The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters #6) - Lucinda Riley Page 0,72

high ceilings and wooden floors, it reminded Cecily of the old colonial houses she’d seen in Boston. The bedroom itself was painted white, which set off the oriental furniture. A heavy wood-framed bed sat in the centre, above which hung a strange contraption made up of what looked like netting. Cecily walked to one of the windows and for the first time looked out upon her surroundings.

She put a hand to her mouth as she gasped out loud. Kiki’s words had not done this landscape justice. The sun hung low in the still blue sky, casting a stream of golden light onto strange-looking trees with flat tops. The lawns of Mundui House curved gracefully down to the shores of a vast lake, the water reflecting the tones of the sky as colourful birds glided through the trees. The colours seemed more vivid than anything she had ever seen before.

‘Wow!’ she said softly to herself, because the view was almost ‘biblical’, as one of her friends at Vassar (who was studying theology, of course) had liked to say.

For the first time since she’d left England’s shores, her pulse – which had raced madly whenever she’d remembered what she had done with Julius, not to mention when she’d been bounced through the skies over land and sea for the past few days – began to slow slightly. She opened the window and leant her face into the blast of warmth, hearing the calls of unknown birds and animals and thinking that England and America seemed so very far away right now. This was another country – another world – and Cecily had the sudden and oddest feeling that it was a place that would shape the rest of her life.

‘Bwana?’ a timid voice came from behind her and pulled Cecily out of her reverie.

‘I . . . yes, hello.’

‘No, no, no!’ Muratha, the young maid, stepped towards her. ‘Never, never,’ she said as she shut the window firmly. ‘Not night,’ she added, wagging her finger. ‘Mbu.’

‘Pardon me?’

The girl flapped her fingers and made a small buzzing sound, then indicated the swathe of netting above the bed.

‘Oh! You mean mosquitoes?’

‘Yes, yes, bwana. Very bad.’ Muratha slid her finger across her throat and added an agonised expression, then pulled the window firmly shut and fastened it as if mosquitoes could open locks. ‘No at night. Understand?’

‘I do, yes,’ Cecily nodded exaggeratedly, thinking of the quinine that apparently warded off malaria, which her mother had insisted on adding to the medical box their family doctor had prescribed to bring with her.

She watched as the girl went to the closet and took out her dress for tonight.

‘Help you?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Hakuna matata, bwana,’ Muratha answered and ducked out of the room.

‘Darrrling!’ Kiki greeted Cecily on the terrace as she was escorted out by Aleeki. ‘Just in time.’ Kiki took her arm and led her across the terrace, then through the strange flat-topped trees that grew outwards rather than upwards, to the water’s edge. ‘I’m so glad no one else has arrived and we can share your first sunset alone. Isn’t it just spectacular?’

‘Yes,’ Cecily breathed, watching the sun set the sky alight with bursts of oranges and reds as it retreated after a long day. A high-pitched chorus of cicadas struck up and filled the warm air with their vibrations. The cacophony made Cecily shiver, goosebumps rising on her skin despite the heat. As the sun finally plummeted beneath the horizon, the noise intensified in the now purple dusk.

‘Don’t be frightened, honey, it’s only all the insects, birds and animals saying goodnight to each other. Or at least, that’s what I like to think, until we hear the growl of a lion on the terrace at three in the morning!’ she tittered. ‘I’m only teasing you, or at least, it’s only ever happened once before. And the good news is no one got eaten. When you’re recovered from the journey, we’ll take you out into the Bush on a safari.’

A sudden ripple in the still waters of the lake caught Cecily’s eye.

‘Oh, that’s just a hippopotamus going for his nightly swim,’ shrugged Kiki, lighting one of her endless cigarettes in its long ivory holder. ‘They’re so very ugly and enormous, and I’m amazed they don’t sink, but they’re dears really. As long as we don’t disturb them, they don’t disturb us.’ Kiki blew the smoke out of her nose slowly. ‘That’s the key to life in Africa: we have to respect what was here first. Both the