Celia was prone to saying things like "I say" which unwittingly betrayed her cultivated right-on persona. I turned. Small, slim and crumpled looking, with a hobbling gait, wearing old-fashioned breeches tied up with binder twine, trying to keep from smiling because she didn't do that sort of thing as a rule, and who, on approach, was actually prettier than you'd think, came the only person I was truly looking forward to seeing. Someone who you'd better think twice about before purring through her stable yard and getting away with it.

“This," I told her happily, "is Iris. One of my most favorite people in the world." I jumped from the car and ran to meet her.

Chapter 2

Iris didn't really entertain hugging — she was not of that generation or persuasion — but she nonetheless submitted woodenly to the one I forced upon her.

“Sorry," I told her, grinning as I released her, returning her to her solitary status. "Couldn't resist. It's so good to see you, Iris."

"Yes, well, it's been a while," she admitted stiffly, but her mouth was twitching and her piercing blue eyes gleamed. "I was expecting you, though. I gather you're painting his highness, not that anyone bothered to tell me. Letty Parker in the pub got wind."

"Yes, well, they offered me a socking great fee so I couldn't really resist," I admitted, looking apologetically at my shoes.

"Couldn't resist coming back here, you mean. I think you're crazy, incidentally. Who's this?"

Celia had approached with her most dazzling smile, hand outstretched. "Celia Lonsdale," she told her. "And I think she's crazy, too. I'm the bodyguard."

"Ignore Celia," I told Iris hastily. “She's a painter, too, but she used to be an actress so she overdramatizes. For some reason she's become a great friend and she's also Peter's godmother."

Iris scrutinized Celia carefully. “The christening was here. In the village. I don't remember you?"

"I'm an honorary one," Celia told her. "Peter asked me about four years ago. Said he only had one godmother, and both his godfathers were friends of his father's, not Flora's."

“That's true," said Iris slowly. “Shona, obviously. And cousin Ben. And the other one's that American fellow he met at school." She turned to me. "Who's here, by the way."

“Tommy Rochester?" I gasped, horrified. "Here? He's not. Why?"

Iris shrugged her shoulders. She took the butt of a cigar out of her pocket and lit it. "No idea. Holiday, I imagine. He says he's between jobs."

Celia's eyes grew round as Iris puffed away. She hastily lit a cigarette, a companion in this archaic ritual, rare these days. Especially one who went for the big guns.