I couldn’t bear to face Binky and Fig. Binky would try to be kind and say platitudes about it all being for the best and at least the chap had done the right thing. Fig would have a malicious gleam in her eye and say that everything she had heard about that family was that they were no good and this proved it. I looked around me like a trapped animal. I had to escape. I had to talk to somebody, but who? Belinda hadn’t had too much success with men herself. And she would probably say the same kind of thing as Binky. Given the circumstances, it was all for the best. That left me with two choices: my grandfather or the Princess Zamanska. I realized that I hardly knew her but I had seen that she didn’t care a hoot for the rules of society. And she did care about Darcy.

Then I decided that I needed to be hugged and comforted. The princess could come later. Right now I knew who I needed to be with. I put on my coat and hat hurriedly, before anyone could come out into the hall, and fled through the deserted smoggy streets to the nearest Underground station. When I disembarked an hour later at the quiet little stop at Upminster Bridge, the smoky London fog had turned to estuary mist, damp and curling about me. My footsteps echoed as I walked up the slope to my grandfather’s street. It felt as if I was the only person alive in the world.

Granddad lived in a pleasant little semidetached on a quiet back street. It boasted a pocket-handkerchief-sized lawn on which stood three serious-looking gnomes. The rosebushes, so pretty in summer, stuck out dead bare branches, but a light shone through the leaded panes of the front door and I heard voices coming from inside. He was home but he had company. That was the last thing I needed right now, especially if it was his neighbor Mrs. Huggins, who was sweet on him and trying to lure him into matrimony. She was nosy and gossipy and I could say nothing in front of her. But I wasn’t going all the way back to Belgravia now. I rapped on the knocker and I heard my grandfather’s wheezing cough and a voice said, “Hold on. Hold on, I’m coming.” Then the front door opened.

He peered out, frowned, then raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Blimey, love, you’re the last person I expected to see. Well, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes. Come on in, do. I was just about to have me tea.”

“You’ve got guests?” I asked as I stepped into the narrow hallway and he shut the door behind me. “Because I don’t have to stay. . . .”