The Idea of Ancestry

Carol Morgan

Description

Life at La Bonne Vie Plantation is finally peaceful. Desirée and her rock star husband are on a world tour with his band, Nicolas has settled down on a farm in Kenya, and though his heart still aches for Desirée, he finds solace in raising his four year old daughter Jolie. Life is good … isn’t it? Desirée, apathetic and longing for home and family, leaves the tour and flies home only a few months before it ends, causing questions she isn’t prepared to answer because she’s looking for answers herself. Her childhood sweetheart, Rory Duval, doesn’t make things any easier. Her old feelings for him flare up anew, and finally true happiness is within Desirée reach. When Nicky discovers Desirée is divorcing Antoine, he and Jolie go back home for the holidays, planning to get Desirée back and take her to Kenya, fulfilling the dream they once had. He arrives and is blindsided by Desirée and Rory’s engagement. Antoine wants his wife back, and he, Nicky and Rory collide in a determination to have the woman they all love. Meanwhile, Uncle Virgil is busy researching the dark mysteries of the family’s past. With Desirée’s help, answers are discovered in bits and pieces, finally coming together in a startling revelation. At last, things come around right and there is truly peace for the Duval/Leveque family.

Sujets

• Ancestor
• Carol
• Idea
• Morgan
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 29 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669864424
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Idea of Ancestry
 
 
 
Book III of the Duval/Leveque Trilogy
 
 
 
 
 
Carol Morgan
 
 
Copyright © 2023 by Carol Morgan.
 

Library of Congress Control Number:
2023901634
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-6444-8

Softcover
978-1-6698-6443-1

eBook
978-1-6698-6442-4
 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
Rev. date: 01/26/2023
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
850543
CONTENTS
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part Two
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Part Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Part Four
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Part Five
Chapter Fifty-Five
Epilogue
 
 
 
 
 
