A Spear of Summer Grass - By Deanna Raybourn Page 0,49

is brutal, but you will come to love her, in spite of the brutality. Perhaps even because of it.”

He turned the page then and pulled out a loose clipping. He handed it to me with a smile. There were two photographs with the article. One featured the lion, stretched out on the bar of the Norfolk Hotel, dripping blood onto the polished wood. Everyone was packed around it in their evening finery, raising glasses in a toast to the narrow escape they’d had. Only Ryder was absent. The second photo was of him on his own. He was wearing his evening clothes, and was only half-turned towards the camera, as if someone had called his name and he had lifted his head in response.

“He wouldn’t let them photograph him with the lion,” Rex told me. “Thought it was all the most awful palaver. I don’t even think he kept the claws off that one.”

“The claws?”

“Oh, yes. Bit of a tradition of his. Every big cat he takes, lion or leopard, he takes a claw or tooth to put onto a bracelet he wears. Not as a trophy, mind you. He says it’s to remind him that every life out here counts for something and shouldn’t be forgot. Oh, dear. Bunny seems to have found the single malt. Do excuse me.”

He took the album with him but the clipping was still in my hand. I looked down at the photographs, the laughing, lively faces crowded around the atrocity of the dead lion. There was something faintly obscene about it, and I was absurdly glad that Ryder hadn’t been a part of it. Then I thought of the bracelet he wore, each tooth or claw representing a different animal he had killed, and I shivered a little.

“What’s the matter? Goose walk over your grave?” Kit’s voice was warm in my ear.

“You try wearing a backless evening gown,” I said, turning quickly. “You’d shiver, too.” I dropped the clipping to the table behind me and tucked my arm into his. “Come dance with me. I seem to remember your form is as good on the dance floor as it is in other places.”

He laughed and swung me into his arms.

10

The next morning Dora hunted me down when I was having a bath to talk about the house.

“It’s really in deplorable shape,” she said, arranging my toilet articles on a tray and primly averting her eyes as I soaped up. “Most of the books are riddled with worms, there are moths in the upholstery and white ants seem to be devouring the wallpaper.”

“Take it down. I hate wallpaper.”

“But it isn’t our house,” she pointed out. “It’s Sir Nigel’s.”

“Nigel has let it go to rack and ruin,” I reminded her. “The whole place needs a good turning out and to be scrubbed from top to bottom. Let’s make a list.”

She fetched pencil and paper and by the time we were finished with projects—wood to be polished, floors to be scrubbed, baths to be disinfected, beds to be turned out—it ran to three pages of Dora’s tidy little handwriting.

“Now make another,” I ordered her. This list was purely for me. I had her outline my plans to keep dairy cattle for the workers and plow under a few of the struggling old pyrethrum fields for growing vegetables. “And chickens,” I added. “There ought to be chickens for fresh eggs. That means building a henhouse and a secure pen. Do lions eat chickens?”

She blinked at me. “Good heavens, how would I know?”

I stood up and she turned away again, applying herself to the list. “But that means purchasing lumber and wire and nails...” She trailed off, writing busily.

“Not necessarily. We haven’t prowled through the outbuildings yet. The barn alone is probably stuffed with old junk. We might find what we need there.”

“We’d better,” she said grimly. “What you’re talking about will cost money—money we don’t have.”

I shrugged as I towelled myself dry. “I’ll think of something.”

“You usually do.”

After breakfast I was pleased to find the little Kikuyu mother with her child sitting outside in the shade of the veranda, waiting for me. I removed the child’s bandage gently and was satisfied to find the wound healing nicely with no sign of fresh infection. I redressed it and mimed that she was to continue doing as she had done. She nodded, smiling her beautiful calm smile.

Suddenly, the smile faltered, and I realised she was looking over my shoulder. Behind me stood a man I hadn’t met before, and