"She seems a nice girl," Greg ventured.

Adrian's eyes tracked the slow-moving, foil-wrapped backside in front of them with radar precision. "You have no idea how truly you speak." His mind was awhirl with hot elation.

"Are we talking about Julia or Katerina?"

Adrian broke off his admiring stare with obvious reluctance. "Katey, of course. I mean, Julia's decent enough, despite her old man being a complete arsehole. But she couldn't possibly match up to Katey, nobody could." He dropped his voice, taking Greg into his confidence. "If I had the money, I'd marry Katey straight off. I know it sounds stupid, considering her age. But her parents just don't care about her. It's a scandal; if they were poor the social services would've taken her into care. But they're rich, they sit in their Austrian tax haven and treat her as a style accessory. To their set it's fashionable to have a child, the more precocious the better. That's probably why she and Julia are such closeheads. Near-identical backgrounds; both of them ignored from an early age."

Greg suddenly experienced a pang of sympathy, prompted by his intuition. Adrian was a regular lad, one of the boys, likeable. He deserved better than Katerina. Although he didn't know it, his infatuation was doomed to a terminal crash landing. His rugged good looks and lack of hard cash marked him down as a passing fancy. Naivety preventing him from realising that the teeny-vamp sex goddess whose footsteps he worshipped was going to chew him up then spit him out the second a tastier morsel caught her wandering, lascivious eye.

Still, at least it meant Greg could start the evening by giving Evans one piece of news which he wanted to hear. Though whether it was good news was debatable. To Greg's mind, Julia would be hard pushed to find a better prospect for prince consort.

Philip Evans received his guests in the manor's drawing room. Its arching windows looked out on to the immaculately mown lawns where peacocks strutted round the horticultural menagerie along the paths. Maids in black-and-white French-style uniforms circulated with silver trays of tall champagne glasses and fattening cheesy snacks. A string quartet played a soft melody in the background. Greg felt as if he'd time-warped into some Mayfair club, circa nineteen-thirty.

The men were all dressed in immaculately tailored dinner jackets, while the women wore long gowns of subdued colours and modest cut. It made Katerina stand out from the crowd; not that she needed sartorial assistance for that. A stunning case of overkill.

Greg saw that despite his blunt Lincolnshire-boy attitude Philip Evans made a good host. He slipped into the role easily. A lifetime immersed in PR had taught him how.