A Spear of Summer Grass - By Deanna Raybourn Page 0,32
the fields were still in production. Most of the farm had fallen fallow and the disused fields were now long stretches of earth that had surrendered once more to the wilderness. Here and there thickets of acacia had grown up, sheltering birds and small twittering creatures that sent up an alarm as I walked. I had only gone a few yards when I realised I should have brought a gun. A gun, a club, even a stick would have been smart. But no, I had charged into the African bush with nothing more than a silk scarf to defend myself.
“Idiot,” I muttered. But I pressed on. The path was wide and level and the going was easy. I stepped around a scorpion that raised his tail in challenge and sent a flock of pretty little deer vaulting away. At least I thought they were deer. They were most likely some form of gazelle, and I regretted again not having brought a gun. I had heard gazelles were excellent eating, and even if they weren’t, they had to be preferable to the teeming mutton the cook had left behind.
After a while, the ground rose a little. Just past the slope of a slender hill it fell away again to reveal a cottage nestled in a grove of acacia trees. The doors and windows were thrown wide, and I knew from the smell of turpentine that I had found the artist’s cottage.
I called as I approached and after a long moment a fellow emerged, shirtless and wiping his hands on a rag. He stared as I came near, and suddenly gave a loud whoop.
“Delilah!”
He vaulted down from the veranda and scooped me up into a bear hug.
“Hello, Kit. My majordomo said there was an artist from New York here. I didn’t dare hope it might be you.”
“Well, it is. My God, it must be a mirage. I cannot believe you are here. Let me look at you.”
He pushed me away and looked at me with his critical artist’s eye. “A few years older, but my God, it doesn’t show. That face! Straight out of Praxiteles. The shoulders of a goddess. And those breasts—” He put out his hands and I slapped them away.
“Come now, darling. It isn’t as if I haven’t seen them before.”
“You haven’t seen them in six years. And they’ve been married since you last saw them.”
“But I imagine they are still spectacular.”
“Naturally. Now invite me in for lunch and a drink and we’ll catch up properly.”
He looped an arm over my shoulders and led me in. “Welcome to my little kingdom, my queen.”
I stepped into the cottage and inhaled sharply. “Kit, they’re wonderful.”
Kit had been a bit of a disappointment in New York. He was the eldest son in a family as famous for their blue blood as their black account books. His father had refreshed the already overflowing family coffers with smart investments in railroads and steel, but Kit had turned up his patrician nose at both. Instead he had dabbled, pursuing his art with only a little less verve than he pursued his women. A particularly nasty divorce case where Kit had been cited had put an end to that. His mother had taken ill over the scandal and his father had shipped him off to Kenya with an allowance and his paintbrushes and instructions not to come back unless he wanted to kill her for good. I had lost touch with him—all of the old crowd had. But I had always thought of him fondly. He was thirty-five and more of a boy than any man I had ever met.
And he was strikingly handsome, with bright yellow-gold hair and a pillowy, sulky mouth made for kissing. He had a pair of warm brown eyes that could melt the dress right off a girl, and a body that made you glad to be a woman. He had done a few years of sculpture study and rumour had it that all the humping marble about had given him the physique of a minor Greek god. I had made it my business to investigate the rumours and all I ever said on the subject was that they hadn’t done him justice. Not by half. We had had a splendid time together for six weeks. Then I had been off to London and he had found himself another distraction. It ended—as such things ought to—with mutual affection and something that was almost, but not quite, warm enough to be regret.