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kisses. ‘Gerard is sorry he can’t be here, but he’s had to go to Remnant. Meetings with solicitors and all sorts of other people. As you can well imagine, my brother-in-law’s death has pitched us into a wholly new life with a lot of incredibly tedious responsibilities. It’s complete madness.’
    ‘Felicity, my dear, I don’t think you have met Hugh, have you? Hugh is my favourite nephew. The only one of my living relatives who understands me.’
    Payne gave a little bow. ‘Lady Remnant. How do you do?’
    ‘How do you do? I have heard an awful lot about you, Hugh, and I must say I am intrigued.’
    ‘So good of you to let me look at your Damascus chest.’
    ‘I understand you are renowned for your stratospheric IQ and uncanny gift for divining guilty secrets. Can you really do the Sherlock Holmes trick of guessing facts about people in a seemingly legerdemain manner?’
    ‘I believe I can.’
    ‘Frequently with spectacular success, or so I have heard?’
    ‘Usually with spectacular success. Usually rather than frequently,’ said Payne in a meditative voice. ‘I wouldn’t call it a trick but a knack. And it isn’t exactly guessing, it’s deducing.’
    ‘How terribly tantalizing. I wonder if you could deduce anything about me?’
    ‘You’d like me to tell you things about yourself which no one but you could possibly know?’
    ‘Yes, please.’
    ‘Wouldn’t you think it presumptuous of me?’
    ‘Not a bit of it.’
    ‘You may find what I am going to say annoying.’
    ‘I am sure I won’t,’ she reassured him.
    Major Payne’s eyes narrowed. ‘Well, you have been careful to cultivate a perfectly plausible patina of respectability and an instantly recognizable type of Englishness. You speak and dress and do your hair the way your mother and grandmother spoke and dressed and did theirs, but underneath lurks a highly unconventional woman.’
    Lady Grylls beamed. ‘Isn’t he wonderful?’
    ‘In what way unconventional?’ Felicity asked.
    ‘Once you were something of a wild girl. You had a passion for rock-and-roll. You are a dab hand with a gun. You have a quirky sense of humour. You used to have a tattoo, which you sported pretty prominently.’ Payne drew his forefinger across his jaw. ‘You have a Lithuanian maid and you smoke Cuban cigars.’
    ‘Not Trichinopoly ones?’ Felicity’s brows went up ironically.
    ‘No. Cuban. As a child, you were scared of pom-pom dahlias. Your second boyfriend was a strategy analyst at a government-sponsored institution called Stonehenge Madagascar.’
    ‘I suppose you recognized Goda’s accent, but how on earth did you know about the gun?’
    ‘Who or what is Trichinopoly?’ Lady Grylls asked.
    ‘Place in southern India. Location of a famous battle … A silver-framed photograph in the hall shows you and your husband wearing combat gear and handling guns in a most expert manner.’
    ‘You are certainly good at noticing things. But you can’t be sure that’s my husband. It may be my lover. Or my dentist. I may have been entertaining my dentist, so there.’
    ‘No,’ Payne said firmly. ‘It’s your husband Gerard Fenwick, who is now the thirteenth Earl Remnant. I believe I was introduced to him once. I never forget a face. It was at a dinner at the Military Club, I think, or perhaps Brooks’s. Can’t remember which one exactly.’
    ‘Gentlemen’s clubs are all the same,’ she said acidly. ‘How did you know about the rock-and-roll?’
    Payne pointed to a shelf above the TV set. ‘Those videotapes. Glastonbury 1971, 1972 and 1973. They can’t possibly be your son’s – I understand he is still at school – too young. Besides, it is all DVDs nowadays. Or are you going to tell me they belong to your husband?’
    Felicity looked a little annoyed. ‘Perhaps they do.’
    ‘No, they don’t,’ Lady Grylls wheezed. ‘They are all yours, my dear. I remember your mama being frightfully worried about you when you were eighteen. About the