Page 61 of The Sun Sister

‘That’s very kind of her. She didn’t have to.’

‘As you’re American, I presume you’ll be casting your eye around the room for an eligible member of the British aristocracy. Granted there are a few here, but all over the age of fifty. Except for me, of course,’ he added with a smile.

‘You say Audrey’s your aunt?’

‘Yes, but not by blood. My late father was Uncle Edgar’s younger brother.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss.’

‘Thank you for your condolences, but my father died over twenty years ago in the Great War. I was only eighteen months old at the time.’

‘I see. Do you have a mother?’

‘I do indeed, yes. Luckily she’s not here tonight...’ Julius leant in towards Cecily. ‘My uncle and aunt can’t stand her.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Oh, because rather than hanging around in widow’s weeds when my father shuffled off his mortal coil in Flanders, she found herself a far richer suitor than dear old Pa and married him six months later. She lives in Italy now.’

‘I love Italy! You were so lucky to grow up there.’

‘No, no, Miss Huntley-Morgan,’ Julius said as he lit a cigarette. ‘Mama didn’t take me with her when she scarpered for warmer climes. She dumped me on the doorstep of this mausoleum and I was brought up by Uncle Edgar’s old nanny. Miss Naylor she was called, and what a dragon she was.’

‘So you live right here at Woodhead Hall?’

‘I do indeed. I’ve done my best to dig myself out, but time and again, like the proverbial rubber ball, I find myself bouncing back.’

‘What do you do? I mean, for a living?’

‘Well now, what I do for a “living” is rather a euphemism, because I hardly earn a penny from it, more’s the pity. But I am in fact a poet.’

‘Goodness! Should I have heard of you?’

‘Not yet, Miss Huntley-Morgan, unless you are an avid reader of theWoodhead Village Gazette, which, out of the kindness of its heart, publishes the odd scribbling of mine.’

There was a loud clanging from somewhere outside the drawing room, which reverberated around it for a few seconds.

‘Dinner gong, Miss Huntley-Morgan.’

‘Please, do call me Cecily,’ she said as they wandered through the draughty hallway with the rest of the guests, then into the equally lofty and freezing dining room.

‘Now then, let’s see where my aunt has put you,’ said Julius, marching along the table and staring at the beautifully handwritten names at the top of every place setting. ‘Thought as much!’ He smiled at her. ‘You’re here, right by the fire. Whereas I am banished to Siberia at the other end of the table. Remember about the shot,’ he said as he left her side and walked off.

Cecily sat down, feeling decidedly disappointed that she’d been put next to Tristan rather than Julius. All through dinner, even though she managed to make small talk with both Tristan and an elderly major to her right, her thoughts and her eyes kept flying along the table to Julius. Just as she had extracted a small hard lump of silver metal from her mouth, having taken a bite of pheasant, she glanced up at him.

‘I did warn you,’ he mouthed with a smile, and then went back to his conversation with a bosomy matron, who was apparently the major’s wife.

‘So, headed for Africa, are we? Whereabouts?’ boomed the major. ‘I was there meself a few years ago. My younger brother bought a cattle farm in Kenya, somewhere west of the Aberdare Mountains.’

‘Oh, well, that’s where I’m headed too; to Kenya I mean. I’m staying at a house on the shores of Lake Naivasha. Have you heard of it?’

‘Have I heard of it?! Of course I’ve heard of it, my dear. So, joining the “Happy Valley” set, are you?’

‘I have absolutely no idea, I’m afraid. My godmother has invited me out there to stay for a while.’

‘And who might your godmother be, if I may be so bold to ask?’

‘Oh, a lady called Kiki Preston. She’s American, like me.’