“The Mail does it in twelve hours, but your way could take a lot longer, especially if you have to wait a while for a ferry.”

“And this is definitely the quickest route?” I asked.

“It’s the only route,” he said. “Unless you want to go up to Liverpool and across from there to Belfast, which takes a lot longer still.”

Of course Belfast was no use to me. So I was forced to book a ticket on the next train heading for Liverpool and to change trains at Chester. I found the right platform and off we went. Four hours later we arrived at Chester. It was an hour before the next train on the North Wales line to Holyhead. I saw instantly why the journey took so long. We stopped at every little town along the Welsh coast. Darkness had fallen before we reached Chester. As we went deeper into Wales the rain intensified so that by the time we arrived at the dock in Holyhead it was bucketing down. That was when I realized that I had forgotten to bring a brolly. Not that it would have done much good at that moment. The wind would have turned it inside out in seconds. So I got absolutely drenched walking from the station to the quayside to find out about a ferry. Then it turned out I’d have a two-hour wait. I sat alone in a cold and miserable waiting room, wishing I was back in my grandfather’s warm kitchen, back at Kensington Palace, even back at Rannoch House with Binky and Fig, which shows you how low I was feeling.

By nine o’clock, when we had to board the ship, the wind was howling and even in the darkness I could see the whitecaps on the Irish Sea. I decided I wouldn’t be able to sleep in that kind of weather so I didn’t take a berth. Instead I found a quiet corner in a lounge and tried to make myself comfortable. This wasn’t easy. As soon as we left port the boat bucked and rolled like a wild thing. Anything that wasn’t bolted down slid and rolled and crashed. There were almost no other passengers and I began to regret bitterly that I hadn’t waited for the Irish Mail and the daytime ferry. At least I would have had a good chance of arriving safely. After an hour I wasn’t sure we’d ever make it to Dublin and sat there, holding on for dear life and asking myself what use I’d be to Darcy if I perished at sea.

When a large man wearing a sou’wester came up to me I was sure it was to instruct me to abandon ship. Instead of that he asked to see my ticket. He took one look at my face, which was by now positively green.