The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters #6) - Lucinda Riley Page 0,282

help them bond.’

‘If I’m not here, you mean.’

‘Quite.’ Bill drew Cecily up to standing next to him and held her hands. ‘Two months, Cecily. That’s all. Two months to discover if there is any chance that we could find a way to stay married in ways other than the legal sense, if you know what I mean.’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Cecily, feeling the blush travel up her neck to her face.

‘I admit, when I arrived here, there was no thought in my mind that there might be a future for us. But, well, I have so enjoyed being with you and find myself dreading the thought of leaving you behind. After all we’ve been through, surely we owe each other some time together? Unless, of course, these past few days have been utter hell for you and you’re just waiting for me to go? If that is the case, then yes, you’d better tell me, but if it isn’t . . .’

Cecily lowered her eyes. ‘It isn’t.’

‘Good. Then we have a plan. I must say, coming here was just about the best decision I’ve ever made.’

Then Bill bent down towards his wife and kissed her for the first time in twenty-three years.

June 2008

‘So, when a suitable nanny and housekeeper had been found, Bill took Cecily back home to Kenya with him,’ Stella finished.

‘Well, that was a happy ending, and it sure sounds as though she deserved it,’ I said. ‘Especially after having to deal with my mom. I hate to admit it, but she sounds a lot like me when I was a child.’

‘I can’t say, Electra, because I wasn’t there to see you grow up, and I will never forgive myself for that. Or for the fact that I wasn’t there for Rosa in the ways I should have been either.’

‘You were a single working mom, which must have been seriously hard.’

‘It was, yes, but millions of women across the world manage to do it successfully. Sadly, I didn’t.’

‘Did Bill and Cecily ever come back?’ I said, wanting to know the answer before we moved on to what I felt from Stella’s expression were far murkier past waters.

‘No, they did not.’

‘Why not?’

‘At first it was for all the right reasons; it was obvious from the moment Cecily got back to Kenya that she was as happy as I’d ever heard her. And that she and Bill had finally managed to find the moment in time when they could actually enjoy each other. Sadly, like anything, it didn’t last forever.’

‘Did Bill die from his heart condition?’

‘Eventually, yes, but it was my beloved Kuyia I lost first. They extended their stay to six months and went travelling through Africa. They were on their way up through the Sudan towards Egypt – Cecily had always wanted to see the pyramids – when she began to feel unwell. Their medical boxes and other supplies were stolen and they were in the middle of nowhere. By the time Bill managed to get her to a hospital, it was too late. She died a few days later.’

‘Oh no.’ I winced as I watched my grandmother’s eyes fill with tears. ‘What was it?’

‘Malaria. If they’d have gotten her treated sooner, there’s no doubt she would have lived, but . . .’ Stella swallowed hard. ‘She died in Bill’s arms . . . She asked him to tell me how much she loved me . . . I . . . sorry.’

I sat there watching the grief that, even after all these years, was obviously still so raw for my grandmother.

‘When I heard the news, all I could think was that I wanted to die too,’ Stella continued. ‘I can’t explain to you what that woman was to me. What she did for me, everything she sacrificed for me . . . The only thing that comforted me was that she was with Bill and that they’d at least had six wonderful months together. She died where she wanted to be, with the man she loved.’

Even though I’d never known this remarkable woman who had affected both of our lives so dramatically, I felt a lump in my throat too.

‘Bill came back to the States for a while and we took her ashes and spread them out by the Statue of Liberty. Because she was born in Manhattan and had done so much to give me my own liberty, I thought it was fitting. He stayed with us for a while; he’d aged so much in those