She paused and looked up, waiting to see the significance of this in my face. “Jack being the common nickname for John, of course.

“Well,” she went on, after taking another quick bite of her cake, “we hired investigators in Australia to look into the matter. John had been there for two years, after all. It was possible that he had fathered a child—but as to being a legitimate heir. . . .” She brushed crumbs from her impressive shelf of bosom before she said, “But it turned out to be true. It seemed he had formed an attachment with a young woman who worked as a schoolteacher in a remote community. When he found that he had”—she lowered her voice and coughed with embarrassment—“that she was in the family way,” she corrected, “he did the honorable thing and married her. There was a marriage certificate filed away at some county courthouse. Miss Ida Binns to John Jestyn Altringham. He left out his title, you notice. Typical John. Always wanted to be ordinary, even though his father told him that he was born to the highest levels of nobility and had to accept it whether he liked it or not.” And she wagged a finger at us. I had to admire her pluck at wagging a finger at the queen.

“But that’s wonderful,” I said. “You now have your heir.”

“Well, yes,” the duchess said hesitantly. “If one must accept the child of a Miss Ida Binns—a young man who works on an Australian sheep farm—I suppose one must. One simply can’t let the title die out.”

“This is where you come in, my dear,” the queen said.

I had forgotten for a moment that I was somehow to be involved in this matter. What on earth could they want from me now? A suitable marriage for the young sheep farmer?

“How old is this Jack Altringham?” I asked.

“Twenty, so we understand—which would make sense, because John left to come home at the outbreak of war in 1914. He may actually have left Australia before the child was born.”

Twenty. Did they want to marry him off before he could get into any trouble?

“And what exactly would you like me to do?” I asked. I took a discreet bite of éclair. Without warning, cream shot out and landed on my front. If the queen and duchess witnessed it, they were too well-bred to say anything. All I could think of was thank heavens it had shot toward me and not onto Her Majesty’s brocade sofa, or, worse still, onto HM. I was dying to wipe it off but couldn’t do so while their eyes were on me. Also I realized that I held a cup in one hand and the éclair in the other. That left no hand free to pick up a napkin. I felt my face turning red.

“The young man will be completely uncivilized, unused to our kind of society,” the duchess said. “He will be overwhelmed by Kingsdowne Place and our way of life. We thought that someone his own age—someone who has been brought up to the highest social standards—could show him the ropes and help him to learn his new position in life. He will find you less intimidating than an old dragon like me.”