“That’s an expensive proposition, Binky. You know how much these young men drink. We can’t even offer them a shoot at this time of year. Nor a hunt. What are we going to do with them all day? I don’t suppose this Siegfried will want to climb a mountain.”

“We’ll manage it somehow. After all, I am the head of the family. It is up to me to see my sister settled.”

“She’s your half sister. Let her mother find her somebody. God knows she has enough castoffs of her own, and most of them millionaires.”

“Now you’re being catty, Fig. Please reply to HM telling her we will be delighted to arrange the house party in the near future.”

The speakers drifted out of range. I stood there at the bathroom window, impervious to the snow blowing in on me. Prince Siegfried of Romania, of all people. I had met him while I was a pupil at Les Oiseaux, my finishing school in Switzerland. He had struck me as a cold fish with staring eyes, a limp handshake, and a look that indicated a perpetual bad smell under his nose. When he was introduced to me, he had clicked his heels and murmured, “Enchanté.” The way he said it made me feel that I should be the one having the honor bestowed upon me, not the other way around. I didn’t suspect he’d be any more enchanted to see me again.

“The time has come for action!” I shouted into the storm. I was no longer a minor. I was able to go where I wanted without a chaperon, to make my own decisions and to choose my own life. It wasn’t as if I were either the heir or the spare. I was only thirty-fourth in line to the throne. Being a mere woman, I could never inherit the dukedom or Castle Rannoch even if Binky had not produced a son. I was not going to sit around one minute longer waiting for the future to come to me. I was going out into the world to choose my own destiny.

I slammed the loo door and strode down the corridor to my room, where I surprised my maid, hanging up freshly ironed blouses.

“Can you find my trunk in the attic, please, Maggie?” I said. “And pack clothes suitable for city wear. I’m going to London.”

I waited until Binky and Fig were taking tea in the great hall, then I breezed in. Actually it wasn’t hard to breeze anywhere at Castle Rannoch, since there was usually a howling gale racing along the corridors, making the tapestries flap. Binky was standing with his back to the fire, thus blocking the heat from the one log from reaching the rest of the room. Fig’s nose was blue enough to match her blood and I noticed she was cradling the teapot in her hands, rather than let Ferguson, the parlormaid, do the pouring.

“Ah, Georgie, there you are,” Binky said heartily. “Had a good day? Beastly out. I don’t suppose you went for a ride?”