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notice the figure bending down towards him until a silver tray dotted with canapés slid under his nose.
    “Mr. Christmas?”
    “Mrs. Prowse?” Tom glanced at his housekeeper with astonishment.He had never seen her wearing the stiff black skirt and starched white blouse that was the traditional uniform of the housekeeper. And was that a spot of makeup? “Where did you—”
    “It’s one of Ellen’s,” she cut in, adding, frowning down at the cinched belt, “It’s a bit loose, but it will do.”
    “Mrs. Prowse, you’re meant to have a holiday, too.”
    “I can’t very well sit about when Ellen is run off her feet, can I? The only staff are she and her husband. One of the dailies from the village was to come and help this evening, but there was a death in her family, so … Would you care for a nibble?”
    “I’m sure the Gaunts can cope.” Tom selected something with salmon and crème fraîche. “Supper’s only a barbecue, very informal.”
    “Oh,” Madrun murmured. “I thought it all might be a little more grand than this.”
    “You mean no candlelit table groaning under the weight of crystal and china and silver. No evening dress. No gowns. This
is
the twenty-first century, Mrs. Prowse.”
    “I do know that, Mr. Christmas.”
    “And there are hardly any wives present.”
    “Still, they might have made an effort.”
    Tom sighed and popped the canapé into his mouth. He understood these Leaping Lords charity events were boys-only weekends for the peers involved. Wives weren’t forbidden, they were just discouraged. All the host had to do was crown the event with a slap-up meal of some nature that didn’t involve black tie—in Lord Fairhaven’s case a sort of slap-up
déjeuner sur l’herbe
—and send the boys on their way, to shootin Scotland, as Tom overheard some of them say they were doing. He suspected there had to be a sleepover in some circumstances, but he had picked up from snippets of conversation through the afternoon that Lady Fairhaven was averse to company at Eggescombe. She had been, as Jane said she would, perfectly gracious when she had supplied the crutches and gave him directions to the Opium Bedroom, but Tom found her smile thin and fixed, her interest in her guest strained and formal.
    “Well, I hope you’re enjoying yourself at any rate, Mrs. Prowse,” he said, conscious of rising voices down on the lawn. “At least the titles are grand. Do you know that’s the Duke of Warwick over there—that very tall one, knobby knees, balding a bit, like Prince William?” He detected a glitter in her eyes as she glanced across the terrace.
    “Yes, I saw him on the television.”
    He couldn’t help himself. An opportunity to prick Madrun’s balloon was too tempting. “He’s an estate agent somewhere in the southeast, you know.”
Sic transit gloria
, he thought, amused.
    “Nonetheless”—Madrun straightened herself and cast him a withering glance—“it’s an ancient title. And anyway, His Grace
owns
several estate agencies in Kent and Sussex and Surrey, and according to the
Sunday Times
Rich List he’s the seventy-first wealthiest man in England.”
    “I am humbled. How do you know this?”
    “I used the Google.”
    “Mrs. Prowse? You and a computer?”
    “Your daughter’s been showing me. It has its uses, I’ll allow.”
    “Signs and portents!” Tom reached out for another canapé. “We must be at the End Times. Mrs. Prowse?” he pleaded as the tray retreated from his hand, out of reach.
    Then he saw that her attention had been distracted by a sudden commotion in the middle distance. He followed her gaze to witness Oliver in the midst of an abrupt exit from his friends and swift descent of the stone steps to the lawn, his features a clot of ferocity as his red hair, worn near Byronically long, caught the sun’s rays and flared suddenly like an angry flame. He seemed to lunge in Lucinda’s direction. Tom couldn’t see properly through the thick balusters.