“I will. And maybe you can come out and see me when all this awful business with Darcy’s father is cleared up.” From the way she was looking at me I could tell that she was feeling more apprehensive than she appeared and needed a friend.

“I will if I possibly can,” I said.

“I’ll send you the money for the ticket. It will be lovely.”

“Yes.” We stood looking at each other. I was remembering my first day at Les Oiseaux, my first day at any kind of school. I was socially inept, having never mixed with other girls, naïve and clueless. Belinda wore silk stockings and smoked in the bathroom. She seemed hopelessly out of my league until we had to share a bedroom with an utterly awful German girl who was horribly hot on the rules and told tales. Then we had to gang up against her and became fast friends.

“Take care of yourself,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.”

“You too.”

I glanced back as I walked down the mews and saw the curtain twitch. Belinda was watching me go. I felt horribly torn. Of course I wanted to be available for Darcy. And we had been about to get married, hadn’t we? If all went well I could still hope to be Mrs. O’Mara by the new year. We might even be living together in a flat somewhere. Or in an Irish cottage. But that would mean that I couldn’t go to Belinda when she needed me. “Oh bugger,” I muttered. Why did life always have to be so complicated?

I passed the rest of the day pacing around, unable to settle or to push back the worry. Why hadn’t Darcy given me a telephone number where I could reach him? Why hadn’t he telephoned me with the news? I realized, of course, that he had only been there one day. He probably had no real news as yet. He was probably feeling as wretched as I was. I went down to Binky’s desk and took out writing paper only to realize that I didn’t know where to address a letter. “Kilhenny Castle Lodge, Ireland,” might not be enough for the postman. How little I knew about Darcy’s home and background!

I went down to Binky’s study and found an atlas, poring over the map of Ireland until I gave a squeak of excitement. Stately homes and castles were shown in small red letters and there, not too far from Dublin, close to the town of Kildare, I saw the words Kilhenny Castle.