“What happened?” Hugo shouted, going onto the dock to meet the approaching vessel.

“Damn thing became airborne at one twenty,” someone shouted back. “He was lucky it didn’t flip over.”

“What the hell are you doing back here?” someone shouted from the boat. “I thought you’d gone.”

“Couldn’t keep away, old chap,” Hugo shouted back. “Missed your delightful wit.”

The boat docked and the party came ashore. Suddenly there was an excited squeal and someone was running down the dock toward me.

“Georgie, it is you!” she exclaimed, arms open. It was Belinda.

“Good heavens, what are you doing here?” I asked in amazement.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” she said, enveloping me in a cloud of Chanel perfume as she hugged me. I hadn’t recognized her earlier as she was wearing a most un-Belinda-like outfit of beige twill trousers and open-necked shirt with a brown pullover, but her face was still perfectly made up.

“I arrived last night,” I said. “I came to help Fig.” This had now become the obvious excuse.

“Darling, I never thought I’d hear you say those particular words,” she said. “I thought you loathed Fig.”

“I do, but she’s in a bit of a pickle at the moment. Binky’s laid up and the house is full of Americans, including the dreaded You-Know-Who.”

“Is she here?” Belinda looked around. “Well, I never.”

“Not at this moment. She’s gone off driving with a certain prince. Mr. Simpson is over there—the one with the sulky expression on his face.”

“I’m not surprised. Wouldn’t you be sulky if your wife only dragged you around for respectability and then kicked you out of the bedroom at night to dally with a prince?”

“I’m not sure he actually comes to her bedroom at night, but I wouldn’t want to be an object of pity like poor old Simpson. So what are you doing up here?” I saw the answer to that question making his way down the dock toward us.

Belinda looked up at Paolo adoringly. “I’m here because of Paolo, silly. He’s the one who’s driving the boat. He’s going to break the world speed record. Isn’t it too, too thrilling?”

“It sounds rather dangerous to me,” I said.

“Of course it is. Paolo’s only happy doing something dangerous,” she said.

The rest of the boaters now came down the dock toward us, deep in discussion, and words like “thrust” and “velocity ratio” floated in the clear Highland air.

“I think you know almost everybody, don’t you?” Belinda waved in their general direction. “Paolo, look who it is. It’s Georgie.”