“I mean formal dress. Dinner jacket. Do you have one yet?”

“I think so. They took me shopping and bought me some poncy clothes.”

We all looked up as Cedric came into the room.

“Ah, this is your uncle Cedric now, John,” she said. “He is the current Duke of Eynsford. You are his heir.”

“Right-oh.” Jack didn’t get up but stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, mate.”

Cedric looked rather green. “Mother just called you John. Is that your name then?”

“No, just Jack. The blokes on the station called me Jacko, or Blue sometimes.”

“Blue? Why was that?”

“On account of my red hair.” He looked around at the silence. “Aussie joke, I suppose,” he added.

“But you were christened John, surely?” Edwina said.

“I don’t think I was christened anything. The parsons don’t come around too often out where I was.”

“Not christened?” I thought Edwina might faint. She swallowed hard then took a good sip of tea. “My dear boy. We must remedy that. I’ll contact the vicar immediately.”

“Did your mother ever speak to you about your father?” Cedric asked.

“Yeah. She said he was a bonza bloke. Not at all toffee nosed like his relatives. He promised to come back after the war, and she didn’t hear for years that he’d been killed so she kept hoping. She said you lot wouldn’t want anything to do with us so she never wrote to you.”

“And where is your mother now?”

Jack had been working his way through the plate of sandwiches. “She died when I was a nipper. I went to live with my gran, who was cook on a station.”

“On the railway, you mean?”

“No. A sheep station.”

Darcy leaned forward. “It’s the Australian word for a ranch,” he said.

“So you lived on this sheep station?” Cedric asked.

“Yeah. When I was fourteen, my gran died and I went to work riding the boundary fence, until I got crook and had to give it up.”

“Crook? You mean you went to jail?”

Jack laughed. “No. Crook. In bed with a bad wog.”

Edwina actually choked on her macaroon. “With what?”

“A wog. You know. I caught diphtheria. I was really crook for a while there. But I recovered.”

“So you’ve had very little education?” Cedric said. His voice sounded tight and clipped like his mother’s.

“Not much. I know how to read and write. That’s about it. And sums. I can do sums all right.”

“We must see if Mr. Carter can devote some time to him,” Edwina said, then turned to me. “And Georgiana, maybe you can help too.”

Jack looked amused. “Do you need education to be a duke? I heard you had servants to do everything for you.”

“One needs an education to move freely through the highest levels of society,” Edwina said. “All of this will seem very strange to you at first, but you will have to learn to take your rightful place here. We will naturally give you time to settle in, won’t we, Cedric?”