“He’s ruling the Ottoman Empire at the moment, m’dear.”

Now that she thought about it, the Princess Charlotte rose probably had too heavy a head to be a good climber. The best climbing roses had smaller heads … like that lovely pink specimen that Mrs. Barnett had growing up her front gate, back in the old village. But how could she find out what that rose was called?

“The man is dazzled by Napoleon, even though Napoleon invaded Egypt a mere six years ago. Thinks Napoleon is God, so I hear. Recognized him as emperor. And now Selim is planning to exchange the title of sultan for emperor! His father must be turning in his grave.” Breksby considered whether to have more orange jelly. Better not. His waistcoats were already a trifle strained.

He returned to the subject at hand. “It’s up to us to dazzle old Selim in return. Otherwise he’ll go hand in hand with Napoleon, the silly turnip, and declare war on England, no doubt about it. And how are we going to dazzle Selim?”

He looked triumphantly at Lady Breksby, but after thirty years of marriage she knew a rhetorical question as well as the next person, and simply looked past him, trying to picture Mrs. Barnett’s roses more precisely. Did they have just a tinge of crimson inside?

“We send over a prime piece of nobility. We dazzle ‘em with some of our homegrown near-royalty, that’s what.”

Lady Breksby nodded dutifully. “That sounds wonderful, my dear,” she said.

The result of this conversation, the fruit of the orange jelly, so to speak, was twofold. Lord Breksby sent out a series of beautifully inscribed notes that were carried around London by one of the king’s messengers, and Lady Breksby wrote a long letter to her sister, who still lived in the small village of Hogglesdon where they had grown up, asking her to please walk by Mrs. Barnett’s house and request the name of her roses.

As it happened, Lord Breksby enjoyed the fruit of his idea rather more quickly than did Lady Breksby. Mrs. Barnett turned out (disappointingly) to have died, and her daughter couldn’t say what the roses were named. But the king’s messenger returned to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs triumphant, having found all five noblemen residing in their London town houses and available to meet Lord Breksby at his convenience.

Alexander Foakes, the Earl of Sheffield and Downes, was the first to arrive at the ministry. Breksby looked up quickly as the elder Foakes twin was announced. Then he got up, holding his hand out affably. Sheffield was a prime exemplar of his, Breksby’s genius, to his mind. He’d sent Sheffield off to Italy a year or so ago on an entirely successful, and very delicate, mission.

“Good afternoon, my lord,” he said. “How are your lovely wife and daughters?”

“My family is very well,” Alex replied, sitting down. “Why did you summon me, Lord Breksby?” He fixed his black eyes on the foreign secretary.