The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,60

them to duck under. Then the bride and groom cut the magnificent three-tiered cake that Stella’s parents had commissioned and shortly afterwards the hired band struck up for the first dance.

‘May I, Miss Dubois?’ Monty stood there grinning.

‘Of course,’ Stella said, allowing him to take her hand and lead her onto the dance floor.

He was a good dancer and she knew that her mother was keeping a keen eye on them as they moved effortlessly around the floor. He chatted and she half-listened.

Later she did the two-step with her father.

‘This is all going swimmingly, don’t you think, Sweet Pea?’

‘It’s been a lovely day,’ Stella agreed. ‘I think Jimmy and Yvonne really appreciate what you’ve done for them.’

‘We’ll do the same for you,’ he said with a smile of affection. ‘In fact, we will push the boat out further to sea for our beloved daughter!’

‘Pa!’

‘But only when you are ready,’ he added quickly.

She swiftly changed the subject. ‘It’s very kind of the Lomaxes to let Jimmy and Yvonne use their flat in the hotel. It’ll be so much better than squeezing into the bungalow with us.’

Charlie nodded. ‘It saddens me, though, to think that our dear Lomaxes are not intending to visit much any more.’

‘Well, they can still use one of the hotel rooms,’ said Stella. ‘It doesn’t mean they’ll never come.’

‘I so hoped they would be here today . . .’

Stella had kept to herself just how difficult things were for Tom and Esmie, not wanting the Lomaxes’ business being discussed around Rawalpindi.

Soon the newly-weds were getting ready to leave. Although the first snow had already come to the foothills, they were honeymooning in Murree, where Jimmy had secured an off-season rate at The Birchwood Hotel. He was borrowing his Uncle Toby’s car and was keen to get his bride up the mountainside before dark descended.

The guests crowded together under the blue-roofed portico and waved them away with much noise and shouts of encouragement. Clive and Monty had tied tin cans to the car bumper which made a din as Jimmy drove up the street. Rick led the Dixon cousins in running behind letting off firecrackers. On the hotel lawn, the resident peacock gave a cry of alarm and displayed its feathers.

Stella slipped an arm through her father’s and squinted in the low sun at the far hills with their dusting of snow. She had a familiar tug of longing for Kashmir. It would be months before she was there again. If she ever did get married, she would like it to be at The Raj-in-the-Hills – a quiet affair with the Lomaxes, her close family and the baroness – with Felix laying on a lunch of fish curry and custard tarts.

But, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine Monty as the groom.

Chapter 21

Ebbsmouth, December 31st 1938

‘You’ll have to go without me, darling,’ Lydia said, emerging from under a towel and releasing a waft of scented steam from the bowl she was bending over.

‘Oh, Mamma!’ Andrew said in concern. ‘Are you really feeling that bad?’

‘Terrible,’ Lydia said, pressing a hand dramatically to her forehead.

‘Keep under the towel,’ Minnie fretted. ‘You’re letting out all the infusion.’

Lydia pulled off the towel. ‘It’s making me feel worse,’ she said in irritation. ‘My head is pounding.’

‘Better go to bed, dear,’ Minnie said. ‘I’ll send Lily up with a cup of tea.’

‘Lily’s got the night off,’ Lydia reminded her.

‘Has she?’ Minnie asked in confusion.

‘Yes, Grandmamma,’ Andrew said. ‘It’s Hogmanay, remember?’

His grandmother looked bemused, so he said quickly, ‘I’ll stay in and look after Mamma – and then we can play cards like old times.’

‘Certainly not,’ Lydia said. ‘You must go to the Murrays’ party – you’ve been invited – it would be rude not to— Atchoo!’ She broke off with a loud sneeze.

‘I hardly know them,’ Andrew protested, ‘and I don’t want to leave you when you’re ill. I might pop over to see Auntie Tibby for a dram at midnight if you’re both in bed by then.’

Lydia gave him a glassy-eyed look. ‘That sounds very dull – and you’ve already been to The Anchorage twice this holiday. The Murrays’ house will be full of young things – far more suitable company than Tibby and her unwashed bohemians.’

Andrew wasn’t going to tell her that it was Tibby’s newest resident that he hoped to see tonight. Red-haired Ruth was a furniture-maker and sometimes modelled for Dawan. She wasn’t conventionally pretty but there was something very alluring about her wild unbound hair and plump lips.