‘Whereabouts in Brittany?’

‘Saint Malo. She said the farm lay just outside.’

The air in the garden was becoming unseasonably warm. Madame de Peurey unselfconsciously hitched up her skirt to reveal muscular calves in black stockings.

‘I do not wish to appear vulgar,’ said Harry, ‘but did Miss Duval leave a significant sum of money?’

‘She owned a pleasant villa near here and an apartment in the Sixteenth, and then, on my advice, she invested well in stocks and shares.’

Madame de Peurey rang a little silver bell on the table in front of her and when her butler appeared, she ordered tea. ‘And bring my album.’

The duchess, who had remained silent, raised her lorgnette. ‘Do you not wish you had led a decent life?’

Madame de Peurey threw back her head in a full-throated laugh. When she had finished laughing, she said, ‘And where would I be now? Worn out with childbearing and housework? Believe me, I am a success and you are impertinent.’

The duchess pretended she had not heard the last sentence.

‘Ah, here is my album,’ said Madame de Peurey. ‘Sit by me, Lady Rose, and I will show you what I was like in the old days.’

Rose moved her chair over next to the courtesan and opened the album. There were early photographs of madame riding a white horse in the circus. She had indeed been beautiful, like a plump cherub, all dimples and curls. ‘That’s me with my first, a timber merchant,’ said Madame de Peurey. ‘I moved on up the social ladder after him. Now there is me with the next, the Viscount Patrick. Such legs he had! A great catch. And there is the carriage he bought me so that I could drive in the Bois.’

Madame de Peurey smelt strongly of a mixture of mothballs and patchouli. Rose longed to move her chair away. Harry came to her rescue. ‘I would like to see your photographs,’ he said. ‘If I might change places with you, Lady Rose?’

Rose gratefully retreated to the chair he had vacated. She wished this odd visit would come to an end. Daisy had fallen asleep, her face turned up to the sunlight filtering through the trellis of vines. Rose watched Harry as he bent his dark head over the photographs and felt a sudden frisson of desire. He looked up at that moment and gave a little half smile. Rose blushed, lowered her head and played with her fan.

Tea arrived. Madame prattled on about her past but they could not find out any significant information about Dolores or why she had been killed. The duchess barely said a word. She considered such persons as Madame de Peurey highly undesirable and so she simply pretended the woman wasn’t there. Any qualms she might have had about Rose being in such company were suppressed by her thoughts that her ducal presence was enough to bestow respectability on the flightiest girl.

Back at the hotel, Harry suggested they should travel to Saint Malo on the following day. The duchess grumbled, but Rose wanted to go and Rose had to be chaperoned.