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Back An Unsuitable Woman
Chapters (43)
  1. An Unsuitable Woman
  2. Praise for An Unsuitable Woman:
  3. Dedication
  4. Part One
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Part Two
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-One
  27. Chapter Twenty-Two
  28. Chapter Twenty-Three
  29. Chapter Twenty-Four
  30. Part Three
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  35. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-One
  38. Chapter Thirty-Two
  39. Historical Note
  40. Acknowledgements
  41. About the Author
  42. Also by Kat Gordon
  43. About the Publisher

‘I always do,’ Freddie said.

Chapter Seven

We visited Sylvie and Nicolas often over the next few months. Sometimes Sylvie would pick us up, sometimes Nicolas, sometimes Freddie. When Freddie picked us up he would let me drive the last mile, struggling up the steep, dusty hill at the start as he encouraged me from the passenger seat.

Then, at the top, the view – miles and miles of grass and bamboo, bordered by the towering figure of Mount Kipipiri to our left, and the cedar-clad Aberdares rolling gently upwards in front of us. Sometimes I thought I could pick out dark shapes moving on the mountainside – the wild buffalo that lived up on the frozen peaks.

Coming down the other side of the hill, I’d shift into second gear and stamp on the brakes, but the car still went dangerously fast. I never worried when Freddie was around though – he made danger seem fun, exhilarating. He would whoop and we’d join in, even louder the faster it was, then all of a sudden we’d be at the bottom, thundering past the shaded spring on our left, and turning onto the private road that led to Sylvie and Nicolas’s.

‘Chops’, their builder, worked on the house for several months, and each time we came a little more had been completed, until eventually we swept into the drive and it was finished – a one-storey stone building in the shape of an ‘H’, with a veranda at the back, and cedar half-logs covering the walls and roof. Sylvie christened it ‘The Farm’.

Inside was a large drawing room with a central stone fireplace and a dining room and pantry leading off it. Both wings had several bedrooms and bathrooms. Unlike ours, their kitchen was separate from the house and cooked food was brought from there to the pantry before mealtimes.

Sylvie had furnished the house with a mix of finds from Mombasa – brass-studded chests, oriental carpets and tall coffee-pots – and antiques from France. She filled each room with flowers from the garden, and the whole house smelled like a blend of hibiscus, jasmine and her perfume.

There was always plenty of food and drink. Sylvie liked to drink champagne from the goblets Freddie and Edie had bought them as a house-warming gift, and we would be allowed a little too. Cocktail-hour started at four or five in the afternoon. The drinks were called ‘sundowners’ because that’s what we’d be drinking as the sun set.