“Then I shall tell them that I am the Princess Zamanska and I am thinking of buying this racing stable now that its owner is deceased,” she said. “You two are my faithful retainers.”

“I rather fear they’d recognize both of your faithful retainers,” Darcy said.

“No matter. Lady Georgiana has simply come with me as my companion.”

This did seem like a good solution and one that didn’t make suspicious people tie me in any way to Darcy.

As we turned in to the lane raindrops started to spatter on the windscreen. The clouds looked as if they might open at any moment.

“Does your father have a tarpaulin or anything that might cover the aeroplane?” she asked. “Or could we push it into an outbuilding?”

“The outbuildings are all on the estate, currently watched by a Garda,” Darcy said. “My father merely has a garden shed, not big enough for an aeroplane. But they should have something to cover a cockpit at the stables. Let’s go and ask.”

We did, this time not seeing Ted Benson but a stable boy who knew Darcy and who found us a piece of oilcloth that would do the trick. It was now raining hard and the princess sat in the backseat of the motor as we returned to the field with the aeroplane in it. Darcy and I, dressed more sensibly for inclement weather, got out and managed to cover the cockpit. The rest of the plane would just have to get wet for now. We had just finished our task and were returning to the motorcar when we heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.

“Those bloody reporters,” Darcy muttered, and sure enough the motorcar stopped and out climbed three men wearing trilby hats and raincoats.

“Excuse me, could we have a word?” One of them came toward us with a notebook at the ready. “Are you connected to Lord Kilhenny? Coming to visit him?”

Zou Zou wound down her window. “These kind people were just helping me with my dear little aeroplane,” she said in a strong foreign accent, quite unlike her normal voice. “I had to make an emergency landing in this field and now I must find a way to have it towed. So annoying.”

“And your name, madam?”

“I am not a madam,” she said, her hand at her throat in a dramatic gesture. “I am a princess. Princess Alexandra Maria Zamanska.”

I think we might have fooled them and they might have left us alone except at that moment a voice bellowed out, “What the hell is that aeroplane doing in the field? Are you reporters coming in from the sky now? Go on, be off with you. I’ve told you you’re wasting your time. I’ve nothing to say to you. Now beat it before I get my shotgun.”

Chapter 24

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4

BACK IN KILHENNY AT THE GAMEKEEPER’S LODGE.