‘Hold on to your hat,’ he whispered, then steered her forward. ‘Just look at this.’

Helen gasped.

They had come to the centre of the house.

Above them was the bell of a great dome, slotted with light from the windows beneath the cupola. Helen tilted back her head to look at the painting. There were billowing clouds edged with silver, blue-robed attendants lifting a canopy over a chariot and a massive golden figure poised with sun and moon in either hand. Fat, pink putti and garlands of flowers tumbled from the central group to the edges of the dome. It was magnificent; flord and full-blown and unforgettable. Underneath it even the huge gilt and crystal chandelier, the shallow sweep of the great staircase and the tall portraits in curlicued gilt frames seemed understated.

‘I’ve been considering getting one done at home,’ Tom murmured. ‘What do you think?’

‘Perhaps in the guest bathroom?’ Helen giggled.

But awed in spite of themselves they were still gazing upwards when they came to the head of the stairs.

The hallway beneath echoed forbiddingly. The floor was tiled in an elaborate mosaic, and huge oriental jars stood guard on either side of closed double doors. At the main door a hooded porter’s chair reminded Helen that a footman would have waited in this draughty space to see the last members of the household safely inside. Discreetly hidden beside the chair she saw a rank of little posts, and lengths of coiled red rope.

‘Nobody really lives here,’ Tom said, following her eyes. ‘It’s sad, in a way, isn’t it? The wing we’ve just come from is the private one.’

‘Oliver told me that they retreated there,’ Helen remembered. ‘Like survivors in a sinking ship.’

‘Some ship,’ he said quietly, ‘but survivors must be right. How else could a single family keep going from strength to strength for so many hundreds of years?’

Helen looked up at the family portraits that lined the stairs. There, in one face or another, were Oliver’s medieval-knight features. Hands, clasped on the pommel of a sword, or a bridle, were Oliver’s too.

Helen’s mouth set in a firm line.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Take me to her ladyship before I lose my nerve completely.’

At the door of the countess’s drawing room, there was an impressive figure in a black coat.

‘Good morning, sir. Welcome to Montcalm, Miss Brown. Her ladyship will be pleased if you will join her.’

Helen saw that Tom’s expression was unchanged, but she thought that the humorous lines at the side of his mouth had deepened.

Maitland showed them into the room.