“Don’t let me stop you,” he said, waving expansively. “Go ahead, if you think you’ll survive the experience without being poisoned. They lose a customer a day here, you know. Just whip them quietly out the back entrance and go on as if nothing has happened.”

“They do not!” I had to laugh.

He smiled too. “That’s better. I’ve never seen such a grim face as you were making earlier. What’s wrong? Have you been dumped by a deceiver?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just that life is insufferably gloomy at the moment.” And I heard myself telling him about the room in the cold house, the embarrassment at Harrods, and the prospect of banishment to the country. “So you see,” I concluded, “I’ve not much to look cheerful about at the moment.”

He eyed me steadily, then he said, “Tell me, do you have a posh frock with you?”

“Posh as in dressing for dinner posh, or as in going to church posh?”

“As in attending a wedding posh.”

I laughed again, a little uneasily this time. “Are you suggesting we run off and get married to cheer me up?”

“Good Lord, no. I’m a wild Irish boy. It will take a lot to tame me and drag me to the altar. So do you have a suitable outfit within reach?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do.”

“Good. Go and put it on and meet me at Hyde Park Corner in an hour.”

“Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”

He touched his finger to his nose. “You’ll see,” he said. “A damned sight better than tea and scones at Lyons anyway. Are you going to do it?”

I looked at him for a moment, then sighed. “What have I got to lose?”

Those roguish eyes flashed again. “I don’t know,” he said. “What have you?”

You are quite, quite mad, I said to myself several times as I washed, dressed, and attempted to tame my hair into the sleekness required by fashion. Going out on a whim with a strange man about whom you know nothing. He could be the worst sort of imposter. He could be running a profitable white slave ring, pretending to know young girls and luring them to their doom. I stopped what I was doing, rushed down to the library, and pulled out a copy of Burke’s Irish Peerage. There it was all right: Thaddeus Alexander O’Mara, Lord Kilhenny, sixteenth baron, etc. Having issue: William Darcy Byrne . . .

So a real Darcy O’Mara did exist. And it was midafternoon. And the streets were crowded. And I wouldn’t let him take me to a low-down dive or sleazy hotel. And he was awfully good-looking. As he said, what had I got to lose?

Chapter 6

Rannoch House
Saturday, April 23, 1932

I almost didn’t recognize Darcy O’Mara as he came toward me on Park Lane. He was wearing full morning suit, his wild curls had been tamed, and he looked remarkably presentable. The quick once-over glance he gave me told me that he thought I also passed muster.