The Sapphire Child (The Raj Hotel #2) - Janet MacLeod Trotter Page 0,62

directness disconcerting.

‘I am,’ she continued. ‘Or I was until I spotted you – which wasn’t hard considering you’re one of the tallest people here – and you look very handsome in your outfit, by the way. Are you in the army now?’

‘Yes. Officer training.’ He reached inside his doublet for his cigarette case, his interest piqued. ‘And what about you?’

‘Still at boarding school. Can I have one of those, please?’

Andrew hesitated and looked back at the throng of people beyond the entrance. ‘Are you allowed?’

‘Mummy won’t mind and anyway, no one can see us in the dark out here.’

Andrew gave a grunt of amusement and offered her a cigarette, lighting hers and then his own. He blew out smoke, feeling relief ripple through him. He expected her to cough or gasp at the strong tobacco but she smoked like someone who was used to it.

‘Do you enjoy school?’ he asked.

She made a derisive sound. ‘You sound like an aged uncle. You’re not really interested, are you? And no, not much is the answer.’ She eyed him through a gauze of smoke. ‘I noticed that you don’t drink. Not alcohol, anyway. Why is that?’

Andrew shrugged. ‘I don’t like the taste.’

He wasn’t going to tell her that having a father and mother who drank too much had put him off for life. He never wanted to be that out of control.

‘I’m not supposed to drink but I quite like the taste of sweet sherry,’ Felicity admitted.

Andrew tried to remember how much younger she was than him. She must be about sixteen but she seemed older. Precocious, his grandmother would say.

‘What do you want to do when you leave school?’ he asked. ‘If that’s not too much of an aged-uncle question.’

She smiled. ‘The truth is I’m not sure. My parents want me to go to finishing school – learn how to arrange flowers and boring things. I’d rather go to India and hunt tigers.’

Andrew laughed. ‘Something tells me that you’ll get your way, Miss Douglas.’ He ground out his cigarette and put the butt into his pocket.

Felicity stubbed out hers on the stone wall and threw it into the dark.

‘You’re not really going home to your mother at ten o’clock on Hogmanay, are you? I bet you’re going to sneak off to a more interesting party now you’ve done your duty here.’

Andrew tried to hide his surprise. He decided to be honest. ‘I might go and first-foot my aged aunt later.’

‘Now that does sound boring!’

‘It won’t be. Auntie Tibby lives with a houseful of artists.’

‘Gosh, really?’ Her eyes opened wide with interest. ‘Is she the woman who dresses like a man and lives at The Anchorage?’

Andrew nodded.

‘I wish I had an aunt as exciting as her.’ Felicity gave a pleading look. ‘Will you take me with you? Please do!’

Andrew shook his head. ‘Maybe another time, Miss Douglas.’

‘I’ll hold you to that, Lomax.’ She grinned.

‘Goodnight.’ He turned and hurried down the steps, shivering in the frosty air. Looking back, Andrew saw the girl still standing in the entrance, watching him. He waved and she waved back before retreating inside. All the way home he couldn’t stop thinking about how the annoying eleven-year-old Flis-Tish had turned into a startling vivacious young woman.

Back at Templeton Hall, Andrew found his mother and grandmother had already gone to bed. He grabbed his bicycle from the garage and set off for The Anchorage. Moonlight bathed everything in ghostly silver and cast shadows as he cycled the empty lanes.

He thought about how he’d not heard from his father since he’d started at Sandhurst and he now regretted having sent such a hostile letter in reply to his father’s plea for him to go to university.

He’d received a Christmas card from Esmie telling him that his father had been unwell but sent his love. It had mentioned that Jimmy Dubois was now married and was living at the Raj with his new wife. There was only a passing reference to Stella being back in Rawalpindi and helping her parents once more.

Long ago he had stopped blaming Stella for the hurtful things she had said about his mother and for keeping the truth from him about Esmie not being married to his father. She had been in a difficult position, tasked with looking after him while he was in Scotland and yet resented for doing so by his mother. It wasn’t surprising that her loyalties had lain with his father and Esmie.

What would have happened if he had gone back? He would