“Still, it was not a nice thing to do,” said Iris. “Not a nice thing to do to anyone, but even worse to do to a friend. I’m not used to having a close female friend. I never have been. My problem, one of my problems, and this is by no means an attempt to justify any of my behaviour, is that I have a great deal of lingering resentment for women like you.”

“Women like me? In what category are you placing me?”

“The aristocracy. The rich girls who get presented at court and drink champagne while wearing exorbitantly expensive frocks and have their entire lives of luxury laid out for them before they’re even born. The ones who know to go to Burke’s Peerage to look people up. Which was a very good idea, by the way.”

“Darling, I didn’t look it up,” drawled Gwen. “I had someone do it for me. That’s how one does that sort of thing. There are advantages to being in the aristocracy.”

“Yes, there are, and I have envied and despised them. My mother divorced my father when I was fifteen, so we were anathema to that world. Forget any chance of my coming out at court, or being invited to the best parties. I never got to vent my spleen with a shotgun at some blameless grouse or fox. But I got into Cambridge on merit, and became that gorgeous brainy girl who was always up for a bit of fun with the upper-class boys, and that got me entry into a lot of places that money didn’t.”

“I thought you enjoyed being that girl,” said Gwen.

“I did. Well, I thought I did. Looking back, the reputation I so eagerly earned probably shot down my first engagement, although I have no regrets over not being stuck with that dolt for life. But I’m not a Good-Time Charlie anymore, and I don’t want the old school boys treating me like one.”

“You are dating a gangster,” Gwen pointed out.

“I’ve gone out with Archie twice. He’s a marvelous dancer, and he’s taken me to out-of-the-way places where nobody knows either of us and we can lower our defenses and talk like human beings. It’s not at all the same thing.”

“That sounds rather pleasant,” admitted Gwen.

“He has a friend—”

“Absolutely not.”

“Had enough male attention for one evening?”

“More than enough, thank you. Is the apology over?”

“Have I covered everything? I may not have actually said ‘I’m sorry.’”

“Consider it said. And consider it accepted. Do we have a date for the library tomorrow afternoon?”

“We do.”

“What have you learned so far?”

“I was concentrating on the prince and his parents, looking through the Times index. I wasted a good half hour before I realised that they were mostly listed under ‘Greece’ rather than their names.”

“Well, of course they would be,” said Gwen. “How else would you index royalty?”

“I really hate you right now,” said Iris, glaring at her. “In any case, I’ve been working backwards in the chronology. It turns out that their departure from Greece was rather dramatic.”