A Spear of Summer Grass - By Deanna Raybourn Page 0,19
to be there for some weeks. In his absence, I am acting governor.” He finished this with a little preen of his mustache.
“How nice for you,” I began, but he lifted a hand.
“I have no wish to spend any more time upon this matter than necessary, so permit me to press on. I am well aware of your reputation, Miss Drummond, and I have no doubt you expect to have as grand a time here in Kenya as you have around the rest of the world. But let me speak with perfect frankness. I will not have it.”
He was so earnest I smothered a laugh and put on my best expression of wide-eyed innocence. I even batted my lashes a few times, but he was entirely immune.
“I am quite serious, Miss Drummond. There are circumstances afoot just now which make it imperative that the colonists here conduct themselves with decorum and respectability. This includes you.”
I gave him a winsome smile. “Mr. Fraser, really, I cannot imagine how you have come to have such a terrible opinion of me, but I assure you I have no intention of misbehaving.”
“Misbehaving?” He reached for the sheet of paper and began to read from it. “Arrested for stealing a car outside a Harlem nightclub and driving it into the Hudson River. Caught in flagrante with a judge’s eighteen-year-old son in Dallas. Fined for swimming nude in the Seine. Need I continue?”
“Those incidents were taken entirely out of context, I assure you.”
“I doubt it,” he returned primly. He put the sheet aside, letting it drop from his fingertips as if he could not bear to touch it. “They, and the other incidents chronicled in this report, speak to a lifetime of poor decisions and irresponsible, sometimes criminal, behavior. And if this were not enough, I happen to be married to a former schoolmate of yours. Annabel has been extremely forthright about your antics in Switzerland.”
“Oh, dear Annabel!” I said faintly. I remembered her well. A mousy girl with forgettable features and thick ankles. She had taken immense pleasure in carrying tales to the headmistress and then gloating over my punishments. “How is she? Please pass along my regards.”
He refused to thaw even at this little bit of polite flummery. “Remember what I said, Miss Drummond. These are significant times for this colony. I will not have your behavior or anyone else’s coming between us and our ultimate independence from London.”
“Is that why the governor has returned to England?”
To my surprise, at this he actually unbent a trifle. “Well, yes. Parliament has convened a committee to study the feasibility of permitting self-rule here in Kenya.”
I remembered what the ship’s captain had told me. “You mean like they did last year in Rhodesia?”
His mouth dropped open. “I am astonished that you are aware of it, but yes, that’s it precisely.”
“And you and the governor naturally believe that the committee, and by extension Parliament itself, will look more favourably upon the subject of self-rule if the colonists are seen as hardworking and respectable folk.”
“Quite,” he said, his voice marginally warmer. “You see, with decisions being made so far away in London, it’s terribly difficult to ensure that the decisions are the right ones. Take the question of Indian land ownership—” And he did. He took the question and ran with it for the better part of the next quarter of an hour. I smiled and nodded and looked deeply interested, a trick I learned from Mossy when I was five. Men always fell for it, and if you were careful enough to make the occasional “hmmm” sound they thought you were pondering deeply. This freed you to think of stockings or whether he was going to try to kiss you. Not that I wondered the latter about Mr. Fraser. One look at those thin damp lips would have been enough to put me off kissing forever.
At last he finished, and he rose, bringing the interview to a close. “So you see why it’s so very important that you behave yourself, Miss Drummond. And in that vein, I think it best if you proceed to Fairlight without delay.”
“Without delay? But Mr. Fraser, I had thought to spend a few days in Nairobi, meet the members of the club, that sort of thing.”
He shook his head. “Out of the question. In fact, I have arranged for you to be taken to Fairlight first thing tomorrow morning. You will, of course, be welcomed at the Norfolk Hotel for tonight only. Please