“But even without hearing the gossip,” Millie says. “I saw you sitting far away from the food, refusing everything before it’s even offered, and the way you flinched from the omelette. I recognise the look. I’m six months gone.” She pats a barely visible bump under her clothes.
“This might help.” She pours out a cup of pale tea. “Lemon verbena.”
An experimental sniff tells me this might not be so bad, so I sip. It tastes fresh and soothing. “Thank you, it’s lovely.”
“Have you been able to eat much?”
Before saying anything, my face must tell her the answer.
“I know,” she says gently. The understanding in her voice makes me want to fall into her arms and cry.
“I think I might have something.” She jumps up and goes to the back of the tent where there’s a door into some kind of trailer.
A moment later, she comes back with cake stand of something white, green, and pink, and a small plate. “Raspberry and mint cheesecake,” she says. “Something about the combination cuts right through nausea.” She cuts me a tiny slice. “Try just a bit.”
Because the lemon verbena tea has settled my stomach, I now realise I’m quite hungry. The cheesecake is silky smooth, lightly sweet, sharp, and fruity. I clean the plate of every last crumb. “You know this is the most I’ve eaten in two weeks.”
“Tell me about it. I lost a stone, the first two months.” She cuts another generous slice for me. “I work in a café, so avoiding food was not really an option. Thank God for mint and raspberry. They’ll be your best friends for a while. There are a few other herbs that help, I’ll send some things over to your house.”
Just for an instant, the fantasy of living here sparkles in my mind’s eye like shiny effects in a Disney Christmas movie. This might be a rock that likes to call itself an island, but wouldn’t it be nice to have someone be nice to me and send me food I can actually eat.
“Brandon had a tin of your biscuits last night.” Mentioning him makes me check the time. He’s been gone a while.”
Millie laughs. “I think he might have been roped into taking part along with my husband. People take the festival very seriously.”
“Why is it called the Lotoman Nutting festival?”
“L’automne and Nutting.” She smiles correcting my pronunciation. “It’s a combination of the French old country fair and the English nutting celebration. There’s a lot of old French here, but the way they pronounce it and then meld it with English it’s hardly recognisable.”
“Can I ask you a favour?” I ask on impulse, because she seems like some to trust. “I haven’t mentioned anything to Brandon.” I glance at my stomach where the secret pomegranate hides. “Can you not…”
She lays a gentle hand on my arm. “I won’t say anything, but I suspect he’ll have heard by now.”
“What do you mean, heard?”
“I imagine Agnes will have told others and a dozen people will have congratulated him.”
Congratulated Brandon?
This explains the ‘your young lady’ comment.
“I’m sorry.” Millie says mildly. “Nothing stays private here for long. You mustn’t mind. People mean well.” She’s obviously much more charitable than me.
“It’s I who should apologise. You’re all being so kind to me and I’m being a complete cow.”
“It must be a scary time for you. But I won’t say anything, and please know you can always talk to me if you need a friend. Or” – she gives me a grin – “another slice of raspberry mint cake.”
“I think that might improve my mood significantly.”
We’re both laughing when Brandon returns. He isn’t alone.
I do my best to prevent my mouth from dropping open. I expected Millie’s husband, being the Seigneur, to not be very young, but this man…? He’s easily seventy if not eighty. And he’s in a wheelchair which Brandon pushes carefully over to the table.
“You must be Lessa.” The old man offers me a firm hand to shake. His eyes are a very sharp blue and when they meet mine briefly, betray nothing more than plain courtesy. It’s the same carefully polite look I’ve seen a million times in Westminster. A look I, myself, have used when meeting famous people for the first time. Which means, the old man knows who I am.
I glance up at Brandon still standing behind the wheelchair. Clearly, he’s already filled the man in.
“Let’s find a better place to talk.” The man tells Millie who agrees and leads us to the back and into the camper which has a ramp. Brandon pushes the wheelchair up into a small tidy space. It has a huge freezer at one end and a small sitting area.
