“Ah, so that’s why you’re in Bond Street then. Come on. There’s a little place on Albemarle Street that manages a non-poisonous coffee.” She started off, tottering slightly in enormously high wedges on the uneven pavement. We found the little café and sat, beaming at each other as the waitress brought two demitasses of thick, rich coffee.

“Your own line, Belinda! That sounds thrilling. You wouldn’t like an efficient, private secretary, would you?”

“Do you know of one?”

“Me. I’ve been Mummy’s secretary for the past month. I can actually work a typewriter.”

“I’m impressed. And I’d hire you in a minute, but frankly, my dear, I can’t start my business without capital. I’m almost as broke as you are. My stepmother—you remember, the wicked witch—persuaded my father that I no longer need an allowance. How hateful is that. She said it was my fault I wasn’t married, and that I should be standing on my own feet at twenty-four.”

“So we’re in the same boat,” I said. “I was supposed to be helping Mummy write her memoirs.”

Belinda almost choked on her coffee. “She’d never tell all, surely. My dear, think of the scandals.”

“I know. That’s what she decided. Also, Max has bought her a villa in Lugano and she’s off to join him, abandoning the project and her only daughter.”

“I’d probably abandon my only daughter for a villa in Lugano at this time of year,” Belinda said as a great gust of March wind sent newspapers flying outside the window. “So what about you? Where will you go—back to Rannoch House?” (Rannoch House was the family’s London house on Belgrave Square.)

I shook my head. “It’s all shut up. Binky and Fig decided not to come down to London this winter. Too expensive to move all the staff. They are staying put up at Castle Rannoch.”

Binky, my brother, was the current Duke of Glengarry and Rannoch. The dreaded Fig was his wife and current duchess. In spite of owning a castle and a London home they were almost as broke as I was, thanks to our father squandering the fortune, and then subsequent death duties on the property.

“You lived in the London house alone before,” Belinda reminded me.

“But I’m not allowed to anymore. Fig begrudges the miniscule amount of heat and light I’d use. I can stay on at the house Mummy rented until the end of this month, but I’ve no idea what I’ll do then. I simply can’t go home to Scotland. It’s so dreary there, and Fig makes me feel so unwelcome.”

“It is your family seat. She’s only a Rannoch by marriage. And not connected to the royals the way you are. You should put your foot down, Georgie.”

I vigorously stirred the thick, black liquid in my cup. “Unfortunately, it is her house now and not mine. My brother is the duke and she is the duchess, and I’m only a poor relation.”

“Goodness, you sound depressed,” she said. “I never am. I’m always sure something good will turn up, and it usually does.”