The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters #6) - Lucinda Riley Page 0,160

memsahib!’ Aleeki came running behind her with it. ‘Too hot for you outside.’

It was only a split-second glance down at her stomach as he spoke the words, but it was enough for Cecily to realise that he knew.

‘Thank you, Aleeki.’ She nodded at him and walked off across the lawns to sit on her favourite bench by the lake and try to get her head around everything that had happened in such a few short hours.

Of course she could not, so she simply sat there, watching the hippos slowly rouse themselves from their sunbathing and slip into the water for their sunset dip. The fact that they did the very same thing every day and at such a leisurely pace was hypnotic and calmed Cecily’s frazzled senses. Never had she thought she’d sit wishing to be a hippopotamus – quite the ugliest of animals on God’s great earth – yet here she was.

Eventually, she gave up trying to make sense of everything and wandered back inside the house. Upstairs, Muratha prepared her a bath and she lay in it, wondering whether the tiny bump she saw in her stomach was real or imagined . . .

‘Madame asking if you take dinner downstairs with her?’ Muratha appeared in her room.

‘Not tonight, no. Please send my apologies, but I’ll take a tray up here instead,’ Cecily said firmly, feeling guilty for avoiding Kiki after the kindness she’d shown her, but not able to face the almost jovial way in which Kiki was treating the situation. Like Hitler annexing Czechoslovakia, she too had been annexed by a tiny human being, and the situation was grave, very grave indeed.

Having managed to drain the soup Muratha had brought her, Cecily found herself reaching for the Bible that her mother had given her on her departure.

She had never questioned the faith that she had been brought up in – up to now, it had simply meant an outing to church, dressed in her best on Sundays. But as she skimmed through the pages, she began to.

Did Christians dispose of their babies as if they were a mere inconvenience? Cecily thought of her sister Mamie: a self-confessed non-maternal type, who by all accounts had taken to motherhood like a duck to water.

‘How will I feel after carrying you for the next seven months?’ Cecily whispered to her stomach. ‘I mean, Mary got pregnant by God before she and Joseph had even been married . . . holy moly! That means the whole New Testament is based on a woman who had been unfaithful to her husband-to-be!’

It was such a huge thought that Cecily had to lie back on her pillows, only wishing she’d paid more attention to the sermons of the preacher at her local church.

Later, when she finally turned out the light and settled herself for what she hoped would be a few hours of respite from her scrambled brain, she knew she didn’t have any answers, but equally that she must find the right one for herself.

Even though she’d slept, Cecily woke feeling wearier than when she’d gone to bed. As a wave of nausea swept over her, she ran to the bathroom and vomited nothing more than bile into the lavatory.

‘Bwana sick again?’ Muratha led Cecily back to bed and helped her onto it. Again, Cecily noticed the glance at her stomach and when Muratha had left her alone, she rolled onto her side and groaned. It was patently obvious that the entire household staff was aware of her condition.

Kiki’s right, I just need to do what she says before everyone else around here finds out too, she thought.

With effort, Cecily dressed and went down for breakfast. Ginger tea rather than coffee was put in front of her and she did her best to pick miserably at the copious food spread out on the table.

‘Good morning, honey. How did you sleep?’

‘Okay, thank you.’ Cecily was surprised to see Kiki up so early, clad in a magenta robe.

‘Good. I’m going for a swim – it’s too darned hot to sleep,’ she said as she walked towards the lake. ‘You should come in with me, the mud in the water does wonders for one’s complexion.’

For want of anything better to do, Cecily followed her godmother down to the water’s edge and watched as Kiki stripped off her robe to reveal a striped bathing suit. For an older woman who’d had children, Kiki had a fabulous figure. As Cecily sat down on the bench, she only hoped