“Well, in that case, I suppose you couldn’t turn it down, could you?” she muttered, looking annoyed. It always made her cross that I was related to the royal family by birth while she was only related by marriage.

“Am I too late for tea? I’m starving,” I said.

“I took tea with Podge in the nursery today,” she said. “With all these people here I’ve been neglecting him fearfully. And there was nobody in for tea, except Binky. Siegfried’s out somewhere. The Simpsons have finally gone, by the way.”

“Have they really? Hooray.”

“As you say, hooray. I thought we’d never get rid of them, especially when they elected to stay on after the other Americans went. But I think your cousins finally proved too much to endure. They are a trifle primitive, aren’t they?”

“What happened?”

“We were in the middle of the meat course last night when Murdoch described how he’d dismembered a deer he’d shot. It would be venison, of course. Quite put them off their meal, I could see that.”

I grinned. “Well, you finally have your way. They’ve all gone.”

“Except for those awful cousins of yours. The amount they eat and drink. I’ve asked Binky to give them the boot, but you know how soft he is. We’ll be reduced to tea and toast for the rest of the year.” She eyed me critically. “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“You’ve had a silly grin on your face all the time I’ve been talking.”

We passed an uneventful evening. I was tense and uneasy all through dinner, at which Fig, myself and the two cousins were positioned along the full length of the huge banquet table, making conversation almost impossible without shouting. I was waiting for Sir Jeremy to telephone or appear in person at any moment, but he hadn’t contacted me by the time I was ready for bed. This probably meant that he had not returned to the inn yet, or that the idiot girl was manning the shop and had forgotten to give him the message. Either that or her accent was so broad that he hadn’t understood what she was saying. I wasn’t sure what to do about this. Apart from telephoning the inn again, to see if he’d come back, I had no way of getting in touch with him and I worried that something else might happen at Balmoral the longer Major Padgett was on the loose. I just hoped that Darcy had managed to contact the appropriate people and that all would be well. Anyway, there was nothing more I could or should do now. I would be acting foolishly to attempt to go back to Balmoral again. Instead I’d attempt to enjoy myself. I’d take Granddad for some of my favorite walks. I might even teach him to fish.