“What the devil do you think you were doing?” I demanded as I approached them, my anger still blinding me to the fact that I was alone in a backstreet with two distinctly antisocial characters. “Just look at what you did. I’m soaked.”

“Yes, you do appear to have become a trifle wet,” the first rider said, and to my extreme annoyance, he started to laugh.

“It’s not funny!” I snapped. “You have ruined a perfectly good dress, and as for my hat . . .”

The person who had been riding pillion dismounted and was in the process of unbuckling a helmet. “Of course it’s not funny, Paolo.” The voice was female, and she pulled off her helmet and goggles with a flourish, shaking out a sleek head of dark bobbed hair.

“Belinda!” I exclaimed.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Belinda Warburton-Stoke’s mews cottage
Knightsbridge
London W.1.
August 12, 1932

Belinda’s eyes opened wide with recognition. “Georgie! Oh, my goodness, you poor thing. Just look at you. Paolo, you’ve nearly drowned my best friend.”

The other motorcycle rider had now removed his own helmet and was revealed to be an absolutely gorgeous man of the Latin type, with dark, flashing eyes and luxuriant black hair. “So sorry,” he said. “I did not see you. The shadows, you know. And we were going rather fast.” He spoke with a pronounced foreign accent, overlaid with an English education at some stage.

“Paolo just loves anything fast,” Belinda said, gazing at him adoringly. The thought crossed my mind that she probably fit this criterion. Fast and loose, that was Belinda all right.

“We’ve just come from Brooklands,” she went on. “Paolo’s been practicing his motor racing. And he flies an aeroplane too. He’s promised to take me up.”

“You must introduce me, Belinda,” Paolo said, “and then you must take your friend inside, give her a drink to calm her nerves and clean her up a little.”

“Of course, darling,” Belinda said. “Georgie, this is Paolo.”

Paolo turned those incredible dark eyes on me. “Georgie? This is a name for a boy, no?”

“It’s short for Georgiana,” I said.

“Oh, very well, I suppose I had better introduce you formally,” Belinda said. “May I present Count Paolo di Marola e Martini. Paolo, this is my dearest friend, Lady Georgiana of Glen Garry and Rannoch.”

Paolo turned that devastating gaze onto me again. “You are Binky’s sister?” he asked.

“I am. How do you know Binky?”

“We were at school together for one dreadful year,” Paolo said. “My father wanted to turn me into a Civilized English Gentleman. He did not succeed. I loathed it. All those cold baths and hearty rugby games. Luckily I was asked to leave because I pinched the bottoms of the maids.”