“Of course I do,” exclaimed Alex. “Her father’s an earl, for pity’s sake, and her people have hardly any history of haemophilia.”

“Isn’t that a bit…eugenicsey?” I asked.

Alex smiled vaguely at me. “Thank you. We do try. Daddy picked Mummy because Granddaddy said we needed some height in the line.”

“Then I’m sure”—Oliver put a reassuring hand on Alex’s shoulder—“you’ll be very happy together and everything will work out tomorrow.”

The look in Alex’s eyes, as he glanced up at Oliver, was not vulnerability exactly, because that had probably been bred out of him along with haemophilia and shortness, but a posh facsimile of it. “Cheers,” he said. “Decent of you.” Then, filled with a new resolve, he bounced to his feet. “Don’t know what I’m fretting about, to be honest. After all, there’s simply armies of people we’ve brought in to make everything go smoothly. We Twaddles may not be able to fix photocopiers, but we’ve been getting married properly for centuries, and we’re not about to start blowing it now.” He looked momentarily fretful. “Just, you know, being such a duffer. Very real chance I might duff something up.”

“You’ll be fine,” Oliver told him. “Walk in a straight line, repeat whatever you’re told to repeat, and say ‘I do’ whenever someone asks you a question.”

“Unless”—I briefly stopped temple massaging—“the question is Do you love someone else.”

Alex ambled towards the door. “Well, I hope that won’t come up. Seems a rather rum thing to ask a chap at his own wedding.”

“You’re right.” I sighed. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Chapter 23

AS SOON AS ALEX HAD gone, I proceeded with my face- planting.

“I can’t believe,” I said into the soft, enticing mattress, “I have to be up for a wedding in three and a half hours.”

Oliver sat down next to me. “Surely this cannot be the first time you’ve staggered home in the small hours of the morning, had a shower, and then left for work or a lecture or some major society function.”

“I was in my twenties then.”

“You’re barely out of your twenties now.”

“I’m thirty. I’m an old man. I can’t cope with this wild, thrill-seeking, field-crossing, tea-stealing lifestyle anymore.” Burying my head deeper into the bedclothes, I groaned like a zombie donkey. “Also, I’ve got that thing where you get wet and you dry out but you haven’t really dried, and my pants are clinging to my bum in this weird way.”

He stroked my hair. “You’re very sexy right now.”

“I am. I’m wearing sexy pants. That’s why they’re clinging.”

“Then I fear you’ve made a rod for your own buttocks.”

“No spanking,” I whined. “Too sleepy.”