I suppose I should have mentioned that while one of my grandparents was Queen Victoria’s daughter, my only living grandparent was a retired Cockney policeman who lived in a semidetached in Essex with gnomes in the front garden.

His stubbly face was scratchy on my cheek as he planted a kiss and he smelled of carbolic soap. I hugged him fiercely. “I’m well, thanks, Granddad. How are you?”

“Can’t complain. The old chest ain’t what it was, but at my age that’s what you expect, isn’t it? Come on in. I’ve got the kettle on and a nice bit of seedy cake, made by the old bat next door. She keeps sending round food, in the hopes of showing me what a good cook she is and what a good catch she’d make.”

“And would she make a good catch?” I asked. “You have been living on your own for a long while now.”

“I’m used to my own company. Don’t need no meddling old woman in my life. Come on in and take a pew, ducks. You are a sight for sore eyes.”

He beamed at me again. “So what brings you to this neck of the woods? In need of a good meal, by the look of it. You’re all skin and bones.”

“As a matter of fact, I am in need of a good meal,” I said. “I’ve just come from the palace, where tea consisted of two slices of brown bread.”

“Well, I can certainly do better than that. What about a couple of poached eggs on toasted cheese and then some of that cake?”

“Perfect.” I sighed happily.

“I bet you didn’t tell that lot at the palace where you were coming afterward.” He bustled around the meticulously neat little kitchen, breaking two eggs into the poacher. “They wouldn’t have liked that. When you were a little girl, they used to intercept the letters we sent you.”

“Surely not.”

“Oh, yes. They didn’t want no contact with us poor folk. Of course, if your mum had stuck around to do her duty and bring you up proper, we’d have been invited to stay or she could have brought you to see us. But she was off flaunting herself somewhere. We often worried about you, poor little mite, stuck in that big drafty place all alone.”

“I did have Nanny. And Miss MacAlister.”

He beamed again. He had the sort of smile that lit up his whole face. “And you turned out a treat. I’ll have to admit that. Look at you. The proper young lady. I bet you’ve got the boyfriends lined up and fighting for you, haven’t yer?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “In fact I’m rather at a loose end, not quite sure what to do with myself. My brother’s not giving me an allowance any longer, you see. He claims abject poverty.”

“The dirty rotter. Do you want me to come up and give him a piece of my mind?”

“No, thanks, Granddad. There’s nothing you could do. I think they are genuinely hard up, and I’m only a half sister, after all. He told me I was welcome to stay on at Castle Rannoch, but having to amuse little Podge and help Fig with her knitting was really too dreadful. So I bolted, just like my mother. Only not as successfully. I’m camping out in the London house. Binky is letting me live there for the moment but it’s freezing cold without the central heating on and I have no servant to look after me. I don’t suppose you could show me how to light a fire, could you?”