Peach Read Online Free Page A

that …”
    “Then why do you look the role? Is this just a game you’re playing?”
    “I loved Nikolai, Grand-mère,” she murmured.
    Leonie stared at her granddaughter aghast. “Is that the truth?” she whispered.
    “You see?” Nikolai, dressed in an immaculate dark suit, was knotting a silk tie over a crisply laundered shirt. “She’s in love with me. I told you so.
She
chased after
me!
She couldn’t live without me. She couldn’t live without what she says only I can do for her …”
    Lais stared at Nikolai’s reflection in the mirror and then back at herself. Could it be only three months ago that she had imagined that she held all the cards in the game of life, that she could take any man and discard him at will when he bored her with his possessiveness? And look at her now!
    “Please let the maid know where to send your possessions, Nikolai,” she said coldly. “And please never come to this house again.”
    The little maid dodged quickly back along the corridor as Nikolai pushed open the door. “My dear Lais,” he said, his glance raking her from head to foot, “there is nothing more I need to see you for.”
    Leonie and Lais waited in silence until they heard the great double doors slam and Lais sank trembling on to the chaise-longue.
    “Oh Grand-mère, Grand-mère,” she wailed, “what have I done? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it to get like this … somehow it just got crazier and crazier …”
    Putting her arms around her granddaughter, Leonie stroked back her straggling blonde hair with gentle fingers, the way she had when Lais was a child.
    “It was a mistake, just a foolish mistake,” she murmured soothingly.
    “But what will I do now, Grand-mère?” whispered Lais, like a biddable child.
    “I’m taking you home to Florida, darling, to your mother and father,” said Leonie firmly. “And to Peach. Perhaps your little sister will be just what you need to bring you back to reality.”

4

    Noel Maddox was small for a seven-year-old—much smaller than his best friend, Luke Robinson. Of course Luke was quite old—he was ten. Luke had a shock of red hair and round blue eyes whose innocent expression never failed to bring a smile to anyone’s face. Luke could get away with
anything
. He could get an extra slice of bread when he was hungry and once, by looking extra wistful at the governors when they came to visit, even a large piece of angel cake—pink, white and yellow with creamy bits in between. Of course Luke had shared it with him—not exactly half-and-half, but Noel didn’t expect that. It had tasted better than all the cake in the world, partly because the children in the Maddox Charity Orphanage didn’t get much cake but mostly because
Luke
had given it to him.
    Noel sat on the hard wooden bench outside Mrs Grenfell’s office, waiting for Luke. His thick black hair had been cropped close to his skull, Matron’s answer to the everpresent threat of head-lice, and it emphasised his jutting raw-boned face, making his ears seem unusually prominent. Somehow there was nothing remotely childish about Noel’s seven-year-old face. His deeply set grey eyes appeared colourless and his lips were chapped and cracked from the wind that gathered force across the endless flat plains, whistling around the squat, square buildings of the Orphanage. Noel’s underfleshed little body appeared shrunken under the faded blue overalls and as he sat on the bench, his feet swung above the glossy linoleum floor. Of course,
Luke’s
feet would touch the floor. And
Luke’s
hair hadn’t been cut because Matron said that Luke had never, ever, had lice. She didn’t know how he’d managed it, but she just guessed the angels were on his side! Noel guessed so, too.
    He shifted impatiently on the bench. He’d been there almost half an hour and if Matron caught him he’d be in trouble. But he’d promised Luke he’d wait. Luke hadn’t told him why he was going to Mrs Grenfell’s office, but