“I do. I really do.” He opened the driver’s door to the motorcar for me. “You drive. Get some practice while I’m with you.” I took my place behind the wheel and tentatively drove off. The roads were empty with only a dusting of snow. We drove in silence past snowy hedgerows and dry stone walls. Sheep huddled together in snowy fields. Smoke curled up from cottage chimneys. It would have been a charming scene straight from a Christmas card if I had been able to enjoy it. Instead my stomach was clenched into a tight knot. I tried to think positive thoughts, tried to come up with something encouraging to say to Darcy, but I couldn’t think of a single thing.

He, on the other hand, was trying valiantly. “Do you know the Princess Zamanska?”

I wondered if he had cracked up. “Zamanska? Never heard of her.”

“Oh, I thought you might, seeing that you are practically neighbors. But now I come to think about it, your family wouldn’t move in the same circles. They wouldn’t approve of her lifestyle and she’d find them too staid and boring.”

My nerves were at snapping point. “Why are we talking about some foreign princess?”

“Because she’s the one who lent me the car. You’ll like her. She’s a funny old thing. Quite eccentric. Lives life on the edge. Motor racing, balloon riding, dog sledding . . . she’s done it all. Number sixteen Eaton Square.”

“Is there a Prince Zamanska?”

“Zamanski,” he corrected. “He’s male. Or rather was, until he was assassinated by angry peasants for riding his hunt over their cabbage fields. The princess had to flee for her life. Came here with little more than the clothes on her back.”

“And enough money to live in Eaton Square and own an Armstrong Siddeley,” I pointed out.

“Well, yes. She’s not exactly starving. The prince might have had failings in many ways but he was shrewd enough to keep all his money in a Swiss bank account. His widow lives quite well.”

We were coming to the outskirts of York. And then, all too soon, we arrived outside the railway station. I don’t know whether it was fear or the big greasy breakfast I’d eaten, but I was now feeling positively sick. I had no idea how long it would be before I saw Darcy again. I had grown used to him flitting off to far-flung corners of the world, but this was different.

“You’ll write to me or telephone me, won’t you?” I said in a small voice. “You will let me know how things are going, and if there is anything I can do.”

“Of course I will. Will you be staying with your brother at Rannoch House?”