Free Consider the Lily by Elizabeth Buchan

parties, picnics and evening expeditions up scree-peppered paths and over aromatic scrub where they walked for miles along the cliffs, watching the sun slide under a darkening sea.
    It was too hot one evening to go far and they sat down to rest. Thyme and sage scented the air and in the water below fish pushed in and out of the rocks. Marcus sat on a rock by the cliff edge and tossed stones into the water below. Flora passed him ammunition and rubbed a twig of thyme between her fingers. Even at six o’clock the sun was still fierce and she pulled her hat down over her face. It allowed her to watch Marcus who was beginning to intrigue her, and she wondered what went on behind his clean, English complexion and impeccably trimmed moustache.
    Daisy flicked her scarf across her shoulders.
    ‘Are you burnt?’ Kit edged closer so that his thigh almost touched hers.
    ‘To the bone,’ she replied. ‘Sun, sea and the prospect of a garlicky dinner tonight. Perfect.’
    Kit marched his fingers up and down the flat rock. ‘No one will kiss you,’ he said under his breath.
    ‘Won’t they?’ Daisy teased and dared him, and Kit’s fingers came to an abrupt halt. What are you doing to me? he asked Daisy silently, his wanting of her mixed with an elixir of sun, wine and liberation from confining clothes.
    ‘Your cousin,’ Flora was asking Marcus. ‘Will she be coming this evening?’
    ‘I expect so,’ said Marcus.
    ‘Is she enjoying herself?’ Flora was curious. ‘She seems... she seems, well, not to very much.’
    ‘Matty,’ said Daisy, ‘always feels left out. It’s her life’s burden and there’s nothing we can do to help.’ She got to her feet, brushing dust and pebbles from her skirt. ‘Come on. Why don’t we go to the port to dine tonight instead of staying at the villa?’
    It did not take much to persuade Susan Chudleigh to abandon the role of chaperone for an evening. The business of nannying the youth was tedious and tiring. She imposed one condition. ‘Matty goes with you,’ she said, thinking that she could not bear to spend an evening alone with her niece. ‘She needs bringing out of herself.’
    Marcus and Kit handed the girls into Ambrose Chudleigh’s black saloon and negotiated the coast road with more dash than skill. Marcus drove and Kit hung out of the passenger window to give warning of rocky outcrops over the road. Their destination was the Café de la Marine in the port – ‘So authentic, so nostalgie de la boue,’ remarked Daisy. After that, they planned to go in search of a casino.
    They dined outside in the airless dark, overlooking the fishing boats and the harbour wall. The tables were occupied by regulars, a few tourists and a swelling contingent of English exiles – artists affecting short-sleeved cotton shirts, their women in striped fishermen’s jerseys, writers and journalists who declared their creative engines rusted up in stifling England. Kit placed himself next to Matty at the table: Daisy’s earlier remarks about her cousin had made him curious.
    ‘I haven’t had a chance to ask you if you are enjoying yourself. You look as though you are feeling the heat.’
    Matty’s hair hung lankly over her face, and her face powder clung to a rime of sweat. She pushed away the china bowl containing loup de mer, and crumbled bread between her fingers. ‘Yes,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I am finding the heat difficult.’
    ‘It’s a matter of will power,’ Kit told her. ‘Tell yourself not to mind.’
    It was a novel approach for Matty and she floundered for something interesting with which to respond. ‘I see.’ Bread crumbled furiously onto the tablecloth.
    ‘Do you?’ Kit gave one of his lazy smiles. Only one corner of his mouth went up when he did that: amused and hinting at irony.
    The smile was part of his charm, and at that moment the unused bits and pieces of Matty’s heart went click, and she fell in love. Candle-light patched their faces and with a new