van Buren in taking the Kimberly Black Diamond from its secret hiding place in Sir Julien Bley’s library at Cape House. They had intended to travel to the mission station at Rorke’s Drift to locate her baby, then leave for England, with Katie going on to America to begin a new life. But when Henry entered the stables, he was struck from behind. After he regained consciousness, both the Kimberly Diamond and Katie were long gone.
    I now believe it was Katie van Buren who struck me down in the stables and took the Kimberly Black Diamond. Certain information has come my way convincing me she was waiting in the stables that night in 1879. So convinced, I have spent months now, searching, and I believe that I am close to proving this. I am asking you to say nothing of this to anyone until I return from a trip to South Africa, which I intend to make next month
.
    Upon my return I fully expect to exonerate my own tarnished honor, as I continue to live under a cloud of dark suspicion
.
    The murderer’s hand trembled with rage.
Henry deceived me into thinking he named me as the thief instead of Katie! And the message I sent him—he lied to me, saying he had kept it for Scotland Yard, when all the
time I had fooled them all! There was no reason to have fought him… And when the pistol went off—
    â€œAll for nothing… Henry had not even suspected
me!
”
    In a surge of rage, the murderer crumpled the letter and reached for the candle, then on second thought decided against burning it. The murderer moved from the attic to the steps and looked down into the gathering dimness to Evy Varley’s crumpled body.
    All for nothing. You, too, could have been spared. If only you had stayed at the church supper as you were supposed to, none of this would have happened. Foolish girl. You always were too adventurous for your own good
.
    But now I’m certain I know who is hiding the Kimberly Black Diamond. I will yet possess it. It is only fair. It was meant for glory, and it belongs to me, to us! If I must kill again to have it, then I shall. Too much is at stake
.
    The figure went down the steps, pausing again to look down at the body lying on the floor, still looking so fair and innocent.
    Then quickly, as thunder rumbled in Grimston Woods, the murderer fled into the raging storm.



C HAPTER T WO

    South Africa
July 1897
    Who murdered Uncle Henry?
    Rogan Chantry felt calmly convinced the question would find its answer among the extended diamond dynasty members scattered throughout South Africa and England—three families related by marriage, but with little else in common except diamonds…and the greed that surrounded the sparkling gems. Chantrys, Bleys, and Brewsters, all ruled by one man, Sir Julien Bley—sometimes ruthless, always dictatorial.
    Rogan sat brooding over the two objects sitting on the mahogany desk in his cabin aboard the HMS
King George
bound for Capetown, South Africa.
    The ship, now three weeks into its voyage from London, had come up against an uncommon storm for the season of seagoing travel. Shadows lengthened across the dark, mountainous swells as the ship rolled and pitched, its aged timbers creaking and moaning in harmony with the howling wind.
    The lantern above his desk seemed to sway its own cadence in some macabre waltz. His focus shifted from his uncle’s unexplained death to the two objects—now starting to slide across his desk. As they neared the precipice, he fetched them back.
    Two objects, both important, both reaching a generation into thepast: a portion of Henry’s diary, and the map Henry had drawn to what he said was a gold deposit in the Zambezi River region. The map, once smiled upon as Henry’s