“I don’t work for any paper,” I said. “I’m just staying in Dublin and popping over to visit a friend here.” Then I decided attack was the best form of defense. “How about you? Presumably you’re from an American newspaper?”

“Magazine, honey. Ladies’ magazine. Our readers love tales about dukes and earls and things. Especially bad ones. I’ve been trying to get some dirt from the locals. So which of them is your friend? Maybe I could come along with you.”

“I don’t think so,” I said hastily. “My friend hasn’t been well. I plan to keep things really quiet and simple, if you don’t mind.”

As I went to leave she called after me, “I didn’t get your name, honey.”

I said the first thing that came into my head. “It’s Pauncefoot-Smith. Belinda Pauncefoot-Smith.”

She laughed. “You English with your snooty names. You crack me up.”

“And your name?” I asked.

“Connie,” she said. “Connie Wright.”

“Nice to meet you, Miss Wright,” I said. “Now I fear I must brave the elements. My friend lives a long way out of town.”

“There’s some guy with a taxi around sometimes,” she said. “You could have the innkeeper call him.”

“Oh, I don’t mind walking, thank you,” I said. I left the pub and set off in the wrong direction, just in case she had decided to follow me. Then I slipped between houses and managed to cut back along a footpath between allotments. The rain had now subsided to a gentle drizzle. I followed the lane back to the castle wall, then saw an even narrower lane going off to the right. At first I walked gently uphill, then the land dipped ahead of me and I saw the red roofs of the stables among green fields. There was a flash of movement and color coming over the rise and I realized, with something of a thrill, that the horses were being put through their morning paces. They came toward me until the ground echoed with the thud of their hooves. Then they rounded a corner and were gone. So life at the stables was going on, even without an owner or trainer. Unless the American had hired a new trainer after he sacked Darcy’s father.