I refrained from comment, but couldn’t deny it sounded tempting. Steph from a distance of a couple of thousand miles would be much easier to handle. We reached the bottom of the stairs and Marilise directed me to a small, light-filled room, its walls lined with bookshelves and French windows that looked over the gardens. I settled her in an armchair and made sure she had her book.
‘Can I get you some tea or coffee?’ I asked, hoping I could remember the way back to the kitchen.
‘No, no,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to text Angela.’ She pulled out the phone again and lit up the screen. ‘I have things to talk to her about, anyway. Now, you must go and see your room and unpack; come back for me just before lunch, if you would.’
‘Of course,’ I said and left her sitting peacefully as I went to make myself at home in Lyonscroft.
FOUR
I returned to Marilise’s room, where I made the bed and tidied up. As I stepped out and pulled the door shut behind me, a whirlwind of a woman came tearing down the corridor towards me. She was tall, with curly light-brown hair escaping from the combs that caught it up above her temples. She was wearing a floor-length, flowing silk skirt in melding browns and ambers, and a dark green cardigan knitted from the chunkiest wool I had ever seen. She seemed to be trailing several scarves, tied to her hair and wrapped around her neck, and the whole effect was of some beautiful autumnal wood nymph that had been blown in by the wind.
‘Are you Nurse Wilde?’ she asked breathlessly, seizing my elbow.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Is everything all right?’
Judging by her wild-eyed look, I was worried that something had happened to Marilise.
‘Oh yes, unless you count my appalling manners in not being here to greet you,’ she said. Her dark blue eyes widened as she gazed at me imploringly. ‘I’m awfully sorry, but Victoria has just rung and announced that she’s sending Sofia to staytomorrow…’ She trailed off as I frowned, trying to rememberwho everyone was. ‘Oh dear, ohdear, of course you haven’t the faintest idea who I’m talking about.’
But nursing, like teaching, makes you good with names and I smiled.
‘Isn’t Victoria Nick’s sister, and Sofia her daughter?’
‘Thank God!’ she exclaimed, making me jump. ‘IknewAngela would find somebody competent, and here you are. I’m Astrid, by the way – Nick’s not terribly wicked stepmother.’
I had suspected as much.
‘I’ve met India,’ I said. ‘She’s your daughter, isn’t she?’
‘That’s right. Was she riding a horse?’
‘She was the first time, yes.’
‘There you go, always down at the stables or fiddling around with something equine. I suppose I’ll have to drag her back up to the house to help.’
‘What needs doing?’ I asked. ‘Marilise doesn’t need me right now, so maybe I can help?’
Her eyes widened again, as if I had suggested sprouting wings and flying.
‘Wouldyou? I need to get Sofia’s room ready, do the bed and so on. Poor girl, I do so want to make her feel welcome.’ She started marching off and I followed quickly as she turned into another bedroom. This one was smaller and much simpler than Marilise’s, but still twice the size of the master bedroom in my own house. It had a pale pink carpet, walls papered in a pretty pattern of little green sprigs, and smart walnut furniture. Astrid opened a wardrobe and started pulling out bedlinen. ‘Bloody Victoria, sending poor Sofia here on a moment’s notice for the whole of Christmas, because she wants to swan off to some Caribbean island with her second husband, who runs the hedge fund for the billionaire who owns the damn island and who doesn’t want to have his stepdaughter hanging round.’
My head was sent into a spin by all this information about a world I had no concept of. I had no idea what a hedge fund was, and I could barely imagine an island-owning billionaire, other than Richard Branson. Maybe itwasRichard Branson? Given the culture shocks I had already endured, it wouldn’t surprise me. So I asked the only question I could come up with.
‘How old’s Sofia?’
Astrid flung the sheets – now hopelessly tangled – onto the bed and turned to me, her face red.
‘Eight! Just eight years old, poor little mite.’
I picked up the sheets and started shaking them out.
‘That is young to be left by her mum, but at least she’s with family.’
‘Family,’ chuntered Astrid, seizing a pillow. ‘We barely know the child. Ah well.’ She suddenly threw the pillow down and turned to me, her face breaking into a smile that made my spine tingle with its sweetness and warmth. ‘Don’t mind me, love. I get fired up sometimes. Truth is, I’mgladto have Sofia coming. You probably already know that we never spend Christmas at Lyonscroft, and rarely so many of us together, so having a child here might buck us all up into making it aproperChristmas. And, of course, it’ll probably be my last one here.’
‘You’re getting married, aren’t you?’ I asked, taking the other corner of the duvet she was trying to stuff into its cover. She stopped briefly, glanced at me, then continued.
‘Yes, that’s right. My fiancé, Philip, is from Texas, so that’s where we’ll go in the New Year. Amazing for India – so many horses.’