 
For my beloved son,
Anton Joseph Mazur,
With all my love
PROLOGUE
N ICOLAS FRANÇOIS DUVAL Leveque arrived in Kenya in the month of February, the driest and hottest month of the year, leaving behind the bleak gray winter of Mississippi and the woman he loved. He left his infant daughter Jolie in Mississippi with his family. He rented a hotel room in Nairobi and immediately began making inquiries about purchasing land. Knowledgeable people recommended the Laikipia Plateau, which stretched from Mt. Kenya to the edge of the Great Rift Valley. The region was wild and sparsely populated, his most important requirement, and much of it was covered by large privately owned ranches. The area was once known as the White Highlands of British Colonial East Africa and was still called White Highlands by many.
He bought a Land Rover and equipment and was about to leave Nairobi in a random search for a place that suited him, when a gentleman at the Muthaiga Club told him about a farm that was for sale. The owner, Gilliam Kensington, was bitten by a Black Mamba and died. His young pregnant wife immediately put the farm up for sale and returned to England. Alister Mainwaring, who owned the neighboring farm, would give him all the necessary information about the property.
Alister Mainwaring’s farm was about a five hour drive from Nairobi along a road overlooking the Escarpment. After a brief visit with Alister and his wife, Margaret, Nicky drove to the Kensington farm thirty miles away. It was growing late though it was still quite light. He drove up the rutted red dirt driveway between lines of tall cypresses to the house, and sat for a moment in the Land Rover gazing about before he alighted.
The house was a thatch-roofed, rustic, and sprawling one story dwelling, left unfinished by Gilliam Kensington’s demise. It would need work, but that posed no problem. Massive hibiscus grew in scarlet splendor at each end of the deep, wide porch. Enormous Jacaranda trees bloomed in blue profusion.
The farm had been advertised as “ … forty thousand acres teeming with wildlife, green with pastures, rolling hills, rivers, and lakes flocked with flamingos; groves of acacias, jacarandas, yellow fever trees, doum palms, and ancient silvery baobabs; open savannah, and thick impenetrable bush. ” Gilliam Kensington had intended to clear the land to raise cattle.
Nicky stood on a hilltop under the shadow of a gnarled acacia tree, gazing over the horizon, and he knew, simply and inalterably, that there was no need to look any farther. This farm would belong to him. He didn’t know if he would raise cattle, put it to some other use, or simply sit on the porch watching Jolie grow up in this wildly beautiful land. Already it thrummed in his blood like his beloved Mississippi Delta.
He was not aware of the sudden sunsets on the equator. The sun had still been high and bright when he arrived, and he was surprised when, almost in the blink of an eye, the sky was tinged with crimson and violet, the clouds rimmed in gold, as the burnished orange sun sank lower and lower on the horizon, then was gone.
He had been advised that it was not wise to drive back to Nairobi after dark and so he had bought a rifle, a pistol, and camping gear. He didn’t want to spend the night at the Mainwaring farm. He wanted to be alone and opted to camp out on his land overnight. After all, by this time tomorrow evening, the purchase of the Kensington farm would be in the works.
He built a fire and finished his meal of canned stew and crackers, then brought out a bottle of whisky and lit a cigarette. The sky was star-studded and measureless, like a Delta night, he thought, only magnified. He smelled the innate scent of Africa, listened to the cries of bush babies, a faraway hyena, croaking giant toads, and nocturnal bird calls. He heard with a boyish thrill, a lion’s roar somewhere out in the darkness of his land, and felt himself beginning to come alive again.
Suddenly Desirée’s face flashed in his mind. The killing pain that had slowly numbed to a leaden emptiness, assaulted him fiercely. He could almost feel her in his arms, taste her lips, there in the depthless beauty of the African night where they had planned to spend their lives together. This had been their dream, not his alone. Now he would live that dream for her.
He tilted the bottle and drank deeply. As soon as the purchase of the farm was complete, and he would push firmly for a swift completion, he would go back to the States and get Jolie, his baby girl with rosy cheeks, laughing ebony eyes and dark gold curls, and bring her home … here to Maisha Mazuri , as he planned to call the farm, meaning in Swahili the same thing as La Bonne Vie – The Good Life.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
“I WANT TO GO home.”
Antoine Babineaux’s attention was focused on Bar Sinister’s video F’ing Hot . He glanced briefly over his shoulder at his wife, then back to the television.
“Why?”
Desirée Evangeline Duval parted the drapes of the hotel window to look out at the lights along the Champs Elysées. “Daddy’s not doing well.”
“Is it something serious?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Antoine turned off the television and lit a joint. “What exactly did your mother say?”
“He’s been feeling run down lately, not much appetite. Dr. Franklin wants to run some tests. She said not to worry, of course.”
“Of course she would say that. She doesn’t want you to worry.”
“I’ve only been home once in four years.”
“Three and a half, and we’re going home after this tour.”
“You said that the last time!”
“June. Only a couple of more months.” He slipped his arms around her waist, kissed the nape of her neck. “You’d better get dressed. We have to go soon.”
“I’m not going to the show. I’m going home.”
He let his arms fall away from her. Maybe he had been wrong to let his fears keep them away for so long, away from the memories he didn’t want reawakened for her. At first it had been a dream come true – the millions, the fame, seeing the world with her by his side. But she had grown jaded and weary, and her sultry dark eyes were melancholy.
He knew the feeling – the relentless lure of home that had kept his gut twisted all the years he had been exiled in Detroit. But he had gone back home again, something they said you couldn’t do. He had gone home in triumph and claimed the prize – Desirée.
“It’s only until June,” he repeated.
“I can get a 5:00 a.m. flight out of Orly.”
“Alright,” he sighed, “if that’s what you really want.”
She regarded him with unmalleable determination. “It is.”
“If you’re going to take the 5:00 a.m. flight, I guess you’ll be gone by the time I get back.”
“Yes. I guess so.” The band couldn’t utilize the services of numerous groupies quickly enough for him to come back before she left for the airport!
He saw the apathy fade from her eyes and