‘I told you he’s a flirt,’ Nicolas said, scratching the cub behind his ears.

‘He’s our flirt,’ Sylvie said. They smiled at each other, and the room seemed calm and happy again even though Nico hadn’t apologised. I cast around for something to say, feeling suddenly out of my depth.

‘You must like animals as much as Maud does,’ I said.

‘I always judge a person by how they treat animals,’ Sylvie said. ‘If they’re cruel to them, it’s worse than if they’re cruel to humans. At least we can understand what’s going on – but the animals must be so frightened.’ She tapped Samson’s nose. ‘But you feel safe here, don’t you, darling?’

‘He’s adorable,’ Maud said. ‘I want a lion cub.’

‘They eat a lot of raw meat,’ Nicolas said, smiling. ‘He’s eating us out of house and home. And you shouldn’t really separate them from their mothers. He only came to us because he was orphaned.’

‘How?’

‘His mother was living nearby. I stumbled across her when I was out for an afternoon ride a few weeks ago – she would have attacked me, but my little Somali pony bolted before I even saw her. She was just a yellow streak I caught out of the corner of my eye.’ He put down his empty glass. ‘I went back a few days later – she’d just had cubs. That was why she was in attack mode.’

‘Who can blame her?’ Sylvie said, kissing Samson’s nose.

‘She got used to me after a few visits,’ Nicolas said. ‘She let me come near enough to see the cubs, although never near enough to touch of course. Then I had to go away for a few days, and when I returned there was an Indian maharajah’s hunting party staying on our grounds. They showed me a lioness they’d just bagged.’

Sylvie put her hand on Nicolas’s. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said gently.

He grimaced. ‘She wasn’t as wary of them because she’d got used to me.’

‘You didn’t know they were going to come here,’ Maud said.

‘No,’ Sylvie said.

‘After that, I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good host,’ Nicolas said. ‘I told them – it’s an unpardonable crime to shoot females of any species. Unless they’ve been attacking the herds or the natives of course. Life out here can be brutal, but we don’t need to be. The two cubs were half-starved when I found them.’

‘Did the other die?’ Maud asked gravely.

‘Judah?’ Sylvie said. ‘No. Nico brought them both home. They slept together in a basket. Then one day Judah was gone, but Samson stayed.’

Samson made a low rumbling sound and licked Sylvie’s hand.

‘Aren’t we lucky Daddy’s here to look after us?’ she said to the lion. ‘Imagine the mess we’d make without him.’