The Orphan of India : A Novel (2017) by Maas Sharon

Author:Maas, Sharon [Maas, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The following Saturday, Rachel took Jack and Jyothi to Harrogate to meet her parents and her nephew Dean. The Fitzgeralds lived in a stately Edwardian house in Harrogate’s leafy outskirts. Rachel parked the car on the driveway and the three of them stepped out on to the pavement. There was a short flight of steps leading up to the massive oak front door and Rachel led the way up. Jyothi hung back as if she wanted to go up last, but Jack waved her on and reluctantly she followed Rachel. Rachel pressed the doorbell, and even before the gong had completed its double peal the door swung open.

‘Well, hello, Dean! That was quick! Seems like you were expecting us!’

The young man who grinned at them from the doorway stepped back to let them enter. ‘Sort of. I was coming downstairs just as you were coming up. Nice to see you again!’

Dean was tall for his fifteen years, and skinny, with the long, rangy body of a teenager who had just had a growth spurt. His generous mouth seemed too wide for his long face, but the promise was there of future symmetry. His skin was a creamy light-olive colour whose source – as with the heavy black hair worn in a long page cut, the thick black eyebrows and the large dark eyes set wide apart – could have been as much Middle Eastern or Italian or Turkish or Greek as Anglo-Indian. He wore an open-necked blue denim shirt loose over jeans of a darker shade, and his feet were bare; all of which seemed incongruous in the formal atmosphere of the entrance hall. Behind him a dark staircase laid out with a thick maroon carpet sloped up into even darker upper regions, while the hall itself seemed designed more to strike fear into the heart of the unprepared visitor than to welcome. He switched on a light and immediately the hall seemed a friendlier place.

‘You must be Jyothi. Pleased to meet you. And Jack.’

He briefly touched his chest with his right hand in greeting, but when Jyothi and Jack both stretched out their right hands he reconsidered and took the proffered hands, barely touching them before letting go again.

A maid in a blue dress and a frilly-edged white apron scurried into the hall from a back room – presumably the kitchen – followed by an older woman.

‘Rachel! There you are! My goodness, I must be going deaf, I was listening to the news and didn’t hear the gong, how are you, dear!’

Mother and daughter embraced. It was a swift, unemotional clasp, born of lifelong habit rather than of genuine warmth and closeness.

Mrs Fitzgerald was meticulously dressed in a pale pleated skirt and long-sleeved silky ivory blouse with some sort of a bow structure at the neck that was held in place by an amethyst clasp. Her hair was of an even russet with an almost indecipherable line of grey at the roots, and combed away from her face in short stiff waves.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.