The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters #6) - Lucinda Riley Page 0,205

can swear to me that I, or my mother, or you, or some goddamned relative of mine gets into the story!’

‘I can swear that, yes,’ she said. I saw her draw a handkerchief out of her purse – the kind that the Queen of England always carried – and that her hand shook a little. I immediately felt sorry for her. She was old, after all.

‘Listen, I’m going to change out of these ridiculous pants, and come back in some comfy ones, okay?’ I said.

‘Okay. You like hot chocolate?’ she asked me.

‘Yeah, Ma – my sort-of mom – used to make it for me before bed.’

‘Well, I make the best darned hot chocolate in the whole of Brooklyn. If you have the ingredients, I’m going to make us both a mug of it.’

‘I do. Great, fine.’

Ten minutes later, we were both sitting back in the living room, nursing what even I had to admit was a pretty good hot chocolate. I was still trying to feed the anger in my belly, but somehow it had all dissipated, which was kind of weird because normally I was good at holding grudges – too good.

‘Okay, so you remember that last time I told you Cecily had just lost her baby?’

‘I do, yes. Does the story get a little more relevant to me in this bit?’

‘Electra, I swear, this is the part of the story that you’ll hardly believe . . .’

September 1940

Cecily sat back and wiped her sweating brow, stuck the trowel into the soil, then stood up and walked into the house to pour herself a glass of cool lemonade from the refrigerator. She stepped out onto the veranda to drink it and admire her handiwork. The garden was really starting to take shape now; the green lawns that swept down towards the valley were edged by beds of hibiscus and clusters of white and red poinsettias.

She heard Wolfie barking from his pen at the side of the house and left the shade of the veranda to go and release him.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said, as she knelt down and the enormous dog smothered her in wet kisses. She almost lost her balance as he reared up to place his great paws on her shoulders; she smiled as she remembered the tiny puppy that Bill had presented her with a few days after they’d buried Fleur, her daughter.

‘He needed someone to take care of him,’ he’d said as he’d handed the squirming, furry bundle to her. ‘He’s a cross between a husky and an Alsatian, so the owner told me. In other words, dependable and loyal – but aggressive if he needs to be.’

Wolfie – who’d been named very unimaginatively for his resemblance to one – was certainly no beauty, with his strange mixture of white and black markings, not to mention one blue and one brown eye, but there was no doubting his affection for his mistress. At the time, so drowned in grief, and not caring about anything at all, Cecily had found his late night and early morning whining irritating, until she had discovered that he slept peacefully if he was allowed into her bedroom. She’d often wake up in the morning with him sprawled belly-up next to her, his head mimicking hers as it lay on the pillow. Despite her determination not to love the puppy, Wolfie had been equally determined to demand it of her. And slowly, with his endearing nature and antics that made even a sullen Cecily crack a smile, he had won.

Wolfie bounded around her as she walked with him back to the veranda to finish her lemonade. He had a horrible habit of digging up seedlings, so he had to be restrained while she was gardening, but the rest of the time, he followed at his mistress’s heels.

‘I’ll take you for a walk in a minute,’ she told him. ‘Now sit down and be quiet.’

Cecily drank the remains of the lemonade and thought that she had more conversations with Wolfie – however one-sided – than she had with any human being. War in Europe had broken out only a couple of weeks after she had lost Fleur; she’d still been in the hospital at the time. When she’d eventually returned home, the black fug of devastation had hung so thickly around her she’d barely registered the start of the conflict. All it had meant was that Bill was away even more than he had been before, though in truth, she didn’t much care.